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Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Unrest Erupts In Egypt After Attack On Christian Wedding
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Monday, October 21, 2013
Apple rumored to have prototyped Surface-style keyboard covers for iPad
The "lots more to cover" tag line on Apple's October 22 event invitations have lead many to speculate about updated Smart Covers in general, and Logitech/Microsoft Surface style keyboard covers in specific. Apple has tossed out patent applications for such things in the past, of course, and it's one of the more popular third-party and competitive features. So, prototyping an Apple version that would enjoy better and deeper integration is no surprise. Jamie Ryan:
I’ve been speaking to a couple of people at Apple for the last few days and they have told me that a case for the full size iPad that mimics Microsofts touch cover has been prototyped. It’s not clear whether the process is far enough along to make this Tuesdays event but they did say a few different styles had been in testing for a while. [...] It’s not just keyboards either. I’m told other cover like accessories are also being looked at.
There are always last minute rumors before an Apple event, some cool, some flat out crazy. Apple did produce a keyboard stand for the original iPad, which was simply their existing Mac keyboard with a 30-pin Dock connector and base and some customized keys. All iPads are still compatible with the existing Mac Bluetooth keyboard, although it has no customized keys and requires something like the third-party Origami case to provide any physical integration.
Unless Apple cancels the Smart Covers, they'll have to update them for the new iPad 5 form factor anyway. I use the Logitech keyboard cover and like it a bunch, so do many other people I know. An Apple branded, Apple integrated version would be great. It's one of the few things I like about Microsoft's Surface. So, I'd be all over this if it turns out to be real.
If the information above is accurate, the only questions are, has Apple taken it/them out of prototype and put it/them into production, and did they do it in time for the October 22 event?
Source: Jamie Ryan via Gizmodo
iPad (5th gen)
Apple's full-sized tablet gets slimmed down. Rumored features include:
- Touch ID fingerprint sensor
- A7X custom processor
- Improved LTE 4G support
- FaceTime HD camera
- iOS 7 software
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France Summons US Ambassador Over Spying
WASHINGTON (AP) — France joined a growing list of angry allies Monday who are demanding answers from the United States over aggressive surveillance tactics by the National Security Agency, this time, that it swept up — and in some cases recorded — 70.3 million French telephone calls and emails in one 30 day period.
Keeping tabs on allies is classic spy craft but the sweep and scope of the National Security Agency program have irritated Germany, Britain, Brazil, and most recently Mexico and France.
Calling the practice "totally unacceptable,'" an indignant French government demanded an explanation and summoned U.S. Ambassador Charles Rivkin for answers.
Visiting Paris on an unrelated and previously scheduled trip for talks on the Middle East, Secretary of State John Kerry was unapologetic, but told reporters that the U.S. would discuss the matters privately with officials from France and other concerned countries.
"Protecting the security of our citizens in today's world is a very complicated, very challenging task and it is an everyday 24/7/365 task unfortunately because there are lots of people out there seeking to do harm to other people," he said a news conference with Qatar's foreign minister.
"We will have ongoing bilateral consultations, including with our French partners, to address this question of any reports by the U.S. government gathering information from some of the agencies and those consultations are going to continue," Kerry said.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said the U.S. already is reviewing its intelligence gathering to strike a "balance between the legitimate security concerns that our citizens have and the privacy concerns that we and our allies have as well about some of these alleged intelligence activities."
"We certainly hope that it doesn't" damage the United States' close working relationship with France, she added.
In his meeting with Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius' chief of staff Rivken "expressed his appreciation of the importance of the exchange, and promised to convey the points made back to Washington," a statement released by the U.S. Embassy in Paris said.
The level of the meeting, between the U.S. ambassador and an aide to Fabius suggested that while France was talking a tough line in public, it might not be overly outraged by the revelations. Kerry, who landed in Paris early Monday, could have been contacted if relations were in danger.
The report in Le Monde, co-written by Glenn Greenwald, who originally revealed the surveillance program based on leaks from former NSA contractor Snowden, found that when certain numbers were used, the conversations were automatically recorded. The surveillance operation also swept up text messages based on key words, Le Monde reported, based on records from Dec. 10 to Jan 7.
The French government, which wants the surveillance to cease, also renewed demands for talks on protection of personal data.
"This sort of practice between partners that invades privacy is totally unacceptable and we have to make sure, very quickly, that this no longer happens," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said during a meeting in Luxembourg with his European counterparts. Fabius said the U.S. ambassador had been summoned to the Foreign Ministry.
The most recent documents cited by Le Monde, dated to April 2013, also indicated the NSA's interest in email addresses linked to Wanadoo — once part of France Telecom — and Alcatel-Lucent, the French-American telecom company. One of the documents instructed analysts to draw not only from the electronic surveillance program, but also from another initiative dubbed Upstream, which allowed surveillance on undersea communications cables.
___
Associated Press writer Lori Hinnant in Paris contributed to this report.
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Turkish entrepreneur opens first online 'halal' sex shop
ANKARA (Reuters) - A Turkish entrepreneur has opened what he says is the country's first online sex shop for Muslims, selling everything from lubricants to herbal aphrodisiacs and offering advice on how to have "halal" sex.
Haluk Murat Demirel, 38, said he had been inspired to launch the site (www.bayan.helalsexshop.com) by friends who wanted sex advice and products but found the content on other websites and in specialist stores too explicit.
