Mozilla is working on a geolocation data service using cell tower and Wi-Fi signals to give developers what it says will be a more privacy-aware option than current alternatives.
The service, which is in its early stages, would be mobile-focused, though laptops without GPS hardware could also use it to quickly identify their approximate location, the Firefox browser maker announced Monday.
Geolocation data constitutes a crowded space -- commercial players include Neustar IP Intelligence, MaxMind, IPligence and Google. But there is still no large public service option, Mozilla said. Also, Mozilla's standing as an open-source software developer puts it in a better position to grapple with issues around privacy, the company said.
"None of the current companies offering this type of service have any incentive to improve on privacy," Mozilla said in its Wiki page devoted to the project. "In order to do this assessment, we need to understand the technological challenges and get real data," the company said.
The data would be provided by cell towers, Wi-Fi and IP address information, Mozilla said, and it would not have to be monetized. It could be made available to the public, the company said. And Mozilla is already in a good place to start, given its access to Firefox data on both mobile and desktop PCs.
The experimental service already provides basic service coverage in select locations to some early adopters, Mozilla said. Countries where it is active include the U.S., Brazil, Russia, Australia and Indonesia. People can start giving Mozilla data for the project by installing the company's stumbler application.
Google, meanwhile, is one of the bigger players in geolocation data, though the company has faced legal troubles by sniffing and storing certain data from Wi-Fi networks. Google also operates its Maps Engine Platform for companies looking to build maps to help run their business.
Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's e-mail address is zach_miners@idg.com
Zach Miners, IDG News Service , IDG News Service
Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service More by Zach Miners, IDG News Service
An important part of the Apple shopping experience is the retail stores, and during today's Q4 2013 earnings call Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer elaborated on how well the stores have been doing this quarter:
$4.5billion total revenue, an increase of 6%, $10.9million revenue per store for the quarter
A growth of 36% per store, per week, year-on-year
Total of 416 stores, 162 outside the U.S.
99million total visitors
Oppenheimer also looked ahead to fiscal 2014 for the retail stores, promising 30 new stores for the year, 2/3 of which will be outside the United States. Additionally, 30 further stores will be re-modelled throughout 2014, building on the 2 that have been completed throughout Q4 2013.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The doctor convicted of killing Michael Jackson was released from jail Monday after serving nearly two years of a four-year sentence.
Conrad Murray was released from a downtown Los Angeles jail at 12:01 a.m., according to the sheriff's office. A change in California law allowed his incarceration time to be significantly cut down.
"He was elated to be out of there," Murray's attorney Valerie Wass said. She said the former physician plans to spend time with his girlfriend and children and to readjust to his life outside jail.
The former cardiologist was convicted in 2011 of causing Jackson's death in June 2009 by providing the superstar with an overdose of the powerful anesthetic propofol as a sleep aid. Jackson was in the midst of preparations for a series of comeback concerts and Murray was serving as his personal physician.
Murray's prospects are uncertain: At age 60 his license to practice medicine has been suspended or revoked in three states and his face and name are well known due to his association with Jackson and his highly publicized involuntary manslaughter trial.
Wass said Murray did a lot of writing while incarcerated, but she didn't know if he had plans for a book or any other projects that would allow him to earn a living.
The former doctor is appealing his conviction, although an appeals court has questioned whether it needs to hear the case. His attorney has argued that the court should not dismiss the appeal because it could alter his overall sentence and reduce some of the stigma his conviction has caused.
Despite being jailed, Murray hasn't been entirely silent. Audio recordings of his calls have been posted on celebrity website TMZ and the ex-doctor told the Today show that he cried tears of joy after a civil jury recently determined that the promoters of Jackson's comeback shows did not negligently hire Murray.
He did not, however, testify in the civil case or take the stand during his criminal trial.
Murray previously maintained clinics in Houston and Las Vegas and frequently complained about conditions in jail after his conviction. He was allowed to serve his entire sentence in a Los Angeles jail rather than a state prison due to a law aimed at easing overcrowding by shifting nonviolent offenders to local lockups.
"Dr. Murray has not received any special treatment in jail and in fact has many less privileges than most inmates because of his notoriety," Wass said in a statement earlier this year.
Jurors in a lawsuit filed by Jackson's mother against concert giant AEG Live LLC determined that the doctor was not unfit or incompetent to serve as Jackson's tour doctor earlier this month. The panel heard testimony about Jackson and Murray's relationship throughout the five-month trial, but the panel said it did not condone the physician's conduct.
"That doesn't mean we felt he was ethical," jury foreman Gregg Barden said of Murray after the AEG Live verdict.
No doctor or medical expert has condoned Murray's treatments of Jackson during either the ex-doctor's criminal case or the civil litigation. The former cardiologist told police he gave the superstar nightly doses of propofol to help him sleep but lacked the proper medical or monitoring equipment that's required to administer anesthesia.
Although widely used, propofol is intended only for surgical settings and experts have noted that its effects are not actually sleep.
This week's pick for World Cafe: Next is Austin, Texas' Wild Child. Led by vocalists Kelsey Wilson and Alexander Beggins, the band formed in 2009 and just released its second album, The Runaround.
This past March, the group won Best Indie Act and Best Folk Act at the Austin Music Awards — but on its new album, which features production from Ben Kweller, Wild Child appears to move away from folk and toward a more all-encompassing sound. Hear two tracks from the record and download this week's podcast.
Contact: Claus Habfast claus.habfast@esrf.fr 33-666-662-384 European Synchrotron Radiation Facility
How mice and rats developed a unique masticatory apparatus making them evolutionary champions
The subfamily of rodents known as Murinae (mice, rats, etc.), which first appeared in Asia 12 million years ago, spread across the entire Old World (Eurasia, Africa, Australia) in less than 2 million years, a remarkably fast rate. Researchers have long suspected that one of the reasons for their evolutionary success is related to their unique masticatory apparatus. Now, researchers have used the brilliant X-ray beams produced at the European Synchrotron (ESRF) to study several hundred specimens, both extant and extinct, to describe the evolutionary processes that caused rats and mice to acquire this characteristic feature. The study was published in the journal Evolution on 28 November 2013.
The research team, from the Institut de Paloprimatologie, Palontologie Humaine: volution et Paloenvironnements (CNRS / Universit de Poitiers), was able to determine the diet of extinct species and to trace the evolutionary history of these rodents. Today, the Murinae comprise 584 species, which represents over 10% of the diversity of present day mammals.
In their study the researchers were able to identify two key evolutionary moments in the acquisition of this masticatory apparatus.
