Category Archives: Mind Uploading

Earlier this summer, a modest little startup in Barcelona, Spain, unveiled its newest product a biodegradable, internet-connected funeral urn that turns the ashes of departed loved ones into an indoor tree. Just mix the cremains with soil and seedlings, and the digital-age urn will automatically water and care for your memorial sapling, sending constant updates to an app on your smartphone.

At first glance, the concept seems gimmicky evidently, we're running out of ideas for smart appliances. But the Bios Incube system can also be seen as the latest example of a gradual transformation in modern culture.

Technology is fundamentally changing how we deal with death and its attendant issues of funerals, memorials and human remains. Much of this change is for the good. Some developments are a little spooky. But one thing is for sure: You can do a lot of cool things with ashes these days.

The Bios Incube system, which went on sale in June after a successful crowdfunding campaign, is the latest iteration of a much older idea in which ashes are essentially used as compost for a memorial tree or plant. But the Incube system adds some high-tech twists. The biodegradable urn is placed within a 5-gallon planter with an elegant, off-white, minimalist design vibe call it the iUrn.

Actually, that's the Incube. Fill it with water and an internal irrigation system kicks in while separate sensors monitor the progress of your plant, taking constant readings on temperature, humidity and soil conditions. This information is wirelessly beamed to the included smartphone app, allowing the bereaved user to better care for and nurture the seedling as it grows into a tree.

Roger Moline, co-founder of Bios Urn, says the company offers two versions of its system. One provides the basic biodegradable urn and planter at $145. The more expensive version if you want all the high-tech bells, whistles, atmosphere sensors and smartphone apps tops out at $695.

"Interestingly enough, we have found so far that most have opted voluntarily for the high-tech option," Moline says.

He has a theory on that.

"Most of us are connected to the digital world, and we have become used to it," he says. "Perhaps by tying together this process with technology, there can be a sense of comfort that comes from using a familiar process with a new experience. We hope that it will push people in a new direction and perhaps make this process easier for those experiencing loss."

The Bios Urn concept is indeed part of a larger transformation in which technology is changing how we think about death and dying, says Candi Cann, author of the book "Virtual Afterlives: Grieving the Dead in the Twenty-first Century."

"Their approach implies a different sort of afterlife than the religious one an afterlife that theoretically we can partake in," says Cann, who teaches religion and world culture at Baylor University.

"Recent theories on mourning reveal that having continued bonds with the deceased allow us to navigate everyday life while renegotiating our relationships with loved ones who are no longer present," she says. "So in this way, the Bios Urn might actually foster a healthy type of mourning that allows us to look after the dead in an active, daily way."

Caring for the dead via a smartphone app may seem strange, Cann says, but it makes perfect sense for those of us living in a perpetually connected world: "The generation today has grown up with online spaces and smartphones, so this is their medium."

Cann has done extensive research on modern mourning rituals around the planet, and the various ways that technology is impacting how we deal with death and dying. The Internet has certainly changed the way we do things. Obituaries are posted online, funeral arrangements are sent by email or text, and social media platforms like Facebook now offer a range of memorial pages and legacy contact options.

In general, this is all good healthy progress, Cann says. "Smartphones and social media spaces have forced a decline in the importance of a controlled obituary narrative, as more people can contribute to the communal memory of a person and the meaning of their life," she says.

A recurring theme in Cann's work concerns an odd and abiding reticence in mainstream Western attitudes toward death: In short, we just don't like to talk about it. Our aversion leads to a lot of unhealthy sublimation in the culture. "I would argue that the reason we see so much death in the media and in video games is precisely because we are not having real conversations about death," Cann says.

Technology is helping in that arena, too. Cann points to online communities like Death Cafe, which use internet forums to arrange local meetups for the recently bereaved.

Then there is the issue of what to do with the remains. We humans have been navigating this dilemma since the dawn of civilization, but recent technological advances have opened up some options. You can have ashes incorporated into jewelry, blended into oil paintings, mixed into tattoo ink, submerged into coral reefs or even pressed into vinyl records. And don't forget about the festive fireworks option.

While developing the Bios Urn system, Moline explored how other cultures are processing cremains, like Tokyo's unique Ruriden columbarium, which utilizes LED Buddha statues and digital smart cards.

"I've seen some interesting things in China and Japan," he says. "Both have run of out burial space in larger cities and have created interesting ways of commemorating those who have passed."

Cann says that these new modern rituals, facilitated by various technologies, can help us get a little friendlier with death.

"In Brazil, I went to a public crematorium that cremates a body every 15 minutes, and is an actively used public park and picnic space," he says. "Families were playing and picnicking among the ashes. If we see deathscapes as friendly places, rather than where the dead are banished, we might be able to utilize them in healthier and more creative ways."

Looking to the future, however, Cann addresses more worrisome technologies.

"One of the areas I'm thinking more about is the use of artificial intelligence and digital avatars," Cann said. "These are people intending to upload themselves, via AI, into digital avatars."

Proponents of this idea contend that uploading the mind into a computer is entirely plausible. But science fiction has some cautionary tales in this area any technology that promises to defy death is usually nothing but trouble. Ask Dr. Frankenstein. Even speculating on this sci-fi scenario can get a bit dodgy, Cann says.

"Whenever people focus more on extending life rather than examining its quality, death loses its importance," Cann says. "If we are spending more time trying to deny death or prolong dying, then I think we are not living well."

In this light, the Bios Urn seems like a fairly gentle step forward. Technology can't yet provide us with digital immortality, but it can help us grow a memorial tree in our living room. What's not to like?

