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takyon writes:

Now that Pokémon Go has peaked, we can dig into the trough:

The Norwegian prime minister has been caught playing Pokémon Go during a debate in Norway's parliament. Erna Solberg was pictured playing the game during a debate in the Storting on Tuesday. It's no secret Solberg is a big fan of Pokémon Go. During an official trip in Slovakia, she took some time out to play the game, telling reporters she was keen to hatch some of her 10km eggs.

This isn't even the first time a Norwegian politician has been caught playing the game while in parliament.

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Phoenix666 writes:

From 3D-printed high-heels to Wi-Fi jackets, and watches packed with enough smarts to make James Bond jealous, fashion and technology are – for better or worse – increasingly intertwined. For Paris Fashion Week, designer Hussein Chalayan has teamed up with Intel to create a high-tech outfit straight out of an 80s sci-fi movie, complete with glasses that sense stress and a belt that projects live images of that data onto a wall.

The glasses are running on Intel's Curie, a button-sized module designed as a low-power, versatile "brain" for wearable devices such as Chromat's dress and sports bra, which surfaced at last year's MADE Fashion Week. In this case, the smart specs determine the wearer's stress levels by monitoring biometric data such as brainwave activity via in-built EEG electrodes. There's also an optical heart rate sensor and a microphone that picks up breathing rate.

Imagine a room full of engineers wearing these while the PHB unveils the specs for a next-gen project.

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-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

El Reg reports

Microsoft may have used its Ignite conference to trumpet Windows 10 now running on 400 million devices, but the operating system's market share went backwards in September according to two of three traffic-watchers we track each month.

StatCounter Global Stats has Windows 10 at 24.42 per cent desktop OS market share for September, down just .01 per cent from its August share. Netmarketshare recorded a sharper dip, from August's 22.99 per cent to a September reading of 22.53 per cent.

[...] StatCounter has recently recorded a surge in "Unknown" desktop operating systems, [...] suggesting tracking and/or methodological issues.

We therefore checked out another useful source of data, [USA.gov]. When we crunched those numbers, we found Windows 10 accounted for 31.98 per cent of visits to US government sites in August and 32.48 per cent in September, which hardly suggests Microsoft's latest OS is rocketing up the charts.

[...] Our analysis of this data last month suggested Windows 10 has done very well at home, but is yet to crack the business market.

[Continues...]

MIT's Beaver-Inspired Wetsuits

takyon and Phoenix666 write in with the same story:

MIT researchers are designing wetsuits that use the same mechanism that keeps beavers and sea otters warm when diving:

Beavers and sea otters lack the thick layer of blubber that insulates walruses and whales. And yet these small, semiaquatic mammals can keep warm and even dry while diving, by trapping warm pockets of air in dense layers of fur. Inspired by these fuzzy swimmers, MIT engineers have now fabricated fur-like, rubbery pelts and used them to identify a mechanism by which air is trapped between individual hairs when the pelts are plunged into liquid.

The results, published in the journal Physical Review Fluids, provide a detailed mechanical understanding for how mammals such as beavers insulate themselves while diving underwater. The findings may also serve as a guide for designing bioinspired materials — most notably, warm, furry wetsuits. "We are particularly interested in wetsuits for surfing, where the athlete moves frequently between air and water environments," says Anette (Peko) Hosoi, a professor of mechanical engineering and associate head of the department at MIT. "We can control the length, spacing, and arrangement of hairs, which allows us to design textures to match certain dive speeds and maximize the wetsuit's dry region."

Air entrainment in hairy surfaces (DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevFluids.1.033905) (DX)

Motivated by diving semiaquatic mammals, we investigate the mechanism of dynamic air entrainment in hairy surfaces submerged in liquid. Hairy surfaces are cast out of polydimethylsiloxane elastomer and plunged into a fluid bath at different velocities. Experimentally, we find that the amount of air entrained is greater than what is expected for smooth surfaces. Theoretically, we show that the hairy surface can be considered as a porous medium and we describe the air entrainment via a competition between the hydrostatic forcing and the viscous resistance in the pores. A phase diagram that includes data from our experiments and biological data from diving semiaquatic mammals is included to place the model system in a biological context and predict the regime for which the animal is protected by a plastron of air.

Also reported here.

