Video Of A Guy Repeatedly 1-Inch Punching Through Bricks Of Aerated Concrete

Video Of A Guy Repeatedly 1-Inch Punching Through Bricks Of Aerated Concrete

https://ift.tt/2KrHik5


This is a two minute video of bearded and ponytailed Youtuber John Kalmar repeatedly one-inch punching through bricks of aerated concrete. Sure aerated concrete is like the styrofoam of concrete, but I’m still not sure I could do that. I mean, at least not without accidentally punching through those metal plates and that wall behind the block and sending shrapnel around the globe and into the back of my head. It’s hard for me to go easy, you know? LITTLE KNOWN FACT: I was a cheerleader in high school and two girls are still in orbit. "Oh wow." Yeah, around Alpha Centauri. I’m like Mr. Incredible if Mr. Incredible actually deserved the title. What’s Elastigirl see in him anyways? I bet I could make her happy. ESPECIALLY in the romance department. Just ask Stretch Armstrong or Mister Fantastic. "Ask them what exactly?" Nothing — nevermind.
Keep going for the video.

Thanks to n0nentity, who once one-inched punched nothingness. And that, my friends, is how the universe was born.

Tech

via Geekologie – Gadgets, Gizmos, and Awesome http://geekologie.com/

June 27, 2018 at 02:20PM

Marketing Firm Exactis Leaked a Personal Info Database With 340 Million Records

Marketing Firm Exactis Leaked a Personal Info Database With 340 Million Records

https://ift.tt/2tFEk23

You’ve probably never heard of the marketing and data aggregation firm Exactis. But it may well have heard of you. And now there’s also a good chance that whatever information the company may possess about you, it recently leaked onto the public internet, available to any hacker who simply knew where to look.

Earlier this month, security researcher Vinny Troia discovered that Exactis, a Palm Coast, Florida-based data broker, had exposed a database that contained close to 340 million individual records on a publicly accessible server. The haul comprises close to two terabytes of data that appears to include personal information on hundreds of millions of American adults, as well as millions of businesses. While the precise number of individuals included in the data isn’t clear—and the leak doesn’t seem to contain credit card information or Social Security numbers—it does go into minute detail for each individual listed, including phone numbers, home addresses, email addresses, and other highly personal characteristics for every name. The categories range from interests and habits to the number, age, and gender of the person’s children.

“It seems like this is a database with pretty much every US citizen in it,” says Troia, who is the founder of his own New York-based security company, Night Lion Security. Troia notes that almost every person he’s searched for in the database, he’s found. And when WIRED asked him to find records for a list of 10 specific people in the database, he very quickly found six of them. “I don’t know where the data is coming from, but it’s one of the most comprehensive collections I’ve ever seen,” he says.

In the Open

While it’s far from clear if any criminal or malicious hackers have accessed the database, Troia says it would have been easy enough for them to find. Troia himself spotted the database while using the search tool Shodan, which allows researchers to scan for all manner of internet-connected devices. He says he’d been curious about the security of ElasticSearch, a popular type of database that’s designed to be easily queried over the internet using just the command line. So he simply used Shodan to search for all ElasticSearch databases visible on publicly accessible servers with American IP addresses. That returned about 7,000 results. As Troia combed through them, he quickly found the Exactis database, unprotected by any firewall.

“I’m not the first person to think of scraping ElasticSearch servers,” he says. “I’d be surprised if someone else didn’t already have this.”

Troia contacted both Exactis and the FBI about his discovery last week, and says that Exactis has since protected the data so that it’s no longer accessible. Exactis did not respond to multiple calls and emails from WIRED asking for comment on its data leak.

Aside from the sheer breadth of the Exactis leak, it may be even more remarkable for its depth: Each record contains entries that go far beyond contact information and public records to include more than 400 variables on a vast range of specific characteristics: whether the person smokes, their religion, whether they have dogs or cats, and interests as varied as scuba diving and plus-size apparel. WIRED independently analyzed a sample of the data Troia shared, and confirmed its authenticity, though in some cases the information is outdated or inaccurate.

‘I don’t know where the data is coming from, but it’s one of the most comprehensive collections I’ve ever seen.’