"Online sex shops usually have pornographic pictures, which makes Muslims uncomfortable. We don't sell vibrators for example, because they are not approved by Islam," Demirel said.
Sexual mores provoke frequent debate in the majority Muslim but constitutionally secular country. There are relatively few sex shops, even in major cities, although in parts of Istanbul those that do exist advertise themselves with neon signs.
Critics of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, whose roots are in Islamist politics, have often accused him of puritanical intrusiveness into private life, from his advice to women on the number of children they should have to his views on abortion.
Demirel said the website - which offers advice on which sexual practices are banned by Islam and which are not - had proved unexpectedly popular since launching last Tuesday, with 33,000 visitors on Sunday alone.
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Robin Pomeroy)
- Religion & Beliefs
- Arts & Entertainment
- sex shop
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How Computer Scientists Make Programs Efficient Using Upside Down Trees
How do people manage to write the neatest, most compact code to make programs super-small and lightweight? Well, there are many ways—but one of the most common is to use trees. Upside down trees, to be precise.
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What The World's Newspapers Are Saying
Oded Balilty/AP
A newsstand in Rome.
Oded Balilty/AP
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican led the website of Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper.
At the end of their 25-minute meeting, the pope gave Abbas a pen, which the Palestinian Authority president said he hoped to use "to sign the peace agreement with Israel."
The pope replied: "Hurry, hurry," according to the newspaper.
—
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan recently called for a national dialogue in his ethnically and religiously divided country.
He announced the formation of a committee that would hold discussions on resolving differences in Nigeria. But, as the Vanguard newspaper reports, Nigerian lawmakers say that the committee's final outcome must first pass through them to become law.
Here's how Reuters describes Nigeria's religious makeup:
"Nigeria's nearly 170 million people and 250 ethnic groups, split roughly evenly between Islam, which dominates in the north, and Christianity, prevalent in the south, mostly live side by side in peace. But the country suffers bouts of bloodshed over land where the two religions meet in the middle.
"The oil producing Niger Delta is a haven for criminal gangs who steal oil and kidnap, while the Boko Haram insurgency has killed thousands and destablised swathes of the north."
—
La Tercera reports on Chile's efforts to win a temporary seat on the United Nations Security Council.
The General Assembly elects five new countries to the council on Thursday. Chad, Chile, Lithuania, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia are looking for spots. All are virtually guaranteed a place on the 15-member council because none of the races are contested.
This would be Chile's fifth time on the council. The previous occasion was in 2003 and 2004. That was when Chile refused to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Chile's term would last from January 2014 to December 2015.
—
From the Philippines, a story of hope amid the earthquake Tuesday that killed more than 100 people. The Inquirer reports:
"Two statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary stand — without any blemish — amid the ruins of two churches in Maribojoc and Loon towns following Tuesday's devastating earthquake. It was enough for residents to raise their hopes that life will get better."
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Unleashed On Halloween, Monster Cereals Haunt Hoarders
This Halloween season, the three big Monster Cereals will be joined by Frute Brute and Fruity Yummy Mummy, which haven't been on the market in decades.
Dan Pashman
This Halloween season, the three big Monster Cereals will be joined by Frute Brute and Fruity Yummy Mummy, which haven't been on the market in decades.
Dan Pashman
This Halloween season, the cereal monsters are on the loose. Count Chocula, Boo Berry and Franken Berry have consumers in their grasp — for a limited time only.
General Mills' line of "Monster Cereals" originally hit the market in the early '70s, but the company decided in 2010 they would only be available during the Halloween season.
"That was bad news for some people," says Dan Pashman, host of The Sporkful food podcast.
Cereal fans found ways to get by. One of Pashmn's podcast listeners turned her sister in Tuscan, Ariz., into a "Boo Berry mule" by making her cross the border into Mexico to get the cereal.
YouTube
A General Mills Monster Cereal commercial from the 1970s.
"This artificial scarcity has kind of galvanized a cult following around this time of year for these cereals," Pashman tells Weekend Edition host Rachel Martin.
This year, Frute Brute and Fruity Yummy Mummy are also making a comeback. Frute Brute (formerly "Fruit Brute") went off the market in 1982; Yummy Mummy was pulled in '92.
The boxes aren't collectors' items — consumers do actually eat them. "But not all at once," Pashman says. In fact, he says, cereal hoarders are always checking the expiration dates to see how long the cereal will last.
Pashman himself recently purchased a Boo Berry that's doesn't expire until September 2014. "I'm gonna hang on to that 'til supplies are low," he says, "and then that's my nest egg right there."
Sweetness aside, the Monster Cereals seem to have made a powerful imprint on parents.
"There really is something about these particular artificial flavors that tap into a very specific sense memory," Pashman says.
Sporkful podcast listener Rachel Gonzales told Pashman: "It still reminds me of that Saturday morning special treat that you could only eat every once in a while, and it's something now that I get to share with my own daughter ... It's really kind nostalgic and exciting to me."
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For Obama, a frustrating health care rollout
WASHINGTON (AP) — Last week, President Barack Obama gathered some of his top advisers in the Oval Office to discuss the problem-plagued rollout of his health care legislation. He told his team the administration had to own up to the fact that there were no excuses for not having the health care website ready to operate on Day One.
The admonition from a frustrated president came amid the embarrassing start to sign-ups for the health care insurance exchanges. The president is expected to address the cascade of computer problems Monday during an event at the White House.
