Writing Style Fingerprint Tool Easily Fooled

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday August 20, @05:08AM
from the is-that-your-signature dept.

court

privacy

science

Urchin writes"Some of the techniques used by literary detectives and courts of law to identify the authorship of text are easily fooled, say US researchers. They found that non-professional writers could hide their identity from 'stylometric' techniques by writing in the style of novelist Cormac McCarthy. Stylometric methods have been used in a number of high-profile legal cases in recent decades, including the 'Unabomber' trial. 'We would strongly suggest that courts examine their methods of stylometry against the possibility of adversarial attacks,' say the researchers."

NVIDIA hopes you'll be better able to distinguish its products if it renames them all

by Tim Stevens posted Aug 20th 2009 at 8:33AM

What's in a name? Very little if you're buying computer hardware lately. Back in the day, you could easily compare two CPUs because their names were simply how fast they were -- now you've got series of processors and graphics cards with naming conventions dreamed up by marketing gurus who don't know a front side bus from a school bus. NVIDIA had been shooting for something simple with its G, GT, and GTX lines, but it looks like last year's talk of a re-tooling of its lineup are coming true; all those seemingly straightforward letter prefixes seem set to be dropped in favor of "GeForce" followed by a number. The first to bear this re-branding will be the 40nm, DirectX 10.1 GeForce 210, set to hit the retail channels in October, followed later by the GeForce 230 and GeForce 300. How exactly they all will compare remains to be seen, but we're going to go ahead and speculate that bigger number probablyequals higher cost.

DNA-coated Nanotubes Help Kill Tumors Without Harm To Surrounding Tissue

ScienceDaily (Aug. 20, 2009) — Researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine have destroyed prostate cancer tumors in mice by injecting them with specially-coated, miniscule carbon tubes and then superheating the tubes with a brief zap of a laser.

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US Navy Tries To Turn Seawater Into Jet Fuel

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday August 20, @01:52AM
from the ocean-in-the-tank dept.

power

military

science

Hugh Pickens writes"The New Scientists reports that faced with global warming and potential oil shortages, the US Navy is experimenting with making jet fuel from seawater by processing seawater into unsaturated short-chain hydrocarbons that with further refining could be made into kerosene-based jet fuel. The process involves extracting carbon dioxide dissolved in the water and combining it with hydrogen — obtained by splitting water molecules using electricity — to make a hydrocarbon fuel, a variant of a chemical reaction called the Fischer-Tropsch process, which is used commercially to produce a gasoline-like hydrocarbon fuel from syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen often derived from coal. The navy team have been experimenting to find out how to steer the CO2-producing process away from producing unwanted methane by finding a different catalyst than the usual cobalt-based catalyst. 'The idea of using CO2 as a carbon source is appealing,' says Philip Jessop, a chemist at Queen's University adding that to make a jet fuel that is properly 'green', the energy-intensive electrolysis that produces the hydrogen will need to use a carbon-neutral energy source; and the complex multi-step process will always consume significantly more energy than the fuel it produces could yield. 'It's a lot more complicated than it at first looks.'"

Apple sells 25% of music in America

Submitted by Shawn on Wednesday, 19 August 2009

No Comment

The NPD Group latest market research shows that one in four songs purchased in America is sold on iTunes. Compared to Wal-Mart (including Walmart, Walmart.com, Walmart Music Downloads) which sold 14 percent of music in America. Best Buy came in third. Something else that is interesting. iTunes sold 69 percent of all digital music sold in America, with Amazon ranking second at 8 percent.

“The growth of legal digital music downloads, and Apple’s success in holding that market, has increased iTunes’s overall strength in the retail music category,” said Russ Crupnick, entertainment industry analyst for The NPD Group. “But the importance of the big box retailers shouldn’t be dismissed, as long as the majority of music consumers continue to buy CDs.”

It is still hard to believe that the CD still dominates the way music is delivered.

Marine Corps Wants A Throwable Robot

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday August 19, @09:11PM
from the goblin-bomb-dispenser dept.

military

robot

technology

coondoggie writes"The US Marine Corps has a request — build and rapidly deploy more 10lb-or-under robots its personnel can throw into dangerous situationsthat can quickly gather information without endangering Marines. The throwable robot is part of a family of robots that would range from the 10lb version to one that would act as a central controlling device and weigh close to 300lbs. Marine commanders are demanding ever lighter robots so that troops don't have to offload critical equipment from their rucksacks to accommodate them."

