Slashdot Mirror

schwit1 shares a report from The Sun: Researchers at a Chinese university have revealed the results of an investigation aimed at creating a "repression network" which can identify cars from "customized paintings, decorations or even scratches" rather than by scanning its number plate. A team from Peking University said the technology they have developed to perform this task could also be used to recognize the faces of human beings. Essentially, it works by learning from what it sees, allowing it to differentiate between cars (or humans) by spotting small differences between them. "The growing explosion in the use of surveillance cameras in public security highlights the importance of vehicle search from large-scale image databases," the researcher wrote. "Precise vehicle search, aiming at finding out all instances for a given query vehicle image, is a challenging task as different vehicles will look very similar to each other if they share same visual attributes." They added: "We can extend our framework [software] into wider applications like face and person retrieval [identification] as well."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Sun: The social network applied for a patent to capture pictures of a user through their smartphone. The creepy designs, which date back to 2015, were discovered by software company CBI Insight, which has been analyzing Mark Zuckerberg's "emotion technology." Patent documents contain illustrations showing a person holding a smartphone with a camera taking a picture from which "emotion characteristics" like smiling or frowning are detected. If the person appears to like what they're seeing, Facebook could place more of the same type of content in front of them. Patents don't always make it through to the end product, so it's not clear whether Facebook will bring out this new feature. Researchers at CBI Insights warned that the plans could put a lot of people off using the service. Facebook appears to have tested out similar technology to work out which emoji to send to people using a selfie.

schwit1 quotes a report from The Sun: A top drone manufacturer has warned that customers' expensive gadgets will be crippled if they don't register their details on its website. DJI drones -- which cost between $1,200 and $3,000 -- won't be able to fly to their full potential or beam back footage if their owners don't sign up next week, the company warned. Those who splashed out for the snazzy gadgets will find they are limited to a teensy 50m radius and it won't be flying higher than 30m if they don't play ball. The company said on its website: "DJI will soon introduce a new application activation process for international customers. This new step, to take effect at the end of next week, ensures you will use the correct set of geospatial information and flight functions for your aircraft, as determined by your geographical location and user profile. All existing flight safety limitations, such as geofencing boundaries and altitude limits, remain the same. Even if you have registered when activating your aircraft upon purchase, you will have to log in once when you update the new version of DJI GO or GO 4 App."

schwit1 quotes a report from The Sun: Scientists believe a massive object which could change our understanding of history is hidden beneath the Antarctic ice. The huge and mysterious "anomaly" is thought to be lurking beneath the frozen wastes of an area called Wilkes Land. It stretches for a distance of 151 miles across and has a maximum depth of about 848 meters. Some researchers believe it is the remains of a truly massive asteroid which was more than twice the size of the Chicxulub space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs. If this explanation is true, it could mean this killer asteroid caused the Permian-Triassic extinction event which killed 96 percent of Earth's sea creatures and up to 70 percent of the vertebrate organisms living on land.This "Wilkes Land gravity anomaly" was first uncovered in 2006, when NASA satellites spotted gravitational changes which indicated the presence of a huge object sitting in the middle of a 300 mile wide impact crater.

cold fjord writes: It will soon be a bit more difficult for Britain's Royal Navy to rule the waves as it gives up anti-ship missiles as a result of budget cuts. That will force the Royal Navy to go "old school" and rely upon naval gunfire for ship-to-ship combat. Cannon fire as the primary means of ship-to-ship combat has been largely obsolete since the 1950s following the invention of guided missiles in World War 2. Prior to that, cannon fire had been the primary means of naval combat for hundreds of years. Although the Royal Navy ranged up to 16" guns on battleships, the largest gun currently in active service is a 4.5" gun. That will leave the Royal Navy unable to engage targets beyond approximately 17 miles / 27 km, whereas Harpoon missiles provide an 80 mile / 130 m range. The loss of anti-ship missile capability will begin in 2018 and may last for 10 years for warships, and 2 years for helicopters. The Sun quotes a naval insider who said: "It's like Nelson saying, 'don't worry, I don't need canons, we've got muskets.'" The loss of missile capability heaps more misfortune upon a naval force that recently has seen its available frontline combat force drop to an unprecedented 24 warships.

