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🔗 Computing 🔗 Crime 🔗 Computer Security 🔗 Computer Security/Computing 🔗 Business 🔗 Computing/Software

A scandal erupted in 2005 regarding Sony BMG's implementation of copy protection measures on about 22 million CDs. When inserted into a computer, the CDs installed one of two pieces of software that provided a form of digital rights management (DRM) by modifying the operating system to interfere with CD copying. Neither program could easily be uninstalled, and they created vulnerabilities that were exploited by unrelated malware. One of the programs would install and "phone home" with reports on the user's private listening habits, even if the user refused its end-user license agreement (EULA), while the other was not mentioned in the EULA at all. Both programs contained code from several pieces of copylefted free software in an apparent infringement of copyright, and configured the operating system to hide the software's existence, leading to both programs being classified as rootkits.

Sony BMG initially denied that the rootkits were harmful. It then released an uninstaller for one of the programs that merely made the program's files visible while also installing additional software that could not be easily removed, collected an email address from the user and introduced further security vulnerabilities.

Following public outcry, government investigations and class-action lawsuits in 2005 and 2006, Sony BMG partially addressed the scandal with consumer settlements, a recall of about 10% of the affected CDs and the suspension of CD copy-protection efforts in early 2007.

🔗 Psychology

The half-life of knowledge or half-life of facts is the amount of time that has to elapse before half of the knowledge or facts in a particular area is superseded or shown to be untrue. These coined terms belong to the field of quantitative analysis of science known as scientometrics.

These ideas of half-life applied to different fields differ from the concept of half-life in physics in that there is no guarantee that the knowledge or facts in areas of study are declining exponentially. It is unclear that there is any way to establish what constitutes "knowledge" in a particular area, as opposed to mere opinion or theory.

An engineering degree went from having a half life of 35 years in ca. 1930 to about 10 years in 1960.

A Delphi Poll showed that the half life of psychology as measured in 2016 ranged from 3.3 to 19 years depending on the specialty, with an average of a little over 7 years.

It has also been used in Christian missiology to increase the effectiveness of their teachings.

🔗 Computing 🔗 Computing/Computer hardware 🔗 Computing/Software

Compute Express Link (CXL) is an open standard for high-speed central processing unit (CPU)-to-device and CPU-to-memory connections, designed for high performance data center computers. CXL is built on the PCI Express (PCIe) physical and electrical interface and includes PCIe-based block input/output protocol (CXL.io) and new cache-coherent protocols for accessing system memory (CXL.cache) and device memory (CXL.mem).

🔗 Computing 🔗 Computing/Software 🔗 Java

Project Looking Glass is a now inactive free software project under the GPL to create an innovative 3D desktop environment for Linux, Solaris, and Windows. It was sponsored by Sun Microsystems.

Looking Glass is programmed in the Java language using the Java 3D system to remain platform independent. Despite the use of graphics acceleration features, the desktop explores the use of 3D windowing capabilities for both existing application programs and ones specifically designed for Looking Glass.

There is a Live CD available from Project Looking Glass. The Looking Glass environment is also included on a Live DVD (FunWorks 2007 edition) from the Granular Linux project.

🔗 Computing 🔗 Computing/Software

Creative Writer is a word processor released by Microsoft Kids in 1993. Using this program, which is specifically targeted at children, it is possible to create documents such as letters, posters, flyers and stories complete with different fonts, Clip art, WordArt and effects. The interface and environment is especially targeted towards children and is set in Imaginopolis with the main helper being a character known as McZee. A sequel, Creative Writer 2, was released in 1996. Both are now discontinued, but can still be acquired from online stores and auction websites such as eBay.

The original Creative Writer was announced by Microsoft on 7 December 1993 and was released in 1994. It ran on both MS-DOS 3.2 and the Windows 3.1 operating system. A version was also released for the Apple Macintosh, compatible with computers running the classic Mac OS from the System 6 version up to Mac OS 9.

The program took place in the fictional place of Imaginopolis and had several levels of a building each with a different topic (e.g. one for plain writing, one for story templates, one for poster templates). The design of the program was very similar to that of its sister program Fine Artist. The program runs full screen and creates an all-inclusive environment. The interface was similar to a later product called Microsoft Bob.

Creative Writer featured many of the features found on Microsoft's Word for Windows product, including the WordArt feature used to create titles and headlines and the ability to add clip art. Creative Writer also used sounds heavily where each tool would make a different noise. Examples of this include a vacuum cleaner suction to delete and an explosion to denote deleting everything from a page.

🔗 Java

Java Card is a software technology that allows Java-based applications (applets) to be run securely on smart cards and more generally on similar secure small memory footprint deviceswhich are called “secure elements” (SE). Today, a Secure Element is not limited to its smart cards and other removable cryptographic tokens form factors; embedded SEs soldered onto a device board and new security designs embedded into general purpose chips are also widely used. Java Card addresses this hardware fragmentation and specificities while retaining code portability brought forward by Java.

