House and Senate at Work on Bills to Better Protect Online Privacy
Back in 1986, the Electronic Communication Privacy Act (ECPA) was passed, which stated any emails older than six months were considered abandoned and eligble to be seized by authorities without a warrant. The reasoning at the time was because emails would be deleted after being read, since cloud servers and large amounts of network storage weren't being considered. However that isn't the case now, as emails can be kept on a server indefinitely due to 10GB or more of storage capacity on the likes of Gmail. The good news is the US Congress has taken notice, as tomorrow the Senate Judiciary Committee plans to meet to "mark up" a reform for the ECPA. The House Judiciary Committee held a meeting on it last month, but both are working to ensure a warrant is needed for much more than just emails.
Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Mike Lee (R-UT) proposed the new bill, dubbed the Leahy-Lee bill, which "would require a warrant for all private electronic content. So it's e-mails, it's texts, Google Docs, it's photos in Picasa, it's private social networking posts." Google Docs and other non-communcations require a subpoena to be accessed. The senators want everything protected by the Fourth Amendment, both for the privacy of US citizens and companies with cloud services. The ACLU supports the bill and hopes it can pass the Senate Judiciary Committee with a voice vote.
The US House of Representatives is also considering email privacy, as well as location tracking. A separate hearing tomorrow by the Senate Judiciary Committee plans to address location tracking, with senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Ron Kirk (R-IL) proposing that one. It isn't known if the Senate would incorporate both bills into one or address each separately, but the fact Congress is looking into it can only be seen as positive.
Source: Ars Technica
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Electron Spins Collected for Greater Coherence
Modern electronics rely on the charge of electrons to operate, which means electronic signals require a voltage to be sent and stored. Spintronics on the other hand, operate using the spin of electrons, which is an intrinsic property and those is not so reliant on energy, but comes with its own set of problems. Researchers at the University of York and other institutions have recently found a clever way to overcome one of these challenges by collecting electrons together.
Semiconductors are at the heart of computing and unfortunately in their heart are spin-orbit fields, which interfere with spintronic signals. These signals rely on the spins of the electrons being specifically in one direction or another, but the fields can cause the spins to behave chaotically, thereby destroying what information they carry. What the researchers have done is placed the electrons within quantum wells, where they may excite specific spins to the electrons all at once. This collective excitation led to the electrons taking on a collective, macroscopic spin state, and because all of the electrons shared the state, they are less susceptible to the interference of the spin-orbit fields.
This discovery could have a profound effect on research into spintronics by strengthening spintronic signals. The researchers also repeated their experiments with different setups and discovered that it appears the quantum nature of macroscopic spin is universal, which should have some interesting impacts on future research into spintronics.
Source: University of York
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Apple Announces Dates for WWDC
Apple has announced that its developer conference, the WWDC, will return to the Moscone Center in San Francisco for the eleventh straight year. The event will take place from June 10-14 and will maintain the same price that it has had since 2010 for attendance, $1,599. The company is planning to show off the latest iterations of iOS and Mac OS X.
Source: Computer World
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Amazon Rumored to be Developing Set Top Box
According to Bloomberg, Amazon is currently developing a set top box that will serve Internet based videos to users. The device will connect to a TV and give users access to Amazon Instant Video and the Video on Demand store. It is being developed by the Lab126 division and has a number of veterans of similar technologies on board. This new device will add to the app already offered by Amazon and will also position it well to compete with the number of similar devices that are planned or rumored.
Source: CNET
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Next-Gen Xbox May 21 Reveal Confirmed
Microsoft earlier this morning confirmed that the next generation Xbox will be revealed at a special event on May 21. Invitations were sent out to the media about the reveal, and confirm the event will be held at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington. The reveal will also be broadcast live, and on Spike TV.
