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frojack writes:

Science Mag reports that the active ingredient in Monsanto's Round-Up weed killer and similar products is perfectly, er, probably, um, maybe safe enough for another 5 years.

The commission's Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed (PAFF), made up of representatives from the commission's 28 member nations, couldn't agree on the length of a renewed license. PAFF initially proposed a 15-year renewal, then a 9-year renewal, and eventually settled on an 18-month extension.

Over the past 2 months, the committee again debated an extension, but no proposal secured the necessary "qualified majority" of PAFF members. But today [Nov 27] 18 countries voted in favor of a 5-year renewal, including Germany and three others that had abstained in the previous vote.

The case against glyphosate wasn't helped by the International Agency for Research on Cancer including it on its dubiously regarded Group 2A (probable carcinogens) along with Red Meat and Shift Work.

Stéphane Travert, agriculture minister of France (France voted for NO extension), sounded heroically determined on public radio when he proclaimed:

"These are 5 years during which we will work to search for alternatives, 5 years during which we will mobilize research and innovation so that tomorrow we can modify agricultural practices for our farmers and for the environment."

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takyon writes:

The High-Definition Multimedia Interface 2.1 specification has been released. The total transmission bandwidth has been increased to 48 Gb/s from the 18 Gb/s of HDMI 2.0 (or a maximum data rate of 42.6̅ Gb/s from 14.4 Gb/s). The new data rate is effectively tripled to 128 Gb/s when using Display Stream Compression (DSC).

Using DSC, HDMI 2.1 cables can transmit 4K (3840×2160) @ 240 Hz, and 8K (7680×4320) as well as UW10K (10240×4320) at 120 Hz. Without DSC, you will be able to transmit 4K @ 120 Hz, 5K (5120×2880) @ 120 Hz, 8K @ 60 Hz, and UW10K @ 30 Hz. Keep in mind that color depth and chroma subsampling also affect the necessary data rate.

The specification also adds new features such as dynamic high-dynamic-range support (you read that right - the first "dynamic" refers to "dynamic metadata that allows for changes on a scene-by-scene or frame-by-frame basis"), Variable Refresh Rate, Quick Frame Transport, Quick Media Switching, and Auto Low-Latency Mode:

This new version of the HDMI specification also introduces an enhanced refresh rate that gamers will appreciate. VRR, or Variable Refresh Rate, reduces, or in some cases eliminates, lag for smoother gameplay, while Quick Frame Transport (QFT) reduces latency. Quick Media Switching, or QMS, reduces the amount of blank-screen wait time while switching media. HDMI 2.1 also includes Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM), which automatically sets the ideal latency for the smoothest viewing experience.

• Here is the HDMI Forum's PPT PDF explaining HDMI 2.1.
• Here are the data rates and cables required for various resolutions/bit depths/chroma. Resolutions requiring Display Stream Compression are indicated.
• Here is another table showing the various color depths and chroma subsampling levels.

Also at the HDMI Forum, AnandTech, Tom's Hardware, and The Verge.

Previously: HDMI 2.1 Announced

Original Submission

Fnord666 writes:

Samsung's Advanced Institute of Technology has come up with another use for graphene, a material that's part of many exciting future projects from purifying seawater to detecting cancer, this time putting it to work inside lithium-ion batteries. Scientists created a "graphene ball" coating for use inside a regular li-ion cell, which has the effect of increasing the overall capacity by up to 45 percent and speeding up charging by five times.

[...] Samsung's research team has published a long, very technical paper about how the graphene ball works, and how it's produced. It's clear the technology is at the very early stages, and isn't likely to be a major feature on the Galaxy S9 (or the iPhone 11 or any other device next year), but its potential to have an impact on future batteries inside Samsung and other phones is obvious. Who doesn't want a faster charging, longer-lasting battery inside their favorite device?

