Nice timing, Vine. As we inch closer to Facebook’s big Instagram press conference today, Vine co-founders Dom Hoffman and Rus Yusopov have taken to Vine (what else?) to show off some new features and UI enhancements that should be coming to the app soon. As you can see from the Vines (embedded below), things are still relatively unclear. What we can glean from the six-second looping videos is that users may finally be able to create and save Vine drafts before sharing them. This would allow users to start a Vine, save it as a draft, and create other Vines in the meantime. It’s a must-have feature for the new creation medium, which seems to ask for the passage of time in certain circumstances (like a Vine of you finishing your dinner, for example). We also see an apparent redesign of the video stream, wherein the camera button moves to the bottom center of the screen and remains in place as you slide down the stream. Vines will pass down the stream one after the other, with no breaks for comments or likes. It appears as though users have to click into particular Vines that they’d like to comment on, like, or read comments on. The Verge has also spotted potential category additions to the app. As it stands now, popular hashtags float to the top of the Explore page, along with Editors picks. But the forthcoming update could bring standardized categories like Science & Technology, Comedy, Art, etc. Clearly, Vine is pushing back against the possibility that Instagram will launch a highly competitive video-sharing service today. But as I’ve said before (and will likely say again), Vine will survive. Revamped Video Stream/Categories: Drafts:
For all the money it has spent, you don?t hear about I.B.M. as a powerhouse of cloud computing-based services. Cloud computing is still a tiny fraction of the company?s $106 billion in annual revenue. Still, I.B.M. has spent more than $4 billion acquiring cloud computing-based services in the last few years, and recently bought a big public cloud.
I.B.M. apparently feels that attention must be paid.
The company is certainly gearing up for a much bigger push in cloud-delivered software. The first step is packaging the products in new ways, to address a much bigger customer base that?s a little lower on the corporate pyramid.
On Tuesday, the company showed off a series of cloud products centered around such popular topics as Big Data and social analytics for marketing, as well as human resources, sales, customer care and procurement software delivered over the cloud. In all, I.B.M. says it has more than 100 cloud applications.
The announcement signifies that under Virginia M. Rometty, its chief executive, I.B.M., like other incumbent technology giants, is being forced to change its ways.
I.B.M. used to sell complex hardware, software and services packages to chief executives and their ilk. In the new world, it must also offer products for executives more directly involved with day-to-day operations that their departments can use without complex training or lengthy procurement, hassles like installing servers.
That approach is how many cloud upstarts, like Salesforce.com, even Yammer, made their way into companies, back when the cloud business was starting out.
Earlier this month, I.B.M. agreed to pay about $2 billion for SoftLayer, which has a global network of 13 data centers. Coupled with I.B.M.?s own data centers, SoftLayer should make it easier to deliver software over a so-called public cloud, as opposed to a company?s own machines.
Public clouds like Amazon Web Services, where many companies share computing space, have become an increasingly accepted part of enterprise technology.
Moving to a public model can?t have been easy for a company that made mainframe computers for corporations ? its stock in trade for decades. But it points to I.B.M. for changing with the times.
Contact: Ellen de Graffenreid edegraff@brandeis.edu 781-736-4213 Brandeis University
New simulations help scientists understand how -- and why -- viruses spread
It's not a hacker lab. At Brandeis University, sophisticated computational models and advances in graphical processing units are helping scientists understand the complex interplay between genomic data, virus structure and the formation of the virus' outer "shell" critical for replication.
"We hope that some of what we are finding will help researchers alter virus assembly, leaving viruses unable to replicate," says post-doctoral fellow Jason Perlmutter, first author of the scientific paper describing the technique, published in the open access journal eLife.
Scientists know that many viruses are able to hijack the genetic machinery of host cells to produce copies of themselves and spread infection from cell to cell. For many virus families, a key part of this process is the formation of a protein "shell," called a capsid, around the viral genome during the assembly process.
The physics of this assembly process, which involves interactions between the negatively charged nucleic acid genome and the positively charged capsid protein, depends on a number of factors related to the structure of the virus genome.
"Changing all these critical genomic parameters in a live virus and looking at how capsid formation behaves is impossible given the speed of the process and our current imaging techniques," says associate professor of physics Michael Hagan, whose lab conducted the study.
That's why the team's modeling approach the most realistic developed to date is so important to scientists who are interested in how the virus capsid protein assembles around its genome in the cell. The Brandeis team used their modeling tool to calculate the optimal genome for a number of specific capsids which vary in size, shape and surface properties.
