Nature | News Sharing An 'essentially unbeatable' algorithm for the popular card game points to strategies for solving real-life problems without having complete information. Philip Ball Article tools Rights & Permissions maxuser/Shutterstock Robots are unlikely to be welcome in casinos any time…

A meteorite has disintegrated over Bucharest, the capital of Romania, early Wednesday, blazing through the sky and briefly lighting up the city in the wee hours of the morning. The event, which occurred at approximately 3:05:57 a.m. local time, was caught on several security cameras throughout the…

W henever I talk to a band who are about to sign with a major label, I always end up thinking of them in a particular context. I imagine a trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with runny, decaying shit. I imagine these people, some of them good friends,…

After the Crack In the end, rather than trying to remove all the checksum code, the crackers simply found a way to bypass it. I'm not exactly sure how, but I know YOTD was vulnerable because the copy protection was only run once, at boot time. I assume the crack bypassed the copy protection and then…

Hacker group Anonymous have released a video and a statement via Twitter condemning the attacks on Charlie Hebdo , in which 12 people, including eight journalists, were murdered. The video description says that it is "a message for al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and other terrorists", and was uploaded…

6 links that will show you what Google knows about you

Of the many attractions offered by my hometown, a west coast peninsula famed for its deep natural harbor, perhaps the most striking is that you never have to leave the house. With nothing more technologically advanced than a phone, you can arrange to have delivered to your doorstep, often in less…

As if Silicon Valley hasn't given us enough already, it may have to start giving us all money. The first indication I got of this came one evening last summer, when I sat in on a meet-up of virtual-currency enthusiasts at a hackerspace a few miles from the Googleplex, in Mountain View, California.…

The Daily Beast, Patrick George/Alamy So, “The Interview” is to be released after all. The news that the satirical movie—which revolves around a plot to murder Kim Jong-Un—will have a Christmas Day release as planned, will prompt renewed scrutiny of whether, as the US authorities have officially…

On June 30th at precisely 23:59:59, the world’s atomic clocks will pause for a single second. Or, to be more precise, they’ll change to the uncharted time of 23:59:60 — before ticking over to the more worldly hour of 00:00:00 on the morning of July 1st, 2015. This addition of a leap second,…

Some europium metal. Since the technique here addresses single atoms, this could probably provide enough to satisfy every quantum computer we'll ever build. DOE Quantum encryption systems are already up and running, as are simplified versions of quantum computers. But to fully take advantage of…

Most of the multiple sclerosis (MS) patients who took part in the cutting-edge stem cell study HALT-MS are still in remission years later. The phase 2 study has demonstrated impressive results by rebuilding the immune system using a patient’s own stem cells. Studying 24 study volunteers who…

Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur behind the private spaceflight company SpaceX, says he will unveil his concepts for Mars colonization later this year. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk poses with the firm's manned Dragon V2 spacecraft during an unveiling event at the company's headquarters in Hawthorne,…

Wireless charging hasn't really set the world on fire. Since the Palm Pre first introduced us to the idea at CES 2009 , a few companies have added similar functionality to their phones and smartwatches. Power without wires is undoubtedly useful, but none of the solutions have ever set our devices…

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler strongly hinted Wednesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that he would propose net neutrality rules that treat broadband Internet service providers as utilities subject to more rigorous regulation than they have been to date. If…

Bloomberg Need help? Contact us We've detected unusual activity from your computer network To continue, please click the box below to let us know you're not a robot. Why did this happen? Please make sure your browser supports JavaScript and cookies and that you are not blocking them from loading.…

Defending free speech and free press rights, which typically means defending the right to disseminate the very ideas society finds most repellent, has been one of my principal passions for the last 20 years: previously as a lawyer and now as a journalist . So I consider it positive when large…

PayPal co-founder and venture capitalist Peter Thiel, whose Founders Fund has become the first major investor in a marijuana company.Photograph: Raphael Huenerfauth/Photothek via Getty Images Peter Thiel has never shied away from investing in companies so experimental that they’re too new to even be…

“NOTICE: We request every internet commenter carry out the following task today,” begins an email from the supervisor. It’s just another day in the propaganda department of Zhanggong, a district in southeast China’s modestly sized city of Ganzhou. Employees and freelancers are paid to post…

EFF is stunned and deeply saddened by the attack on Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical newspaper. As free speech advocates, we mourn the use of violence against individuals who used creativity and free expression to engage in cultural and political criticism. Murder is the ultimate form of…

e code to extract passwords from each browser's password manager.

The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

This is a post loosely based on an article appearing today in the German newspaper “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” by Axel Brennicke and me. The raw data for our analysis is available . Please do let us know if you find a mistake. UPDATE , 09/01/2015: A commenter made me aware of data rows in the…

A screenshot from You Tube showing Madhu Bai Kinnar, India's first openly transgender mayor at the polling station in Chhattisgarh. You Tube It’s hard to say what’s more astounding about Madhu Bai Kinnar: the fact she is India’s first openly transgender mayor or that, after 15 years making a living…

The WarkaWater tower is an unlikely structure to find jutting from the Ethiopian landscape. At 30 feet tall and 13 feet wide, it’s not half as big as its namesake tree (which can loom 75 feet tall), but it’s striking nonetheless. The spindly tower, of latticed bamboo lined with orange polyester…

Princeton graduate student Ghootae Kim discusses the memory research with Turk-Browne and Kenneth Norman, a Princeton professor of psychology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute. The researchers' experiment involved 24 adults whose brain activity was monitored by a functional magnetic resonance…

Don't soak your dried beans!

Bloomberg Need help? Contact us We've detected unusual activity from your computer network To continue, please click the box below to let us know you're not a robot. Why did this happen? Please make sure your browser supports JavaScript and cookies and that you are not blocking them from loading.…

Stanford Report, December 16, 2014 Stanford University will lead a 100-year effort to study the long-term implications of artificial intelligence in all aspects of life. Rod Searcey Russ Altman, a professor of bioengineering and of computer science at Stanford, will serve as faculty director of the…

“I hate science." In six years of graduate school, this has to be the phrase I’ve heard most frequently from my colleagues. People who have dedicated their lives to science. People who made a decision when they were about 16 years old to focus on science, who went through four years of undergrad and…

Sifting through a dizzying array of apps.Photograph: Eric Risberg/AP APPS HERE BETA Android - FREE Looking for an alternative to Google Maps on your Android device? Nokia has made its maps and satnav app available in beta form for free. It’s impressive, whether navigating on foot or by car,…

Mark Zuckerberg’s influence cannot be overestimated. The Facebook CEO ‘can set the bellwether for popular thought’. Photograph: Arun Sharma/Hindustan Times/Gerry Images I have an admission. A declaration, maybe. I’ve had to step off the world for a few weeks. It’s all spinning too fast, and there’s…

In a sharp escalation of penalties against automakers that skirt safety laws, the nation’s top auto safety agency has fined Honda Motor a record $70 million for grossly underreporting fatal accidents and injuries to the government, regulators said on Thursday. The penalty doubles a fine levied…

Pizza or salad? Buy or sell? Expand or cut back? Our choices define us. And for those running countries or companies, routine decisions can have dramatic effects on people's lives. So how can we ensure we're making the best possible choices for ourselves and the people we influence? The folks at…

In the summer of 1862, John Hildt lost a limb. Then he lost his mind. Related Reads Living Hell: The Dark Side of the Civil War Related Content Over a Quarter-Million Vietnam War Veterans Still Have PTSD Six Ways the Civil War Changed American Medicine The Shock of War The 25-year-old corporal from…