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Greece Edges Closer To Chaos As Finance Minister Attacked

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Greece is teetering on the edge and things have begun to turn violent according to a new report this morning. A group of anarchists attacked Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and his wife Danae at an Athens restaurant late on Tuesday. His wife hugged him to shield him from the attack, the finance ministry said.

The couple had finished having dinner with friends in the bohemian Exarchia district, perhaps a mistake given its the site of frequent protests by left-wing protesters. A mob entered the restaurant’s courtyard, telling them to leave “their area.”

The mob tried “for a few seconds to reach me without hitting her,” he said in the ministry statement.

Then “they retreated fast continuing their curses and threats, got out of the courtyard and waited for us outside the restaurant,” Varoufakis added.

While the outspoken economist has won fans in Greece for opposing austerity policies he has also garnered criticism at home for his brash style and a celebrity photo shoot in a French magazine. He has also failed to effectively manage the country’s finances and was recently sidelined from negotiations with the EU.

The violent incident highlights just how dissatisfied Greeks are at their government and their economic position. With solution to either of these issues in the immediate future the sparks of violence set a dangerous precedent for the coming weeks.

Drug Market Kingpin Denied Retrial, Will Spend Life In Jail

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A U.S. federal judge has rejected convicted Silk Road operator Ross Ulbricht’s request for a new trial, despite his attorneys’ claims of inappropriate conduct on the part of government agents and prosecutors.

“The evidence of Ulbricht’s guilt was, in all respects, overwhelming,” an unsympathetic District Judge Katherine Forrest wrote in a Monday ruling. “It went unrebutted” she said.

Joshua Dratel, Ulbricht’s lead attorney, argued that the reason his defense was so lacking was because the government had left him with no time to adequately prepare. While this was somewhat true, given the massive resources the federal government threw at the case, it is only part of the issue.

Dratel was left scrambling to come up with a new strategy after the court rejected his original line of argument, which contributed hugely to the poor defense.

Dratel spent the initial phase of Ulbricht’s trial trying to construct a tenuous defense in which he claimed Ulbricht, 30, was just a fall guy for shadowy third parties. The true mastermind behind Silk Road, he alleged, was defunct bitcoin exchange Mt Gox founder Mark Karpeles. Karpeles could well be behind Silk Road, given he profited hugely from it and appears to be one of the largest fraudsters in modern times. His exchange has filed for bankruptcy with hundreds of millions of dollars ‘missing’.

Prosecutors objected to the fall guy tactic midway into Dratel’s presentation, arguing that it relied on testimony that amounted to “hearsay” and “hunches,” rather than witnesses’ testimony. Judge Forrest agreed and ruled all such testimony inadmissible.

Ulbricht will now spend the rest of his life in prison, in a sentence that has been widely criticized and highly politicized. The message is clear: the feds hate drugs and anyone who dares market them online will face penalties well in excess of normal, and already overly harsh, drug laws.

New EU Regulations Mean Cars Will Spy On You

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In another blow to individual privacy the European Union has enacted strict laws that now force car manufacturers to track and submit loads of data about their driver to authorities. While supposedly for safety purposes there is no regulation on what that data can and cannot be used for, nor is there a limit to what can be collected.

Your car, already spying on you by keeping lots of data about your movements, will now upload it back to central government servers.

The official statement is that new cars sold in the EU from March 2018 will have to phone the government if they think they’ve been in a crash. But this is likely only part of what will happen.

The so-called eCall proposal has found favor with the EU Commission who will automatically dispatch emergency services if your car starts to upload data.

The calls will take place over cellular networks, meaning your car will permanently be connected to these networks 24/7. This would allow government spy agencies to record every movement of your vehicle as well as record conversations happening inside the passenger cabin. Such ‘features’ will be built into the vehicle systems starting in 2018.

In an accident, as opposed to general spying, the system is triggered by the same sensor as an airbag.

The law has been roundly criticized for being a flow to privacy and was successfully held up for years. Like most privacy issues, however, this too was slowly and methodically worked through government so that the spy agencies finally got their way. The passage raises serious questions, in light of the NSA spying on our elected officials, about whether spy agencies are now able to circumvent democracy and force through legislation that is not backed by the popular vote.

Apple Watch Doesn’t Work With Tattooed Wrists

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Numerous hipsters, known for their comprehensive use of tattoo body art, have reported serious issues using their Apple Watches, according to forum posts since the launch.

It seems the watch’s wrist sensor, which changes what is display on the screen based on its contact with your skin, does not work if placed over top of tattoos. It’s a vital component to using the watch.

In a typically vague response, Apple explained that the Watch uses LEDs to detect how much blood is flowing through your veins, but that a number factors can mean the device won’t get a reading.

Based on the online reports it appears the artificial pigments in tattoos are preventing the Watch from being able to see inside their veins, causing the device to assume it’s not being worn and therefore not issuing notifications and locking the screen.

Forum poster guinne55fan reports that the Watch is buggy in other ways, too.

“Overall I’m having other issues with it that are not tattoo related that I’m more upset about, spotty notifications with messages, no email notifications, I can receive calls on the watch but I can’t make them, those issues are bothering me more,” he wrote in the comments following his original post.

The posts are the latest revelation that users aren’t totally in love with the watches. Hype has been notably dimmer than usual for an Apple product launch, though journalists refuse to criticize the product too heavily because if they do, Apple will swiftly cut them off from any information flow or product demos in the future. The company treats journalists who critique its products very harshly, leading to a usually positive flow of information when it comes to product launches.

Samsung Overtakes Apple As World’s Largest Smartphone Maker

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New data from research firm research firm Strategy Analytics shows that Samsung Electronics Co Ltd overtook Apple Inc to recapture the title of world’s top smartphone maker by volume in the first quarter of 2015.

The news comes despite a strong sales of Apple’s iPhone 6 and a record quarter for the California based company. Samsung sold more phones but lost market share, highlighting just how fast the market is growing.

