Kasetophono, friendly playlists for all kinds of music

By Emilios Harbis

As soon as you log on to kasetophono.com, the banner that comes up The soundtrack of your future memories is telling of the site's content and digital character.

Since going online in 2012, Kasetophono (Greek for cassette player) has been gaining new fans or listeners who bookmark the site's address with the kind of reverence usually attached to certain radio stations.

This is not a radio station, though, but a music platform developed and managed by a single individual, Andreas. The platform includes dozens of playlists, or what he refers to as tapes, all compiled according to a variety of themes. The website features a selection of playlists ranging from 20 to 30 songs, each exploring a theme such as a particular mood (joy, sadness), the weather (rain, sunshine) or a specific situation (from the ideal music to accompany a cooking session to lovemaking).

How did the idea for the website come about? Before I started Kasetophono what I had in mind was creating a blog and upload my playlists. The reason was simple, I wanted my friends to be able to listen to them. This is more or less how I started working on the first tapes about two-and-a-half years ago. Only 20 people listened in the first six months, but I didn't mind, because the actual process of developing online tapes was and still is fascinating, said Andreas. The website's variety of musical choices points to someone knowledgeable and with a broad interest in music.

"My relationship with music is somewhat peculiar. I remember one thing growing up: falling asleep with my earphones on. I always wanted to work on something related to music. I tried to become a DJ, a guitarist, a radio producer. I wanted to get into a sound engineering school. In the end I didn't manage to do any of the above and so I came up with the blog.

Meanwhile, the mood on Kasetophono is rather romantic. According to Andreas, the name itself evokes a certain element of nostalgia. Minimalist aesthetics coupled with tapes titled Vintage Wintertime or Whiskey in the Jar, among others, invite visitors to discover more and more playlists and music in general.

Each tape is a new challenge and compiled in a distinct way. Some take 10 minutes to make while others might take up to six months to put together. Some are based on their title while others have to do with the kind of emotion I want to bring evoke. In any case I'm after one thing: for even the most unseasoned of listeners to be able to enjoy each song without fast-forwarding to the next.

The website's creator does not keep the tape-recording process all to himself. Anyone wishing to compile and upload his or her own playlist along with a title and an image illustrating its theme are welcome to do so. So far, about 300 people have taken up the challenge and, according to Andreas, the nicest ones are the secret ones, those compiled and signed by young men as gifts to their girlfriends. What are his future plans for the website?

Read the rest here:

Kasetophono, friendly playlists for all kinds of music

Related Stories and Links

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) The yes side in the upcoming vote on transportation improvements is relying on a younger vote and many students say theyll show their support when the ballots are mailed out next month.

UBC student leader Bahareh Jokar says if the tax is approved, it would cost students between $30 to $50 more per year money she thinks many would pay to reduce congestion down the Broadway corridor.

Its hard enough to get students to vote in a general election and shes keeping that in mind as she teams up with other leaders to get the word out.

Were looking at this as a two-fold process. One is making sure that students are registered. Naturally, this being a mail-in ballot is going to make this process a little bit more difficult. But we want to make sure that students know wha the process will look like. So, [we are] making the information available to them, leading them to the Elections BC website where they can upload their information.

For students, one of the major concerns is the fact that they move around fairly frequently and so we want to make sure that they get the ballot at their most recent address. That will be the first component of our outreach campaign. The second component will be making sure that students are actually getting a hold of the ballot and not just tossing it.

She says many students, specifically those at UBC, use transit every day.

Were looking at the benefits that the plan holds. Naturally, public transportation is a huge component of the student experience. At UBC alone, we know that approximately 84 per cent of our undergraduates are commuters and 94 per cent of our graduate students.

Continued here:

Many students say they support the yes side in the transportation vote

Los Angeles, California (PRWEB) February 12, 2015

MilSource, a U.S. distributor of military-grade Ethernet connectivity solutions, today announced availability of Techayas MILTECH M64. The Military-grade, IP68-rated, miniature USB3 device can be used to securely upload or download data for communications, navigation, and computing applications on vetronic, avionic, shipboard and defense systems.

The MILTECH M64 comes with a variety of mechanical enhancements to ensure security, reliability, usability, and performance in harsh environments. With 64 GB of storage capacities, security features include:

The device is designed to meet MIL-STD-810F airborne and ground environmental compliance, and serves as a robust COTS solution for rugged USB storage. The unit supports USB 3.0 high-speed signals, with backward compatibility to USB 2.0.

The MILTECH M64 was ingeniously designed to withstand harsh environments, where traditional portable storage has neither the security features nor the ruggedness to stand up to heat, vibration and other environmental elements, said Ronen Isaac, general manager of MilSource. The technology in the MILTECH M64 significantly enhances data protection and is really designed with ruggedness in mind. For example, the unique scoop-proof design prevents pins from being bent or contacts from being electrically shorted during mating -- a key hazard in rugged environments.

More information, including standards, specifications and photos/graphics, can be found at http://militaryethernet.com/products/.

