Month: September 2016

US Supreme Court building. (credit: MitchellShapiroPhotography)

The US Supreme Court is giving Backpage.com a victory over the US Senate, at least in the short term. Chief Justice John Roberts says the online classified ad portal, for now, does not have to comply with a Senate subpoena investigating how Backpage conducts its business. The investigation demands documents about the ins and outs of the site's editorial practices.

The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations contends that the site is littered with ads that amount to offering sex services by women and children forced into prostitution, and it wants to know how it screens ads posted to its site by third parties.

The chief justice's decision Tuesday comes days after a federal appeals court upheld a ruling by a lower court judge and said (PDF) Backpage must comply with the subpoena. The Senate and Backpage have been deadlocked in a legal battle for more than a year. Backpage said the First Amendment shields it from having to comply with the subpoena, (PDF) while the Senate maintains that the First Amendment implications are secondary (PDF) to cutting down on sex trafficking ads on the site.

PS4's mod support in Fallout 4 is still as barren as the game's landscape.

Update, September 9, 12:44 p.m. EDT: Bethesda has finally confirmed why Fallout 4 mods haven't arrived on PlayStation 4, and the developer is saying that it's Sony's fault.

"Sony has informed us they will not approve user mods the way they should work: where users can do anything they want for either Fallout 4 or Skyrim Special Edition," Bethesda told fans on its official blog on Friday. "Like you, we are disappointed by Sony’s decision given the considerable time and effort we have put into this project, and the amount of time our fans have waited for mod support to arrive."

Only one of the technical limits mentioned in our original report (below), about mod storage limits, is on Sony's side, so that may very well be the sticking point that Sony refuses to budge on. Bethesda's statement leaves room for Sony to change its tune and enable the same kind of console-mod support that Xbox One players of Fallout 4 are currently enjoying.

Enlarge (credit: Google Fiber)

Officials in Nashville, Tennessee have voted to give Google Fiber faster access to utility poles, approving an ordinance opposed by AT&T and Comcast. AT&T has already said it would likely sue the city if it implements the new rule.

The Nashville Metro Council voted 32-7 yesterday in favor of the "One Touch Make Ready" policy on its second reading.

"The second-reading vote does not guarantee the policy will pass on its third and final reading, but the second vote is generally considered the most critical in front of Nashville Metro Council," the Nashville Business Journal wrote.

If you glance at your desk or bedroom, you’ll probably immediately know if something is out of place, even if you’re not able to put your finger on what exactly is wrong without a closer inspection. That’s because humans have the ability to rapidly get the gist of a situation using only a quick glance.

A recent study published in PNAS shows that this ability goes way beyond day-to-day practicalities. Radiologists who specialize in the detection of breast cancer can discriminate between normal and abnormal mammograms in as little as half a second. But they may not even need to look at the cancerous tissue to do so.

The authors of the paper were interested in a phenomenon known as global processing, in which a quick glance at a large image gives insight into its meaning. They gave radiologists just a moment to glance at breast tissue images and compared the results of the radiologists’ insights to carefully analyzed images.