Strategy Analytics said Samsung shipped 83.2 million smartphones worldwide and captured 24 percent market share in the quarter, down from 31 percent a year earlier but better than Apple’s 18 percent.

“Samsung continued to face challenges in Asia and elsewhere, but its global performance has stabilized sufficiently well this quarter to overtake Apple and recapture first position as the world’s largest smartphone vendor by volume,” Strategy Analytics Executive Director Neil Mawston said in the release.

Both companies face stiff challenges by Chinese phone-makers who increasingly have global ambitions. Chinese firm Xiaomi recently launched a massive expansion into India, the second most populous country in the world.

Alibaba Re-Organization Reveals Dramatically Slowing Chinese Economy

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Alibaba Re-Organization Reveals Dramatically Slowing Chinese Economy

In a very surprising move Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is freezing hiring for the rest of the year because it has grown “too quickly”, according to Executive Chairman Jack Ma.

“Alibaba has really developed too quickly … this year our entire group headcount will not go up by one person,” Ma said, via Alibaba’s official messaging app Laiwang.

The company will replace employees who leave. “When one leaves, we’ll bring one in,” Ma stated.

The hiring freeze comes just a week ahead of Alibaba reporting March quarter earnings. In January, Alibaba, which handles more online business than American giants Amazon and eBay combined, reported slowing revenue growth.

Headcount had been growing fast at Alibaba. As of Dec. 31, 2014, the company reported a 63 percent increase from a year earlier.

Ma also announced a re-organization that would see the company consolidate its businesses into seven segments – e-commerce, Ant Financial, Cainiao logistics, big data and cloud computing, advertising, cross-border trade and other internet services.

The sudden turn of events shows just how much the Chinese economy is slowing. Some estimates peg GDP growth at under three percent, well shy of the six percent plus goal of the communist party. The current growth comes amid stimulus measures and questionable financing deals of state backed companies in order to spur growth.

The fact Alibaba is making such radical moves should give investors in China cause for concern. The company is a bellwether for the Chinese economy and if Alibaba is slowing down, in a sector that should be growing faster than the overall economy, the full economy could be deeply depressed.

Upset Residents Find Nepal Quake Response Lacking

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Upset Residents Find Nepal Quake Response Lacking

As the death toll from the devastating earthquake in Nepal four days ago passed 5,000 on Wednesday, officials conceded they had made mistakes in their response. The mistakes left survivors stranded in remote villages waiting for aid and relief.

Over 200 Nepalis protested outside parliament in the capital of Kathmandu on Wednesday. They demanded the government increase the number of buses going to the interior hills of the country and improve distribution of aid.

“I haven’t been able to contact my family members in the village,” said Kayant Panday, who said he woke up at 4am to get a bus to a badly damaged area but was not able to get one. “There is no way I can get information whether they are dead or alive.”

The government has not fully assessed the devastation caused by Saturday’s 7.8 magnitude quake as it has been unable to reach many of the mountainous areas despite aid supplies and personnel pouring in from around the world.

Anger and frustrations are mounting, with many Nepalis sleeping under the starts using makeshift tents for a fourth night since the country’s worst earthquake in more than 80 years.

“This is a disaster on an unprecedented scale. There have been some weaknesses in managing the relief operation,” Nepal’s Communication Minister Minendra Rijal told media late on Tuesday.

“We will improve this from Wednesday.”

Higher Cable Prices Likely As FCC Set To Approve AT&T DirectTV Merger

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Higher Cable Prices Likely As FCC Set To Approve AT&T DirectTV Merger

Despite rejecting the proposed Comcast and Time Warner Cable merger on the grounds of reduced competition the FCC appears set to allow mergers of Internet and TV providers.

AT&T’s proposed $48.5 billion acquisition of DirecTV will likely win approval from the Federal Communications Commission, The Wall Street Journal reports.

It also appears likely to let Time Warner be acquired, but by Charter Communications instead of Comcast.

The FCC hasn’t publicly revealed any of its positions but according to sources the commission “sees the AT&T deal as helping competition and aiding the spread of broadband into rural areas that lack service”. The two goals seem at odds and likely mean urban customers will see increased prices while rural customers will see expanded service.

FCC officials haven’t yet finalized concessions that AT&T would have to make in exchange for approval, “but the commission’s staff is inclined to recommend the approval of the deal.”

These conditions could include expanding high-speed broadband access in rural areas, price guarantees for broadband-only customers, and commitments to net neutrality.

The Department of Justice is reviewing the merger as well and “has yet to raise any significant issues, people familiar with the matter said.”

AT&T said it expects to get final approval of the DirecTV merger by the end of June, according to its earnings announcement last week.

iPad Software Glitch Grounds American Airlines Flights

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iPad Software Glitch Grounds American Airlines Flights

American airlines confirmed late Tuesday night that it had cancelled a number of flights due to an error with the digital map used by pilots in the cockpit.

“Some flights are experiencing an issue with a software application on pilot iPads,” American Airlines said in a press release. “In some cases, the flight has had to return to the gate to access a WiFi connection to fix the issue.”

Spokeswoman Andrea Huguely said that “more than a couple dozen flights” were cancelled.

“We apologize for the inconvenience to our customers,” American Airlines said. “We are working to have them on the way to their destination as soon as possible.”

The company blamed a faulty third-party app, not Apple itself.

American Airlines became the first airline, In 2013, to have its pilots rely entirely on iPads for flight planning and navigation. As plans get updated all the time the company cut down on lots of excess paper.

The airline has estimated the program saves the company at least 400,000 gallons of fuel every year. In total, 8,000 iPads replaced 24 million pages of documents.

The issue highlight that while neat technology can have large benefits software isn’t always reliable. Sometimes traditional methods, like ink and paper, are more reliable. Many airlines who have gone digital have extensive paper backup systems in case of such glitches.