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takyon writes:

Facebook is interested in bringing zero-rated "Free Basics" Internet access to Americans, after its failure in India:

Facebook has been in talks for months with U.S. government officials and wireless carriers with an eye toward unveiling an American version of an app that has caused controversy abroad, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. The social media giant is trying to determine how to roll out its program, known as Free Basics, in the United States without triggering the regulatory scrutiny that effectively killed a version of the app in India earlier this year. If Facebook succeeds with its U.S. agenda for Free Basics — which has not been previously reported — it would mark a major victory for the company as it seeks to connect millions more to the Web, and to its own platform.

The U.S. version of Free Basics would target low-income and rural Americans who cannot afford reliable, high-speed Internet at home or on smartphones. The app does not directly pay for users' mobile data. Rather, it allows users to stretch their data plans by offering, in partnership with wireless carriers, free Internet access to resources such as online news, health information and job leads.

Also at Ars Technica, CBS, USA Today, and CNET.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Microsoft's man in charge of predicting the future has forecast the slow death of the Qwerty keyboard — with facial tracking, voice and gesture recognition taking over. Dave Coplin, the technology giant's chief envisioning officer, said it was bizarre that 21st-century workers still relied on typing technology invented in the 19th century.  He added that while there have been huge leaps in technology, often the workplace had not caught up.

"We have these amazing computers that we essentially use like we're still Victorians. The Qwerty keyboard is a great example of an old design being brought forward to modern day. We've not really evolved. We still use this sub-optimal design.

"We're looking at technologies now like voice and gesture recognition, and facial tracking that may make the keyboard redundant," he added.

"We think that computers in the not-too-distant future will be able to understand all of those things and infer on my behalf my intent, meaning and objective that I'm trying to do."

Source: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/techandgadgets/microsoft-expert-who-predicts-future-technology-says-qwerty-keyboard-will-die-out-a3355726.html

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takyon writes:

Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 troubles may not be over, following another incendiary incident aboard an aircraft:

Samsung Electronics Co. could face an unusual second recall of its Note 7 smartphones if one that caught fire aboard an airliner this week is a replacement device as its owner says, two former U.S. safety officials said.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the Consumer Product Safety Commission are investigating Wednesday's incident, when a passenger's phone emitted smoke on a Southwest Airlines Co. plane readying for departure from Louisville, Kentucky. A flight attendant doused it with a fire extinguisher, and the plane was evacuated without injury. "If it's the fixed phone and it started to smoke in his pocket, I'm going to guess there'll be another recall," said Pamela Gilbert, a former executive director of the consumer agency. "That just doesn't sound right."

Samsung has been engulfed in crisis since the Note 7 smartphones began to burst into flames just days after hitting the market in August. The Suwon, South Korea-based company announced last month that it would replace all 2.5 million phones sold globally at that point. Samsung said it had uncovered the cause of the battery fires and that it was certain new phones wouldn't have the same flaws. [...] Samsung and U.S. officials announced the [first] recall after 92 reports of batteries overheating in the U.S., with 26 cases involving burns.

Previously:

Samsung Recalls Galaxy Note 7 due to 'Exploding' Batteries
Florida Man Sues Samsung Over Galaxy Note 7 that Exploded in His Pants

Original Submission

takyon writes:

The FCC has proposed rules that would protect the privacy of broadband subscribers, although they are less ambitious than originally envisioned, following complaints from telecoms:

A privacy proposal unveiled Thursday will require broadband providers such as Verizon and Comcast to get your permission before sharing with advertisers your phone or computer data. [...] The revised proposal, which will be put to an FCC vote on Oct. 27, says broadband providers do not have to get permission from customers to use "non-sensitive" information, such as names and addresses.

Also at The Wall Street Journal .

The Hill reports that the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] chairman authorized staffers to leak information before a vote on the expansion of the Lifeline subsidy program:

But the investigation by the agency's inspector general turned up "no evidence that the information was provided to the press in an attempt to unduly influence the outcome of the vote" and found Chairman Tom Wheeler had acted within his legal authority.

