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Sunday, January 5th, 2014 | 4:18 pm |
| 3:20 pm |
US Coast Guard Ship To Attempt Rescue of 2 Icebreakers In Antarctica http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/-qK8svCqzaM/story01.htm http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/35028/f/647410/s/35861646/sc/32/l/0Ltech0Bslashdot0Borg0Cstory0C140C0A10C0A50C132520A20Cus0Ecoast0Eguard0Eship0Eto0Eattempt0Erescue0Eof0E20Eicebreakers0Ein0Eantarctica0Dutm0Isource0Frss10B0Amainlinkanon0Gutm0Imedium0Ffeed/story01.htm PolygamousRanchKid writes "A U.S. Coast Guard heavy icebreaker left Australia for Antarctica on Sunday to rescue more than 120 crew members aboard two icebreakers trapped in pack ice near the frozen continent's eastern edge, officials said. The 399-foot cutter, the Polar Star, is responding to a Jan. 3 request from Australia, Russia and China to assist the Russian and Chinese ships because 'there is sufficient concern that the vessels may not be able to free themselves from the ice,' the Coast Guard said in a statement. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority's Rescue Coordination Centre, which oversaw the rescue, said the Polar Star, the Coast Guard's only active heavy polar icebreaker, would take about seven days to reach Commonwealth Bay, depending on weather. Under international conventions observed by most countries, ships' crews are obliged to take part in such rescues and the owners carry the costs." Read more of this story at Slashdot. | 2:24 pm |
| 1:24 pm |
Counterpoint: Why Edward Snowden May Not Deserve Clemency http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/-ednJezKrBU/story01.htm http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/35028/f/647410/s/35859e2e/sc/1/l/0Lyro0Bslashdot0Borg0Cstory0C140C0A10C0A50C0A72520A50Ccounterpoint0Ewhy0Eedward0Esnowden0Emay0Enot0Edeserve0Eclemency0Dutm0Isource0Frss10B0Amainlinkanon0Gutm0Imedium0Ffeed/story01.htm Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Fred Kaplan, the Edward R. Murrow press fellow at the Council on Foreign Relation, writes at Slate that if Edward Snowden's stolen trove of beyond-top-secret documents had dealt only with the domestic surveillance by the NSA, then some form of leniency might be worth discussing. But Snowden did much more than that. 'Snowden's documents have, so far, furnished stories about the NSA's interception of email traffic, mobile phone calls, and radio transmissions of Taliban fighters in Pakistan's northwest territories; about an operation to gauge the loyalties of CIA recruits in Pakistan; about NSA email intercepts to assist intelligence assessments of what's going on inside Iran; about NSA surveillance of cellphone calls 'worldwide,' an effort that 'allows it to look for unknown associates of known intelligence targets by tracking people whose movements intersect.' Kaplan says the NYT editorial calling on President Obama to grant Snowden 'some form of clemency' paints an incomplete picture when it claims that Snowden 'stole a trove of highly classified documents after he became disillusioned with the agency's voraciousness.' In fact, as Snowden himself told the South China Morning Post, he took his job as an NSA contractor, with Booz Allen Hamilton, because he knew that his position would grant him 'to lists of machines all over the world [that] the NSA hacked.' Snowden got himself placed at the NSA's signals intelligence center in Hawaii says Kaplan for the sole purpose of pilfering extremely classified documents. 'It may be telling that Snowden did not release mdash; or at least the recipients of his cache haven't yet published — any documents detailing the cyber-operations of any other countries, especially Russia or China,' concludes Kaplan. 'If it turned out that Snowden did give information to the Russians or Chinese (or if intelligence assessments show that the leaks did substantial damage to national security, something that hasn't been proved in public), then I'd say all talk of a deal is off — and I assume the Times editorial page would agree.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot. | 10:23 am |
| 7:20 am |
| 4:15 am |
The Math of Gamification http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/EZZ-aNhxv8U/story01.htm http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/35028/f/647410/s/3581e3af/sc/4/l/0Lscience0Bslashdot0Borg0Cstory0C140C0A10C0A40C213920A0A0Cthe0Emath0Eof0Egamification0Dutm0Isource0Frss10B0Amainlinkanon0Gutm0Imedium0Ffeed/story01.htm An anonymous reader writes "The Foursquare blog has an interesting post about some of the math they use to evaluate and verify the massive amount of user-generated data that enters their database. They need to figure out the likelihood that any given datapoint accurately represents reality, so they've worked out a complicated formula that will minimize abuse. Quoting: 'By choosing the points based on a user's accuracy, we can intelligently accrue certainty about a proposed update and stop the voting process as soon as the math guarantees the required certainty. ... The parameters are automatically trained and can adapt to changes in the behavior of the userbase. No more long meetings debating how many points to grant to a narrow use case. So far, we've taken a very user-centric view of p-sub-k (this is the accuracy of user k). But we can go well beyond that. For example, p-sub-k could be "the accuracy of user k's vote given that they have been to the venue three times before and work nearby." These clauses can be arbitrarily complicated and estimated from a (logistic) regression of the honeypot performance. The point is that these changes will be based on data and not subjective judgments of how many "points" a user or situation should get." Read more of this story at Slashdot. | 1:12 am |
| 12:10 am |
| Saturday, January 4th, 2014 | 11:07 pm |
| 10:01 pm |
| 9:00 pm |
| 7:55 pm |
| 6:50 pm |
Augmented-Reality Contact Lens Prototype Coming To CES http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/IHrrytFGOio/story01.htm http://slashdot.feedsportal.com/c/35028/f/647410/s/35800ff0/sc/4/l/0Ltech0Bslashdot0Borg0Cstory0C140C0A10C0A40C15442410Caugmented0Ereality0Econtact0Elens0Eprototype0Ecoming0Eto0Eces0Dutm0Isource0Frss10B0Amainlinkanon0Gutm0Imedium0Ffeed/story01.htm schwit1 writes with news that one of the big presentations at next week's Consumer Electronics Show will be a set of contact lenses that are designed to augment a user's vision. A company called iOptik will be demonstrating a functioning prototype. The lenses themselves are actually only part of the display — they're paired with eyeglasses that are fitted with micro-projectors which generate the imagery shown on the lenses. "[B]y utilizing the specialized lenses to help users focus on both close and faraway objects — an issue when putting panoramic images inches from the eyes — in conjunction with the glasses to project the media and overlays, Innovega is able to do two things when most wearables do just one. First, it can project 'glance-able' displays, like Google Glass does exclusively where data is pushed to the periphery. But by utilizing the contact lenses with the glasses, it can also project a full-screen HUD, in other words operate in a heads-up display mode similar to what goggle wearables like the gaming-focused Oculus Rift offer. ... 'All the usual optics in the eyewear are taken away and there is a sub-millimeter lens right in the center,' [iOptik CEO Stephen Willey] explained. 'It's shaped, so the outside of the lens is shaped to your prescription if you need one and the very center of the lens is a bump that allows you to see incredibly well half an inch from your eye.' The second component involved is the optical filter that directs light. 'Light coming from outside the world is shunted to your normal prescription. Light from that very near display goes through the center of the lens, the optical filter,' Willey said." Read more of this story at Slashdot. | 5:47 pm |
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