Administration officials say more than 476,000 health insurance applications have been filed through federal and state exchanges. The figures mark the most detailed measure yet of the problem-plagued rollout of the insurance market place.
However, the officials continue to refuse to say how many people have actually enrolled in the insurance markets. And without enrollment figures, it's unclear whether the program is on track to reach the 7 million people projected by the Congressional Budget Office to gain coverage during the six-month sign-up period.
The first three weeks of sign-ups have been marred by a cascade of computer problems, which the administration says it is working around the clock to correct. The rough rollout has been a black eye for Obama, who invested significant time and political capital in getting the law passed during his first term.
The officials said technology experts from inside and outside the government are being brought in to work on the glitches, though they did not say how many workers were being added.
Officials did say staffing has been increased at call centers by about 50 percent. As problems persist on the federally run website, the administration is encouraging more people to sign up for insurance over the phone.
The officials would not discuss the health insurance rollout by name and were granted anonymity.
Despite the widespread problems, the White House has yet to fully explain what went wrong with the online system consumers were supposed to use to sign up for coverage.
Administration officials initially blamed a high volume of interest from ordinary Americans for the frozen screens that many people encountered. Since then, they have also acknowledged problems with software and some elements of the system's design.
Interest in the insurance markets appears to continue to be high. Officials said about 19 million people have visited HealthCare.gov as of Friday night.
Of the 476,000 applications that have been started, just over half have been from the 36 states where the federal government is taking the lead in running the markets. The rest of the applications have come from the 14 states running their own markets, along with Washington, D.C.
Americans seeking health coverage through the Affordable Care Act must fill out applications before selecting a specific plan. The forms require personal information, including income figures that are used to calculate any subsidies the applicant may qualify for. More than one person can be included on an application.
The White House says it plans to release the first enrollment totals from both the federal and state-run markets in mid-November.
Obama will directly address the technical problems with the health care websites Monday morning during an event in the Rose Garden, according to the White House. Officials said the president finds the glitches unacceptable and will outline for the public steps the administration is taking to address the troubles.
Obama will be joined during the event by people who have already enrolled in insurance programs through the new exchanges. The administration has not said how many people have enrolled during the first three weeks of sign-ups.
The Health and Human Services Department reported Sunday that it "is bringing in some of the best and brightest from both inside and outside government to .... help improve HealthCare.gov. We're also putting in place tools and processes to aggressively monitor and identify parts of HealthCare.gov where individuals are encountering errors or having difficulty using the site, so we can prioritize and fix them."
An internal memo obtained by The Associated Press showed that the administration projected nearly a half million people would enroll for the insurance markets during the first month.
Officials say they expect enrollments to be heavier toward the end of the six-month sign up window.
Problems with the rollout were largely overshadowed by Republican efforts to force changes to the health care law in exchange for funding the government. That effort failed and the government reopened last week with "Obamacare" intact.
Some Republicans are now calling for the resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The White House says it has complete confidence in her. House Republicans have scheduled a hearing next week to look into the rollout problems.
White House allies say they're confident the problems are being addressed.
"There's no question the marketplace website needs some improvement," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., one of the architects of the law. "The administration needs to fix the computer bugs and I'm confident that they're working around the clock to fix the problems."
___
Associated Press writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.
___
Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC
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Sunday, October 20, 2013
To Live and Die in Ordos (Jing Cha Ri Ji): Tokyo Review
The Bottom Line
Devoid of nuance and filled to the brim with corny attempts to stir emotions, the biopic of a real-life hard-edged cop becomes a propaganda feast.
Director
Ning Ying
Cast
Wang Jingchun, Chen Weihan, Sun Liang, Hou Yansong, Bai Bo
Ning Ying's last film, the 2005 chamber drama Perpetual Motion, was lauded for being audacious enough to have women speaking about their sex lives on screen. Whether that was to be her career pinnacle remains debatable, but her latest film unquestionably sees the filmmaker plummeting to despairing creative depths.
Based on an official feted, allegedly incorruptible police chief in one of the fastest developing regions in China, To Live and Die in Ordos is a piece of unflinching, visually banal hagiography which harks back to the oft-appearing state-backed films about nearly flawless men of iron who place their work before their families and their own well-beings.
The film's original Chinese title was Police Diary – which is the English title still appearing in the opening credits of the print shown at its world premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival on Oct. 19. With its backers including state and provincial-level propaganda departments, To Live and Die in Ordos hardly shares anything with William Friedkin's Los Angeles-set namesake; while also focusing on a law enforcement officer obsessed with getting the job done, Ning never really takes her film to a new level by probing the circumstances in which toiling protagonist is forced to work in.
Instead, the film's titular city – which has made headlines for the misguidedly lavish infrastructural projects built with the flush of its coal-fuelled wealth in the past decade – is basically spared from scrutiny, with even its sleazy businessmen shown as having recoiled from excess in awe of the just heroics of the leading character.
The Ordos authorities, who was credited as offering much help to the film's production, are likely very pleased, along with a dairy product manufacturer who has its new production line on parade, and its name shown on screen and referenced in the dialogue. (This is the same company who managed to have a character chugging from a carton of its product in the Chinese version of Iron Man 3.)
Tiring they could be, but it's not as if propaganda or product placements can't be given an aesthetic pleasing touch: the problem is that To Live and Die in Ordos simply doesn't work well in the multiple genres it purports to straddle. It's too linear as a biopic, too simplistic as a detective thriller, and too corny as a piece of human drama. It's questionable whether the film will connect with its domestic audiences, not to say of the chance of further festival appearances after its shows at Tokyo and then Vienna next month.