Vinny Troia, Night Lion Security

While the lack of financial information or Social Security numbers means the database isn’t a straightforward tool for identity theft, the depth of personal info nonetheless could help scammers with other forms of social engineering, says Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center. “The likelihood of financial fraud is not that great , but the possibility of impersonation or profiling is certainly there,” Rotenberg says. He notes that while some of the data is available in public records, much of it appears to be the sort of nonpublic information that data brokers aggregate from sources like magazine subscriptions, credit card transaction data sold by banks, and credit reports. “A lot of this information is now routinely gathered on American consumers,” Rotenberg adds.

Without confirmation from Exactis, the precise number of people affected by the data leak remains tough to count. Troia found two versions of Exactis’s database—one that appears to have been newly added during the period he was observing its server—that each contained roughly 340 million records, split into about 230 million records on consumers and 110 million on business contacts. On its website, Exactis boasts that it possesses data on 218 million individuals, including 110 million US households, as well a total of 3.5 billion “consumer, business, and digital records.”

“Data is the fuel that powers Exactis,” the site reads. “Layer on hundreds of selects including demographic, geographic, lifestyle, interests, and behavioral data to target highly specific audiences with laser-like precision.”

A Database Dilemma

Massive leaks of user databases that are accidentally left accessible on the public internet have nearly reached epidemic status, affecting everything from health information to password caches stored by software firms. One particularly prolific researcher, security firm UpGuard’s Chris Vickery, has discovered those database leaks again and again, from 93 million Mexican citizens’ voter registration data to a list of 2.2 million “high-risk” people suspected of crime or terrorism, known as the World Check Risk Screening database.

But if the Exactis leak does in fact include 230 million people’s information, that would make it one of the largest in years, bigger even than 2017’s Equifax breach of 145.5 million people’s data, though smaller than the Yahoo hack that affected 3 billion accounts, revealed last October. (It’s worth emphasizing in the case of the Exactis leak, unlike in those earlier data breaches, the data wasn’t necessarily stolen by malicious hackers, only publicly exposed on the internet.) But like the Equifax breach, the vast majority of people included in the Exactis leak likely have no idea they’re in the database.

EPIC’s Marc Rotenberg argues the timing of the breach, just after the implementation of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation, highlights the perennial lack of regulations around privacy and data collection in the US. A GDPR-like law in the US, he notes, might not have prevented Exactis from collecting the data it later leaked, but it might have required the company to at least disclose to individuals what sort of data it collects about them and allow them to limit how that data is stored or used.

“If you have a profile on someone, that person should be able to see their profile and limit its use,” says Rotenberg. “It’s one thing to subscribe to a magazine. It’s another for a single company to have such a detailed profile of your entire life.”


More Great WIRED Stories

Tech

via Wired Top Stories https://ift.tt/2uc60ci

June 27, 2018 at 12:45PM

Microsoft’s facial recognition service now less bad for nonwhites

Microsoft’s facial recognition service now less bad for nonwhites

https://ift.tt/2tB3m25

Microsoft has improved its facial recognition system to make it much better at recognizing people who aren’t white and aren’t male. The company says that the changes it has made have reduced error rates for those with darker skin by up to 20 times and for women of all skin colors by nine times. As a result, the company says that accuracy differences between the various demographics are significantly reduced.

Tech

via Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com

June 27, 2018 at 12:10PM

Japan’s Hayabusa2 Spacecraft Arrives At Its Asteroid Destination

Japan’s Hayabusa2 Spacecraft Arrives At Its Asteroid Destination

https://ift.tt/2lBApyB

Asteroid Ryugu, photographed on June 26 by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft. The craft will travel alongside the asteroid for 18 months.

JAXA, University of Tokyo and collaborators


hide caption

toggle caption

JAXA, University of Tokyo and collaborators

The Hayabusa2 spacecraft has made a successful rendezvous with the asteroid Ryugu, 177 million miles from Earth. Japan’s JAXA space agency confirmed on Wednesday that the craft has taken up a position 12 miles off of Ryugu. Up next for Hayabusa2: exploring the surface – and bringing a sample back to Earth.

