Barista's edition for Sat 20 August 2016
Hackers Trick Facial-Recognition Logins With Photos From Facebook (What Else?)
Popularity: 3.15
Facial recognition makes sense as a method for your computer to recognize you. After all, humans already use a powerful version of it to tell each other apart. But people can be fooled (disguises! twins!), so it's no surprise that even as computer vision evolves, new attacks will trick facial recognition systems, too.
MIT engineers human cells to store 'memories' in DNA
Popularity: 2.70
Score another win for CRISPR. Scientists at MIT are using the ever-intriguing genome-editing system to engineer human cells capable of recording and reporting the intensity and duration past events. The analog memory storage system builds upon past work developed by scientists that programmed cells to flip DNA sections when events - like exposure to specific chemicals - occurred.
Cisco firewall exploit shows how NSA decrypted VPN traffic
Popularity: 2.65
In a revelation that shows how the National Security Agency was able to systematically spy on many Cisco Systems customers for much of the last decade, researchers have uncovered an attack that remotely extracts decryption keys from the company's now-decommissioned line of PIX firewalls.
full article at Ars Technica →
Facebook's Artificial Intelligence Research lab releases open source fastText on GitHub
Popularity: 2.41
Every day, billions of pieces of content are shared on Facebook. To keep up with the data, Facebook has been using a variety of tools to classify text. Traditional methods of classification, like deep neural networks are accurate, but have serious training requirements.
'We're just rentals': Uber drivers ask where they fit in a self-driving future
Popularity: 2.32
"Wo-o-o-o-w," Cynthia Ingram said. "We all knew it was coming. I just didn't expect it this soon." Ingram, a 60-year-old Uber driver in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, had just learned that Uber would be deploying autonomous cars to accept fares in her city within weeks.
full article at the Guardian →
Elon Musk leads Tesla effort to build house roofs entirely out of solar panels
Popularity: 2.06
A new venture spearheaded by Elon Musk will create house roofs made entirely of solar panels, in a sweeping expansion of Tesla's clean energy ambitions. Tesla has finalized a $2.6bn deal to buy solar power company SolarCity to produce solar "shingles" - photovoltaic material that would be fashioned into the shape of a house roof.
full article at the Guardian →
Bitcoin is still an inaccessible, obscure experiment-but Bitcoin 2.0 could change our lives
Popularity: 1.98
Five years ago, bitcoin was an obscure and esoteric online currency, used by few and understood by fewer. Today, after half a decade of sturm, drang, and drama-not to mention multi-million dollar hacks and grandiose proclamations-it is ... an obscure and esoteric online currency, used by few and understood by fewer.
Cybersecurity Is Broken And The Hacks Are Going To Just Keep Coming
Popularity: 1.90
LAS VEGAS - The three CEOs sharing fruity cocktails are at the head of cybersecurity companies that bring in roughly $2 billion a year. But despite all the money their companies' services bring annually, not one of them blinked an eye when presented with this statement: "Cybersecurity is a broken industry."
Wikiverse turns Wikipedia into a glorious galaxy of knowledge
Popularity: 1.89
If recklessly clicking through hundreds of Wikipedia entries at a time no longer does it for you, Wikiverse is about to become your new favorite way of browsing the internet's richest encyclopedia.
full article at The Next Web →
10 female photojournalists with their lenses on social justice
Popularity: 1.82
Images can carry stories across the barriers of language, culture, space and time. That's why photography is one of the best, most accessible mediums to raise awareness around social justice issues. Capturing these topics, and their subjects, is no easy feat, however.
Tiny robot caterpillar can move objects ten times its size
Popularity: 1.79
Soft robots aren't easy to make, since they require a completely different set of components from their rigid counterparts. It's even tougher to scale down the parts they typically use for locomotion. A team of researchers from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw, however, successfully created a 15-millimeter soft micromachine that only needs light to be able to move.
Passport
Popularity: 1.63
Simple, unobtrusive authentication for Node.js