About MilSource MilSource takes 20+ years of computer and networking experience and brings a consultative approach to the military and aerospace industry. Noting the pervasiveness of Ethernet as a key networking component in the military/aerospace markets, the founders of WLANmall formed MilSource to focus on bringing these markets innovative, rugged, military-grade Ethernet communications solutions. MilSource is the exclusive U.S. distributor of Techayas MILTECH line of military-grade switching, routing and other communications solutions. For information on MilSource or the Techaya product line, go to http://www.militaryethernet.com.

About Techaya Techaya Inc. (http://www.techaya.com/) is a developer and manufacturer of military-grade, COTS and customized IP-based communication solutions where extreme conditions and unique tactical requirements are the norm. Its MILTECH products and solutions are designed for rugged military applications involving extreme environmental conditions, and are tested and certified for MIL-STD-810F, MIL-STD-461E, MIL-STD-1275B, MIL-STD-704A, HIK-7 and IP68.

Here is the original post:

MilSource Introduces Techayas MILTECH M64IP68 Military-Grade USB 3.0 Flash Storage Device with Enhanced Security ...

If youre like us, you have files all over the place tablets, phones, computers, hard drives. Its never easy transferring and managing files between devices.Were oftenstuck sending emails to ourselves or waiting for an upload to Dropbox to sync just so we can download something on another device. A man named Pulkit Madan believes he has the missing key to moving files, and its calledWaferApp.

With WaferApp, file transfers are done in just a tap. To transfer files from your phone to computer, bumpthe phone against the spacebar. For phone to phone, it just takes a shake. You dont need a phone capable of fancy NFC transfers or anything.

To transfer files to your computer, bumpthe phone against the spacebar. For phone to phone, it just takes a shake.

Its the sensors in your smartphone that serve as the tollbooth, allowing photos, documents, and the like to move freely between devices as dictated. When the phone sensors feel the shake or tap, it sends the files you want to move up into the cloud. A matching algorithm waits for the green light of the motion-triggered command and quickly routes the incoming files to it. Once the file is on the second device, it remains until you remove it manually. Madan assured that the file is instantly removed from our cloud servers after the transfer is completed, so it doesnt remain floating in the ether for too long.

Related:How to send files from Android to Mac OS X

To make the whole process work, youll have to allow location information to be shared from your browser and in the app. We gather as much possible information from the browser about the location of the computer and same with the phone, and pair them up to complete the transfers, Madan explains.

This understandably may raise some privacy concerns. Aside from worrying about what data exactly is being gathered from the browser and device, data leaks are a fear. The files are moving between two trusted devices, but the possibility of another swooping in and snagging something of value persists when there isnt a clear indication that the connection is secure.

Madan believes WaferApp creates a tight enough connection to combat any worries. We have tried to make it as secure and accurate as possible and having been improving each day as the usage increases. We use an encryption system to encrypt files that you send using an RSA 2048 encryption. As far as the connection security is concerned we try our best to find the perfect match and in case it fails, we will ask you to tap or shake again. Its his hope that thisis enough to stop potential false positives that would result in datatransferring out of turn or to the wrong place

Related:Decrypt This: Professional-grade encryption for the average person

Make no mistake, WaferApp is still a work in progress. In our testing, the Android app crashed on several occasions and retrieving transferred files was not always as easy as promised. But for an app in the early stages of its existence, itspromising.

Here is the original post:

WaferApp makes file sharing as easy as a fist bump, when it works

The Telegraph Politics Celebrity Video Games Learning Advertising

In late 2005, when YouTube was just a few months old, one its co-founders announced that the sites users were consuming the equivalent of an entire Blockbuster store each month. Today, 300 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute. And Blockbuster Well, kids, Blockbuster was a video rental shop offering films on DVD and VHS. VHS tapes were like giant cassettes. Cassettes were Oh, never mind.

The online video behemoth has become the worlds third most-visited website, after Google and Facebook. According to Jawed Karim, he and two of his PayPal colleagues, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, launched the site after becoming frustrated that they couldnt find footage of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami and, er, Janet Jacksons wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl the same year.

This high-and-low ethos is baked into YouTubes culture. Its been lauded for promoting democracy and reenergising education, while being disparaged for its endless cat videos and nasty user comments.

What is beyond debate is YouTubes influence (spotted by a far-sighted Google in 2006, when it bought the site for $1.65 billion). Almost anyone can upload almost anything to YouTube, for free, and be in with a chance of reaching its one billion monthly users whether theyre activists, terrorists, politicians or pop stars (or just the proud owner of a mutant giant spider dog). It has changed our world.

The 40-year old MP for Witney scrapes plates into a bin, while his wife helps their children get ready for school in their handsome kitchen.

Watch out BBC, ITV, Channel 4. We're the new competition. We're a bit wobbly, but this is one of the ways we want to communicate with people properly, says David Cameron. It is October 2006 and WebCameron, a new YouTube channel, is born.

Ten months earlier Cameron had won the Conservative leadership on a platform of reaching the voters others could not. The expenses scandal was brewing and Steve Hilton, his top adviser, realised the new website offered a chance to by-pass the television broadcasters and win over voters whod never touched the Tories.