Hao Wanzhong (Wang Jingchun) is simple too devoid of nuance as a central character, with his transformation from middle-school chemistry teacher to ruthless cop never really properly addressed except from the wafer-thin testaments from his kin and associates. Given the wish to shape him as a super-detective, the modus operandiwith which he solves his cases are laughable (this is someone who would drive overnight to a village to catch an important fugitive in an age of helicopters), and the depictions of crimes and crime scenes are unconvincing (a murdered girl was still clutching a sweet, despite having been beaten, hacked and then drowned to death in a bathtub).
To Live and Die is most grating with its over-the-top attempts to stir emotions: the candy-girl image was just one in a litany of scenes aimed to remind Hao (and the viewer) of the harrowing challenges he confronts in the land of psychotic felons – the smalltime robbers and killers, mind you, and not the corrupt corporate nouveau riche of course, who are seen simply as crude men easily guided to the light by Hao's intervention.
Mistaking bombast as the essential key to move audiences, the film actually begins with a straight-faced, pompous rendition of Hao's funeral during which his son delivers – in a dramatic tone belying his young age – a stirring eulogy. Thus begins the reconstruction of the hero's life, shaped in the work of a cynical investigative journalist Hua Wei (Sun Liang) as he researches and interviews people for a feature article on Hao.
Hua started off declining the assignment, telling his superior that he has avoided writing about such heroes because of past experiences of having his subjects being later revealed as villains by diligent netizens. But as he roams the land talking to Hao's family and friends – his wearing of a vest emblazoned with the name of China's official news agency probably speaks volumes about what is to follow – he is converted: no one has a bad word to say about Hao, and the fact that Sun relies heavily on only official documents and Hao's 68-volume diaries probably offers some kind of foregone conclusion of his change of heart.
The only flaw allowed on screen is how Hao, the great get-things-done fellow that he is, once bellowed about how journalists should all be thrown into jail for raising doubts about how the system works – and of course this is quickly resolved as an law-graduate aide convinces him, in a little speech resembling an official policy dictum, about the importance of rule of law. It's too convenient a way to explain away probably the dark side of Hao's good-cop persona – an approach which is more suited to teledrama, which the film actually sometimes resembles with its hackneyed use of slow-motion, whiteflash cuts and freeze-frames.
It's perhaps a shame that Ning, whose Perpetual Motion has indeed given women more of a voice and presence in addressing taboo issues, would have Hao's wife, the schoolteacher Meng Wenjuan (Chen Weihan) as possibly the main hindrance for Hao's pursuit of spreading peace and justice in his realm. She is depicted as someone unsympathetic to Hao's (admittedly warped sense of) professionalism, yelling at him on the street, on the phone and resorting to emotional blackmail of sorts so as to get him to come home to dinner or spend more time with his son. Inevitably, like everyone, she would repent and admit – through a letter stored in Hao's near-empty safe at the office – that she understands him after all. Whether anyone else off screen would empathize with the artifice on show, however, is probably another issue – a matter which, given the film's treatment, is hardly one rivaling the importance of life and death.
Venue: Competition, Tokyo International Film Festival
Production Company: Inner Mongolia Blue Hometown Film, in a presentation with Inner Mongolia Film Group Corporation and Ordos Radio and Television Media
Director: Ning Ying
Cast: Wang Jingchun, Chen Weihan, Sun Liang, Hou Yansong, Bai Bo
Producer: Huhebateer, Mu Ren, Zheng Tao
Screenwriter: Ning Dai
Director of Photography: Sean O'Dea
Editor: Jia Cuiping
Music: Liu Sijun
In Mandarin
113 minutes
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NYU-Poly professors win Google Faculty Research Awards
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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 16-Oct-2013
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Contact: Kathleen Hamilton
hamilton@poly.edu
718-260-3792
Polytechnic Institute of New York University
Juliana Freire and Thanasis Korakis recognized for work in big data, improving home wireless performance
Brooklyn, New York Two faculty members from the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly) are among the latest recipients of the Google Faculty Research Awardsone-year grants supporting cutting-edge research in various disciplines of computer science and engineering.
Juliana Freire, professor of computer science and engineering, and Thanasis Korakis, research assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, are among the 100 university engineers and scientists from around the globe recognized by the web search giant.
Freire's research tackles one aspect of a major hurdle facing urban planners and policymakers at a time when more people than ever are living in cities: how to analyze extremely complex data sets to better understand the dynamics of cities, assess their service needs, and ensure that they are met. In this project, Freire is exploring data from a central element of urban life in New York Citytaxi cab ridesas a model for a new framework for analyzing spatio-temporal data.
With information provided by the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission, Freire used data from more than 540 million taxi cab rides over a three-year period to create a prototype visual exploration system that enables scientists and lay people to analyze data involving time and location on a scale that is currently impossible. Taxi rides are a rich source of information about urban life, providing insight into many aspects of New York City, including identifying areas that are most popular at certain times of day, neighborhoods underserved by taxis, and traffic patterns. These can in turn be used to better understand economic activity, human behavior, and mobility patterns.
"Tremendous amounts of data are available, but making sense of it is very challenging," Freire explained. "Social scientists and decision-makers are limited by the current tools for analysis, which can't handle large data sets. They can analyze slices of data, but it's much harder to appreciate the full picture," she said.