After a bomb exploded in Manhattan, leaving 29 injured, people leaving the scene discovered Uber had doubled their fares. An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes The Sun: Traumatized families caught up in the New York bomb blast have accused Uber of cashing in on the tragedy by charging almost double to take them home. Furious passengers have taken to social media to slam the taxi firm in the wake of the blast... Uber reportedly charged between 1.4 and 3 times the standard fare with one city worker saying he had to pay twice as much as usual. Mortgage broker Nick Lalli said: "Just trying to get home from the city and Uber f****** doubled the surge price."
"Demand is off the charts!" the app informed its users, adding "Fares have increased to get more Ubers on the road." Uber soon tweeted that they'd deactivated their surge pricing algorithm for the affected area in Chelsea, "but passengers in other areas of Manhattan said they were still being charged higher than normal fares." One of the affected passengers was Michael Cohen, who is Donald Trump's lawyer, who tweeted that Uber was "taking total advantage of chaos and surcharging passengers 1.4 to 1.8 times." And another Uber user tweeted "I'm disgusted. People are trying to get home safe. Shame on you #DeleteApp."

Mark Wilson writes: The likes of Julian Assange's WikiLeaks have set the standard for blowing the lid on huge stories based on tips from anonymous sources. Whistle-blowers such as Edward Snowden have brought to public attention stories which would otherwise have been kept hidden from the public, and it has been with the help of newspapers such as the Guardian that this information has been disseminated around the world.

Other newspapers are keen to ride on the coattails of those blazing a trail in the world of investigative journalism, and the latest to join the party is The Sun. Today, Murdoch-owned News Corp's newspaper and website launches SecureDrop — a way for whistle-blowers to anonymously leave tip-offs that can be further investigated.

The cloud service provides a means of getting in touch with journalists at The Sun without giving up anonymity — something which is particularly important when making revelations about companies and governments. The site provides a basic guide to getting started with the SecureDrop service, starting off with pointing would-be users in the direction of the Tor Browser Bundle.

itwbennett writes "In a classic case of 'we say destroy, you say party hard,' the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security detained a pair of British twenty-somethings for 12 hours and then sent them packing back to the land of the cheeky retort. At issue is a Tweet sent by Leigh Van Bryan about plans to 'destroy America,' starting with LA, which, really, isn't that bad an idea."

In celebration of the upcoming royal wedding, a British brewer has crafted Royal Virility Performance beer. Just three of these stiff brews is equal to taking a Viagra pill. From the article: "Just 40 bottles of the £10 tipple will be produced initially, and will go on sale on April 29 at BrewDog.com. All the proceeds go to the charity Centrepoint, which Wills supports. But buyers will be limited to one bottle each due to the powerful effects."

brumgrunt writes "A British paper is claiming that the Nintendo 3DS poses some kind of health risk. The claim sounds interesting, until you see how that conclusion was reached. 'On the 6th of April, the paper conducted a scientific experiment in which a 22-year-old member of the staff had his blood pressure and pulse taken after playing the 3DS in different situations – at rest, while walking, or while taking a ride in a car. The Sun came to the startling conclusion that the man’s pulse and blood pressure were higher while walking than while sitting down, yet concluded, apropos of nothing, “Children should not be left to play on it for hours.” The article neglects to point out that a raised blood pressure and pulse is perfectly normal, and you’re as likely to experience such a physical response while walking and reading a book as you are when playing the 3DS.'" Pocket Gamer posted a humorous follow-up, using the Sun's own methods against it.

Tootech writes "A gang of thieves armed with a powerful vacuum cleaner that sucks cash from supermarket safes has struck for the fifteenth time in France. The burglars broke into their latest store near Paris and drilled a hole in the pneumatic tube that siphons money from the checkout to the strong-room. They then sucked rolls of cash totaling £60,000 from the safe without even having to break its lock. Police said the gang — dubbed the Vacuum Burglars — always raid Monoprix supermarkets and have hit 15 of the stores branches around Paris in the past four years. A spokesman added: 'They spotted a weakness in the company's security system and have been exploiting it ever since.'"

British teenager Luke Angel has been banned from the US for sending an email to the White House calling President Obama an obscenity. The 17-year-old says he was drunk when he sent the mail and doesn't understand what the big deal is. "I don't remember exactly what I wrote as I was drunk. But I think I called Barack Obama a p***k. It was silly -- the sort of thing you do when you're a teenager and have had a few," he said. The FBI contacted local police who in turn confronted Luke and let him know that the US Department of Homeland Security didn't think his email was funny. "The police came and took my picture and told me I was banned from America forever. I don't really care but my parents aren't very happy," Angel said.

What does it take to hide from a 300-man search party in Argentina? Disguise yourself as a sheep. Robbers Maximiliano Pereyra, 25, and Ariel Diaz, 28, broke out of a maximum security prison and used stolen sheep hides to evade 300 police on their trail. From the article: "A farm worker said: 'They were wearing grey clothes but had full sheepskins, including the sheep heads, over their heads and backs.' Police said spotting the pair among thousands of sheep is 'almost impossible.'"

sonamchauhan writes "A Londoner helped his wife deliver their baby by Googling 'how to deliver a baby' on his mobile phone. From the article: 'Today proud Mr Smith said: "The midwife had checked Emma earlier in the day but contractions started up again at about 8pm so we called the midwife to come back. But then everything happened so quickly I realized Emma was going to give birth. I wasn't sure what I was going to do so I just looked up the instructions on the internet using my BlackBerry."'"

