Slashdot Mirror

First, a Canadian diplomat on Thursday contradicted what he'd said on Wednesday, according to a story shared by hackingbear: John McCallum, Canada's ambassador in China, appeared to provide legal advice to Meng Wanzhou, who is fighting extradition to the U.S. over fraud allegations. Saying she had a "strong case", McCallum outlined numerous weaknesses of the legal proceedings: political interference from Donald Trump, the extraterritorial nature of the charges and the fact that Canada is not party to American sanctions against Iran.

"I regret that my comments with respect to the legal proceedings of Ms Meng have created confusion. I misspoke," McCallum said in a statement released late on Thursday afternoon. "These comments do not accurately represent my position on the issue. As the government has consistently made clear, there has been no political involvement in this process."
But ABC News reports that the same diplomat then said Friday that it would be "great" for Canada if the U.S. dropped its extradition request, "in what seem like off script remarks again...."

"The Canadian government didn't return multiple messages in response to questions about whether McCallum is speaking for the Canadian government."

UPDATE (1/26/2019): "Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has fired Canada's ambassador to China, John McCallum," reports the BBC.

"Britain's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has threatened prominent social media stars with heavy fines or prison time if they advertise commercial products on social media without making it clear that they are doing so in exchange for financial rewards," writes Slashdot reader dryriver. The BBC reports: Sixteen social media stars including singers Ellie Goulding and Rita Ora, models Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Alexa Chung, and vlogger Zoella have agreed to change how they post online. They will have to clearly state if they have been paid or received any gifts or loans of products they endorse. It follows warnings from the Competition and Markets Authority that their posts could break consumer law. Online endorsements can boost brands but can also mislead, said the CMA. The CMA has not made a finding on whether the influencers named breached consumer law, but said all of them volunteered to change their practices following an investigation. However, if they fail to comply with the agreement reached with the CMA, they could be taken to court and face heavy fines or prison sentences of up to two years.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday it will pursue the extradition of the chief financial officer of China's Huawei, arrested in Canada in December. The United States has accused Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou of misrepresenting the company's links to a firm that tried to sell equipment to Iran despite U.S. sanctions. The arrest soured relations between Canada and China, with China subsequently detaining two Canadian citizens and sentencing a third to death. The United States must file a formal request for extradition by Jan. 30. Once a formal request is received, a Canadian court has 30 days to determine whether there is enough evidence to support extradition and the Canadian minister of justice must issue a formal order. Canada has not asked the United States to abandon its bid to have Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou extradited, Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. "We will continue to pursue the extradition of defendant Ms. Meng Wanzhou, and will meet all deadlines set by the U.S./Canada Extradition Treaty," Justice Department spokesman Marc Raimondi said in a statement. "We greatly appreciate Canada's continuing support of our mutual efforts to enforce the rule of law."

Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a separate report from the BBC: The chairman of Chinese tech giant Huawei has warned his company could shift away from the U.S. and the U.K. if it continues to face restrictions. Huawei has been under scrutiny by Western governments, which fear its products could be used for spying. Speaking at the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Mr Liang Hua said his firm might transfer technology to countries "where we are welcomed." Huawei makes smartphones but is also a world leader in telecoms infrastructure, in particular the next generation of mobile phone networks, known as 5G.

Imagine a laboratory growing human hearts - and imagine that laboratory floating in space hundreds of miles above the surface of the Earth. That may sound like science fiction, but bizarre as it seems, it could bring new hope for transplant patients within the next decade. From a report: While about 7,600 heart transplants were carried out around the world in 2017, there's a desperate shortage of organs, with thousands of people on waiting lists dying every year. Efforts to grow human hearts in the lab are showing promise, but are hampered by the need for the organs to grow around a "scaffolding" to make sure they don't collapse during the process. Reliably removing the scaffolding once the heart is complete is proving to be a challenge.

Space tech company Techshot believes zero gravity could be the answer. The International Space Station (ISS) is in constant freefall around the planet, meaning that anything inside experiences effective weightlessness, known technically as microgravity. This means organs could be grown without the need for any scaffolding, believes Rich Boling, the firm's vice-president of corporate advancement. One day hearts could be grown commercially for transplant, Techshot believes. [...] Developed in partnership with Nasa, Techshot's BioFabrication Facility (BFF) is a microwave oven-sized device that uses 3D printing techniques to create patches for heart repairs using a patient's own stem cells.

Tourism operators in Australia claim inaccuracies in Google Maps are deterring potential visitors, by making remote attractions appear further away than they actually are. From a report: The Queensland government in north-east Australia has complained to Google, which says it will look into the issue. Firms looking to promote their small towns as remote tourist destinations say Google Maps inflates travel times. Outback businesses say errors in the map app can add hours to a journey. "People aren't coming to places because they think it takes too long, or they're missing opportunities to refuel and they're getting sent off on another road that has no fuel [outlets]," Robyn Mackenzie, of the Eromanga Natural History Museum, told national broadcaster ABC. "People will get frightened of travelling in the outback, because they don't have any confidence in the mapping," the general manager of the small town museum added.

The Airlander 10 -- the world's longest aircraft -- is set to go into full production with the model designed to take its first passengers. "It comes after the prototype Airlander 10 -- a combined plane and airship -- was formally retired following successful final testing," reports the BBC. "As a result, Bedford firm Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) has been given Production Organization Approval from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA)." From the report: An eyewitness said the aircraft appeared to "break in two" after breaking its moorings and deflating, in November that year, less than 24 hours after completing its sixth successful test flight. The firm was given Design Organization Approval from the European Aviation Safety Agency (Easa) in October. Stephen McGlennan, HAV's chief executive, said 2018 had been very good, with Easa's backing a "huge highlight." He said the firm had changed its focus last year towards the production of Airlander 10 as a commercial aircraft for customers. "The prototype served its purpose as the world's first full-sized hybrid aircraft, providing us with the data we needed to move forward from prototype to production standard," he said. It is now hoped the full commercial model will take to the skies with its first paying passengers "in the early 2020s." Approval from the CAA and Easa now puts the firm in a "strong position to launch production."