The first one occurred around 16 million years ago when the ancestors of the Murinae changed from a herbivorous diet to an insectivorous diet. This new diet was encouraged by the acquisition of chewing movements that are unusual in mammals, forwardly directed but continuing to interlock opposing teeth. This aquisition helped them reduce tooth erosion and better preserve pointed cusps, which are used to puncture the exoskeletons of insects.
Then, twelve million years ago, the very earliest Murinae returned to a herbivorous diet, while at the same time retaining their chewing motion. This also enabled them to use both their mandibles simultaneously during mastication. The change in diet gave way to the formation of three longitudinal rows of cusps on their teeth. Their ancestors, like other related rodents such as hamsters and gerbils, only have two rows, as do humans.
To reconstruct this series of evolutionary events, the scientists studied several hundred teeth belonging to extant or extinct rodents at the European Synchrotron (ESRF) in Grenoble. The team applied methods originally used in map-making to analyze 3D digital models of the dental morphology of these species. Comparison of the dental structures of present day and fossil rodents enabled them to determine the diet of the extinct species. In addition, studying the wear on their teeth allowed them to reconstruct the chewing motion, either directed forwardly or obliquely, of these animals.
The study traces the way in which evolution progresses by trial and error, ending up with a morphological combination that lies behind the astonishing evolutionary success of an animal family.
The innovative methods used by the researchers to analyze and compare masticatory systems could be used to study dietary changes in other extinct mammals. This might prove to be especially interesting with regard to primates, since, before the appearance of hominids, primates underwent several dietary changes that affected their subsequent evolutionary history.
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Reference: Correlated changes in occlusal pattern and diet in stem murinae during the onset of the radiation of old world rats and mice. Coillot Tiphaine, Chaimanee Yaowalak, Charles Cyril, Gomes-Rodrigues Helder, Michaux Jacques, Tafforeau Paul, Vianey-Liaud Monique, Viriot Laurent, Lazzari Vincent. Evolution. Volume 67, Issue 11, pages 3323, November 2013.
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Chewing their way to success
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
28-Oct-2013
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Contact: Claus Habfast claus.habfast@esrf.fr 33-666-662-384 European Synchrotron Radiation Facility
How mice and rats developed a unique masticatory apparatus making them evolutionary champions
The subfamily of rodents known as Murinae (mice, rats, etc.), which first appeared in Asia 12 million years ago, spread across the entire Old World (Eurasia, Africa, Australia) in less than 2 million years, a remarkably fast rate. Researchers have long suspected that one of the reasons for their evolutionary success is related to their unique masticatory apparatus. Now, researchers have used the brilliant X-ray beams produced at the European Synchrotron (ESRF) to study several hundred specimens, both extant and extinct, to describe the evolutionary processes that caused rats and mice to acquire this characteristic feature. The study was published in the journal Evolution on 28 November 2013.
The research team, from the Institut de Paloprimatologie, Palontologie Humaine: volution et Paloenvironnements (CNRS / Universit de Poitiers), was able to determine the diet of extinct species and to trace the evolutionary history of these rodents. Today, the Murinae comprise 584 species, which represents over 10% of the diversity of present day mammals.
In their study the researchers were able to identify two key evolutionary moments in the acquisition of this masticatory apparatus.
The first one occurred around 16 million years ago when the ancestors of the Murinae changed from a herbivorous diet to an insectivorous diet. This new diet was encouraged by the acquisition of chewing movements that are unusual in mammals, forwardly directed but continuing to interlock opposing teeth. This aquisition helped them reduce tooth erosion and better preserve pointed cusps, which are used to puncture the exoskeletons of insects.
Then, twelve million years ago, the very earliest Murinae returned to a herbivorous diet, while at the same time retaining their chewing motion. This also enabled them to use both their mandibles simultaneously during mastication. The change in diet gave way to the formation of three longitudinal rows of cusps on their teeth. Their ancestors, like other related rodents such as hamsters and gerbils, only have two rows, as do humans.
To reconstruct this series of evolutionary events, the scientists studied several hundred teeth belonging to extant or extinct rodents at the European Synchrotron (ESRF) in Grenoble. The team applied methods originally used in map-making to analyze 3D digital models of the dental morphology of these species. Comparison of the dental structures of present day and fossil rodents enabled them to determine the diet of the extinct species. In addition, studying the wear on their teeth allowed them to reconstruct the chewing motion, either directed forwardly or obliquely, of these animals.
The study traces the way in which evolution progresses by trial and error, ending up with a morphological combination that lies behind the astonishing evolutionary success of an animal family.
The innovative methods used by the researchers to analyze and compare masticatory systems could be used to study dietary changes in other extinct mammals. This might prove to be especially interesting with regard to primates, since, before the appearance of hominids, primates underwent several dietary changes that affected their subsequent evolutionary history.
###
Reference: Correlated changes in occlusal pattern and diet in stem murinae during the onset of the radiation of old world rats and mice. Coillot Tiphaine, Chaimanee Yaowalak, Charles Cyril, Gomes-Rodrigues Helder, Michaux Jacques, Tafforeau Paul, Vianey-Liaud Monique, Viriot Laurent, Lazzari Vincent. Evolution. Volume 67, Issue 11, pages 3323, November 2013.
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| 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.
Microsoft today used the first day of O'Reilly Strata Conference + Hadoop World in New York City to announce that its Windows Azure HDInsight Service is now generally available after a year in preview.
The HDInsight Service, designed in partnership with Hadoop specialist Hortonworks, makes standard Apache Hadoop available as a service in Microsoft's Azure cloud, allowing you to deploy Hadoop clusters in minutes and shut them down just as easily.
Integration with the Microsoft data platform means that you can access and analyze your data with PowerPivot, Power View and other Microsoft BI tools, like Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS).
"Hadoop is a cornerstone of big data," says Quentin Clark, corporate vice president, Microsoft Data Platform. "The need for the insights and results and transformations from big data is really there. There are companies talking to us about how they don't feel they can even be competitive without embracing the big data phenomenon."
"The estimated 2,000 DNA sequences worldwide are generating 15 petabytes of genome data every year. Many institutions simply do not have the computational and storage resources required to work with data sets of this size. We're generating data faster than we can analyze it." -- Wu Feng, professor of Computer Science, Virginia Tech<
The goal, Clark says, is to bring Hadoop together with the flexibility of cloud deployment and the security that enterprises require to help customers achieve the competitive edge they need.
DNA sequencing with HDInsight Service The use cases are many and varied. For instance, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University has been using the HDInsight Service to aid its life sciences research in DNA sequencing.