Original post:

Ashes to ashes, dust to ... interactive biodegradable funerary urns? - Minnesota Public Radio News

Zeus Kerravala is the founder and principal analyst with ZK Research, and provides a mix of tactical advice to help his clients in the current business climate.

I know, I know, Ive heard it before. A new technology comes along, and it promises to be the next big thing. Consumers and businesses buy it, and what happens? It fails to live up to the hype. In my opinion, almost every iPhone release over the past five years has been that way. Sure there were some cool new features, but overall its not something Id say was game changing.

One technology that does promise to live up to the hype is 802.11ax, the next standard for wireless LANs. I say that because this next generation of Wi-Fi was engineered for the world we live in where everything is connected and theres an assumption that upload and download traffic will be equivalent. Previous generations of Wi-Fi assumed more casual use and that there would be far more downloading of information than uploading.

I agree that 802.11ac made things somewhat faster, but it was a faster version of something that was designed with old-school assumptions in mind. Im sure everyone reading this has been in a situation where youve been at a conference center, stadium or in another public space, and everything is great. Then the keynote or concert starts or something else happens to get tens of thousands of people SnapChatting, tweeting, Facebooking (or SnapFacing if your New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick), and things come to a crawl.

The problem with Wi-Fi isnt always the speed of the system. 802.11ac wave 2 gets us to or over the Gigabit barrier, which should be plenty of bandwidth for most people. The bigger problem with Wi-Fi is congestion and how current Wi-Fi handles lots of people trying to do wireless things and overcrowding the network. The ax standard solves these problems and others by completely redesigning how Wi-Fi works and taking some best practices from LTE.

Ax will be anywhere from 4x to 10x faster than existing Wi-Fi, but the wider and multiple channels greatly increase throughput. For example, if one assumes the speed is increased by 4x with 160 MHz channels, the speed of a single 802.11ax stream will be 3.5Gbps. The equivalent 802.11ac connection will be 866 Mbps. A 4x4 MIMO environment would result in a total capacity of about 14 Gbps. A client device that supported two or three streams would easily top 1 Gbps or much more.

If one knocked the channel width down to 40 MHz, which could happen in crowded areas like stadiums or college dorms, a single .11ax stream would be about 800 Mbps for a total capacity of 3.2 Gbps. Regardless of the channel size, 802.11ax will provide a huge boost in speed and total capacity.

One of the big advancements in LTE is something called orthogonal frequency division multiple access (ODMFA), which is an alphabet soup way of saying it does frequency division multiplexing. With previous versions of Wi-Fi, channels were held open until the data transmission had finished. Think of a line at a bank with only one teller where people have to queue up. MU-MIMO means there can be four tellers and four lines, but the people still need to wait for the transaction ahead of them is complete.

With OFDMA, each channel is chopped up into hundreds of smaller sub-channels, each with a different frequency. The signals are then turned orthogonally (at right angles) so they can be stacked on top of each other and de-multiplexed. With the bank analogy, imagine a teller being able to handle multiple customers when they are free. So customer one hands the teller a check and while that person is signing the check, the teller deals with the next customer, etc. The use of OFDMA means up to 30 clients can share each channel instead of having to take turns broadcasting and listening on each.

From a user perspective, the network will seem much less congested than with 802.11ac. Another benefit is that the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands can be combined creating even more channels for data. The ax specification also includes something called QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) encoding, which allows for more data to be transmitted per packet.

Any new Wi-Fi standard will improve battery life, since the range is typically further and data is transmitted faster so the client does not need to work as hard. However, ax has a new feature called wake time scheduling. This enables APs to tell clients when to go to sleep and provides a schedule of when to wake. These are very short periods of time, but being able to sleep a bunch of short times will make a big difference on battery life.

Ive talked with chip, AP and client device manufacturers about when to expect 802.11ax products, and we should see the first consumer Wi-Fi routers in the early part of 2018 with an outside shot of late 2017. After that, the business grade APs and clients will follow. We are certainly close enough that network managers should be starting the educational process and planning now.

If youre not sure what this means for your business, talk to your Wi-Fi vendor, as all the major wireless LAN suppliers are planning to support 802.11ax. One final point: If you need to upgrade now, I certainly wouldnt put if off and wait for ax. Wi-Fi is extremely important to businesses of all sizes and will become more important as the Internet of Things (IoT) becomes more widely adopted.

The evolution of client devices has been game changing, as theres almost nothing we do that doesnt involve them. The 802.11ax specification finally brings a Wi-Fi standard to the network that can support all of the things we want to do with our wireless LANs.

See more here:

Why 802.11ax is the next big thing in Wi-Fi - Network World

Nest's streaming cameras offer a great way to keep an eye on things back at the ranch, assuming your home broadband connection is up to the task.

Security cameras with real-time alerts aren't just for catching burglars in the act, they can also offer peace of mind if you've got school-aged children coming home to an empty house or pets who spend the day alone.

Consumer-grade streaming cameras have been around for years, and there are plenty to choose from, but smart home pioneer Nest adds a few clever features to help stand out from the crowd. At the same time Nest has also launched its smart smoke/ carbon monoxide alarm in Australia, but we're still waiting on the Nest Smart Thermostat.

The cameras aren't cheap; the Nest Cam Indoor and Outdoor models cost $319 each, plus there's the optional Nest Aware cloud-based monitoring service which costs $14 per month for the first camera and $7 for each subsequent camera with Nest throwing in 30 days for free.

Perhaps more importantly, Nest's streaming cameras can also take a high toll on your broadband connection which will be an instant deal-breaker in some homes.

Easy to set up

It's simple to link a camera to your home WiFi network and Nest account by downloading the iOS/Android Nest app and scanning the QR code on the back on the camera. As a fallback it's also possible to configure the cameras using a desktop browser.