Java Card is the tiniest of Java platforms targeted for embedded devices. Java Card gives the user the ability to program the devices and make them application specific. It is widely used in different markets: wireless telecommunications within SIM cards and embedded SIM, payment within banking cards and NFC mobile payment and for identity cards, healthcare cards, and passports. Several IoT products like gateways are also using Java Card based products to secure communications with a cloud service for instance.

The first Java Card was introduced in 1996 by Schlumberger's card division which later merged with Gemplus to form Gemalto. Java Card products are based on the specifications by Sun Microsystems (later a subsidiary of Oracle Corporation). Many Java card products also rely on the GlobalPlatform specifications for the secure management of applications on the card (download, installation, personalization, deletion).

The main design goals of the Java Card technology are portability, security and backward compatibility.

🔗 Computer science

The Schönhage–Strassen algorithm is an asymptotically fast multiplication algorithm for large integers. It was developed by Arnold Schönhage and Volker Strassen in 1971. The run-time bit complexity is, in Big O notation, ${\displaystyle O(n\cdot \log n\cdot \log \log n)}$ for two n-digit numbers. The algorithm uses recursive fast Fourier transforms in rings with 2ⁿ+1 elements, a specific type of number theoretic transform.

The Schönhage–Strassen algorithm was the asymptotically fastest multiplication method known from 1971 until 2007, when a new method, Fürer's algorithm, was announced with lower asymptotic complexity; however, Fürer's algorithm currently only achieves an advantage for astronomically large values and is used only in Basic Polynomial Algebra Subprograms (BPAS) (see Galactic algorithms).

In practice the Schönhage–Strassen algorithm starts to outperform older methods such as Karatsuba and Toom–Cook multiplication for numbers beyond 2²¹⁵ to 2²¹⁷ (10,000 to 40,000 decimal digits). The GNU Multi-Precision Library uses it for values of at least 1728 to 7808 64-bit words (33,000 to 150,000 decimal digits), depending on architecture. There is a Java implementation of Schönhage–Strassen which uses it above 74,000 decimal digits.

Applications of the Schönhage–Strassen algorithm include mathematical empiricism, such as the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search and computing approximations of π, as well as practical applications such as Kronecker substitution, in which multiplication of polynomials with integer coefficients can be efficiently reduced to large integer multiplication; this is used in practice by GMP-ECM for Lenstra elliptic curve factorization.

🔗 Physics

A Klemperer rosette is a gravitational system of heavier and lighter bodies orbiting in a regular repeating pattern around a common barycenter. It was first described by W. B. Klemperer in 1962, and is a special case of a central configuration.

Klemperer described the system as follows:

Such symmetry is also possessed by a peculiar family of geometrical configurations which may be described as 'rosettes'. In these an even number of 'planets' of two (or more) kinds, one (or some) heavier than the other, but all of each set of equal mass, are placed at the corners of two (or more) interdigitating regular polygons so that the lighter and heavier ones alternate (or follow each other in a cyclic manner).

The simplest rosette would be a series of four alternating heavier and lighter bodies, 90 degrees from one another, in a rhombic configuration [Heavy, Light, Heavy, Light], where the two larger bodies have the same mass, and likewise the two smaller bodies have the same mass. The number of "mass types" can be increased, so long as the arrangement pattern is cyclic: e.g. [ 1,2,3 ... 1,2,3 ], [ 1,2,3,4,5 ... 1,2,3,4,5 ], [ 1,2,3,3,2,1 ... 1,2,3,3,2,1 ], etc.

Klemperer also mentioned octagonal and rhombic rosettes. While all Klemperer rosettes are vulnerable to destabilization, the hexagonal rosette has extra stability because the "planets" sit in each other's L4 and L5 Lagrangian points.

🔗 Skepticism 🔗 Psychology 🔗 Neuroscience

The 10 percent of the brain myth asserts that humans generally use only 10 percent (or some other small percentage) of their brains. It has been misattributed to many celebrated people, notably Albert Einstein. By extrapolation, it is suggested that a person may harness this unused potential and increase intelligence.

Changes in grey and white matter following new experiences and learning have been shown, but it has not yet been proven what the changes are. The popular notion that large parts of the brain remain unused, and could subsequently be "activated", rests in folklore and not science. Though specific mechanisms regarding brain function remain to be fully described—e.g. memory, consciousness—the physiology of brain mapping suggests that all areas of the brain have a function and that they are used nearly all the time.

🔗 France 🔗 Crime 🔗 Visual arts

The Bouvier Affair was a number of international lawsuits that started in 2015, and subsequent events. The lawsuits allege that Swiss art shipper and dealer Yves Bouvier defrauded his clients by misrepresenting the original cost of art works and subsequently overcharging them. The affair has played out in courts in Monaco, Switzerland, France, the US, Hong Kong and Singapore.

The alleged victims are "high net worth individuals" in the UK, the US, Asia and Europe, most notably Monaco-based Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev.

As of February 2018, Bouvier was facing criminal charges in France, Monaco and also in Switzerland after the Geneva Prosecutor opened a new case there.