"One of the world's foremost mathematicians, Prof Sir Michael Atiyah, has died at the age of 89," reports the BBC.

"He has been described to me by more than one professor of mathematics as the best mathematician in this country since Sir Isaac Newton," his brother tells the BBC. Slashdot reader OneHundredAndTen shared their report: Sir Michael was best known for his co-development of a branch of mathematics called topological K-theory and the Atiyah-Singer index theorem. His research also involved deep insights relating to mathematical concepts known as "vector bundles". His work in these areas has helped theoretical physicists to advance their understanding of quantum field theory and general relativity.
In September, Atiyah also claimed to have proved the 160-year-old Riemann hypothesis.

"If the hypothesis is proven to be correct," New Scientist reported, "mathematicians would be armed with a map to the location of all such prime numbers, a breakthrough with far-reaching repercussions in the field."

Thelasko shares a report from the BBC: Members of the "yellow vests" protest movement have vandalized almost 60% of France's entire speed camera network, the interior minister has said. Christophe Castaner said the willful damage was a threat to road safety and put lives in danger. The protest movement began over fuel tax increases, and saw motorists block roads and motorway toll booths. Some protesters feel speed cameras are solely a revenue-generating measure which takes money from the poor. The BBC's Hugh Schofield, in Paris, said evidence of the vandalism is visible to anyone driving around France, with radar cameras covered in paint or black tape to stop them working.

kbahey writes: Traditionally, large satellites are configured on the ground for specific tasks that cannot be changed after launch, even if market demands evolve. The new "Quantum" satellite scheduled to be launched soon, will change all that: its coverage, bandwidth, power and frequency can all be altered in orbit. The 3.5-ton spacecraft will be operated by Paris-based telecom operator Eutelsat, in a R&D partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA), with manufacturer Airbus acting as the prime contractor. A company official stated that the satellite "will bring unprecedented flexibility to our customers, allowing for in-orbit payload re-configuration and taking customization to a new level, while also opening the way to a paradigm shift in the manufacture of telecommunications satellites." The BBC says "being able to totally reconfigure an in-orbit platform would allow an operator to adapt to any shifts in the business landscape -- without the need to build and launch another bespoke platform." All the operator would have to do is simply reprogram the existing satellite.

In a video for the BBC, technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones uses Procter and Gamble's new device to maker him look younger. Called Opte, the device scans the skin and precisely applies tiny amounts of make-up to remove age spots, burst blood vessels and other blemishes. Opte has a camera in it that captures 200 frames per second and processes that data by looking at the difference of the color of your skin. It then sends it to a microprocessor and 120 thermal inkjet printers print the product directly on your skin. The company says it works with all skin colors via three different cartridges: light, medium, and dark. Procter and Gamble is planning to release the device in late 2019 or 2020.

Emerging research on digital hoarding -- a reluctance to get rid of the digital clutter we accumulate through our work and personal lives -- suggests that it can make us feel just as stressed and overwhelmed as physical clutter. From a report: Not to mention the cybersecurity problems it can cause for individuals and businesses and the way it makes finding that one email you need sometimes seem impossible. The term digital hoarding was first used in 2015 in a paper about a man in the Netherlands who took several thousand digital photos each day and spent hours processing them. "He never used or looked at the pictures he had saved, but was convinced that they would be of use in the future," wrote the authors.

In a study published earlier this year Neave and his colleagues asked 45 people about how they deal with emails, photos, and other files. The reasons people gave for hanging on to their digital effects varied -- including pure laziness, thinking something might come in handy, anxiety over the idea of deleting anything and even wanting "ammunition" against someone. The team has used those responses to develop a questionnaire to assess digital hoarding behaviours in the workplace, and have tested it with 203 people who use computers as part of their job. Their findings show that email appears to be a particular problem: among participants, the average inbox had 102 unread and 331 read emails.

A main route between England and Wales was closed after a man climbed a bridge and flew a drone from the top. An anonymous reader shares a report: Traffic was stopped on the M48 -- the older of two Severn crossings -- because of "concern for welfare," police said. The man, in his 20s, came down voluntarily from the 47m (154ft) bridge tower and was arrested on suspicion of causing a public nuisance. Highways England said it was deeply concerned and that "a person has put their life at serious risk". "The incident was quickly spotted on our security cameras and reported to police and thankfully there was no injury or worse on this occasion," it said. "Appropriate security is in place on the bridge, we are liaising with Avon and Somerset Police and will be undertaking investigations to determine if any damage was caused during the incident." Police said: "Officers attended the M48 Severn Bridge at 08:10 this morning after concerns were raised for a man who appeared to have climbed one of the towers and was flying a drone off it."

The rarest bird in the world -- a species of duck called the Madagascar pochard -- has been given a new home in time for the new year. From a report: An international team of researchers released 21 of the birds at a lake in the north of Madagascar. It is a step towards the recovery of a species that just over a decade ago was thought to be extinct. Rescuing the species could also be a first step in protecting Madagascar's threatened wetlands. When it wasn't seen for 15 years, the Madagascar pochard was believed to have been wiped out completely. Then a tiny group of the birds was rediscovered in 2006 at one remote lake. These were the last 25 Madagascar pochards on the planet. Wetland habitats in the country have been so polluted and damaged that these few remaining birds had been forced into this last untouched area.