In the eight years since, YouTube has become a raucous town square for those who aspire to power, good and evil. Isil and KKK propaganda videos jostle for attention alongside English town council candidates and teenage pranksters. The veteran Middle East reporter, Jeffrey Goldberg, recently wrote that extremists no longer bother meeting with journalists. They dont need a middleman anymore. Journalists have been replaced by YouTube.

Obamas 2012 re-election campaign included 30 staff working on YouTube

Read the original post:

How YouTube changed the world

Happy 71th Birthday John !

We're playing those mind games together,

Pushing barriers, planting seeds, Playing the mind guerilla, Chanting the Mantra peace on earth,

We all been playing mind games forever,

Some kinda druid dudes lifting the veil. Doing the mind guerilla, Some call it the search for the grail, Love is the answer and you know that for sure, Love is flower you got to let it, you got to let it grow,

So keep on playing those mind games together,

Faith in the future outta the now, You just can't beat on those mind guerillas, Absolute elsewhere in the stones of your mind,

Yeah we're playing those mind games forever,

Projecting our images in space and in time, Yes is the answer and you know that for sure, Yes is the surrender you got to let it, you got to let it go,

So keep on playing those mind games together,

Continue reading here:

Mind Games - John Lennon - YouTube

For help with problems uploading and processing, please contact us using the form at vimeo.com/help/contact. Please include the information outlined below.

If you're having trouble getting your videos to upload or convert successfully, here are a few things to try:

(1) Upload your file again. Many issues can be resolved with a simple do-over.

(2) Make sure that your video settings match our Compression Guidelines (vimeo.com/help/compression). Some codecs are not supported (vimeo.com/help/faq/problems_uploading#failed_conversion).

(3) Hardwire your computer to the Internet (via Ethernet cable) and disable Wi-Fi.

(4) Close any other open browser tabs or windows.

(5) Check your computer's power management settings so it does not power off or go to sleep during the upload.

(6) Update your browser (vimeo.com/help/faq/using_the_vimeo_website#browsers) and disable extensions (vimeo.com/help/faq/using_the_vimeo_website#disable_extensions).

====================

STILL HAVING TROUBLE?

Link:

Problems Uploading or Processing on Vimeo

Since the beginning of mankind, we have been fascinated by immortality. Many have tried, from the pharaohs of ancient Egypt to devout followers of man-made religions. Yet, eternal life remains elusive.

In the Hollywood sensationalized movie The Imitation Game, based on the life of Alan Turing, considered the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence, the movie explores the notion of living forever through an intelligent system. And as mortality nears, many baby boomers are looking to science.

According to baby boomer Ray Kurtweil, the author of The Singularity is Near and Director of Engineering at Google, he stated at the Global Future 2045 International Congress that by 2045 we can reach immortality. Humans will be able to upload their entire brains to computers and become digitally immortal.

How are wearables and the Internet of Things accelerating the trend towards immortality?

Lifelogging Cameras

A new generation of lifelogging cameras and drones are enabling first-person and aerial view recordings that persist in the cloud. Autographer is a wearable camera capable of shooting up to 2,000 shots a day while worn around the neck or clipped onto clothing. Narrative shoots two photos a minute and tags the location using built-in GPS. Nixie, a wearable and flyable drone camera, unfolds to create a quadcopter that flies, takes photos or video, then comes back to you. Trace allows users to record a third-person view of themselves, hands-free. We are closer than ever of being able to record our entire lives from birth to death.

Then the visual narrative of your life can be re-experienced vividly through a virtual reality headset for immersive 3D experience.

Cloud-Based Social Services

Lifelogging apps such as LifeLog, Reporter, Day One, Saga, Narrato, Path, OptimizeMe, and HeyDay complement drones and wearables cameras by making digital autobiography effortless by integrating your social networking updates and photos, syncing with the cloud, and adding automatic metadata such as location, weather, date, time, movements and/or music choices.

Even Facebook gets lifelogging with their Year in Review feature that shows your biggest moments in the past year. Twitter, albeit cumbersome, now lets you download your archive of tweets and browse them by month.

Go here to see the original:

Can Wearables Help You Reach Immortality?

BlackBerry is trying to destroy the best thing it ever made. Not the line of hardware keyboard phones, or the less-relevant-than-ever BBM service. I'm talking about the music video. That mind-blowingly earnest and inexplicable REO Speedwagon cover about BlackBerry 10. It's gone now. What the fuck, BlackBerry?

I discovered this affront when went to go generate a GIF for a post about BlackBerry only to find the tune has been removed. The takedown was relatively recent; I know this because for the past several years, I've been going back to watch it ever couple of months or so. It's that good. Above is a re-up. Watch it. K? Now watch it again.

Any split second of this masterpiece is a treasure trove of wonders. Take this wide shot:

Even through the poor quality of this re-up, you can see keyboardist, former VP Martyn Mallick's goofy goddamn grin blasting through the dark of the inexplicably empty warehouse like another spotlight. Also, black t-shirted guitarist former FP Christopher Smith rocking out like some rip-off Steve Jobs.

Front man, former VP Alec Saunder, steals the show though. His button-down short-sleeve shirt is only narrowly out-nerded by his "awkward noodle arms at my sides" rockstar stance, and when we get to the close-upsand there are so many close-upsI just can't even.