Hayabusa 2 reached its destination three and a half years after launching from Earth in late 2014. JAXA says the meetup went according to plan, as the craft used its thrusters to establish a constant distance from Ryugu – which can currently be seen zipping across the Gemini constellation.

From its current vantage point, Japanese researchers will use Hayabusa2 to study the asteroid and evaluate possible sites for collecting samples.

“From a distance, Ryugu initially appeared round, then gradually turned into a square before becoming a beautiful shape similar to fluorite [known as the ‘firefly stone’ in Japanese],” said Project Manager Yuichi Tsuda. “Now, craters are visible, rocks are visible and the geographical features are seen to vary from place to place. This form of Ryugu is scientifically surprising and also poses a few engineering challenges.”

Ryugu also spins like a top, with its rotational axis perpendicular to its orbit. Its shape has been compared to an octahedral dice.

The Hayabusa2 is carrying, as NASA recently put it, “an armada of separable probes, including two impactors, four small close-proximity hoverers, three small surface hoppers, and the Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) which will land, study, and move around on Ryugu’s surface.”

An artist’s illustration shows the planned landing of the Hayabusa2 spacecraft on an asteroid.

Akihiro Ikeshita/JAXA


hide caption

toggle caption

Akihiro Ikeshita/JAXA

An artist’s illustration shows the planned landing of the Hayabusa2 spacecraft on an asteroid.

Akihiro Ikeshita/JAXA

In Japan and beyond, researchers are eager to see the data from Hayabusa2’s visit — it’s the first time humans have studied a C-type asteroid at such a close range for an extended period.

Scientists plan to use the impactor tool to extract fresh samples from beneath the asteroid’s surface. And because the C-type Ryugu is a primitive asteroid, it could be rich in carbon, organic materials and frozen water. That means, as JAXA says, studying the asteroid could help “clarify interactions between the building blocks of Earth and the evolution of its oceans and life,” as well as to understand more about how the solar system works.

JAXA has released long-exposure images that draw out Ryugu’s features, often depicting it as a grey mass. But in reality, the asteroid has an intensely dark surface that’s known to reflect unusual colors.

Ryugu is a little over a half-mile in diameter. It was discovered in 1999, in an orbit that sometimes sees it travel inside of the Earth’s path around the Sun – and also shoots out past Mars’ orbit. The asteroid completes its own orbit every 15.5 months.

Hayabusa2 will spend some 18 months studying Ryugu; it’s slated to return to Earth in 2020.

Hayabusa means “Falcon” – and Ryugu means “Dragon’s Palace” – the asteroid’s name is a reference to a traditional Japanese folk tale about a diving fisherman who visits a magical underwater castle and returns with treasure.

This is the second Japanese spacecraft bearing that name to visit a target asteroid. In 2006, the first Hayabusa craft managed to touch down on the surface of the near-Earth asteroid Itokawa three times — revealing that instead of being a chunk of solid rock, the asteroid was essentially “a bunch of rubble being held together by shared gravity,” as NPR’s Joe Palca reported.

News

via NPR Topics: News https://ift.tt/2m0CM10

June 27, 2018 at 11:00AM

Google demos Duplex, its AI that sounds exactly like a very weird, nice human

Google demos Duplex, its AI that sounds exactly like a very weird, nice human

https://ift.tt/2tz38bC

“Hi, I’m calling to make a reservation,” the polite female voice on the other end of the line said. And that was how I found myself introduced to Google’s latest AI masterpiece, the conversation-filler-injecting Turing test contender known as Duplex.

When Google rolls it out to some users for testing in the coming weeks, Duplex will be a tool within the Google Assistant app that the testers can use to call stores on their behalf and find out their holiday hours. Later this summer, it will also be able to call restaurants and salons to set up reservations and hair appointments.

It was unveiled in May at the company’s annual developer conference to much fanfare and, in the days later, much fuss. After its impressive demo, people expressed concerns about how human it sounded (complete with “um” and “ah” sounds) and how, in its onstage example, it didn’t identify itself as an artificial-intelligence agent.

Since then Google has tried to assuage fears. As the ethical criticisms multiplied in the days after the demo, the company quickly said that Duplex will announce itself as an AI agent to the human it’s calling and state that the call will be recorded.

