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Biotech

DNA Manufacturing Enters the Age of Mass Production (ieee.org) 82

Posted by samzenpus from the making-life-better dept.
the_newsbeagle writes: Now that it's easy and cheap to build strands of DNA, what kinds of strange new organisms will scientists and start-ups build? That's the question raised as synthetic biology companies like Twist Bioscience and Zymergen start up their DNA manufacturing lines. Researchers who order DNA snippets typically pay on a cost-per-nucleobase basis. These companies say their mass-production techniques could bring prices down to 2 cents per base, which would allow researchers to scale up experiments and learn through trial and error.
Build

64 Hacker Friendly Single Board Computers (linuxgizmos.com) 86

Posted by samzenpus from the best-of-class dept.
An anonymous reader writes: This year, we've seen some incredible price/performance breakthroughs in low-cost single board computers. LinuxGizmos has put together a compilation of 64 low-cost, hacker friendly SBCs that are all available in models that cost less than $200, with many well below $100, including Shenzhen Xunlong's $15 quad-core Orange Pi PC, Next Thing's $9 to $24 Chip, and the $5-and-up Raspberry Pi Zero. Processors range from low-end 32-bit single core ARM chips, to 64-bit ARM, x86, and MIPS parts, and with clock rates from 300MHz to 2GHz. This year even saw the arrival of low-cost SBCs based on octa-core processors, such as the $88 Banana Pi M3.
Sci-Fi

Paramount and CBS File Lawsuit Against Crowdfunded, Indie Star Trek Movie (hollywoodreporter.com) 228

Posted by Soulskill from the rule-of-acquisition-#10 dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Back in August, an Indiegogo campaign raised $566,023 to produce Axanar, a Star Trek movie in development by an independent group of fans, who also happen to be film professionals. Now, unfortunately but predictably, Paramount and CBS have filed a lawsuit in California federal court claiming their intellectual property is being infringed upon. They are "demanding an injunction as well as damages for direct, contributory and vicarious copyright infringement." The guy running the crowdfunded film is a lawyer, and he said, "We've certainly been prepared for this and we certainly will defend this lawsuit. There are a lot of issues surrounding a fan film. These fan films have been around for 30 years, and others have raised a lot of money." He said CBS/Paramount weren't willing to provide guidelines on what types of fan productions would be tolerated (unlike Lucasfilm with Star Wars), because they worry about setting precedent.

Debian Founder Ian Murdock Has Died (docker.com) 464

Posted by Soulskill from the rest-in-peace dept.
Unknown Lamer writes: It has been confirmed that Debian founder Ian Murdock has died. From the Docker blog: "It is with great sadness that we inform you that Ian Murdock passed away on Monday night. This is a tragic loss for his family, for the Docker community, and the broader open source world; we all mourn his passing. ... Ian helped pioneer the notion of a truly open project and community, embracing open design and open contribution; in fact the formative document of the open source movement itself (the Open Source Definition) was originally a Debian position statement. It is a testament to Ian's commitment to openness and community that there are now more than 1,000 people currently involved in Debian development."
Bug

List of Major Linux Desktop Problems Updated For 2016 (narod.ru) 349

Posted by Soulskill from the not-enough-zombie-protection dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Phoronix reports that Artem S. Tashkinov's Major Linux Problems on the Desktop has been updated for 2016. It is a comprehensive list of various papercut issues and other inconveniences of Linux on the PC desktop. Among the issues cited for Linux not being ready for the desktop include graphics driver issues, audio problems, hardware compatibility problems, X11 troubles, a few issues with Wayland, and font problems. At the project management side, there is also cited a lack of cooperation among open source developers and fragmentation of desktops. Let's discuss.
Microsoft

Microsoft Kills Many Critical Flaws, Some 0-Days, Un-Trusts One Wildcard Cert 103

Posted by samzenpus from the protect-ya-neck dept.
An anonymous reader writes: For this December Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has released twelve security bulletins, eight of which have been rated critical. Those refer to the cumulative security updates for Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, JScript and VBScript, and updates for Microsoft Windows DNS, Microsoft Graphics Component, Silverlight, Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Uniscribe. Microsoft also released a security advisory announcing the removal of a digital certificate from the Certificate Trust list (CTL).
Medicine