Leveraging a grant from the National Science Foundation, Virginia Tech computer scientists developed an on-demand, cloud computing model using Windows Azure HDInsight Service that helps locate undetected genes in a massive genome database.
"Of the estimated 2,000 DNA sequences worldwide, they are generating 15 petabytes of genome data every year," says Wu Feng, professor of Computer Science at Virginia Tech. "Many life sciences institutions simply do not have access to the computational and storage resources required to work with data sets of this size. We're generating data faster than we can analyze it."
Fend and his team used the grant to develop two software artifacts: SeqInCloud, a popular genetic variant pipeline called the Genome Analysis Toolkit (GATK), and CloudFlow, a workflow management framework that uses both client and cloud resources.
This year has seen an influx of internet-connected devices, from home locks, to smoke alarms, to egg trays. But the long arm of Bluetooth has left bike locks relatively untouched—until now.
NEW YORK (AP) — Starting next fall, Nielsen will begin counting television programs watched on mobile phones and tablets within its traditional TV ratings.
The company responsible for measuring TV viewership said Monday it will use codes embedded by networks within the programs to collect this information.
Nielsen's measurements are the lifeblood of television's economic system, and this development is an important step in adjusting to changes in how content is consumed. It is not expected to have an immediate, dramatic impact in the ratings since Nielsen estimated that only 6 percent of current viewing is not measured now. But the impact could be bigger on programs that appeal to young people who are more apt to watch on mobile devices. Nielsen's ratings are used to set advertising rates.
Kim Kardashian has some serious competition for biggest engagement ring! Kardashian's close friend Ciaragot engaged over the weekend to boyfriend Future, who proposed with a huge 15-carat diamond ring. The 28-year-old singer shared a photo of her gorgeous new bling with Us Weekly on Monday, Oct. 28.
The stunning Avionne & Co. ring, sitting on top of a red rose in the photo, features a large center emerald cut diamond, two slightly smaller side diamonds as well as diamonds on the band.
Ciara and Future Engagement Ring Credit: Ciara's 15-carat engagement ring from fiance Future.
The "Get Up" singer got a surprise proposal from her 29-year-old rapper-producer boyfriend while celebrating her 28th birthday in NYC, the couple's rep confirmed to Us. "Today Has 2 Be Like One Of The Sweetest Days Of My Life! #TheBestBirthdayEver," Ciara tweeted on Sunday, Oct. 27. "If I'm Dreaming I Don't Want to Wake up!"
During an interview with Hot 97 radio host Angie Martinez in August, Future (real name: Nayvadius D. Wilburn) said he knew Ciara was The One when he first saw her seven years ago at a video shoot. "For it to come around and happen, it was just meant to be," he explained. "This the one."
The editors and writers of iMore and Mobile Nations share their views on Apple's latest desktop and laptop operating system, OS X Mavericks
Last Tuesday Apple released OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the tenth generation of their modern desktop operating system. We've already published Peter Cohen's extensive OS X Mavericks review, but many of us have been using it for awhile now as well, some since the beta went live following WWDC 2013 in June. So, to bring you as many opinions as possible, we've put together a good, old-fashioned, Mobile Nations round table. Here's what all of us think of Mavericks!
Phil Nickinson, Android Central
I'm an update junkie. Can't help myself. And updating to Mavericks was surprisingly smooth. Proper dual monitor support and the battery life improvements (on the already excellent 2013 MacBook Air — thanks, Haswell!) are the big-ticket items for me. Notifications suck less. Finder tabs are nice to have, but (and I won't be the only one to mention this) they're pretty hidden. But maybe best of all — nothing broke.
As for the update cost, you can always go cheaper. It's tough to raise the price later on down the road, though. But for some reason I could see Apple releasing a major update next year, or the year after, and charging for it again. Apple can get away with it, right or wrong. This wasn't a small update, and I'd have had no problem giving up the usual $20 or so. That said, it's worth mentioning that the recent Windows 8.1 was a free update. Arguably it fixed more than it innovated, but whatever. It was free. Know what else is free? Linux updates. And Chrome OS updates. So maybe let's not break our arms patting Apple on the back just yet.
Chris Parsons, CrackBerry
I’ve been running Mavericks on my early 2013 Retina MacBook Pro since the developer previews were released and I’m pretty pleased with the final build. One of the biggest additions for me is the proper monitor support as I am always running dual monitors when I’m home. Finder tabs is also something that I’ll use a lot. Previously that was only available through third-party apps but having it built-in is great. iCloud keychain is interesting as well but I’ll need to explore it some more. Right now, I use 1Password and that works well for me. Finally, I can say I’m pleased with notifications on OS X. As cliche as it always sounds, how they work on Mavericks is how they should have worked all along.
Overall, Mavericks is nice though there’s still some quirks in it that I hope get fixed in later builds.
Jerry Hildenbrand, Android Central
Hallelujah. Tabs in my Finder.
The install went OK, but I could have lived without Maps and iBooks on my computer. They were easy enough to remove. I really would have liked a more modular and delta-style approach, similar to the way popular Linux distributions are done. That tends to make for less down time and is easier for the end-user. The good news is nothing I use regularly seems to have broken, which is always a risk when you update any OS.
I don't begrudge anyone making money from software development, but OS X updates should have always been free. You can't use it without a substantial purchase of Apple hardware, which carries high margins in the profit department. You're paying for the software development and more when you buy the hardware. I guess what I'm saying is that the software isn't a stand-alone product — it's more like a required accessory. Try buying a MacBook with no operating system on it and see if I'm right. I'm glad to see Apple come to their senses, and stop charging even a token fee for a software update.
Ally Kazmucha, iMore
The thing I have always loved about OS X updates is that they are incremental. It’s never too much at once. I pretty much installed Mavericks and kept working just as I was 30 minutes earlier. I remember being a Windows user and the shock you’d get when half your peripherals or drivers broke when you updated to a new version. Not to mention it almost always entailed learning a brand new interface. It was an all day fiasco and I don’t miss that one bit.
So far I’m happy with Mavericks. Tying social into OS X more and bringing more of the conveniences of iOS to my Mac make me feel like my workflow is more complete than it was a week ago. I love the Maps app and the ability to ping myself directions. iBooks is nice but not something I will really use other than storing PDFs.
I only have two general annoyances with Mavericks so far. Number one was the Mail app, which in all fairness is Gmails crap IMAP implementation. That was quickly solved by using Airmail instead. My biggest one is how it handles RAW image files. I take a ton of photos for iMore and previewing .NEF files has been painful and takes a long time to generate previews in Finder’s list view. I hope this is something Apple fixes quickly. Something was broke in this transition and it’s kind of a big deal.
