Logging The Cyber World

Tags: 42000 years, fish hook, mariners, open ocean, pleistocene

The world’s earliest known fish hooks reveal that humans fished the open sea for much longer than previously thought.

Past studies have revealed that early humans were capable of crossing the open ocean as far back as 50,000 years ago, such as they did to colonize Australia. Until now, however, evidence that such mariners could fish while in the open sea dated back only to 12,000 years ago.

“In most areas of the world, evidence for our early ancestors’ coastal exploitation is now submerged — it was drowned by rising sea levels,” researcher Sue O’Connor, an archaeologist at Australian National University in Canberra, told LiveScience.

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Tags: contact lenses, inorganic materials, terminator vision, washington university

A new generation of contact lenses that project images in front of the eyes is a step closer after successful animal trials, say scientists.

The technology could allow wearers to read floating texts and emails or augment their sight with computer-generated images, Terminator-syle. Researchers at Washington University who are working on the device say early tests show it is safe and feasible. But there are still wrinkles to iron out, like finding a good power source. Currently, their crude prototype device can only work if it is within centimetres of the wireless battery.

More on BBC

Tags: apple, htc s3, itc, mobile wars, patents war, samsung

The move reverses an earlier decision by an American judge and relates to a part of HTC called S3, which specialises in audio compression technology.

HTC purchased S3 in July; its shares fell 4.9 per cent on the news after the ITC, which has the power to block the import of products, said it considered that its investigation was now closed.

S3 was among a number of companies still in dispute with Apple, and Google itself has sold a number of patents to HTC so that the mobile-manufacturer can sue Apple over a range of ongoing issues. Samsung, which supplies chips for a range of Apple products, is also the subject of a number of Apple disputes.

More on Telegraph

Tags: HRL Lab, microlattice, nano, Nano-fabrication, super-light lattice

Researchers at HRL Laboratories and University of Southern California’s Composites Center have created what they say is the lowest-density material, a lattice of hollow tubes of the metal nickel.

Its volume is 99.99 percent air, and its density is 0.9 milligrams per cubic centimeter–not including the air in or between its tubes. That density is less than a thousandth that of water.

The researchers made it by fabricating structures with features whose dimensions range from millimeters to a ten-thousandth of that. They described their methods in a paper published yesterday in the journal Science.

“The trick is to fabricate a lattice of interconnected hollow tubes with a wall thickness of 100 nanometers, 1,000 times thinner than a human hair,” said Tobias Schaedler, the HRL researcher who’s lead author of the paper. Another HRL author, Bill Carter, likened the design to a small-scale version of the Eiffel Tower: strong, but mostly air.

More on Cnet

Tags: applidium, crack apps, iphone 4s, Siri, siri protocol

It’s been a trying month for Apple’s security team: First, a researcher pokes a hole in the company’s tight control of its App Store. And now another group of hackers claim they’ve cracked its newest crown jewel and Google killer, the voice command and search tool Siri, to run on any device–potentially even Google’s.

“Today, we managed to crack open Siri’s protocol,” reads a blog post by a group of French security researchers and consultants at the Paris-based firm Applidium. “As a result, we are able to use Siri’s recognition engine from any device. Yes, that means anyone could now write an Android app that uses the real Siri! Or use Siri on an iPad! And we’re going to share this know-how with you.”

More on Forbes

Tags: apple OS, iOS 5.0.1, iphone, iPhone Battery issue, smartphone

iOS 5.0.1 has landed, and the iPhone 4S experience is better as a result. Thanks to the update, the battery life bug which had been causing a large amount of pain to a small percentage of iPhone 4S users, is gone. The laundry list of other official improvements in 5.01 is brief: additional multitasking gestures for the iPad 1. Something about smoothing out the iCloud experience. That’s all well and good. But it’s what’s not on the list that’s of intrigue at this point. Other companies do it as well, but Apple in particular is known for slipping additional, under-the-radar improvements into their .x.x software updates. Why not announce it? Maybe it’s something the company want to advertise as having been a previous deficiency, but wants to improve upon nonetheless. That means iPhone 4S users now get to spend the next few days looking for other subtle signs of improvement in their iOS 5 experience. Did Apple, for instance, add refinements to the way in which Siri works? Perhaps some of the built-in apps launch just a bit faster on the 4S now than they did before. The search begins for what else iOS 5.0.1 has brought to the table.

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Tags: add-ons, browser, firefox, rapid release, twitter on firefox

Mozilla released Firefox 8 today, a version that weeds out some add-ons and that will shoulder more responsibility for the organization’s new fast-development process.

Giving the user control over the Web experience has been a longstanding Mozilla priority, and Firefox 8 takes a new step here. With earlier versions, third-party software could extend Firefox with new features–Skype’s tool for highlighting phone numbers for easy online calling, for example. With Firefox 8, though, third-party add-ons will be disabled by default.

“These add-ons installed by third parties present a number of problems: they can slow down Firefox start-up and page loading time, they clutter the interface with toolbars that often go unused, they lag behind on compatibility and security updates, and most importantly, they take the user out of control of their add-ons,” said Mozilla programmer Justin “Fligtar” Scott in a blog post about the feature.

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Tags: climate change, glacial periods, ice age, mammoths

Climate change and human activity caused the extinction of some Ice-Age animals, such as the woolly rhinoceros, woolly mammoth, and wild horses, and the near extinction of others including reindeer, bison, and musk ox, says an international study.

The scientists say their study, published in the journal Nature, is the first to combine genetic, archeological, and climatic data to track the population history of six large Ice-Age mammals and can shed light on the possible fates of today’s animals as the Earth continues its current warming cycle.

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Tags: 2005 YU55, asteroid, C class asteroids

The asteroid, dubbed 2005 YU55, will come within 202,000 miles of Earth, closer than the moon, before zipping farther into space. Carbon-colored and dark, the asteroid measures some 1,300 feet wide. It will be the closest visit by a space rock this size in more than three decades.

“This is not a potentially hazardous asteroid, just a good opportunity to study one,” National Science Foundation astronomer Thomas Statler says. NASA and the NSF plan a series of radar telescope and other observations starting Friday, aimed at mapping the asteroid’s surface and chemistry.

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Tags: facebook, fb friend power, fb new feature, social sites, super friends

Facebook is getting complicated. The social network just introduced the category of “trusted friend,” not to be confused with the prior categories of “close friends,” “acquaintances,” “restricted” buddies, and authorized stalkers. Trusted friends are like super-friends.
They have special powers!

If you get locked out of your Facebook account, three to five “Trusted Friends” can send you access codes.

More on Gawker.com