Wednesday Wrapup

On Wednesday, a solar eclipse gave people across a swath of Indonesia and the South Pacific the chance to see a generous 4 minutes and 9 seconds of totality: the awe-inspiring sight of the moon completely covering the sun, turning day into night and offering a rare glimpse of the corona, the gas swirling in the Sun's outer atmosphere. But in 1972, a small group of astronomers from around the globe sought a way for seeing a longer eclipse than ever before: a prototype Concorde, capable of chasing the eclipse for a whopping 74 minutes across the Sahara Desert, at twice the speed of sound.
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First Bionic Fingertip Implant Delivers Sensational Results 

And so it begins...

Dennis Aabo Sorensen may be missing a hand, but he nonetheless recently felt rough and smooth textures using a fingertip on that arm. The fingertip was electronic, and was surgically hard-wired to nerves in his upper arm. He is reportedly the first person in the world to recognize texture using a bionic fingertip connected to electrodes that were surgically implanted above his stump. The device was created by scientists from the Ecole polytechnique federale de Lausanne in Switzerland, and Italy's Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna research institute. While it was wired to Sorensen, a machine moved it across rough and smooth plastic surfaces. Sensors in the fingertip generated electrical signals as they deformed in response to the topography of those surfaces, and transmitted those signals to the nerves in a series of electrical spikes -- this was reportedly an imitation of the "language of the nervous system." He was able to differentiate between the two surfaces with an accuracy of 96 percent.

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Microsoft is using the IP address 'voluntarily' collected during its software activation process to sue a Comcast subscriber for pirating thousands of copies of Windows and Office. 
The Redmond giant wants the court to issue a subpoena which willforce Comcast to hand over the pirating subscriber's info. 
If the infringing IP address belongs to another ISP which obtained it via Comcast, then Microsoft wants that ISP's info and the right to subpoena it as well. 
"Defendants activated and attempted to activate at least several thousand copies of Microsoft software, much of which was pirated and unlicensed," Microsoft's legal team wrote.
 The product keys "known to have been stolen" from Microsoft's supply chain were used to activate Windows 8, Windows 7, Office 2010, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2008. 
The product keys, Microsoft said, were used "more times than is authorized by the applicable software license," used by "someone other than the authorized licensee," or were "activated outside the region for which they were intended." Whether or not the IP traces back to a Comcast subscriber or was assigned by Comcast to a different ISP, as the The Register pointed out, "It would be asignificant gaffe on behalf of the alleged pirates if the IP address data pointed to their real identifies."
I attended high school with Sterling ball and his brother as did Greg Laurie.
His company that his dad had started was invaded by Microsoft in 2000 and found to be using Microsoft products without paying for them on a few dozen copies.
He paid $65,000, plus $35,000 in legal fees.
Moral of the story?
Go for the free Linux OS.
Microsoft shot it's self in the foot with the Musicians community on this one for sure!
By the way Sterling and his brother are excellent musicians themselves.
By the way Trish Emboden was also at the same high school with all of us.
My high school was chock full of talent!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tris_Imboden
I had a mad crush on his sister but was too shy at the time to move with it..
Trish introduced me to the harmonica and taught me my first riffs on it!
I admired his ability to blow harp.
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Snowden: FBI's Claim It Can't Unlock The San Bernardino iPhone Is 'BS'

Edward Snowden, the whistleblower whose NSA revelations sparked a debate on mass surveillance, has waded into the arguments over the FBI's attempt to force Apple to help it unlock the iPhone 5C of one of the San Bernardino shooters. 
The FBI says that only Apple can deactivate certain passcode protections on the iPhone, which will allow law enforcement to guess the passcode by using brute-force.
 Talking via video link from Moscow to the Common Cause Blueprint for a Great Democracy conference, Snowden said: "The FBI says Apple has the 'exclusive technical means' to unlock the phone.
 Respectfully, that's BS." Snowden then went on to tweet his support for an American Civil Liberties Union report saying that the FBI's claims in the case are fraudulent.
 Apple's clash with the FBI comes to a head in California this month when the two will meet in federal court to debate whether the smartphone manufacturer should be required to weaken security settings on the iPhone of the shooter.
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Pentagon Admits Deploying Spy Drones Over US, Claims All Were 'Lawful'

A report by a Pentagon inspector general, made public under a Freedom of Information Act request, said spy drones on non-military missions have occurred fewer than 20 times between 2006 and 2015 and always in compliance with existing law. ...
 The use of unmanned aerial surveillance (UAS) drones over U.S. surfaced in 2013 when then-FBI director Robert Mueller testified before Congress that the bureau employed spy drones to aid investigations, but in a "very, very minimal way, very seldom." 
Let the fun begin!
The inspector general analysis was completed March 20, 2015, but not released publicly until last Friday. ... The report quoted a military law review article that said "the appetite to use them (spy drones) in the domestic environment to collect airborne imagery continues to grow, as does Congressional and media interest in their deployment."
High over Alaska last summer, the Pentagon experimented with new, secret prototypes: Micro-drones that can be launched from the flare dispensers of moving F-16s and F/A-18 fighter jets. 
Canisters containing the tiny aircraft descended from the jets on parachutes before breaking open, allowing wings on each drone to swing out and catch the wind. 
Inch-wide propellers on the back provided propulsion as they found one another and created a swarm.***