Baltimore Now Stable As Only A Few Defy Curfew

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Baltimore was calm last night thanks to thousands of police in riot gear and National Guard troops patrolling the city to enforce a curfew on Tuesday night. The troops dispersed protesters with pepper spray a day after the city was gripped by the worst rioting in the United States in years.

A heavy presences consisting of helicopters overhead and armored vehicles on the ground led most people to respect a curfew that starts at 10pm and goes until 5am all week.

A few hundred people defied authorities, gathering at an intersection that was the scene of heavy looting in the largely black city the night before.

Police broke up the protest using rubber bullets and projectiles with pepper spray. Seven people were arrested while three more were arrested elsewhere in the city.

Baltimore exploded in violence on Monday hours after the funeral for a black man who died April 19 after he was severely beaten while in police custody a week earlier.

China Passes U.S. To Become Apple’s Fastest Growing Market

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Apple used to dislike questions about China, a politically sensitive example of a rare instance in which the company under-performed. Now that’s all changed as Apple announced Tuesday that China has officially passed the U.S. as Apple’s fastest growing iPhone market. It’s revenues were still slightly behind the U.S. market however.

Fiscal second quarter revenue in the country, which got a boost from the Chinese New Year in February, soared 70 percent to a record $16.8 billion from $9.84 billion a year ago.

China was the sole region detailed in Apple’s earnings report in which March sales topped those of the first quarter, though by a meager 4 percent. The country also surpassed Europe to become the second-biggest revenue generator overall after the Americas, which recorded $21.3 billion in sales.

Apple doesn’t actually break out iPhone sales in individual regions but Apple CEO Cook noted Monday during a conference call that iPhone sales jumped more than 70 percent in Greater China during the period.

While markets such as the U.S. tend to buy more devices for the holidays at the end of the calendar year, China tends to spend more around its New Year in February.

“It was an incredible quarter,” Cook said during the call with analysts. “I’ve never seen as many people coming into the middle class as they are in China, and that’s the bulk of our sales, and we’re really proud and continue to invest in the country.”

But smartphones sales in developed markets slow and so regions such as China become more important to the company. China became the world’s largest smartphone market in 2011 and now has almost 520 million smartphone users.

Apple has been working hard to gain market share in the country by reaching deals with major carriers in the region. It’s been willing, unlike Google, to make rights and values concessions to the Chinese communist party. Google does little business in China due to human rights and freedom on expression abuses.

An agreement with the world’s largest carrier, China Mobile, in January 2014 gave Apple access to more than 800 million subscribers though the cost to individual freedom remains to be seen.

China came close to passing the U.S. as Apple’s biggest iPhone market in the first quarter. The company generated $16.1 billion in revenue in China in the period, up 70 percent from the same time a year ago. Mainland China sales more than doubled from the previous year.

Analysts at Trefis wrote last week that Apple’s fiscal second quarter would “be all about China.”

“We believe that iPhone sales in Greater China will be the biggest driver of quarterly earnings given the Chinese New Year shopping season that occurred in February, China Mobile’s rapid 4G user additions and an improved supply-demand balance for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, both of which remained undersupplied over the previous quarter,” they said last week.

In 2011 Apple made $12.5 billion from China the entire year. The year prior, it made only $2.8 billion. China’s sales in the 2014 fiscal year totaled $29.8 billion.

Along with the iPhone, second-quarter Mac, iPad and Apple Store sales also were very strong in China. Mac sales jumped about 31 percent, the CEO said during the earnings call, while the App Store more than doubled to a record quarter.

Nepal Death Toll Expected To Pass 10,000

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Nepal Death Toll Expected To Pass 10,000

As the smoke clears and rescuers reach out to distant villages the death toll is expected to rise considerably in Nepal, Americans.org has learned.

Nepal’s prime minister said Tuesday the death toll from the catastrophic earthquake that rocked the country Saturday will likely reach 10,000. The United Nations estimated 8 million people have been affected.

Prime Minister Sushil Koirala made the statement to Reuters as he appealed for tents and medicine. He also ordered rescue efforts to be stepped up in case survivors were still trapped. International aid has already begun flowing into the country.

The death toll from the 7.8 magnitude quake has soared past 4,600. Hundreds of thousands of people are sleeping outdoors and living in the open out of fear of being inside unstable buildings amid aftershocks. Compounding problems were heavy rains on Tuesday in the capital of Kathmandu. The downpour forced people to find shelter wherever they could.

Gautam Rimal, an official in rural Nepal, said 250 additional people are believed missing following a mudslide and avalanche in the isolated village of Ghodatabela, not far from the center of the quake.

The quake killed at least 61 people in India, and 25 were reported dead in Tibet as tremors from the quake rippled across the region.

Is Social Media A Viable Business Model?

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Twitter announced earnings today and they were terrible. The company missed on revenue and user metrics were weak (we’ll look at that closer below).

First the highlights:

Twitter’s first quarter revenue hit $436 million, missing expectations of $456 million. The company cited foreign exchange impacts took 6% out of annual revenue growth.

Twitter’s first quarter adjusted earnings came in at $0.07, better than the $0.04 that was expected. But these still aren’t GAAP numbers and so they’re rather meaningless.

Average monthly active users totaled 302 million in the first quarter, in-line with expectation, up 18% from the prior year and up from 288 million in the previous quarter.

Average mobile monthly active users were 80% of the monthly active user total.

On the surface, the number don’t seem terrible. But the chart everyone seems to be looking at (below) shows the real negative trend here.

The growth in ad engagement has fallen off considerably. While still growing, the steepness of the curve (which can be seen in lower revenue numbers) is troubling. Users are essentially rejecting ads on the platform. It seems as though Twitter hasn’t created an ad product that is accepted by users. The more prevalent ads get, the more users dislike them, according to the data.