Other than that, I’m plugging away just as I was in Mountain Lion and all its predecessors. Sometimes too much change at once is overwhelming and when it comes to my workflow, I prefer incremental updates I can grow with. Mavericks lives up to those standards so I’m happy with it.
Peter Cohen, iMore
Mavericks isn’t as flashy as iOS 7 - Apple didn’t rework the interface like they did with their mobile OS. As a result, I’ve read more than one review that calls Mavericks boring and disappointing. Of course, I think that’s superficial nonsense. Mavericks doesn’t need a major UI rework to be useful and good. The changes to Mavericks are largely incremental. They make sense and they add some utility and efficiency to the overall experience that should be welcome to Mac users.
Tabbed Finder windows make it much easier to move files than before, and tagging is a great tool to keep track of files that are important to you without having to build an intricate hierarchy of folders to keep them. Maps and iBooks are welcome additions that put the Mac on a level playing field with iOS devices to help get you to where you need to go and entertain you in your downtime. And Calendar has been reworked to be more like its iOS 7 cousin - a flat, minimal interface. That’s not to say that skeuomorphism has been flushed from Mavericks all together, though - Game Center still uses a felt table, for example.
Plus Mavericks makes some profound "under the hood" changes - improvements to efficiency and battery life that make Mavericks a better environment for users of Mac laptops. And Apple’s decision to make it free makes it a game changer. We’ve already seen evidence that the uptake of Mavericks has been much faster than Mountain Lion was. Why? People love free stuff.
Ultimately, when you buy an Apple product, you’re not just buying a computer, a phone, a tablet, or whatever - you’re buying into an entire ecosystem. That’s more obvious now in Mavericks than ever, because Apple’s sought to erase the lines between the Mac and iOS wherever it makes sense. Apple’s showing us that they finally understand cloud services in a way we haven’t seen before - iCloud is the glue that holds the different devices you’re using together. To that end, Mavericks' tighter integration of iCloud helps reassure us that Apple sees the Mac as important and vital a part of the ecosystem as ever, and lays the path for the future.
Georgia
In what should be a huge surprise to absolutely no one, I haven't upgraded to Mavericks. I'm still running Snow Leopard on my MacBook Pro (which I only use for podcasts now), and Lion on my MacBook Air (which I use for everything). That's right, the same operating systems that shipped on my hardware when I first bought it is the same operating systems I still use today. And you know what, they work for me!
Eventually I'll find the time and interest to update, maybe to Mavericks, maybe to a future version of OS X. Right now, I don't feel compelled to. That might sound unusual for someone otherwise into tech, but I'm sure I'm also not the only one.
Now excuse me while I duck and cover from your wrath!
Joe Keller, iMore
I love using OS X, and I'm always happy to install a new major release, and Mavericks was no exception. I use Safari as my primary browser, so the changes and improvements that have been made to Safari in Mavericks are very welcome, including the new Top Sites section, which is much easier to use, and the improved sidebar.
Apart from Safari, the quick-reply for notifications has been my most-used feature. It's really convenient, and I hope that it makes its way to iOS soon. The addition of a Messages button in Notification Center to quickly compose and send new messages is also a nice touch. After notifications, it's tagging. I may have gone a bit tag-crazy after Mavericks finished installing. Anything that makes moving files around easier gets a thumbs-up from me, so Finder Tabs is a nice addition as well.
Given that I buy most of my books from Amazon, I don't see myself using iBooks that much, though it's nice to have for the occasional iBookstore purchase. I'm enjoying having Maps on my Mac. I've never had major issues with Apple's mapping service, even back when it first launched, so it's addition to OS X is welcome, especially the ability to send directions to my phone.
I'm really happy with Mavericks so far. It's a solid update, and I encourage anyone who's thinking about getting it to go ahead and do so.
Richard Devine, iMore
I've been running Mavericks since the very first developer builds, and I've overall been nothing but impressed with it ever since. An iterative release perhaps, but that's a good thing to me, because Apple didn't change too much at once. I need my Mac for working, I need to be productive, so I welcome the familiarity.
I like the addition of Maps to the desktop, and it's actually drawing me into using Maps on my iPhone as well. I often do Map searches at the computer as it is, and having something there in my dock that will integrate with my phone is more useful to me than I initially thought it might be. The improvements to Finder are also a personal favorite, and I'm so happy I don't need to have multiple windows open now.
Perhaps the most exciting thing is the multiple monitor support. I haven't really put it to full use yet, but I have a 23-inch monitor on my desk that is crying out to be used in this way, but it's been plugged in to another computer recently. I briefly tried it during the dev builds and it impressed me, so I'm looking forward to deploying this in my daily workflow.
One thing that is bugging me is WiFi. Since updating my 13-inch MacBook Pro Retina to Mavericks, it has immense trouble staying connected to my home WiFi network. Perhaps just a bug, but one that wasn't present in Mountain Lion, so I'm hoping for a fix soon. All-in-all, it's a worthwhile upgrade, and since it's free, it really is a no-brainer.
Derek Kessler, Mobile Nations
So I installed Mavericks on my MacBook Pro within the first three hours of availability. Unsurprisingly the process was smooth (I was lucky and got a good download stream and didn’t have to wait too long). Because I have just the one primary computer I tend not to dabble in beta software for primary tasks, especially the operating system, so this was my first real in-use exposure to Mavericks. What’s the first thing I noticed? That reflections in the dock are more blurred than before.
Since I don’t (yet) have a multi-screen set-up running, most of the changes for me have been relatively minor. Notifications are more useful, and Notification Center itself is now less buggy to the point that I don’t feel a pang of regret if I accidentally trigger it (before doing so would seize up the Dock process and I could only switch windows by clicking on them with the mouse until Notification Center realized what was going on ten minutes later). I like the newer, flatter Calendar app but am less enamored with Memos.
The story of Mavericks is one of improvements. It’s not an overhaul of OS X (which I expect to come in the next or next next version with more iOS 7-like styling, as Calendar has demonstrated), but an improvement in ways that make things just easier and better. I haven’t had any “How did I live without this?” moments yet with Mavericks, but at the same time I’m pleased to now have it working for me. Things are better, and that’s good enough for me.
