An Anonymous Coward writes:gCaptcha is the leading rival for quality captcha services against Google's renowned and universally despised recaptcha. When Google increased the price for recaptcha competing services took off taking what Google started from to improve the experience significantly. Some experiences with smiling dogs and cloudy horses were deemed to take this too far but these experiments showed that there are improvements to be made in the captcha game.With hackers out to solve any captcha programmatically captcha services need to stay one step ahead. The slider method was found to be easily bypassed. Rotating puzzle pieces is harder to solve but involves more user interaction and has moving parts in the code that can break.Recently hCaptcha has introduce a test that challenges the user to click on the center of an owl's head. This is an improvement over selecting a type of ball from a grid of 9 or going through the excruciating experience Google inflicts on users. There must be a better way to prove that the person viewing the web page is a human and not a bot. How about it, Soylentils? What's your best idea for a captcha system given the state of the systems we have today?[Ed's Comment: Bonus points if you can suggest a system that does not rely on graphics (not everyone uses the latest browsers or even anything more than a simple line of text) to access some sites - our own included. We have the need for a robust captcha system for people creating accounts in order to reduce the number of fake accounts being created by a bot.]Original SubmissionRead more of this story at SoylentNews.
NotSanguine writes:Ars Technica is reporting that Twitter has convinced a judge to issue a subpoena to Github, requiring them to provide all personal details in their possession of a user called "FreeSpeechEnthusiast".
fliptop writes:Jenny Blessing and Ross Anderson have evaluated the security of systems designed to allow the various Internet messaging platforms to interoperate with each other:
fliptop writes:Geoffrey Hinton, a computer scientist who has been called "the godfather of artificial intelligence", says it is "not inconceivable" that AI may develop to the point where it poses a threat to humanity:
hubie writes:Brain activity imaging coupled with computer vision reveals how neuron populations in different individuals synchronize during social interactions:
guest reader writes:Experts acknowledge the apparent technical achievement of the research but highlight the ethical issues raised by being able to choose the sex of an offspring:
fliptop writes:[R]esearchers at Carnegie Mellon University have created soft robots that can seamlessly shift from walking to swimming, for example, or crawling to rolling:
Preliminary Court Setback for Libraries and Digital Lendingcanopic jug writes:The Internet Archive has published a post about their ongoing fight in the lower courts over Controlled Digital Lending (CDL), specifically from the case Hachette v Internet Archive. This potentially affects all libraries with digital resources and the Internet Archive will appeal the court's decision.
hubie writes:A new study has identified several characteristics typical of music associated with sleep, such as being quieter and slower than other music:
canopic jug writes:The National Labor Relations Board has clarified that non-disparagement clauses attached to severance packages are null and void. Companies will not be able to stifle criticism by ex-employees through clauses asking them to waive their inherent rights.
hubie writes:Urban inequality in Europe and the United States is so severe that urban elites claim most of the benefits from the agglomeration effects that big cities provide, while large parts of urban populations get little to nothing: