U.S. FDA knew devices spread fatal 'superbug' but does not order fix

U.S. health regulators have known since at least 2009 that the medical devices at the center of the "superbug" outbreak at UCLA can transmit lethal infections but have not recommended any new safety requirements, a lapse that threatens patient safety, experts in hospital-acquired infections said.

The latest outbreak involving the reusable devices called duodenoscopes, which are inserted down the throat, may have exposed 179 patients at UCLA's Ronald Reagan Medical Center in Los Angeles and contributed to two deaths.

It is far from the first time medical investigators traced the sometimes-fatal spread of pathogens to the devices, which are manufactured by the medical units of Japanese companies Olympus Corp, Pentax and Fujifilm Holdings Corp . UCLA uses an Olympus model.

In 2013 and 2014, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration received a total of 75 reports of adverse events associated with the devices, resulting in harm to 135 patients, the agency said. Because healthcare providers do not always submit such reports, the FDA said, that is likely an underestimate.

After outbreaks, hospitals that began sterilizing the devices more rigorously than the FDA and manufacturers recommend did so have not had any further transmissions of dangerous microbes from the devices, the hospitals said.

In light of that success, "I would be in favor of the FDA putting out more stringent rules," said Dr. John Greene, an infectious disease specialist at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, where four patients were treated for antibiotic-resistant infections after undergoing duodenoscope procedures at Tampa General Hospital in 2012.

Instead, the FDA on Thursday issued a "safety communication" warning healthcare providers that duodenoscopes' "complex design" may impede effective sterilization.

For the first time, the FDA said that even when hospitals adhered to the manufacturers' instructions for sterilization, patients have contracted multidrug-resistant bacterial infections from the devices. The agency did not, however, require more stringent safety procedures.

"The FDA punted," said Lawrence Muscarella, a healthcare consultant in Pennsylvania and author of a 2014 paper on superbug transmission via duodenoscopes.

FDA spokeswoman Leslie Wooldridge said the agency is continuing to determine what more can be done to reduce duodenoscope-related outbreaks and is also exploring "additional potential strategies to reduce the risk of infections."

MULTIPLE OUTBREAKS

Duodenoscopes, flexible tubes outfitted with tiny lights and advanced cameras, are used to diagnose or treat disorders of the gastrointestinal tract in about 500,000 procedures a year in the United States alone.

In 2009, soon after 16 patients in France were infected with a pathogen after undergoing the procedure, the FDA issued its first notice about the devices, warning the medical community they could transmit dangerous germs from one patient to another.

In 2013, physicians led by the Moffitt Center's Greene reported that endoscopes had transmitted an antibiotic-resistant pathogen to patients at two Tampa hospitals. That year also saw an outbreak from duodenoscopes at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital near Chicago, where 44 patients were infected with virulent, antibiotic-resistant bacteria called CRE, the strain in the UCLA outbreak.

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center had a duodenoscope-related outbreak in 2012. Last month, Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle said a bacteria spread through contaminated scopes had infected 32 people over two years; 11 died.

Infectious disease experts in academia and government who have investigated ways to prevent outbreaks have identified three options, including sterilizing the devices with ethylene oxide gas after each use.

The Pittsburgh medical center "determined that the normal process" of disinfecting recommended by the manufacturer "failed to eliminate all bacteria," said spokeswoman Allison Hydzik. The hospital switched to ethylene-oxide sterilization.

Alternatively, hospitals could swab duodenoscopes after each use to collect any lurking pathogens and quarantine the devices until it is clear they are sterile. Virginia Mason took this approach.

Neither Virginia Mason nor Pittsburgh has had another case of duodenoscope-transmitted superbug infection.

But such steps are expensive.

Duodenoscopes cost about $40,000 and as much as $80,000, and when they are taken out of service for gassing or quarantining a hospital may need to spend an additional $1 million to have enough available, said Muscarella.

A third option would be for the FDA to require manufacturers to redesign the devices. The agency and researchers agree that the most problematic part is a movable "elevator" mechanism at the tip of the duodenoscope: Its moving parts have microscopic crevices where bodily fluids can lurk after standard cleaning.

Fujifilm spokeswoman Diane Rainey said the company is reviewing the FDA safety alert and is "working in cooperation with the FDA to evaluate and respond to concerns" about disease transmission.

Olympus spokesman Mark Miller said the company is "aware of reports of patient infections following procedures involving duodenoscopes," and is "monitoring this issue closely."

Pentax did not immediately respond to questions.

Uber launches food delivery service in Barcelona

Taxi service Uber has begun offering food delivery in Barcelona after being banned from transporting passengers in Spain last year

Taxi service Uber has begun offering food delivery in Barcelona after being banned from transporting passengers in Spain last year.
A new feature named UberEats will provide the “best meals from the best local restaurants in under 10 minutes” and allow the company to maintain a presence in Spain while it fights against the legal ruling.
The company already offers a similar food delivery service in California.
Following protests by the Madrid Taxi Association, which claimed Uber was unfair competition, a judge ordered it to stop operating in December.
The court ruled that it “lacked the administrative authorisation to carry out the job”.

