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takyon writes:

Could ghost imaging spy satellite be a game changer for Chinese military?

China is developing a new type of spy satellite using ghost imaging technology that could change the game of military cat and mouse within a decade, according to scientists involved in the project.

Existing camouflage techniques – from simple smoke bombs used to hide tanks or soldiers on battlefields to the hi-tech radar absorption materials on a stealth aircraft or warship – would be of no use against ghost imaging, physics experts said.

Quantum ghost imaging can achieve unprecedented sensitivity by detecting not just the extremely small amount of light straying off a dim target, but also its interactions with other light in the surrounding environment to obtain more information than traditional methods.

A satellite equipped with the new quantum sensor would be able to identify and track targets that are currently invisible from space, such as stealth bombers taking off at night, according to researchers.

The U.S. Air Force and NASA have also researched this technology.

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Fnord666 writes:

Facebook is expanding its limited test run for suicide- and -self-harm reporting tools to the masses. To get better at detection the social network will begin implementing pattern recognition for posts and Live videos to detect when someone could be presenting suicidal thoughts. From there, VP of product management Guy Rosen writes that the social network will also concentrate efforts to improve alerting first responders when the need arises. Facebook will also have more humans looking at posts flagged by its algorithms.

Currently the passive/AI detection tools are only available in the US, but soon those will roll out across the globe -- European Union countries notwithstanding. In the past month, Facebook has pinged over 100 first responders about potentially fatal posts, in addition to those that were reported by someone's friends and family.

Apparently, "Are you okay?" and "Can I help?" comments are good indicators that someone might be going through a very dark moment. More than that, Rosen says that thanks to the algorithms and those phrases, Facebook has picked up on videos that might've otherwise gone unnoticed prior.

"With all the fear about how AI may be harmful in the future, it's good to remind ourselves how AI is actually helping save people's lives today," CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a post on the social network.

Source: https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/27/facebook-ai-suicide-prevention-tools/

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Fnord666 writes:

Origami-like soft robot can lift 1000 times its weight

Soft robotics allow machines to move in ways which mimic living organisms, but increased flexibility usually means reduced strength, which limits its use. Now, scientists at MIT CSAIL & Harvard have developed origami-like artificial muscles that add much-needed strength to soft robots, allowing them to lift objects as much as 1,000 times their own weight using only water or air pressure. One 2.6 gram muscle is able to lift a 3 kilogram object, which is the same as a duck lifting a car.

The artificial muscles are made up of a plastic inner skeleton surrounded by air or water inside a sealed bag -- the "skin". Applying a vacuum to the inside of the bag initiates the muscle's movement, creating tension that drives the motion. No power source or human input is needed to direct the muscle, as it's guided purely by the composition of the skeleton.

In experiments, the researchers created muscles that can lift a flower off the ground, twist into a coil and contract down to 10 percent of their original size. They even made a muscle out of a water-soluble polymer, which means the technology could be used in natural setting with minimal environmental impact. Other potential applications include deep sea research, minimally invasive surgery and transformable architecture.

Also at Harvard's Wyss Institute, The Verge, LA Times, and Fast Company.

Fluid-driven origami-inspired artificial muscles (open, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1713450114) (DX)

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takyon writes:

SoftBank thinks Uber is valued over $20 billion too high, although other investors may disagree:

SoftBank is preparing to buy shares of Uber at a price that values Uber at only $48 billion, a steep 30 percent discount rate for ownership in the company, which was last valued at almost $70 billion.

That's in line with what Uber investors were expecting; Recode reported this weekend that the price could be as low as $48 billion or as high as $52 billion. The $48 billion price, confirmed by a person with knowledge of the figure, will however raise concerns about whether the secondary sale will succeed — SoftBank needs to accumulate 14 percent of the company's shares to trigger the so-called "tender offer."

Also at Bloomberg and TechCrunch.

