Ars Technica

Les #drones passent à l’attaque | InternetActu.net (@iactu, @hubertguillaud)
▻http://www.internetactu.net/a-lire-ailleurs/les-drones-passent-a-lattaque

Le département de la défense américain a diffusé une vidéo montrant le vol d’un essaim de 104 micro-drones lâchés dans les airs depuis un jet. L’expérience a été effectuée en octobre 2016. En accord avec les principes de la « robotique en #essaim », ce collectif de robots ne possède pas de leader ou de commandement extérieur. Les processus de calcul et de décision sont intégralement distribués, ce qui rend le groupe extrêmement adaptable, et capable de se reconfigurer en fonction des besoins ou des aléas, telle la destruction d’un appareil ou l’arrivée de nouveaux drones : quelque chose d’évidemment très utile dans le cadre d’opérations militaires. Sur la vidéo, on voit l’essaim prendre différentes configurations, formant à la fin un cercle autour d’un point central.

▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XKiUtruQiY

▻http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/01/dod-successfully-tests-terrifying-swarm-of-104-micro-drones

Alphabet ended drone Internet project, saying economics didn’t work out | Ars Technica
▻http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/01/alphabet-axed-internet-drones-says-balloon-broadband-is-more-promising

Alphabet’s airborne broadband plans no longer include drones, as the company says balloons are a more promising delivery mechanism for bringing Internet access to remote and rural areas.

Google bought drone maker Titan Aerospace in 2014 and began testing drones that could eventually be used to bring Internet connections to remote places. But the company quietly scrapped those plans nearly a year ago, 9to5Google reported yesterday. More than 50 employees were moved to other Alphabet projects.
[…]
“[…] Many people from the Titan team are now using their expertise as part of other high-flying projects at X, including Loon and Project Wing.”

Lucy en open source
▻http://www.toolinux.com/Lucy-en-open-source

Le squelette le plus connu au monde devient open source pour découvrir les détails de sa mort.

Le squelette de Lucy intrigue toujours. On ne sait pas exactement les causes de son décès. Des chercheurs ont donc eu l’idée de partager des fichiers tomodensimétriques (structures anatomiques reconstruites via un scanner) des os de Lucy afin que la communauté de chercheurs, partout à travers le monde, puisse aider à résoudre ce mystère. A l’aide d’une imprimante 3D, il est même possible de reproduire ces os. Cela devrait permettre de faire avancer les recherches, en se basant sur le modèle contributif de l’open source. Il faut faire une demande en ligne afin d’avoir accès à ces fichiers.
Mais certains chercheurs émettent tout de même des doutes quant à l’utilisation possible de ces fichiers, notamment à des fins commerciales.

Liens :
– Le site eLucy.org
– Plus d’information sur le site ArsTechnica

Yahoo’s planned name change hangs on hopes Verizon won’t back out of deal | Ars Technica
▻http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/01/yahoo-not-dead-yet

Yesterday, Yahoo revealed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that the company would change its name (to “Altaba”) after it completes its transformation from an actual business to a corporate wrapper around Alibaba stock. If all goes as planned, CEO Marissa Mayer would step down, the board would be trimmed, and “Altaba” would simply continue to exist as a way for investors to own a chunk of a non-controlling interest in a Chinese e-commerce company.

Whether that transformation happens as the result of a successful sale of the Yahoo Internet portal to Verizon or some other, less-desirable outcome has yet to be determined. And as we noted in our 2017 Deathwatch, it’s still far from a sure bet that the Verizon acquisition will go as planned.

The change to “Altaba” (apparently some non-trademark-infringing sort of reference to Alibaba, in which Yahoo holds a 15 percent stake) depends on the completion of the sale to Verizon of Yahoo Holdings, the new corporate wrapper for its Internet business.

There’s a 1,000 year-old lost city beneath the St. Louis suburbs

►http://arstechnica.com/features/2016/12/theres-a-1000-year-old-lost-city-beneath-the-st-louis-suburbs

Finding North America’s lost medieval city | Ars Technica
►http://arstechnica.com/features/2016/12/theres-a-1000-year-old-lost-city-beneath-the-st-louis-suburbs

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/cahokia-51-e1442761138595-760x380.jpg

A thousand years ago, huge pyramids and earthen mounds stood where East St. Louis sprawls today in Southern Illinois. This majestic urban architecture towered over the swampy Mississippi River floodplains, blotting out the region’s tiny villages. Beginning in the late 900s, word about the city spread throughout the southeast. Thousands of people visited for feasts and rituals, lured by the promise of a new kind of civilization. Many decided to stay.

