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takyon writes:

Optalysys, a company that has long promised "optical coprocessors" enabling up to exascale performance computing in a desktop form factor, has brought on some new science advisers:

Optalysys Ltd., a start-up commercializing light-speed optical coprocessors for AI/deep learning, today announced the formation of its first Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) comprising experts in AI/machine learning, bioinformatics/genomics and optical pattern recognition. The inaugural SAB members include Professor Douglas Kell of The University of Manchester, Professor Timothy Wilkinson of University of Cambridge and ex-senior NASA scientist, Dr. Richard Juday.

"Collectively, these experts have deep knowledge in areas most critical to our long-term success," said Dr. Nick New, founder and director, Optalysys. "We're excited to work closely with them through the process of bringing to market our unique optical approach to super-fast, low-power computing to enable more tech innovators and scientists to create a better world."

Dr. Juday is no stranger to vaporware.

However, Optalysys has apparently found a niche for its machines: genomic analysis:

Optalysys, a U.K company seeking to commercialize optical co-processor technology, today announced completion of its Genetic Search System (GENESYS) project conducted with the prestigious Earlham Institute (EI). Citing a dramatic power saving and performance speedup for computing a traditional genomics alignment problem, Optalysys says the work demonstrates the effectiveness and maturity of its optical processing technology, which the company promotes as a post-Moore's Law alternative.

[...] The benchmark GENESYS project aligned metagenomics reads sequenced from the Human Microbiome Project Mock Community (a well characterized microbial community) against a database consisting of 20 bacterial genomes totaling 64 million base pairs. "The optical system exceeded the original targets delivering a 90 percent energy efficiency saving compared to the same test run on EI's HPC cluster, with an accuracy comparable to the highly sensitive nucleotide form of BLAST, BLASTn (part of a family of Basic Local Alignment Search Tools used to compare query sequences with a library or database of sequences)," reported Optalysys.

Technology from the GENESYS project is launching in February 2018 as a cloud-based platform to a closed beta program of a select group of genomic institutes including EI, the University of Manchester, Oregon State University, and Zealquest Scientific Technology Co. in cooperation with the Shanghai Bioinformatics Center, Chinese Academy of Science.

Previously: Computing With Lasers Could Power Up Genomics and AI

Original Submission

"Arthur T Knackerbracket" has found the following story:

The USA luge team is using 3D printing in its quest for gold.

It's teaming with Stratasys to 3D print tools that're employed in the making of racing sleds, which means not only the sled's body but also the "tower" at the front of a doubles sled where athletes position their legs.

This sled was built directly from prototypes that Stratasys designed and 3D printed.

Luge is a sport involving one- or two-person sleds that can reach speeds of nearly 90 miles per hour. Athletes race face-up and feet-first down an icy track. They steer the sled by either using their calves to flex the runners or by using their shoulders to shift their weight.

When a sled part is being made, a mold, also called a tool, is created to form the part's shape. Any design change in the sled calls for a new tool, which can normally take several weeks to create. But Stratasys was able to 3D print the tools for a sled in less than a week.

One of the biggest advantages to using 3D printing is customization. Traditionally, athletes would all use one generic sled. Now sleds can be made as long or as wide as an individual athlete, and in a fraction of the time.

"We need precision and we also need the ability to make tweaks, and 3D printing is where it's at for this kind of thing," said Gordy Sheer, marketing director for USA Luge and a 1998 doubles luge silver medalist. "As we learn more about aerodynamics and optimizing our designs, it's nice to be able to have the ability to make those changes quickly."

[...] Printing tooling for sleds is just the beginning. Dahl says they envision the whole sled could be 3D printed in the near future.

"There could be a point where you take a scan of the athlete," he said, "and you're able to print a sled that is custom and tailored to their body shape in the most optimal aerodynamics possible."

It all makes Sheer wish he'd had a sled with 3D printed components back when he was competing.

"These sleds are so much more advanced than when I was racing," he said.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Mozilla on Monday was the first to make an official announcement, but the developers of Chrome, Edge and WebKit (the layout engine used by Apple's Safari) said they plan on doing the same.