Paul Thurrot initially suggested that the May 21 event would be to reveal the new Xbox a month ago, but until now it was unconfirmed. The event is planned to occur three weeks before E3 2013 in Los Angeles, where Microsoft is expected to showcase some of the release titles for the next-generation console. The May 21 event is likely to consist of revealing the technical specs of the new console, as well as marketing the next Xbox as more than just a gaming device.
Source: CNET
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Gaming Elements Used to Promote Healthier Behavior
Everybody is a gamer in one way or another, as humans almost always try to find a way to create fun and interesting goals on our way to completing a task. For example, trying to read so much during a regular commute may be of little importance in the grand scheme of things, but it gives you a sense of satisfaction during an otherwise boring ride, and gets you through your reading material faster. Researchers at the University of Southern California decided to incorporate gaming elements into a wellness program, hoping they would enhance its affects.
The researchers used two groups consisting of young to middle-aged adults and gave both groups an online diary to record their activity and progress. One of the groups was also given the task of reporting points they had earned for reporting what exercises they performed, and these points could be redeemed for special animations for their online avatars. After five weeks, the groups switched so everyone had the same experience over a ten-week period, though in different orders.
Everyone who participated in the research reported an increase in physical activity, but those in the group that started with the gaming elements reported a greater increase. Similarly, at the five week check-in the gaming group showed a larger decrease in body-mass index than the other group, though both groups did see a decrease at this time.
Source: University of Southern California
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Hardware Roundup: Wednesday Edition
We have a lot on the menu today, so let's dive right in. There are a few video card reviews that are sure to be interesting, like a look at three NVIDIA GTX Titans in SLI. That's a lot of firepower right there, but it isn't the only thing of note as there are two takes on the brand new AMD HD 7990. This is the official AMD-produced version instead of one the board partners made, with a different design than those ones. Moving on there's an Enermax 650W PSU, a monitor calibration tool from Datacolor, and a Rosewill powerline networking kit. We also have a review on the ASUS Orion Pro headset and a mousepad from Cooler Master.
Video Cards
NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN 3-Way SLI @ [H]ardOCP
AMD HD 7990: Dual GPU Comeback @ Tech Spot
AMD HD 7990 6GB: Malta Gets Frame Rated @ PC Perspective
Monitors
Datacolor Spyder4Elite Monitor Calibration Tool @ XSReviews
Power Supplies
Enermax Triathlor 650W @ [H]ardOCP
Mouse Pads
Cooler Master Storm Power-RX @ LanOC Reviews
Networking
Rosewill RPLC-500 500 Mbps Powerline Networking Kit @ Think Computers
Speakers/Headphones
ASUS Orion Pro Gaming Headset @ Benchmark Reviews
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Two New Versions of the GTX Titan in the Works
According to reports, NVIDIA's GTX Titan card will soon be joined by two comrades. A beefier version and a slimmed down version are both rumored to be in the works.
The budget version called GTX Titan LE is expected to be released this summer. It'll feature 208 TMUs and 2,496 CUDA cores vs. 240 TMUs and 2,688 CUDA cores on the standard GTX Titan. The memory will also drop to 5GB of GDDR5. These reductions results in a lowering of power consumption though, which is expected to fall to around 180W compared to 206W that the standard Titan requires.
The beefier version is supposedly going to be called either GTX Titan II or GTX Titan Ultra. It'll increase the TMUs up to 256 and the amount of CUDA cores up to 2,880. The GPU used in Titan has exactly 2,880 CUDA cores available. That means NVIDIA would have to avoid any little defect or issue, which is something the company has yet to accomplish. The card will also receive a bump in clock speed, from 837MHz to 950MHz. These changes of course increase the power consumption and the TDP will go up to around 220W.
This is still a rumor and no release dates or prices has been announced, and it might be a controlled leak by NVIDIA to steal some of the spotlight from AMD's launch of the Radeon HD 7990, but wouldn't we all like to see what the GK110 is capable of when fully unlocked and pushed to the limit?
Source: Extreme Tech
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