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Both cameras are easy to install around your home, offering 1080p resolution and a 130-degree field of view thanks to a slight fisheye lens.

The Nest Cam Indoor features a flat magnetic base, along with a screw-in wall plate, so you can stick it pretty much anywhere as long as it's within range of your WiFi network and the 3-metre power cable can reach a wall socket.

You can stand the Indoor camera upright on a flat surface or attach it to the wall and then tilt the camera up and down, as well as twist it from side to side. There's the option to flip the image if you need to install the camera upside-down on the ceiling.

Meanwhile the Nest Cam Outdoor features a curved magnetic back and comes with a concave wall plate that has a 7.5-metre power cable. Once the camera is attached to the base it's easy to tilt it in any direction up to around 50 degrees. While the outdoor camera is weatherproof, Nest recommends not installing it in direct sunshine.

Keep an eye on things

You can access your cameras via the Nest mobile app or a desktop browser, with the option of two-factor authentication to help keep out uninvited guests.

While the cameras are handy for seeing what's happening at home right now, Nest's strength is its intelligent alerts system which can send emails or pop-up alerts to your phone. Unfortunately most of these features rely on you shelling out for a Nest Aware subscription each month.

Even if you don't have a subscription, each camera will notify you when it hears a noise or sees something move. You're not bombarded with messages every time someone walks in front of the camera, instead it notifies you at the first sign of activity after which it uses intelligent alerts to only notify you of "important activity".

You're sent a photo of the scene which isn't always very helpful if the culprit is far from the camera but you can click on the link to see a live feed.

At this point you can see and hear what's happening in the room and use two-way audio to speak to your unexpected guest, although the audio can be a bit unreliable (perhaps a bandwidth issue, although they were tested on 100/2 Mbps cable broadband). The picture is crisp and the cameras do a good job of coping withbrightbacklights.They're infrared cameras, so they can still see clearly at night.

Stay Alert

Unfortunately you need a Nest Aware subscription if you want to see an instant replay or scroll back in time. Without this, the cameras will be of little use to some people.

To cut down on alerts, you can adjust the microphone sensitivity, or else disable sound or motion notifications completely. Nest Aware subscribers can also create custom zones within each camera's field of view, which is handy if you don't want to detect pets walking across the floor or trees moving outside the window. Nest Aware applies extra intelligent scene and audio analysis to reduce false positives, plus subscribers can save clips and create timelapse videos.

Nest Aware subscribers can also opt to only receive alerts when a person walks into the room, with smart image analysis able to recognise human movement (but not recognise specific faces, that requires the Nest Cam IQ which isn't sold in Australia). Subscribers can also take advantage of intelligent sound alerts, recognising people talking or dogs barking.

Private party

To further cut down on alerts and better manage your privacy you can schedule specific cameras to switch off at specific times of day. You can also automatically disable certain cameras when the Nest mobile app detects you're at home, although this chews through your smartphone battery like all GPS-enabled apps which monitor your location while they're running in the background.

Alternatively you can keep the cameras running but stop alerts when you're at home, which might be important depending on the types of events you're watching for.

Thankfully it's possible to add family members to your Nest account and control the cameras and alerts depending on who is home which is important if you don't want alerts on your phone when you go to the shops on the weekend while others stay at home.

Apart from smartphones, you can use Works With Nest-compatible low-powered Bluetooth GPS trackers to tell the cameras when you're home the kind of thing you could easily attach to house keys or a school bag.

If you don't live alone there are obviouslyprivacy and trust issues to be considered. The Nest Cams helped solve the mystery of my missing sunglasses; they were misplaced during a party so we went back to the video replay to find their hiding spot, but you can image how this power could be abused.

Look to the cloud

Unlike some security cameras the Nest Cams don't store any video onboard, instead they upload to the cloud constantly which obviously presents major challenges if your home is starved of bandwidth.

The upside of streaming to the cloud is that you can get an instant replay at any time or scroll back up to 30 days with thumbnails marking events of interest, but of course only if you're paying for the Nest Aware subscription.

The downside is that you're chewing through a hell of a lot of bandwidth, with that data probably counting towards your monthly usage limit. Even if you don't have a Nest Aware account, the cameras must upload constantly for you to receive alerts. With no onboard storage or backup power, the Nest Cams are useless if an intruder cuts the internet and/or power to your house before breaking in the window although you're sent alerts if your cameras are offline for a while.

In the picture

The cameras offer a sharp 1080p resolution with 8x digital zoom but even with a 2 Mbps uplink this wasdialled down to 720p by default, at which point a single Nest Cam is constantly uploading at 400 kbps leaping past 1 Mbps per second when something moves. At this rate a single camera will chew through around 120 GB per month.

These bandwidth demands are simply ludicrous in a country like Australia where many homes face monthly data limits and would be lucky to have access to 1 Mbps upload speeds. Thankfully you can adjust the picture quality to allow for your bandwidth, dialling it up to 1080p uploading at 1.2 Mbps and chewing through 300 GB per month or down to 360p (150 kbps, 30 GB per month).

Even at the lowest settings these bandwidth demands might still be too much if you have several cameras around your home, so you might curb their thirst by using the advanced settings to disable certain cameras at certain times.

Even if you're lucky enough to have access to the NBN you'd want to be on at least the 25/5 Mbps speed tier, as a basic 12/1 plan won't cut it. Heaven forbid everyone in your neighbourhood owns a few Nest Cams or your peak hour broadband traffic jams could get a lot worse.

So what's the verdict?

Like many American products, Nest Cams are designed for a world where data andbandwidth are seemingly infinite resources. In returnthe camerasoffer some impressive tricks but only if your home broadband can cope and you're prepared to shell out for the Nest Aware subscription.

