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Phoenix666 writes:

Packaging a cancer drug in bubble containers derived from a patient's own immune system makes it much more effective. Doing so protects the drug paclitaxel from being destroyed by the body's own defenses, which means the entire payload is delivered to the tumor.

"That means we can use 50 times less of the drug and still get the same results," says Elena Batrakova, associate professor in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"That matters because we may eventually be able to treat patients with smaller and more accurate doses of powerful chemotherapy drugs resulting in more effective treatment with fewer and milder side effects."

The work is based on exosomes, which are tiny spheres harvested from the white blood cells that protect the body against infection. The exosomes are made of the same material as cell membranes, and the patient's body doesn't recognize them as foreign, which has been one of the toughest issues to overcome in the past decade with using plastics-based nanoparticles as drug-delivery systems.

Original study (DOI: 10.1016/j.nano.2015.10.012).

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Tensions between Netflix and traditional television networks escalated this weekend after industry executives expressed mounting frustration over Netflix's refusal to disclose ratings.

At a Television Critics Association event, NBC Universal introduced viewership figures last Wednesday provided by an outside firm that suggested several of Netflix's shows fall in line with broadcast and cable shows, implying that traditional television remains vibrant. On Saturday, John Landgraf, the chief executive of the cable network FX, picked up the theme, saying it was "ridiculous" that Netflix did not release viewership numbers.

Netflix's chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, shot back on Sunday, saying the numbers provided by NBC were "remarkably inaccurate" and asking why NBC would spend time and energy to "talk about our ratings."

"Maybe because it's more fun than talking about NBC ratings," he said.

The pitched back-and-forth occurred as ratings are falling for broadcast and cable networks while Netflix's offerings of original programs are growing. Mr. Sarandos said that the streaming service would spend $6 billion on content this year, and original scripted programming would be part of that budget.

The death of cable is accelerating.

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

The World Socialist Web Site reports

On [January 16], retail giant Wal-Mart announced that it was preparing to close up to 269 outlets globally, including 154 stores in the United States. The decision to close several hundred stores would affect nearly 16,000 employees. The big box retailer cited the costs of competing with online retailers as well as the impact of marginal wage increases given to its workforce as the cause for the closures.

The announcement comes amid a string of shutdowns and layoffs that have highlighted increasing levels of economic uncertainty facing businesses worldwide. In addition to the US outlets, Wal-Mart also stated that it would seek to close 115 stores abroad, with a majority of the closures being "money-losing" stores in Brazil.

The company has seen its stock prices decline by nearly 30 percent over the past year. [...] CEO Doug McMillon [...] sought to reassure company stockholders that the planned layoffs amounted to less than 1 percent of the retailer's total workforce and that the company [is] aiming to open 300 new stores in the coming year.

The company also announced plans to close all of its smaller-scale "express" stores, stating it would seek to refocus its efforts toward building its presence in online shopping, "supercenters", and neighborhood grocery outlets.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is the world's largest company based upon revenue. In addition, the firm operates over 11,600 outlets across the globe and employs an estimated 2.2 million people, making it the world's largest private employer.

[Continues...]

takyon writes:

A class-action lawsuit involving Microsoft's Xbox 360 console has been appealed to the Supreme Court:

The Supreme Court will decide whether Microsoft must face a class-action lawsuit that claims a defect in the media giant's popular Xbox 360 console was prone to scratching game discs, rendering them unplayable.

The lawsuit alleges that vibrations or small movements of the console might cause the optical drive to scratch discs. The suit accuses Microsoft of knowing about the alleged issue before the Xbox 360 launched in 2005. According to the original lawsuit, brought in 2012, there were as many as 55,000 complaints about the scratching issue by as early as 2008.

Compared to individual suits, class action suits are much more costly to fend off and they expose companies to far greater damage awards. The Supreme Court justices did not say when they would hear Microsoft's appeal of a federal appellate court's decision (PDF) allowing the class action to go forward. But in a one-sentence note attached to an order Friday, the Supreme Court said it would focus on whether the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals—the federal appeals court that ordered the class-action to proceed—had the legal authority to review a lower court's decision nullifying the class.

Alternate coverage at Motherboard and Courthouse News Service.