Ordering food through UberEats will take just moments, via the Uber smartphone app, and will be delivered within ten minutes for a cost of around £9 per meal.
“In the same time it takes you to walk up Las Ramblas you can open up your Uber app, choose your meal and get it delivered to an address of your choice,” said employee Carles Lloret in a blog post on the Uber website.
“Payment is easy, as all orders are charged to your registered card so it’s a completely cashless service.”
The company has signed a deal with food recommendation service Plateselector to choose restaurants to work with.
Plateselector co-founder Johann Wald said: “We are fans of their app and are looking forward to contributing our expertise to the UberEATS dining experience.”

Mobile Tapping Is New Level Of Spy Aggression

The monitoring of online communications is one thing, but the reaction to SIM hacking will spark a more visceral reaction.

A year and a half after the Edward Snowden revelations, we go about our days with the weary resignation that everything we do online can probably be tracked by the intelligence services.

Now we have to think about the calls we make and the texts we send on our mobile phones.

Another revelation - this one from The Intercept - and another new level of intrusion.

GCHQ and the NSA hacked into Gemalto, the largest SIM card maker in the world and stole encryption keys. 3G and 4G calls are quite well protected by encryption. But anyone with a key can listen in - and that now includes the security services.
Given all that's been alleged by Snowden (some of which has been officially confirmed by the NSA and GCHQ, some of which has not), how serious is this latest threat?

In terms of mass surveillance, this is unlikely to be on as big a scale. Listening in on hours of phone calls is a lot more work than scanning emails and other online communications by keyword.

But there are two important things. First, this shows the security services breaking into a foreign company's systems to steal personal information that was designed to remained secure.

That feels much more aggressive than dipping into internet traffic as it flows by.
Second, even if fewer people are affected by this type of surveillance, it's a lot more personal.

We've always tended to assume that internet communications are monitored - probably because this is the deal we make with companies like Google and Facebook.

But we expect our private phone calls to be just that: private. No one thinks that mobile networks monitor calls in the same way broadband providers monitor internet traffic.

What we have is a familiarly disturbing scenario: spies literally listening in, eavesdropping, on personal conversation.
The response to Snowden's documents has been fairly muted in the UK.

This could provoke a more visceral reaction.

Apple hiring big brains in car battery space

A year and a half ago, Apple Inc had applied for just eight patents related to auto batteries. Recently, it has hired a bevy of engineers, just one of whom had already filed for 17 in his former career, according to a Thomson Reuters analysis.

The recent spate of hires and patent filings reviewed by Reuters shows that Apple is fast building its industrial lithium-ion battery capabilities, adding to evidence the iPhone maker may be developing a car.

Quiet, clean electric cars are viewed in Silicon Valley and elsewhere as a promising technology for the future, but high costs and "range anxiety", the concern that batteries will run out of power and cannot be recharged quickly, remain obstacles. Those challenges could also be seen as opportunities to find solutions to take the technology mainstream.

The number of auto-related patents filed by Apple, Google Inc, Korea's Samsung, electric carmaker Tesla Motors Inc and ride-sharing startup Uber tripled from 2011 to 2014, according to an analysis by Thomson Reuters IP & Science of public patent filings.

Apple has filed far fewer of these patents than rivals, perhaps adding impetus to its recent hiring binge as it seeks to get up to speed in battery technologies and other car-building related expertise.

As of 18 months ago, Apple had filed for 290 such patents. By contrast, Samsung, which has been providing electric vehicle batteries for some years, had close to 900 filings involving auto battery technology alone.

The U.S. government makes patent applications public only after 18 months, so the figures do not reflect any patents filed in 2014.

Earlier this month, battery maker A123 Systems sued Apple for poaching five top engineers. A search of LinkedIn profiles indicates Apple has hired at least another seven A123 employees and at least 18 employees from Tesla since 2012.

The former A123 employees have expertise primarily in battery cell design, materials development and manufacturing engineering, according to the LinkedIn profiles and an analysis of patent applications.

A123, which filed for bankruptcy in 2012 but has since reorganized, supplied batteries for Fisker Automotive's now-discontinued hybrid electric car.

"Looking at the people Apple is hiring from A123 and their backgrounds, it is hard not to assume they're working on an electric car," said Tom Gage, Chief Executive of EV Grid and a longtime expert in batteries and battery technology.

Apple is building its own battery division, according to the A123 lawsuit. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit reflects how lines between the auto and tech are blurring as Silicon Valley companies from Google to Tesla begin to encroach on Detroit's turf, while automakers develop "connected" vehicles that incorporate the latest applications and Internet services.