Who ever said transition lenses weren't hip as hell.

See the original post:

BlackBerry Just Killed the Greatest Thing It Ever Made

Editors note:Vicki Holt is president and CEO of Proto Labs.

When most people hear the word manufacturing, a few images tend to come to mind: low skill, wrench-turning, physically draining work; dirty, grease-stained workplaces; a male-dominated workforce. For whatever reason, these stereotypes persist, and they are antiquated and misleading.

Thanks to massive advancements in automation technology and analytics software, the American manufacturing industry of today is a far cry from the assembly lines and manual labor of the past. Manufacturing in the 21st century is a high-tech fusion of software and mechanical engineering, automated processes and complex production equipment, 3D CAD models and on-demand parts. The fortunate result of this modern-day industrial revolution is an expanding demand for highly skilled STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)-related positions.

Ive watched our industry mature and transform greatly since I got my start in manufacturing in the 1980s, and Im keenly aware of the central role information technology now plays. Our business model is anchored by production speed, but without the software programming that powers our manufacturing processes and enables our digital commerce business model, we would be unable to compete. Advancing that technology is integral to our success and requires good programmers and engineers from all backgrounds, male and female, with STEM education.

According to research released in 2013 by the Manpower Group, 93 percent of manufacturing managers agree that manufacturing in North America will become increasingly important to any companys future operations, but that the right talent to fill the resurgent American manufacturingindustry is currently in high demand but short supply. As a result of the shift to heavily automated, computer-based production systems,manufacturing jobs may never again reach the 1960s peak share of 30 percent of the U.S. workforce, but the jobs available in the industry require twice the skill, training and expertise.

The demand for computer science talent in manufacturing goes beyond just programming automation software to improve production processes. Programmers with a passion for sustainability can help make American factories more energy-efficient through using data to optimize energy usage, reduce material waste and ultimately improve overall efficiency.

Materials that would have simply been considered waste and sent to a landfill years ago can now be separated, recycled and reused within existing processes. Creative web designers with user-experience skills can help make ordering parts and prototypes as simple and easy for product designers as ordering a movie from Netflix or a new pair of shoes from Zappos.

Advances in technology have also made 3D design software more affordable, easier to learn and more readily available to the public, making it possible for anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit and an interest in product design to allow their passion to flourish. As a result, its now possible for inventors to upload a 3D CAD model of their invention, quickly receive an automated price quote based on the size and complexity of their model, approve its production and receive a prototype run of their invention in as little as a day or two.

This new product design economy, powered by IT innovation, is only just getting started. Demand for digitally enabled rapid prototyping services is expected to quadruple over the next decade to $12 billion, but this expected growth will only be realized through the continued convergence between the worlds of hardware and software.

Manufacturing stands as one of the industries best poised to benefit from the development of the Internet of Things, and the next generation of talent has a unique opportunity to digitally connect the elements of the modern factory floor with one another in innovative ways that will make American manufacturing competitive on a global scale once more.

Visit link:

Manufacturing Shouldnt Be A Dirty Word For Todays STEM Talent

IS THERE something you're itching to get off your chest?

Have you had a great experience or found something in the community that really gets up your nose?

Is there an issue that you would like to highlight?

You can now have a say in our Your Story section here

All you have to do to speak your mind and see what others think about it is visit Your Story and go for it.

You can also upload pictures if you want.

Organisers of Toowoomba's new music festival Locofest used Your Story to promote the event.

St Ursula's College contributed a story about students spending their school holidays to remotely control the Parkes radio-telescope.

Readers have used Your Story to raise issues, highlight success stories and even review their favourite movies.

Also under the Local Life tab is our new Noticeboard feature, where you can post details others might need to know - everything from club updates and pothole alerts to school event details and magpie alerts.

Read the original:

Log on and share Your Story with the world

T&D WiFi Temperature Data Loggers with Free Cloud Storage

CHESTERLAND OHDo you have perishable product which needs temperature monitoring after hours or during the weekend? Protect your products whether theyre in storage or transit with the new WiFi Temperature Datalogger from T&D. Now you can send your data to the cloud where you can monitor it from anywhere and get alarm notifications sent directly to your mobile device. A longtime T&D distributor, CAS DataLoggers offers these temperature monitoring systems at cost-effective prices. Give us a call today at (800) 956-4437 or visit our website at http://www.dataloggerinc.com.

T&D Wireless Temperature Data Loggers: The new T&D TR-71wf WiFi Temperature Datalogger monitors the temperature of its environment including your food and beverage products, healthcare drugs/vaccines and more. This two-channel model monitors temperature from -40 to 110C (-40F to 230F) using its external thermistor sensor. T&D dataloggers are compact and famous for their rugged design which can survive even harsh industrial environments.

We also carry T&Ds TR-72wf Combination Datalogger which simultaneously records both temperature and humidity.

Wireless LAN communication enables you to setup the logger, download data and receive email alarms from your PC or mobile device. These temperature recorders log data unattended with no cables needed, powered by two standard AA alkaline battery cells providing up to two years of life when set to upload once per day. The loggers record up to 8,000 temperature measurements for extended monitoring and also feature a USB interface for users who want to retrieve data on memory stick.

