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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

[...] When I first got interested in the subject, in the mid-1970s, I ran across a letter written in 1947 by the mathematician Warren Weaver, an early machine-translation advocate, to Norbert Wiener, a key figure in cybernetics, in which Weaver made this curious claim, today quite famous:

When I look at an article in Russian, I say, "This is really written in English, but it has been coded in some strange symbols. I will now proceed to decode."

[...] The practical utility of Google Translate and similar technologies is undeniable, and probably it's a good thing overall, but there is still something deeply lacking in the approach, which is conveyed by a single word: understanding. Machine translation has never focused on understanding language. Instead, the field has always tried to "decode"—to get away without worrying about what understanding and meaning are. Could it in fact be that understanding isn't needed in order to translate well? Could an entity, human or machine, do high-quality translation without paying attention to what language is all about? To shed some light on this question, I turn now to the experiments I made.

It is a bit on the long side but Douglas Hofstadter very clearly exposes what language translation is and that Google Translate does not do it that way

Source: The Shallowness of Google Translate

Original Submission

Justin Case writes:

2,304 times last year (in just one state) so-called self driving cars, ahem, didn't self-drive, according to this report at auto connected car news.

The technology is not safe unless it is monitored by a human behind a steering wheel who can take control, Consumer Watchdog said.

Reasons for disengagement include:
    [a lot of human factors -- which "AI" does not understand]
        * Hardware discrepancy.
        * Errors in detection.
        * GPS signal issues.
        * Software crash.

While 50 companies are licensed to test autonomous vehicles in California, only 19 companies were required to file disengagement reports covering 2017.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Russia plans to allow paying tourists who visit the International Space Station (ISS) to go out on spacewalks. Russia's Energia is also building a "comfortable" new module to transport tourists to the ISS:

Russia is planning to send paying tourists on the International Space Station out on spacewalks for the first time, an official from the country's space industry said Thursday.

"We are discussing the possibility of sending tourists on spacewalks," Vladimir Solntsev, the head of Russian space company Energia, told Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda. "Market analysts have confirmed this: wealthy people are ready to pay money for this," Solntsev told the paper.

He said the cost of such a trip could be around $100 million (80 million euros), "possibly less for the first tourist". The tourists will be able to "go out on a spacewalk and make a film, (or) a video clip".

Energia, which was behind the launch of the first man in space Yuri Gagarin in 1961, is currently building a new module dubbed NEM-2 to transport tourists to the International Space Station (ISS). Solntsev said the NEM-2, the name of which is still to be confirmed, will accommodate four to six people. It will be fitted with "comfortable" cabins, two toilets and internet access.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The Guardian reports that according to a Bureau of Investigative Journalism study, colistin, an "antibiotic of last resort," is used by the tonnes by Indian farms to make the poultry gain weight a little bit faster. And all of this is perfectly legal. The World Health Organization (WHO) calls antibiotic resistance "a major threat to public health".

Another reason to eat less meat I guess. Like we needed one.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

The U.S. Air Force will award five contracts for satellite launches later this year as part of its Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program:

The U.S. Air Force announced plans to award space launch contracts later this year for five satellites that include some of the military's most sensitive big-ticket payloads.

The competition comes less than two years since SpaceX became a legitimate competitor in a market that used to be entirely owned by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and The Boeing Company. If SpaceX is able to win at least one or two launches in this next round of contracts, it would further cement its standing as a market disruptor and set the stage for the company to win even more military work when the larger Falcon Heavy rocket gets certified to fly government payloads.

The Air Force on Wednesday released a final request for proposals for Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) launch services for two National Reconnaissance Office payloads, the fifth Space-Based Infrared System geosynchronous Earth orbit satellite, an Air Force Space Command mission dubbed AFSPC-44 and a secret surveillance mission code-named SilentBarker. Proposals are due April 16 and contracts are expected to be awarded in late 2018.

The Air Force recently stated that they "did not identify any information that would change SpaceX's Falcon 9 certification status" despite the recent failure of a secret "Zuma" payload to separate from a Falcon 9 rocket.

SpaceX, which is behind schedule in building a new launch facility at Boca Chica beach near Brownsville, Texas, has requested $5 million in additional funding from state lawmakers:

takyon writes:

Future Europa landers may be in danger of sinking into a surface less dense than freshly fallen snow:

Space scientists have every reason to be fascinated with Jupiter's moon Europa, and, in 2017, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) announced they are planning a joint mission to land there. As the video above explains, this little moon is thought to have a liquid ocean submerged beneath an icy crust. Scientists believe it could host extraterrestrial life. But Europa's surface is much more alien than any we've ever visited. With its extremely thin atmosphere, low gravity – and a surface temperature of some -350 degrees F. (–176 °C.) – Europa might not be kind to a landing spacecraft. The moon's surface might be unexpectedly hard. Or – as evidenced by a study from the Planetary Science Institute announced on January 24, 2018 – Europa's surface might be so porous that any craft trying to land would simply sink.