Right after "be careful what you wish for" in the idiom dictionary is a picture of 41-year-old Matthew Roberts. 12 years ago, Roberts began to search for the identity of his biological parents. He eventually found his birth mother and was shocked to learn that his father was none other than Charles Manson. Roberts said, "I didn't want to believe it. I was frightened and angry. It's like finding out that Adolf Hitler is your father. I'm a peaceful person — trapped in the face of a monster."

Sue Williams has been awarded a £20,000 grant by the Arts Council of Wales, to "explore cultural attitudes towards female buttocks." Sue plans to examine racial attitudes towards bottoms in Europe and Africa and create plaster casts of women's behinds to try to understand their place in contemporary culture. And here I've been studying the issue all these years for free like a sucker!

An anonymous reader writes "An anonymous study of 2,000 British men and women concluded that out of all jobs, computer geeks make the best lovers. They were found to be the most selfless in bed, the most adventurous and more likely to use sex toys, wireless or otherwise."

thefickler writes "Gone are the days when governments could easily hide top secret bases. These days it's a weekend pastime to see who can find top secret facilities using Google Earth. Now it's the UK government's turn to be outraged after a secret facility was revealed by a British tabloid. The facility is said to be located in Faslane on the River Clyde in Scotland. This nuclear base was previously blurred out by the request of the British Government. However, with the latest update provided via Google Earth, many of the blurred out locations were accidentally revealed." Update: 3/08 at 14:24 by SS: Multiple readers have pointed out that the issue here is not the location of the base — it's simply that details of buildings and objects within the base (such as the location of a pair of nuclear submarines) are accidentally visible after the UK government specifically requested they be blurred out.

Andrew Cheatle thought his phone would be lost to the sea forever, but a week later a fisherman found it inside a 25lb cod. He was shopping for a new one with his girlfriend when her phone went off. It was the fisherman explaining what he found. "I thought he was winding me up but he assured me he had caught a cod that morning and was gutting it for his fish stall and that my Nokia was inside it -- a bit worse for wear. I didn't believe him but went to meet him and found it was my phone -- a bit smelly and battered -- but incredibly it still worked after I let it dry out," Andrew said. I think we know what the new Nokia advertising campaign should be.

RcK writes "Numerous articles are springing up regarding a feature found using the new Google Ocean, which some claim could be the location of Atlantis. While this is obviously early, and probably has the same credibility levels as previous claims of finding the mythical city, the detected anomaly is quite convincingly linear, is apparently the size of Wales and sits near where Plato hypothesized the city to be located." Google has stated that this is an issue with the way their ocean mapping software is working, but clearly that is a cover up while Google execs try to buy the real estate. I just hope they bring back Elvis next.

Ian-K writes "The Sun has a story about a man lost his 'tool' while trying to rape a raccoon. An observant reader over at ATS pointed out that luckily it wasn't a squirrel, or he may have also lost his nuts." I hope he can make something positive out of this experience, like talking at schools to warn kids about the dangers of oral sex with a raccoon.

Inventor Le Trung must really like the book "The Stepford Wives," because he has built the dream of every lonely man without hope, a robot wife. Le's wife, Aiko, starts the day by reading him the newspaper headlines and they go for a drives in the countryside. Le says his relationship with Aiko hasn't strayed into the bedroom, but a few tweaks could turn her into a sexual partner, even redesigning her to have a simulated orgasm. *Shudder*

ThinkComp writes "In what could possibly be a major blow to a scientific consensus that has held for decades, recent research suggests that the traditional conception of Neanderthals being "stupider" than Homo sapiens may in fact be misleading. As articles about the research findings state, 'early stone tool technologies developed by our species, Homo sapiens, were no more efficient than those used by Neanderthals.' The data used in the study is available on-line along with a visual description of the process used."

Forget Russia's precision flying walrus team and Brazil's razor wielding greased monkey squadron, Britain has high altitude parachuting German Shepherds. The SAS (special air service regiment) has been training the dogs to make jumps as high as 25,000ft. Fitted with their own oxygen supply and strapped to special forces assault teams, the Shepherds will be sent out with tiny cameras fixed to their heads, to find insurgent hideouts. The cameras will send back live pictures to the troops, showing enemy locations and warning of ambushes. An SAS source told The SUN: "The dogs will be exposed to very high levels of danger on these operations and you never know what's going to be behind a door. Nobody wants to see the dogs get killed but if it's their life or a man's it is obvious which the CO would prefer."