[...] Republican commissioners reached a deal with Democrat Mignon Clyburn before the committee's March open meeting that would have capped the program's budget. But the meeting was delayed multiple times as details of the deal leaked to the press. Clyburn ultimately voted for a version of the item without a cap, as proposed by Chairman Tom Wheeler. Critics have focused on a Politico report that included leaked details on the compromise and the proposed $2 billion budget cap. Later reports echo these details. They allege that the details may have been leaked to increase pressure on Clyburn, since many groups and lawmakers opposed the cap. Critics, on the other hand, say the Lifeline program is an example of a government program run amuck.

"The events surrounding the March 31st Commission vote adopting the Lifeline Order, while not unprecedented in their entirety, were certainly unusual," an investigator said in a memo released by the Republican majority of the Senate Commerce Committee. "Typically, commissioners do not engage in negotiations resulting in significant policy shifts in the final hours prior to a Commission vote." "Thus, while such activity is not improper or illegal, the rarity of the occurrence explains in large measure the interest, speculation and concern the matter has generated."

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takyon writes:

Scientists have found evidence of tool use and cultural transmission in bees:

[Cognitive scientist Lars] Chittka's team has shown that bumble bees can not only learn to pull a string to retrieve a reward, but they can also learn this trick from other bees, even though they have no experience with such a task in nature. The study "successfully challenges the notion that 'big brains' are necessary" for new skills to spread, says Christian Rutz, an evolutionary ecologist who studies bird cognition at the University of St. Andrews in the United Kingdom.

Many researchers have used string pulling to assess the smarts of animals, particularly birds [open, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0156112] [DX] and apes [open, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0108597] [DX]. So Chittka and his colleagues set up a low clear plastic table barely tall enough to lay three flat artificial blue flowers underneath. Each flower contained a well of sugar water in the center and had a string attached that extended beyond the table's boundaries. The only way the bumble bee could get the sugar water was to pull the flower out from under the table by tugging on the string. The team put 110 bumble bees, one at a time, next to the table to see what they would do. Some tugged at the strings and gave up, but two actually kept at it until they retrieved the sugar water. In another series of experiments, the researchers trained the bees by first placing the flower next to the bee and then moving it ever farther under the table. More than half of the 40 bees tested learned what to do [open, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002564] [DX], Chittka and his colleagues report this week in PLOS Biology.

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takyon writes:

Let's get social!

Photo-sharing app Snapchat's parent is working on an initial public offering that could value the company at $25 billion or more, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing several people familiar with the matter. Snap Inc, which operates the app that lets users send videos and messages that disappear in seconds, is looking to sell shares as early as late March, the Journal reported. (on.wsj.com/2cVicKG)

An IPO valued at $25 billion would be significantly higher than Snapchat's most recent valuation of $17.81 billion, based on a $1.81 billion financing round in May.

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takyon writes:

Re/code reports that potential buyers of Twitter, Inc. have backed away:

According to sources close to the situation, Google does not currently plan to make a bid for Twitter. While the search giant has been among the buyers considered most likely to be a contender for the social communications company, those familiar with the deal said that the company was not moving forward with an effort to buy it at this time.

In addition, several sources Recode has spoken to this week also said that Apple was unlikely to be one of the possible suitors, with one saying Twitter should have "low expectations" of getting an offer from the tech giant. Update: Disney, which had also considered a bid, is not going to make an offer, according to sources familiar with that company. That should tamp down the frenzied speculation around a possible Twitter sale since Salesforce began no-commenting noisily with regard to possible interest in acquiring it a few weeks ago.

Rumors followed by rumors have caused a rise and fall in Twitter's stock price:

Twitter Inc. shares plummeted on Thursday after it became apparent a sales process for the sputtering social-media company might not draw as many suitors as investors had hoped. Twitter stock, which had been marching steadily upward since news of a possible sale surfaced in September, fell 20% to $19.87. That brought the stock within 7% of where it traded before the leak. [...] Google's absence from the auction is a particular blow for Twitter. It has much deeper pockets than either of the other two possible suitors, and Alphabet sports a market value of more than $500 billion. Its dominance in search and advertising caused some analysts to speculate Google would be best suited to buy Twitter and find a way to make money off its legions of users.

Since launching its initial public offering in 2013, a series of management upheavals, product delays and muddled business strategies have complicated Twitter's effort to capture the world's mobile users and wring revenue out of them. The shares traded as high as $69 soon after the debut but have faded as growth in users and revenue slowed.

