A few days ago, Proofpoint, an American company that offers a variety of Internet related services including some related to security, revealed that it discovered what may be the first cyberattack carried out by exploiting the so-called Internet of Things. According to Proofpoint, over 750,000 phishing and spam e-mails were sent not by normal computers but by smart appliances such as TV-sets and refrigerators.
A team of paleontologists led by Professor Neil Shubin from the University of Chicago published in the journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” the results of a research on Tiktaalik roseae. It’s a species that lived during the Devonian period, about 375 million years ago, which is a transitional form between fish and legged animals. This research highlights the adaptation of the hind fins of this animal, showing that it had already started in fish.
NASA has officially invited people from all over the world to register their names in the “Messages to Bennu” program. All those names will be recorded on a microchip that will travel aboard the OSIRIS-REx (Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer) spacecraft, which is expected to start its mission in September 2016 for the asteroid 101955 Bennu to collect a sample to bring back to Earth.
The novel “Xenopath” by Eric Brown was published for the first time in 2010. It’s the second book in the Bengal Station trilogy and is the sequel to “Necropath”.
Jeff Vaughan and Sukara got married and are expecting their first child. Their life isn’t easy because Jeff’s salary isn’t exactly rich but together they’re happy. Jeff’s days as a telepath now seem part of the past when he’s contacted by his former colleague Lin Kapinski, who opened a detective agency and offers him a job. The salary is very high but he needs to get a new neural implant to regain his old telepathic skills.
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) didn’t have the authority to prohibit Internet service providers to block or even slow down web traffic and applications in a selective manner. This represents a rejection of Net Neutrality, which required in particular to broadband connections operators not to discriminate Internet traffic.