Brad Jayakody was told he would have to change his shirt if he wanted to catch his flight to Dusseldorf, Germany. The shirt that security at Heathrow got upset about depicts the Transformers character Optimus Prime holding a gun. Brad said, "I was flabbergasted. I thought the supervisor would come over and see sense, but he didn't. After I changed he said if I changed back I would be arrested." I would understand if the guy was wearing a Megatron shirt, after all that guy turns into a gun which could be very dangerous but Prime? There is no way a semi could fit on a passenger plane it's just silly.

Ant writes in with news that an amusement park in the UK is trying out a ban on smartphones and PDAs, with the intent to enable families actually to have fun together. The press release says that from May 25 to June 1, adults found using a PDA will be asked to drop it off at a "PDA Drop Off Zone" — no word on what happens if they refuse. But both the Sun and BoingBoing, which picked up their brief story, strike a more ominous note with the claim that "special wardens" will confiscate the devices. If the experiment is deemed a success the park may make the ban permanent.

Still seething in anger from his exclusion as a core race in the new 4th addition Dungeons and Dragons, a gnome has been terrorizing the streets of a small town in Argentina. The gnome, who wears a pointy hat and travels with a distinctive sideways walk, has been spotted many times according to locals.

twofish writes "According to UK tabloid The Sun, hit BBC sci-fi program Doctor Who will reportedly end next year after its fourth season. Producer Russell T. Davies has decided to bring the hit sci-fi show to a close — to 'go out at the top' — so he can concentrate on other projects, according to the article. Davies and other senior staff are feeling the strain of the heavy workload imposed by the show, nine months a year of 16-hour days, and plan to resign en-masse in 2008. Davies, a long-time fan of Doctor Who, relaunched the series in 2005, 16 years after the original series was axed." Update: 05/31 16:36 GMT by KD : Reader palewook points out that the UK Guardian sets this story straight: "But there isn't any way it would be axed even if [Davies] left. He loves the show and he does feel that maybe it would benefit from some new blood."

pestario writes "Google CEO Eric Schmidt talks about a service which can give the probability of the accuracy of statements made by politicians, among other things. From the Reuters article, Schmidt says: "We (at Google) are not in charge of truth but we might be able to give a probability." Can Google's 'truth predictor' bring an end to sound bites and one-liners? I'm not holding my breath...""

musicon writes "Makers of the hit cartoon The Simpsons have a filmed the show's opening titles using real actors. In the hit viral going around the world we get to see what Bart, Homer, Marg, Lisa and Maggie would look like if they were humans. Simpson's maker Matt Groening has approved the human version of the show's opening credits to promote the brand new series." Amazing attention to detail.

Wolverine Inspector writes "According to The Sun Newspaper Online's exclusive interview with David Duchovny, "he and the shows creator Chris Carter are planning on making a sequel to their 1998 movie." and "Were hoping to get together just under a year from now and make another X Files movie.". Chris Carter, the creater of 'The X Files' is working with Frank Spotnitz who wrote for the series. They say that they would like the movie to be released summer 2006."

Anonymous Coward writes "UK paper The Sun published an article about a father who purchased a recent Gameboy title from Disney for his daughter. They were horrified that the credits of the game contained the F-Word and he immediately contacted the paper. The Sun published the article without researching the fact that this was a pirate cartridge based off of the cracked version of this game released. Oops!"

lemmen writes "According the Brtish tabloid The Sun, Star Wars III will carry the name 'Birth Of The Empire'. This will be announced soon according the article. Also it describes one of the highlights of the movie: 'A thrilling lightsabre clash between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker while surfing on lava.' Can't wait till May 15th 2005!" Thanks to reader ExoticMandibles, another quality news source: Teen Hollywood. Update: 05/20 05:47 GMT by T : Gokey writes with a correction: "StarWars.com indicates that the movie is released May 19th, 2005 (exactly one year from now) not May 15th, 2005."

wackoman2112 writes "The Sun is reporting that the UK government has plans to put a computerised spy in every car. This "spy" will record every single time a motorist goes slightly over the speed limit, into a bus lane, or stops on a yellow line! It will report this information to roadside sensors and you will soon receive a fine in the mail."

wackoman2112 writes "The Sun is reporting that the UK government has plans to put a computerised spy in every car. This "spy" will record every single time a motorist goes slightly over the speed limit, into a bus lane, or stops on a yellow line! It will report this information to roadside sensors and you will soon receive a fine in the mail."

ramakant writes: "It looks like George Lucas has really sold out this time. If you thought Jar-Jar Binks was bad, MTV.com is running a story that a few members of 'NSYNC will be making cameos in Episode II. I think the target demographic for these films has changed a little since the original trilogy. Oh well, at least LOTR rocked." The MTV article says that NSYNC asked for the part; an article in a UK tabloid says Lucas asked them.