AppCache is an HTML5 application caching mechanism that allows website developers to specify which resources should be available offline. This improves speed, reduces server load, and enables users to browse a site even when they are offline.

While application caching has some benefits, it can also introduce serious security risks, which is partly why it has been deprecated and its use is no longer recommended.

Source: https://www.securityweek.com/major-browser-vendors-restrict-appcache-secure-connections

Original Submission

takyon writes:

An analysis of research papers has found that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) provided funding to the research of 210 new drugs that were approved from 2010 and 2016:

A new study makes a strong case for the importance of government support for basic research: Federally funded studies contributed to the science that underlies every one of the 210 new drugs approved between 2010 and 2016.

Researchers at Bentley University scoured millions of research papers for mentions of those 210 new molecular entities, or NMEs, as well as studies on their molecular targets. Then, they looked to see which of those studies had received any funding from the National Institutes of Health.

The authors say the study, published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to capture the full scope of public funding behind FDA-approved drugs, both directly and indirectly. They also say it points to the need for continued federal funding for basic science — which the Trump administration has previously suggested slashing.

"Knowing the scale of the investment in the basic science leading to new medicines is critical to ensuring that there is adequate funding for a robust pipeline of new cures in the future," said Dr. Fred Ledley, one of the study's authors and a Bentley University researcher who studies the intersection of science and industry.

Contribution of NIH funding to new drug approvals 2010–2016 (open, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1715368115) (DX)

Original Submission

Apparition writes:

On Monday, February 12th, Barnes & Noble fired a number of employees.

From CNBC:

Barnes & Noble is trimming its staff, laying off lead cashiers, digital leads and other experienced workers in a company-wide clearing, CNBC has learned from sources familiar with the matter.

The news came abruptly for many workers who showed up Monday morning at various Barnes & Noble locations to be notified that they no longer had a job, the people said. The number of affected workers couldn't immediately be determined. As of April 29 of last year, Barnes & Noble employed about 26,000 people.

"[Barnes & Noble] has been reviewing all aspects of the business, including our labor model," a spokeswoman told CNBC about the layoffs. "Given our sales decline this holiday, we're adjusting staffing so that it meets the needs of our existing business and our customers. As the business improves, we'll adjust accordingly."

From The Digital Reader:

The initial report said B&N had fired "lead cashiers, digital leads, and other experienced workers", but what that report missed - and why this was worth bringing up a day later - was that B&N also fired nearly all of its receiving managers in what current and ex-employees are calling Bloody Monday.

[...] When B&N fires a digital sales lead, it means they'll sell fewer Nooks. This is no big deal given how B&N's digital revenues have fallen since 2013. When B&N fires a head cashier, it means you're in for longer waits at the register.

But when B&N fires its receiving managers, it means that B&N won't have the merchandise to sell you because the person who was responsible for making sure shelves get stocked does not work there any more.

Previously: Barnes & Noble Reports Holiday Revenues Down
Barnes & Noble Pivots to Books

Original Submission

takyon writes:

There has been a "security incident" at the entrance to the NSA's headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland:

Several people have been injured and a suspect was taken into custody after a car crashed outside the US National Security Agency's headquarters.

Gunfire rang out after the black SUV approached the facility in Fort Meade, Maryland, without authorisation.

An NSA spokesman said it was unclear if the shots had been fired by law enforcement officers or the suspect, adding that the scene was now secure.

Also at Reuters, CBS, The Hill, and Vice.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A Turkish-American NASA scientist who visited his family during the 2016 coup has been sentenced to 7.5 years in prison on terrorism charges:

Serkan Golge, a Turkish-American research scientist at NASA in Houston, Texas, was sentenced to 7.5 years in a Turkish prison Thursday on terrorism charges. The verdict, which has been condemned by the U.S. government, has put his career on hold and left his family and friends reeling. "I feel like this cannot be real," his wife Kubra Golge, who was inside the courtroom when her husband's verdict was read, tells Science.