To be fair some rivals also demand a monthly fee for cloud video storage, so it's important to do your research before taking the plunge. If you won't sign up for Nest Aware then your money is probably best spent elsewhere, especially if you'll be forced to dial down the picture quality so you're not making the most of the Nest Cam's 1080p resolution.

In a perfect worldNest Cams could be the perfect home surveillancetool, but for now they'll be impractical in many Australian homes until we sort out our nation's broadband woes.

Read the original post:

Hands on: Nest Cam Indoor and Outdoor home security cameras - The Sydney Morning Herald

At one point there were five AT&T trucks and technicians at my house installing fiber-optic broadband. It's been smooth sailing since then.

I just upgraded to gigabit broadband at home. But being able to download a 2GB episode of "Game of Thrones" in 16 seconds isn't what gets me excited.

It's the ability to upload data at 1 gigabit per second -- not just download it -- that helped me decide to cancel Comcast and sign up for AT&T Fiber. Downstream data rates are important, but fast upstream speed is what's going to power the next transformation of home broadband.

If you're shopping for broadband, the odds are good that internet service providers will rank their speed tiers by download speed. To make abstractions like 100 Mbps per second real, they'll tell you how long it'll take to download a movie in full HD resolution (hence my above example). What they won't tell you is how long it'll take to upload your video to YouTube or how good your Skype call with grandma will look.

It's no surprise they don't highlight these upload speeds, because they're not very flattering. Network operators have a finite amount of bits they can shuttle around every second, and downloading generally is more important and data-intensive than uploading. So they allocate more of their capacity to downstream data transfer to your home, not upstream data transfer from your home to the internet.

But upload speeds matter. Being able to send data fast is important to videoconferencing, uploading photos, online gaming, collaborating with coworkers and more. Eventually, it could transform the internet again, perhaps the same way it changed when high-speed download speeds helped YouTube trigger the video streaming revolution.

For an example of how fast upload speeds change broadband, look at online backup service Backblaze, which charges $5 per month to keep a copy of your PC's data. On Thursday, it announced a new version of its backup software that should triple or quadruple most customer's backup speeds. If you have a fast upstream connection, that means you can send files up to its servers at 100 Mbps. Backblaze's own chief technology officer has maxed out at 200 Mbps, though he's an exceptional case.

AT&T promises 940 megabits per second with its gigabit fiber-optic service. For the most part it delivers -- though Wi-Fi is slower than a cable connection.

I've been a Backblaze customer for years, and this kind of performance changes the game. For $60 a year they offer unlimited storage, but when I got started, with a slow upstream connection, it took months for all of my data to trickle its way to Backblaze. No way was I going to ditch the backup hard drive in my office.

But at 100 Mbps, you can pump 50 gigabytes per hour into the cloud. That means my current 2-terabyte backup would be finished in less than a day. It's much faster to update an existing backup, of course, because only new or changed data must be sent, but it's common for me to come back from a day trip with 10GB or 20GB of photos and video.

No, I'm not going to dump my physical backup drive, because I like to protect my data with multiple methods. But fast upstream data rates make online backup more feasible for people who otherwise wouldn't bother. Online backup is a lifesaver if you're the victim of flood, fire or burglary, plus the ability to access files if you're away from your home computer.

With AT&T Fiber, Backblaze backup speeds increased dramatically to 101 Mbps -- and that was before release of a new version of the software tuned better for high-speed links.

Lots of other services today benefit from good upstream speeds:

None of these are impossible with today's broadband, but all of them work better with gigabit speeds. Before moving to AT&T Fiber, I paid for a premium tier on Comcast's Xfinity service not because I needed the 200 Mbps download rates, but because I wanted the commensurate 20 Mbps upload rate.

I ponied up for AT&T's top-tier gigabit rate (actually 940 Mbps when you read the fine print), which costs $70 a month and goes to $80 after the first year. For 100 Mbps, it's $50, increasing to $70, but I wanted to see what the top-of-the-line speed would get me.

In my speed testing, AT&T delivers the goods. But it's not magic. Lots of things go faster, like YouTube uploads that take only a few seconds. The internet has abundant bottlenecks, though, so I still wait for data more often than I'd like. On top of that, Wi-Fi cuts down the maximum speed by two thirds, and websites require more and more time to execute complex programming instructions. Overall, though, I'm satisfied, and I expect things will improve as more online services adapt to ultra-high-speed connections.

I'm lucky to have gigabit speeds at home, but it's becoming more common. AT&T can reach 5.5 million homes and small businesses today with its fiber-optic service, but plans to expand to at least 12.5 million by mid-2019.

The bigger question is what changes will come in the long run as upload speeds improve. There is an unpredictable "build it and they will come" factor.

Google had the presence of mind to acquire YouTube in 2006 and stands to profit likewise from tomorrow's services. So it makes sense that the company would try to kick things into gear with its Google Fiber service, which promises gigabit upload and download speeds.

But the company is pretty vague about what it thinks will emerge when our upload speeds surge.

AT&T Fiber can boast of high upload speeds, but in this promotional mailing, it only mentions download speeds.

"We believe technology paves the way for innovation," Google said of its Google Fiber project, which arguably kicked off this gigabit broadband push. "We've seen businesses in many industries -- from architecture to medicine to film and music -- take advantage of faster upload speeds to work collaboratively and expand their reach. And of course, it's also great for less serious endeavors like gaming or keeping your YouTube channel up to date."

For me, it was the supposedly slow-moving incumbent, not the Silicon Valley disruptor, that delivered my gigabit speeds.