The study – published in the peer-reviewed journal Icarus – comes from scientist Robert Nelson. If you're a student of space history, its results might sound familiar. Nelson pointed out in his statement:

Of course, before the landing of the Luna 2 robotic spacecraft in 1959, there was concern that the moon might be covered in low density dust into which any future astronauts might sink.

Now Europa is the source of a similar scariness, with Nelson's study showing that Europa's surface could be as much as 95 percent porous.

Laboratory simulations of planetary surfaces: Understanding regolith physical properties from remote photopolarimetric observations (DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2017.11.021) (DX)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

How black holes shape the cosmos

Astrophysicists from Heidelberg, Garching, and the USA gained new insights into the formation and evolution of galaxies. They calculated how black holes influence the distribution of dark matter, how heavy elements are produced and distributed throughout the cosmos, and where magnetic fields originate. This was possible by developing and programming a new simulation model for the universe, which created the most extensive simulations of this kind to date. First results of the "IllustrisTNG" project have now been published in three articles in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. These findings should help to answer fundamental questions in cosmology.

Every galaxy harbours a supermassive black hole at its center. A new computer model now shows how these gravity monsters influence the large-scale structure of our universe. The research team includes scientists from the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS), Heidelberg University, the Max-Planck-Institutes for Astronomy (MPIA, Heidelberg) and for Astrophysics (MPA, Garching), US universities Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as well as the Center for Computational Astrophysics in New York. The project, "Illustris–The Next Generation" (IllustrisTNG) is the most complete simulation of its kind to date. Based on the basic laws of physics, the simulation shows how our cosmos evolved since the Big Bang. Adding to the predecessor Illustris project, IllustrisTNG includes some of the physical processes which play a crucial role in this evolution for the very first time in such an extensive simulation.

TNG Project's web site: http://www.tng-project.org/

Pictures and videos: http://www.tng-project.org/media/

First results from the IllustrisTNG simulations: matter and galaxy clustering (DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stx3304) (DX)

First results from the IllustrisTNG simulations: the galaxy colour bimodality (DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stx3040) (DX)

First results from the IllustrisTNG simulations: the stellar mass content of groups and clusters of galaxies (DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stx3112) (DX)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Google and 3M are helping to produce an open specification for styluses that can be used across different touchscreen devices:

The humble pen isn't dead — or at least the stylus isn't. Because styluses remain a big piece of the mobile accessories market, Google and 3M have joined the Universal Stylus Initiative (USI), a collective that aims to create an open, non-proprietary active stylus specification. The standard will be designed for manufacturers to create and promote styluses that are compatible with various touchscreen devices, including phones and tablets.

To accomplish this, the standard uses two-way communication instead of just one. Ink color and stroke preferences are stored in the stylus, which can be taken across different devices, while up to six styluses can operate simultaneously on a single device. The USI standard supports 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity (the same pressure level as Samsung's S Pen and Microsoft's Surface Pen) and 9-axis inertial measurement to follow and track complex movements precisely.

Also at Ars Technica.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Demonstrating again that anti-missile missiles work best under carefully controlled circumstances, a test of such a weapon fired from Hawaii has missed its target.

The US$30 million test was fired from the Kauai Aegis Ashore site in Hawaii. It was supposed to see a SM-3 Block IIA anti-missile missile intercept a target representing an incoming missile that was launched from an aircraft.

The US Pacific Command, contacted by CNN, confirmed that a test took place but not the outcome, saying only that the test took place on Wednesday morning.

The Raytheon SM-3 Block IIA is a joint US-Japan development built to provide a defence against medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic missiles.

Defense News noted that without further information from the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) it's impossible to know whether the problem was in the interceptor, the targeting radar, or the Raytheon-developed Aegis weapons system used by the US Navy was at fault.

Additional Coverage at DefenseNews and USNI News.

The Raytheon SM-3 Block IIA Interceptor.

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

curl is a text-based utility and library for transferring data identified by their URLs. It is now year-2038 safe even on 32-bit systems. Daniel Stenberg, the orginal hacker of curl, has overseen a year-2038 fix for 32-bit systems. Without specific modifications, 32-bit systems cannot handle dates beyond 03:14:07 UTC on 19 January 2038. After that date, the time counter flips over and starts over again at zero, which would be the beginning of the UNIX epoch known as 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970. Given the pervasiveness of 32-bit embedded systems and their long service lives, this is a serious problem and good (essential) to have fixed decades in advance. The OpenBSD project was the first major software project to take steps to avoid potential disaster from 32-bit time and awareness has since started to spread to other key software project such as curl.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) using wires implanted under the skull may overcome the effects of Alzheimer's disease:

LaVonne Moore has Alzheimer's disease, but her doctors hope her dementia symptoms could possibly be kept in check by a new type of treatment. Electric wires implanted deep in her brain stimulate areas involved with decision-making and problem-solving. Unlike many long-term dementia patients, LaVonne, 85, can cook meals, dress herself and organise outings. But it remains unclear whether her deep brain stimulation (DBS) therapy is responsible for her independence.