Prolonged Sitting and Poor Sleep Can Work Together To Shorten Your Life (latimes.com) 115

Posted by Soulskill from the so-stop-reading-and-go-to-bed dept.
schwit1 sends word that a new study published in PLOS Medicine has examined how lifestyle risk factors can affect mortality rates, both alone and in combination with each other. Having a single major risk factor increased mortality rates slightly, but the study found that those who report multiple risk factors are significantly more likely to die early. While this includes obvious behavior like smoking and alcohol consumption, the findings also suggest prolonged sitting and unhealthy sleep patterns can strongly increase mortality rates when combined with each other, or with the obvious behaviors. "Some combinations were more deadly than others, the researchers found. Those who blended insufficient exercise with prolonged sitting were 2.42 times more likely to die during the study, and those who were also guilty of sleeping for too many hours were 4.23 times more likely die by the time the study ended. 'These findings suggest there is a "synergistic effect" among risk factors,' the study authors wrote."
Hardware

The Death of Electronic Surplus (hackaday.com) 138

Posted by samzenpus from the end-of-an-era dept.
szczys writes: For hardware developers, electronic surplus stores feel like being a kid in a candy shop. It's hard to walk down an aisle packed floor to ceiling with bins of seemingly-random components without feeling giddy. The wind down of domestic manufacturing, paired with the rise of online parts retailers (think eBay) has led to the shuttering of most electronic surplus shops. But a few of the best are still around. Brandon Dunson takes us on a nostalgic trip through surplus history and a tour of his local electronic surplus store. He brings it home with the saddest part of the trend: the loss of surplus means a loss of culture. Electronic flea markets and surplus stores are a nexus point of talented and interesting people. As they go, so does the opportunity to interact in person with the gurus of electronic development.
Encryption

Hillary Clinton Urges Silicon Valley To 'Disrupt' ISIS 452

Posted by samzenpus from the you-stop-them dept.
HughPickens.com writes: The NYT reports that Hillary Clinton spoke at the Brookings Institution's annual Saban Forum on Sunday and said that the Islamic State had become "the most effective recruiter in the world" and that the only solution is to engage American technology companies in blocking or taking down militants' websites, videos and encrypted communications. "We need to put the great disrupters at work at disrupting ISIS. We need Silicon Valley not to view government as its adversary. We need to challenge our best minds in the private sector and work with our best minds in the public sector to develop solutions that would both keep us safe and protect our privacy," said Clinton. "We should take the concerns of law enforcement and counterterrorism professionals seriously. They have warned that impenetrable encryption may prevent them from accessing terrorist communications and preventing a future attack. On the other hand we know there are legitimate concerns about government intrusion, network security, and creating new vulnerabilities that bad actors can and would exploit."

Comment Re:Free wifi (Score 1) 187

by Xanlexian (#50396429) Attached to: AT&T Hotspots Now Injecting Ads

Fine, but require AT&T to disclose (in large font) that it's not an internet connection, since the content is being modified en route.

Back in the day, quite often I'd have to explain the difference between AOL being an 'online service provider' and Mindspring/MediaOne/whoever being an 'internet service provider'.

Comment Google = deep pockets, drivers = shallow (Score 1) 937

by jamiefaye (#45908611) Attached to: Who Is Liable When a Self-Driving Car Crashes?

Most financial responsibility laws specify a very low (say $50,000) liability coverage requirement. That is about 100 times less than what you can get if you are killed in an airline crash.

If a self-driving car kills you and you can sue Google (or whoever), your heirs will get several million dollar dollars, instead of $50,000. In other words, until a self driving car has an error-rate 100 times lower than humans, they won't be made.

Comment Is Wolfram willing to make it free? (Score 1) 168

by jamiefaye (#45437993) Attached to: Stephen Wolfram Developing New Programming Language

Stephen Wolfram is a brilliant businessman who has made a fortune charging what the market will bear for Mathematica and Alpha. Will that model break-down with the Wolfram programming language? I think it will. PARCplace tried to sell Smalltalk for awhile and the language stagnated until Alan Kay was able to get Squeak going. I can't imagine anything becoming as popular as Python or C++ if it costs thousands of dollars to get into the game.

Perhaps Wolfram will patent some of his ideas and then they will catch on 20 years later.

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