Alarm Your Product From Your Mobile Device: Once youve set your high and low Alarm Limits, the WiFi datalogger monitors your products temperature 24/7. Whenever your products temperature goes out of specification, TR-71wf wireless data loggers will immediately send you a warning email over the Internet or LAN network. When this occurs youll see an "Alert" icon and a graph showing color-coded values, giving you time to take corrective actions ASAP. Even when your products not in an alarm state, you can check its temperature at any time and also view the current status of your data loggers including their battery levels.

For local alarm applications, you can also connect an alarm buzzer, siren, or other warning device using the loggers external contact output terminal.

Free Cloud Storage! The FREE T&D Cloud WebStorage Service enables you to store data and generate temperature graphs as proof to receivers that your product stayed in specification the entire length of the trip. With the Webstorage Service you can view all your recorded data from T&D wireless dataloggers online anytime, anywhere. Choose to Save, Print, Analyze, and more. If desired you can also give multiple users the ability to simultaneously view, share and use the temperature data from remote locations.

Go Wireless Today! Hear how T&D products have made this customers life easier: "The biggest benefit is peace of mind--that's for sure. When a few of my fridges were failing, we knew we had to have something reliable to cover us the next time. I definitely have peace of mind now, and now I can also show our good practices for the health department." - Benoit Cornet, Executive Chef for Southern Wine and Spirits of America, Inc., Las Vegas branch, on the reliability of T&D systems.

For more information on our new WiFi temperature data loggers, more T&D products monitoring additional values, or to find the ideal solution for your application-specific needs, contact a CAS Data Logger Applications Specialist at (800) 956-4437 or visit our website at http://www.DataLoggerInc.com.

Read more:

Temperature Data Loggers enable monitoring from anywhere.

Samsung's mobile profits slide as Apple catches up ... Amazon has an enterprise mail service up its sleeve ... and more

Snapdragon logo

Samsung's profit slides as mobile power wanes

Samsung Electronics' smartphone business saw a slide in operating profit of 64 percent in fourth quarter results reported Thursday, as competition from Apple at the high end and Xiaomi and Lenovo at the low end cut into business. But its semiconductor business improved thanks to increased demand for its DRAM. Overall, net profit fell for the third quarter in a row, this time by 27 percent from a year earlier.

Apple ties with Samsung for smartphone market share

The iPhone 6 has sold so well that Apple tied with Samsung for the top position in the smartphone market in the fourth quarter, closing the gap with its South Korean competitor. Both Apple and Samsung shipped 74.5 million smartphones during the period, each claiming close to 20 percent share of the market, research firm Strategy Analytics said.

Qualcomm issues a warning as "major customer" defects

Samsung may be fending off competitors on all sides but it's still a hugely important customer in the mobile space, and its rumored decision not to use Qualcomm's 64-bit Snapdragon 810 in its upcoming Galaxy S6 smartphone may be hitting the chipmaker hard. Qualcomm said revenue from its chip division will be lower than expected in the second half of the year, in part because the 810 "will not be in the upcoming design cycle of a large customer's flagship device."

Amazon takes the email fight to Google and Microsoft

Amazon.com is getting ready to jump into the online hosted apps space, with an email service that will go up against Gmail and Microsoft's cloud-based email. The offering is said to be called WorkMail, and targets the enterprise.

See more here:

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Thursday, January 29

'With a bit of energy and a steady focus, 2015 can still be your best year yet for cloud security'

New Year, new start. Whether its buying a gym membership, resolving finally to stop smoking or redoubling your efforts to land a dream job, the start of a new year is traditionally seen as an excuse to fix something thats wrong in your life.

Equally, a new year can drive new focus in our professional lives. Whether its to finally tackle that out of control Inbox, cut network downtime or get a handle on shadow IT within the organisation, resolutions are set with the greater good in mind.

But despite the best of intentions, it can sometimes be hard to keep our personal and professional resolutions. It may be the end of January, when no doubt many resolutions are already on the wane (where did I put that gym card?), but its not too late to get a grip on your employees shadow IT usage in 2015.

>See also:Why shadow IT is a blessing in disguise for IT departments

Shadow IT snuck into the spotlight in 2014 and, according to research, the phenomenon is set to grow ever more prevalent in 2015 this is no New Year fad! Netskopes January 2015 Cloud Report found that on average there are now 613 cloud apps in use within an organisation, up from 579 in Q3 2014.

Many of these apps are business-critical, but the report shows that 88% are not enterprise-ready. Perhaps most worrying is the fact that the majority of cloud apps are unsanctioned meaning that IT is totally in the dark about their use.

Faced with these sorts of challenges, its hardly surprising that data breaches are on the rise. IT departments are battling to remain vigilant to seemingly invisible threats. Cloud apps are a pain point for three main reasons: businesses cant manage what they cant see, and unsanctioned cloud apps will remain invisible without careful introspection; cloud apps are accessed by a growing number of devices, and networks are consequently becoming increasingly amorphous; and many cloud apps enable simple content sharing, making it easy to expose data and potentially sensitive information.