Previously: Alphabet Leads $1 Billion Round of Investment in Lyft
SoftBank to Invest Billions in Uber
Uber to Purchase 24,000 Volvo SUVs for Autonomous Vehicle Fleet
SoftBank Knew of Data Breach at Uber

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canopic jug writes:

Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times writes about Portugal's Internet which shows us a world without net neutrality, and it's ugly. Basically, tiered services get in there through a loophole for zero-rating.

After paying a fee for basic service, subscribers can add any of five further options for about $6 per month, allowing an additional 10GB data allotment for the apps within the options: a "messaging" tier, which covers such services as instant messaging, Apple FaceTime, and Skype; "social," with liberal access to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and so on; "video" (youTube, Netflix, etc.); "email and cloud" (Gmail, Apple's iCloud); or "music" (Spotify, Pandora).

Portugal isn't the only country allowing tiering of internet services. In Britain, the internet service provider Vodaphone charges about $33 a month for basic service but offers several "passes" allowing unlimited video or music streaming, social media usage, or chat, at additional tariffs of up to $9.30 per month. [Ed's Note: This is not entirely accurate - Vodaphone's ISP home broadband offering (17Mbps) is £24/month unlimited usage, the additional figures quoted are for faster fiber connections (38 and 76 Mbps) where available. How you use your connection is irrelevant. This is the same for many European ISPs. Smart phone costs are entirely separate.]

Although both countries are part of the European Union, which has an explicit commitment to network neutrality, these arrangements are allowed under provisions giving national regulators some flexibility. These regulators can open loopholes permitting "zero-rating," through which ISPs can exclude certain services from data caps. That's what the Portuguese and British ISPs essentially are doing.

If the vote on the 14^th of December repeals Net Neutrality then consumer options will be greatly reduced while increasing greatly in prices as we can see from Portugal's example.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

Lauri Love[*], in the UK, is facing extradition requests from three separate US court districts and a potential 99 year prison sentence for his alleged involvement in the online protests that followed the death of Aaron Swartz. Depsite no evidence offered by the US, the British courts have preliminarily agreed to extradition and his appeal will be on the 28^th and 29^th of November. Again, no evidence has been presented against him, but if he were tried in the UK he would be facing a maximum of 32 months in prison, not 99 years as the US is aiming for.

[*] According to Wikipedia's entry for Lauri Love:

Lauri Love is a Finnish-British activist charged extraterritorially with stealing data from United States Government computers including the US Army, Missile Defense Agency, and NASA via computer intrusion.

Previously: Lauri Love to be Extradited to the U.S.

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Fnord666 writes:

For years, Comcast has been promising that it won't violate the principles of net neutrality, regardless of whether the government imposes any net neutrality rules. That meant that Comcast wouldn't block or throttle lawful Internet traffic and that it wouldn't create fast lanes in order to collect tolls from Web companies that want priority access over the Comcast network.

This was one of the ways in which Comcast argued that the Federal Communications Commission should not reclassify broadband providers as common carriers, a designation that forces ISPs to treat customers fairly in other ways. The Title II common carrier classification that makes net neutrality rules enforceable isn't necessary because ISPs won't violate net neutrality principles anyway, Comcast and other ISPs have claimed.

But with Republican Ajit Pai now in charge at the Federal Communications Commission, Comcast's stance has changed. While the company still says it won't block or throttle Internet content, it has dropped its promise about not instituting paid prioritization.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/comcast-quietly-drops-promise-not-to-charge-tolls-for-internet-fast-lanes/

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NewsChina http://www.newschinamag.com/newschina/articleDetail.do?article_id=2719 reports on an Ambitious Plan -- the early development of a new city, about 100 km SW of Beijing that is meant to house science and research companies/universities.