At a press briefing in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State said the United States is "deeply concerned" by Golge's conviction, which came "without credible evidence." The spokesperson said the U.S. government would continue to follow his case closely. A spokesperson for Turkey's foreign ministry dismissed the criticism in a statement posted to its website and said the court's decision must be respected.

Golge, a dual citizen who had been studying the effects of radiation on astronauts, was swept up in a crackdown that followed Turkey's 2016 failed military coup. While visiting family in southern Turkey weeks after the putsch attempt, police showed up to his parents' home and arrested him in front of his wife and children. According to Golge's wife, a distant relative who was angered over an inheritance dispute told police Golge was a spy and supporter of Fethullah Gülen, the Islamic cleric who Turkey accuses of masterminding the coup.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

The news outlet Salon is allowing Adblock-using visitors to opt-in to using the JavaScript-based Coinhive tool to mine the cryptocurrency Monero:

Other sites have used cryptocurrency mining in lieu of (or in addition to) advertising. Sometimes, it's done surreptitiously without users' consent — The Pirate Bay admitted to secretly adding Coinhive integration last year, and hackers have planted mining malware on other sites. In this case, it's an opt-in program; a spokesperson tells FT that testing started on Monday.

Salon has an FAQ explaining this move.

Also at Ars Technica.

Related: Showtime Streaming Service Included JavaScript to Mine Cryptocurrency Using Web Browsers
PolitiFact Hacked to Mine Cryptocurrency Using Visitors' Web Browsers
Wi-Fi at Starbucks Buenos Aires Has Computers Mine Crypto-Currency
Bitcoin Hype Pushes Hackers to Lesser-Known Cryptocurrencies
Thousands of Websites Hijacked by Hidden Crypto-Mining Code After Popular Plugin Pwned

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A team of scientists have found that changes in gene activity in human tissue after death could be used to determine the time of death:

Computational biologist Roderic Guigó didn't start out as a death detective. Guigó, of the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona, Spain, is also part of the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx [open, DOI: 10.1126/science.1262110] [DX]) pilot, a large consortium of geneticists and molecular biologists that has been measuring gene activity in tissues from hundreds of people, living and dead. The goal is to determine how the body makes different cells do different things, given that they all carry the same DNA instructions. It also seeks to determine how slight variations in DNA from person to person change what cells do. Other researchers have already shown that some genes stay active up to 4 days after death. Guigó wanted to find out how gene activity changes as the time to preservation is extended.

He and his colleagues looked at 9000 samples of 36 tissues, "an impressive data set," Tagkopoulos says. Each sample included data on the time between the death of the donor and the preservation of the sample. Each tissue has a distinct pattern of increases and decreases in gene activity over time, and these changes can be used to backtrack to the time of death [open, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-02772-x] [DX], the team reports today in Nature Communications.

Also at BBC.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Recently, the New Horizons spacecraft took the furthest images ever made from Earth. But they weren't of Earth. That could change in 2019:

Sometime after January 2019, New Horizons, the spacecraft that brought us photos of the heart-shaped terrain on Pluto, will turn back toward Earth. The probe's camera, the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager, or LORRI for short, will start snapping away. Nearly three decades after the original, humanity will get another "Pale Blue Dot."

"We've been talking about it for years," says Andy Cheng of the plan to take another 'Pale Blue Dot' image. Cheng is a scientist at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory and the principal investigator for LORRI.

It's a risky move. The attempt requires pointing LORRI close enough to the sun so that objects in the darkness are illuminated, but not so close that sunlight damages or destroys the camera. "But we're going to do it anyway, for the same reason as before," Cheng says. "It's just such a great thing to try."

The photo shoot will take considerable coordination. "All activities on the spacecraft need to be choreographed in elaborate detail and then checked and checked again," Cheng says. "Taking a LORRI image involves more than just LORRI—the spacecraft needs to point the camera in the right direction, lorri needs to be operated, the image data needs to be put in the right place and then accessed and transmitted to Earth, which requires more maneuvers of the spacecraft, all of which needs to happen on a spacecraft almost 4 billion miles away."