Freire's model will unify data selection and visual analysis to allow even lay users to explore large data sets through visual queries; for example, a user could explore taxi service in different neighborhoods at a certain time of day by selecting the regions and time frame on a map. The query results would present highly complex information in a simple visual format. Freire and her collaborators also plan to incorporate other data sets, including data from New York City's bike share program, Citi Bike.
Thanasis Korakis is developing a solution for a problem nearly every computer user has faced: slow broadband performance. As broadband access has become ubiquitous and wi-fi technology has been widely adopted, home wireless local networks (WLAN) have soared in popularity. The result, especially in densely populated urban areas, is extreme network congestion resulting in poor quality of service that is nearly impossible for users to address or solve on their own.
"Most home computer users don't have the expertise to diagnose and resolve local network issues, and they end up blaming their Internet service or content provider," said Korakis.
His fix, currently in development, is an app-based method to diagnose the cause of poor home WLAN performance, as well as a tool that can implement these diagnostics. Currently, there are several consumer products to aid troubleshooting of wired networks, but in the wireless space, detecting and remedying connectivity issues is considerably more complex.
Korakis will create extensive simulations of scenarios that can result in wireless access delay, and gauge the specific impact of each on quality of service. These include traffic congestion, overlapping channels, competition from older wi-fi-enabled devices, and low signal-to-noise ratio. Along with his students and collaborators, Korakis will devise classifications of so-called "wireless pathologies" based on the symptoms they create, ultimately arriving at a diagnostic tool that can determine the cause of WLAN problems. A complementary tool will then offer suggestions for home WLAN users to solve the problem through simple configuration changes.
As part of their grants, both Freire and Korakis will plan visits to Google to present their findings to the company's research teams.
###
The Polytechnic Institute of New York University (formerly the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and the Polytechnic University, now widely known as NYU-Poly) is an affiliated institute of New York University, and will become its School of Engineering in January 2014. NYU-Poly, founded in 1854, is the nation's second-oldest private engineering school. It is presently a comprehensive school of education and research in engineering and applied sciences, rooted in a 159-year tradition of invention, innovation and entrepreneurship. It remains on the cutting edge of technology, innovatively extending the benefits of science, engineering, management and liberal studies to critical real-world opportunities and challenges, especially those linked to urban systems, health and wellness, and the global information economy. In addition to its programs on the main campus in New York City at MetroTech Center in downtown Brooklyn, it offers programs around the globe remotely through NYUe-Poly. NYU-Poly is closely connected to engineering in NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai and to the NYU Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) also at MetroTech, while operating two incubators in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn. For more information, visit http://www.poly.edu.
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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 16-Oct-2013
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Contact: Kathleen Hamilton
hamilton@poly.edu
718-260-3792
Polytechnic Institute of New York University
Juliana Freire and Thanasis Korakis recognized for work in big data, improving home wireless performance
Brooklyn, New York Two faculty members from the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly) are among the latest recipients of the Google Faculty Research Awardsone-year grants supporting cutting-edge research in various disciplines of computer science and engineering.
Juliana Freire, professor of computer science and engineering, and Thanasis Korakis, research assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, are among the 100 university engineers and scientists from around the globe recognized by the web search giant.
Freire's research tackles one aspect of a major hurdle facing urban planners and policymakers at a time when more people than ever are living in cities: how to analyze extremely complex data sets to better understand the dynamics of cities, assess their service needs, and ensure that they are met. In this project, Freire is exploring data from a central element of urban life in New York Citytaxi cab ridesas a model for a new framework for analyzing spatio-temporal data.
With information provided by the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission, Freire used data from more than 540 million taxi cab rides over a three-year period to create a prototype visual exploration system that enables scientists and lay people to analyze data involving time and location on a scale that is currently impossible. Taxi rides are a rich source of information about urban life, providing insight into many aspects of New York City, including identifying areas that are most popular at certain times of day, neighborhoods underserved by taxis, and traffic patterns. These can in turn be used to better understand economic activity, human behavior, and mobility patterns.
"Tremendous amounts of data are available, but making sense of it is very challenging," Freire explained. "Social scientists and decision-makers are limited by the current tools for analysis, which can't handle large data sets. They can analyze slices of data, but it's much harder to appreciate the full picture," she said.
Freire's model will unify data selection and visual analysis to allow even lay users to explore large data sets through visual queries; for example, a user could explore taxi service in different neighborhoods at a certain time of day by selecting the regions and time frame on a map. The query results would present highly complex information in a simple visual format. Freire and her collaborators also plan to incorporate other data sets, including data from New York City's bike share program, Citi Bike.
Thanasis Korakis is developing a solution for a problem nearly every computer user has faced: slow broadband performance. As broadband access has become ubiquitous and wi-fi technology has been widely adopted, home wireless local networks (WLAN) have soared in popularity. The result, especially in densely populated urban areas, is extreme network congestion resulting in poor quality of service that is nearly impossible for users to address or solve on their own.
"Most home computer users don't have the expertise to diagnose and resolve local network issues, and they end up blaming their Internet service or content provider," said Korakis.
His fix, currently in development, is an app-based method to diagnose the cause of poor home WLAN performance, as well as a tool that can implement these diagnostics. Currently, there are several consumer products to aid troubleshooting of wired networks, but in the wireless space, detecting and remedying connectivity issues is considerably more complex.