DBS is already helping hundreds of thousands of patients with Parkinson's disease to overcome symptoms of tremor, but its use in Alzheimer's is still very experimental. Only a small number of DBS studies have been done for Alzheimer's and they have focused on stimulating brain regions governing memory, rather than judgement. But Dr Douglas Scharre and colleagues at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center believe their approach, which targets the decision-making frontal lobe of the brain, might help patients keep their independence for longer.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

On Wednesday evening, a couple of hours after the Falcon 9 rocket had successfully deployed a satellite into geostationary transfer orbit, SpaceX founder Elon Musk shared a rather amazing photo on Twitter. "This rocket was meant to test very high retrothrust landing in water so it didn't hurt the droneship, but amazingly it has survived," he wrote. "We will try to tow it back to shore." In other words, a rocket that SpaceX had thought would be lost after it made an experimental, high-thrust landing somehow survived after hitting the ocean.

This was amazing for a couple of reasons. First of all, when the first stage of a rocket hits water after a launch, it typically explodes. (This can be seen in some of the early water landing attempts shown in a blooper reel released by the company). A rocket should not survive impact because it will rupture the relatively thin aluminum-lithium alloy tanks that separate fuel and oxidizer. These tanks are built to withstand the axial force of a vertical launch, but not a crash into the ocean.

[...] It is not clear how SpaceX will attempt to tow the rocket to shore. The company's Atlantic Ocean-based drone ship, "Of Course I Still Love You," will be in service during the next week to catch the central core of the Falcon Heavy launch, tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, February 6. Perhaps the company will take a page from the playbook of NASA, which recovered the space shuttle's larger solid-rocket boosters, with tugboats.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

JEDEC has published UFS 3.0, which will double the bandwidth available to smartphones and other devices, and specifies temperature event notifications intended for automotive storage applications:

Smartphones already have storage speeds that rival PCs and they're going to take another big leap soon. Standards group JEDEC has unveiled UFS 3.0, a new flash storage standard for mobile devices, Chromebooks, VR headsets and automotive devices that doubles the bandwidth of UFS 2.1 to a stellar 2.9 GB/s. That's only a theoretical maximum that real-world devices won't likely reach, however, and requires that the host device has the hardware to support it.

UFS 3.0 also lowers flash power consumption and increases reliability in a [wider range] of temperature conditions, a bonus for vehicle applications. It does all this thanks to lower voltage requirements that support the latest types of NAND, a refresh function that increases reliability, and double the speeds per lane (from 5.8 to 11.6 Gbps with a maximum of two lanes).

Also at AnandTech.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

[Amazon] has patented designs for a wristband that would track where its workers put their hands in relation to inventory bins and give "haptic feedback" to signal if they have the right bin to retrieve an item or not. The patent documents were first spotted by GeekWire.

The "ultrasonic bracelet", supposed to be a time- and labour-saving device, would work by periodically emitting ultrasonic sound pulses to a receiver, tracking which bin a worker is reaching for and monitoring how efficiently they fulfill orders. The wristband would also send and receive radio transmissions, pinning a worker's location and giving a burst of "haptic feedback", a vibration similar to those found in phones or game controllers, which would tell the employee if they're reaching for the right bin or not.

The approach would eliminate the need for extra time-consuming acts, "such as pushing a button associated with the inventory bin or scanning a barcode associated with the inventory bin," one patent's description reads.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Not just Zika: Other mosquito-borne viruses may cause birth defects, study suggests

When scientists discovered that the Zika virus was causing birth defects, it seemed to catch the world off guard. The mosquito-borne virus could slip from mother to fetus and damage the developing brain, leaving newborns with a range of serious complications.

But what if other viruses spread by insects also pose a threat to fetuses?

On Wednesday, scientists reported that two viruses, West Nile and Powassan, attacked mouse fetuses when pregnant mice were infected, killing about half of them. The viruses also successfully infected human placental tissue in lab experiments, an indication that the viruses may be able to breach the placental barrier that keeps many maternal infections from reaching the fetus.

Just because a virus proves fatal to a mouse fetus or replicates in human tissue in the lab does not mean that it causes pregnancy complications or birth defects in people, the scientists were quick to say. But Dr. Jonathan Miner, the senior author of the study [DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aao7090] [DX], which was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, said the results called for further research into these and other emerging viruses, and for experts to keep an eye out for possible complications when pregnant women acquire these infections.

Original Submission