Li-ion batteries power not only our mobile gadgets, where fast charging is a extremely helpful, but they are also used in electric vehicles, where fast charging is essential for wider adoption. Samsung says it's possible the graphene ball technology can be scaled up from small capacity cells in our phones, to much larger batteries inside cars. The company has filed patents in the United States and South Korea for graphene ball technology, but there is no indication when or if it will reach a consumer product.

Source: https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/samsung-graphene-ball-news/

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takyon writes:

Ethereum Founder Unveils Roadmap For Next-Gen Blockchain

At the "Beyond Block" conference in Taipei, Ethereum's founder, Vitalik Buterin, unveiled the plans for "Ethereum 2.0," the next-generation version of Ethereum.

[...] [The] network's rapid growth in recent years has [revealed] a few major issues within the network. According to Buterin, there are currently three major problems that need to be solved to push the Ethereum network to the next level: privacy, consensus safety, smart contract safety, and perhaps the biggest of them all: scalability.

[...] The Ethereum developers have already taken steps to address [anonymity] by implementing the same zero-knowledge proof privacy technology used by Zcash in a recent upgrade. The technology should enable distributed apps (such as voting apps, for instance) to have mathematically provable anonymity.

Buterin said that the privacy issue should be 75% solved already at the network-level, with the remaining 25% to be solved by apps that work on top of Ethereum which would need to actually implement those privacy features.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Now that's alien intelligence:

The she-cephalopod was filmed by the Blue Planet II crew as they were exploring the inky depths in South Africa, focusing on the magical world of marine forests. As series producer Mark Brownlow explains, "We may think of our ocean's as blue but there is another surprising world of the Green Seas. From towering undersea forests of giant kelp to vast prairies of sea grass, this is an almost Brothers Grimm fairy tale of all the strange and magical creatures that live within these secret worlds. Here sea dragons lurk, bizarre giant cuttlefish breed, and an ingenious octopus outwits a forest full of sharks."

Our tale of clever derring-do begins when a hungry pyjama shark goes to attack the octopus, who quickly inserts its tentacles into the shark's gills in an effort to suffocate it. Shark lets go; octopus skedaddles.

But then she does something truly remarkable, and something never before seen (by humans, at least). As the show's narrator, Sir David Attenborough, says: "The octopus is far from finished."

Caught in the open, she scrambles to the seafloor, attaches shells to her body with her suckers, and rolls up into a beautiful mosaic ball. The shark is left confused and by the time it seems to figure out what is going on, the octopus darts away, leaving the shark looking for her in the scattered detritus of her ersatz armor.

Clever. Maybe we should try teaching octopi sign language, as as we have other species.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Wednesday in Carpenter v. United States, a case dealing with the use of cell phone records without a warrant using the Stored Communications Act:

The irony of the case before the court, Carpenter v. United States, is that it involves massive cellphone thefts and a string of armed robberies at Radio Shacks in Michigan and Ohio. The robbers entered the stores, guns drawn, herded patrons to the back, loaded up laundry bags with new smartphones, and then later sold their booty to fences for tens of thousands of dollars per haul.

[...] The question before the Supreme Court is whether the cops should have gotten a search warrant in order to obtain the cell location information. A warrant would have required them to show a judge that they had probable cause to believe those records contained evidence of a crime. What the police did instead was obtain a court order under the federal Stored Communications Act, which is easier. In this case, as in others, prosecutors argue that the Supreme Court has long viewed information shared by a consumer as fair game without a warrant. Even before the Stored Communications law was enacted, the high court ruled that you lose your Fourth Amendment right to privacy when you share information with a third party, like the phone company.

Fourth Amendment scholar Orin Kerr contends that the idea of tracking someone's movements in public is not new. The police, for instance, tail a suspect, or check on his alibi. Only when they search the suspect's home or person do they have to get a court-approved warrant. Kerr contends that the cell-cite location records at issue in this case "are basically the network equivalent of public observation that traditionally would not be protected" by a warrant requirement. After all, he notes, the cell-site location information is not maintained by government decree. Rather, wireless providers keep the data recorded by cell towers in order to monitor and improve their service.