Korakis will create extensive simulations of scenarios that can result in wireless access delay, and gauge the specific impact of each on quality of service. These include traffic congestion, overlapping channels, competition from older wi-fi-enabled devices, and low signal-to-noise ratio. Along with his students and collaborators, Korakis will devise classifications of so-called "wireless pathologies" based on the symptoms they create, ultimately arriving at a diagnostic tool that can determine the cause of WLAN problems. A complementary tool will then offer suggestions for home WLAN users to solve the problem through simple configuration changes.
As part of their grants, both Freire and Korakis will plan visits to Google to present their findings to the company's research teams.
###
The Polytechnic Institute of New York University (formerly the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and the Polytechnic University, now widely known as NYU-Poly) is an affiliated institute of New York University, and will become its School of Engineering in January 2014. NYU-Poly, founded in 1854, is the nation's second-oldest private engineering school. It is presently a comprehensive school of education and research in engineering and applied sciences, rooted in a 159-year tradition of invention, innovation and entrepreneurship. It remains on the cutting edge of technology, innovatively extending the benefits of science, engineering, management and liberal studies to critical real-world opportunities and challenges, especially those linked to urban systems, health and wellness, and the global information economy. In addition to its programs on the main campus in New York City at MetroTech Center in downtown Brooklyn, it offers programs around the globe remotely through NYUe-Poly. NYU-Poly is closely connected to engineering in NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai and to the NYU Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) also at MetroTech, while operating two incubators in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn. For more information, visit http://www.poly.edu.
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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/pion-npw101613.php
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'Jump boxes' improve security, if you set them up right
With malicious hackers and malware infesting nearly every enterprise network these days, "jump boxes" have become very popular. A jump box is a specially secured computer that administrators must (or should) log on to in order to gain access to other computers and administrate them. The hope is that these jump boxes are specially secured -- and are less likely to get exploited by hackers or malware.
Jump boxes can decrease risk, but you need to implement their special protections properly. Many enterprises start with the best of intentions, but when I audit jump boxes, I often see a jumble of weak security policies and high-risk behaviors that make them just as insecure as a regular user's PC.
[ Take a tour of the latest threats and what you can do to stop them in InfoWorld's Malware Deep Dive Report. | Learn how to secure your systems with InfoWorld's Security Central newsletter. ]
In the computer security world, a basic premise underlies setting up a "secure environment": Systems of lower trust should never be able to modify or control systems of higher trust or importance. Most jump boxes tend to break this basic rule because the computers people use to connect to jump boxes are less trustworthy than the jump boxes themselves.
Often, PCs that connect to jump boxes are open to the Internet all day long and can be as infected and exploited as any other computer in your environment. What good is a jump box if the computer connecting to it has a keylogging Trojan copying every password or smartcard token you use? Your jump box and the computer linking to it -- let's call it the "originating computer" for this discussion -- should both be highly secure systems.
Here are the protective measures you should take for jump boxes and the systems that connect to them.
Security hardened
Most of today's operating systems and applications come fairly well secured. Don't mess it up. Consider configuring the originating computer and jump server with the "high security" settings if they exist. You want to enforce only the best and most secure protocols and options.
Strong authentication
If you use regular passwords, they should be long and complex (15 characters or more). Try to require smartcards or other two-factor authentication methods for all elevated users. If you're managing multiple environments (that is, different forests), make sure logon credentials are not shared among environments. If you use smartcards, key fobs, or other two-factor authentication, make sure those aren't shared, either. Yes, it'll be harder to administrate multiple environments. But if you share that stuff, why have different environments in the first place?
No browsing the Internet
If I check your jump box and see it has a browser installed or can browse to the Internet unhindered, then you've failed the audit. Browsing the Internet is a high-risk activity that should not be allowed either on the jump box or the originating computer. I know many of you probably use your regular workstation to connect to jump boxes. This is a bad idea. Use a separate computer (or VM) to connect to your jump box. That originating computer should not be able to browse the Internet to any site; if you allow it to connect only to vendor sites and legitimate driver download sites, that's OK.
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'Franklin & Bash' Renewed for Fourth Season at TNT
TNT has renewed Franklin & Bash for a fourth season.
The summer drama, which wrapped its third season in August, will be back with another run of original episodes as part of the Turner-owned network's summer lineup.
The legal dramedy, which stars Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Breckin Meyer as young, unconventional attorneys, will join fellow summer scripted originals including Falling Skies, Perception, Rizzoli & Isles and Major Crimes. In its Wednesdays at 9 p.m. slot, the series closed its third season with 2.2 million total viewers, up 200,000 compared with its season premiere. Of the network's summer lineup, only King & Maxwell failed to get the renewal.
The renewal for the former bubble series comes as TNT is ramping up its original fare in a bid for year-round scripted programming. TNT next will launch Frank Darabont's Mob City in December and has The Last Ship and Legends due next year.
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2 convicted killers taken into custody Fla.
PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. (AP) — With two convicted killers back in police custody, authorities have shifted attention to finding out who made the phony court documents that led to the mistaken inmate releases that rocked Florida's judicial system.
Joseph Jenkins and Charles Walker, both 34, were captured Saturday night without incident at the Coconut Grove Motor Inn in Panama City Beach, a touristy area of putt-putt courses and go-kart tracks. Hours earlier, their families had held a news conference in Orlando — some 300 miles away — urging them to surrender.