Rene Ritchie, iMore
The era of big cats is over. OS X 10.9 isn't Saber Tooth, it's Mavericks. Named after a famous California beach, it's meant to exemplify Apple's new, more home-centric signature. It's also meant to showcase the results of their yearly, iOS-style update cycle. Doing less more often isn't a bad idea on the surface. It means smaller updates, but it means we get them more often. (Apple's OS X team, however, gets much less down time between updates...) And that's exactly what Mavericks is, a timely update rather than a big one.
There's some Back-to-the-Mac going on with Mavericks, not surprisingly. iBooks is here, and about bloody time. It works well and just like you'd expect. Maps is here too, and it... works just like you'd expect. Apple still needs thousands of feet on the ground to fix Maps, but the integration with iOS is great, and makes me really want an Apple Maps for iCloud product to complete the cycle.
Safari in Mavericks is solid. I've always used Safari for my non-Google services (those get safely locked to Chrome), and i still prefer its interface and rendering engine over any other. Again, integration with iOS is top notch, and new features like Shared Links - all your Twitter friends' URLs all in one place - are great. iCloud Keychain is interesting but unless and until it implements a master password feature like 1Password, it's not useful to me. I need to be able to hand someone a device and not worry I'm handing them my logins and credit cards.
Multiple displays is sublime. I have a 27-inch Thunderbolt Display at my standing desk and previously plugging into it meant plugging out of full-screen apps, because linen. No longer! Everything works together well now, even if Dock jumping has become a bit like whack-a-mole. Actionable notifications are likewise bliss. The ability to respond to a message in the notification is something I want in iOS immediately if not sooner.
Finder Tabs and Tags are... things I do not use. I'm glad they're there, but I'm a simple dude and I haven't found a need for them yet. The under-the-hood changes, though, the App Nap and the Timer Coalescing, the Power Saver and the Compressed Memory - more of that, yes please. My 2012 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro has gained an additional 2 hours of battery life, and my 2013 13-inch MacBook Air can go all night. Or day. Amazing. (The best part is the hall-of-shame drop down that highlights apps that are poor battery citizens.)
Mavericks has some bugs and some odd behaviors, like every new version of every new version. Quick View, for example, routinely beach balls for a second before opening, and Final Cut Pro X seems to be at odds with App Nap. Those will get fixed - they better get fixed! - but overall, I'm really happy with Mavericks. It's similar enough not to interfere with my workflow, and with new stuff enough to improve it.
Well done.
Your review?
You've heard from all of us, now we want to hear from you! If you're using OS X Mavericks, give us your review!
One of the funny things about the cloud is that it's often difficult to know what's behind the curtain. Before IBM bought IaaS provider SoftLayer in June, we were hard-pressed to determine precisely what sort of IaaS Big Blue was offering. Yes, they had a virtual server configurator similar to Amazon's, but the self-service stopped there: you'd tally up your config, submit it, and IBM would get back to you.
Then there was that fuss in July about the SEC investigating IBM to discover exactly how Big Blue was calculating the 70 percent increase in cloud revenue it reported for the first half of 2013 (although, to be fair, cloud-washing like this seems commonplace).
IBM acquired a big hunk of cloud credibility with the $2 billion it paid for SoftLayer. According to SoftLayer CEO Lance Crosby, whom I interviewed last week, SoftLayer has 120,000 physical nodes in 13 data centers. And thanks to IBM, that footprint is poised to get a whole lot bigger. "We're going to have massive expansion in the next 24 months," Crosby says.
The quiet cloud company Founded in Dallas in 2005, SoftLayer was the largest privately held IaaS provider until it became part of IBM. "We were cloud before cloud was cool," says Crosby, offering both multitenanted and single-tenanted IaaS. And self-service has always been part of the deal, right up until the acquisition. "We were at $500 million in revenue without an outbound salesperson, so it's all self service."
Contrary to the approach of Amazon Web Services, Crosby always believed in giving complete visibility into the hardware infrastructure behind the cloud. "The concept of creating this fungible machine where you don't have to worry about the underlying infrastructure -- it's nonsense," says Crosby. "In SoftLayer, you can drill down to the server, the rack, the network board, the serial numbers ... everything down to the encryption level on the drive" even in multi-tenanted systems.
That may not seem very cloudy to some. But according to Crosby, offering such transparency -- and in single-tenanted systems, granular control over configuration -- delivers special benefit to SoftLayer customers. He provides a detailed example:
We have a customer who is writing a big data solution for retail. They're using SSD drives, and their developers are saying "you should be getting better performance from the drives." The [customer's] devops guys looked into the drives, and their drives actually had two versions of firmware: one for 1GB or less and one for over 1GB. They swapped the firmware on the drives -- they pushed a button and made an API call -- and performance went up 25 percent. In Amazon land, you've got to buy 25 percent more machine.
Crosby said he pushed his engineers from the beginning to build in this extreme level of visibility, which resulted in SoftLayer's Infrastructure Management System (IMS), an API layer that today offers 2,200 documented methods across 180 discrete services. According to Crosby, he allowed his good friend Lanham Napier, CEO of Rackspace, to use IMS as the original framework for OpenStack, which now stands as the open source leader in cloud software platforms.
In this Tuesday Oct. 20, 2013 photo, an electric power station is seen near the coastal city of Hadera. When Israel's military chief delivered a high-profile speech this month outlining the greatest threats his country will face in the future, he listed computer sabotage as a top concern, warning a sophisticated cyberattack could one day bring the nation to a standstill. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)
In this Tuesday Oct. 20, 2013 photo, an electric power station is seen near the coastal city of Hadera. When Israel's military chief delivered a high-profile speech this month outlining the greatest threats his country will face in the future, he listed computer sabotage as a top concern, warning a sophisticated cyberattack could one day bring the nation to a standstill. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)
In this Tuesday Oct. 20, 2013 photo, Israel's Electric Corp vice president, Yasha Hain, second left, and Ofir Hason, watch a cyber team work at the 'CyberGym' school in the coastal city of Hadera. When Israel's military chief delivered a high-profile speech this month outlining the greatest threats his country will face in the future, he listed computer sabotage as a top concern, warning a sophisticated cyberattack could one day bring the nation to a standstill. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)
In this Tuesday Oct. 20, 2013 photo, Israelis work on computers at the 'CyberGym' school in the coastal city of Hadera. When Israel's military chief delivered a high-profile speech this month outlining the greatest threats his country will face in the future, he listed computer sabotage as a top concern, warning a sophisticated cyber attack could one day bring the nation to a standstill. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)
In this Tuesday Oct. 20, 2013 photo, Israel's electric corp vice president, Yasha Hain, works on a computer at the 'CyberGym' school in the coastal city of Hadera. When Israel's military chief delivered a high-profile speech this month outlining the greatest threats his country will face in the future, he listed computer sabotage as a top concern, warning a sophisticated cyber attack could one day bring the nation to a standstill. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)
In this Tuesday Oct. 20, 2013 photo, an Israeli works on a computer at the 'CyberGym' school in the coastal city of Hadera. When Israel's military chief delivered a high-profile speech this month outlining the greatest threats his country will face in the future, he listed computer sabotage as a top concern, warning a sophisticated cyber attack could one day bring the nation to a standstill. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)
HADERA, Israel (AP) — When Israel's military chief delivered a high-profile speech this month outlining the greatest threats his country might face in the future, he listed computer sabotage as a top concern, warning a sophisticated cyberattack could one day bring the nation to a standstill.
Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz was not speaking empty words. Exactly one month before his address, a major artery in Israel's national road network in the northern city of Haifa was shut down because of a cyberattack, cybersecurity experts tell The Associated Press, knocking key operations out of commission two days in a row and causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.
One expert, speaking on condition of anonymity because the breach of security was a classified matter, said a Trojan horse attack targeted the security camera system in the Carmel Tunnels toll road on Sept. 8. A Trojan horse is a malicious computer program that users unknowingly install that can give hackers complete control over their systems.
The attack caused an immediate 20-minute lockdown of the roadway. The next day, the expert said, it shut down the roadway again during morning rush hour. It remained shut for eight hours, causing massive congestion.
The expert said investigators believe the attack was the work of unknown, sophisticated hackers, similar to the Anonymous hacking group that led attacks on Israeli websites in April. He said investigators determined it was not sophisticated enough to be the work of an enemy government like Iran.
The expert said Israel's National Cyber Bureau, a two-year-old classified body that reports to the prime minister, was aware of the incident. The bureau declined comment, while Carmelton, the company that oversees the toll road, denied being hacked, blaming only a "communication glitch" for the mishap.
While Israel is a frequent target of hackers, the tunnel is the most high-profile landmark known to have been attacked. It is a major thoroughfare for Israel's third-largest city, and the city is looking to turn the tunnel into a public shelter in case of emergency, highlighting its importance.
The incident is exactly the type of scenario that Gantz described in his recent address. He said Israel's future battles might begin with "a cyberattack on websites which provide daily services to the citizens of Israel. Traffic lights could stop working, the banks could be shut down," he said.
There have been cases of traffic tampering before. In 2005, the United States outlawed the unauthorized use of traffic override devices installed in many police cars and ambulances after unscrupulous drivers started using them to turn lights from red to green. In 2008, two Los Angeles traffic engineers pleaded guilty to breaking into the city's signal system and deliberately snarling traffic as part of a labor dispute.
Oren David, a manager at international security firm RSA's anti-fraud unit, said that although he didn't have information about the tunnel incident, this kind of attack "is the hallmark of a new era."
"Most of these systems are automated, especially as far as security is concerned. They're automated and they're remotely controlled, either over the Internet or otherwise, so they're vulnerable to cyberattack," he said. Israel, he added, is "among the top-targeted countries."
In June, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran and its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas have targeted Israel's "essential systems," including its water system, electric grid, trains and banks.
"Every sphere of civilian economic life, let's not even talk about our security, is a potential or actual cyberattack target," Netanyahu said at the time.
Israeli government websites receive hundreds and sometimes thousands of cyberattacks each day, said Ofir Ben Avi, head of the government's website division.
During Israel's military offensive on the Gaza Strip last year, tens of millions of website attacks took place, from denial of service attacks, which cripple websites by overloading them with traffic, to more sophisticated attempts to steal passwords, Ben Avi said.
Under constant threat, Israel has emerged as a world leader in cybersecurity, with murky military units developing much of the technology. Last year, the military formed its first cyberdefense unit.
Israeli cybersecurity experts say Iran and other hostile entities have successfully hacked into Israeli servers this year, and that Israel has quietly permitted those attacks to occur in order to track the hackers and feed them false intelligence.
Israel is also widely believed to have launched its own sophisticated computer attacks on its enemies, including the Stuxnet worm that caused significant damage to Iran's nuclear program.
Bracing for serious attacks on Israeli civilian infrastructure, Israel's national electric company launched a training program this month to teach engineers and power plant supervisors how to detect system infiltrations.
The Israel Electric Corp. says its servers register about 6,000 unique computer attacks every second.
"Big organizations and even countries are preparing for D-Day," said Yasha Hain, a senior executive vice president at the company. "We decided to prepare ourselves to be first in line."
The training program is run jointly with CyberGym, a cyberdefense company founded by ex-Israeli intelligence operatives that consults for Israeli oil, gas, transportation and financial companies.
On a manicured campus of eucalyptus trees across from a power plant in Israel's north, groups are divided into teams in a role-playing game of hackers and power plant engineers.
The "hackers," code-named the Red Team, sit in a dimly lit room decorated with cartoon villains on the walls. Darth Vader hovers over binary code. Kermit the Frog flashes his middle finger.
In another room, a miniature model of a power station overflows with water and the boiler's thermometer shoots up as the role-playing hackers run a "Kill All" code. The exercise teaches employees how to detect a possible cyberattack even if their computer systems don't register it.
About 25 middle-aged employees attended the first day of training last week. The course will eventually train thousands of workers, the electric company said.
CyberGym co-founder Ofir Hason declined to comment on the toll road shutdown, but said the company has seen a number of cyberattacks on infrastructures in recent years.
The country is especially susceptible because Israel has no electricity-sharing agreements with neighboring states, and all of the country's essential infrastructure depends on the company for power.
"We're an isolated island," he said.
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Associated Press writer Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report.
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Follow Daniel Estrin on Twitter at www.twitter.com/danielestrin.
Stepping out to get the first look at some of the best red carpet fashions, stars of all kinds attended the Giorgio Armani One Night Only event in New York City on Thursday (October 24).
Also grabbing front row seats to check out the latest runway trends were "101 Dalmations" actress Glenn Close and "Livin' La Vi Da Loca" crooner Ricky Martin.
Although the name of the event is One Night Only, the entire shindig will actually last one weekend. The first night, Mr. Armani will show off his latest Armani Prive line, Nude, and he’ll later follow that up with a retrospective exhibition called “Eccentrico,” which will showcase his work from 1985 to the present.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Happily hunched over his iPad, Britain's most celebrated living artist David Hockney is pioneering in the art world again, turning his index finger into a paintbrush that he uses to swipe across a touch screen to create vibrant landscapes, colorful forests and richly layered scenes.