Vive la resolution

So how do you ensure your professional resolutions dont go the way of your Dry January efforts? Whats the solution? With careful planning, clever policy and staff coaching, it is possible to enjoy the productivity and convenience of cloud apps without the increased risk of data loss or theft. Here are five practical steps organisations can take to improve their cloud app security stance:

Go here to read the rest:

3 things expected to increase in 2015: waistlines, stress levels and shadow IT

As part of the mini-series of 2015 sabbatical interviews, the Wessex Scene team are interviewing all sabbatical officers this week to catch up on their progress, whats gone well or badly so far and what plans they have for semester 2 and beyond.

At the midpoint of her term, Icaught up with VP Engagement Ellie Cawthera to talk General Elections,communications and communities.

What will be the biggest priority for the remainder of your time?

Can I pick two?

General Election, and encouraging and supporting student voter registrations, getting them to vote, and advising students on what issues are important to them so they can have an educated vote. Also, the other priority is Community relationships, and an initiative Im doing in January as part of Building bridges, door-to-door with police, students and council, student safety and theft, reminding students not to leave their windows open, putting footprints through the door. Also giving out teabags, which seems quite odd but it is going to have a message on it: have you met your neighbor, how about offering them a cuppa?

One of your biggest projects is going to be student participation in the General Election 2015. How do you think putting 20,000 into promoting voter participation will benefit students?

Union councilors have approved for SUSU to spend to up 20,000 but have been given 18,000 by trustee board. SUSU are doing a huge amount, and the initiative isnt just for University of Southampton students, its for Solent and Further Education (sixth-form) students too. Well be arranging hustings, which should engage loads of students. Well be doing large scale advertising, lobbying to make Mayflower Halls a polling station. Well also be creating our own website, where students can find out how they register, its also going to have a list of issues which will effect students, which they can order which is most important to them. So by the end of it we have a list of issues that effect students, and we can shake that stick to MPs and candidates what do you think about this?

Here is the original post:

Sabb Interviews: VP Engagement, Ellie Cawthera

If You Upload Your Mind to a ComputerAre You Still You?

One of the most mind-bending far future predictions you'll hear fromsome futuristsis this: Eventually, thetechnology will exist to copy your brain (every bit of data that makes you, you) onto a computer.

Technical details and exact predictionsaside (the conceptis still firmlyscience fiction) mind uploading makes for a fascinating and disturbing thought experiment.If you had the power to upload yourself, would you?

Living in a computer might not be so bad. Wed likely be able to make the digital realm a really nice place for our digital selves. All the enjoyable parts of lifewould still be available (and more). Think the Matrix without robot overlords or glowing pods of goo. Which is a central point. Wewouldn't have bodies in need of goo anymore.

Separatedfroma body doomed to slow down, break, get diseases, and eventually die, the only limit on thisnew digital existence would be the health of the computer itself. And not just a singlemachine. Ourinformation could be spread overa vast network of computers, independent ofany one. Wecould live as long as welike.

Sounds like a good deal right? Sure. But here's where it gets a little squirrelly.

Let's say I opt toupload my mind to a computer: Wouldit be methat wakes up online? Or wouldit be a facsimile, perfect in every way except onethat it isnt me. That is,if I'mstill alive, Idont suddenly have a split-screen sense of me-ness. And if I'mdead, well, thats it. I'mjust dead. Even though the digital facsimile goes on living.

I've not read a completely convincing argumentone way or the other. This is partly because we don't have a clear scientific theoryto explain what gives us oursense of "me-ness." It's still a mystery. But the topichas been longdiscussedin philosophy, and Tim Urban has a greatpost on the subject. I highly recommend it.

Also, I imagine some of you have thought about this in depth. (Star Trekfans, I'm looking at you.)

In any case,for the more visually inclined, here's a greatscience fiction short film on the topic: "The Final Moments of Karl Brant." Fewthings beat philosophy and sci-fi on a lazy Sunday. Enjoy!

Continue reading here:

If You Upload Your Mind to a ComputerAre You Still You ...

Upload, v.i., v.t. To become a figment of your computer's imagination. From Godling's Glossary by David Victor de Transend.

Uploading isn't a >H goal because it's one step closer to some mythical and unknowable perfection, but because it'll be jolly practical. - Dr. Rich Artym

An Introduction to Mind Uploading and its Concepts by Randal Koene. Death by Instalments by Peter Cochrane. What if we replace more and more of ourselves with technology? British Telecom und der Unsterblichkeitschip by Basil Gelpke (in German). Ghosts, computers, and Chinese Whispers by Toby Howard (Personal Computer World magazine, November 1996). About uploading and the media rumor about the BT "soulcatcher chip". Traum von der Ewigkeit, by Florian Rtzer (in Telepolis, in German). Losing your mind? Upload your brain and gain eternal life by Kathy Zucca. Philosophy and technology of Mind Uploading by Joseph Strout (In PDF). Cybernetic Immortality node in Principia Cybernetica.

Beside the obvious technological difficulties achieving uploading, there are also hotly debated philosophical aspects of the process. Among the most central questions are the strong AI postulate (is intelligence and consciousness possible in a computer?) and the identity problem (is the upload you or an impostor?).