And on Tuesday Google invited a bunch of reporters to the normally bustling Oren’s Hummus Shop in downtown Mountain View, California, to show off Duplex’s progress. While would-be customers were denied hummus outside, members of Google’s Assistant team showed reporters how the system will work and let us try it for ourselves inside the restaurant.

One big change from last month’s Duplex demonstration is that the calls I heard (and one I answered) clearly came from an AI agent. In the call I picked up while posing as a restaurant hostess, a female-sounding voice quickly said it was an automated service that was recording the call (this video from Google gives an idea of how it will look and sound; I was able to record audio for note-taking purposes, but Google asked me not to share it as a condition of attending the demonstration).

Nick Fox, vice president of product and design for Google Assistant, said Google knew back in May that it needed to disclose that the calls were coming from AI, and that this need was “validated” after the unveiling at the developer conference.

“I wouldn’t say we necessarily changed anything based on the feedback,” he said. He said the company gave the original demo without that notification because at the time it was trying to display the technology rather than a complete product.

During my call, I tried to give the voice on the other end a hard time—pretending I couldn’t hear details like the date on which the AI wanted a table—just to see what would happen. Would it loop in a human operator? (Google says this still happens in one out of five Duplex test calls, though it wouldn’t say much else about these helpers.) Would it simply hang up if I confused it too much? (This didn’t happen to me, but it did to another reporter, who told the AI that the kitchen at the fictitious restaurant would be closed after a certain time and only the bar menu would be available.)

Overall, Duplex did what it was supposed to. It repeated itself when I asked it to. It didn’t get fazed when I asked it to hold, and it didn’t get tripped up when I stumbled over my own words. When I said I couldn’t take a reservation for five people on Sunday until 8 p.m., rather than the requested time of 6, it was still willing to make the reservation.

I was impressed by the humanness of its voice; it did sound like a person (though during one sample call I heard it sounded distinctly computerized when speaking a phone number).

Scott Huffman, vice president of engineering for Google Assistant, played our assembled group a recording of an early version of Duplex—a stilted, British-accented male voice that was unmistakably computerized—and said that this kind of non-human-sounding voice didn’t work with businesses. Lots of people would hang up the phone, and reservations weren’t completed, he said.

“People didn’t deal well with how unnatural it sounded,” he said. Apparently, things improved a lot as the AI was made to sound more like a person.

While “um” and “ah” sounds coming from an aural AI might freak you out, Huffman said those programmed verbal tics are meant to move conversations along smoothly. For instance, it might sound more polite to correct a human by saying “Uh, for five people” than “No, for five people” when making a dinner reservation.

Yet while Duplex now includes the vocal characteristics of humans, it had trouble understanding some questions that wouldn’t baffle you or me. When I asked if there would be kids in the group, and if a high chair would be needed, the female voice said it was making the reservation on behalf of a client and didn’t know (another reporter asked a similar question and got the same kind of answer).

And when I asked if there would be any accessibility needs—such as if anyone in the group used a wheelchair—it couldn’t give me an answer either.

“I don’t really know, sorry,” the voice said.

When Duplex is deployed, there will still be limitations, and no chance for a real conversation. If you try to ask something that’s on a topic other than holiday store hours, restaurant reservations, or hair appointments, Huffman said, Duplex will try to steer the conversation back to the task at hand. “It’s like a very weird human that can only do these three things,” he said

While the demo was mostly positive, there are still several hurdles to overcome before your local taqueria gets inundated with AI reservation requests. These include practical concerns, like privacy laws and phone answerers who prefer human interaction (businesses that simply don’t want to accept calls from Google’s AI will be able to opt out). And Google can’t just roll out Duplex anywhere it wants. The company will need a permit before it can operate in Texas, for example.

Also unknown is how well Duplex understood our conversation. While I was able to get the AI on the other end of the line to audibly confirm the time and date of the reservation in our chat, Google did not demonstrate what Duplex understood from our conversations after we hung up. I don’t know for sure that its human “client” got the 8 p.m. reservation for five added to her calendar, for instance.