It is a several part feature, other sections are:
    http://www.newschinamag.com/newschina/articleDetail.do?article_id=2720
> Primary responsibility for planning the Xiongan New Area, a new megacity in Hebei province about 100 kilometers southwest of downtown Beijing, falls on the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design (CAUPD), which sits under the Ministry of Construction.

    http://www.newschinamag.com/newschina/articleDetail.do?article_id=2721
> To understand the strategic importance of the plan behind setting up the Xiongan New Area, NewsChina interviewed Zhang Junkuo, Deputy Director of the Development Research Center of the State Council

    http://www.newschinamag.com/newschina/articleDetail.do?article_id=2722
>A Science and Research Hub -- All eyes are on whether Beijing's science and research institutions will choose to expand or even relocate to the fields and towns of the Xiongan New Area.

    http://www.newschinamag.com/newschina/articleDetail.do?article_id=2723
> Smart and Green -- Xiongan New Area is set to become a regional transport center to advance the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. But will it avoid the pitfalls of other large cities?

    http://www.newschinamag.com/newschina/articleDetail.do?article_id=2724
> A New Model? -- In the six months that have passed since the government announced the ambitious plan to establish the Xiongan New Area 100 kilometers south of Beijing, Rongcheng, one of three counties in Hebei Province neighboring Beijing that are included in the project, has already seen some major changes.

    http://www.newschinamag.com/newschina/articleDetail.do?article_id=2725
> Locals in Limbo -- Residents in the three counties that will make up Xiongan share their hopes and concerns for the future

Central planning started three days after President Zi Jinpeng proposed it to the Central Committee on March 24, 2016. In June 2017 the initial plan was completed for a 30 Km^2 area, and was opened for global bidding.

The area includes a lake (badly polluted) and fishing villages that will be relocated...not everyone is going to be a winner here.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

According to Southern California Public Radio,

"Mad" Mike Hughes, limousine driver and self-proclaimed flat-Earther, announced that he had to delay his plan to launch himself 1,800 feet high in a rocket of his own making. The launch, which he has billed as a crucial first step toward ultimately photographing our disc-world from space, had been scheduled for Saturday — before the Bureau of Land Management got wind of the plan and barred him from using public land in Amboy, Calif.

Also, the rocket launcher he had built out of a used motor home "broke down in the driveway" on Wednesday, according to Hughes. He said in a YouTube announcement that they'd eventually gotten the launcher fixed — but the small matter of federal permission proved a more serious stumbling block (for now).

Related: Flat Earther Plans Manned Steam-Powered Rocket Launch.

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MrPlow inform us of a link:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

If there's one thing life is good at, it's adapting to new environments, but that's not always a good thing. Bacteria are fast adapting to antibiotics, rendering drugs less and less effective and threatening to cast us back into the dark ages of medicine. Now a research project backed by the European Union is trying to turn that same process to our advantage, with an "evolution machine" that directs the evolution of bacteria by making changes to their environment, guiding them to produce molecules that could one day lead to new drugs.

The evolution machine, dubbed EVOPROG, was developed as part of the European Union's Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) initiative. The system contains bioreactors full of mixed bacteria species and bacteriophages – viruses that attack bacteria and change their DNA, which in this case makes them produce molecules with certain functions.

[...] Phages are some of the fastest-evolving organisms, so to make EVOPROG work the scientists engineered them to function like biological versions of the "IF/THEN" statements that are key to programming. Here they've been designed so that "IF" a certain change is artificially introduced into their environment, "THEN" they attach themselves to a certain type of bacteria (which have also been carefully engineered) to produce molecules. Like natural evolution, the most effective phages are then selected for and allowed to replicate.

Source: Unnatural selection: The "evolution machine" that drives bacteria to produce new drugs

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Munich is ditching Linux in favor of Windows 10, at a cost of €49.3 million:

The Linux love affair of the German City of Munich, which decided to favor Linux in 2003, is finally over. The city has officially cleared the plan to bring back Windows 10 on about 29,000 PCs.

In 2003, when the city decided to switch to a Linux-based desktop called LiMux and other open source software, it showed that free software could be used on a large scale. However, things didn't turn out the way they were planned.

Coming back to the recent development, the politicians who supported the switch said that Windows 10 will make it easier to source compatible application and drivers, according to TechRepublic.

[...] Linux enthusiasts should also note that the city's IT Chief has previously said that any concrete technical reason doesn't back the move; it's all politics.

Also at Engadget.