"It's a very new medium," said Hockney. So new, in fact, he wasn't sure what he was creating until he began printing his digital images a few years ago. "I was pretty amazed by them actually," he said, laughing. "I'm still amazed."
A new exhibit of Hockney's work, including about 150 iPad images, opened Saturday in the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, just a short trip for Silicon Valley techies who created both the hardware and software for this 21st-century reinvention of finger-painting.
The show is billed as the museum's largest ever, filling two floors of the de Young with a survey of works from 1999 to present, mostly landscapes and portraits in an array of mediums: watercolor, charcoal and even video. But on a recent preview day, it was the iPad pieces, especially the 12-foot high majestic views of Yosemite National Park that drew gasps.
Already captured by famed photographer Ansel Adams, and prominent painters such as Thomas Hill and Albert Bierstadt, Hockney's iPad images of Yosemite's rocks, rivers and trees are both comfortingly familiar and entirely new.
In one wide open vista, scrubby, bright green pines sparkle in sunlight, backed by Bridalveil Fall tumbling lightly down a cliff side; the distinct granite crest of Half Dome looms in the background. In another, a heavy mist obscures stands of giant sequoias.
"He has such command of space, atmosphere and light," said Fine Arts Museums director Colin Bailey.
Other iPad images are overlaid, so viewers can see them as they were drawn, an animated beginning-to-end chronological loop. He tackles faces and flowers, and everyday objects: a human foot, scissors, an electric plug.
Some of the iPad drawings are displayed on digital screens, others, like the Yosemite works, were printed on six large panels. Hockey's technical assistants used large inkjet prints reproduce the images he created on his IPad.
Exhibiting iPad images by a prominent artist in a significant museum gives the medium a boost, said art historians, helping digital artwork gain legitimacy in the notoriously snobby art world where computer tablet art shows are rare and prices typically lower than comparable watercolors or oils.
"I'm grateful he's doing this because it opens people's mind to the technology in a new way," said Long Island University Art Historian Maureen Nappi, although she described Hockney's iPad work as "gimmicky."
Writing about the historic shift of drawing from prehistoric cave painting to digital tablets in this month's MIT journal "Leonardo," Nappi said that while iPad work is still novel, the physicality of painting and drawing have gone on for millennia.
"These gestures are as old as humans are," she said in an interview. "Go back to cave paintings, they're using finger movements to articulate creative expressions."
Hockney, 76, started drawing on his iPhone with his thumb about five years ago, shooting his works via email to dozens of friends at a time.
"People from the village come up and tease me: 'We hear you've started drawing on your telephone.' And I tell them, 'Well, no, actually, it's just that occasionally I speak on my sketch pad,'" he said.
When the iPad was announced, Hockney said he had one shipped immediately to his home in London, where he splits his time with Los Angeles.
He creates his work with an app built by former Apple software engineer Steve Sprang of Mountain View, Calif., called Brushes, which along with dozens of other programs like Touch Sketch, SketchBook Mobile and Bamboo Paper are being snapped up by artists, illustrators and graphic designers.
Together, the artists are developing new finger and stylus techniques, with Hockney's vanguard work offering innovative approaches.
"David Hockney is one of the living masters of oil painting, a nearly-600-year-old technology, and thus is well positioned to have thought long and hard about the advantages of painting with a digital device like the iPad," said Binghamton University Art Historian Kevin Hatch in New York.
Hatch said a "digital turn" in the art world began about 25 years ago, as the Internet gained popularity, and he said today most artists have adapted to using a device in some way as they create art.
A similar shift happened almost 100 years ago with the dawn of photography, he said, when innovations such as the small photograph cards and the stereoscope captured the art world's imagination.
And Hatch said there are some drawbacks to the shift to tablet art.
"A certain almost magical quality of oil paint, a tactile, tangible substance, is lost when a painting becomes, at heart, a piece of code, a set of invisible 1's and 0's," he said.
Hockney, who created 78 of the almost 400 pieces in the de Young show this year, isn't giving up painting, or drawing, or video, or tablets, any time soon. When asked where he sees the world of art going, he shrugged his broad shoulders and paused.
"I don't know where it's going, really, who does?" he said. "But art will be there."
NEW YORK (AP) — Starting next fall, Nielsen will begin counting television programs watched on mobile phones and tablets within its traditional TV ratings.
The company responsible for measuring TV viewership said Monday it will use codes embedded by networks within the programs to collect this information.
Nielsen's measurements are the lifeblood of television's economic system, and this development is an important step in adjusting to changes in how content is consumed. It is not expected to have an immediate, dramatic impact in the ratings since Nielsen estimated that only 6 percent of current viewing is not measured now. But the impact could be bigger on programs that appeal to young people who are more apt to watch on mobile devices. Nielsen's ratings are used to set advertising rates.
NEW YORK (AP) — Starting next fall, Nielsen will begin counting television programs watched on mobile phones and tablets within its traditional TV ratings.
The company responsible for measuring TV viewership said Monday it will use codes embedded by networks within the programs to collect this information.
Nielsen's measurements are the lifeblood of television's economic system, and this development is an important step in adjusting to changes in how content is consumed. It is not expected to have an immediate, dramatic impact in the ratings since Nielsen estimated that only 6 percent of current viewing is not measured now. But the impact could be bigger on programs that appeal to young people who are more apt to watch on mobile devices. Nielsen's ratings are used to set advertising rates.
UNC neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
27-Oct-2013
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Contact: Mark Derewicz mark.derewicz@unch.unc.edu 919-923-0959 University of North Carolina Health Care
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. Dendrites, the branch-like projections of neurons, were once thought to be passive wiring in the brain. But now researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have shown that these dendrites do more than relay information from one neuron to the next. They actively process information, multiplying the brain's computing power.
"Suddenly, it's as if the processing power of the brain is much greater than we had originally thought," said Spencer Smith, PhD, an assistant professor in the UNC School of Medicine.
His team's findings, published October 27 in the journal Nature, could change the way scientists think about long-standing scientific models of how neural circuitry functions in the brain, while also helping researchers better understand neurological disorders.
"Imagine you're reverse engineering a piece of alien technology, and what you thought was simple wiring turns out to be transistors that compute information," Smith said. "That's what this finding is like. The implications are exciting to think about."
Axons are where neurons conventionally generate electrical spikes, but many of the same molecules that support axonal spikes are also present in the dendrites. Previous research using dissected brain tissue had demonstrated that dendrites can use those molecules to generate electrical spikes themselves, but it was unclear whether normal brain activity involved those dendritic spikes. For example, could dendritic spikes be involved in how we see?