Retron shares a report: Music retailer HMV has confirmed it is calling in KPMG as administrators. The move, the second in six years, involves 2,200 staff at 125 stores. Owners Hilco, which took the company out of its first administration in 2013, blamed a "tsunami" of retail challenges, including business rate levels and the move to digital. It said the stores would continue to trade while negotiations were held with major suppliers and it looked for buyers. Paul McGowan, executive chairman of HMV and its owner Hilco Capital, said: "Even an exceptionally well-run and much-loved business such as HMV cannot withstand the tsunami of challenges facing UK retailers over the last 12 months on top of such a dramatic change in consumer behaviour in the entertainment market."

He pointed out HMV sold 31% of all physical music in the UK in 2018 and 23% of all DVDs and Blu-rays, with its market share growing month by month throughout the year. But he added that the industry consensus was that the market would fall by another 17% during 2019 and therefore it would not be possible to continue to trade the business. Holders of gift vouchers are being advised to consider spending them sooner rather than later.

Thousands of hot tubs can be hacked and controlled remotely because of a hole in their online security, BBC Click has revealed. From a report: Researchers showed the TV programme how an attacker could make the tubs hotter or colder, or control the pumps and lights via a laptop or smartphone. Vulnerable tubs are designed to let their owners control them with an app. But third-party wi-fi databases mean hackers can home in on specific tubs by using their GPS location data. Balboa Water Group (BWG), which runs the affected system, has now pledged to introduce a more robust security system for owners and said the problem would be fixed by the end of February.

Pen Test Partners -- the UK security company that carried out the research -- warned that hot tubs were not the only household items at risk. Founder Ken Munro said that many Christmas gifts people would receive this year would connect to the internet and offer remote control through apps. "Manufacturers still are not taking security seriously enough, and until they do consumers have to be very vigilant," he said. "We recommend users reset any default passwords the device has immediately with a unique one of their own."

For most of us, using up the Christmas leftovers means endless rounds of turkey sandwiches and lashings of Brussel sprout curry in the days leading up to New Year. So, to help inject some creativity into this year's leftover eat-up, BBC turned to artificial intelligence for some culinary assistance. From a report: A number of research teams around the world have been developing AI systems that are capable of learning from existing recipes and then coming up with some of their own. We asked researchers behind two innovative algorithms to see what their AI's take would be on Christmas food. One, developed by computer scientists at Stanford University, can turn whatever food is left in your fridge into a unique recipe based on those ingredients. The other, created by AI researchers at the University of Illinois, puts a cultural twist on a meal by creating dishes from one country in the style of another cuisine.

The first algorithm, called Forage, uses a type of AI known as deep neural networks, which attempts to replicate the way the human brain works. Networks like these are able to handle problems involving complex data and are increasingly being used to tackle tasks as diverse as controlling self-driving cars and recognising the early signs of cancer in health scans. [...] The second algorithm we used was developed by Lav Varshney and his team at the University of Illinois. It was trained on nearly 40,000 recipes from 20 different countries using a system that can apply semantic reasoning to replace certain ingredients with those it considers to be equivalent from a different cuisine.

Detection systems are now able to be deployed throughout the UK to combat the threat of drones, ministers say. It follows three days of disruption at Gatwick airport last week, when drones were sighted near the runway. From a report: Security minister Ben Wallace said those who use drones "either recklessly or for criminal purposes" could expect "the most severe sentence". It comes after the couple arrested and released without charge over the chaos at Gatwick said they felt "violated". About 1,000 flights were affected during 36 hours of chaos at Gatwick airport last week. The airport has spent 5 million Pound ($6.36 million) since Wednesday on new equipment and technology to prevent copycat attacks.

One of the first men to orbit the Moon has told BBC Radio 5 Live that it's "stupid" to plan human missions to Mars. Bill Anders, lunar module pilot of Apollo 8, the first human spaceflight to leave Earth's orbit, said sending crews to Mars was "almost ridiculous". From a report: NASA is currently planning new human missions to the Moon. It wants to learn the skills and develop the technology to enable a future human landing on Mars. NASA was approached for a response to Anders' comments, but hasn't responded.

Anders, 85, said he's a "big supporter" of the "remarkable" unmanned programmes, "mainly because they're much cheaper". But he says the public support simply isn't there to fund vastly more expensive human missions. "What's the imperative? What's pushing us to go to Mars?" he said, adding "I don't think the public is that interested". Meanwhile, robotic probes are still exploring Mars. Last month, the InSight lander, which will sample the planet's interior, successfully touched down at Elysium Planitia. Further reading: Bill Nye: We Are Not Going To Live on Mars, Let Alone Turn It Into Earth.

In September, JD.com's billionaire founder, Richard Liu, was accused of rape nearly four months ago by a young Chinese student at the University of Minnesota. He was reportedly in Minneapolis for his studies since he is a doctoral student at the university. According to The New York Times, "the Hennepin County attorney's office said that it did not find enough evidence to pursue a sexual assault case against Mr. Liu (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source)." From the report: The office of the Hennepin County Attorney said that it did not find enough evidence to pursue a case against Mr. Liu, a 45-year-old internet tycoon who was arrested by Minneapolis police in the early morning of Sept. 1 but was released within hours and allowed to return to China. The decision could bring Mr. Liu, who founded and leads the e-commerce behemoth JD.com, back to a more visible role at the company. JD.com's stock has slumped since the accusations were revealed, and Mr. Liu, whose Chinese name is Liu Qiangdong, has skipped several public engagements.