So far, sales of pure electric cars in the U.S. and globally are still a tiny slice of a market dominated by internal combustion vehicles. However, Apple and other companies looking to develop electric cars could see opportunity in government mandates and incentives designed to boost sales of vehicles that do not emit carbon dioxide.

Among those Apple hired from A123 is Mujeeb Ijaz, its former chief technology officer who also worked at Ford Motor Co for 16 years. Ijaz has filed for 17 patents during his career, many in the battery sector, according to the Thomson Reuters IP & Science analysis.

All told, the five engineers from A123 have filed for 23 patents -- some three times what Apple has alone, said Thomson Reuters IP & Science. They generally specialize in battery cell and materials design, and manufacturing engineering.

Ijaz was also sued by A123, which said he breached his agreement with the battery maker by going to Apple and recruiting other A123 engineers.

U.S. government urges Lenovo customers to remove Superfish software

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Friday advised Lenovo Group Ltd customers to remove a software program known as "Superfish," which the agency said the world's No. 1 PC maker started installing on machines as early as 2010.

The Department of Homeland Security said in an alert released through its National Cyber Awareness System that the software made users vulnerable to a type of cyberattack known as SSL spoofing.

That could allow a remote attacker to read encrypted web browser traffic, spoof websites and perform other attacks on Lenovo PCs with the software installed, DHS said in the warning.

"Systems that came with the software already installed will continue to be vulnerable until corrective actions have been taken," the agency said.

Lenovo describes Superfish as a piece of software that it believed would "enhance the shopping experience" for its customers. The software alters search results, a feature that Lenovo said led to complaints from some customers. The company inititally said it stopped shipping the software because of complaints about features, not a security vulnerability.

"We have thoroughly investigated this technology and do not find any evidence to substantiate security concerns," the company said in a statement to Reuters early on Thursday.

On Friday, Lenovo spokesman Brion Tingler said the company's initial findings were flawed and that it was now advising customers to remove the software.

"We should have known about this sooner," Tingler said in an email. "And if we could go back, we never would have installed this software on our machines. But we can't, so we are dealing with this head on."

Lenovo did not say how many machines were affected, but said on Thursday that only machines shipped from September to December of last year had been pre-loaded with the software.

Tingler told Reuters on Friday that he could not explain why DHS said it had been installed as early as 2010.

Affected machines include models in Lenovo's Yoga, Flex and MiiX lines as well as its E, G, U, Y and Z series, according to a security advisory on the company's support website, which ranked the impact of the vulnerability as "severe." (lnv.gy/1LiWKX2)

That advisory said Lenovo had asked the company that produces Superfish to "disable all server activity associated with their product."

On U.S. net neutrality rules, 11th-hour push against vague rule

As the U.S. Federal Communications Commission prepares to vote on new rules for high-speed Internet service, one aspect of the rules is drawing criticism from both opponents and proponents of tighter regulation.

The FCC, which is set to vote next week to regulate Internet service providers more like traditional telephone companies, has introduced a so-called "general conduct" provision in the latest version of the rules that aim to ensure net neutrality, the principle that all web traffic should be treated equally.

In the general conduct provision, the FCC will say that Internet providers' actions cannot be harmful to consumers or content providers, and will outline seven elements that the regulators would consider in reviewing potential violations of that standard, agency officials have said.

But the Internet providers, who reject the tougher regulatory regime, as well as advocates of stronger regulation, both say that this general conduct provision is too vague. They have made a last-ditch effort to push for changes, according to FCC disclosures, filings and interviews with lobbyists and activists.

Although the FCC has not publicly disclosed specifics of the seven factors, an FCC spokeswoman told Reuters that three of those guidance criteria are related to impact on competition, innovation, and free expression.

Industry sources say the other four criteria focus on impact on broadband deployment and investments; whether actions in question are specific to some applications and not others; whether they comply with industry best standards and practices; and whether they take place without the awareness of the end-user, the Internet subscriber.

Telecom and cable lobbyists say the rules' vague guidelines could effectively require the companies to consult the FCC every time they want to create a new service, to make sure it doesn't run afoul of the rule.

Net neutrality advocates for their part, worry that the rules will lack clarity for both the Internet providers and potential complainants, making them harder to administer and potentially leading to arbitrary interpretation.

RARE AGREEMENT BY TWO SIDES

"A 'general conduct rule,' applied on a case-by-case basis with the only touchstone being whether a given practice 'harms' consumers or edge providers, may lead to years of expensive litigation to determine the meaning of 'harm' (for those who can afford to engage in it)," the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a net neutrality advocate, said in a filing submitted on Thursday.

The shared concern by industry groups and activists is a rare example of the two sides being aligned in the long-running debate over whether Internet service providers should be subject to tighter regulation.

Net neutrality advocacy groups have for years sought stricter regulations, including a ban on Internet providers blocking or unfairly slowing down any web content or providing faster access in return for payment.

Companies say they don't oppose those specific rules, but that a stringent new regulatory regime would stifle investment.