Lucky find offers our first look at a dinosaur tail, complete with feathers | Ars Technica
▻http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/12/lucky-find-offers-our-first-look-at-a-dinosaur-tail-complete-with-feath

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/microscopic-barbules-on-tail-feathers4-760x380.jpg

Geoscientist Lida Xing was shopping at an amber market in Myitkyina, Myanmar in 2015 when he saw an unusual piece of amber. Trapped inside was a small object that the amber merchants thought was a sprig of leaves. But Xing thought something much more interesting was going on (…) eight fully preserved vertebrae from a young, non-avian dinosaur called a coelurosaur. As an adult it would have been about the size of an ostrich, but this juvenile was still tiny enough to get trapped in tree sap and never escape. Feathers covered its tail, but at the tip they fluffed out in a pattern that suggested this animal may have had a fan-shaped tail.

(…)

Bristol University paleobiologist Jacob Vinther told NPR’s Rae Ellen Bichell that this structure also meant that colorful, iridescent feathers may have evolved before ones capable of flight.

#plumes de #dinosaure #recherche #évolution #beau

Deux ordinateurs inventent une langue secrète sans que l’on sache comment - #sciences - LeVif.be
▻http://www.levif.be/actualite/sciences/deux-ordinateurs-inventent-une-langue-secrete-sans-que-l-on-sache-comment/article-normal-568889.html

On savait les ordinateurs capables de beaucoup de choses. Mais Google Brain, un programme de recherche en intelligence artificielle, vient de dépasser une nouvelle étape potentiellement angoissante. Deux ordinateurs ont communiqué entre eux dans une langue qu’ils avaient eux-mêmes codée et donc indéchiffrable par les humains. — Permalink

#informatique #technologie

Amazon might become ISP in Europe, but laws make US launch unlikely

[EN] Amazon hasn’t commented publicly on the topic, which was raised today in a report by The Information (subscription required). The technology news site quotes “a person briefed on the discussion” as saying that Amazon is considering whether to offer Internet service over the networks of existing providers. Since Amazon reportedly doesn’t want to build its own network, it would have to purchase wholesale access, which isn’t available everywhere.

[FR] Apparemment, Amazon lorgne le marché européen des FAI grand public. Est-ce qu’Orange accepterait de fournir le même type de services que pour, disons, Free ?

▻http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/10/amazon-might-become-isp-in-europe-but-laws-make-us-launch-unlikely

FBI director says tape is the best way to defeat webcam hacks
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/09/fbi-urges-low-tech-solution-to-high-tech-webcam-hacking-tape

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images News) According to officials tasked with keeping the US homeland sa...

“Employees transferred funds to fake accounts, sometimes triggering charges for customers. [...] This widespread practice gave the employees credit for opening the new accounts, allowing them to earn additional compensation and to meet the bank’s sales goals.”

▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/09/wells-fargo-staff-made-2-million-fake-accounts-with-customer-ids-to-goo

#bank #incentives #stakhanov #bonus #goals

Underground Airlines is one of the bleakest alternate histories ever
▻http://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2016/09/underground-airlines-is-one-of-the-bleakest-alternate-histories-ever

Most alternate histories reverse just a few big historical events. They show us how bad things would be if the Nazis won World War II or the South won the Civil War. Though Ben H. Winters’ new novel Underground Airlines treads familiar territory in this respect, few alt histories are as complex and horrifying as it is.

http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/e56ba326-4d2d-11e6-838d-3ef8f2ae2ec5-300x465.jpg

Underground Airlines is set in a 2016 where slavery is still legal in part of the United States. In this reality, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1861, and the Civil War never happened. Instead, a compromise was struck. To this day, four Southern states (the “Hard Four”) still keep human beings as property.

#livres #sf

Baltimore police accused of illegal mobile spectrum use with stingrays
▻http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/baltimore-police-accused-of-illegal-mobile-spectrum-use-with-stingrays

Georgetown law prof argues that stingray use violates FCC laws, should be halted. A law professor has filed a formal legal complaint on behalf of three advocacy organizations, arguing that stingray use by law enforcement agencies nationwide—and the Baltimore Police Department in particular—violate Federal Communications Commission rules. The new 38-page complaint makes a creative argument that because stingrays, or cell-site simulators, act as fake cell towers, that law enforcement agencies (...)