Previously: No, Munich Isn't About To Ditch Free Software and Move Back to Windows
Munich Reveals Preliminary Costs for a 'Return' to Windows
Linux Champion Munich Takes Decisive Step Towards Returning to Windows

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

It is a sign of the times that one of the earliest and best known robots in movie history should move to the top of the list of the most expensive movie props ever sold. Now that robots have progressed from science fiction to reality, it isn't all that surprising that Robby the Robot's price has surpassed all but one of the most iconic movie props in history.

The complete Robby suit, control panel, his jeep, numerous spares, alternate original "claw" hands, and the original wooden stage shipping crates, were sold [on November 21, 2017] by Bonhams in New York for US$5,375,000 including buyers premium.

The only purpose-built movie prop to have ever sold for more is Marilyn Monroe's "subway dress" from The Seven Year Itch (1955) which was sold by Profiles in History for $5,520,000 (inc. buyers premium) in 2011.

Source: https://newatlas.com/robby-robot-2nd-most-expensive-movie-prop-forbidden-planet/52298/

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takyon writes:

Coral larvae can be transplanted from a lab and into a damaged coral reef:

Coral bred in one part of the Great Barrier Reef was successfully transplanted into another area, Australian scientists said Sunday, in a project they hope could restore damaged ecosystems around the world.

In a trial at the reef's Heron Island off Australia's east coast, the researchers collected large amounts of coral spawn and eggs late last year, grew them into larvae and then transplanted them into areas of damaged reef.

When they returned eight months later, they found juvenile coral that had survived and grown, aided by underwater mesh tanks.

"The success of this new research not only applies to the Great Barrier Reef but has potential global significance," lead researcher Peter Harrison of Southern Cross University said.

"It shows we can start to restore and repair damaged coral populations where the natural supply of coral larvae has been compromised."

Harrison said his mass larval-restoration approach contrasts with the current "coral gardening" method of breaking up healthy coral and sticking healthy branches on reefs in the hope they will regrow, or growing coral in nurseries before transplantation.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Time Inc., the publisher of Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, People, Entertainment Weekly, etc., will be bought for $1.84 billion by Meredith Corporation ($2.8 billion including debt):

U.S. media company Meredith Corp said on Sunday it will buy Time Inc, the publisher of People, Sports Illustrated and Fortune magazines, in a $1.84 billion (1.38 billion pounds) all-cash deal backed by conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. The deal is a coup for Meredith, which held unsuccessful talks to buy Time earlier this year and in 2013.

It will give news, business and sports brands to the Des Moines, Iowa-based publisher and broadcaster, which owns lifestyle magazines such as Better Homes & Gardens and Family Circle. Analysts have said that bulking up on publishing assets could give Meredith the scale required to spin off its broadcasting arm into a standalone company. When combined, the Meredith and Time brands will have a readership of 135 million people and paid circulation of nearly 60 million. The deal also will expand Meredith's reach with internet-savvy millennials, creating a digital media business with 170 million monthly unique visitors in the United States and more than 10 billion annual video views.

Did we mention the Koch brothers, aka Koch Koch and Luigi Koch?

Also at NPR, NYT, and BBC.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Microsoft Office now available on all Chromebooks

Microsoft has been testing out its Office apps on Chromebooks for the past year, but they've been mainly limited to Google's latest PixelBook device. It now appears that testing has concluded, and a number of Chromebooks are now reliably seeing the Office apps in the Google Play Store for Chromebooks. Chrome Unboxed reports that the apps are showing up on Samsung's Chromebook Pro, Acer's Chromebook 15, and Acer's C771.

The apps are Android versions of Office which include the same features you'd find on an Android tablet running Office. Devices like Asus' Chromebook Flip (with a 10.1-inch display) will get free access to Office on Chrome OS, but larger devices will need a subscription. Microsoft has a rule across Windows, iOS, and Android hardware that means devices larger than 10.1 inches need an Office 365 subscription to unlock the ability to create, edit, or print documents.

Also at Engadget.

Related: Microsoft Office for Android Phones Released
Microsoft Office 2013 is Now Working via CrossOver 16
LibreOffice 5.3 Ships with Experimental Office-Like Ribbon UI

Original Submission