Tech Companies Testify before Congress

Executives from Facebook, Google and Twitter appeared on Capitol Hill for the first time on Tuesday to publicly acknowledge their role in Russia’s influence on the presidential campaign, but offered little more than promises to do better. Their reluctance frustrated lawmakers who sought stronger evidence that American elections will be protected from foreign powers. The hearing, the first of three in two days for company executives, served as an initial public reckoning for the internet giants. They had emphasized their role as public squares for political discourse but are being forced to confront how they were used as tools for a broad Russian misinformation campaign.

At the heart of the companies’ problems are business models that reward viral content — which can include misinformation — and an enormous advertising business that is automated and unable to easily spot ads purchased by foreign governments. In a sign of the shifting political winds for tech giants, Republicans, who have been more restrained in their criticism of the companies, were more skeptical on Tuesday. Facebook, Twitter and Google have not publicly opposed a bipartisan proposal to require reports on who funds political ads online, similar to rules for broadcast television. In private, their lobbyists have praised voluntary efforts to disclose political ad funding and have resisted many aspects of the bill.



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Scientists Find Interstellar Astroid

We think of both comets and asteroids as belonging to our own solar system, our family of planets orbiting the sun, but NASA reported on October 26, 2017 that astronomers have been watching a small body – perhaps an asteroid, perhaps a comet – apparently from beyond our solar system, from somewhere in interstellar space. If so, it would be the first interstellar asteroid (or comet) to be observed and confirmed. The object is currently designated A/2017 U1, and it’s less than a quarter-mile (400 meters) in diameter. NASA said it is moving remarkably fast, some 15.8 miles (25.5 km) per second (similar to Earth’s own speed in orbit around the sun). Astronomers around the world are aiming earthly telescopes, and telescopes in space, in this unusual object’s direction. They’re trying to find out as much as they can about A/2017 U1, perhaps to determine its composition, and hopefully to confirm if indeed it is visiting us from somewhere else in our Milky Way galaxy, before it shoots away again … forever.

According to NASA explained, "The object approached our solar system from almost directly above the ecliptic, the approximate plane in space where the planets and most asteroids orbit the sun, so it did not have any close encounters with the eight major planets during its plunge toward the sun. On September 2, the small body crossed under the ecliptic plane just inside of Mercury’s orbit and then made its closest approach to the sun on September 9. Pulled by the sun’s gravity, the object made a hairpin turn under our solar system, passing under Earth’s orbit on October 14 at a distance of about 15 million miles (24 million km) — about 60 times the distance to the moon. It has now shot back up above the plane of the planets and, travelling at 27 miles per second (44 km per second) with respect to the sun, the object is speeding toward the constellation Pegasus."



Credits:
http://earthsky.org/space/a2017u1-comet-asteroid-interstellar-beyond-solar-system

Twitter to Label Political Ads

As political pressure mounts on social media companies to say where ads are coming from, Twitter will reveal more information about political advertising on its platform. Twitter said in a blog post on Tuesday it would clearly label political electioneering ads, which the Federal Election Commission (FEC) defines as an ad used to promote a specific candidate for elected office or affiliated party posted within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election. Electioneering ads can also include any ad clearly promoting a political candidate at any time.

Twitter, along with Facebook and Google, are sending their lawyers to Congress to testify as lawmakers investigate Russian involvement in the 2016 election through online political ad buying. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have introduced the "Honest Ads Act" as a way to get platforms to disclose more about paid online political ads. The legislation would require platforms with 50 million or more monthly unique visitors to have a public database of political ads and records for anyone who bought more than $500 worth of political ads in the previous 12 months.




Credits:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/24/twitter-will-label-political-ads-including-who-bought-and-spend.html

China's First Space Station to Crash

Tiangong-1 is China’s first space station. Launched in 2011, it was originally planned for a controlled crash on Earth in 2013, but its mission was extended to 2016 when eventually telemetry was cut. That year amateur astronomers began to speculate that the Chinese had lost control of the station. China eventually acknowledged this, announcing that the station would re-enter the atmosphere “in the latter half of 2017.” The Chinese currently have no control of a 8.5-ton object moving at 20,000 miles per hour that is going to break up into pieces and crash into unknown spots on this planet.

While most of the 12-metre (40-foot) laboratory will probably burn up in the atmosphere on reentry, chunks weighing up to 100 kilograms (220 pounds) could make it to Earth - and no one can predict where they're going to end up. It’s impossible to really know how dangerous Tiangong-1 could be. At the time of Skylab’s crash, NASA calculated a one in 152 chance that some part of the station would hit a person. The space station was launched in 2011, and hosted three missions, including China's first female astronauts, Liu Yang and Wang Yaping. It was never intended to be permanent, and in March 2016, the Chinese government announced that its time had come to an end. But then in September 2016, Chinese officials confirmed that they had lost control of the station, and it was on a decaying orbit.