#IMSI-catchers #écoutes #surveillance

Two recent court decisions make climate scientists’ e-mails public
▻http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/08/two-recent-court-decisions-make-climate-scientists-e-mails-public

Courts continue to find this tricky ground, balancing the terms of the Freedom of Information Act against the harassment of scientists by political groups. Successful suits may embolden groups like CEI and E&E Legal to attempt even more of these requests in their continuing quest to discredit climate science.

#climat #sciences #recherche

À peine sorti, le jeu vidéo pour mobile Pokémon Go est déjà un phénomène mondial. Grâce à la géolocalisation et via la caméra du smartphone, il permet de traquer les petites créatures colorées directement dans l’espace physique environnant. Une réalité « augmentée » qui entraîne quelques situations incongrues. En 2000, un an après la sortie du premier jeu #Pokémon en Europe, Ignacio Ramonet se demandait déjà ce que signifiait l’irruption de ces « mutants gentils » dans nos vies quotidiennes.

▻https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2000/08/RAMONET/1910 #st

http://s2.lemde.fr/image/2016/07/12/534x0/4968032_6_185e_2016-07-11-6dd8c8a-psp01-nintendo-stocks-0711-1_8188b69fdcce89f18aaad3005eef2360.jpg

Certains des premiers vrais incidents liés au jeu ont été un peu surmédiatisés : dans le Missouri, quatre personnes ont été arrêtées, soupçonnées d’avoir attiré des joueurs, grâce à leur géolocalisation, dans des lieux isolés pour les détrousser ; dans le Wyoming, la poursuite d’un « Pokémon eau » caché dans une rivière a amené une adolescente à sauter une barrière et tomber sur un cadavre.

▻http://zinc.mondediplo.net/messages/32713 via Le Monde diplomatique

Tencent rachète supercells

What does Clash of Clans maker’s $10 billion sale say about the future of gaming?
Developer says it has over 100 million daily players for 4 games, including Clash.
▻http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/06/are-mobile-games-like-clash-of-clans-the-future-of-gaming

Tencent paid $8.57 billion for about 84 percent of the Finnish Supercell (which is owned by Japanese parent Softbank), valuing the mobile game studio at about $10.2 billion. That means a mobile game company with four titles is now worth more than twice as much as both Minecraft-maker Mojang (acquired by Microsoft in 2014 for $2.5 billion) and VR company Oculus (acquired by Facebook in 2014 for $2 billion) combined. Looking outside of gaming, Supercell sold for nearly twice as much as the combined purchase price of both YouTube and LucasFilm.
The only gaming acquisition that even comes close to the size of the Supercell deal is Activision’s purchase of Candy Crush Saga maker King, another mobile-focused studio. That move represented a $5.9 billion bet that franchises like Call of Duty, Overwatch, and Destiny aren’t going to be enough to sustain growth for the mega-publisher going forward. But King is largely a one-trick pony at this point, relying heavily on the Candy Crush games for the vast majority of its players and revenue. Supercell’s success runs a bit deeper, with mega-hit Clash of Clans backed up by smaller-but-still-big hits like Clash Royale, Boom Beach, and Hay Day.
The relative value of mobile gaming largely comes from the simple fact that so many people worldwide have smartphones in their pockets, and they are willing to download and try free-to-play titles. Supercell claims more than 100 million daily players for the four games mentioned above; that’s a little under 10 percent of the total market for mobile gamers worldwide, according to one estimate. For a console game to have 100 million players, it would have to be sold to roughly 50 percent of all console owners worldwide, according to other estimates. PC gaming looks relatively strong on a worldwide revenue basis, but these days the business is utterly contaminated by free-to-play MOBAs and MMOs, rather than more traditional single-player games or direct online competitions.

Asia is the key to this change, which helps explain why Tencent is willing to put so much money into acquiring a growing competitor. A recent Digi-Capital report estimates Asia will represent more than 50 percent of all mobile gaming revenue by 2018, leaving Europe and North America to divide up the remainder. That same report estimates the total market for mobile games will be $45 billion (£30 billion) in two years, representing a 40 percent plurality of the total gaming market.