"Now that we have them in custody, we're hoping to get something from the interviews with them," Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey said. "We seized printers from the prisons, now we're going to be able to throw a lot of resources at this part of the investigation. We're already working it."
A woman who answered the phone at the motel said she saw police coming and they went into room 227. After authorities left, the parking lot of the two-story motel next to Big Willy's Swimwear was mostly empty. Authorities think the men had been in the area since Wednesday.
Jenkins and Walker were both serving life sentences at the Franklin Correctional Facility in the Panhandle before they walked free without anyone realizing the paperwork, complete with case numbers and a judge's forged signature, was bogus. The documents seemingly reduced their life sentences to 15 years.
Jenkins was released first on Sept. 27. His uncle and father figure, Henry Pearson, said when prison officials called him in Orlando he jumped in the car with fresh clothes for Jenkins and picked him up from prison.
He drove him to see his mother and grandmother. Jenkins hung around Pearson's home for some days and registered as a felon Sept. 30 at an Orlando jail, as he was required by law. He filled out paperwork, had his photograph taken and his fingerprints were checked against a database to make sure he didn't have any outstanding warrants for his arrest.
The Orange County jail official who interacted with him had no idea he was supposed to be locked up, Sheriff Jerry Demings said.
Pearson planned a birthday party for Jenkins on Oct. 1, but he didn't show. Pearson thought little of it because Jenkins had friends in the area, and after all, he had been locked up since the 1998 killing and botched robbery of Roscoe Pugh, an Orlando man.
About a week later, on Oct. 8, Walker was let out of the same prison when similar legitimate-looking documents duped prison officials. His mother, Lillie Danzy, said the family thought their prayers had been answered when she got a call saying her son was being released. She called prison officials back to make sure it was actually happening.
There wasn't time to pick him up, so prison officials took him to a bus station, gave him a ticket — as they would any other ex-inmate — and sent him along.
Walker had been in prison since his conviction of second-degree murder in the 1999 Orange County slaying of 23-year-old Cedric Slater. Like Jenkins, he registered at the Orange County jail three days after his release without raising any alarms.
He knocked around town and went to church last Sunday. But at some point, he and Jenkins went underground.
On Tuesday, one of Pugh's relatives contacted the state attorney's office to let them know Jenkins had been let out. Pugh's family had been notified by mail, which is typical for families of violent crime victims.
Prosecutors reviewed Jenkins' case file and quickly discovered the forged paperwork, including motions from prosecutors to correct "illegal" sentences, accompanied by orders allegedly filed by Judge Belvin Perry within the last couple of months. The orders granted a 15-year sentence.
They soon discovered Walker's paperwork also was falsified, and a manhunt was launched for both men.
At this point, Jenkins had been free for more than two weeks. Walker had been out for a week. Had Pugh's family not contacted prosecutors, it's not clear how long they may have been out unnoticed.
For the past four days, authorities believe the men were in the Panama City area, said Frank Chiumento, a chief inspector with the U.S. Marshals Service.
Bailey said authorities were able to track down the men through interviews with people who visited them at the prison, called them there or made deposits into their canteen account. Those people included relatives, ex-girlfriends and others, he said.
"The key piece of this was an individual or individuals that had made deposits into their canteen accounts at the prison," Bailey said.
The men weren't planning on staying in Panama City Beach very long, he said. Someone from Atlanta was coming to pick them up and take them somewhere else, Bailey said.
In light of the falsified documents, the Corrections Department changed the way it verifies early releases and prison officials will now verify with judges — not just court clerks — before releasing prisoners early.
Pearson said he was shocked to learn earlier this week that his nephew was not supposed to be out of prison. He said it took him a day or two to process events.
On Saturday night, he heard about the captures while watching TV. Soon after, a law enforcement agent called his home unexpectedly and let Jenkins talk to his wife.
"He just said that he was OK and that he loved us," Pearson said. "We have a great sense of relief because we did not know how this would end up."
___
Farrington reported from Tallahassee. Associated Press photographer John Raoux in Orlando and reporter Jonathan Drew in Atlanta also contributed to this report.
___
Follow Farrington at www.twitter.com/bsfarrington
- Society & Culture
- Crime & Justice
- Joseph Jenkins
- Panama City Beach
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Obama: After fiscal crisis, Washington must change
A National Park Service employee uses an edge trimmer as workers tend to the North Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, Oct. 18, 2013, after a 16-day partial government shutdown was resolved by lawmakers late Wednesday. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says the way business is done in Washington must change.
In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama is telling Americans their frustration with politics is understandable. He's referring to the fiscal crisis that shut down the government and brought the U.S. close to default.
Obama says even with the crisis over, Republicans and Democrats won't agree on everything. But he says they should find areas of agreement. He's pushing Congress to act this year on a budget, a farm bill and an immigration overhaul.
In the Republican address, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli says Obama's health care law is an affront to freedoms the Founding Fathers fought for. He says its implementation has been a national embarrassment.
Cuccinelli is running for governor of Virginia.
___
Online:
White House address: www.whitehouse.gov
GOP address: www.youtube.com/gopweeklyaddress
- Politics & Government
- Government
- Barack Obama
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Saturday, October 19, 2013
Scott Disick Out Of Control Before Clubbing with Kylie and Kendall
Scott Disick
OUT OF CONTROL
Before Clubbing with Kylie, Kendall
Exclusive
If Scott Disick was the responsible adult last night when he took16-year-old Kylie and17-year-old Kendall Jenner to a 21-and-over nightclub, Kris oughta be plenty worried, because he was off the hinges earlier in the night.Scott was at a Style Fashion Week L.A. event earlier in the evening with Kylie and Kendall. He was drinking and acting belligerent ... to the point where one of the models flipped him off.
