SoylentNews

Phoenix666 writes:

A cocktail bar owner has installed a Faraday cage in his walls to prevent mobile phone signals entering the building.

Steve Tyler of the Gin Tub, in Hove, East Sussex, is hoping customers will be encouraged to talk to each other rather than looking at their screens.

He has installed metal mesh in the walls and ceiling of the bar which absorbs and redistributes the electromagnetic signals from phones and wireless devices to prevents them entering the interior of the building.

Why you hating on millennials, Bro?

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Google, which is hoping to beam the internet to remote areas of the world via balloon, went before the UN's aviation agency to ask member states to let it ply their airspace.

The company's X Lab, which was created to pursue big-vision projects, said it hopes to establish a network of helium balloons floating in the stratosphere that will emit a powerful 4G signal to rural and difficult-to-access areas.

The new initiative—launched in 2013 and dubbed "Project Loon"—saw its first balloon take off from South America in February only to crash at a tea plantation in Sri Lanka, where it was discovered by villagers.

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, had partnered with Sri Lanka to bring the internet to remote areas there. The country's Information and Communication Technology Agency, which coordinated the tests with Google, described the landing as controlled and scheduled.

Why not build a giant transmitter on the Moon?

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

A team of explorers say they have discovered the world's deepest underwater cave, 404 meters (1,325 feet) down, near the eastern Czech town of Hranice.

Polish explorer Krzysztof Starnawski told The Associated Press Friday he felt like a "Columbus of the 21th century" to have made the discovery.

Starnawski, 48, found the cave Tuesday in the flooded limestone Hranice Abyss, which he has explored since 1998. He scuba dived to a narrow slot at 200 meters' depth and let through a remotely-operated underwater robot, or ROV, that went to the depth of 404 meters.

In 2015, Starnawski himself passed through the slot and went to 265 meters' depth, realizing that was still far from the bottom and that the cavity was widening.

Speaking on the phone from his home in Krakow, southern Poland, he said that the discovery Tuesday makes Hranice Abyss the world's deepest known underwater cave, beating the previous record-holder, Italy's Pozzo del Merro flooded sinkhole, by 12 meters (39 feet.)

Original Submission

stormwyrm writes:

The hypothesis of dark matter has proved incredibly successful in explaining the overall large scale structure of the universe and in interactions on the level of galactic clusters, which competing hypotheses such as modified gravity have failed to adequately explain. However, on the relatively smaller scales of individual galaxies, hypothesising dark matter shows some problems. In a paper recently accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters, astronomers Stacy McGaugh and Federico Lelli of Case Western Reserve University, and Jim Schombert of the University of Oregon, have made observations of 153 different galaxies with a wide variety of shapes, masses, sizes and amounts of gas. They have found a strong relationship between how quickly the galaxy rotates and the presence of normal (baryonic) matter alone. From an article on Case Western Reserve University's Daily:

[...] A team led by Case Western Reserve University researchers has found a significant new relationship in spiral and irregular galaxies: the acceleration observed in rotation curves tightly correlates with the gravitational acceleration expected from the visible mass only.

"If you measure the distribution of star light, you know the rotation curve, and vice versa," said Stacy McGaugh, chair of the Department of Astronomy at Case Western Reserve and lead author of the research.

The finding is consistent among 153 spiral and irregular galaxies, ranging from giant to dwarf, those with massive central bulges or none at all. It is also consistent among those galaxies comprised of mostly stars or mostly gas.

[...] "Galaxy rotation curves have traditionally been explained via an ad hoc hypothesis: that galaxies are surrounded by dark matter," said David Merritt, professor of physics and astronomy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, who was not involved in the research. "The relation discovered by McGaugh et al. is a serious, and possibly fatal, challenge to this hypothesis, since it shows that rotation curves are precisely determined by the distribution of the normal matter alone. Nothing in the standard cosmological model predicts this, and it is almost impossible to imagine how that model could be modified to explain it, without discarding the dark matter hypothesis completely."

[...] Arthur Kosowsky, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Pittsburgh, was not involved but reviewed the research.