Children as young as 14 are making thousands of pounds a week as part of a global hacking network built around the popular video game Fortnite. From a report: About 20 hackers told the BBC they were stealing the private gaming accounts of players and reselling them online. Fortnite is free to play but is estimated to have made more than 1bn pound ($1.25) through the sale of "skins", which change the look of a character, and other add-ons. This fuels a growing black market. Hackers can sell player accounts for as little as 25p or hundreds of pounds, depending on what they contain. The items are collected as in-game purchases but are purely cosmetic and do not give gamers any extra abilities. Fortnite-maker Epic declined to comment on the investigation but said it was working to improve account security. The game has more than 200 million players.

Gatwick's runway has been shut since Wednesday night, when two devices were seen flying over the perimeter fence. The airport said at about 12:00 GMT on Thursday a drone had been spotted "in the last hour" and the runway would not open "until it was safe to do so". From a report: About 110,000 passengers on 760 flights were due to fly on Thursday. Disruption could last "several days". Those due to travel have been told to check the status of their flight, while Easyjet told its passengers not to go to Gatwick if their flights have been cancelled. Sussex Police said it was not terror-related but a "deliberate act" of disruption, describing the drones as of "industrial specification". The shutdown started just after 21:00 GMT on Wednesday, when two drones were spotted flying "over the perimeter fence and into where the runway operates from". The runway briefly reopened at 03:01 but was closed again about 45 minutes later amid "a further sighting of drones".

Two of 2018's best statistics from the Royal Statistical Society are about the environment. "The winning international statistic of the year was 90.5% -- the proportion of plastic waste that has never been recycled," reports the BBC. "And in the UK category, the top stat was 27.8% -- the highest percentage of all electricity which was generated by solar power." From the report: A panel of judges picked the two winners, along with several highly commended statistics, from more than 200 nominations. Entries for 2018 were submitted earlier this year. Judges on the panel included Dame Jil Matheson, former national statistician -- the top adviser to the government on official statistics, as well as RSS president Sir David Spiegelhalter, BBC home editor Mark Easton and the Guardian's U.S. data editor Mona Chalabi.

The environment and plastic waste has repeatedly made headlines in 2018, and "single-use" -- referring to plastic waste -- was named the word of the year. Other highly commended statistics include:

$1.3 billion: the amount lost from the value of Snapchat within a day after Kylie Jenner tweeted: "Sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore?"
85.9%: the proportion of British trains that ran on time -- the lowest for more than a decade
40%: the percentage of Russian men who do not live to the age of 65
64,946: the number of measles cases in Europe from November 2017 to October 2018
82%: the percentage of all British retail shopping that is still in-store rather than online
16.7%: the percentage reduction of the number of Jaffa Cakes in the McVities' Christmas tube
6.4%: the percentage of female executive directors within FTSE 250 companies

One of the great hopes of the UK tech sector, Blippar, has collapsed into administration over a funding row. BBC News reports: The augmented reality firm was co-founded by Ambarish Mitra, and its technology was used in a partnership with the BBC's Planet Earth II series. Blippar was one of the UK's tech "Unicorns" -- start-up businesses that are worth $1bn or more. Mr Mitra became a brand ambassador for the UK to promote British innovation around the world. He claimed to have founded his business from a Delhi slum, leading him to be dubbed a "real-life Slumdog Millionaire". However, the Financial Times ran a profile disputing many of Mr Mitra's claims about his birth and his business development.

It seemed to be one of the brightest stars in London's tech firmament, raising big sums from American and Malaysian backers who bought into the message that augmented reality was the next big thing. So why has the Blippar bubble burst? A few years ago it did appear to have something groundbreaking -- you could point its phone app at everyday objects and they would animate into action, give you useful information or serve up an advert.

But the business appeared to depend on a very fickle set of customers -- advertising agencies wanting to use its augmented reality tools in their campaigns. Not only are much bigger firms offering similar technology but big brands seem to have concluded that it's a gimmick whose time may already have passed. What's more Blippar suffered from a lack of focus, trying out a range of ideas -- making an app for Google Glass, opening a Silicon Valley office, launching a facial recognition service.

Concrete is the most widely used man-made material in existence. It is second only to water as the most-consumed resource on the planet. But, while cement -- the key ingredient in concrete -- has shaped much of our built environment, it also has a massive carbon footprint. From a report: Cement is the source of about 8% of the world's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, according to think tank Chatham House. If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest emitter in the world -- behind China and the US. It contributes more CO2 than aviation fuel (2.5%) and is not far behind the global agriculture business (12%). Cement industry leaders were in Poland for the UN's climate change conference -- COP24 -- to discuss ways of meeting the requirements of the Paris Agreement on climate change. To do this, annual emissions from cement will need to fall by at least 16% by 2030.

AmiMoJo quotes the BBC: The next series of Doctor Who won't start until 2020, it's been confirmed. Series 11 ended on Sunday night, but after the festive special on New Year's Day, Jodie Whittaker won't be seen in the Tardis again next year.

Showrunner Chris Chibnall said work on the new series had already begun... The first episode of the series, the first to feature a female Doctor, drew a record audience. It saw the highest launch viewing figures for the sci-fi stalwart in a decade, with 10.9 million people tuning in. The series has been considered a ratings success, with viewing figures above those of the last two series when Peter Capaldi starred in the title role.

NASA's Juno mission to the gas giant Jupiter has reached its halfway mark and has revealed new views of cyclones at the poles. The BBC reports: As it orbits the planet every 53 days - Juno performs a science-gathering dive, speeding from pole to pole. Its sensors take measurements of the composition of the planet, in an effort to decipher how the largest world in our Solar System formed. Mapping the magnetic and gravity fields should also expose Jupiter's structure.

But images from JunoCam -- a camera that was intended to capture images that could be shared with the public -- has already given us some surprising insights. "When we made our first pass over the poles, we knew we were seeing a territory on Jupiter we had never seen before," said Dr Candice Hansen, from the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona. "What we did not expect was that we would see these orderly polygons of cyclones; huge storms - twice the size of Texas."