The Prospect of Mind Uploading by Graham Hearn. Has Penrose Disproved A.I.? by Robin Hanson. A critique o f Roger Penrose's critique of AI. Conscious Machines by Marvin Minsky. Can machines be conscious? Can humans? Of Man, Mind and Machine. Meme-Based Models of Mind and the Possibility for Consciousnes s in Alternate Media, by Joshua S. Latenier. Dualism Through Reductionism by Hans Moravec (Truth Journal). Does personhood, consciousness and intelligence reside in the pattern or substrate? Drifting Identities by Alexander Chislenko Discusses the questions of self-transformation contra identity, and introduces the idea of an "identity space". Forum on Personal Identity Albert-Jan Brouwer on Personal Identity Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia by David J. Chalmers. About the problem of qualia and the nature of consciousness. Dalai Lama on Computer Consciousness (post from the Omega Point Theory mailing list). A bit surprising.

Energy Limits to the Computational Power of the Human Brain by Ralph C. Merkle. An attempt to estimate the computational power of the brain. How Many Bytes in Human Memory? by Ralph C. Merkle.

Gradual Uploading as a Cognition of Mind by Algimantas Malickas. A process of gradual enhancement and extension, leading to an uploaded state. Automated Reconstruction of Neural Elements from Transmission Electron Microscope Images, K. Montgomery, Dissertation, University of California. Brain Scan Cryomsgs, from the Cryonics mailing list 1992. Methods of Uploading by Richard Kennaway. Cryonic Suspension and Uploading by Eugen Leitl. Discusses neurosuspension from an uploading perspective, with some ideas for scanning and storage. Large Scale Analysis of Neural Structures by Ralph C. Merkle. Discusses the possibility of analyzing the structure of the brain at a cellular level. Describing the Brain at the Molecular Level by Ralph C. Merkle. Proposed methods, from the Mind Uploading Home Page

Uploading by the Microtome Procedure Uploading by the Nanoreplacement Procedure Uploading by the Moravec Procedure Nondestructive Uploading Procedures

Cartoon about the problems of uploading. Uploading - A Little Wishful Fiction by obert Munafo.

Mind Uploading Home Page of Joe Strout. A very good introduction to the problems and possibilities of Uploading.

View post:

Hans Moravec's concept of mind uploading - Anders Sandberg ...

Cloud storage is incredibly convenient, but it can also be confusing. Sometimes youre just not sure what files to put up there or if you should store anything online at all. One way to approach the issue is to ask yourself what you want to get out of storing files online. Is your overarching concern convenience, security, or a mix of the two?

Heres a look at what you might call three different cloud personalities that can help you decide what you want to get out of a service like Google Drive, OneDrive, or Dropbox. Ive also included some suggestions about services or strategies that might work best for each type.

This type of person who isnt concerned with issues surrounding security or privacy like hackers or governmental snooping. Their primary concern is simply having access to their files across all their devices.

The fact that most cloud storage companies secure downloads and uploads via HTTPS and keep personal files in a secure manner in their data centers is enough reassurance for these people.

If this sounds like you, then you probably shouldnt worry too much about what kinds of files you put online. But even if youre care-free youd still do well to keep any personal financial information out of the cloudjust in case.

Care-free types would find OneDrive a good choice, since Microsoft offers unlimited cloud storage to Office 365 subscribers paying $70 or $100 per year, or 15GB of free storage (with the option to pay affordable prices for more) to non-O365 subscribers.

This type of person is more wary of the cloud after the Snowden revelations. Constant stories of hacking also remind the secure types how vulnerable online information can be to exposure.

There isnt really a perfect answer for the deeply security consciousat its core, cloud storage is all about storing your files on somebody elses serverbut a good solution might be to encrypt files yourself before they get sent up to the cloud.

The thing about self-encrypting files is that you have to be careful not to have an encrypted file open on two devices at once. That could end up corrupting the file. You also have to figure out how youre going to decrypt files on your various devices. If you use something like miniLock, for example, youll be restricted to accessing your files on PCs.

Secure types will also want to watch out for features on their smartphone that automatically upload photos and other data such as passwords to the cloud.

Follow this link:

Which cloud personality are you? Three ways to approach online storage

Story highlights The Open Worm Project aims to recreate the behavior of the common roundworm in a machine The open source project has taken four years to model 302 of the worm's neurons in its software It had its first major breakthrough recently when the software independently controlled a Legobot The robot mimicked some of the behaviors of the worm, responding to external stimulus through sensors

Called the Open Worm Project, the research brings together scientists and programmers from around the world with the aim of recreating the behavior of the common roundworm (Caenorhabditis elegans) in a machine.

The open source project recently had its first major breakthrough when its software -- modeled on the neurons of the worm's nervous system -- independently controlled a Lego robot.

The machine's sensors, without any prior programming, made the robot behave in a similar fashion to C. elegans, approaching and backing away from obstacles or stimulated by food.

While the developers say it will be some time before the Lego bot will be avoiding predators or searching for a mate, scientists say the project shows that artificial intelligence, or AI as it is known, is coming out of the realm of science fiction.