New Horizons will fly by 2014 MU₆₉ on January 1, 2019. It will take about 18 months to send back all the data from the flyby.

Related: Occultations of New Horizons' Next Target (2014 MU69) Observed
New Horizons Target 2014 MU69 May be a "Contact Binary"

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Gen-Z Interconnect Core Specification 1.0 Published

The first major release of the Gen-Z systems interconnect specification is now available. The Gen-Z Consortium was publicly announced in late 2016 and has been developing the technology as an open standard, with several drafts released in 2017 for public comment.

Gen-Z is one of several standards that emerged from the long stagnation of the PCI Express standard after the PCIe 3.0 release. Technologies like Gen-Z, CAPI, CCIX and NVLink seek to offer higher throughput, lower latency and the option of cache coherency, in order to enable much higher performance connections between processors, co-processors/accelerators, and fast storage. Gen-Z in particular has very broad ambitions to blur the lines between a memory bus, processor interconnect, peripheral bus and even straying into networking territory.

The Core Specification released today primarily addresses connecting processors to memory, with the goal of allowing the memory controllers in processors to be media-agnostic: the details of whether the memory is some type of DRAM (eg. DDR4, GDDR6) or a persistent memory like 3D XPoint are handled by a media controller at the memory end of a Gen-Z link, while the processor itself issues simple and generic read and write commands over the link. In this use case, Gen-Z doesn't completely remove the need for traditional on-die memory controllers or the highest-performance solutions like HBM2, but Gen-Z can enable more scalability and flexibility by allowing new memory types to be supported without altering the processor, and by providing access to more banks of memory than can be directly attached to the processor's own memory controller.

Press release.

Related: OpenCAPI and Gen-Z

Original Submission

takyon writes:

ARM Announces Project Trillium Machine Learning IPs

Today's announcement covers the new ML processors as well as object detection processors (OD). The latter IP is a result of Arm's Apical acquirement in 2016 which saw the company add solutions for the display and camera pipelines to their IP portfolio.

Starting with the ML processor – what we're talking about here is a dedicated IP for neural network model inferencing acceleration. As we've emphasised in our NN related announcements of late, Arm also emphasises that having an architecture which is specifically designed for such workloads can have significant advantages over traditional CPU and GPU architectures. Arm also made a great focus on the need to design an architecture which is able to do optimised memory management of the data that flows through a processor when executing ML workloads. These workloads have high data reusability and minimising the in- and out-bound data through the processor is a key aspect of reaching high performance and high efficiency.

Arm's ML processor promises to reach theoretical throughput of over 4.6TOPs (8-bit integer) at target power envelopes of around 1.5W, advertising up to 3TOPs/W. The power and efficiency estimates are based on a 7nm implementation of the IP.

1 TOPS = 1 trillion operations per second.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

ESO's Very Large Telescope has combined the light from all four of its Unit Telescopes into its ESPRESSO instrument for the first time, effectively creating a 16 meter aperture optical telescope:

The ESPRESSO instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile has for the first time been used to combine light from all four of the 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes. Combining light from the Unit Telescopes in this way makes the VLT the largest optical telescope in existence in terms of collecting area.

One of the original design goals of ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) was for its four Unit Telescopes (UTs) to work together to create a single giant telescope. With the first light of the ESPRESSO spectrograph using the four-Unit-Telescope mode of the VLT, this milestone has now been reached.

After extensive preparations by the ESPRESSO consortium (led by the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Geneva, with the participation of research centres from Italy, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland) and ESO staff, ESO's Director General Xavier Barcons initiated this historic astronomical observation with the push of a button in the control room.

[...] Light from the four Unit Telescopes is routinely brought together in the VLT Interferometer for the study of extremely fine detail in comparatively bright objects. But interferometry, which combines the beams "coherently", cannot exploit the huge light-gathering potential of the combined telescopes to study faint objects.