And this makes it expensive for advertisers to reach audiences. The cost per engagement is up on Twitter – never what an advertiser wants to see. This means its more expensive to reach a user and thus the ad campaign is more inefficient.

In a perfect world, this would mean ad prices are going up and Twitter is making more money. But that’s not happening – revenues are down. This means that users are just more blind to ads and thus forcing advertisers to pay more.

twtr ad engage

The Twitter numbers bring back an interesting point made by Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, who incedentally, may have missed out on his chance to IPO

When the market for tech stocks cools, Facebook market cap will plummet, access to capital for unproven businesses will become inaccessible, and ad spend on user acquisition will rapidly decrease – compounding problems for Facebook and driving stock even lower. Instagram may be only saving grace if they are able to ramp advertising product fast enough. Total internet advertising spend cannot justify outsized valuations of social media products that derive revenue from advertising. Feed-based advertising units will plummet in value (in the case of Twitter, advertising spend may not move beyond experimental dollars) similar to earlier devaluing of Internet display advertising.

While the comment could apply to Facebook, perhaps it extends to all social networks. When innovation curves are so rapid and markets are expanding so fast, is it possible for anyone to win economically or will users just go to the next big thing at the slightest excuse?

U.S. Dispatches Destroyer After Iran Seizes Cargo Ship

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U.S. Dispatches Destroyer After Iran Seizes Cargo Ship

A U.S. Navy destroyer has rushed to the area of a confrontation Tuesday between Iranian warships and a Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz. The move comes amid increased tensions in the area over the conflict in Yemen, the Pentagon is reported to have said.

The USS Farragut rushed to the scene after an Iranian vessel fired warning shots across the bow of the M/V Maersk Tigris while it was in Iranian waters, according to Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman.

The shots were fired after the cargo ship refused orders to head further into Iranian waters, Col. Warren said.

After the shots were fired, the cargo ship changed course and complied with the order. The ship was directed to Larak Island by Iranian vessels, he said. Iranian sailors from the Iranian vessel then boarded the ship. Presently the ship is under the control of Iranian forces, officials said.

The U.S. Navy sent the Farragut and U.S. planes to keep watch on the confrontation in response. The ship is currently under U.S. surveillance.

After being accosted by the Iranians, the cargo ship issued a distress call on an open radio channel. Officials at the U.S. 5th Fleet Headquarters directed the Farragut and the Navy planes in response.

Col. Warren said the action by Iranian forces to fire shots at the cargo ship was inappropriate.

”At first appearance this does seem to be provocative behavior but we don’t have all the facts yet,” he said.

The Iranian vessels who fired the shots weren’t part of the regular Iranian Navy but were part of the more hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval force. Ships under the command of the IRGC have been involved in a number of provocative incidents in the Persian Gulf during recent years, according to U.S. officials.

There are believed to be about three dozen crew members on the cargo ship, none of them American, according to officials.

Col. Warren stated that the Tigris was in a shipping lane, but also inside Iranian waters when it was confronted by the Iranian vessels. Col. Warren said the maritime navigation principle known as “innocent passage” should have been applied which would have allowed the cargo vessel to pass through the strait.

The confrontation comes amid increased tensions in the region due to Saudi Arabia’s ongoing military operations against Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen.

The U.S. Navy sent an aircraft carrier into the region to keep watch on an Iranian flotilla that American officials suspected of carrying weapons bound for Houthi forces in Yemen, late last week. President Obama warned Iran not to try to arm the militants in Yemen, and the cargo vessels turned back toward Iran, averting a potential confrontation in Gulf of Aden.

The Iranian flotilla is still loitering in the Arabian Sea and Pentagon officials are still keeping watch to make sure it does not turn back and try to head toward Yemen.

The flotilla has now turned east and is heading toward the Strait of Hormuz, Col. Warren said Tuesday.

Indonesia Defies World Anger And Executes 8 Drug Smugglers

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Eight convicted drug smugglers were executed by firing squad in Indonesia Wednesday morning. The executions took place in Besi prison on the island of Nusakambangan.

A ninth execution, a woman from the Philippines, was postponed at the last minute.

Among those killed this morning were Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. The men’s families were allowed to see them for the last time before they died.

Australia had vocally appealed to Indonesia to delay the executions citing alleged flaws in the Indonesian legal process.

The executed also include Nigerian nationals, a Brazilian and an Indonesian.

Relatives were visibly distressed and one’s sister collapsed and had to be carried to the prison.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop had strongly urged Indonesia to delay the execution of its two nationals until a corruption investigation into their case was complete.

Indonesia has some of the toughest drug laws in the world and ended a four-year moratorium on executions in 2013 despite international condemnation.

It claims it takes a hard line because of the country’s own drugs problem – 33 Indonesians die every day as a result of drugs, according to Indonesia’s National Narcotics Agency.

The policy reversal goes against the international trend of abolishing the death penalty, which is viewed as inhuman and vindictive. It’s also shown to be an ineffective tool in crime prevention.

Baltimore Librarians Proudly Keep Doors Open Despite Turmoil

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Baltimore’s librarians proudly announced that all library locations, including those at the epicenter of the riots, are welcoming patrons today.

All branches remain open and fully staffed in the wake of protests and riots that have scked the city.

Against a backdrop of a state of emergency and schools closed citywide Tuesday morning, the Enoch Pratt Free Library has chosen to stay open, providing a hub of comfort and community to all neighborhoods, including the ones most affected by the mayhem.

“It’s at times like this that the community needs us,” library Director of Communications Roswell Encina stated. “That’s what the library has always been there for, from crises like this to a recession to the aftermath of severe weather. The library has been there. It happened in Ferguson; it’s happening here.”

The reports of violence, looting, and coordinated gang activity began coming out of Baltimore Monday night, within hours of the funeral of Freddie Gray. Gray died last week from injuries he sustained while in police custody. The incident resulted in an outpouring of anger from protesters who point to his death as the latest in an epidemic of police violence against unarmed black men.