The latest test flight by Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic successfully rocketed to space and back. From a report: The firm's SpaceShipTwo passenger rocket ship reached a height of 82.7km, beyond the altitude at which space is said to begin. It marked the plane's fourth test flight and followed earlier setbacks in the firm's space programme. Sir Richard is in a race with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos to send the first fee-paying passengers into space. He founded the commercial spaceflight company in 2004, shortly after Mr Musk started SpaceX and Jeff Bezos established Blue Origin. In 2008, Virgin Galactic first promised sub-orbital spaceflight trips for tourists would be taking place "within 18 months". It has since regularly made similar promises to have space flights airborne in the near future.

hackingbear shares a report from Politico, adding: "This fuels the suspicion that the Chinese executive is held as a hostage for the ongoing trade negotiation with China." From the report: President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he reserved the right to weigh in on the Justice Department's case against the CFO of Huawei, if it would help him close a trade deal with Beijing or would serve other American national security interests. "If I think it's good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made -- which is a very important thing -- what's good for national security -- I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary," Trump told Reuters. Trump added that President Xi Jinping of China had not called him about the case, but that the White House had been in touch with both the Justice Department and Chinese officials. Huawei's CFO, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Canada earlier this month at the request of American authorities, who allege that she violated U.S. sanctions against Iran. Yesterday, a Vancouver judge ruled that Meng would be released on a $7.5 million bail if she remains in British Columbia.

To build a fleet of giant airliners requires a building just as big. Boeing's Everett Factory, built to construct the famous 747, is the biggest enclosed structure in the world. BBC Future: When you're building some of the world's biggest airliners, you need an equally outsized building. When Boeing decided to build the 747 -- a plane so big it would become known around the world as the jumbo jet -- they had to build a factory large enough to build several of them at the same time. If you've ever seen a 747 from close quarters you'll know just how giant Boeing's jumbo is. So it's no surprise the factory which ended up building has to be very big indeed. How big? Try the biggest enclosed building in the world.

Boeing started work on the Everett factory in 1967, just as the Boeing 747 project was starting to gather pace. Bill Allen, Boeing's charismatic chief, had realised the company would need a huge amount of space if they were going to build an airliner big enough to carry 400 passengers. They chose an area of woodland some 22 miles (35km) north of Seattle, near an airport that had served as a fighter base during World War Two. [...] Today, the Everett factory easily dwarfs any other building in the world by volume, with the Guinness Book of Records reporting that it occupies 72 million cubic feet (13.3 million cubic metres).

[...] Each shift has as many as 10,000 workers, and there are three shifts each day. Over the course of 24 hours, the factory has a population only a little less than the Australian city of Alice Springs. Reese has worked for Boeing for 38 years -- 11 of them running the factory tours -- but says he can still remember his first impression of the factory. "It was very awe-inspiring the first time -- and I would have to say every day since, too. It changes constantly. Each day there's something new." The Everett factory is so big that there's a fleet of some 1,300 bicycles on hand to help cut travel time. It has its own fire station and medical services on station, and an array of cafes and restaurants to feed the thousands of workers.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: A panel of censors set up to vet mobile video games in China has signaled it will be hard to please. State media reports that of the first 20 titles it assessed, nine were refused permission to go on sale. The Xinhua news agency added that developers of the other 11 had been told they had to make adjustments to remove "controversial content." The authorities have voiced concerns about the violent nature of some titles as well as worries about the activity being addictive.

It was announced in August that a new body -- the State Administration of Press and Publications -- had taken over responsibility for approving games and that it would limit the number of online titles available. And although it has not been specified, some experts are assuming that the new panel will operate under its auspices. Xinhua said it is comprised of gaming experts, government-employed researchers, and representatives from the media and video games industry. But it provided no other information about who they were or the titles they had already examined. UPDATE: The list of games being examined by the ethics panel has been revealed by users on NGA, a Chinese gaming forum. A number of games, such as League of Legends, Overwatch, Diablo, and World of Warcraft, will need "corrective action," while others will be "banned/withdrawn" entirely. Some of the most popular prohibited titles include Fortnite and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG).

Cuba's population is to be offered internet access via a 3G mobile network from later this week. From a report: Telecom provider Etecsa said citizens would be able to start subscribing to the service from Thursday. Until now, locals have mostly relied on wi-fi hotspots and internet cafes and the 3G service has been restricted to state-employed journalists and foreign businesses among others. This will change -- but many will still be unable to afford the new contracts. Etecsa's packages range from a month's use of 600MB of data for 7CUC ($7) to 4GB for 30CUC. Users get a bonus 300MB use of local .cu domain websites. But the average state wage for the island's 11.2 million residents is the equivalent of about $30 per month.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: A healthy baby girl has been born using a womb transplanted from a dead person. The 10-hour transplant operation -- and later fertility treatment -- took place in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 2016. The mother, 32, was born without a womb. There have been 39 womb transplants using a live donor, including mothers donating their womb to their daughter, resulting in 11 babies. But the 10 previous transplants from a dead donor have failed or resulted in miscarriage. In this case, reported in The Lancet, the womb donor was a mother of three in her mid-40s who died from bleeding on the brain. The recipient reportedly had Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome, which affects about one in every 4,500 women and results in the vagina and uterus (womb) failing to form properly.

The baby girl was delivered by Caesarean section on December 15, 2017, weighing 6 pounds (2.5kg).