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takyon writes:

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly on the International Space Station has unveiled the first flower to bloom in space, an orange zinnia:

The Veggie plant growth facility was installed on the orbiting laboratory in early May of 2014, and the first crop – 'Outredgrous' red romaine lettuce – was activated for growth. The first growth cycle faced some issues. "We lost two plants due to drought stress in the first grow out and thus were very vigilant with respect to the second crop," said Trent Smith, Veggie project manager.

The second crop of the same lettuce was activated in early July by NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, and thanks to lessons learned from the first run, adjustments to watering and collecting imagery of the plants were made. The leafy greens grew according to schedule, with only one plant pillow not producing. This time the crew was able to eat the lettuce when it was ready to be harvested a month later.

The next crop on the docket was a batch of zinnia flowers, but they weren't selected for their beauty. They were chosen because they can help scientists understand how plants flower and grow in microgravity.

"The zinnia plant is very different from lettuce, said Trent Smith, Veggie project manager. "It is more sensitive to environmental parameters and light characteristics. It has a longer growth duration between 60 and 80 days. Thus, it is a more difficult plant to grow, and allowing it to flower, along with the longer growth duration, makes it a good precursor to a tomato plant.

Edit: Or not.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

From Yahoo Finance:

Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent today celebrate their first day of combined operations, marking the completion of Nokia's latest transformation and the creation of a global leader in technology and services for an IP connected world.

"Nokia has gone through a fundamental transformation," said Risto Siilasmaa, Chairman of the Nokia Board of Directors. "Over 99% of our more than 100 000 employees did not carry a Nokia badge just three short years ago. Our earnings, market cap and growth opportunities have multiplied. We have a powerful guiding vision of the Programmable World, an extremely capable management team and a strong ambition to innovate and lead. We move forward with excitement, confidence and an ability to continue to challenge the status quo."

Bell Labs already has a suggestion box.

Thoughts folks?

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A talk by Bruce Harris from Microsoft (duration: 22:22) has revealed some additional details about the company's augmented reality product, HoloLens. Initial versions of the product may face disappointing limitations:

Microsoft's HoloLens headset lasts just five and a half hours on a single charge, dropping to just two and a half hours following intensive use. The augmented reality headset, unveiled last January, will be completely wireless, depending only on its inbuilt battery for power, the company's Bruce Harris said at an event in Tel Aviv. The news is reminiscent of Google Glass, which was plagued by poor battery life during its few years of availability. Google's smart glasses were only capable of lasting around half an hour while shooting video before needing recharging, or three hours of general active use.

[...] Other details Harris revealed include that every HoloLens will have WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, allowing wearers to connect with and play against others free from a laptop or smartphone connection.

Another slight niggle may be the headset's currently limited field of view. Harris said the company planned to expand its scope later in the developmental process, but that at present, its view is comparable to watching a 15-inch monitor from two feet away. Concrete details around HoloLens are hard to come by; a definite sale date and price have yet to be announced, though developers kits will start shipping within the next two months priced at $3,000.

More coverage at The Verge, PC World.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Doom co-creator John Romero has made a new map for the game after around 21 years:

John Romero is virtually synonymous with Doom as one of its key developers, but he never made a map for it after 1995. Quake, and eventually his other studios, took over after that. However, he's finally coming home to roost: Romero has released an add-on map for the original Doom, "Tech Gone Bad," that reimagines the Phobos Anomaly at the end of Episode 1. That's bound to whet your appetite if you're a veteran gamer. He's not only intimately familiar with Doom, he's approaching it with 21 years of additional experience under his belt -- as early reactions attest, this is probably much better than the homebrew maps that you saw two decades ago.

You'll need to brush up on running third-party maps, since Doom hails from the old days of command line modes. However, you might have a good reason to dust off those old skills. Romero describes this as a "warm-up," so don't be shocked if he makes further maps for Doom, Doom II or something else entirely.

Level download. ZDoom, Doom Legacy, and other open source ports are available.