Credits:
https://www.sciencealert.com/china-s-first-space-station-is-going-to-come-crashing-down-within-months

Blockchains in 2 Minutes

Bitcoin has been called “digital gold,” and for a good reason. To date, the total value of the currency is close to $9 billion US. And blockchains can make other types of digital value. Like the internet (or your car), you don’t need to know how the blockchain works to use it. However, having a basic knowledge of this new technology shows why it’s considered revolutionary. So, we hope you enjoy this, what is Blockchain guide. A blockchain is a digitized, decentralized, public ledger of all cryptocurrency transactions. Constantly growing as ‘completed’ blocks (the most recent transactions) are recorded and added to it in chronological order, it allows market participants to keep track of digital currency transactions without central recordkeeping. Each node (a computer connected to the network) gets a copy of the blockchain, which is downloaded automatically.

Originally developed as the accounting method for the virtual currency Bitcoin, blockchains – which use what's known as distributed ledger technology (DLT) – are appearing in a variety of commercial applications today. Currently, the technology is primarily used to verify transactions, within digital currencies though it is possible to digitize, code and insert practically any document into the blockchain. Doing so creates an indelible record that cannot be changed; furthermore, the record’s authenticity can be verified by the entire community using the blockchain instead of a single centralized authority.



Credits:
https://youtu.be/r43LhSUUGTQ

Driverless Tractors Could Change Construction

Zipping around like a bumblebee, the little black-and-yellow tractor claws its bucket into one of San Francisco’s few vacant lots, kicking up a puff of dust. Atop the tractor is, of all things, a cargo carrier, like one you’d put on your car. But instead of carrying camping gear, it’s packed with electronics. Because no one is sitting in this Bobcat tractor—it’s operating itself, autonomously zipping around a lot lined with 4,500-pound concrete blocks. You know, for the safety of the community.

Really, this tractor is not unlike a self-driving car. It uses lidar—that is, it spews lasers—to see the world directly in front of it. The difference being, this lidar is specially designed to work in the high-vibration, high-impact world of construction excavation. The lasers also allow the robot to measure the amount of material it’s scooped up. But the ATL has one big advantage over self-driving cars: It’s scooting around a relatively static, structured environment. Roads, they’re chaos. A job site isn’t exactly peaceful, but at least the robot is working in a confined space. So to position the robot, Built Robotics uses what’s known as augmented GPS, which combines an on-site base station and satellites to produce location data down to the centimeter.



Credits:
https://www.wired.com/story/this-robot-tractor-is-ready-to-disrupt-construction/

Cisco Router Flaws

Solid advice for setting up a new wireless router or Wi-Fi network in your home is to password-protect it. Set a secure password using Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) and only share it with those you trust. Since the WPA2 standard became available in 2004, this was the recommended setup for wireless area networks everywhere -- and it was thought to be relatively secure. That said, like the deadbolt on your house, password protection is really only a strong deterrent. Like most things, as secure as WPA2 was believed to be, it was only ever as strong as your password or any vulnerabilities discovered in its security.

A proof-of-concept exploit called KRACK (which stands for Key Reinstallation Attack) was unveiled. The ominously named crypto attack exploits a flaw in the four-way handshake process between a user's device trying to connect and a Wi-Fi network. It allows an attacker unauthorized access to the network without the password, effectively opening up the possibility of exposing credit card information, personal passwords, messages, emails and practically any other data on your device. The even more terrifying bit? Practically any implementation of a WPA2 network is affected by this vulnerability, and it's not the access point that's vulnerable. Instead, KRACK targets the devices you use to connect to the wireless network.

Credits:
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/krack-affects-everyone-heres-what-to-do-now/

Neutron Stars Collide

Astronomers have now seen and heard a pair of dead stars collide, giving them the first glimpse of what they call a “cosmic forge,” where the world’s jewels were minted billions of years ago. The collision rattled space-time and sent a wave of fireworks across the universe, setting off sensors in space and on Earth on Aug. 17 as well as producing a long loud chirp in antennas designed to study the Einsteinian ripples in the cosmic fabric known as gravitational waves. It set off a stampede around the world as astronomers scrambled to turn their telescopes in search of a mysterious and long-sought kind of explosion called a kilonova.


Scientists didn't just "hear" the violent blast by seeing the ripples in spacetime. They were also able to use telescopes on satellites and the ground to see the light and radiation that was being flung out of the explosion, which is known as a "kilonova". And that information is going to be relied on for years to come as scientists learn more about the beginnings of such stars, and even our entire universe, astronomers said. Like ripples from a stone thrown in a pond, the gravitational waves fanned out across the universe at the speed of light. They were picked up on Earth by two incredibly sensitive detectors in Washington and Louisiana in the US, operated by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (Ligo).


