Gamers help satisfy the need for speed in quantum manipulations

Once again, gamers are key to beating our best algorithms.

The human brain can still outperform our best algorithms for a variety of tasks. Some tasks, like object identification, aren't really surprising—our brain itself has been optimized through evolution to be pretty good at this. But there are other classes of problems that are a bit of a surprise, like some forms of optimization.

You might expect a computer to be pretty good at finding optimal solutions. But when it came to figuring out the optimal structure of a protein, people playing the game FoldIt managed to beat some of our best software. Now you can add a second task where our brains come out ahead: figuring out the best way to perform some quantum manipulations. All it took was turning quantum mechanics into a game.

Algorithms often come up short in optimization problems because of how they're structured. It's easiest to think of this idea as a landscape with peaks and valleys. The algorithm simply starts off by picking a large number of random locations within this landscape and then tries to move uphill from each of these locations. Once it finds a collection of peaks, it can compare them to find the highest peak that it has located, which can represent the optimal solution.

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Facebook to invest in hardware, poaches Google ATAP head Regina Dugan to lead effort

Facebook to invest in hardware, poaches Google ATAP head Regina Dugan to lead effort

Facebook is starting a new hardware known as Building 8, and the company is clearly thinking big. Facebook has hired the head of Google’s ATAP (Advanced Technologies and Projects) group to head the new effort. Appropriately enough, Regina Dugan confirmed in a Facebook post that she’s moving from Google to Facebook. Google’s ATAP division is […]

Facebook to invest in hardware, poaches Google ATAP head Regina Dugan to lead effort is a post from: Liliputing

Facebook to invest in hardware, poaches Google ATAP head Regina Dugan to lead effort

Facebook is starting a new hardware known as Building 8, and the company is clearly thinking big. Facebook has hired the head of Google’s ATAP (Advanced Technologies and Projects) group to head the new effort. Appropriately enough, Regina Dugan confirmed in a Facebook post that she’s moving from Google to Facebook. Google’s ATAP division is […]

Facebook to invest in hardware, poaches Google ATAP head Regina Dugan to lead effort is a post from: Liliputing

Anti-Piracy Firm Wants ISPs to Pay for Pirating Subscribers

Piracy monetization firm CEG TEK is recommending that the U.S. Copyright Office should hold ISPs responsible for pirating subscribers. Among other things, the company proposes that, after an initial warning, Internet providers should pay a $30 fine each time a subscriber is caught downloading copyrighted content.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

cegtekintOver the past weeks dozens of companies and organizations have shared their concerns regarding the current state of the DMCA copyright law.

The responses are part of a consultation launched by the U.S. Copyright Office. Most focus on the effectiveness of the notice and takedown model, and the response of anti-piracy firm CEG TEK International zooms in on how ISPs handle these notices.

The company is well-known for its collaboration with adult video companies, for which it targets individual Internet subscribers with settlement requests. These requests are sent through DMCA notifications, commonly demanding a few hundred dollars.

Some ISPs forward these requests but most large providers have chosen not to do so. This is problematic for CEG TEK as it hurts their business model.

“The problem is the roadblocks to enforcement of copyrights that are put up by online service providers to protect their relationships with their infringing customers,” CEG TEK’s attorney writes.

The anti-piracy outfit points out that they, and others, can easily track the IP-addresses of pirates. But, without cooperation from ISPs this information isn’t very helpful.

“Unfortunately, the ISPs, who rake in millions, and probably billions, of dollars from their infringing customers, do not voluntarily disclose the infringer’s identities,” CEG TEK notes.

Under the DMCA, Internet providers are not required to forward all notices of claimed copyright infringement. CEG TEK recommends changing towards Canada’s model instead, where subscribers must be notified.

“Canada’s ISPs forward such notices at no charge to copyright owners. Setting up forwarding systems is relatively easy and inexpensive, and is similar to ISPs normal bill-forwarding systems,” the company notes .

In this case, CEG TEK would like U.S. ISPs to forward their “bills,” but there is more.

In addition to a forwarding requirement the anti-piracy firm also suggests the introduction of statutory damages for Internet providers, requiring them to pay $30 each time a subscriber doesn’t stop sharing pirated content.

