Saturday, March 22, 2014

drag2share: Time Warner Cable says 'me too,' issues first transparency report

source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/22/time-warner-cable-transparency-report/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

Not to be outdone by its competitors (or future owner), Time Warner Cable has released a transparency report of its own. From January to June last year, the telco obeyed some 12,000 information requests from the government that break down as such. Of the legal requests, 82 percent were for subpoenas, 12 percent were for court orders and four percent related to search warrants. Seventy-seven percent of the time that data was requested, it was subscriber and transactional info that was disclosed, 20 percent resulted in no data shared at all and three percent of the time, content information was disclosed. Because the report doesn't give exact numbers, though, comparing the precise amount of requests that TWC handled with its competitors isn't exactly easy.

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drag2share: Google's 3D-sensing phones are taking a trip to the International Space Station

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/21/googles-project-tango-space-station/

It's arguably cool enough that Google is working on smartphones that can scan your surroundings, but now those devices are slated to take a spin in space too. How's that for living in the future? NASA first started sticking smartphones to machines back in 2011 when it used Samsung's Nexus S as the brains for a trio of robotic SPHERES satellite that use bursts of carbon dioxide to putter around the International Space Station. Those aging handsets will soon get the boot, as two of Google's Project Tango smartphones will hitch a ride on Orbital's Cygnus spacecraft when it resupplies the ISS in May. Why? The space agency is interested in seeing if the phone's spatial sensing abilities can help those floating robots navigate their surroundings better than they can right now. If it's lucky, NASA's zeal to upgrade the SPHERES' brains could ultimately lead to the development of a roaming robot that works as well outside the station (or around an asteroid) as it does inside a tin can hurtling around the earth.

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Source: PCWorld

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drag2share: There's Been A Big Breach Of Patient Data In California

source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/OdhIzOBpsbI/patient-data-breach-in-california-2014-3

Computer hacker

The Social Security numbers and billing information of hundreds of thousands of patients in San Francisco and Los Angeles have been stolen after a break-in at a billing contractor.

The information was stored on computers that were stolen from Sutherland Healthcare Solutions in Torrance, Calif., which provides billing services for the health departments of Los Angeles County and San Francisco.

The breach affects 55,900 patients in San Francisco and 168,500 patients in Los Angeles County.

Most of the affected patients are uninsured, according to a press release from the San Francisco Department of Public Health. 

Personal information that was compromised includes names, billing information, some social security numbers, dates and locations of services, and dates of birth.

The theft underscores the dangerous possibility of data being stolen from contracted companies that have been entrusted with thousands of people's sensitive personal information.

Los Angeles County Assistant Auditor-Controller Robert Campbell told the Los Angeles Times that he's "not aware of another breach of this significance ever having occurred."

The health departments are notifying those affected by mail, but it might be challenging to reach everyone because some patients might have changed addresses or have difficulty receiving mail, said Rachael Kagan, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco Department of Public Health. San Francisco is also organizing other outreach efforts to track down affected patients.

Free credit monitoring will be offered to those whose information might have been compromised.

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Friday, March 21, 2014

drag2share: The War On Cancer: Enemy Of The State

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-war-on-cancer-enemy-of-the-state-2014-3

Cancer cellsHow one doctor helped develop the weapons to battle cancer.

Hopes were high when Richard Nixon declared war on cancer in 1971. If scientists could build a nuclear bomb, send a man to the moon and cure polio, they could surely defeat cancer.

But over 40 years later millions still die from the diseases that fall under this broad banner. Can it therefore be said that the war on cancer has failed?

No, says Paul Marks in "On The Cancer Frontier". But the goal should be containment, not victory, because the enemy is uniquely intractable. Cancer sabotages cells, then uses their resources to destroy the body. Treatments often kill good cells along with the bad. Even when forced to retreat, cancers return in more potent forms. "Medical science has never faced a more inscrutable, more mutable, or more ruthless adversary," says Dr Marks.

He would know. As the former head of Memorial Sloan-Kettering, a leading cancer centre in New York, Dr Marks has taken part in many of the developments that have enhanced the understanding of the disease. Like an intellectual Forrest Gump, he has worked with Nobel prizewinners, counselled first ladies and been sought out by a shah.

But it is the story behind the science that makes this book a compelling read, even for non-boffins, who can rely on good metaphors to decipher the jargon. (A virus that contains only RNA, and no DNA, is like "a functioning automobile with a transmission but no engine".)

Human cells mystified scientists until the 1950s, when James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA. As researchers began to unravel how cells worked they also began to understand how cancer attacked and reprogrammed them. But the medical community, long focused on visible symptoms, was slow to embrace the idea of looking at cancer from the inside out. And when the government ! began po uring money into the anti-cancer effort in the 1970s, the debate over how to confront the scourge intensified.

Although the science behind cancer was still in its infancy, some argued that the funds should go to finding cures quickly based on existing, but incomplete, leads--the "moon shot" approach. Penicillin, after all, had been discovered without anyone knowing its exact molecular workings. Sceptical scientists wanted to continue studying cancer’s biology--they still hardly knew how the enemy worked. But Nixon’s war led to high expectations. "The politics had got way ahead of the science," says Dr Marks. The result was a muddled policy and a disappointed public.

Nevertheless Dr Marks claims America is winning this particular war. The death rate from cancer has fallen, though total deaths are up because of a growing and ageing population. If Dr Marks is right, then some of the credit must go to efforts aimed at prevention--the fact that Americans smoke less than they used to has little to do with advances in cellular biology. But he gives this short shrift. And though he encourages screening in order to catch more cancers early, he makes little of the controversy surrounding the needless treatments that can result.

These quibbles hardly detract from Dr Marks’s fascinating journey through the world of cancer research. Scientists have made great strides in working out how cancer cells conduct their guerrilla war on the body. As a result, they have been able to develop precision weapons to replace the carpet-bombing treatments of old. Cancer is now a less lethal enemy. Still, Dr Marks doubts it can be eliminated. Many will have trouble seeing that as success.

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drag2share: Just Tap Your Phone On Every Wall and This App Will Draw a Floorplan

Source: http://gizmodo.com/just-tap-your-phone-on-every-wall-and-this-app-will-dra-1548674446

Just Tap Your Phone On Every Wall and This App Will Draw a Floorplan

It's not a bad idea to measure a room before you go out and buy a bunch of new furniture. And if you've got an iPhone, that becomes less of an ordeal because you can trade your tape measure for this slick app called RoomScan. It automatically generates floorplans by simply tapping your phone on every wall.

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