The Federal Communications Commission will vote on the new rules on Feb. 26. Lobbyists say the FCC is unlikely to change the general conduct rule so late before the vote, but the matter is expected to spill over into Congress, where Republican lawmakers hope to counter FCC's regulations with new laws.

Google's YouTube to launch subscription music service in 'few months'

Google Inc is set to launch its paid monthly subscription service called YouTube Music Key in a few months, Robert Kyncl, the online video service's head of content and business operations, said at the Code/Media conference.

The company was "fine-tuning the experience", Kyncl said at the conference in California, according to a Google spokeswoman.

Cyberbullying could affect children as young as five

Parents assue cyberbullying is not a problem until children begin to use social media, when in reality children as young as five may be browsing the web unsupervised, a study has found

The majority of parents assume cyberbullying is not an issue before a child turns 10, while children as young as five are left to browse the internet unsupervised, a study has found.
The research, conducted as part of Safer Internet Day, found that many parents feel ill-equipped when it comes to dealing with the issue of cyberbullying, with some saying there was not enough support to help them understand and protect children from online dangers.
The preconception that cyberbullying stems from children's use of social media, which many parents suggested their children did not use, is undercut by some as young as five using instant messaging and online games, leaving them exposing to inappropriate content or cyberbullying.
"We still don’t know all about it because it’s new to us," one parent told internet security firm Kaspersky Lab, which conducted the research. "They know more about the technology half the time than we do, so we feel a bit in the dark.”
“The term cyberbullying might not be one that parents want to highlight to their young children, but online behaviour and safety should go hand-in-hand with teaching them not to talk to strangers," David Emm, principal security researcher at Kaspersky Lab said.

Parents may feel that educating young children about online dangers is a minefield, however rather than feeling overwhelmed or unsure of how to tackle the issue, it may help to remember that the same dangers and advice apply when using the internet as they do in the real world.
"We encourage parents to talk openly about it as soon as their children start interacting online – which may be younger than they think. This will ensure that parents and children stay one step ahead of the cyberbullies and other online nasties, rather than vulnerable to attack due to a lack of awareness.”

Shell to allow customers to pay for petrol on their mobile phone

PayPal app users will be able to pay for fuel at Shell petrol stations on their mobile phones, the companies have announced

The vast majority of Shell’s 1,000 outlets will permit the app’s users to select their chosen petrol pump at each station, allowing customers to then fill up their cars. A receipt will be sent to the phone after fuelling is complete.
After a successful pilot in 2013, the service will be available to Shell Drivers Club members from April and then nationwide later in 2015 through both the PayPal app and the Shell Motorist app.
Michael Hominick, Retail Marketing Manager at Shell UK, claimed “Customers will now have the flexibility and convenience of paying without having to leave their car. Those who want to go in store and pay or purchase other items will still be able to, with the benefit of reduced queues.”
Rob Harper, Director of Mobile Commerce at PayPal UK added that “We’ve always believed people will use their mobile phones to pay if there’s a clear benefit.”
The PayPal app is already accepted in more than 8,000 UK shops and restaurants, and is used through some 19 million active British accounts.

Last year the company, which is being split off from parent company eBay, announced it would allow users to order and pay for food or services ahead and then collect them at a set time.
Takeaways were offered at popular chains including Wagamama, burger chain GBK and Italian restaurant Prezzo.

Internet revolution: Why broadband matters more than the railways

Two million homes are now connected to superfast broadband. Matt Warman hails a revolution

In July 1991, the world wide web was accessed from the UK for the first time; fast forward just 24 years and millions use it every day to shop, sell, watch films and work. Often all at the same time. The growth of access to the web has been more rapid and more radical than the growth of motorways, the railways, the postal service and arguably even mains water. It has allowed everybody to do things that simply weren’t possible before and it has scarcely begun to really influence our lives.
Today the government announced that 2million homes and businesses now have access to superfast broadband, offering genuinely instant access to HD video, to the ability to work from home and to use phones, tablets games consoles and more simultaneously. The suggestion is that the target of 95 per cent of UK citizens having access to the web is in sight, and on track for the hoped-for 2017. With communications regulator Ofcom reporting that broadband data usage is doubling every year, it can’t come soon enough.
Getting here has been a troubled journey, and it’s not over yet. The initial target was for 90 per cent coverage by 2015, and many question whether the dash for speed of connection rather than geographical range has produced the right kind of benefits. While European Union funding has helped remote areas such as Cornwall, much of London and other major cities continue to have slow speeds because huge numbers of people seek to use limited resources and it’s harder to organise installation of improved equipment. The effect is to produce a very mixed map where many speeds remain far below those that service providers advertise.
But by focusing on speed, and with the help of PR initiatives such as London’s Tech City, the UK has burnished its reputation as Europe’s technology trailblazer. And all the while in the background the real work, largely in conjunction with BT, has been going on across the country.
This has involved the hiring of hundreds of former military personnel and billions of pounds in public money. Controversial as it is, many now think the plan of getting local authorities to run projects might have been better organised as a single national programme, and controversy continues to surround BT’s alleged failure to be more open about where and when it is planning to deploy upgrades.