Tokyo Telemessage, Japan's last pager provider, has announced that it will end service to its 1,500 remaining users in September 2019. It will bring a national end to telecommunication beepers, 50 years after their introduction. The BBC reports: The once-popular devices are able to receive and show wireless messages. Users would then find a phone to call the sender back. Developed in the 1950s and 1960s, they grew in popularity in the 1980s. By 1996, Tokyo Telemessage had 1.2 million subscribers. However, the rise of mobile phones rendered the pager obsolete, and few remain worldwide. Emergency services, however, continue to use the reliable technology -- including in the UK.

AmiMoJo writes: Japanese broadcaster NHK is launching the world's first 8K TV channel with a special edition of 2001: A Space Odyssey. NHK asked Warner Bros. to scan the original negatives at 8K specially for the channel.

8K offers 16 times the resolution of standard HD, 120 frames per second progressive scan, and 24 channels of sound. NHK is hoping to broadcast the 2020 Tokyo Olympics on the channel.
17 other channels also began broadcasting 4K programming today, according to Japan Times, even though, as Engadget points out, "almost no one has an 8K display, and most of the people who do need a special receiver and antenna just to pick up the signal... Also, HDMI 2.1 hasn't been implemented in any of these displays yet, so just getting the signal from box to TV requires plugging in four HDMI cables."

NHK's channel will broadcast for 12 hours a day, reports the BBC, adding that Samsung already sells an 8K TV for $15,000, and that LG has announced one too, while Engadget reports that Sharp sells one for $6,600.

AmiMoJo writes: Japanese broadcaster NHK is launching the world's first 8K TV channel with a special edition of 2001: A Space Odyssey. NHK asked Warner Bros. to scan the original negatives at 8K specially for the channel.

8K offers 16 times the resolution of standard HD, 120 frames per second progressive scan, and 24 channels of sound. NHK is hoping to broadcast the 2020 Tokyo Olympics on the channel.
17 other channels also began broadcasting 4K programming today, according to Japan Times, even though, as Engadget points out, "almost no one has an 8K display, and most of the people who do need a special receiver and antenna just to pick up the signal... Also, HDMI 2.1 hasn't been implemented in any of these displays yet, so just getting the signal from box to TV requires plugging in four HDMI cables."

NHK's channel will broadcast for 12 hours a day, reports the BBC, adding that Samsung already sells an 8K TV for $15,000, and that LG has announced one too, while Engadget reports that Sharp sells one for $6,600.

AmiMoJo writes: The European Union says it is aiming to become the first major economy to go 'climate neutral' by 2050. Under the plan, emissions of greenhouse gases after that date would have to be offset by planting trees or by burying them underground. Scientists say that net-zero emissions by 2050 are needed to have a fighting chance of keeping global temperatures under 1.5C this century. The EU says the move will also cut premature air pollution deaths by 40%. The EU says that this can be done with existing technologies such as solar and wind energy which would have to be ramped up to provide 80% of electricity. Energy efficiency measures such as home insulation would also need to be boosted to reduce energy consumption by half by the middle of the century.

Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil has hit its highest rate in a decade, according to official data. BBC reports: About 7,900 sq km (3,050 sq miles) of the world's largest rainforest was destroyed between August 2017 and July 2018 -- an area roughly five times the size of London. Environment Minister Edson Duarte said illegal logging was to blame. The figures come amid concerns about the policies of Brazil's newly elected president, Jair Bolsonaro. During the 2018 election campaign, Mr Bolsonaro pledged to limit fines for damaging forestry and to weaken the influence of the environmental agency. An aide for the president-elect has also announced the administration will merge the agriculture and environment ministries, which critics say could endanger the rainforest. The latest government data says most of the deforestation occurred in the states of Mato Grosso and Para, and marked a 13.7% rise over last year's figures. Mato Grosso is the top producer of grains in Brazil, and critics say expanding agriculture is also encroaching on the rainforest.

Google is not complying with European demands that it must make the search for products fairer, rivals say. In an open letter to the EU's Competition Commissioner on Thursday, they wrote: We are writing to you as leading European comparison shopping services (CSSs) to express our collective view that Google's "compliance mechanism" in the Google Search (Comparison Shopping) case does not comply with the European Commission's June 2017 Prohibition Decision. It has now been more than a year since Google introduced its auction-based "remedy", and the harm to competition, consumers and innovation caused by Google's illegal conduct has continued unabated. We therefore respectfully urge you to commence non-compliance proceedings against Google. BBC offers some background: In June 2017, European competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager ruled that Google had abused its power by promoting its own shopping service at the top of search results, and demanded that it provide equal treatment to rival comparison sites in future. She issued a record fine of $2.7bn -- the largest penalty the European Commission has ever imposed. She also demanded that Google end its anti-competitive practices within 90 days or face further costs. Google is still appealing against the fine, but has come up with a system that it says makes shopping fairer. It changed the shopping box, which is displayed at the top of search results, so that it is no longer populated with just Google Shopping ad results, but gives space to other shopping comparison services, who can bid for advertising slots.

The value of Bitcoin has hit a new low of $4,951, bringing the total value of all Bitcoin in existence to below $87 billion. Much of the turmoil can be attributed to the split of Bitcoin Cash on November 15th. The Bitcoin offshoot has been split into two different cryptocurrencies, which are now in competition with each other. The BBC reports: Bitcoin exchange Kraken said in a blog post that it regarded one of the two new Bitcoin Cash crypto-currencies -- Bitcoin SV -- as "an extremely risky investment." At its peak, in November 2017, it briefly hit $19,783 - which means the price has fallen by about 75%. After the excitements of last year when the price soared to nearly $20,000 and then tumbled, Bitcoin has been rather dull and stable for much of 2018, settling between $6,000 and $7,000.