AT&T expects changes with better upstream speeds. "We are seeing people producing more content than ever and pushing that content to the cloud, over social networks, engaging in video conferencing, online gaming, and more," the company said in a statement.

It's possible more radical changes will come. Faster upload speeds make telecommuting more feasible. It's easier to access company data and chat with teleconferencing technology, so maybe more people will skip rush-hour commutes or cross-country flights.

The bigger difference will be that our digital selves will move to the cloud. Take a photo of your dog, and nearly instantly it'll be stored on Facebook, Google, Dropbox, iCloud or some other online service. Your phone becomes an extension of the internet.

Security and privacy concerns mean it's not always wise to send data over networks and store it in central servers. But the benefits of cloud computing are immense when it comes to protecting against theft, granting fast access to a massive video and music library, and synchronizing our phones, TVs, laptops, smart speakers, smartwatches and tablets.

It's the future, so you better get used to it.

Tech Culture: From film and television to social media and games, here's your place for the lighter side of tech.

Batteries Not Included: The CNET team shares experiences that remind us why tech stuff is cool.

Read more from the original source:

Gigabit broadband upload speeds revolutionizes the internet - CNET - CNET

Instead of neglecting our workout (and the mood-boosting benefits that come from it), we schedule ourselves a little one-on-one workout time with YouTube. The workouts are time-flexible, accessible and expert-led. In other words, its basically a treasure trove of fitness.

A quick search unearths everything from yoga to Pilates to HIIT training routines; whatever type of sweat session you prefer, YouTube likely has it. Thats why we decided to put together a list of our favorite online fitness channels just to help you narrow your search a little bit.

YOGA WITH ADRIENE.Adriene Mishler is the light-hearted yogi behind this YouTube channel. Her yoga videos range from targeted practices for anxiety, depression, sleep and pain (like this one for neck and shoulder relief) to power flows for strengthening and lengthening. Her goofy yet calming presence is enough to make you change into comfortable clothes, drink a cup of tea and relax into a yoga routine.

CASSEY HO OF BLOGILATES.Cassey Ho has been a mainstay on the YouTube fitness scene since she started uploading Pilates videos in 2009. Her website, Blogilates, provides fitness and nutrition advice, along with body-positive inspiration and sporty merchandise.

She specializes in workouts that build and tone muscle using nothing else but your own body weight. The workouts are hard but fun. Her bubbly and outgoing personality almost makes you forget your arms are screaming in the middle of a 15-minute workout (almost). Stay dedicated to her videos, try your best, and youll see real change.

TARA STILES.Although she does have videos fit for beginners, chances are that youll love Tara Stiless yoga videos if youre an intermediate or advanced yoga devotee. Her no-frills approach is quieting, calming and strengthening for both the body and mind. (If youre not super into yoga, check her videos out anyway, because they might majorly inspire you; shes the most graceful human being weve ever seen).

JEANETTE JENKINS.Jeanette Jenkins is a celebrity personal trainer (responsible for training A-listers such as Kelly Rowland) who posts a variety of different workouts designed to increase strength. Many of her videos are extremely short think no longer than 30 seconds just so she can show a few reps of effective moves. Then, depending on how much time you have, you can make it an extended workout, or just do a few circuits. Take this Zumba video, for instance. Its solely concentrated on planks and high knees for an intense cardio sweat.

THE TONE IT UP GIRLS.Karena Dawn and Katrina Scott started their Tone It Up empire to share workout, nutrition, and even lifestyle advice. Many of their workouts take place in front of a beautiful backdrop of the Pacific ocean, so you can kind of feel like youre working out while on a SoCal vacation (better than working out at home, right?).

Theyre also regular Byrdie contributors. Check out all of their stories. (Personally, we love this piece on the 5 exercises you should do if you sit all day).

XHIT DAILY.XHIT Daily is a YouTube channel that regularly posts workout videos ranging from Crossfit to Pilates. The three hosts are incredibly knowledgeable, reminding their viewers how to correct their form and get the most from their workouts throughout.

THE RUN EXPERIENCE.Weve covered yoga, Pilates, and strength training workouts, but this one is for any runners out there. The Run Experience has almost 70,000 YouTube subscribers, to which it shares motivating running tips, tricks, and advice. They have videos on everything from hydration and nutrition to race-day prep. Regardless if youre a runner or not, they share super-effective targeted workouts that are great for doing on the go.

WHITNEY SIMMONS.Simmons posts regularly on YouTube, so youll never be without a new workout to try. The best part? You dont need a ton of equipment. Many of her videos use your body weight, and maybe a dumbbell or two to target specific muscle groups. Plus, she produces videos on healthy meal prep, to keep you going throughout a busy week.

Get the latest celebrity beauty news, runway trends, health and fitness tips, as well as product suggestions from the experts at Byrdie.com.

See the rest here:

Fitness gurus to work out with for free on YouTube - Chicago Tribune

Remember when Pahlaj Nihalani said that he might pursue legal action against filmmakers for showing films abroad without a CBFC certificate? It's okay if you don't, because it's just one of the several incomprehensible rants the Censor Board chairman goes on every now and then.

But here's the thing: the Censor Board has zero control over what is shown in film festivalsand they just admitted it.

Responding to an RTI application I filed, the CBFC said that it has "no jurisdiction" over films being exhibited in festivals, either in India or abroad. So much for 'clamping down'.

Keep this in mind: the Censor Board regulates films that are exhibited theatrically in India. This means that it has absolutely no control over film festivals or even overseas distribution. Why is then Pahlaj Nihalani rattling his sabers?