Tencent’s reach is unmatched in the gaming market
▻http://venturebeat.com/2016/06/26/tencent-will-unlock-more-of-chinas-value-and-weave-itself-into-global-g

un article pourri du monde
▻http://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2016/06/22/avec-supercell-tencent-s-offre-une-horde-de-barbares_4955675_4408996.html

#jeux_video #economie #gafa mais on oublie aussi souvent les #jd #tencent #alibaba #baidu #chine (#jtab?) ou les japonais de #rakuten #sharks

How the Internet works: Submarine fiber, brains in jars, and coaxial cables
▻http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/05/how-the-internet-works-submarine-cables-data-centres-last-mile

http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/internet-in-spaaaace-980x622.jpg

Ah, there you are. That didn’t take too long, surely? Just a click or a tap and, if you’ve some 21st century connectivity, you landed on this page in a trice. But how does it work? Have you ever thought about how that cat picture actually gets from a server in Oregon to your PC in London? We’re not simply talking about the wonders of TCP/IP or pervasive Wi-Fi hotspots, though those are vitally important as well. No, we’re talking about the big infrastructure: the huge submarine cables, the vast landing sites and data centres with their massively redundant power systems, and the elephantine, labyrinthine last-mile networks that actually hook billions of us to the Internet. And perhaps even more importantly, as our reliance on omnipresent connectivity continues to blossom, our connected (...)

KeySweeper: RF-based keystroke sniffer for Microsoft Wireless Keyboards, disguised ad USB charger (Samy Kamkar)

▻http://samy.pl/keysweeper

http://samy.pl/keysweeper/keysweeper.jpg http://samy.pl/keysweeper/internalsmall.jpg

KeySweeper is a stealthy Arduino Pro Mini-based device, camouflaged as a functioning USB wall charger, that wirelessly and passively sniffs 2.4Ghz, decrypts, logs and reports back (over 2G GSM) all keystrokes from any Microsoft wireless keyboard in the vicinity.

All keystrokes are logged online and locally on flash storage. SMS alerts are sent upon trigger words, usernames or URLs, exposing passwords. If unplugged, KeySweeper continues to operate using its internal battery and auto-recharges upon repowering. A web based tool allows live keystroke monitoring.

The video is very interersting and gives you the details about the construction of the device.

▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqkmGG0biXc

The souce code can be found here:

▻https://github.com/samyk/keysweeper

Even thought it already surfaced in January 2015,

▻http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/01/meet-keysweeper-the-10-usb-charger-that-steals-ms-keyboard-strokes

it is only recently that the cyber division of the FBI issued an alert about it because more than just Microsoft wireless keyboards are vulnerable to the device.

Wireless Keystroke Logger Disguised as USB Device Charger Targets Wireless Keyboards

▻https://publicintelligence.net/fbi-keysweeper
The pdf:
▻https://info.publicintelligence.net/FBI-KeySweeper.pdf

“If placed strategically in an office or other location where individuals might use wireless devices, a malicious cyber actor could potentially harvest personally identifiable information, intellectual property, trade secrets, passwords, or other sensitive information,” the advisory says. “Since the data is intercepted prior to reaching the CPU, security managers may not have insight into how sensitive information is being stolen.”

Remark from the builder of the device since that FBI publication:

“The interesting thing to note is that when I released KeySweeper, only 1 out of 11 of their wireless keyboards had AES encryption. I’m looking now, and I believe all but one now have AES encryption,”

▻https://threatpost.com/fbi-mum-on-real-world-keysweeper-attacks/118260

#sniffing #keylogger
#Arduino
#privacy
#FBI

SpaceX takes another crack at launching, landing today [Updated] | Ars Technica
▻http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/05/watch-live-spacex-takes-another-crack-at-launching-landing-today

http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/landedrocket1-640x400.jpg

SpaceX did it, successfully delivering its payload and landing the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket for the third time in a row on an autonomous drone ship. It’s safe to say the future has arrived.

On passe doucement à la routine…

Microsoft bangs the final nail in Nokia Devices’ coffin, will lay off 1,850 | Ars Technica
▻http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/05/microsoft-bangs-the-final-nail-in-nokia-devices-coffin-fires-the-last-1

http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/140425121940-microsoft-nokia-nadella-elop-story-top.jpg

The last remaining vestiges of #Nokia at #Microsoft are being closed down as the company “streamlines” its smartphone hardware business. “Up to 1,850” people will lose their jobs (1,350 in Finland, 500 elsewhere) as the company essentially exits the phone market.

Microsoft bought Nokia’s Devices and Services business in 2013 for $7.1 billion. In July last year, Microsoft laid off 7,800 of the staff from that acquisition and took an impairment charge of $7.6 billion. The remaining feature phone portion of the business was sold off last week for $350 million. With today’s announcement, the #smartphone hardware business is being all but wiped out. There will be one last impairment charge of approximately $950 million, of which $200 million is severance pay.

CEO Satya Nadella insists that the company is still working in the phone space, but in a much narrower way, saying “We are focusing our phone efforts where we have differentiation—with enterprises that value security, manageability and our Continuum capability, and consumers who value the same.”

#licenciement #Finlande