A new report published in the journal Science Direct says there is no link between insomnia and early death. The researchers reportedly "reviewed 17 studies, which covered close to 37 million people, to compile their results," the BBC notes. From the report: This new report goes against what the NHS says, which claims that as well as putting people at risk of obesity, heart disease and type 2 diabetes, that insomnia shortens life expectancy. The NHS recommends things like exercising to tire yourself out during the day and cutting down on caffeine. It also says smoking, eating too much or drinking alcohol late at night can stop you from sleeping well. Other recommendations include writing a list of things that are playing on your mind and trying to get to bed at a similar time every night. "There was no difference in the odds of mortality for those individuals with symptoms of insomnia when compared to those without symptoms," the study says. "This finding was echoed in the assessment of the rate of mortality in those with and without symptoms of insomnia using the outcomes of multivariate models, with the most complete adjustment for potential confounders, as reported by the individual studies included in this meta-analysis. Additional analyses revealed a tendency for an increased risk of mortality associated with hypnotic use."

The location-tracking "MiSafe" smartwatch may not be as safe as the name proclaims. According to security researchers from Pen Test Partners, the watches are easy to hack as they do not encrypt the data they use or secure each child's account. The researchers found that they could track children's movements, surreptitiously listen in to their activities and make spoof calls to the watches that appeared to be from parents. The BBC reports: The MiSafes watch was first released in 2015. It uses a global positioning system (GPS) sensor and a 2G mobile data connection to let parents see where their child is, via a smartphone app. In addition, parents can create a "safe zone" and receive an alert if the child leaves the area. The adult can also listen in to what their offspring is doing at any time and trigger two-way calls.

Pen Test Partner's Ken Munro and Alan Monie learned of the product's existence when a friend bought one for his son earlier this year. Out of curiosity, they probed its security measures and found that easy-to-find PC software could be used to mimic the app's communications. This software could be used to change the assigned ID number, which was all it took to get access to others' accounts. This made it possible to see personal information used to register the product, including: a photo of the child; their name, gender and date of birth; their height and weight; the parents' phone numbers; and the phone number assigned to the watch's Sim card.

Scientists have changed the way the kilogram is defined. Currently, it is defined by the weight of a platinum-based ingot called "Le Grand K" which is locked away in a safe in Paris. On Friday, researchers meeting in Versailles voted to get rid of it in favour of defining a kilogram in terms of an electric current. From a report: The decision was made at the General Conference on Weights and Measures. But some scientists, such as Perdi Williams at the National Physical Laboratory in the UK, have expressed mixed feelings about the change. "I haven't been on this project for too long but I feel a weird attachment to the kilogram," she said. "I think it is such an exciting thing and this is a really big moment. So I'm a little bit sad about [the change]. But it is an important step forward and so the new system is going to work a lot better. It is also a really exciting time, and I can't wait for it to happen."

Le Grand K has been at the forefront of the international system of measuring weights since 1889. Several close replicas were made and distributed around the globe. But the master kilogram and its copies were seen to change -- ever so slightly -- as they deteriorated. In a world where accurate measurement is now critical in many areas, such as in drug development, nanotechnology and precision engineering -- those responsible for maintaining the international system had no option but to move beyond Le Grand K to a more robust definition.

A privacy expert is criticizing Google for taking over a controversial health app developed by AI firm DeepMind. The app in question -- Streams -- was first used to send alerts in a London hospital but hit headlines for gathering data on 1.6 million patients without informing them. DeepMind now wants the app to become an AI assistant for nurses and doctors around the world. BBC reports: One expert described the move as "trust demolition." Lawyer and privacy expert Julia Powles, who has closely followed the development of Streams, responded on Twitter: "DeepMind repeatedly, unconditionally promised to 'never connect people's intimate, identifiable health data to Google.' Now it's announced... exactly that. This isn't transparency, it's trust demolition," she added.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: The taste of a food cannot be protected by copyright, the EU's highest legal authority has ruled in a case involving a Dutch cheese. The European Court of Justice said the taste of food was too "subjective and variable" for it to meet the requirements for copyright protection. The court was asked to rule in the case of a spreadable cream cheese and herb dip, Heksenkaas, produced by Levola. Levola argued another cheese, Witte Wievenkaas, infringed its copyright. The firm claimed that Heksenkaas was a work protected by copyright; it asked the Dutch courts to insist Smilde, the producers of Witte Wievenkaas, cease the production and sale of its cheese. The Court of Justice of the European Union was asked by Netherlands' court of appeal to rule on whether the taste of a food could be protected under the Copyright Directive. In order to quality for copyright, the taste of food must be capable of being classified as a "work" and has to meet two criteria: That it was an original intellectual creation; That there was an "expression" of that creation that makes it "identifiable with sufficient precision and objectivity."

The court found that "the taste of a food product cannot be identified with precision and objectivity." It said it was "identified essentially on the basis of taste sensations and experiences, which are subjective and variable," citing age, food preferences and consumption habits as examples which could influence the taster.

China has been pushed into third place on a list of the world's most powerful supercomputers. From a report: The latest list by Top 500, published twice a year, puts two US machines -- Summit and Sierra -- in the top two places. The US has five entries in the top 10, with other entries from Switzerland, Germany and Japan. However, overall China has 227 machines in the top 500, while the US has 109. Summit can process 200,000 trillion calculations per second. Both Summit and Sierra were built by the tech giant IBM. China's Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer, which this time last year was the world's most powerful machine, is now ranked at number three, while the country also has the fourth spot in the list.

"A Chinese headmaster has been fired after a secret stack of crypto-currency mining machines was found connected to his school's electricity supply," writes the BBC. An anonymous reader quotes their report: Teachers at the school in Hunan became suspicious of a whirring noise that continued day and night, local media report. This led to the discovery of the machines, which were mining the crypto-currency Ethereum. They racked up an electricity bill of 14,700 yuan [£1,600, or about $2,100]...

