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takyon writes:

122 Pregnant Whales Were Killed in Japan's Latest Hunt. Was This Illegal?

More than 120 pregnant female whales were among 333 killed during Japan's recent annual summer hunt off the coast of Antarctica, according to a new report.

The report, released by the International Whaling Commission this month, said 122 of the slaughtered minke whales were pregnant and 114 were considered immature.

The last hunting season in the Antarctic for Japan ran from Dec. 8 to Feb. 28.

Conservationists said the new report was further evidence that Japan was killing whales for commercial purposes under the guise of scientific research.

Whether the annual hunt is legal is unclear, as some federal and international laws are in conflict with one another.

Also at BBC and Smithsonian Magazine.

A Minke whale, after reaching maturity, ranges from 7-10 m in length and masses from 5-10 metric tons.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Google Assistant fired a gun: We need to talk

For better or worse, Google Assistant can do it all. From mundane tasks like turning on your lights and setting reminders to convincingly mimicking human speech patterns, the AI helper is so capable it's scary. Its latest (unofficial) ability, though, is a bit more sinister. Artist Alexander Reben recently taught Assistant to fire a gun. Fortunately, the victim was an apple, not a living being. The 30-second video, simply titled "Google Shoots," shows Reben saying "OK Google, activate gun." Barely a second later, a buzzer goes off, the gun fires, and Assistant responds "Sure, turning on the gun." On the surface, the footage is underwhelming -- nothing visually arresting is really happening. But peel back the layers even a little, and it's obvious this project is meant to provoke a conversation on the boundaries of what AI should be allowed to do.

As Reben told Engadget, "the discourse around such a(n) apparatus is more important than its physical presence." For this project he chose to use Google Assistant, but said it could have been an Amazon Echo "or some other input device as well." At the same time, the device triggered "could have been a back massaging chair or an ice cream maker."

But Reben chose to arm Assistant with a gun. And given the concerns raised by Google's Duplex AI since I/O earlier this month, as well as the seemingly never-ending mass shootings in America, his decision is astute.

"OK Google, No more talking." / "OK Google, No more Mr. Nice Guy." / "OK Google, This is America." / "OK Google, [Trigger word]."

Original Submission

takyon writes:

China just invited the world to its space station

At a time when NASA and its partners are trying to decide how long to maintain the International Space Station, China has taken the significant step of inviting the world to its planned orbital station. The China Space Station, or CSS, could become operational as soon as 2022.

"CSS belongs not only to China, but also to the world," said Shi Zhongjun, China's ambassador to the UN and other international organizations in Vienna. "All countries, regardless of their size and level of development, can participate in the cooperation on an equal footing."

Such an announcement represents potentially the greatest soft power threat of the last six decades to US and Russian dominance of spaceflight. In the public announcement of this policy on China's state news service Xinhua, Chinese officials said the country stands ready to help other developing countries interested in space technology—and in having their own space programs.

This inclusive approach (though just how inclusive an authoritarian government can be remains to be seen) offers a rebuke of sorts to the US government and the International Space Station. By law, the US forbids direct involvement between China's space program and NASA. Some at NASA want to change this, but Congress has established such rules to prevent technology transfer.

Also at The Verge and Popular Mechanics.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

Century-old aerial photos help map an ancient Roman city's infrastructure. By combining old and new aerial images, archaeologists are getting a new look at the complexities of supplying water to an ancient desert city.

In northern Jordan, along a wadi once called the Golden River, the ancient city of Jerash sits uneasily alongside its modern namesake. With its columned temples, Roman forum, and other monuments, it's one of Jordan's biggest tourist attractions and a key to the region’s long, complex history. But the expansion of modern Jerash is slowly destroying what remains of the old city.

Recently, a team of archaeologists from Aarhus University and Münster University combined historical aerial images with modern, laser-scanning surveys to map those changes and get a big-picture view of the ancient city. Previous archaeological work at Jerash has mostly focused on individual sites or on standing monumental architecture rather than more subtle or mundane aspects of city life, even though the latter is what kept its residents alive. Comparing modern laser scans with aerial photos spanning the last century let the researchers identify what has been lost, discover which sites are most at risk, and make connections between features that might have been much harder to recognize from the ground.