Detecting a Kilonova Explosion https://nyti.ms/2kSFdSH

Equifax vs Monopoly Man

The Monopoly Man made an appearance at the Senate Banking Committee hearing on the massive Equifax data breach. Wearing a top hat, monocle, and white mustache, the character sat directly behind former Equifax (EFX) CEO Richard Smith as he testified before the committee on Wednesday. The ruse was organized by progressive nonprofits Public Citizen and Americans for Financial Reform. The organizations want to raise awareness of Equifax's forced arbitration clauses in their terms of service.

Amanda Werner, Campaign Manager with Americans for Financial Reform and Public Citizen, played the role of the iconic Monopoly Man on Wednesday. "I am dressed as the Monopoly Man to call attention to Equifax and Wells Fargo's use of forced arbitration as a get-out-of-jail-free card for massive misconduct," Werner said in a Twitter message to CNN Tech. "They use these ripoff clauses buried in the fine print to ensure that consumers can't join together to hold them accountable in court."



Credits:
http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/04/technology/culture/monopoly-man-equifax/index.html

Happy 60th Birthday Sputnik

The 60th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1, Earth’s first artificial satellite, is Wednesday, October 4. The Soviet Union heralded the launch as a national triumph, and the space race between the USSR and the US began. Sputnik 1 was fairly basic — a sphere with four antennas that transmitted a 1-W signals on 20.005 and 40.002 MHz, putting it within the range of nearly any amateur radio. A 58-centimeter diameter polished metal sphere, Sputnik 1 could be seen from Earth, orbiting the planet about once every 96 minutes. It had no stabilization system. Two aluminum casings bolted together with a seal created an airtight housing for the two transmitters plus temperature and pressure sensors.

On Oct. 4, 1957, the Space Age officially began when the Soviets lofted a 183-pound shiny sphere from their Baikonur cosmodrome in Central Asia. Sputnik, which took its name from the Russian word for “fellow traveler,” went into a 98-minute orbit around Earth — and the Soviets exulted in their success. The satellite’s prime payload was a radio transmitter sending out a harmless “beep-beep-beep” signal merely to declare its existence. Nevertheless, Sputnik struck fear into the hearts of Cold War Americans, who realized that the Soviets could just as well have lofted a nuclear-tipped missile to North America.

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Twitter Doubles Character Count

Twitter on Tuesday announced a limited test to double the maximum tweet size to 280 characters. Twitter has been struggling to boost user engagement for the last couple of years, and its tweet character limitation has been the subject of a longstanding debate among customers and company insiders. One reason for the possible change is to correct for the imbalance between applying the maximum character count to Asian characters -- like Japanese, Chinese and Korean -- and applying it to characters in western languages like English, Spanish, Portugese or French.

The change is minor from a technical standpoint, but it could dramatically change the way users can express themselves, noted Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. It's not clear how users will react to the increased character limit. While some clearly have longed for an increase in the limit, others oppose it, arguing that the requirement to condense information into short bursts is what made Twitter unique in the social media space. The proposed change may be a response to pressure to continue a growth pattern, but the 140-character limit and the chronological display were what made Twitter distinctive, he told TechNewsWorld.

Click here for the video.

Credits:
https://www.technewsworld.com/story/Twitter-to-Test-Drive-Double-Wide-Tweets-84842.html

Elon Musk's Plan to Rocket People Around the Earth

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveiled new plans to travel to the Moon and Mars at a space industry conference today, but he also revealed incredible promise: using that same interplanetary rocket system for long-distance travel on Earth. Musk showed a demonstration of the idea onstage, claiming that it will allow passengers to take “most long-distance trips” in just 30 minutes, and go “anywhere on Earth in under an hour” for around the same price as an economy airline ticket.

In Musk's vision, passengers take a large boat from a dock in New York City to a floating launchpad out in the water. There, they board the same rocket that Musk wants to use to send humans to Mars by 2024. But instead of heading off to another planet once they leave the Earth’s atmosphere, the ship separates and breaks off toward another city — Shanghai. Just 39 minutes and some 7,000 miles later, the ship reenters the atmosphere and touches down on another floating pad, much like the way SpaceX lands its Falcon 9 rockets at sea. Other routes proposed in the video include Hong Kong to Singapore in 22 minutes, London to Dubai or New York in 29 minutes, and Los Angeles to Toronto in 24 minutes.

Click here for the video.

Credits:
https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/29/16383048/elon-musk-spacex-rocket-transport-earth-travel