"The standard model of cosmology is remarkably successful at explaining just about everything we observe in the universe," Kosowsky said. "But if there is a single observation which keeps me awake at night worrying that we might have something essentially wrong, this is it."

Additional coverage and commentary by Ethan Siegel and Brian Koberlain. It seems that the universe has just thrown us yet another curve ball. This kind of correlation is just the sort of thing that modified gravity such as MOND and TeVeS predict. However, they fail miserably in explaining the large scale structure and evolution of the universe, which the dark matter explains admirably.

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

The Conservation Law Foundation is taking Exxon to court over water pollution in Massachusetts.

[In the Autumn of 2015], exposés by InsideClimate News [1] and the Los Angeles Times confirmed that oil giant ExxonMobil knew as early as the late 1970s that climate change caused by human activities would be devastating if left unchecked. But instead of taking action, the corporation lied to the government, and to all of us, by funding an aggressive campaign trying to foment doubt about climate science.

So, we started our own investigation, focused on how this climate deceit has affected us closer to home. We found that despite knowing the harm [that] climate change could cause, ExxonMobil left its oil storage facility in Everett, MA on the Mystic [River] vulnerable to flooding from storms and rising seas. Now it's just a matter of time before a giant storm floods our streets with a toxic soup from Exxon's dilapidated facilities.

In an effort to finally hold ExxonMobil accountable for its climate deceit, gross negligence, and violations of federal pollution regulations, CLF today [September 29] officially filed suit[PDF] against the corporate giant. It's a landmark suit, and not only because it's the first major lawsuit to be filed against the company since the #ExxonKnew revelations were uncovered.

[...] This case presents a tremendous opportunity for change, and the potential to set a precedent for the dynamic role of local advocacy in taking on transnational corporations. It also shows us that no company, organization, or government agency is too big to be held responsible for its actions, and no one town or resident is too small or too weak to demand environmental justice.

[...] Learn more about the lawsuit here.

[1] Data Transfer Interrupted Google cache

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

For more than a decade, evidence has been piling up that humans colonized the Americas thousands of years before the Clovis people. The Clovis, who are the early ancestors of today's Native Americans, left abundant evidence of their lives behind in the form of tools and graves. But the mysterious pre-Clovis humans, who likely arrived 17,000 to 15,000 years ago, have left only a few dozen sources of evidence for their existence across the Americas, mostly at campsites where they processed animals during hunting trips. Now a fresh examination of one such campsite, a 14,000-year-old hunter's rest stop outside the city of Tres Arroyos in Argentina, has given us a new understanding of how the pre-Clovis people might have lived.

These early settlers were hunter-gatherers who used stone tools for a wide range of activities, including hunting, butchery, scraping hides, preparing food, and making other tools out of bone and wood. Many of the pre-Clovis stone tools look fairly simple and were made by using one stone to flake pieces off the other, thus creating sharp edges. At the campsite in Argentina, known as the Arroyo Seco 2 site, archaeologists have found more than 50 such tools made from materials like chert and quartzite. They're scattered across an area that was once a grassy knoll above a deep lake, which is rich with thousands of animal bone fragments that have been carbon dated to as early as 14,000 years ago. There are even a couple-dozen human burials at the site, dated to a later period starting roughly 9,000 years ago. The spot has the characteristic look of a hunter's camp, used for processing animals, that was revisited seasonally for thousands of years.

[Continues...]

An Anonymous Coward writes:

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/state-ags-sue-to-stop-internet-transition-228893

Four Republican state attorneys general are suing to stop the Obama administration from transferring oversight of the internet to an international body, arguing the transition would violate the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit — filed Wednesday in a Texas federal court — threatens to throw up a new roadblock to one of the White House's top tech priorities, just days before the scheduled Oct. 1 transfer of the internet's address system is set to take place.

In their lawsuit, the attorneys general for Arizona, Oklahoma, Nevada and Texas contend that the transition, lacking congressional approval, amounts to an illegal giveaway of U.S. government property. They also express fear that the proposed new steward of the system, a nonprofit known as ICANN, would be so unchecked that it could "effectively enable or prohibit speech on the Internet."