The headmaster had originally spent 10,000 yuan on a single machine for use at home, but allegedly decided to move it to the school after he saw how much electricity it consumed... A total of eight mining machines were installed in the Hunan school's computer room between summer 2017 and summer 2018... The deputy headmaster also became involved in the scheme and allegedly acquired a ninth machine for himself in January, which was also installed at the school. The computer network in the building became overloaded as a result of the mining activity, according to reports, and this "interfered" with teaching.
All the money earned through the mining operation has now been claimed by the local official responsible for "discipline inspection."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: The ozone layer, which protects us from ultraviolet light, looks to be successfully healing after gaping holes were discovered in the 1980s. The Northern Hemisphere could be fully fixed by the 2030s and Antarctica by the 2060s. A new United Nations report says it's an example of what global agreements can achieve. The ozone layer had been damaged by man-made chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). The chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) effectively began eating away at the ozone. CFCs were found in things like spray cans, fridges, foam insulation and air conditioners. As a result, in 1985 a gaping hole in the ozone over the South Pole was discovered. An international agreement called the Montreal Protocol made sure that businesses came up with replacements for these damaging products. 180 countries signed up to it. In signing the protocol, those countries agreed to phase out chemicals like CFCs.

Each day, thousands of people from places like Kibera, Africa's largest slum and one of the toughest neighborhoods on earth, commute to an office of Samasource in the east side of Nairobi. The San Francisco-headquartered company occupies four floors of a business park building, with vast banks of computers being used for the job of training data. Google, Microsoft, Salesforce and Yahoo are among the clients of Samasource. What exactly do these people do at Samasource? Its clients won't say, but BBC reports that the "information prepared here forms a crucial part of some of Silicon Valley's biggest and most famous efforts in AI." From the report: [...] Brenda loads up an image, and then uses the mouse to trace around just about everything. People, cars, road signs, lane markings -- even the sky, specifying whether it's cloudy or bright. Ingesting millions of these images into an artificial intelligence system means a self-driving car, to use one example, can begin to "recognise" those objects in the real world. The more data, the supposedly smarter the machine. She and her colleagues sit close -- often too close -- to their monitors, zooming in on the images to make sure not a single pixel is tagged incorrectly. Their work will be checked by a superior, who will send it back if it's not up to scratch. For the fastest, most accurate trainers, the honor of having your name up on one of the many TV screens around the office. And the most popular perk of all: shopping vouchers.

It's the kind of technological progress that will likely never be felt in a place like Kibera. As Africa's largest slum, it has more pressing problems to solve, such as a lack of reliable clean water, and a well-known sanitation crisis. But that's not to say artificial intelligence can't have a positive impact here. We drove to one of Kibera's few permanent buildings, found near a railway line that, on this rainy day, looked thoroughly decommissioned by mud, but has apparently been in regular use since its colonial inception.

Almost exactly a year ago, this building was the dividing line between stone-throwing rioters and the military. Today, it's a thriving hub of activity: a media school and studio, something of a cafeteria, and on the first floor, a room full of PCs. Here, Gideon Ngeno teaches around 25 students the basics of using a personal computer. What's curious about this process is that digital literacy is high, even in Kibera, where smartphones are common and every other shop is selling chargers and accessories, which people buy using the mobile money system MPesa.

schwit1 shared this article from the BBC: A professor of surgery says students have spent so much time in front of screens and so little time using their hands that they have lost the dexterity for stitching or sewing up patients. Roger Kneebone, professor of surgical education at Imperial College, London, says young people have so little experience of craft skills that they struggle with anything practical. "It is important and an increasingly urgent issue," says Prof Kneebone, who warns medical students might have high academic grades but cannot cut or sew. "It is a concern of mine and my scientific colleagues that whereas in the past you could make the assumption that students would leave school able to do certain practical things - cutting things out, making things - that is no longer the case," says Prof Kneebone.

The professor, who teaches surgery to medical students, says young people need to have a more rounded education, including creative and artistic subjects, where they learn to use their hands. Prof Kneebone says he has seen a decline in the manual dexterity of students over the past decade - which he says is a problem for surgeons, who need craftsmanship as well as academic knowledge.... "A lot of things are reduced to swiping on a two-dimensional flat screen," he says, which he argues takes away the experience of handling materials and developing physical skills. Such skills might once have been gained at school or at home, whether in cutting textiles, measuring ingredients, repairing something that's broken, learning woodwork or holding an instrument. Students have become "less competent and less confident" in using their hands, he says. "We have students who have very high exam grades but lack tactile general knowledge," says the professor.
Interestingly, much of the professor's research is on simulations, according to his web page at Imperial College London, where he leads "an unorthodox and creative research group" that uses professional actors with inanimate models to create realistic clinical encounters, as well as "low-cost, portable yet highly convincing environments such as the 'inflatable operating theatre'."

Andrei Zakharov, reporting for BBC: Hackers appear to have compromised and published private messages from at least 81,000 Facebook users' accounts. The perpetrators told the BBC Russian Service that they had details from a total of 120 million accounts, which they were attempting to sell, although there are reasons to be sceptical about that figure. Facebook said its security had not been compromised. And the data had probably been obtained through malicious browser extensions.

Facebook added it had taken steps to prevent further accounts being affected. The BBC understands many of the users whose details have been compromised are based in Ukraine and Russia. However, some are from the UK, US, Brazil and elsewhere. The hackers offered to sell access for 10 cents (8p) per account. However, their advert has since been taken offline. "We have contacted browser-makers to ensure that known malicious extensions are no longer available to download in their stores," said Facebook executive Guy Rosen. "We have also contacted law enforcement and have worked with local authorities to remove the website that displayed information from Facebook accounts."