“By statute require ISPs to pay copyright owners $30 for each notice of claimed infringement sent with respect to an Internet account having repeat infringements,” the suggestion reads.

“Do this, and ISPs would actually enforce their own Terms of Use that currently give lip service to the concept that customers are forbidden from engaging in copyright infringement,” CEG TEK adds between brackets.

The submission is written by CEG TEK attorney Ira Siegel, who also represented several rightsholders in various lawsuits against “John Doe” BitTorrent users, as copyright troll watcher FCT points out.

Siegel’s “trolling” connection is relevant as he also proposes several changes to the DMCA in order to make it easier to identify pirates through courts. Among other things, CEG TEK suggests allowing mass-BitTorrent lawsuits, in which tens of thousands of IP-addresses can be grouped (joined) in one complaint.

Such a change would make it cheaper to uncover the identity of alleged infringers, as rightsholders would only have to pay a single filing fee.

The proposals put forward by CEG TEK are among the most far-reaching we’ve seen thus far. They also directly oppose comments made by the U.S. broadband association USTelecom, which asked the copyright office to stop “abusive” notices that include settlement demands.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

US House Committee approves bill requiring warrants for e-mail

Will Congress ultimately approve a bill granting Americans more privacy?

Video of the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on Wednesday.

The US House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday approved legislation requiring that the authorities get a court warrant to obtain e-mail stored in the cloud.

There was no immediate date set for a floor vote on the Email Privacy Act, which would unwind a President Ronald Reagan-era law that allows the authorities to access e-mail from service providers without a warrant if the message is at least 180 days old. The 1986 e-mail privacy law, adopted when CompuServe was king, considered cloud-stored e-mail and other documents older than six months to be abandoned and ripe for the taking.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said, "Reforming this outdated law has been a priority for me as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and I have worked with members and stakeholders for years to bring this law into the 21st century."

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White House threatens veto of GOP’s anti-net neutrality bill

“No Rate Regulation” legislation would strip FCC of consumer protection powers.

President Obama and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. (credit: White House)

As Republicans in Congress push legislation that would gut the Federal Communications Commission's authority to enforce net neutrality rules, the White House today issued a policy statement threatening a veto.

"If the president were presented with H.R. 2666 [the bill number] his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill," the statement said.

The bill is titled the No Rate Regulation of Broadband Internet Access Act and was approved by the Energy and Commerce Committee over objections from Democrats last month. The bill would strip the FCC of authority to set broadband rates or review whether a rate is reasonable, and it's controversial mainly because it defines "rate regulation" so broadly that it could prevent the FCC from enforcing net neutrality rules against blocking and throttling. It could also limit the FCC's authority to prevent ISPs from applying data caps in discriminatory ways.

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Google releases Android N Developer Preview 2

Google releases Android N Developer Preview 2

The next major version of Android will have support for viewing multiple apps at once, thanks to split-screen and freeform multi-window features, support for faster upgrades, and a number of other changes affecting the user interface, performance, and battery life. Android N isn’t ready for the public yet… but Google released a developer preview in March. […]

Google releases Android N Developer Preview 2 is a post from: Liliputing

Google releases Android N Developer Preview 2

The next major version of Android will have support for viewing multiple apps at once, thanks to split-screen and freeform multi-window features, support for faster upgrades, and a number of other changes affecting the user interface, performance, and battery life. Android N isn’t ready for the public yet… but Google released a developer preview in March. […]

Google releases Android N Developer Preview 2 is a post from: Liliputing

Two new telescopes could help NASA find nearly all threatening asteroids

Study finds that ground-based and space-based approaches complement one another.

A study found that ground-based (LSST) and space-based (NEOCam) telescopes would complement one another in the search for potentially hazardous asteroids. Without them, NASA will still miss about 50 percent of threats by 2030. (credit: Astronomical Journal)

A decade ago, in a strikingly forward-thinking move, the US Congress passed a law requiring NASA to identify 90 percent of asteroids that were 140 meters across or larger and could potentially threaten Earth. Congress gave NASA a deadline of 2020 to meet that goal, but the agency will fall far short of that target. The agency has a valid excuse: it never received funding to meet this goal.