The four states further contend that ICANN could revoke the U.S. government's exclusive use of .gov and .mil, the domains used by states, federal agencies and the U.S. military for their websites. And the four attorneys general argue that ICANN's "current practices often foster a lack of transparency that, in turn, allows illegal activity to occur."

Original Submission

martyb writes:

There's fast and then there's fast! I found this story at Ars Technica which is reporting that the IEEE has approved the 802.3bz standard: 2.5Gbps over Cat 5e, 5Gbps over Cat 6:

A new Ethernet standard that allows for up to 2.5Gbps over normal Cat 5e cables (the ones you probably have in your house) has been approved by the IEEE. The standard—formally known as IEEE 802.3bz-2016, 2.5G/5GBASE-T, or just 2.5 and 5 Gigabit Ethernet—also allows for up to 5Gbps over Cat 6 cabling.

The new standard was specifically designed to bridge the copper-twisted-pair gap between Gigabit Ethernet (1Gbps), which is currently the fastest standard for conventional Cat 5e and Cat 6 cabling, and 10 Gigabit Ethernet, which can do 10Gbps but requires special Cat 6a or 7 cabling. Rather impressively work only began on the new standard at the end of 2014, which gives you some idea of how quickly the powers that be wanted to push this through.

[...] The new 2.5G/5GBASE-T standard (PDF) will let you run 2.5Gbps over 100 metres of Cat 5e or 5Gbps over 100 metres of Cat 6, which should be fine for most homes and offices. The standard also implements other nice-to-have features, including various Power over Ethernet standards (PoE, PoE+, and UPoE)—handy for rolling out Wi-Fi access points.

The physical (PHY) layer of 2.5G/5GBASE-T is very similar to 10GBASE-T, but instead of 400MHz of spectral bandwidth it uses either 200MHz or 100MHz, thus not requiring a super-high-quality mega-shielded cable. ... Other differences from 10GBASE-T include low density parity checking (LDPC) rather than CRC-8 error correction, and PAM-16 modulation rather than DSQ128.>

These last acronyms are all designed to deal with errors in data transmission. low density parity checking, CRC, Pulse amplitude modulation, and DSQ128 is a 128-bit implementation of Double Square QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation).

As this standard was just approved it will still be a while before commercial products are available, let alone for them to become affordable for regular consumers. I'm curious if there are any Soylentils who are already maxing out their gigabit networks, and if so, what are you doing to max it out? How much would this additional speed help?

Original Submission

butthurt writes:

PaymentEye and EWeek report on the partnership of Lenovo, Intel, Synaptics and PayPal. Lenovo Yoga 910 laptop computers are fitted with Intel processors and Synaptics fingerprint readers. PayPal will allow sign-ins using the FIDO (fast identity online) protocols. With the so-called "biometric" system, people can be identified without the use of passwords and without sending their fingerprint data over the Internet.

Further information:

• Lenovo press release
• Intel press release
• membership list of FIDO Alliance

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Tech industry leaders have joined together to form the Partnership on AI:

Amazon, DeepMind/Google, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft today announced that they will create a non-profit organization that will work to advance public understanding of artificial intelligence technologies (AI) and formulate best practices on the challenges and opportunities within the field. Academics, non-profits, and specialists in policy and ethics will be invited to join the Board of the organization, named the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society (Partnership on AI).

The objective of the Partnership on AI is to address opportunities and challenges with AI technologies to benefit people and society. Together, the organization's members will conduct research, recommend best practices, and publish research under an open license in areas such as ethics, fairness, and inclusivity; transparency, privacy, and interoperability; collaboration between people and AI systems; and the trustworthiness, reliability, and robustness of the technology. It does not intend to lobby government or other policymaking bodies.

The Partnership on AI seems to have a broader and more near-term focus than OpenAI and other groups pushing for friendly "strong" AI. Get used to hearing the phrase "algorithmic responsibility." You can get involved by contacting getintouch@partnershiponai.org according to the FAQ.

