Month: November 2016

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A Donald Trump advisor who will help set a new direction for the Federal Communications Commission recently argued that most of the FCC should be eliminated.

The commission's role as an independent agency remains important in one area: licensing radio spectrum, Trump advisor Mark Jamison argued in a blog post last month titled, "Do we need the FCC?" That's because political interference in spectrum licenses would dampen investment "and could lead to rampant corruption in the form of valuable spectrum space being effectively handed out to political cronies," he wrote.

But the other functions of the FCC could be eliminated entirely or handed off to other agencies, Jamison wrote:

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Spermidine is a chemical that's normally found in living tissues, where it influences a variety of biological processes. While it was recognized as important for these processes, it wasn’t necessarily considered especially interesting, since it was primarily known as a precursor to other chemicals. A recent study published in Nature Medicine, however, reveals that giving spermidine to mice significantly increases their lifespan while having a cardioprotective effect.

Spermidine is a long, straight carbon chain that incorporates three nitrogens (it belongs to a class of chemicals called polyamines). Previous work has shown that spermidine treatments could extend the lives of flies; it was hypothesized that this may be through increased recycling of cell material and regeneration of aging cells or perhaps by altering the energy metabolism of cells.

Similar studies hadn't been done in mammals, so the researchers began their study by giving young mice oral supplements of spermidine. The mice that received the oral supplementation lived significantly longer than control mice. And the mice didn’t have to start when young. Administering the same oral supplements to older mice produced a significant 10 percent increase in lifespan.

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Whistleblower Edward Snowden can be asked to give evidence in person by a German committee probing the NSA's spying activities, the country's Federal Court of Justice has ruled.

Germany's government has been told that it should make suitable arrangements for that to happen. It has been refusing to invite Snowden to give evidence personally since it would need to guarantee that he would not be handed over to the US—a promise the German authorities say would risk damaging the political relations between the two countries.

Instead, it has called for him to give evidence via a video link, or for German officials to interview him in Moscow, both of which Snowden turned down.

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Telcos could be forced to block porn sites if a stealth government amendment to the draft Digital Economy Bill is waved through by parliamentarians.

The report stage and third reading of the proposed legislation, which seeks to regulate a hunk of areas from Internet infrastructure to intellectual property, will be debated by MPs next Monday (November 28). Age verification for access to online porn also forms part of the government's shopping list. Brits wanting to access fruity material via websites or apps will be subjected to checks to confirm that they are aged 18 or over.

And the bill already makes it clear that the government wants to go after "infringing sites" by choking their access to payment providers such as Visa and PayPal, and threatening fines of up to £250,000 or five percent of a person's "qualifying turnover (if any)."

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Nearly 18 months after it was first announced as a feature, Oculus Rift owners will soon be able to stream Xbox One games directly to their virtual reality headsets. The feature arrives as a free update to the Oculus Rift PC app on December 12.

The feature won't turn Xbox One games into VR experiences, but instead lets you play them in front of a huge virtual display inside the headset, similar to how Netflix currently works. Naturally, you need an Xbox One and a stack of games to get started, as well as an Oculus Rift headset connected to a Windows 10 PC.

Minimum network requirements aren't stated, but it's fair to say that the best experience will likely be over Ethernet rather than Wi-Fi. Users will also have the choice of viewing their virtual screen in one of three different environments:"Citadel," "Retreat," and "Dome."