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Lost World Revealed By Human, Neanderthal Relics Washed Up On North Sea Beaches Published on February 01, 2020 at 12:30PM sciencehabit writes: Most days, Willy van Wingerden spends a few free hours walking by the sea not far from the Dutch town of Monster. Here, the cheerful nurse has plucked more than 500 ancient artifacts from the broad, windswept beach known as the Zandmotor, or "sand engine." She has found Neanderthal tools made of river cobbles, bone fishhooks, and human remains thousands of years old. Her favorite beach -- made of material dredged from the sea bottom offshore -- preserves traces of a lost world, when sea levels were lower, and what is now the North Sea was a rich lowland, home to modern humans and Neanderthals. While she and other dedicated amateurs amass artifacts, scientists are applying new methods to date the finds and sequence any genetic traces, as well as to map the sea floor and analyze sediment cores. Together, researchers and collectors are ...

Fingerprints Can Now Be Dated To Within a Day of When They Were Made Published on February 01, 2020 at 09:00AM Writing in Analytical Chemistry, Paige Hinners and Young Jin Lee of Iowa State University say they have figured out an accurate way to data to within 24 hours when a fingerprint under a week old was made -- and thus whether it is associated with a crime temporally, as well as spatially. The Economist reports: They knew from work conducted by other laboratories that the triglyceride oils contained in fingerprints change by oxidation over the course of time. That provides an obvious way to date prints. The problem is that the techniques which have been applied to analyze these oils are able to distinguish age only crudely. In practice, they can determine whether or not a print is over a week old, but nothing else. Dr Hinners and Dr Lee wondered if higher precision could be obtained by thinking a bit more about oxidation. Oxygen molecules in the air come in two varieties. Most ...

Uber Officially Bans Drivers From Carrying Firearms, But Company's Business Model Prevents Enforcement Published on February 01, 2020 at 07:32AM Iwastheone shares a report from The Atlantic, written by Sidney Fussell: Uber has banned guns in cars, for both drivers and passengers, since 2015. But over email and Facebook Messenger, four current and four former drivers told me they carry firearms on the job. In explaining why, they each cited the same self-determinalist rhetoric Uber has slapped on subway ads to entice drivers and used in hearings to justify the business model: Drivers maintain good ratings, own their own cars, set their own hours, act as their own bosses, and follow local laws. But ultimately, they work for themselves, and Uber is, to use a Silicon Valley term of art, just a platform. In 2017, Jose Mejia, a Miami driver, filed a federal class-action suit against Uber to reverse its firearm ban. Florida's 2008 "bring your gun to work" law empowers empl...

Sale of .Org Domain Registry Delayed By California Attorney General Published on February 01, 2020 at 06:55AM California Attorney General Xavier Becerra sent a letter to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) demanding more information about the private equity takeover of the .org domain registry. The attorney general is seeking answers to 35 questions concerning the sale as well as documents sent between ICANN, private equity firm Ethos Capital, and Public Interest Registry (PIR), which manages the .org domain. Mashable reports: Ethos Capital disclosed last year that it was acquiring PIR from its non-profit parent organization, the Internet Society, for $1.135 billion. ICANN, the non-profit organization that oversees domain names, disclosed the letter on its website along with its own correspondence with PIR, informing it of the development. Previously, ICANN had until Feb. 17 to approve or deny the sale. According to ICANN, as a result of the California AG...

Fox News Breaking News Alert Senate votes to approve final framework for Trump impeachment trial, scheduling final verdict vote for Wednesday of next week. 01/31/20 4:58 PM

Brexit Happens Published on February 01, 2020 at 06:24AM "The UK has officially left the European Union after 47 years of membership," reports the BBC. The historic moment, which happened at 23:00 GMT, was marked by both celebrations and anti-Brexit protests. Candlelit vigils were held in Scotland, which voted to stay in the EU, while Brexiteers partied in London's Parliament Square... Brexit parties were held in pubs and social clubs across the UK as the country counted down to its official departure. Hundreds gathered in Parliament Square to celebrate Brexit, singing patriotic songs and cheering speeches from leading Brexiteers, including Nigel Farage... In Northern Ireland, the campaign group Border Communities Against Brexit staged a series of protests in Armagh, near to the border with the Republic of Ireland. At 2300 GMT, Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted a picture of the EU flag, adding: "Scotland will return to the heart of Europe as an ...

Social Media Boosting Service Exposed Thousands of Instagram Passwords Published on February 01, 2020 at 05:32AM An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: A social media boosting startup, which bills itself as a service to increase a user's Instagram followers, has exposed thousands of Instagram account passwords. The company, Social Captain, says it helps thousands of users to grow their Instagram follower counts by connecting their accounts to its platform. Users are asked to enter their Instagram username and password into the platform to get started. But TechCrunch learned this week Social Captain was storing the passwords of linked Instagram accounts in unencrypted plaintext. Any user who viewed the web page source code on their Social Captain profile page could see their Instagram username and password in plain sight, so long as they had connected their account to the platform. Making matters worse, a website bug allowed anyone access to any Social Captain user...