The Pratt had received an outpouring of support on Twitter early Tuesday morning, with users from all over the city and the U.S. lauding the decision to keep the doors open.

Encina expressed hope that today would mark the turnaround for Baltimore, as the focus shifting to healing the community.

7 Year Old Discovers Turkey Sized T-Rex That Ate Plants

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7 Year Old Discovers Turkey Sized T-Rex That Ate Plants

Scientists in Chile are puzzled by the discovery of a diminutive new vegetarian dinosaur which, they say, was closely related to the infamous meat-eating Tyrannosaurus rex. The finding is particularly notable for the vegetarian discovery, as the overall structure of the creature looks more like its meat eating cousins than traditional vegetarian dinosaurs.

Specimens of the strange, dwarfish Jurassic creature, dubbed Chilesaurus diegosuarezi and nicknamed ‘platypus’, reveal that the newly uncovered dinosaur was typically the size of a turkey, though some grew to around nine feet long.

According to the Chilean and Argentinian paleontologists, whose paper was published in the journal Nature on Monday, said the platypus discovery shows that a meat free diet was acquired much earlier than had been previously thought.

Martín Ezcurra, a dinosaur researcher at the University of Birmingham, said:

“Chilesaurus can be considered a “platypus” dinosaur because different parts of its body resemble those of other dinosaur groups due to mosaic convergent evolution

In this process, a region or regions of an organism resemble others of unrelated species because of a similar mode of life and evolutionary pressures. Chilesaurus provides a good example of how evolution works in deep time and it is one of the most interesting cases of convergent evolution documented in the history of life.”

The ‘platypus’ was found to have a strange mixture of “bizarre” characteristics from different dino groups, the boffins noted, including a small skull and two fingers, just like the larger T-rex.

In a heartwarming twist, the fossil remains of the small, plant-eating creature were dug up by a 7-year-old child named Diego Suárez, who was at the Toqui Formation in Aysén, south of Chilean Patagonia with his parents, who happen to be geologists.

Lead researcher Dr Fernando Novas said:

“The recurrent discovery in beds of the Toqui Formation of its bones and skeletons clearly demonstrates that Chilesaurus was, by far, the most abundant dinosaur in southwest Patagonia 145 million years ago.”

platypusdino

Russians Lose Control Of Space Station Re-Supply Ship

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Russia has lost control of its Progress cargo capsule that was scheduled to deliver 6,000 lbs of supplies to the International Space Station this morning.

The spacecraft is tumbling around Earth as controllers try to establish contact.

The Progress 59 supply ship lifted off flawlessly from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, at about 3am local time today. It was scheduled to rendezvous with the ISS on Thursday but shortly after takeoff the spacecraft’s telemetry started failing, and it is now not accepting navigation commands.

“The Russian flight control team attempted to command the vehicle over four orbits flying over Russian ground sites with no success,” said NASA in a blog post.

“The next series of ground station passes is expected to resume late Tuesday evening. Teams are standing down on the Thursday docking attempt while Russian teams continue to analyze data and develop a troubleshooting plan going forward.”

The issue appears to stem from an improperly deployed navigational antenna and problems with the pressurization of the the propulsion system. The Progress capsule is still in a low orbit and is not posing a direct threat to the ISS.

The failure is a problem for NASA as this is the second resupply mission to fail in six months. In October an Orbital Science’s Antares mission blew up seconds after takeoff. Today’s failure will leave the ISS short of supplies.

NASA only maintains enough supplies aboard the ISS to cover the loss of two resupply missions, with a little bit more as an extra reserve. This latest supply ship contains mostly food and fuel. NASA will be looking to source another fast supply mission to make sure nothing runs out.

The failure is good news for America though.

SpaceX has a mission scheduled for June 22 and the firm has a perfect record in delivery.

For now the Russians will try and reestablish contact. If they can’t the Progress capsule will be allowed to fall back into the atmosphere and burn up with its cargo.

Why China’s Tone Deaf Politics Weaken It Like Russia

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China’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that it was “extremely concerned” after leaders of Southeast Asian countries expressed disapproval about land reclamation and navigational freedom in the disputed South China Sea.

The statement is completely disingenuous. The Chinese know full well what they are doing, the numerous objections to it and could care less. None of the objections is new and China has been roundly condemned for the actions by international leaders.

China’s reclamation work in the South China Sea is just the latest source of tension with some of its smaller neighbors, several of whom have competing territorial claims in the waters.

The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) denounced the reclamation work and said it “eroded trust and confidence and may undermine peace, security and stability in the South China Sea”.

This message has been consistent for many months and years now.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei saying that China was “extremely concerned” rings hollow. China could care less – it has a plan. It also has plenty of reasons at home.

Specifically, China’s antiquated communist system of governance is an increasingly sore point with a connected, digital population. Citizens of China are starting to realize that the only thing communism does it funnel heir hard earned money into the hands of a few powerful elite.

The communist party knows this too and is looking for ways to distract and unify the country behind this archaic system. A textbook way to do this is through diversionary way, which China seems destined to partake in. A small skirmish around nationalist ideals, such as ownership of rocks in the middle of the ocean, is a good way to accomplish this.

The stakes are small and the political gains large.

China’s belligerent attitude, like that of Russia, has no place in world politics in the 21st century. Countries compete in much more nuanced ways and increasingly cooperate. Realist, zero sum game, paradigms look old and outdated. Just like communism itself.

Deutsche Bank CEO To Stand Trial For Purgery

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Deutsche Bank CEO To Stand Trial For Purgery

Corruption starts at the top and in the case of Deutsche Bank it appears to have gone all the way to the very top.

CEO Juergen Fitschen is one of five defendants in a trial who are accused of giving false testimony in a long-running legal battle with the now defunct Kirch media group.

It’s an especially flagrant violation of the law as the charges are of an aggravated nature, and could carry a prison sentence of anywhere between one and 10 years.