The answer, Smith's team found, is yes. Dendrites effectively act as mini-neural computers, actively processing neuronal input signals themselves.
Directly demonstrating this required a series of intricate experiments that took years and spanned two continents, beginning in senior author Michael Hausser's lab at University College London, and being completed after Smith and Ikuko Smith, PhD, DVM, set up their own lab at the University of North Carolina. They used patch-clamp electrophysiology to attach a microscopic glass pipette electrode, filled with a physiological solution, to a neuronal dendrite in the brain of a mouse. The idea was to directly "listen" in on the electrical signaling process.
"Attaching the pipette to a dendrite is tremendously technically challenging," Smith said. "You can't approach the dendrite from any direction. And you can't see the dendrite. So you have to do this blind. It's like fishing if all you can see is the electrical trace of a fish." And you can't use bait. "You just go for it and see if you can hit a dendrite," he said. "Most of the time you can't."
But Smith built his own two-photon microscope system to make things easier.
Once the pipette was attached to a dendrite, Smith's team took electrical recordings from individual dendrites within the brains of anesthetized and awake mice. As the mice viewed visual stimuli on a computer screen, the researchers saw an unusual pattern of electrical signals bursts of spikes in the dendrite.
Smith's team then found that the dendritic spikes occurred selectively, depending on the visual stimulus, indicating that the dendrites processed information about what the animal was seeing.
To provide visual evidence of their finding, Smith's team filled neurons with calcium dye, which provided an optical readout of spiking. This revealed that dendrites fired spikes while other parts of the neuron did not, meaning that the spikes were the result of local processing within the dendrites.
Study co-author Tiago Branco, PhD, created a biophysical, mathematical model of neurons and found that known mechanisms could support the dendritic spiking recorded electrically, further validating the interpretation of the data.
"All the data pointed to the same conclusion," Smith said. "The dendrites are not passive integrators of sensory-driven input; they seem to be a computational unit as well."
His team plans to explore what this newly discovered dendritic role may play in brain circuitry and particularly in conditions like Timothy syndrome, in which the integration of dendritic signals may go awry.
###
Study co-authors were Ikuko Smith, PhD, DVM, Tiago Branco, PhD, and Michael Husser, PhD. This work was supported by a Long-Term Fellowship and a Career Development Award from the Human Frontier Science Program, and a Klingenstein Fellowship to S. Smith, a Helen Lyng White Fellowship to I. Smith, a Wellcome Trust and Royal Society Fellowship, and Medical Research Council (UK) support to T. Branco, and grants from the Wellcome Trust, the European Research Council, and Gatsby Charitable Foundation to M. Husser.
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UNC neuroscientists discover new 'mini-neural computer' in the brain
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
27-Oct-2013
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Contact: Mark Derewicz mark.derewicz@unch.unc.edu 919-923-0959 University of North Carolina Health Care
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. Dendrites, the branch-like projections of neurons, were once thought to be passive wiring in the brain. But now researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have shown that these dendrites do more than relay information from one neuron to the next. They actively process information, multiplying the brain's computing power.
"Suddenly, it's as if the processing power of the brain is much greater than we had originally thought," said Spencer Smith, PhD, an assistant professor in the UNC School of Medicine.
His team's findings, published October 27 in the journal Nature, could change the way scientists think about long-standing scientific models of how neural circuitry functions in the brain, while also helping researchers better understand neurological disorders.
"Imagine you're reverse engineering a piece of alien technology, and what you thought was simple wiring turns out to be transistors that compute information," Smith said. "That's what this finding is like. The implications are exciting to think about."
Axons are where neurons conventionally generate electrical spikes, but many of the same molecules that support axonal spikes are also present in the dendrites. Previous research using dissected brain tissue had demonstrated that dendrites can use those molecules to generate electrical spikes themselves, but it was unclear whether normal brain activity involved those dendritic spikes. For example, could dendritic spikes be involved in how we see?
The answer, Smith's team found, is yes. Dendrites effectively act as mini-neural computers, actively processing neuronal input signals themselves.
Directly demonstrating this required a series of intricate experiments that took years and spanned two continents, beginning in senior author Michael Hausser's lab at University College London, and being completed after Smith and Ikuko Smith, PhD, DVM, set up their own lab at the University of North Carolina. They used patch-clamp electrophysiology to attach a microscopic glass pipette electrode, filled with a physiological solution, to a neuronal dendrite in the brain of a mouse. The idea was to directly "listen" in on the electrical signaling process.
"Attaching the pipette to a dendrite is tremendously technically challenging," Smith said. "You can't approach the dendrite from any direction. And you can't see the dendrite. So you have to do this blind. It's like fishing if all you can see is the electrical trace of a fish." And you can't use bait. "You just go for it and see if you can hit a dendrite," he said. "Most of the time you can't."
But Smith built his own two-photon microscope system to make things easier.
Once the pipette was attached to a dendrite, Smith's team took electrical recordings from individual dendrites within the brains of anesthetized and awake mice. As the mice viewed visual stimuli on a computer screen, the researchers saw an unusual pattern of electrical signals bursts of spikes in the dendrite.
Smith's team then found that the dendritic spikes occurred selectively, depending on the visual stimulus, indicating that the dendrites processed information about what the animal was seeing.
To provide visual evidence of their finding, Smith's team filled neurons with calcium dye, which provided an optical readout of spiking. This revealed that dendrites fired spikes while other parts of the neuron did not, meaning that the spikes were the result of local processing within the dendrites.
Study co-author Tiago Branco, PhD, created a biophysical, mathematical model of neurons and found that known mechanisms could support the dendritic spiking recorded electrically, further validating the interpretation of the data.
"All the data pointed to the same conclusion," Smith said. "The dendrites are not passive integrators of sensory-driven input; they seem to be a computational unit as well."
His team plans to explore what this newly discovered dendritic role may play in brain circuitry and particularly in conditions like Timothy syndrome, in which the integration of dendritic signals may go awry.
###
Study co-authors were Ikuko Smith, PhD, DVM, Tiago Branco, PhD, and Michael Husser, PhD. This work was supported by a Long-Term Fellowship and a Career Development Award from the Human Frontier Science Program, and a Klingenstein Fellowship to S. Smith, a Helen Lyng White Fellowship to I. Smith, a Wellcome Trust and Royal Society Fellowship, and Medical Research Council (UK) support to T. Branco, and grants from the Wellcome Trust, the European Research Council, and Gatsby Charitable Foundation to M. Husser.
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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.