NASA is Trying To Save Voyager 2 After a Power Glitch Shut Down Its Instruments Published on February 01, 2020 at 12:55AM Last Saturday, Voyager 2's software shut down all five of the scientific instruments onboard because the spacecraft was consuming way too much power. Engineers at NASA don't know what triggered this energy spike and are currently trying to get the interstellar probe, which was launched in 1977, back to normal operations. Its primary mission was supposed to last five years. In 2018, it officially left the solar system. In order to keep the spacecraft running properly 42 years later, NASA has had to carefully manage power consumption for the instruments and the probe's heaters. From a report: About 11.5 billion miles away, Voyager 2 was supposed to make a scheduled 360-degree rotation that would help calibrate its magnetometer (used to measure magnetic fields). The spacecraft delayed this move for still unknown reasons, leaving two other internal systems...

F-35's Gun That Can't Shoot Straight Adds To Its Roster of Flaws Published on February 01, 2020 at 12:14AM Add a gun that can't shoot straight to the problems that dog Lockheed Martin's $428 billion F-35 program, including more than 800 software flaws. From a report: The 25mm gun on Air Force models of the Joint Strike Fighter has "unacceptable" accuracy in hitting ground targets and is mounted in housing that's cracking, the Pentagon's test office said in its latest assessment of the costliest U.S. weapons system. The annual assessment by Robert Behler, the Defense Department's director of operational test and evaluation, doesn't disclose any major new failings in the plane's flying capabilities. But it flags a long list of issues that his office said should be resolved -- including 13 described as Category 1 "must-fix" items that affect safety or combat capability -- before the F-35's upcoming $22 billion Block 4 phase. Th...

Fox News Breaking News Alert Sen. Lisa Murkowski says she will not support witnesses in Trump impeachment trial 01/31/20 10:29 AM

Amazon Reveals New Details About Its Federal Tax Bill in Shot Across the Bow at Critics Published on January 31, 2020 at 11:35PM Amazon disclosed new details about its U.S. taxes for 2019 in public financial documents and a blog post Friday morning, saying its federal income tax expense for the year was more than $1 billion, in addition to more than $2 billion in other types of federal taxes. From a report: The disclosures appear designed to push back against assertions from politicians and researchers that Amazon does not pay any federal income tax. However, the federal income tax is still a small fraction of the company's profits, representing about 6 percent of the $14.5 billion in operating income that Amazon reported Thursday in its year-end financial report. "Like most governments that try to encourage economic investment by companies, the U.S. Congress has written a tax code that incentivizes the type of job creation, capital investment, development of technology, and...

Fox News Breaking News Alert Two in custody after Mar-A-Lago security breach 01/31/20 9:58 AM

Public Wi-Fi is a Lot Safer Than You Think Published on January 31, 2020 at 10:53PM Jacob Hoffman-Andrews, writing for EFF: If you follow security on the Internet, you may have seen articles warning you to "beware of public Wi-Fi networks" in cafes, airports, hotels, and other public places. But now, due to the widespread deployment of HTTPS encryption on most popular websites, advice to avoid public Wi-Fi is mostly out of date and applicable to a lot fewer people than it once was. The advice stems from the early days of the Internet, when most communication was not encrypted. At that time, if someone could snoop on your network communications -- for instance by sniffing packets from unencrypted Wi-Fi or by being the NSA -- they could read your email. Starting in 2010 that all changed. Eric Butler released Firesheep, an easy-to-use demonstration of "sniffing" insecure HTTP to take over people's accounts. Site owners started to take note and realized they neede...

Charges Dropped Against Pentesters Paid To Break Into Iowa Courthouse Published on January 31, 2020 at 10:11PM Prosecutors have dropped criminal charges against two security professionals who were arrested and jailed last September for breaking into an Iowa courthouse as part of a contract with Iowa's judicial arm. From a report: The dismissal, which was announced on Thursday, is a victory not only for Coalfire Labs, the security firm that employed the two penetration testers, but the security industry as a whole and the countless organizations that rely on it. Although employees Gary DeMercurio and Justin Wynn had written authorization to test the physical security of the Dallas County Courthouse in Iowa, the men spent more than 12 hours in jail on felony third-degree burglary charges. The charges were later lowered to misdemeanor trespass. The case cast a menacing cloud over an age-old practice that's crucial to securing buildings and the computers and networks inside of th...

Roku Inc. is on pace for a more than two-month low Friday as the company began notifying customers that FOX channels will be not accessible on its platform ahead of the network’s Super Bowl broadcast this weekend. Beginning Jan. 31 “all standalone FOX channels will no longer be available on Roku streaming devices,” the company said in an e-mail. Roku encouraged customers to continue using its system to access FOX channels through other streaming apps, including: FuboTV, SlingTV, YouTube TV and Hulu’s live TV option. The news sent the stock on an abrupt downward trend, falling as much as 6.1% intraday to $122.68 per share as of 10:18 a.m. in New York, its lowest since November. Shares in Fox Corp. fell 0.9% intraday. Roku’s notice to customers come as a distribution agreement with Fox is scheduled to expire, after hosting the network’s channels for years. The dispute could be a big blow to Fox prior to Sunday’s match-up between the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs....