From the WAD description:

Misc. Author Info: My previous Doom levels were made in 1995 for The Ultimate Doom (e4m2, e4m6), so this is a warm-up.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

An intermediate mass black hole has been discovered in the Milky Way galaxy, and it's just 200 light years from the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* at the center of the galaxy:

Using the Nobeyama 45-meter Radio Telescope, which is managed by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), the researchers found the object only 200 light-years from the Milky Way's supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr. A*). By tracking the emissions from a swirling gas cloud called "CO-0.40-0.22," they found a "surprisingly wide velocity dispersion" — in other words, this cloud of gas is composed of material that is swirling at a wide range of speeds. There appears to be no supernova activity or any other energetic event in the region that could be driving this bizarre phenomenon.

Using computer models, the researchers were able to deduce that an extremely compact object — in other words, a black hole — lives in the "eye" of this interstellar storm and it must be massive. And by "massive" they mean in the order of 100,000 solar masses-massive. If confirmed, this would make the invisible object at the core of CO-0.40-0.22 a so-called "intermediate-mass" black hole, second in mass only to mighty Sgr. A* itself. Sgr. A* "weighs in" at a staggering 4 million solar masses.

"Considering the fact that no compact objects are seen in X-ray or infrared observations, as far as we know, the best candidate for the compact massive object is a black hole," said Tomoharu Oka, of Keio University in Japan and lead author of a study published in the Astrophysical Journal.

Alternate coverage at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.

Signature of an Intermediate-Mass Black Hole in the Central Molecular Zone of Our Galaxy (DOI: 10.3847/2041-8205/816/1/L7, arXiv)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

In a VentureBeat interview with Raja Koduri, head of the Radeon Technologies Group at AMD, the company continues to advocate for virtual reality running at "16K resolution" at up to 240 Hz:

When Advanced Micro Devices created its own stand-alone graphics division, Radeon Technologies Group, and crafted a new brand, Polaris, for its upcoming graphics architecture, it was an admission of sorts. AMD championed the combination of processors and graphics into a single chip, dubbed the accelerated processing unit (APU). But the pendulum swung a little too far in that direction, away from stand-alone graphics. And now it's Raja Koduri's job to compensate for that.

I interviewed Koduri at the 2016 International CES, the big tech trade show in Las Vegas last week. He acknowledged that AMD intends to put graphics back in the center. And he said that 2016 will be a very big year for the company as it introduces its advanced FinFET manufacturing technology, which will result in much better performance per watt — or graphics that won't melt your computer. Koduri believes this technology will help AMD beat rivals such as Nvidia. AMD's new graphics chips will hit during the middle of 2016, Koduri said.

Beyond 2016, Koduri believes that graphics is going to get more and more amazing. Virtual reality is debuting, but we won't be completely satisfied with the imagery until we get 3D graphics that can support 16K screens, or at least 16 times more pixels on a screen that[sic] we have available on most TVs today. Koduri wants to pump those pixels at you at a rate of 240 hertz, or changing the pixels at a rate of 240 times per second. Only then will you really experience true immersion that you won't be able to tell apart from the real world. He calls it "mirror-like" graphics. That's pretty far out thinking.

AMD's "Polaris" GPUs will be released sometime during the summer of 2016. Along with AMD's "Zen" CPUs and APUs, Polaris GPUs will be built using a 14nm FinFET process, skipping the 20nm node.

Original Submission

legont writes:

Zerohedge reports:

It is not the point if they are crooks or if it is illegal (it is) or if they will or will not go to prison one day.

The point is artificially inflated markets always crash to test the previous bottom (and usually overshoot somewhat). I think 5000 DOW is likely.

Original Submission

joekiser writes:

You may have heard recently of the Remix OS, a fork of Android that targets desktop computing. The operating system, which was created by former Google employees and features a traditional desktop layout in addition to the ability to run Android apps, was previewed on Ars Technica a few weeks ago, but it was not actually released for end-users to download until earlier this week.

Now that Remix OS has been released, The Linux Homefront Project is reporting that the Android-based operating system, for which source code is not readily available, violates both the GPL and the Apache License. The RemixOS installer includes a "Remix OS USB Tool" that is really a re-branded copy of popular disk imaging tool UNetbootin, which falls under the GPL. Additionally, browsing through the install image files reveals that the operating system is based on the Apache Licensed Android-x86 project. From the article:

Is this a blatant disregard for the GPL and Apache licenses by an optimistic startup, or were the authors too eager to release that they forgot to provide access to the repo?