This is not the first time he has contradicted the organization he heads. He has frequently complained about producers uploading uncertified trailers of their film on YouTube, but the Censor Board has admitted in another RTI response to me that it has no authority to regulate what filmmakers upload to the Internet. Notably, it has also admitted it has no jurisdiction over content that is streamed on platforms such as Netflix and Hotstar.

As if these contradictions weren't enough, let's look at the one easily found in Nihalani's own films. As a filmmaker, he routinely got away with making films featuring sexualized content that the CBFC today keeps a tight lid on.

Then there was the Mirror Now incidentNihalani claimed that if the news channel was able to get 100,000 viewers to approve of the word 'intercourse' in a trailer of the film Jab Harry Met Sejal, he would clear it.

Later, he was cornered for a good few minutes in an awkward silence by one of the channel's reporters. They had managed to get those votes. And yet, he said nothing. So I filed another RTI.

In response to this RTI, the Censor Board said, pretty stiffly: "CBFC certifies films as per the Cinematograph Act, 1952, and Certification Guidelines 1991 laid down under it by the central government."

It's safe to assume that the Cinematograph Act does not really allow the chairman to make censorship decisions based on unscientific polls held by news channels on Twitterand yet, he was able to make that bold demand, in really formal and contract-like language, and shy away when it backfired.

The problem with Nihalani's proclamationsand his almost Trump-like inability to enforce themis not with the statements in themselves; but in the fact that an individual like him is allowed to head the Censor Board in the first place.

The CBFC's name stands for the Central Board of Film Certification, not Censorship. But under Nihalani, the Board has taken a reckless and unguided slide down the path of censorship, only to have many of those decisions reversed.

In his first few weeks into the job, Nihalani circulated a ridiculous list of swear words that he said would no longer be allowed even in films certified for adults. Following the list's leak, and the criticism that followed, even from within the Censor Board, the circular was put on hold.

Then there's the long list of films that the Censor Board rejected that were later cleared by the courts or by the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal. Take Udta Punjab, which the CBFC demanded undergo over 70 cuts, including removing all instances of the word 'Punjab'. The absurd decision was overturned by the Bombay High Court, which let the film pass with one cut.

Take Haraamkhor, a film depicting a teacher who takes advantage of a vulnerable teenage girl; the Censor Board rejected the film because "teachers are revered people in society", never mind that the film was highlighting how some of them abuse that reverence.

The FCAT cleared the film with two minor cuts and an on-screen disclaimer.

Most recently came Lipstick Under My Burkha, which the Censor Board rejected for being too 'lady-oriented'. The FCAT again cleared the film with cuts.

From these events, it becomes clear that the Censor Board has no idea what it's doingits chairman frequently makes threats and orders he has no power to execute. It rejects films on flimsy grounds that are later overturned by the FCAT and courts. It has even stopped uploading records of the increased number of cuts films have to endure these days.

Why should a Censor Board that seems to have no idea on how to do its job; whose decisions are consistently challenged and overturned; which is headed by a man who has no idea what it is and isn't allowed to do; continue to be allowed to run unchecked with the authority to regulate what Indian people can and cannot see?

Also see on HuffPost:

6 Times Anushka Sharma Nailed It While Speaking About Censorship

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Exclusive: In An RTI Response, Censor Board Says It Cannot Do ... - Huffington Post India

Security firm Carbon Black awoke to a damning report Wednesday morning about a severe flaw in one of its top software products: Sensitive corporate data from some major companies -- clients of Carbon Black -- have been found on multi-scanner services.

The report from DirectDefense, a managed security strategies provider, ties the data leak to an API key that the company claims belongs to Carbon Black Cb Response, a next-generation anti-malware endpoint detection and response tool.

Cb Response is responsible for leaking hundreds of thousands of files comprising terabytes of data, according to the report.

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Researchers sampled 100 files and identified leaks in several major companies, including: a large streaming media company, a social media company and a financial services business.

The leak contains a wide range of company data: cloud keys, single sign-on passwords, two-factors keys, customer data, proprietary internal applications like custom algorithms and trade secrets, app store keys, internal usernames, passwords and network intelligence and customer data.

DirectDefense left impacted company names out of the report to protect identities. However, the researchers did contact all customers found on the database.

The leaked data exist primarily around various executable formats (we havent seen evidence of this in documents or pdfs yet), the report authors wrote. However, if handled incorrectly, even executables can easily contain serious data leakage of information that can be hazardous to a companys security posture.

Carbon Black provides security tools to a wide range of companies, almost 2,000 customers globally -- including those in the healthcare industry.

The issue stems from data collected about potential threats that are aggregated into a central location to be later analyzed by researchers. Carbon Black separates the good files from the bad files to prevent harmful files from running.

However, it relies on whitelisting to ward off threats -- forcing Carbon Black to continuously analyze a rapidly increasing pool of data. DirectDefense researchers said the issue is when the security firm encounters new files from clients and is unsure of whether a file is good or bad -- it sends the file to a secondary cloud-based multi-scanner to be scored.

Translation: All new files from clients are uploaded to Carbon Black at least once. The result of gaining access to the multiscanner would allow a hacker to also gain access to the files submitted to the database.

Welcome to the worlds largest pay-for-play data exfiltration botnet, the report authors wrote.

And to make matters worse, the report wasnt able to definitively conclude whether this flaw is specific to Carbon Black. What the researchers do know is that Carbon Blacks prevalence in the marketspace and the design of their solutions architecture seems to be providing a significant amount in data exfiltration.

Carbon Black customers should review the data being collected through the Cb Response product and evaluate the type of data that exists on the network. Those concerned about third-party access, like healthcare organizations, could also utilize disabling cloud uploads. But keep in mind that it will negatively impact security, as new files cant be scored.