Delta, American, and Several Other Airlines Worldwide Suspend Flights To and From China Amid Coronavirus Fears Published on January 31, 2020 at 09:32PM Delta Air Lines and American Airlines said on Friday that they will suspend all U.S.-China flights for at least several weeks due to the coronavirus outbreak. Delta on Friday said its China service suspension will begin Feb. 6 and last through April 30, but it will continue to operate the service until then to "ensure customers looking to exit China have options to do so." From a report: Dozens of carriers including United, Cathay Pacific, British Airways and others have slashed or suspended service to China because of the outbreak. Delta was the first in the U.S. to suspend service altogether. Large companies spanning industries from technology to packaged food have suspended business trips to the country because of coronavirus, driving down demand for flights to China. Time has a more comprehensive list. Read more of th...

Delta, American, and Several Others Airlines Worldwide Suspend Flights To and From China Amid Coronavirus Fears Published on January 31, 2020 at 09:32PM Delta Air Lines and American Airlines said on Friday that they will suspend all U.S.-China flights for at least several weeks due to the coronavirus outbreak. Delta on Friday said its China service suspension will begin Feb. 6 and last through April 30, but it will continue to operate the service until then to "ensure customers looking to exit China have options to do so." From a report: Dozens of carriers including United, Cathay Pacific, British Airways and others have slashed or suspended service to China because of the outbreak. Delta was the first in the U.S. to suspend service altogether. Large companies spanning industries from technology to packaged food have suspended business trips to the country because of coronavirus, driving down demand for flights to China. Time has a more comprehensive list. Read more of t...

Roku Will Stop Offering Fox Channels To Users on February 1 Published on January 31, 2020 at 08:51PM An anonymous reader shares a report: Without giving users a justification, Roku just announced via mass email that after January 31, 2020, all Fox "standalone" channels with no longer be available on the service's streaming boxes or TVs equipped with its software. The email states that "You can still watch FOX channels through these services: FuboTV, Hulu + Live TV, SlingTV, YouTube TV and other live TV services," and goes on to add that "If you have a Roku TV, you may be able to receive FOX over the air with an antenna." The company hasn't issued an official public statement on the change, but according to its support account on Twitter and a statement from a company spokesperson, the move is triggered by the end of its distribution contract with Fox. It appears Roku and Fox are handling their contract negotiations in public view, with users'...

How Much Are We Paying for Our Subscription Services? A Lot Published on January 31, 2020 at 08:12PM Online subscriptions sure sound cheap, but what do a few bucks a month to watch TV shows, store photos online and stream music add up to? Quite a lot, it turns out. From a report: In 2019, we each spent $640 on digital subscriptions like streaming video and music services, cloud storage, dating apps and online productivity tools, according to an analysis for The New York Times by Mint, the online budgeting tool owned by Intuit, using data from millions of its users. That was up about 7 percent from $598 in 2017. We increased our spending the most last year on streaming TV services, paying $170 to subscribe to the likes of Netflix, Hulu and new entrants like Disney Plus and Apple TV Plus. While that was far cheaper than most traditional cable TV packages, which cost roughly $1,200 a year, it was up 30 percent from the $130 we spent on streaming TV services in 2017. Our spending on digi...

EU Lawmakers Vote Overwhelmingly in Favor of Charging Cable Standard, Despite Apple's Protestations Published on January 31, 2020 at 07:31PM Despite criticism from Apple, EU lawmakers on Thursday voted overwhelmingly in favor for new rules to establish a common charger for all mobile device makers across Europe. From a report: Members of the European Parliament voted by 582-40 for a resolution urging the European Commission, which drafts EU laws, to ensure that EU consumers are no longer obliged to buy new chargers with each new device. The resolution said voluntary agreements in the industry had significantly reduced the number of charger types, but had not resulted in one common standard. The Commission should adopt new rules by July, the lawmakers' resolution said, calling for "an urgent need for EU regulatory action to reduce electronic waste, empower consumers to make sustainable choices, and allow them to fully participate in an efficient and well-functioning inter...

FBI Probes Use of Israeli Firm's Spyware In Personal and Government Hacks Published on January 31, 2020 at 03:30PM nickwinlund77 shares a report from Reuters: The FBI is investigating the role of Israeli spyware vendor NSO Group Technologies in possible hacks on American residents and companies as well as suspected intelligence gathering on governments, according to four people familiar with the inquiry. The probe was underway by 2017, when Federal Bureau of Investigation officials were trying to learn whether NSO obtained from American hackers any of the code it needed to infect smartphones, said one person interviewed by the FBI then and again last year. The FBI conducted more interviews with technology industry experts after Facebook filed a lawsuit in October accusing NSO itself of exploiting a flaw in Facebook's WhatsApp messaging service to hack 1,400 users, according to two people who spoke with agents or Justice Department officials. Part of the FBI probe has been aim...