The charges are just the latest in a long line of criminal and civil offenses for the bank, which has operated a wide-ranging criminal enterprise for years. Due to large amounts of money and political connections the bank, and its managers, have thus far escaped personal liability.

All fines to date, which amount to billions of dollars, have been paid by shareholders and are thus actually being paid by the public – people with pensions mostly.

“Things could get a little uncomfortable,” 66-year-old Fitschen conceded in a recent interview with the weekly magazine Stern. The statement underscores the level of contempt the bankers view the law with.

“The fatal thing is that some people have decided you’re guilty from the outset. But I was honest,” he insisted, despite presiding over a serious of criminal conspiracies at the firm.

Fitschen and four others — ex-chief executives Rolf Breuer and Josef Ackermann and former executives Clemens Boersig and Tessen von Heydebreck — are accused of giving false evidence to judges in one of the many lawsuits brought by the late media magnate Leo Kirch against the bank.

The bank is currently embroiled in several legal battles, with the accusations ranging from manipulation of the currency markets, rigging the Libor and Euribor interest rates, to doing business with countries subject to US sanctions such as Iran. The allegations represent just the surface of the concerted, international conspiracy.

In the first three months of this year alone, the bank was forced to set aside 1.5 billion euros to cover litigation costs, slicing first-quarter profits in half.

And just last week, Deutsche Bank was fined a record $2.5 billion by US and British authorities for its role in a vast multi-year conspiracy to rig Libor interest rates.

The latest revelations beg the question: at what point does banking become racketeering?

Researchers Find Surgery Robot Can Be Hacked To Hack You

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Researchers Find Surgery Robot Can Be Hacked To Hack You

In our increasingly digital and increasingly connected world the opportunity for hackers to take advantage of this connectivity is growing exponentially.

New research shows that surgical robot makers are just as good at security as the rest of the world. Which means they’re very bad at it, according to University of Washington information security researchers.

The researchers targeted a telesurgery unit called the Raven II, itself developed by the University of Washington, and found an exploitable safety mechanism in the device.

The robot, being designed to be remotely controlled over the Internet, naturally needs a failsafe in case a surgeon commands a dangerous movement like moving the arm too fast, or into an unsafe position. When that happens, the system gstops in what’s called a “software E-stop”.

But this isn’t as safe as it sounds. All that’s needed for an an attacker to invoke the E-stop is to send a single packet giving a dangerous instruction. If an attacker peppers the robot with lots of malicious packets they can “stop the robot from ever being properly reset, thus effectively making a surgical procedure impossible”.

Their paper, published at Arxiv, shows a bunch of other vulnerabilities in the robot. The robot can be hijacked to carry out instructions of an attacker in what’s known as a ‘man-in-the-middle attack’. This means that a hacker can instruct the robot to hack you into tiny pieces.

It’s also prone to flooding, which means an attacker can make the robot’s motion “delayed and jerky”, the researchers write.

Fortunately there is an easy fix to the problems. By making sure the connection to the robot is carried out through a VPN, like the one we all use for working remotely, the vulnerabilities disappear.

Still, putting robots in charge of life-and-death applications isn’t somewhere that security after-the-fact is the perfect idea.

Finnish Military Fires Depth Charges At Submarine As Tensions Rise

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Tensions with Russia were yet again elevated on Tuesday as the Finnish military fired underwater depth charges as a warning against a suspected submarine in its territorial waters near Helsinki. The incident comes amid growing military tensions with neighboring Russia.

The Finnish navy noticed an underwater target on Monday and then again on Tuesday morning and fired some warning charges, which were the size of grenades.

Finland shares an 833 mile border with Russia and has become increasingly worried about its powerful neighbor after a year of Russian belligerence that saw air force sorties and military border exercises.

Defense minister Carl Haglund did not explicitly say that Russia was involved but there are no countries that would have been in the region otherwise, according to reports.

“We strongly suspect that there has been underwater activity that does not belong there. Of course it is always serious if our territorial waters have been violated,” Haglund told Finnish news outfit STT.

“The bombs are not intended to damage the target, the purpose is to let the target know that it has been noticed,” Commodore Olavi Jantunen told Helsingin Sanomat newspaper.

A Russian submarine was spotted off Stockholm last year and led to Sweden’s biggest mobilization since the Cold War.

The fact live weapons were used suggest, again, that the world is growing impatient with Russia and its brinkmanship. It’s likely that the latest move will increase resolve for sanction and cutting of economic ties which have hurt the Russian economy badly.

How Do We Police Computer Algorithms That Collude?

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How Do We Police Computer Algorithms That Collude?

The rules governing humans colluding to fix prices and reduce competition are well established law. But what if two computer programs are tasked with setting prices and end up colluding based on their strategy choices?

Two law professors, Ariel Ezrachi of Oxford and Maurice E. Stucke of the University of Tennessee, have have been taking a hard look at just what happens when computers are involved in pricing for goods and services (like, say, at Amazon or Uber). The specifically examined the potential for collusion and the results are pretty shocking and pretty illegal.

Computers can’t have secret back-room conversation to fix prices, but they can be programmed to predict the way competing computers are going to behave. By anticipating other computer based pricing decisions and responding based on solid mathematical principles they can effectively cooperate with each other in advancing their own profit-maximizing interests. In human terms we call this colluding.

“Computers may limit competition not only through agreement or concerted practice, but also through more subtle means. For example, this may be the case when similar computer algorithms promote a stable market environment in which they predict each other’s reaction and dominant strategy. Such a digitalized environment may be more predictable and controllable. Furthermore, it does not suffer from behavioral biases and is less susceptible to possible deterrent effects generated through antitrust enforcement.” the authors write.

The research exposes a hue problem: what happens when the law hasn’t caught up to the technology?

While there has been one prosecution for this type of collusion, the law is still way behind.

More disturbingly, it isn’t clear if the law can ever catch up.