But in conjunction with pilot projects, from church tower radiowave systems to satellite broadband, Britain has become the most digital nation in Europe.
The challenge that remains – aside from the completion of the project – is now threefold. First, the technological hurdles that prevent a full, superfast nation to rival South Korea and other world leaders must still be overcome. This in part is why politicians such as Boris Johnson have promised 5G mobile phones in London by 2020 and why 850,000 homes are to get access to satellite broadband sooner rather than later. Second, consumers must be persuaded to take up the services now offered, having been convinced that they are neither too expensive nor without real-life uses for both work and play.
But third, Britain needs a culture change: above all else, the web allows a revolution in schooling, healthcare, work and leisure for one simple reason. It can now happen wherever, whenever and however people want. But progress will not really happen so long as schools insist on pupils attending physical classes regardless of whether they’re best for that particular lesson, so long as patients remains sceptical of consultations over Skype and so long as businesses continue the idiocy of believing working from home is the same as a day off, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Those changes will come eventually, in part because they are an economic necessity. Just as online shopping has changed our town centres – for better and for worse – so too online everything else will alter rush hour, our need for infrastructure and the assumption that the best businesses base themselves in our biggest cities. Passing 2million premises may sound like it’s a big deal, but for the web it’s just a stepping stone to something much bigger.

Watch live: SpaceX attempts to launch DISCOVR satellite

Launch delayed until Tuesday. Watch live as SpaceX attempts both the launch of a deep-space observatory and a revolutionary rocket-landing within minutes of each other at Cape Canaveral in Florida.

A SpaceX rocket will attempt to launch a US satellite from deep storage to deep space, where it will keep tabs on solar storms and image Earth from nearly 1 million miles away.
The Falcon 9 rocket is targeted for launch at 6:07pm EST (11:07pm GMT) on Monday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Perched on top of the booster is the Deep Space Climate Observatory, nicknamed DSCOVR, which is jointly owned by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The launch was originally scheduled to take place on Sunday, but was halted with just two-and-a-half minutes to go because of a problem with a rocket-tracking system.

watch here

Nasa reveals far side of the Moon

Nasa has released a view of the Moon that cannot be seen from Earth.
Using nearly five-years of mapping data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the space agency has created footage showing what it is like on the far side.
The far side of the Moon is home to a scarred area known as the South Pole-Aitken, one of the largest and oldest 'impacts' in the solar system.

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Teenager Arrested Over 'Dangerous' Swat Attack

A 19-year-old who uses the online handle Famed God has been arrested on suspicion of being behind a swatting prank.

Swatting is carried out by people who report a fake emergency to police - such as gunshots and screaming - at the address of a supposed "victim".

Armed officers then swoop, smashing down doors and firing smoke grenades as they carry out an assault on the property - only to learn later that it is a hoax.

Brandon Wilson was held in connection with a July swatting incident in suburban Illinois.

He faces an extradition hearing to decide whether he should be sent there from his home state of Nevada.

He is accused of reporting a murder to Naperville's emergency services. A SWAT team responded but established that it was a hoax call.

Wilson is also alleged to have hacked into the consoles of two individuals, and making threats to access their personal and financial records.

If found guilty, he could face up to five years in prison.

Illinois state attorney James Glasgow called swatting a "dangerous prank".

A new law being drafted in the state could also see perpetrators of swatting pranks being forced to pay the costs of sending out emergency response teams.
watch here

Qualcomm Slapped With $975m Record China Fine

US chip-maker Qualcomm has said it will not contest a $975m (£640m) fine imposed by China - the largest such penalty in the country's history.

The deal followed a 14-month investigation into anti-competitive practices amid allegations Qualcomm abused its market position by charging excessive fees for technology used in smartphones.

China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said it had required the firm to lower its royalty rates on patents used in China, likely helping local smartphone makers such as Xiaomi and Huawei.

Beijing has been investigating a number of foreign firms in what appears to be an effort to force down prices.

The Qualcomm penalty was twice the size of the $492m (£297m) fine imposed on British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline last September for bribery.

Derek Aberle, president of Qualcomm, said: "We are pleased that the investigation has concluded and believe that our licensing business is now well positioned to fully participate in China's rapidly accelerating adoption of our 3G/4G technology.

Qualcomm makes most of its profit from licensing fees paid by companies that use its chips.

China accounts for about half the company's revenue.

Qualcomm said the agreement removed a major source of concern for its investors and a cut to its full-year earnings estimate did not dent demand for its stock, with shares of the San Diego-based firm rising almost 3% in after-hours trading.