In a blog post, Carbon Black Co-founder and CTO Michael Viscuso said: Theres an optional, customer-controlled configuration (disabled by default) that allows the uploading of binaries (executables) to VirusTotal for additional threat analysis.

This option can be enabled by a customer, on a per-sensor group basis, he continued. When enabled, executable files will be uploaded to VirusTotal, a public repository and scanning service owned by Google. We appreciate the work of the security research community.

Carbon Black was not informed about the issue brought to light by DirectDefense before it was published. Specifically, Viscuso explained that DirectDefense asserts that this an architectural flaw in all Cb products.

But this is exclusively a Cb Response feature not included in Cb Protection or Cb Defense, said Viscuso. Its also not a foundational architectural flaw. Its a feature, off by default, with many options to ensure privacy and a detailed warning before enabling."

This post was updated to include comments from Carbon Black CTOMichael Viscuso.

Twitter:@JessieFDavis Email the writer: jessica.davis@himssmedia.com

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Carbon Black may be leaking terabytes of customer data (UPDATED) - Healthcare IT News

Mouni Roy is perhaps one of the most successful actresses in Indian television at the moment. She began her career with the iconic TV show, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and then went onto do Naagin 2, which was a huge hit. The actress is also known for her amazing dance skills which she has proved in herlatest video thats gone viral on social media.

In the new video, the actress dances with such grace that for a moment we forget that the song hasnt been originally picturised on her. Seen wearing a beautiful olive green salwar kameez, the actressis seen gracefully dancing to the popular song Tere Rashke Qamar from Ajay Devgn and Ileana DCruzs upcoming film, Baadshaho. She looked absolutely ravishing in the outfit that she also wore during the Raksha Bandhan ceremony at actress Aamna Sharifs residence.

We always knew that the actress had a strong fan following. But, that belief was further strengthened after her insta story, in which she captured the dance, got shared on various social media platforms within moments of her uploading the video. (ALSO READ:Mouni Roy And Ravi Dubey Cant Stop Singing Praises For Each Other)

Check out the video below

Meanwhile, on the work front, she was recently spotted with her favourite star, Salman Khan, shooting for the upcoming reality show, Bigg Boss 11, that will be showcased a month in advance than usual. She will also be seen making her Bollywood debut opposite Akshay Kumar in Gold, produced by Ritesh Siddhwani. We will also get to see actors Amit Sadh and Kunal Kapoor in pivotal roles in the movie.

Original post:

Mouni Roy's Version Of Baadshaho Song Rashke Qamar Will Blow Your Mind Away - India.com

Behind every food item being sold, theres a story to tell. In China, where food scares are common, many consumers are particularly anxious to hear it.

With that in mind, a Chinese e-commerce company has made it possible for customers to look at a detailed history of their steaksfrom when the cow was born to what it was eatingbefore its served on their dinner tables. The information is being made available with the help of blockchain, a technology known for being hard to tamper with.

JD.com, Chinas second-largest e-commerce platform, has been working with Kerchin, an Inner Mongolia-based beef manufacturer, since early May (link in Chinese) to use blockchain to track the production and delivery of frozen beef. People living in Beijing, Shanghai, and GuangzhouChinas most populous citiescan now track the journey of beef ordered from JD.

Food fraud costs the global food industry some $40 billion each year, according to a 2016 report by PwC, but Chinese consumers are particularly fearful about food safety. Their confidence in domestic food products plummeted after tainted milk powder killed six infants in 2008. Today, exposs of fake foodnot all of which are truecan spread like fire on Chinese social media platforms like WeChat and Weibo, only adding to the confusion and distrust. When problems do arise, the lack of transparency about how food is processed makes it challenging to pinpoint where in the supply chain things went wrong. Instead of being centralized, information is often made available to manufacturers, warehouses, and delivery companies separately.

Blockchain is most frequently associated with bitcoin. To solve one of the fundamental problems of the cryptocurrencyand keep people from double spending their digital moneyblockchain is used to publicly record every bitcoin transaction. The technology, born in 2008, creates secure copies of a ledger and provides a mechanism for various parties to check and agree on a set of facts, which, after being recorded, cant be changed. The secure nature of the technology has led to new uses, such as tracking land ownership or tracing the origin of a steak. (The latter use is also being tested, as of early this month, by Golden Gate Meat Company in San Francisco.)

The information cannot be falsified, says Josh Gartner, JDs spokesman. In their partnership, JD will be responsible for the logistics of getting the meat to customers, while Kerchinwhich had about $300 million in revenue last year, 10% of it from online sales of beef productswill ensure the authenticity of all product information, he adds.

To design and develop its blockchain, JD adapted the architecture from Hyperledger, an open-source project that lets enterprise developers use blockchain technology in various industries.

The process to encode data to blockchain begins with Kerchin scanning barcodes to collect and store data in its own supply chain before providing it to JD, which writes the information to blockchain. After that, any changes require a digital signature, and both parties will immediately be informed of any modifications.

To understand the process, I ordered an eye-round steak, a cut from above the cows rear-leg region, from JD on the afternoon of July 14 in Guangzhou. Weighing 200 grams (0.44 lbs), the meat arrived the next day, delivered by a JD courier. Encased in a black box, the front had an opening showing the cut of beef while the back had a QR code and instructions for pulling up information about my food.

Scanning the code using JDs app loaded a webpage in the apps browser titled The wonderful journey of the beef. Underneath those words was an image of a cow sitting in a meadow. The next page showed the cows serial number and a 64-digit alphanumeric code that refers to the sales transaction.

There was plenty to explore. I learned that my cow was three years old, weighed 605 kilograms (1,338 lbs), and was tended to by a local vet named Na Qin before being slaughtered on July 2. A Simmental breed, the cow lived on a farm Kerchin identified as 1556, and was fed a diet of corn, wheat, and straw. (The number lets Kerchin track down a farms location.)