Reported at Fast Company and The Guardian . Apple is not a founding member.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

It's time for Europe's comet probe, Rosetta, to die. At 4:48pm ET (20:48 UTC) Thursday, the spacecraft fired its thruster for 208 seconds, setting Rosetta on course for a controlled descent to the surface of its comet on Friday morning at approximately 7:20am ET (12:20 UTC).

In accord with the spacecraft's descent to the surface, the European Space Agency will provide live coverage via Livestream about an hour before the landing time. The live video will feature status updates from mission controllers live from the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany.

The spacecraft should touch down at a walking pace, then be commanded to shut down.

Signal Lost as expected at 12:18 UTC

Source: http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/09/rosetta-to-finish-its-slow-descent-to-comets-surface-friday-morning/

Original Submission

McGruber writes:

The Associated Press is reporting that Federal Prosecutors have filed conspiracy charges against a part-owner of two information technology firms and an employee for fraudulently using the H-1B program.

Prosecutors said the conspirators falsely represented that the foreign workers had full-time positions and were paid an annual salary. They said the workers were only paid when placed at a third-party client and the defendants sometimes generated false payroll records. The defendants are charged with conspiracy to commit visa fraud and obstruct justice and conspiracy to harbor aliens. They face up to 15 years in prison if convicted on all counts.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Global automakers are showing off new electric vehicles at the Paris auto show as they look ahead to a world of tighter environmental standards and brace for rapid changes in technology.

Volkswagen, trying to recover from revelations some of its diesel cars pollute far more than is allowed, displayed the I.D, a battery-powered compact it says will sell for about what a fully equipped Golf diesel does when a production version eventually goes on the market in 2020.

Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz luxury brand unveiled a new battery-powered SUV dubbed the EQ, a concept vehicle that gives an idea of what future offerings might look like.

CEO Dieter Zetsche, dressed in faded jeans and sneakers more reminiscent of Silicon Valley executives than the more formal auto industry, said the company aimed to bring out 10 fully electric vehicles by 2025. It wants to have electrics make up 15-25 percent of global sales by then—depending, he added, on the "continued development of infrastructure and customer preferences."

Do any Soylentils have an electric car? What do you like, and dislike, about it?

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Aircraft engineers in Germany have successfully tested the world's first four-seater plane that uses emission-free hybrid fuel cells to fly.

The 10-minute test flight Thursday at Stuttgart Airport in southwestern Germany involved two pilots and two dummy passengers.

The twin-cabin plane, known as HY4, was developed by aircraft maker Pipistrel, fuel cell specialist Hydrogenics, the University of Ulm and the German Aerospace Center DLR.

It uses hydrogen to generate electricity in-flight, giving it a cruising speed of 165 kilometers per hour (102.5 mph) and a range of up to 1,500 kilometers (932 miles), while relying on batteries for take-off and landing.

Jet emissions do produce a measurable effect on our climate.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Typhoons are generally associated with mass destruction, but a Japanese engineer has developed a wind turbine that can harness the tremendous power of these storms and turn it into useful energy. If he's right, a single typhoon could power Japan for 50 years.

Atsushi Shimizu is the inventor of the world's first typhoon turbine—an extremely durable, eggbeater-shaped device that can not only withstand the awesome forces generated by a typhoon, it can convert all that power into useable energy. Shimizu's calculations show that a sufficiently large array of his turbines could capture enough energy from a single typhoon to power Japan for 50 years.

Less efficient that traditional turbines, but built more rugged to survive a typhoon.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

While surveying natural limestone caves in the Galilee, scientists have discovered hundreds of limestone caves in which Jews hid when Roman troops came marching through 2,000 years ago, during the Great Jewish Revolt (66-70 CE).

Extensive embellishment such as baths and candle niches carved into the rock show that the caves had been prepared for extensive habitation.

Water cisterns carved into the rock, as well as pitchers, pottery shards, coins, and other artifacts dating to the 1st century C.E. were found in many of the cliff shelters, say Dr. Yinon Shivtiel from the Safed Academic College and Vladimir Boslove of the Israeli Cave Research Center. The work was funded by the Safed Academic College Research Foundation.

The cave entrances are pretty easy to spy, for a hiding place...

Original Submission