Previously: Disney Considering Bid for Twitter

Original Submission

takyon writes:

The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a star ejecting balls of plasma twice the size of Mars:

NASA's Hubble Telescope found superhot blobs of gas twice the size of Mars being ejected near a dying star. The plasma balls are moving so quickly that it would only take about half an hour for them to go from Earth to the Moon. Astronomers think this stellar "cannon fire" has been happening once every eight-and-a-half years for the past 400 years.

Astronomers are trying to solve the mystery of where these fireballs came from, but their best explanation is that they came from an unseen companion star. The companion star is in an elliptical orbit. As it entered host star V Hyrdrea's outer atmosphere, it eats up material, which is then turned into a disk around the companion star. The disk becomes a sort of launching pad for the plasma balls.

HIGH-SPEED BULLET EJECTIONS DURING THE AGB-TO-PLANETARY NEBULA TRANSITION: HST OBSERVATIONS OF THE CARBON STAR, V HYDRAE (open, DOI: 10.3847/0004-637X/827/2/92) (DX)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Samsung has acquired Viv Labs, an artificial intelligence startup formed by some of the original team that made Apple's Siri personal assistant:

Samsung is turning its attention to personal assistants—the company has acquired Viv Labs, a startup founded by Dag Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer, and Chris Brigham, all of whom were part of the original Siri team that Apple bought in 2010. The three departed Apple shortly after the acquisition to start Viv Labs, which recently showed off its AI personal assistant at Disrupt NY. While pricing has not been disclosed, the deal has been confirmed by Kittlaus in a post on Medium .

Viv Labs will continue to operate independently from Samsung, but it will share intelligence with the hardware manufacturer with the intent of integrating Viv into products. "Samsung will drastically accelerate our vision," Kittlaus writes. "For us, the glaringly obvious advantage Samsung brings to our vision is scale." [...] It's important to keep in mind that Viv's AI assistant hasn't officially launched yet—it has only been demoed. That was apparently enough for Samsung to want to invest in the company, and it's clear that Samsung understands how important AI will be going forward. At this week's Google event, the company heavily pushed the features of its assistant, emphasizing the conversational interactions users can have with it via their smartphones. Apple has been pushing Siri into anything and everything it can, including the Apple Watch and its new AirPods.

Also at Re/code and The Wall Street Journal . Samsung press release.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Microencapsulation, in which a tiny particle of one material is encased within a shell made from another, is widely used in pharmaceuticals manufacturing and holds promise for other areas, such as self-repairing materials and solar power.

But most applications of microencapsulation require particles of uniform size, and that's something that existing fabrication techniques don't reliably provide. In products with a high profit margin, such as pharmaceuticals, it can be cost effective to mechanically separate particles of the proper size from those that are too large or too small, but in niche or small-margin products, it may not be.

In the latest issue of the journal Lab on a Chip, researchers from MIT's Microsystems Technology Laboratories report a new microencapsulation technique that yields particles of very consistent size, while also affording a high rate of production.

Moreover, the devices used to produce the spheres were themselves manufactured with an affordable commercial 3-D printer. The ability to 3-D print fabrication systems would not only keep manufacturing costs low but also allow researchers to quickly develop systems for producing microencapsulated particles for particular applications.

"When you print your microsystems, you can iterate them very fast," says Luis Fernando Velásquez-García, a principal research scientist in the Microsystems Technology Laboratories and senior author on the new paper. "In one year, we were able to make three different generations that are significantly different from one another and that in terms of performance also improve significantly. Something like that would be too expensive and too time consuming with other methods."

Two of the criticisms of 3D printing have been that the print quality is poor and the undifferentiated plastic products are not terribly useful. This technique helps overcome those.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

This year's Paris Motor Show played host to electric debuts from well-known players like Mercedes and Volkswagen, but they weren't the only ones to make a big battery-powered push. The new GLM G4 might boast supercar performance, but its four doors and sumptuous cabin mean the whole family can come along for the ride.

We'll get back to the four-seat interior in a moment, but GLM is making some serious performance claims about its first four-seat sports car. Underneath the body, which was developed by Savage Rivale, is a twin-motor powertrain pumping out 1,000 Nm of torque and 400 kW (536 hp) of power. That's enough for a 100 km/h (62 mph) sprint time of just 3.7 seconds, putting it in the same ballpark as the Porsche Mission E and Audi R8 e-Tron.

Original Submission