Nathan Freed Wessler of the American Civil Liberties Union is challenging that argument in the Supreme Court. This kind of cellphone technology "really changes the game and threatens to upend our expectation of privacy in the digital age," he says. After all, he argues, this wasn't a case of the police following a shady person.

"They decided after the fact they wanted to try to tie him [Carpenter] to a crime," Wessler says, "and never before in the history of this country has the government had the power to press rewind on someone's life and chart out where they were going over the course of four months." Four months and nearly 13,000 calls, to be precise.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A whistleblower from Uber's former "Strategic Services Group" has caused the Waymo v. Uber trial to be delayed again because Uber withheld evidence:

An Uber Technologies Inc. whistle-blower made explosive allegations that a company team stole trade secrets to gain an edge over rivals, prompting a judge to further delay the ride-hailing company's trial with Waymo.

Richard Jacobs, who worked for a now-disbanded corporate surveillance team at Uber, told the judge that stealing trade secrets was part of his former colleagues' mission, along with monitoring information on metrics and incentives for drivers who operate on competitor platforms overseas.

Jacobs was put under oath at a hearing Tuesday after the judge was alerted last week by U.S. prosecutors that he communicated with them in their probe of trade-secret theft at Uber. U.S. District Judge William Alsup said he takes Jacobs's account seriously because prosecutors found it credible.

[...] Jacobs testified that the surveillance team used "anonymous servers" separate from the "main part of Uber." He was asked by a lawyer for Waymo about a staff attorney at Uber who allegedly guided efforts to "impede, obstruct, or influence" lawsuits against the company.

Also at Reuters, BBC, and Recode.

Previously: Waymo v. Uber Continues, Will Not Move to Arbitration
Alphabet Seeking $2.6 Billion in Damages From Uber
Waymo's Case Against Uber "Shrinks" After Trade Secret Claim Thrown Out

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Phoenix666 writes:

Raising a bumper crop of electrons?

Until now, acreage was designated for either photovoltaics or photosynthesis, that is, to generate electricity or grow crops. An agrophotovoltaics (APV) pilot project near Lake Constance, however, has now demonstrated that both uses are compatible. Dual use of land is resource efficient, reduces competition for land and additionally opens up a new source of income for farmers. For one year, the largest APV system in Germany is being tested on the Demeter farm cooperative Heggelbach. In the demonstration project led by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, solar modules for electricity production are installed directly above crops covering an area of one third hectare. Now the first solar harvest of power and produce has been collected on both levels.

"The project results from the first year are a complete success: The agrophotovoltaic system proved suitable for the practice and costs as much as a small solar roof system. The crop production is sufficiently high and can be profitably sold on the market," explains Stephan Schindele, project manager of agrophotovoltaics at Fraunhofer ISE.

Why not cover parking lots with solar panels instead? Parked cars do not need to perform photosynthesis.

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takyon writes:

Cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov suspects an extraterrestrial origin for bacteria found on the exterior of the ISS:

A Russian cosmonaut claims to have caught aliens. Cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov says he found bacteria clinging to the external surface of the International Space Station that didn't come from the surface of Earth.

Shkaplerov told the Russian news agency that cosmonauts collected the bacteria by swabbing the outside of the space station during space walks years ago.

"And now it turns out that somehow these swabs reveal bacteria that were absent during the launch of the ISS module," Shkapkerov told TASS. "That is, they have come from outer space and settled along the external surface. They are being studied so far and it seems that they pose no danger."

A recent study suggests that interplanetary dust can transport microbes to or from Earth:

Astronomers have long believed that asteroid (or comet) impacts were the only natural way to transport life between planets. However, a new study published November 6 in Astrobiology suggests otherwise.

The study, authored by Professor Arjun Berera from the University of Edinburgh's School of Physics and Astronomy, suggests that life on Earth may have begun when fast-moving streams of space dust carried microscopic organisms to our planet. Berera found that these streams of interplanetary dust are not only capable of transporting particles to Earth, but also from it.