"If you take the model and apply it to biological viruses, we are able to predict within a narrow range key structural features of the virus genome and, by extension, how these parameters control whether the capsid assembles or misassembles and what misassembly looks like," says Perlmutter.
"Our tool should help scientists better understand the relationship between viral structure and packaging, making it easier to develop antiviral agents as well as aid the redesign of viruses for use in gene therapy and drug delivery."
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The work was supported by NIH NIAID grant number R01AI080791 and NSF XSEDE grant number TG-MCB090163.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Ellen de Graffenreid edegraff@brandeis.edu 781-736-4213 Brandeis University
New simulations help scientists understand how -- and why -- viruses spread
It's not a hacker lab. At Brandeis University, sophisticated computational models and advances in graphical processing units are helping scientists understand the complex interplay between genomic data, virus structure and the formation of the virus' outer "shell" critical for replication.
"We hope that some of what we are finding will help researchers alter virus assembly, leaving viruses unable to replicate," says post-doctoral fellow Jason Perlmutter, first author of the scientific paper describing the technique, published in the open access journal eLife.
Scientists know that many viruses are able to hijack the genetic machinery of host cells to produce copies of themselves and spread infection from cell to cell. For many virus families, a key part of this process is the formation of a protein "shell," called a capsid, around the viral genome during the assembly process.
The physics of this assembly process, which involves interactions between the negatively charged nucleic acid genome and the positively charged capsid protein, depends on a number of factors related to the structure of the virus genome.
"Changing all these critical genomic parameters in a live virus and looking at how capsid formation behaves is impossible given the speed of the process and our current imaging techniques," says associate professor of physics Michael Hagan, whose lab conducted the study.
That's why the team's modeling approach the most realistic developed to date is so important to scientists who are interested in how the virus capsid protein assembles around its genome in the cell. The Brandeis team used their modeling tool to calculate the optimal genome for a number of specific capsids which vary in size, shape and surface properties.
"If you take the model and apply it to biological viruses, we are able to predict within a narrow range key structural features of the virus genome and, by extension, how these parameters control whether the capsid assembles or misassembles and what misassembly looks like," says Perlmutter.
"Our tool should help scientists better understand the relationship between viral structure and packaging, making it easier to develop antiviral agents as well as aid the redesign of viruses for use in gene therapy and drug delivery."
###
The work was supported by NIH NIAID grant number R01AI080791 and NSF XSEDE grant number TG-MCB090163.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Brian Demarco, 50, was arrested June 13 for allegedly calling in multiple bomb threats to federal buildings in Albuquerque.
By Sophia Rosenbaum
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This may be the first incidence of someone threatening to blow up a building with a burrito.
Brian Demarco, 50, was arrested late last week after he allegedly called the FBI?s Public Access line, based in West Virginia, on June 11 and said he was going to blow up the Albuquerque FBI field office by sending ?a burrito with CO2 explosive inside of it,? according to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court of New Mexico.
But that wasn?t the only bomb threat Demarco made, according to?the?complaint. Demarco allegedly threatened another Albuquerque building the next day ? and told FBI investigators that he has made ?terrorist bomb threats? to California in the past.
And his end goal was to actually wind up behind bars, according to the feds.
?He wanted to be sent to Federal prison,? the complaint said. ?The caller said that he wanted the voices and sounds to stop.?
Demarco later told the FBI that he has previously been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, the report said.
One June 12, the Denver MegaCenter, a security monitoring system for the Department of Homeland Security, got a call from a man who said he was going to bomb the Albuquerque Social Security Administration building with a timer bomb containing C-4 plastic explosives, according to the complaint.
The building was evacuated, but no bombs were found.
Investigators traced the call to a Super 8 motel in Albuquerque ? the same location Demarco had said he was staying in the day before. FBI agents obtained a search warrant for room 209 in the Super 8 motel, where they found a handwritten note with the Albuquerque FBI phone number on it.
That same day, Demarco called 911 because he was ?feeling frantic?, according to the criminal report. The Albuquerque Police Department interviewed him and brought him to the University of New Mexico hospital for a mental health evaluation.
After Demarco was released from the hospital, the FBI interviewed him at the hotel where he admitted to placing both bomb threats to the Albuquerque buildings.
?Demarco stated that he was angry at the U.S. government because the government placed a tracking device inside his head and is watching him, in addition to beaming photons into his head,? the report said.
Demarco was arrested by the FBI as he was boarding a bus to Amarillo, Texas, at the Albuquerque Greyhound bus station on June 13. It was unclear why he was not arrested on June 12 after he allegedly first confessed to making the calls. The Albuquerque FBI declined to comment further because of the ongoing criminal case.