Original Submission

HughPickens.com writes:

Over 80 percent of college students are plagued by procrastination, requiring epic all-nighters to finish papers and prepare for tests. Roughly 20 percent of adults report being chronic procrastinators. But Adam Grant writes in the NYT that while we think of procrastination as a curse for productivity, procrastination is really a virtue for creativity. According to Grant our first ideas are usually our most conventional but when you procrastinate, you're more likely to let your mind wander giving you a better chance of stumbling onto the unusual and spotting unexpected patterns. "When we finish a project, we file it away. But when it's in limbo, it stays active in our minds." Jihae Shin designed some experiments. She asked people to come up with new business ideas. Some were randomly assigned to start right away. Others were given five minutes to first play Minesweeper or Solitaire. Everyone submitted their ideas, and independent raters rated how original they were. The procrastinators' ideas were 28 percent more creative. When people played games before being told about the task, there was no increase in creativity. It was only when they first learned about the task and then put it off that they considered more novel ideas. It turned out that procrastination encouraged divergent thinking.

Even some monumental achievements are helped by procrastination. Grant says that according to those who knew him, Steve Jobs procrastinated constantly, Bill Clinton has been described as a "chronic procrastinator" who waits until the last minute to revise his speeches, and Frank Lloyd Wright spent almost a year procrastinating on a commission, to the point that his patron drove out and insisted that he produce a drawing on the spot. It became Fallingwater, Wright's masterpiece. Aaron Sorkin, the screenwriter behind "Steve Jobs" and "The West Wing," is known to put off writing until the last minute. When Katie Couric asked him about it, he replied, "You call it procrastination, I call it thinking."

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Perovskites, substances that perfectly absorb light, are the future of solar energy. Now, a rapid and environmentally safe method of production has been developed by chemists from Warsaw, Poland. Perovskites can now be synthesized by solid-state mechanochemical processes by grinding powders [PDF source], rather than in solutions at a high temperature.

We tend to associate the milling of chemicals with old-fashioned pharmacies and the pestle and mortar. It's time to change this—recent research findings show that by the use of mechanical force, effective chemical transformations take place in solid state substances. Mechanochemical reactions have been under investigation for many years by the teams of Prof. Janusz Lewiński from the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IPC PAS) and the Faculty of Chemistry of Warsaw University of Technology. In their latest publication, the Warsaw researchers describe a surprisingly simple and effective method of obtaining perovskites - futuristic photovoltaic materials with a spatially complex crystal structure.

"With the aid of mechanochemistry we are able to synthesize a variety of hybrid inorganic-organic functional materials with a potentially great significance for the energy sector. Our youngest 'offspring' are high quality perovskites. These compounds can be used to produce thin light-sensitive layers for high efficiency solar cells," says Prof. Lewiński.

Perovskites are a large group of materials, characterized by a defined spatial crystalline structure. In nature, the perovskite naturally occurring as a mineral is calcium titanium(IV) oxide CaTiO3. Here, the calcium atoms are arranged in the corners of the cube. In the middle of each wall, there is an oxygen atom and at the centre of the cube lies a titanium atom. In other types of perovskite, the same crystalline structure can be constructed of various organic and inorganic compounds, which means titanium can be replaced by, for example, lead, tin or germanium. As a result, the properties of the perovskite can be adjusted so as to best fit the specific application—for example, in photovoltaics or catalysis, but also in the construction of superconducting electromagnets, high voltage transformers, magnetic refrigerators, magnetic field sensors, or RAM memories.

"Two powders are poured into the ball mill: a white one, methylammonium iodide CH3NH3I, and a yellow one, lead iodide PbI2. After several minutes of milling, no trace is left of the substrates. Inside the mill, there is only a homogeneous black powder: the perovskite CH3NH3PbI3," explains doctoral student Anna Maria Cieślak.

The Perovskites created through mechanical assembly performed 10% better than those created using traditional solvents.

Mechanosynthesis of the hybrid perovskite CH₃NH₃PbI₃: characterization and the corresponding solar cell efficiency (DOI: 10.1039/C5TA04904K)

Original Submission

legont writes:

Russia Today reports

What are the chances we will see a live test any time soon? How about delivering an asteroid for mining?

Original Submission