Asked whether the resolution in China could affect the outcome of ongoing antitrust probes into Qualcomm in Europe and the US, Mr Aberle added: "We fully respect their authority, but we don't believe it's likely that other agencies will necessarily meet similar conclusions."

Xu Kunlin, head of the NDRC's anti-monopoly bureau, said: "Issuing the fine was not our primary purpose.

"Our purpose was to restore orderly, free-market competition. Qualcomm's practices had stifled innovation."

He insisted the intention of the country's investigations was to ensure a level playing field, rather than force foreign firms out of China.

But he added that time was needed to "guide" the prices of mobile phones.

Lucky charms really do help in quest for love

Lucky talismans and charms provide a welcome boost in confidence during the search for The One, match.com has found

When it comes to finding love, having a lucky charm on your side can make all the difference, according to the world's biggest dating site.
Match.com decided to test the theory by handing half the attendees at a singles event a rose quartz stone or bracelet on their way in, a crystal believed to radiate a powerful energy that resonates with the heart chakra.
Those who had been given a charm were 67 per cent more likely to describe their night as successful than those who had not. Almost three quarters (73 per cent) of the charm carriers said they were more successful in meeting a prospective partner than at similar events in the past, compared to just 40 per cent of those who were charm-less: an increase of 83 per cent.
The guests themselves, however, were less convinced. Just 30 per cent of the total attendees said they believed in the power of lucky charms, while 80 per cent of the rose quartz carriers said they felt lucky during the course of the evening, compared with just half (52 per cent) of those who hadn’t.
Professor Richard Wiseman believes the experiment attests that lucky talismans, from crystals and lucky pants to rabbit's feet and four leaf clovers, can help to put singletons in the right frame of mind to find love.

“The aim of this study was to find out how daters can increase their chances of success by making tiny changes to their behaviour," he said. "What we’ve discovered is that even something as small and inconsequential as a quartz stone can have a huge effect on people’s behaviour by putting them in a more positive or ‘lucky’ frame of mind. Singles are more likely to mingle if they feel lucky – in short, when it comes to the dating game, you really do make your own luck!”
Professor Wiseman added that studies have consistently shown that lucky charms do work in a number of different areas of life, and that dating is clearly no different. "It may sound strange, but if you have a lucky charm then you really are more likely to make your own luck,” he said.
Researchers at the University of Cologne claimed to have proven that belief in good luck enhanced a golfer's performance in 2010.
However, believing in their own good fortune only helps people in situations where they have a control over their own performance, and not in situations of pure chance such as playing the lottery or betting on horses.

Watch A Robot Dog Recover From Being Kicked

A robotic dog has been created which can even withstand a hefty kick from a human.

The device known as Spot was created by Google-owned Boston Dynamics and has four hydraulic legs, a sensor head and the ability to navigate challenging terrain.

It can keep up with running humans with an equine-like canter, and video shows it managing to stay upright even after someone kicks it from the side.

It is lighter than most of the firm's other robots and can be used both indoors and outdoors.

Spot could one day be used to help with search and rescue missions, mapping out areas, and accessing disaster zones.

Boston Dynamics has previously created a much larger dog-like robot called BigDog, but the latest development appears to be faster and more agile.

The company has also created RiSE, a robot which can climb vertical surfaces like walls and trees, as well as human-like robots called Atlas and Petman.

Google acquired Boston Dynamics in 2013 but the price was kept secret.
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Samsung crams 28MP sensor and 4K video recording into compact camera

Samsung has launched a new camera that packs the core functionality of its top-of-the-range NX1 camera into a portable, compact device designed for everyday use.
Like the NX1, the NX500 camera features an ultra-high resolution 28 Megapixel back side illumination APS-C sensor, making it ideal for taking vivid pictures, even in low light conditions. It is also equipped with a DRIMeV processor, which boasts high-quality colour reproduction and enhanced image quality.
The camera's hybrid autofocus system means that users can capture crisp images by simply pointing and shooting, and it also has a continuous shooting mode, which means they can take ongoing action shots at 9 frames per second.

WiFi, NFC and Bluetooth are all built-in, allowing users to send both large images and video files swiftly to other smartphones and tablets, and the camera has a 3-inch AMOLED touchscreen display that can be flipped up and tilted to help with taking selfies.
"In today's world, we can see many people around us are actively using social media, and constantly sharing their daily life with friends and family," said Samsung.
"This trend drives people's desire to capture all their precious moments with ease and clarity, and then share them with others. This motivation in turn has created an incredible demand for more advanced camera technologies than ever before."
The NX500 supports 4K video for recording in ultra high-definition. Still images captured can also be converted into a time-lapse videos directly on the camera, without the need to transfer images to a PC.
The camera uses advanced compression technology to shrink the video clips to half the size and the bit rate of H.264 footage for storage, without compromising on quality.
The NX500 has an attractive retro design and will be available in black, white and brown from March 2015, costing $800 (£600).

Chimpanzees change accent to fit in with friends

Two groups of chimps who merged at Edinburgh Zoo started grunting like each other within three years, scientists found.

Most people will find that their accents change subtly if they spend enough time in a different area or country.
But it seems the same is true of chimpanzees.
Scientists have discovered that when groups of chimps merge, they alter their accents until they are all grunting in the same manner.
The ability to modify vocalisations to fit in with social groups was believed to be a purely human trait until now.
"Our study shows that chimpanzee referential food calls are not fixed in their structure and that, when exposed to a new social group, chimpanzees can change their calls to sound more like their group mates," says Katie Slocombe of the University of York.

Chimpanzees have special grunts for particular types of foods, and their fellow chimps know exactly what those calls mean.
Scientists looked at how the grunt for 'apple' changed over a three year period when a groups of chimps merged at Edinburgh Zoo.
They found that the high-pitched calls of one group converged wiht the low-pitch noise of the other group as they got to know each other better, until it was identical.
"We think it's quite easy to hear how the two groups called in different ways for apples in 2010, and how by 2013 the Dutch individuals changed their grunts to sound more like Edinburgh individuals," says Stuart Watson, also from the University of York.

Given the relatively short evolutionary distance between humans and chimpanzees -- five to seven million years--scientists say it suggests that our most recent common ancestor with chimpanzees also shared an important "building block" of language.
"It would be really exciting to try and find out why chimpanzees are motivated to sound more similar to their group mates," adds Simon Townsend of the University of Zurich, who was also involved in the study.
"Is it so that they can be better understood? Or is it just to sound more similar to their friends?"

Pictures of the day: 6 February 2015

Shamba, a 56-year-old female western lowland gorilla, picks raisins out of a hard plastic board with holes in at ZooAtlanta in Atlanta. Shamba and two other geriatric gorillas are given special attention and enrichment activities when they cannot venture outside the ape house due to cold temperatures

Prototype robot fireman unveiled by US Navy

US Navy scientists have unveiled a prototype fire-fighting robot.
The Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot is the size of a human and is capable of detecting fires.
It can withstand higher heat for longer periods than humans
watch Video here

Alcatel-Lucent aims for improved margins, end of turnaround

Telecom equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent pledged to lift profitability again this year through cost cuts after six straight quarters of gross margin improvements, and to list its submarine division in the second half.

Chief Executive Michel Combes also expressed confidence on Friday that the company would achieve the central pledge of his turnaround plan which started in June 2013, namely to achieve positive free cash flow by the end of this year.

Alcatel-Lucent, which competes with Sweden's Ericsson , China's Huawei and Finland's Nokia , has not posted regular profits or cash flow since its creation in 2006 because it is smaller in the mobile sector than rivals and faces tough competition from Chinese vendors.

Last year, it spent 420 million euros ($481 million) more than it made in cash from operations.

Nevertheless, there were signs that Combes' efforts have begun to pay off. Fourth-quarter sales fell 6 percent to 3.68 billion euros ($4.2 billion), though operating profit doubled from a year earlier to reach 284 million euros.

However, initial market reaction was negative, with the shares opening 3.5 perecent lower in Paris.

Alcatel-Lucent's shares had risen 6.5 percent this year, giving the group a market capitalisation of 8.9 billion euros.

COST CUTS

Cost cuts on everything from real estate to staff helped the company increase gross margins to 34.7 percent from 33.4 percent in the same period a year ago.

Analysts had expected fourth-quarter sales of 3.69 billion euros and a gross margin of 33.9 percent, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Net income was forecast at 201 million euros.

"These earnings demonstrate clearly that Alcatel-Lucent is back in the game," Combes said on a conference call.

Since Combes arrived at Alcatel-Lucent, the company has laid off 10,000 people, sold assets worth about 600 million euros, and done a 1 billion euro capital increase to shore up its finances.

The last expected asset sale is the initial public offering of the submarine division, which lays undersea cables that are the backbone of the Internet.

Chief Financial Officer Jean Raby said preparations for the listing were on track and it would take place in the second half of the year, depending on market conditions.

Many analysts now see such Internet equipment as the future of the company, distinguishing it from larger rivals Ericsson and Nokia and taking it into competition with Cisco.

Combes has also pushed Alcatel-Lucent to begin selling such Internet equipment to multinational companies and governments, diversifying outside its traditional customer base of major telecom operators like AT&T and Telefonica.

"This is a key push for us in the coming quarters," he said, adding that about 15 percent of IP routing sales were now coming from such non-telecom customers.

Google panel backs firm on EU limit to 'right to be forgotten'

A panel of experts appointed by Google to advise it on how to implement an EU ruling ordering it to remove links to some personal information from search results has backed the company's view that links be removed only from websites in the EU.

EU regulators have taken a different view.

Google set up its eight-member panel last year to draw up a report, published on Friday, on how to implement the surprise "right to be forgotten" ruling from the European Court of Justice in May. The conclusion had been expected.