Also at TASS, Newsweek, BGR.

Space Dust Collisions as a Planetary Escape Mechanism (DOI: 10.1089/ast.2017.1662) (DX) (arXiv link above)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Amazon launches Sumerian, a browser-based tool for building AR, VR experiences

Amazon is jumping onto the augmented and virtual reality bandwagon with the launch of Sumerian, a new application that's supposed to make it easier for people to develop 3D experiences for a wide variety of platforms.

The browser-based tool is available in limited preview today. At launch, Sumerian enables developers to put 3D models together in scenes for use in VR and AR applications. It includes an object library full of models that people can put to use, as well as support for importing assets from FBX and OBJ files.

On top of this, developers get access to a set of "hosts" — 3D characters that they can customize to interact with an end user. These hosts integrate with Amazon Polly and Lex to provide natural language capabilities similar to those underpinning the Alexa virtual assistant.

Sounds like a tool to build tiny AI-populated versions of Second Life.

Amazon Sumerian: "The fastest and easiest way to create VR, AR, and 3D experiences".

Also at TechCrunch and SiliconAngle.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Researchers have increased the speed of quantum key distribution from hundreds of kilobits to megabits per second:

Researchers have packed extra information onto single photons to speed up quantum key distribution (QKD) systems. QKD uses a characteristic of quantum mechanics to protect keys used to encrypt data using classical crypto schemes: if Eve tries to snoop on the key Alice is sending Bob, the quantum state/s a photon carries are destroyed. Alice and Bob know there's an eavesdropper, and the key Eve eavesdropped is useless.

However, compared to conventional telecommunications systems, QKD is slow: most systems based on photon-by-photon transmission of crypto keys run at speeds of hundreds of kilobits per second.

Research from Duke University's Nurul Taimur Islam, with collaborators from Ohio State University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the National University of Singapore, achieved megabit key distribution rates using off-the-shelf components, meaning existing photonic QKD systems could be adapted to use it their work. In a paper based on research funded by the United States Navy and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), published in Science Advances [open, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1701491] [DX] and available as pre-press at arXiv, the researchers explained that to get faster key distribution rates, they worked to overcome the limits on photon detectors' speed.

Also at Engadget.

Related: Secure Computing for Everybody
Reflective Satellites may be the Future of High-end Encryption
Quantum Video Chat Links Scientists on Two Different Continents

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Brain-computer interfacing for amputees:

A new study by neuroscientists at the University of Chicago shows how amputees can learn to control a robotic arm through electrodes implanted in the brain.

The research, published in Nature Communications, details changes that take place in both sides of the brain used to control the amputated limb and the remaining, intact limb. The results show both areas can create new connections to learn how to control the device, even several years after an amputation.

"That's the novel aspect to this study, seeing that chronic, long-term amputees can learn to control a robotic limb," said Nicho Hatsopoulos, PhD, professor of organismal biology and anatomy at UChicago and senior author of the study. "But what was also interesting was the brain's plasticity over long-term exposure, and seeing what happened to the connectivity of the network as they learned to control the device."
...
The researchers worked with three rhesus monkeys who suffered injuries at a young age and had to have an arm amputated to rescue them four, nine and 10 years ago, respectively. Their limbs were not amputated for the purposes of the study. In two of the animals, the researchers implanted electrode arrays in the side of the brain opposite, or contralateral, to the amputated limb. This is the side that used to control the amputated limb. In the third animal, the electrodes were implanted on the same side, or ipsilateral, to the amputated limb. This is the side that still controlled the intact limb.

The monkeys were then trained (with generous helpings of juice) to move a robotic arm and grasp a ball using only their thoughts. The scientists recorded the activity of neurons where the electrodes were placed, and used a statistical model to calculate how the neurons were connected to each other before the experiments, during training and once the monkeys mastered the activity.

What if you're not an amputee and just want extra limbs?