After the cow was slaughtered, its meat was then subjected to a number of tests to detect bacteria, water content, and animal-growth promoters. At this point, my steak was declared free of ractopamine, a drug banned in China thats used to bulk up animals (paywall) weeks before they are slaughtered.

While blockchain is hard to tamper with, tracing the origin from calf to chuck steak isnt foolproof. John Spink, who studies food fraud at Michigan State University, tells Quartz that fraudsters are very creative and constantly change their methods. In a 2013 blog post, he wrote that traceability is not a single magic-bullet to stop fraud, but it is a critical part to reduce food fraud, adding that bad actors can also operate from within. In some cases [the] criminals are hiding within the legitimate supply chain so [they] could defeat even a very technologically advanced countermeasure, Spink says.

JD also admits that there might be lapses in data thats tracked, depending on when in the process each party begins to input and share that data, says Gartner. Because of this, the company will periodically perform spot checks (link in Chinese) at Kerchins factories to examine how information is recorded and verify the validity of the data.

Chinese agencies have experimented with other traceability methods in the ongoing fight to restore consumer faith in the food system. The National Platform for Tracking Food Safety, backed by Chinas top planning body, has made more than 72.6 million items (link in Chinese) available for supply-chain tracing using barcodes as of Aug. 9. According to a 2015 paper in the peer-review journal BioScience Trends, the implementation of food traceability requires a substantial amount of valid information. However, Chinas supply chain often involves small factories, and they generally lack dedicated platforms for the exchange of logistics information.

A number of companies besides JD believe blockchain can solve this problem.

Alibaba, Chinas largest e-commerce player, announced in March a plan to use blockchain to track beef from Australia, one of Chinas key sources of beef, by working with three local companies, including accounting firm PwC Australia.

In October, Walmart also introduced blockchain into its Food Safety Collaboration Center in Beijing. Working with IBM, the retailer recently completed two pilot tests to help move pork from Chinese farms to its stores. The technology has helped reduce the paperwork required to process the containers. Those sorts of transportation documents, such as the bill of lading, can easily be tampered with or copied, making the supply chain vulnerable to criminals who can replace goods with counterfeit products, a type of maritime fraud (paywall) that costs billions of dollars each year.

Starting this September, China will work with the European Union on a project called EU-China-Safe, which will use blockchain and other technologies to regulate food safety. Belfast-based startup Arc-Net, one of the projects partners, has developed a blockchain platform to support the identification of animal protein from birth, says CEO Kieran Kelly.

Its possible that scaling up blockchain could allow consumers to track all products back to their source, but that vision is still far away. In the case of Kerchins beef, only two parties are involved in gathering and uploading information, but the global supply chain poses more challenges. Cargo often passes rapidly through multiple hands, and parties in supply chains dont often share data. As the supply chain gets longer, an enormous amount of collaboration and transparency is needed. And of course, not all companies are eager to share their data and business practices.

Read next: In China, consumers have to be on guard not just against fake food, but also fake news about food

Read next: Chinas FDA is using instant messaging and web videos in its fight to dispel internet food rumors

See more here:

Blockchain could fix a key problem in China's food industry: the fear of food made in China - Quartz

Lonely Planet has a new app for travel enthusiasts. Called Trips, the app uses an Instagram-like design populated with beautiful images of far away places.

Much like Lonely Planets website, the idea behind Trips is to offer travelers an easy way to share their experiences and discover new areas of the world this time on their smartphones.

However, Instagram already has a healthy amount of travel enthusiasts uploading photos of fantastic places for viewers to check out on a daily basis. National Geographic, a personal favorite, is one of the most popular on the platform, with a following of nearly 80 million. Lonely Planet, by comparison, has about 1.4 million followers on the platform.

Like Instagram, you can heart, share and follow profiles on Trips, as well. But Lonely Planets Daniel Houghton says the intention is not to compete with the social media giant, but to complement it.

Lonely Planet is an O.G. travel site and has its own loyal niche of travel enthusiasts. Perhaps an app focusing precisely on their passion will be well received.

Trips is Lonely Planets second app. The online destinations site launched its first app Guides last year, which provides tips and advice from on-the-ground experts. More than one million people have since downloaded Guides. Lonely Planet hopes Trips will be met with the same success.

So why not just roll Trips features into Guides and make one app? Houghton tells TechCrunchGuides is more of a tool, whereas Trips is geared for sharing content.

The app is pretty easy to use; just download, select profiles that suit your interest and scroll through the feed. From there you can pick from a number of the populated stories, many of which will come with maps, photos and some information on tours and things you might want to check out. I was personally checking out Rainbow Mountain in Peru posted about a day ago while scrolling through the app.

You also can hit the discover icon at the bottom of the app, to the right of the home icon, to search for categories like Adventure or Wildlife and Nature. From there it will lead you to a feed similar to the home feed but with certain trips in mind.

Its pretty easy to publish your own trips, as well. Like Instagram, you just hit the plus-sign icon at the bottom of the screen. The app will require access to your phone camera and then youll be able to add your photos. The app will automatically populate a map of the area and allow you to add content and more info about your trip from there.

The one thing I would say Trips lacks is a search tool. Its fine to scroll through the places the app provides in the feed, but its difficult to look up specific places you are thinking of visiting. If you are like me, youll want the ability to look up a place before planning your trip to see what others have to say about it and look at the photos they took.

For those interested in checking it out yourself, Tripsis now available for free oniOSand will be available on Android later this year.

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Lonely Planet launches an Instagram-like Trips app - TechCrunch