In easy cases, a computer is just a tool used to help humans collude, which is theoretically easy to prosecute.

But what if the computer learns to collude on its own? What if two competing machines using the same theory end up fixing prices when that wasn’t specifically the intention? Can a machine even be prosecuted?

In this type of collusion, which the authors call Autonomous Machine COllusion, “the computer executes whichever strategy it deems optimal, based on learning and ongoing feedback collected from the market. Issues of liability, as we will discuss, raise challenging legal and ethical issues.”

With the net effect being bad for consumers there is an urgent need to fix the regulations and have legal scholars with technical backgrounds examine the issues in detail. But it also takes politicians who understand technology and on that front the future does not look bright. Many of our elected representatives don’t even use email so it remains unlikely they will be able to properly construct laws where needed to deal with this predatory behavior.

The Real Reason Google Is Reaching Out To News Publishers

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Google is being credited with admitting mistakes in working with news organisations as it announced yesterday a new digital partnership with eight European publishers.

The Digital News Initiative has been hailed as an attempt to improve its image after being accused of distorting internet search results and acting anti-competitively by European regulators two weeks ago.

In a speech in London on Tuesday morning, Carlo D’Asaro Biondo, Google’s head of strategic relationships in Europe, is expected to say: “We recognise that technology companies and news organisations are part of the same information ecosystem and we want to play our part in the common fight to find more sustainable models for news.

“We firmly believe Google has always aimed to be friend and partner to the news industry, but we also accept we’ve made some mistakes along the way. We are determined to play our part in ongoing dialogue and business partnership with the aim of building something more sustainable.”

Make no mistake that Google, and its counterpart Facebook, are not interested in helping any content providers.

They are interested in taxing them, plain and simple.

They control the traffic so they control how much that traffic costs and who they will allocate it to.

They are also locked in a battle to the death of retaining this traffic. While Google has long enjoyed a search monopoly upstarts Facebook, Snapchat and a host of other social networks are increasingly stealing that traffic. They’re also looking to keep stealing it, by offering everything you need the internet for inside of their proprietary networks.

Google’s move addresses two key issues

First is that Facebook, and other social media sites like Snapchat, are building news services that keep users within their ecosystems. They presently drive a large volume of traffic to news sites but that isn’t enough – they want it all. Every single bit of it.

Google’s business is built around linking people off to other sites and so the model is very different than the newcomers’. It’s also less naturally prone to sharing and other social interactions. While this is actually good for publishers, because they control their hard work and retain options for how their sites look and what advertisers they use, the siren sound of Social’s massive audience is tough to ignore. The same organizations Google is working with here are trial partners with Facebook and Snapchat.

The money here is to help these publishers figure out a way to keep the status quo relationship with Google rather than jump to a Facebook-only format. Such a format would cut Google out of the equation, as Facebook does not allow its pages to be indexed by Google.

A second and smaller part of this is EC anti-trust damage control. Google is trying to show it can play nice with publishers and get them on-board before the eventual depositions and trial happen. By winning hearts and minds they may be able to offset the wrath of the EC.

But this is outside the true focus of what’s going on here. While its a nice bonus (and typically Google-clever) the real issue is the nuclear warhead that is getting launched at the company as social networks build ways to keep audiences in their walled gardens.

Google has to tackle this issue or face being cut off from lucrative search requests and advertising dollar, the company’s elixir of life.

Writers Boycotting PEN Awards Show Contempt For Free Speech

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Writers Boycotting PEN Awards Show Contempt For Free Speech

Six prominent writers are boycotting a major U.S. literary awards show over plans to give satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo a freedom of speech award.

The authors include The English Patient writer Michael Ondaatje and Peter Carey. They were scheduled to attend the PEN Literary Gala in New York on May 5th.

Their argument, which rings rather thin, is that PEN – known for defending jailed writers – is stepping beyond its traditional role.

Islamists stormed the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris in January, killing twelve people during the attack. The motivation was the magazine drawing a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.

Authors Rachel Kushner, Teju Cole, Taiye Selasi and Francine Prose are also against PEN handing the Freedom of Expression Courage Award to Charlie Hebdo, as they are not comfortable with the magazine’s “cultural intolerance”.

The boycott has been criticized by author Salman Rushdie, a former president of PEN who was in hiding for years over Islamist threats in response to his novel The Satanic Verses.

He said his friends were “horribly wrong” and he hoped nobody ever came after them.

The self-centered and aloof view of the boycotting authors goes against one of our fundamental freedoms, the freedom of speech. To be involved in our nation we expect citizens to be tolerate of the speech of others, regardless of their particular beliefs or convictions. Everyone is free to share and we insist on the right of everyone to do so.

The intent of the cartoons, simple drawings on paper, was not to “ostracise or insult Muslims, but rather to reject forcefully the efforts of a small minority of radical extremists to place broad categories of speech off limits.” according to a review by PEN.

This is the precise type of speech our laws were designed to encourage and the actions of the extremists in trying to stifle our rights should be vigorously defended. One way we can do this is to sing from hilltops the names of the people killed in the massacre and celebrate their lives.

That is what PEN is doing and we should applaud them for it.

To abstain for the awards reflects both a deep lack of knowledge about American core values and a level of affectedness that is deplorable. Their decision to not attend is ignorant and cowardly.

The cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo exhibited fine American values and we should celebrate them for doing so.

Baltimore Schools Closed Today, Curfew In Place, 1000s Out Cleaning Up

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Baltimore, Maryland is a conflicted world this morning. The night after vicious riots injured dozen of people – protesters and police alike – the city is picking up the pieces.

While the full extent of the damage and lawlessness will take time to process, here are the highlights.

