Combining mind and machine; Ransomware payoffs by ransomware relief firms; Bringing empathy to Twitter; Technology bans from "foreign adversaries"; and more...
Business, News, Science, Technology, or whatever gets my attention.
Ten links and micro-summaries from my 1000+ daily headlines. I filter them so you don't have to.
- A breakthrough device that combines mind and machine - In this TED talk, Arnav Kapur describes his quest to have computers augment human abilities, instead of replacing them. He hopes to accomplish this by combining human intelligence and machine intelligence. He demonstrates his wearable device, alterego with an on-stage web search, and also with video of an ALS patient using it to speak for the first time. The presentation suggests that a device like this could be used as an enhancement for healthy people, or to enable speech for people who suffer from conditions like ALS, stroke, or oral cancer. He adds that a design principle was to "not render ethics as an afterthought", so the device must be voluntarily engaged.
- These firms promise high-tech ransomware solutions—but typically just pay hackers - A review of ransomware payments by two firms who promise data recovery revealed that they recovered the data by paying the ransoms (and adding on their own fee). The article suggests that most ransomware payments are going to finance international terrorism and organized crime. The article says that it's legal to pay ransoms, but hiding a ransom payment behind claims of advanced data recovery methods might run afoul of the FTC regulations on deceptive trade practices. An interesting side note from the article is that ransomware had its genesis as far back as 1989.
- Behind Twitter’s Plan To Get People To Stop Yelling At One Another
- Twitter is using a prototype to experiment with their UI to realign incentives and rethink paradigms that have been in place for the company's entire 13 year history. Potential changes include reorganizing the feed so the response hierarchy is more clear, and removing like and retweet counts. Developers are also looking for ways to display profile information in a way that will harness empathy in pursuit of civility. CEO, Jack Dorsey, has worried about Twitter's bullying/mob mentatlity, saying that the platform tends to "incentivize outrage, fast takes, short term thinking, echo chambers, and fragmented conversation". h/t OSnews
- Trump has banned telecoms equipment from 'foreign adversaries' - After a new executive order by President Trump, the commerce department has 150 days to draft rules for the use and acquisition of technology by "foreign adversaries". Although no company or country is named in the president's order, the article suggests that the change is targeted at Huawei.
- Coinbase Custody Now Has $1 Billion of Crypto Under Management, CEO Says - After 12 months of operation, Coinbase CEO, Brian Armstrong, says the firm has $1 billion in managed assets, and it's growing at a rate of about $150 million per month. He also reports that they are "talking with Starkware" to enable institutions to maintain self-custody, but still participate on the exchanges.
- A Confused Police Officer Pulled Over a Self-Driving Vehicle on Its First Day Carrying Passengers - The pilot shuttle service, funded by the state of Rhode Island, operates on a continuous loop in Providence and carries an attendant to take over in emergencies, as well as up to six passengers. On its first day carrying passengers, it was stopped by a police officer, "because he had never seen one before." The shuttle is operated by Michigan's May Mobility. No warnings or tickets were issued.
- Thwarting a Protein Reverses Brain Decline in Aged Mice - Research on mice and humans has already shown that plasma from young blood decreases memory loss in older mice (or people) and plasma from old blood increases it. Following that line of evidence, Tony Wyss-Coray's team at Stanford has been investigating the specific components of blood plasma that cause the change. In a May paper in Nature, the team reports on their research in mice suggesting that blocking the VCAM1 protein reduces symptoms of aging. One treatment genetically deletes the protein, and a second treatment injected an antibody that binds to it, preventing it from crossing the blood-brain barrier. Both treatments appeared to prevent age-related memory loss from occurring, and even reversed it in mice that had already experienced it. From the article: “The aged mice looked like they were young again in terms of their ability to learn and remember,” and, "One really has the feeling reading through this, that a major leap has been made [not only] in basic science discovery but also [in pointing to] a new therapeutic pathway for one of our most devastating problems". The mechanism is believed to be that VCAM1 in the brain triggers an immune response which causes inflamation and thereby slows down neuron production in the hypocampus.
- How an Early Female Travel Writer Became an Immunization Pioneer - British aristocrat, writer, and feminist, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was famed for her letter-writing. After her brother died from smallpox and she lost her own eyelashes to it, she observed the practice of variolation during her travels to Constantinople (now Istanbul). This practice, originated in 15th and 16th century Africa and Asia, intentionally subjects people to a disease in hopes of gaining immunization by contracting a mild form of the disease. After seeing it practiced, she made use of it for herself and her 5 year old son, and began a campaign of letter-writing and personal advocacy to promote the practice in England. Her efforts were so successful that variolation was practiced in England for the next 70 years, until Edward Jenner created the first vaccine against smallpox.
- STEEM Drop a penny from the Empire State building and kill someone! -
@towjam discusses the numbers behind the myth, concluding that because of its low weight and poor aerodynamics, a penny that fell from the top of a skyscraper would be unlikely to harm a person. The post also includes an embedded Myth Busters video from an episode that covered the topic. (@towjam will receive 5% of this post's payout.)
- STEEM A Basic guide for Upcoming SteemSTEM Users - In this introduction to
@steemstem (steemstem.io), 
@ifyredeemer posts some basic "getting started" advice for the platform. (5% of this post's rewards will go to @ifyredeemer)
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