He is currently in federal custody on charges of making threats and conveying false information.
The civil war in Syria is expected to dominate much of the discussion as President Obama sits down tomorrow with the Group of Eight leaders in Northern Ireland, just days after the White House confirmed the use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
"They'll clearly discuss the situation in Syria, to include the most recent chemical weapons assessment that we've provided, the efforts that are underway to support both the opposition but also a political settlement in the country," Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes told reporters Friday.
obama
The Obama administration has said it will provide more "direct support" to the Syrian opposition now that the president's "red line" has been crossed. The U.S., he added, has "steadily increased both the size and scope of our assistance" to the Supreme Military Council, the armed wing of the Syrian opposition.
"At the same time, you know, this is a fluid situation. So it's necessary for [the president] to consult with all the leaders at the G-8 about both our chemical weapons assessment and the types of support we're providing to the opposition," he added.
syria
The president will also, however, have to sway Assad's allies, including Russian President Vladimir Putin. Obama and Putin will meet face-to-face at the G-8 summit for the first time in a year.
Russia has publicly questioned American evidence that Assad used chemical weapons and does not agree that Assad must step down from power for a political settlement to be successful.
"What Russia has articulated to us, and publicly, is that they don't want to see a downward spiral," Rhodes said. "They don't want to see a chaotic and unstable situation in the region. They don't want to see extremist elements gaining a foothold in Syria. And the point that we've made to Russia is that the current course in which Assad is not being appropriately pressured to step down from power by those who continue to support him in the international community is bringing about those very outcomes."
"We still continue to discuss with the Russians whether there's a way to bring together elements of the regime and the opposition to achieve a political settlement. We have no illusions that that's going to be easy," he added.
While the Syrian crisis will overshadow much of the summit agenda, there are many other topics up for discussion, including economic reform, trade and the fight against terrorism.
Obama is expected to defend his administration's phone and internet surveillance programs as vital counterterrorism tools. "He'll be able to discuss with the other leaders the importance of these programs in terms of our counterterrorism efforts in particular, the constraints and safeguards that we place on these programs so that they have oversight against potential abuses," Rhodes said.
"And all of these countries at the G-8 are important counterterrorism partners. And together we've worked with them on an intelligence and security relationship to foil terrorist attacks in the United States and in Europe, and of course Russia shares a significant counterterrorism interest with us as well," he said.
In addition to participating in a series of high-level meetings, the president will also deliver a major address in Northern Ireland at the Belfast Waterfront Convention Center. This will be the president's first opportunity to address at length the support that the U.S. has provided to the peace process in Northern Ireland and to the development of its economy.
After two days of summit meetings, the president will travel to Berlin, where he will meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Joachim Gauck, and deliver a major address at the historic Brandenburg Gate.
The short three-day trip to Europe will be also a family affair for the president. The first lady and daughters Sasha and Malia will be joining him.
Mrs. Obama and her daughters will attend the president's speech in Belfast and then break off to travel to Dublin, while the president is busy with summit meetings. There, they will tour Trinity College, Ireland's oldest university and "explore the archives that they've gathered to document the Obamas' Irish ancestry," Rhodes explained.
Nice timing, Vine. As we inch closer to Facebook’s big Instagram press conference today, Vine co-founders Dom Hoffman and Rus Yusopov have taken to Vine (what else?) to show off some new features and UI enhancements that should be coming to the app soon. As you can see from the Vines (embedded below), things are still relatively unclear. What we can glean from the six-second looping videos is that users may finally be able to create and save Vine drafts before sharing them. This would allow users to start a Vine, save it as a draft, and create other Vines in the meantime. It’s a must-have feature for the new creation medium, which seems to ask for the passage of time in certain circumstances (like a Vine of you finishing your dinner, for example). We also see an apparent redesign of the video stream, wherein the camera button moves to the bottom center of the screen and remains in place as you slide down the stream. Vines will pass down the stream one after the other, with no breaks for comments or likes. It appears as though users have to click into particular Vines that they’d like to comment on, like, or read comments on. The Verge has also spotted potential category additions to the app. As it stands now, popular hashtags float to the top of the Explore page, along with Editors picks. But the forthcoming update could bring standardized categories like Science & Technology, Comedy, Art, etc. Clearly, Vine is pushing back against the possibility that Instagram will launch a highly competitive video-sharing service today. But as I’ve said before (and will likely say again), Vine will survive. Revamped Video Stream/Categories: Drafts:
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Public release date: 18-Jun-2013
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