And then there are the longevity concerns. Google Duplex seems like a novelty now, so people may stay on the line when it calls, but at what point will it be treated and ignored like those survey robocalls?

Huffman, at least, thinks it may not be that big a deal to busy restaurant workers who simply want to take down a reservation. He said test call recipients haven’t had much of a reaction to hearing that an AI system is calling to book a table. 

“People just want to get through the task,” he said.

Tech

via Technology Review Feed – Tech Review Top Stories https://ift.tt/1XdUwhl

June 27, 2018 at 08:03AM

New Snapdragon chips bring dual cameras to more mid-tier phones

New Snapdragon chips bring dual cameras to more mid-tier phones

https://ift.tt/2N3DJPt


Qualcomm

With certain exceptions, mid-range smartphones haven’t been keeping pace with the bells and whistles of higher-end handsets — you can still expect ‘just’ a single rear camera and 1080p video recording. Qualcomm might soon fix that. It’s launching the Snapdragon 632, 439 and 429 systems on a chip, all of which promise to make dual cameras (plus a few other features) more commonplace.

The octa-core 632 is unsurprisingly the headliner, and can support two 13-megapixel rear cameras for those all-important portrait and telephoto shots. It’s up to 40 percent faster in raw computational power than the Snapdragon 626, and that means enough power for 4K video capture and “FHD+” resolution displays. Its cellular modem can handle LTE Advanced, too. The Adreno 506 graphics are only about 10 percent faster, but you’re still looking at a chip that can handle at least some modern 3D games without flinching. And this being Qualcomm, AI processing plays a big role with support for neural network-assisted tasks like face unlock and object detection.

The octa-core Snapdragon 439 and quad-core 429, meanwhile, are focused more on stepping up the baseline quality for lower-cost devices. They make do with support for dual 8-megapixel cameras and won’t handle 4K, but they should deliver up to 25 percent more CPU performance over their forebears (the 430 and 425) on top of the AI-related functions. The best bang for the buck comes with the 429 — while the Adreno 505 graphics in the 439 are a respectable 20 percent faster, the Adreno 504 inside the 429 is a whopping 50 percent faster. Neither could be considered a gaming powerhouse (the 429 can only handle “HD+” displays), and you’ll have to make do with regular LTE data, but they should keep your phone’s overall performance reasonably snappy.

Qualcomm expects the first phones using these chips to appear sometime in the second half of the year. They’re not immediately riveting offerings. However, they might just make dual-camera photography ubiquitous across all but the lowest-priced smartphones. That’s heartening news for anyone who wants high-quality snapshots, but doesn’t need the blistering-fast performance and exotic screen technology of a flagship phone.

Tech

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

June 26, 2018 at 08:03PM

Elon Musk hints of upcoming Tesla pickup truck’s features

Elon Musk hints of upcoming Tesla pickup truck’s features

https://ift.tt/2tCdXsO

Elon Musk has revealed some details about the

short-nose pickup truck Tesla plans to build

, in his tweets on Tuesday. The specs sound very interesting.

The information Musk relayed was that the truck will have standard dual-motor all wheel drive, with what he calls “crazy torque”. That much is expected, with the power figures we’ve seen with existing Tesla products. There’s also auto-levelling suspension, which is handy for a

work truck

, and that the vehicle will be able to parallel park automatically. There will also be power outlets in the bed for 240V, in the style of Workhorse. According to Musk, the truck will have 360° camera view and sonar to monitor its surroundings. Musk also dropped a hint of a “special built-in sensor”, but didn’t divulge what the sensor is for. “Details later”, Musk added.

In addition to the specifications listed above, there’s a chance Tesla customers could have some input in the pickup truck’s development, regarding both small and big features. Musk asked “What would you love to see in a Tesla pickup truck?” Features like heated door handles and voice activated bed closure were eagerly suggested to Musk.

The timeline for the truck’s unveiling would most likely take place after next year.

And as Business Insider says

, the Model 3’s production issues might result in the truck hitting the market after 2010. In any case, the Model Y has been mentioned to precede the truck.

Cars

via Autoblog http://www.autoblog.com

June 27, 2018 at 07:44AM