– Curfew remains in place and is estimated to be in place for a week

– Schools are closed today but may re-open tomorrow

– Over 40 people are reported as injured according to current counts

– Over 10,000 people marched peacefully yesterday

– Exact count of violent protesters unknown but likely only in the hundreds

– Rioters were seen cutting fire horses to ensure maximum damage from burned cars

– Over 1,000 were out in the street early this morning to clean up after the chaos

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World Grows Impatient With Russia As France Stops Destroyer Sale

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The world’s developed countries are growing increasingly impatient with Russia and its belligerent antics it appears. On Monday, after months of debate, France opted to pay Russia $1.2 billion to settle a lingering dispute over whether two amphibious warships would be sold to the communist state as planned.

The deal went sour over the ongoing conflict in the Ukraine, according to both French and Russian media reports.

The deal — not yet official — would have France keep the two 21,000 ton warships and retain the right to sell the ships to a country of their choosing, reported French paper Le Journal du Dimanche.

“Legally, this decision has not yet been formalized, but it is known that the Russian and French sides agreed within one month to determine the exact condition of cancellation of the contract for the supply of RF class ships Mistral” read a translation via the TASS Russian wire service. Given the source of the news and Russian increasing propaganda, the sale may have actually ended on far less friendly terms.

Russia has already paid France about $811 million as part of the $1.5 billion 2011 deal for the Mistrals — which were modified to operate in Arctic conditions and accommodate Russia’s heavier helicopters — and will reportedly not seek additional penalties or legal action.

France will use the proceeds of a planned $2 billion sale of Airbus EC 725 Caracal helicopters to Poland in order to pay Russia, reported the French paper.

The delivery of the ships was halted due to Russia invading the Ukraine.

The move from France was unexpected. European military defense experts had expected France to eventually deliver the ships as the French economy very much needs the money. The turn of events shows that France was unable to balance its sale of the ships with its status as a world leading country in light of the serious actions of Russia.

Young Women Moving To IUDs For Birth Control

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Young Women Moving To IUDs For Birth Control

Women in college who choose an intrauterine device (IUD) for long-term contraception say it hurts to have the device inserted, but they are otherwise very happy with it overa year later, according to a new U.S. survey.

While The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) have both endorsed IUDs as first-line contraception for young women who have never had children, many providers still are not comfortable giving IUDs to these women, said lead author Dr. Alexandra Hall of the University of Wisconsin-Stout in Menomonie.

The resistance to what is proving to be a better mechanism has historical roots. “It all comes back to the 1970s with the Dalkon Shield IUD; people got terrible pelvic infections,” Hall told Reuters Health.

After the incident IUDs were redesigned and now pelvic inflammatory disease is no more common among IUD users than among women on the pill, she said.

Despite the fact that IUDs are safe, effective and well tolerated, “some people are a little more cautious and very afraid of doing harm,” particularly to young women who have not been pregnant, said Hall.

“Physicians and other health-care practitioners who work more with younger people are going with [the ACOG and AAP] recommendation,” Hall said.

Researchers studied 109 students at Cornell who chose to have the Paragard Copper T 380A or the Mirena levonorgestrel intrauterine system placed in 2012 or 2013. The women, ages 18 to 30 years old, had never had children.

“There is still a feeling among some providers and among a lot of parents and people helping young women with decision making that IUDs may not be right for them,” said Dr. Julie Strickland, chair of ACOG’s Adolescent Health Care Committee.

“The more we can get out there to show it’s safe and efficacious and really well tolerated and well liked among young adults, the better,” Strickland said.

Baltimore Burns, Maryland Governor Declares State Of Emergency

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Baltimore Burns, Maryland Governor Declares State Of Emergency

In response to the police murder of, and today’s funeral for, Freddie Gray protesters took to the streets of Baltimore and have now begun rioting.

Governor Larry Hogan, at the request of Baltimore City, has signed an Executive Order declaring a state of emergency. He has activated the National Guard to address the growing violence and unrest in Baltimore City.

Update: Week long curfew issued for city.

Full details of the riots can be viewed below. Words do not begin to describe the chaos.

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What Harvard Has Learned About Online Education

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Harvard Business School launched HBX, its new online education initiative, in June 2014. At the time the trend was for online courses to create a “lean back” experience where students would primarily watch streamed video lectures featuring experts. While these gave students an opportunity to see star professors they were lectures nonetheless. The experience was passive ad the school wanted to change that.

When they designed their online platform they focused on three things:

A focus on real-world business problems. Video cases would be used to show real managers in real situations that connect back to theoretical concepts.

Encourage active learning. The program went for a ‘lean forward’ mode rather than a more passive strategy used by others.They aimed for student to spend no more than 3-5 minutes on the platform before having to interact with the material.

Foster collaborative learning. The platform would take a team approach, requiring students to interact with each other.

Just over one year since launching HBX, here’s what the school learned:

Collaboration doesn’t occur in a vacuum. The school helped participants “meet” virtually by requiring every student to first submit a personal picture and complete a public profile before they could participate. The plan worked – students on average view the profiles of 40 other participants before starting.

Align Incentives. Just getting people together doesn’t make collaboration happen. It must be triggered. To do this, the school tied participation and online collaboration to course grades.

Build the right team. Allowing just anyone to take the course wasn’t enough. Harvard made all participants apply and applicants were screen on a variety of academic and personality factors to find a good mix of candidates that would engage with the program and each other.

Set norms and stick to them The school recognized that a good plan might die off if it was not consistent. Great care was taken to make sure all courses stuck to the aforementioned goals and there wasn’t inconsistency between courses or professors teaching them.

Online collaboration can overcome biases and behaviors that arise in face-to-face environments. The team was surprised that by being online there tended to be less social stratification or the formation of ‘cliques’, which often happens at the elite school. Social interactions were more results driven and less socially driven.

The findings from Harvard square with those we recently profiled from a software provider to schools such as Harvard. Online education has to be interactive and adhere to many of the same standards as classroom based programs in order to work. If this is done there are some advantages to online courses which seem poised to grow as the world gets more connected and more social online.

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