Thinking Allowed

medical / technology / education / art / flub

showing posts for 'war'

How global conferences are using tech to stay in business

"Moving events online kept the industry going during the pandemic and now they're here to stay." Notable mentions of the conferences Collision, Web Summit, and RISE, and the speed networking software Mingle. "[T]he Distance Learning Association's Thomas Capone says that the future of meetings and events...
Source: bbc.com

Pegasus: Spyware sold to governments 'targets activists'

Israeli tech firm NSO denies media reports that its software has been sold to authoritarian regimes. The Android and iOS spyware can apparently see photographs and contacts, log everything that is typed, and turn on the camera and microphone.
Source: bbc.com

England's 'freedom day' marred by soaring cases and isolation chaos

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's 'freedom day' ending over a year of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions in England was marred on Monday by surging infections, warnings of supermarket shortages and his own forced self-isolation.
Source: reuters.com

US companies hit by 'colossal' cyber-attack

A cyber-security firm says it believes the Russia-linked REvil ransomware gang is responsible.
Source: bbc.com

Tailored messaging increases understanding of climate change in Republicans

A team of researchers at Yale University's Yale Program on Climate Change Communication has found that the use of tailored advertising can increase awareness among Republicans of the dangers posed by climate change. In their paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change, the group describes field...
Source: phys.org

Facebook faces prospect of 'devastating' data transfer ban after Irish ruling

Ireland's data regulator can resume a probe that may trigger a ban on Facebook's transatlantic data transfers, the High Court ruled on Friday, raising the prospect of a stoppage that the company warns would have a devastating impact on its business.
Source: reuters.com

US passes emergency waiver over fuel pipeline cyber-attack

The US acts to keep fuel flowing after its largest pipeline was hit by a ransomware cyber-attack. "Cyber-security firm Digital Shadows says the Colonial attack has come about due to the pandemic - with more engineers remotely accessing control systems for the pipeline from home. James Chappell, co-founder...
Source: bbc.com

Human remains from Mary Rose show diversity of Tudor crew

A team of researchers with Cardiff University, the Mary Rose Trust, HM Naval Base and the British Geological Survey's National Environmental Isotope Facility has found evidence of racial diversity among the crew of the Mary Rose—a warship from the time of King Henry the VIII. In their paper published...
Source: phys.org

Bank of England predicts rebound in the economy

"The Bank of England said Britain's economy would grow by the most since World War Two this year and slowed the pace of its trillion dollar bond-purchasing programme, but stressed it was not reversing its stimulus." Strong indications finally of a bounce back in the economy highlight the devastating...
Source: reuters.com

Why a U.S. hospital and oil company turned to facial recognition

Deployments of facial recognition from Israeli startup AnyVision show how the surveillance software has gained adoption across the United States even as regulatory and ethical debates about it rage.
Source: reuters.com

IEA issues 'dire warning' on CO2 emissions as it predicts 5% rise

Global CO2 emissions from energy are seen rising nearly 5% this year, suggesting the economic rebound from COVID-19 could be "anything but sustainable" for the climate, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday.
Source: reuters.com

Databunker secure storage

Really like this approach putting privacy tools all in one place. Warrants some experimentation. "Databunker gives strong, serious, real personal-data protection for customer records without expensive custom coding and with full customer visibility."
Source: databunker.org

Effectiveness of a serious game addressing guideline adherence: cohort study with 1.5-year follow-up Tobias Raupach. Insa

Background Patients presenting with acute shortness of breath and chest pain should be managed according to guideline recommendations. Serious games can be used to train clinical reasoning. However, only few studies have used outcomes beyond student satisfaction, and most of the published evidence is...
Source: biomedcentral.com

Implementing Medical Chatbots: An Application on Hidradenitis Suppurativa - PubMed Dermatology (Basel, Switzerland).

A medical chatbot has to be customised to the specific subject whilst general principles have to be considered. High-quality information has to be available in just a few clicks. People concerned about HS are looking for a diagnosis online and often have not seen a doctor previously. Guidance toward...
Source: nih.gov

Diabetes: The game-changing research that will save refugee lives

An innovative new study has shown that insulin can be stored at up to 37°C
Source: msf.org.uk

International dual and joint degrees to get green light

"India is set to greenlight dual and joint degrees awarded by Indian universities with international partners as part of its internationalisation plan being pushed through forcefully since its inclusion last year in the National Education Policy (NEP), a blueprint for the next decade." These dual and...
Source: universityworldnews.com

The Agile Manifesto 20 years on: agility in software delivery is still a work in progress | ZDNet

We've had two decades to absorb the values and principles of the Agile Manifesto. What have we learned, and what are we still learning? 'We are closer and more aware, but we are turning a tanker and it is slow and incremental.'
Source: zdnet.com

Andy Weber on rendering bioweapons obsolete & ending the new nuclear arms race

"COVID-19 has provided a vivid reminder of the power of biological threats. But the threat doesn’t come from natural sources alone. Weaponized contagious diseases — which were abandoned by the United States, but developed in large numbers by the Soviet Union, right up until its collapse — have...
Source: 80000hours.org

PAIRED: A New Multi-agent Approach for Adversarial Environment Generation

This Google AI blog describes a method for machine learning using paired agents. The gap between the one that did the best and the one that did the worst is regret. That feeling of 'could have done' better is what pushes the 'unsupervised environment design' algorithm towards a better solution. "The...
Source: googleblog.com

WHO's Ryan says some countries didn't hear early COVID-19 warning

Some countries should have listened more carefully when the World Health Organisation declared a global health emergency in January 2020, Mike Ryan, the WHO's top emergency expert, said on Monday.
Source: reuters.com