The switch from relational hadn’t been too hard because Riak is a key-value store, which made modeling relatively easy. Key value-stores are relatively simple database management systems that store just pairs of keys and values.
McCaul reckoned, too, migration of data had been made possible because the structure of patient records lent themselves to Riak’s key-value mode
via NHS grows a NoSQL backbone and rips out its Oracle Spine • The Register.
In defining the limits of patent rights, our political institutions have gotten an analogous question badly wrong. A single, politically captured circuit court with exclusive jurisdiction over patent appeals has consistently expanded the scope of patentable subject matter. This expansion has resulted in an explosion of both patents and patent litigation, with destructive consequences.
Chris Walker made the image above with a DSLR camera, using a GigaPan device to record a series of individual images over the course of 15 minutes. In the panoramas you see here, nearly 100 frames were stitched together to create the resulting single photographs. Chris used PTGui Pro software to minimize visual imperfections, such as people appearing twice because they moved during the course of the 15-minute session.
Via Bears kickoff — Chicago Tribune.
You can navigate and see almost every person at Soldier Field for last Sunday’s Bears game against the Buffalo Bills. Quite fascinating!
All of the calculations are for energy, not power. In other words, you might produce 2400 MWh per day, but that doesn’t mean you’ll always have 100 MW available at any given instant. Sometimes you’ll generate more, other times less. Obviously there will be no solar production at night and less wind production on calm days. To be fully off-grid, Tesla will need some form of storage. As I surmised in a previous article, Tesla is probably shooting for more than the EV market; it seems logical for them to be looking into grid-level storage as well. What better way to showcase that than to include Li-ion batteries for on-site storage?
via Can Tesla Power Its Gigafactory with Renewables Alone? > ENGINEERING.com.
When the browser encounters a Picture element, it first evaluates any rules that the Web developer might specify. (Opera’s developer site has a good article on all the possibilities Picture offers.) Then, after evaluating the various rules, the browser picks the best image based on its own criteria.
via How a new HTML element will make the Web faster | Ars Technica.
F.B. Purity is a browser extension / add-on that lets you clean up and customise Facebook. It filters out the junk you don’t want to see, leaving behind the stories and page elements you do wish to see. The list of story types that FBP hides is customizable to your taste.
In an opinion (PDF) published this morning, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a lower court’s decision to invalidate two patents, numbered 6,398,646 and 6,656,045, claiming to cover computerized bingo.
Yes, you read that right: bingo.
via Appeals court knocks out computer bingo patents | Ars Technica.
After this story broke I spent some time immersed in the crazy, obsessive subculture of celebrity nudes and revenge porn trying to work out what they were doing, how they were doing it and what could be learned from it.
1. What we see in the public with these hacking incidents seems to only be scratching the surface. There are entire communities and trading networks where the data that is stolen remains private and is rarely shared with the public. The networks are broken down horizontally with specific people carrying out specific roles, loosely organized across a large number of sites (both clearnet and darknet) with most organization and communication taking place in private (email, IM).
via New Web Order > Nik Cubrilovic – – » Notes on the Celebrity Data Theft.
The research, originally demonstrated at the PasswordsCon Las Vegas 2014 conference in early August, builds on previous work published by Stefan Viehböck in late 2011. Viehböck found a number of design flaws in Wi-Fi Protected Setup, but most significantly, he found that the PIN needed to complete the setup of a wireless router could be broken into smaller parts and each part attacked separately. By breaking down the key, the number of attempts an attacker would have to try before finding the key shrunk from an untenable 100 million down to a paltry 11,000—a significant flaw for any access-control technology.
via Offline attack shows Wi-Fi routers still vulnerable | Ars Technica.
The document spells out the 10 common design flaws in a straightforward manner, each with a lengthy explainer of inherent weaknesses in each area and how software designers and architects should take these potential pitfalls into consideration. The 10, in no particular order, are:
- Earn or give, but never assume, trust
- Use an authentication mechanism that cannot be bypassed or tampered with
- Authorize after you authenticate
- Strictly separate data and control instructions, and never process control instructions received from untrusted sources
- Define an approach that ensures all data are explicitly validated
- Use cryptography correctly
- Identify sensitive data and how they should be handled
- Always consider the users
- Understand how integrating external components changes your attack surface
- Be flexible when considering future changes to objects and actors