At the end of the show, Scott grabbed the designer, Cedric Benaroch, and almost pulled him off the runway.
Scott then started freestyle rapping for Lil Twist and a random guy, ending with, "I drive f**king Bentleys!"
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The Scapegoat (Au bonheur des ogres): Film Review
The Bottom Line
A vibrant, often cartoonish comedy that’s as slickly made as it is overstuffed with characters and content.
Opens
Wednesday, Oct. 16 (in France)
Director
Nicolas Bary
Cast
Raphael Personnaz, Berenice Bejo, Emir Kusturica, Guillaume de Tonquedec, Melanie Bernier
PARIS -- A quirky family-oriented comedy with darker undertones, Nicolas Bary’s The Scapegoat (Au bonheur des ogres) offers up tons of visual flourishes and upbeat performances, but is also way too overwrought to sustain itself for the long haul. Based on author Daniel Pennac’s popular novel, which depicts a professional whipping boy, his coterie of wacky siblings and the fascistic department store where he works under the constant threat of exploding bombs, the film’s over-the-top tone recalls Tim Burton and the Coen Brothers at their most outlandish, though its sinister humor and occasional sexual gibes make it more French than anything else.
Distributed by Pathe during a highly competitive week of 28 releases (including the latest Jean-Pierre Jeunet -- another obvious influence here), the €12 million ($16 million) co-production may have a hard time leaving its mark at the box office, though it should find decent ancillary play in Francophone territories. Overseas screenings will be mostly limited to festivals, beginning with an international bow in Rome.
Adapted by Bary, Jerome Fansten (Asylum Blackout) and Serge Frydman (Guilty) from Pennac’s 1985 book -- whose original title, Au bonheur des ogres, is a pun on Emile Zola’s department store-set saga, Au Bonheur des Dames -- the film’s fast-paced opening introduces us to an upscale Parisien mega-boutique, where 30-year-old nobody Benjamin Malaussene (Raphael Personnaz) works in the customer service division. His job: to serve as a verbal punching bag for his boss, who constantly lambasts him in front of angry clients, hoping they’ll withdraw their complaints out of pity.
If that sounds like a strange occupation, that’s the first of many bizarre things which start occurring during the busy holiday shopping season, beginning with a bomb that goes off in a window display and kills another employee. When another one explodes the week after, a wisecracking detective (Marius Yelolo, A Screaming Man) is soon on Malaussene’s tail, while the store's suspiciously nervous CEO (Guillaume de Tonquedec) is doing his best to keep doors open for business.
Things at home are hardly easier for Malaussene, who takes care of four younger half-brothers and sisters, their mother all but absent as she trots around with anonymous lovers. The shabby duplex where the family resides is more like a clubhouse than a homestead, and Bary gets some mileage out of the various sibling squabbles, many of them involving little kids saying big words, much to the chagrin of their older bro.
Malaussene eventually finds solace in the arms of a roving investigative journalist, Julia (Berenice Bejo), though their relationship is played less for romance than for laughs, most of which highlight Malaussene’s inability to seal the deal in bed. As if there wasn’t enough going on already, Bary also brings in director Emir Kusturica (another purveyor of overstuffed content), who plays a night watchman involved in a series of kidnappings that took place 30 years prior.
With so much happening at the same time, it’s hard to find a single narrative strain to cling to, although Bary -- whose directing credits include the big budget kids flick, Les Enfants de Timpelbach -- keeps things lively and fun, especially in the various sequences taking place in the spectacular shopping center. Composed of eye-popping, realistic decors by Bettina Von den Steinen (Julie & Julia), with several scenes shot in the actual Galeries Lafayette in Paris, the set-pieces paint a surreal and sinister portrait of the modern-day retail world, and it’s too bad such an idea is ultimately lost in the abundance of subplots and characters.
Personnaz (Marius, The Princess of Montpensier) does a good job channeling Malaussene’s bumbling earnestness, but he also overplays things to the point of caricature, as do many of the other cast members. Bejo (The Artist, The Past) gives a feisty performance that’s ultimately lost beneath lots of scarves and necklaces.
Tech credits are polished, with Patrick Duroux providing a vibrant color palette to accompany all the shenanigans. Film buffs will recognize that certain exteriors were shot outside La Samaritaine, the now defunct Paris department store featured in Leos Carax’s Lovers on the Bridge and Holy Motors.
Opens: Wednesday, Oct. 16 (in France)
Production companies: Chapter 2, Pathe, France 2 Cinema, Bidibul Productions, Nexus Factory, Alvy Developpement
Cast: Raphael Personnaz, Berenice Bejo, Emir Kusturica, Guillaume de Tonquedec, Melanie Bernier
Director: Nicolas Bary
Screenwriters: Jerome Fansten, Nicolas Bary, Serge Frydman, based on the novel by Daniel Pennac
Producers: Dimitri Rassam, Jerome Seydoux
Director of photography: Patrick Duroux
Production designer: Bettina Von den Steinen
Costume designers: Agnes Beziers, Isabelle Dickes
Music: Rolfe Kent
Editor: Veronique Lange
Sales agent: Pathe International
No rating, 96 minutes
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