"We've been working on it for four years and while we have a lot more to achieve it's been the most surprising project I've been involved in," project coordinator Stephen Larson told CNN. "It's certainly exceeded my expectations."

With the worm's nose neurons replaced by a sonar sensor and the motor neurons running down both sides of the worm replicated on the left and right motors of the Lego bot, the robot could emulate the worm's biological wiring.

Larson said that while the open source project is still awaiting peer review, and the scientists and researchers in the experiment are reluctant to make any bold claims about how closely it resembled biological behavior, the result were nevertheless impressive.

"We definitely have further to go, but I think what captures people's imagination is how much information we have managed to put together," Larson said.

"We know we have the correct number of neurons, we have them connected together in roughly the same way that the animal has, and they're organized in the same way in that there are some neurons that give out information and other neurons that receive information."

Follow this link:

Scientists upload a worm's mind into a Lego robot - CNN.com

Recently published Future of Life Institute (FLI) letter Research Priorities for Robust and Beneficial Artificial Intelligence, signed by hundreds of AI researchers, many representing government regulators, some sitting on committees with names like Presidential Panel on Long Term AI future, in addition to the likes of Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking, offers a program professing to protect the mankind from the threat of super-intelligent AIs. In a contrarian view, I believe, that should they succeed, rather than upcoming salvation, we will see a 21st century version of 17th century Salem Witch trials instead, where technologies competing with AI will be tried and burned at stake, with much fanfare and applause from mainstream press.

Before I proceed to my concerns, some background on AI. For last 50 years AI researchers promise to deliver intelligent computers, which always seem to be five years in the future. For example, Dharmendra Modha, in charge of IBMs Synapse neuromorphic chips claimed two or three years ago that IBM will deliver computer equivalent of human brain by 2018. I have heard echo of this claim in statements of virtually all recently funded AI and Deep Learning companies. Press accepts these claims with the same gullibility it displayed during Apple Siris launch and hails arrival of the brain like computing as a fait accompli. I believe this is very far from the truth.

The investments on the other hand are real, with old AI technologies dressed up in new clothes of Deep Learning. I addition to acquiring Deep Mind, Google hired Geoffrey Hintons University of Toronto team as well as Ray Kurzweil whose primary motivation for joining Google Brain seems to be the opportunity to upload his brain into vast Google supercomputer. Baidu invested $300M in Stanford University Andrew Ngs Deep Learning lab, Facebook and Zuckerberg personally invested $55M in Vicarious and hired Yann LeCun, the other deep learning guru. Samsung and Intel invested in Expect labs and Reactor, Qualcomm made a sizable investment in BrainCorp. While some progress in speech processing and image recognition will be made, it will not be sufficient to justify lofty valuations of recent funding events.

[ Also on Insights:Artificial Intelligence and the Transformation of Healthcare ]

While my background is in fact in AI, I worked for last few years closely with preeminent neural scientist, Walter Freeman at Berkeley on a new kind of wearable personal assistant, one based not on AI but on neural science. During this time, I came to the conclusion that symbol based computing technologies, including point-to-point deep neural networks (not neural science) can not possibly deliver on claims made by many of these well funded AI labs and startups. Here are just three of the reasons:

Each of the above three empirical findings invalidates AIs symbolic, computation approach. I could provide more but it is hard to fight prevalent cultural myths perpetuated by mass media. Movies are a good example. At the beginning of the movie Transcendence, Johnny Depps character, an AI researcher (from Berkeley:), makes bold claim that just one AI will be smarter than the entire population of humans that ever lived on earth. By my calculation this estimate is incorrect today by almost 20 orders of magnitude, it will take more than a few years to bridge this gap.

Which brings me back to the FLI letter. While individual investors have every right to lose their assets, problem gets much more complicated when government regulators are involved. Here are the the main claims of the letter I have problem with (quotes from the letter in italics):

Why should government regulators support technology which failed to deliver on its promises repeatedly for 50 years? Newly emerging branches of neural science which made major breakthroughs in last years are of much greater promise, in many cases exposing glaring weaknesses of AI approach, so it is precisely these groups which will suffer if AI is allowed to regulate the direction of future research of intellect, whether human or artificial. Neural scientists study actual brains with imaging techniques such as fMRI, EEG, ECOG, etc and then postulate predictions about their structure and function from the empirical data they gathered. The more neural research progresses, the clearer it becomes that brain is vastly more complex than we thought just a few decades ago.

AI researchers on the other hand start with a priori assumption that brain quite simple, really just a carbon version of Von Neumann CPU. As Google Brain AI researcher and FLI letter signatory Illya Sutskever recently told me, brain absolutely is just a CPU and further study of brain would be a waste of my time. This is almost word for word repetition of famous statement of Noam Chomsky made decades ago predicting the existence of language generator in brain.

FLI letter signatories say: Do not to worry, we will allow good AI and identify research directions in order to maximize societal benefits and eradicate diseases and poverty. I believe that it would be precisely the newly emerging neural science groups which would suffer if AI is allowed to regulate research direction in this field. Why should evidence like this allow AI scientists to control what biologists and neural scientists can and can not do?

Read the original here:

Google and Elon Musk to Decide What Is Good for Humanity