Previously: First Light for VLT's ESPRESSO Exoplanet Hunter

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Trump Backs Supersonic NASA Jet That Will Fly From New York to London in Three Hours

A sleek, experimental plane that would quietly crack the speed of sound and transform a trans-Atlantic flight into a three-hour hop received critical backing on Monday under NASA's budget request for the fiscal year that starts October 1, 2018. The document signals the Trump administration would like to prioritize the jet, as well as further research into faster-than-sound airplane technology.

The budget request refers to the Low-Boom Flight-Demonstrator, a plane NASA wants in order to bring back supersonic commercial flights by mitigating their most annoying side effect, the loud sonic boom that accompanies them.

That boom has always been the biggest stumbling block for commercial supersonic flight. It is caused by the sheer number of air particles the nose of the plane pushes aside as it flies. Those molecules form a wave of high pressure, like a boat's wake as NASA describes it, which rolls out like a carpet beneath the airplane.

Also at Space.com.

Related: NASA Quesst Project - Quiet Supersonic Transport
Concorde Without the Cacophony: NASA Thinks It's Cracked Quiet Supersonic Flight
NASA Tests Light, Foldable Plane Wings for Supersonic Flights
NASA Releases 2018 Edition of Spinoff

Original Submission

therainingmonkey writes:

Bain consultants' macro trends department have released a report examining trends in demographics, automation and inequality to produce a set of predictions.

This kind of report seems to be all over the place these days, but this one seems more detailed and perhaps a little less optimistic than most.

In the US, a new wave of investment in automation could stimulate as much as $8 trillion in incremental investments and abruptly lift interest rates. By the end of the 2020s, automation may eliminate 20% to 25% of current jobs, hitting middle- to low-income workers the hardest. As investments peak and then decline—probably around the end of the 2020s to the start of the 2030s—anemic demand growth is likely to constrain economic expansion, and global interest rates may again test zero percent. Faced with market imbalances and growth-stifling levels of inequality, many societies may reset the government's role in the marketplace.

They predict that governments will assume a larger role in markets to combat inequality and boost demand, but will our corporate overlords decide that's in their interests, or continue to squeeze the lower and middle classes forever?

Related: Humans Are Underrated
Douglas Coupland: "The Nine to Five is Barbaric"
Survey Says AI Will Exceed Human Performance in Many Occupations Within Decades
More Than 70% of US Fears Robots Taking Over Our Lives, Survey Finds
The Future of Work Is Uncertain, Schools Should Worry Now
The Venus Project and the Quest for a Socially Engineered Future
Skilled Manufacturing Workers in Demand in the U.S.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Google wants you to be able to book a flight without exiting an email:

Google is bringing its Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) capabilities to email today through a developer preview for Gmail. The feature, called AMP for Email, will allow developers to make emails "more interactive and engaging." Google envisions the feature to be beneficial to users because developers can embed widgets in emails that are constantly up-to-date and include actionable functions that work without leaving your inbox. Google's existing AMP webpages are an emerging standard for webpages that load radically faster than regular mobile pages.

AMP for Email is open-source so developers can freely play around with the capabilities and use them to their advantage. Companies developing features for AMP for Email include Pinterest, Booking.com, and Doodle. Google says the AMP for Email feature will allow you to do things like RSVP to events, browse and interact with content, or fill out forms without leaving an email. For example, Google says if a contractor wants to schedule a meeting with you but isn't able to see your calendar, they'll contact you about availability. With AMP for Email, you could respond interactively through a form without ever leaving the email client.

Accelerated Mobile Phishing:

Some observers believe AMP allows more effective phishing attempts. One serious flaw, noted by tech writer Kyle Chayka, is that disreputable parties who misuse AMP (as well as Facebook's similar Instant Articles) enable junk websites to share many of the same visual cues and features found on legitimate sites. "All publishers end up looking more similar than different. That makes separating the real from the fake even harder," said Chayka.

Also at Google and TechCrunch.

Original Submission