Now, however, there is some hope for finding killer asteroids. The National Science Foundation has backed the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) in Chile, and NASA is considering funding NEOCam, a space-based infrared telescope that would specialize in identifying potentially hazardous asteroids. But scientists weren't quite sure how these two instruments would fare in a concerted hunt for large asteroids.

A new pre-print on arXiv offers some clarity, and the answer appears to be that the ground-based and space-based approaches will complement one another nicely. According to a new simulation of near-Earth threats and the capabilities of these two instruments, neither the ground-based telescope nor NEOCam would come close to finding all of the potential hazards on their own. However, when combined, they were projected to find a little more than 90 percent of the threats.

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Android N’s second preview build supports Vulkan and new emoji

Update also continues tweaking the multi-window API.

Enlarge (credit: Google)

Google has just released the first of several promised updates to the Android N developer preview. Android N Developer Preview 2 makes several major changes to the work-in-progress operating system and also includes bug fixes and tweaks to the new multi-window API.

The biggest addition is support for the Vulkan graphics API, a low-overhead counterpart to OpenGL that's analogous to DirectX 12 in Windows or Metal in iOS and OS X. It also includes support for Unicode 9.0 emoji and redesigns Google's stock emoji characters to make them "more human-looking." Unicode 9.0 is currently in draft, but it should be finalized and released this summer before Android N's final version is available. Finally, Google has added something called "launcher shortcuts," which use Intents to create shortcuts to specific in-app activities like navigating home in Google Maps or sending messages to specific people.

The Android N preview is available for the Nexus 6, 5X, 6P, and 9, the Pixel C tablet, and the General Mobile 4G; an update for the Nexus Player version of the N preview will be available soon. Those of you running Marshmallow on a supported device can update over the air by enrolling in the Android beta program, or you can flash an operating system image to your device manually. If you're already running the first developer preview, your device should receive an over-the-air update "shortly."

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Drone races are coming to ESPN thanks to “unprecedented” popularity

2016 US National Drone Racing Championships will be the first event streamed live.

A drone in flight during a race in the UK earlier this year. (credit: Dave Stock)

On Wednesday, ESPN announced a partnership with the International Drone Racing Association (IDRA) to stream drone races online and use the footage in edited TV segments.

The multiyear contract will kick off with IDRA’s US National Drone Racing Championships in New York City in August. The three-day event will be streamed live on ESPN3, and then footage will be edited down to a one-hour special to air on one of ESPN’s TV networks. In a joint press release, IDRA and the sports network said they would be streaming first-person-view footage from the racing drones, "offering jaw-dropping views of both lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty.“

Drone operators in first-person-view drone races wear goggles that show them a stream from a camera on the front of the drone. The drone operator must navigate their drone through the race's course, and the winning drone is the one that completes the course the fastest.

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ET-94—NASA’s last external tank at Michoud—sets sail for California retirement

Site produced more than 130 ETs, but the last one is headed for a science museum.

"When you think about [Michoud's] history and its heritage, we did the external tank here," Bobby Watkins, the current director at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility, told Ars in late 2015. "That was really our heritage. We built 135 tanks here at Michoud, and that serviced the shuttle program for years."

Yesterday, NASA ended one of the most notable chapters in its history. External Tank 94 (ET-94) left the Michoud Assembly Facility, meaning the site no longer houses any of the iconic fuel containers that helped shuttles reach space since 1981.

ETs were the orange-ish foam-covered containers attached to the shuttle in order to carry large quantities of fuel and oxidizer. (The first few ETs were painted white—with Michoud employees once even running to a nearby Sears and buying out the store's supply in order to meet a deadline—but NASA eventually learned this did not protect against ultraviolet light and ditched the paint to further reduce weight.) They were massive creations; even lightweight versions like ET-94 came in with jaw-dropping specifications: 65,000 pounds, 154-feet long, and more than 27 feet in diameter. During lift-off, ETs would transfer the fuel and oxidizer to the space shuttle main engines before detaching and falling back to the ocean.

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