Karthikeyan Balasubramanian, et. al. Changes in cortical network connectivity with long-term brain-machine interface exposure after chronic amputation. Nature Communications, 2017; 8 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01909-2

Original Submission

takyon writes:

North Korea's latest missile launch appears to put Washington, D.C., in range (archive)

North Korea appears to have launched another intercontinental ballistic missile, the Pentagon said Tuesday, with experts calculating that Washington, D.C., is now technically within Kim Jong Un's reach.

[...] The missile launched early Wednesday local time traveled some 620 miles and reached a height of about 2,800 miles before landing off the coast of Japan, flying for a total of 54 minutes. This suggested it had been fired almost straight up — on a "lofted trajectory" similar to North Korea's two previous intercontinental ballistic missile tests. [...] If it had flown on a standard trajectory designed to maximize its reach, this missile would have a range of more than 8,100 miles, said David Wright, co-director of the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. [...] The U.S. capital is 6,850 miles from Pyongyang.

Although it may be cold comfort, it is still unlikely that North Korea is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the U.S. mainland. Scientists do not know the weight of the payload the missile carried, but given the increase in range, it seems likely that it carried a very light mock warhead, Wright said. "If true, that means it would not be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to this long distance, since such a warhead would be much heavier," he said in a blog post.

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takyon writes:

HP is rolling out "HP Touchpoint Analytics Service" onto computers without user consent:

Lenovo has only just settled a massive $3.5 million fine for preinstalling adware on laptops without users' consent, and now it seems HP is getting in on the stealth installation action, too. According to numerous reports gathered by Computer World, the brand is deploying a telemetry client on customer computers without asking permission.

The software -- first identified on November 15 -- is called "HP Touchpoint Analytics Service" and appears to replace the self-managed HP Touchpoint Manager solution. According to the official productivity description, it features "the tools you need to ensure all your managed devices' security -- and brings you greater peace of mind". The problem is, it's installing itself without permission and is wreaking havoc on customers' systems.

Also at Computerworld and gHacks.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Too much information:

The infotainment technology that automakers are cramming into the dashboard of new vehicles is making drivers take their eyes off the road and hands off the wheel for dangerously long periods of time, an AAA study says.

The study released Thursday is the latest by University of Utah professor David Strayer, who has been examining the impact of infotainment systems on safety for AAA's Foundation for Traffic Safety since 2013. Past studies also identified problems, but Mr. Strayer said the "explosion of technology" has made things worse.

Automakers now include more infotainment options to allow drivers to use social media, email, and text. The technology is also becoming more complicated to use. Cars used to have a few buttons and knobs. Some vehicles now have as many as 50 buttons on the steering wheel and dashboard that are multi-functional. There are touch screens, voice commands, writing pads, heads-up displays on windshields and mirrors and 3-D computer-generated images.

"It's adding more and more layers of complexity and information at drivers' fingertips without often considering whether it's a good idea to put it at their fingertips," Strayer said.

Safe following distance would solve so much...

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Vaginal mesh operations should be banned, says NICE

The [UK] health watchdog NICE is to recommend that vaginal mesh operations should be banned from treating organ prolapse in England, the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire show has learned.

Draft guidelines from NICE say the implants should only be used for research - and not routine operations. Some implants can cut into the vagina and women have been left in permanent pain, unable to walk, work or have sex.

One expert said it is highly likely the NHS will take up the recommendation. However, the organisation is not compelled to act on findings it receives from NICE. Both NHS England and NICE declined to comment.

Also at Medical Plastics News:

In October MPs met to discuss the possibility of an inquiry into the use of mesh devices to treat organ prolapse.

The debate was led by Labour MP Emma Hardy who first heard about the mesh implants from a constituent who was left unable to work after having the device fitted.

Calls to ban the devices were rejected the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, Jackie Doyle-Price. Responding to the requests, Doyle-Price disregarded the need for a public inquiry and said that the issue was related to clinical practice instead of the devices themselves.

Original Submission