Schneier On a Generation Gap In Privacy

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday August 19, @10:17AM
from the get-off-my-lawnbook dept.

privacy

communications

social

internet

goompaloompa writes"In the Japan Times, Bruce Schneier writes that a passing conversation online is not what it may seem and that maintaining your privacy is becoming even more difficult as social media and cloud computing become the norm. Furthermore, while users in Japan may think they are secure, their level of protection may vary when the computers that store their data are overseas. At the root of the problem is a new generation gap: old laws incapable of covering current-day scenarios. Quoting: 'Twenty years ago, if someone wanted to look through your correspondence, they had to break into your house. Now, they can just break into your ISP. Ten years ago, your voicemail was on an answering machine in your office; now it's on a computer owned by a telephone company. ... We need comprehensive data privacy laws, protecting our data and communications regardless of where it is stored or how it is processed. We need laws forcing companies to keep it private and delete it as soon as it is no longer needed, and laws giving us the right to delete our data from third-party sites. And we need international cooperation to ensure that companies cannot flaunt data privacy laws simply by moving themselves offshore."

Average Gamer Is 35, Fat and Bummed

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday August 19, @11:42AM
from the fun-also-causes-cancer dept.

medicine

kamapuaa writes"According to a study published in the upcoming October issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the average US video game player is 35 years old, overweight, and tends toward depression. Specifically, female video game players tended towards depression, while males tended towards large BMIs. While the study itself points to several conclusions, one researcher noted: '... habitual use of video games as a coping response may provide a genesis for obsessive-compulsive video-game playing, if not video-game addiction.'"On the flip side, the Washington Post is running a story about the mental health benefits of playing video games.

Neural Pathway Missing In Tone-deaf People

ScienceDaily (Aug. 19, 2009) — Nerve fibers that link perception and motor regions of the brain are disconnected in tone-deaf people, according to new research in the August 19 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. Experts estimate that at least 10 percent of the population may be tone deaf – unable to sing in tune. The new finding identifies a particular brain circuit that appears to be absent in these individuals.

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Heathrow Driverless Taxi

Submitted by Shawn on Tuesday, 18 August 2009

No Comment

Heathrow Airport’s is going to have 18 personal rapid transport (PRT) vehicles. The driver-less taxis will move passengers around Heathrow Airport.

“The four-passenger personal rapid transport (PRT) vehicles, unveiled this week at the Science Museum in London, take airport-goers on a special narrow road from Heathrow’s Terminal 5 to various parking lots. Passengers use a touch screen to type in their destination, press a start button, and the battery-powered vehicle zips along at 25 mph to their destination. There’s a reason the pods look so futuristic–they were designed by Mark Lowson, who worked on the Saturn Rocket that launched Apollo missions.”

Windows 7 will cost half as much in the UK as in the US, crikey!

by Vladislav Savov posted Aug 19th 2009 at 6:28AM

Happy news for our British readers today -- Microsoft is selling Windows 7 Home Premium in the UK at the bargain price of £65 for the full (non-upgrade) version. Converted to $107, that's less than Americans have to shell out just for an upgrade ($120) and about half the price of the full thing ($200). The Professional and Ultimate varieties are also cheaper by about $40 each. With Windows 7 E now out of the picture (though seemingly still available for pre-order from the MS online store), it looks like Microsoft has chosen to match its lower price (listed with an £80 MSRP) with the new SKUs that will actually see retail shelves -- a price on-line retailers are now undercutting. Jolly good. CNET was first to the story and was told by an Amazon UK rep that the current pricing is expected to be indefinite, but previous intel on the matter has indicated that Microsoft will be hiking UK prices from January 1, 2010. So if you wanna be safe, better get that brand spanking new OS before Christmas rolls around.

Window Into The Brain: Diffusion Imaging MRI Tracks Memories And May Detect Alzheimer's At Early Stage

ScienceDaily (Aug. 17, 2009) — When we absorb new information, the human brain reshapes itself to store this newfound knowledge. But where exactly is the new knowledge kept, and how does that capacity to adapt reflect our risk for Alzheimer's disease and other forms of senile dementia later in our lives?

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'Green' Energy From Algae

ScienceDaily (Aug. 17, 2009) — In view of the shortage of petrochemical resources and climate change, development of CO₂-neutral sustainable fuels is one of the most urgent challenges of our times. Energy plants like rape or oil palm are being discussed fervently, as they may also be used for food production. Hence, cultivation of microalgae may contribute decisively to tomorrow’s energy supply. For energy production from microalgae, KIT scientists are developing closed photo-bioreactors and novel cell disruption methods.

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An Electricity-Cost Aware Internet Routing Scheme

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday August 17, @10:21AM
from the juice-is-juice dept.

power

internet

Al writes"Researchers from MIT, Carnegie Mellon and Akamai have developed a network-routing scheme that could save "internet-scale" companies such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft million of dollars each year by moving data to locations with the best electricity prices for a particular day. The scheme simply considers both the most-efficient routing path for data and the potential cost savings of routing it somewhere farther away. The researchers studied price fluctuations at locations across the country and used data from Akamai caching servers to test the idea out. In the best possible scenario--which would require more efficient server--they estimate that companies could save as much as 40% on the electricity bills (tens of millions each year). Google already operates at least one datacenter that shuts down when temperatures get too high. Is this the next logical step for internet computing?"