The panel judged that the internet search giant should only remove links to personal information deemed inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant from its European Union websites, such as google.de in Germany or google.fr in France.

That puts the Advisory Council at odds with the EU's data protection regulators. They said Google should remove links worldwide, including from google.com.

"It concludes that removal from nationally directed versions of Google's search services within the EU is the appropriate means to implement the Ruling at this stage." the council said in the report.

The panel, which includes a former German justice minister and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, held public hearings across Europe.

The World’s Email Encryption Software Relies on One Guy, Who is Going Broke

The man who built the free email encryption software used by whistleblower Edward Snowden, as well as hundreds of thousands of journalists, dissidents and security-minded people around the world, is running out of money to keep his project alive.

Werner Koch wrote the software, known as Gnu Privacy Guard, in 1997, and since then has been almost single-handedly keeping it alive with patches and updates from his home in Erkrath, Germany. Now 53, he is running out of money and patience with being underfunded.

"I'm too idealistic," he told me in an interview at a hacker convention in Germany in December. "In early 2013 I was really about to give it all up and take a straight job." But then the Snowden news broke, and "I realized this was not the time to cancel."

Like many people who build security software, Koch believes that offering the underlying software code for free is the best way to demonstrate that there are no hidden backdoors in it giving access to spy agencies or others. However, this means that many important computer security tools are built and maintained by volunteers.

Now, more than a year after Snowden's revelations, Koch is still struggling to raise enough money to pay himself and to fulfill his dream of hiring a full-time programmer. He says he's made about $25,000 per year since 2001 — a fraction of what he could earn in private industry. In December, he launched a fundraising campaign that has garnered about $43,000 to date — far short of his goal of $137,000 — which would allow him to pay himself a decent salary and hire a full-time developer.

The fact that so much of the Internet's security software is underfunded is becoming increasingly problematic. Last year, in the wake of the Heartbleed bug, I wrote that while the U.S. spends more than $50 billion per year on spying and intelligence, pennies go to Internet security. The bug revealed that an encryption program used by everybody from Amazon to Twitter was maintained by just four programmers, only one of whom called it his full-time job. A group of tech companies stepped in to fund it.

Koch's code powers most of the popular email encryption programs GPGTools, Enigmail, and GPG4Win. "If there is one nightmare that we fear, then it's the fact that Werner Koch is no longer available," said Enigmail developer Nicolai Josuttis. "It's a shame that he is alone and that he has such a bad financial situation."

The programs are also underfunded. Enigmail is maintained by two developers in their spare time. Both have other full-time jobs. Enigmail's lead developer, Patrick Brunschwig, told me that Enigmail receives about $1,000 a year in donations — just enough to keep the website online.

GPGTools, which allows users to encrypt email from Apple Mail, announced in October that it would start charging users a small fee. The other popular program, GPG4Win, is run by Koch himself.

Email encryption first became available to the public in 1991, when Phil Zimmermann released a free program called Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP, on the Internet. Prior to that, powerful computer-enabled encryption was only available to the government and large companies that could pay licensing fees. The U.S. government subsequently investigated Zimmermann for violating arms trafficking laws because high-powered encryption was subject to export restrictions.

In 1997, Koch attended a talk by free software evangelist Richard Stallman, who was visiting Germany. Stallman urged the crowd to write their own version of PGP. "We can't export it, but if you write it, we can import it," he said.

Inspired, Koch decided to try. "I figured I can do it," he recalled. He had some time between consulting projects. Within a few months, he released an initial version of the software he called Gnu Privacy Guard, a play on PGP and an homage to Stallman's free Gnu operating system.

Koch's software was a hit even though it only ran on the Unix operating system. It was free, the underlying software code was open for developers to inspect and improve, and it wasn't subject to U.S. export restrictions.

Koch continued to work on GPG in between consulting projects until 1999, when the German government gave him a grant to make GPG compatible with the Microsoft Windows operating system. The money allowed him to hire a programmer to maintain the software while also building the Windows version, which became GPG4Win. This remains the primary free encryption program for Windows machines.

In 2005, Koch won another contract from the German government to support the development of another email encryption method. But in 2010, the funding ran out.

For almost two years, Koch continued to pay his programmer in the hope that he could find more funding. "But nothing came," Koch recalled. So, in August 2012, he had to let the programmer go. By summer 2013, Koch was himself ready to quit.

But after the Snowden news broke, Koch decided to launch a fundraising campaign. He set up an appeal at a crowdsourcing website, made t-shirts and stickers to give to donors, and advertised it on his website. In the end, he earned just $21,000.

The campaign gave Koch, who has an 8-year-old daughter and a wife who isn't working, some breathing room. But when I asked him what he will do when the current batch of money runs out, he shrugged and said he prefers not to think about it. "I'm very glad that there is money for the next three months," Koch said. "Really I am better at programming than this business stuff."