Archaeologist David and his colleagues (Søren Munch Kristiansen of Aarhus University's Center for Urban Network Evolutions, Achim Lichtenberger of Münster University, and Rubina Raja of Aarhus University's Center for Urban Network Evolutions) gathered aerial photos from the past century and examined them side by side with modern laser scans. This process let the researchers look for archaeological features and assess what had been damaged by the last 100 years of urban growth. It also showed where to focus future excavations and conservation efforts.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Analyst firm Gartner’s 2018 Magic Quadrant for infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) has again found that Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure are the most mature clouds, but has omitted more than half of the vendors it covered last year on grounds that customers now demand more than just rented servers and storage.

“Customers now have high expectations from their cloud IaaS providers. They demand market-leading technical capabilities — depth and breadth of features, along with high availability, performance and security,” wrote Gartner’s mages. “They expect not only ‘hardware’ infrastructure features, but also management features, developer services and cloud software infrastructure services, including fully integrated PaaS capabilities.”

Given those expectations, Gartner was happy to drop eight clouds from this year’s Quadrant, farewelling Virtustream, CenturyLink, Joyent, Rackspace, Interoute, Fujitsu, Skytap and NTT.

The analyst firm says AWS is the most mature cloud and has come to be seen as a safe choice, but cautions “Customers should be aware that while it's easy to get started, optimal use — especially keeping up with new service innovations and best practices, and managing costs — may challenge even highly agile, expert IT organizations, including AWS partners. As new, less-experienced MSPs are added to AWS's Audited MSP Partner program, this designation is becoming less of an assurance of MSP quality.”

Microsoft’s Azure has similar problems: Gartner says “Microsoft's sales, field solutions architects and professional service teams did not have an adequate technical understanding of Azure.”

[...] The firm also rates Azure as “optimized to deliver ease of use to novices with simple projects” which is great but “comes at the cost of sometimes making complex configurations difficult and frustrating to implement.”

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Intel has announced 3D XPoint DIMMs ranging from 128 GB to 512 GB per module:

Intel today announced the availability of their long-awaited Optane DIMMs, bringing 3D XPoint memory onto the DDR4 memory bus. The modules that have been known under the Apache Pass codename will be branded as Optane DC Persistent Memory, to contrast with Optane DC SSDs, and not to be confused with the consumer-oriented Optane Memory caching SSDs.

The new Optane DC Persistent Memory modules will be initially available in three capacities: 128GB, 256GB and 512GB per module. This implies that they are probably still based on the same 128Gb 3D XPoint memory dies used in all other Optane products so far. The modules are pin-compatible with standard DDR4 DIMMs and will be supported by the next generation of Intel's Xeon server platforms.

The Optane DC Persistent Memory modules Intel is currently showing off have heatspreaders covering the interesting bits, but they appear to feature ten packages of 3D XPoint memory. This suggests that the 512GB module features a raw capacity of 640GB and that Optane DC Persistent Memory DIMMs have twice the error correction overhead of ECC DRAM modules.

Also at Tom's Hardware and Ars Technica.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

A police drone had a "near-miss" with a fighter jet travelling at 520mph (836km/h), a report has revealed.

The drone's operator "honestly believed" the two would collide in mid-air, according to [PDF] the UK Airprox Board. It said the risk of a crash above Throwleigh, Devon, was "high" but the officer had lowered the drone quickly. Devon and Cornwall Police said it had notified Airprox, which was "content that there was no blame nor any lessons to be learned".

The drone was flying at an altitude of about 300ft (90m) on 16 January, according to the report. "The jet came into view from right to left and seemed to pass by the drone at the same altitude; it looked like the jet was within 200m laterally of the drone. Once the jet was in view it started banking to the right and [the operator] honestly believed it was going to collide with the drone."

"The jet continued and was followed a few seconds later by a second jet."

The F-15 pilot, who was flying at an altitude of 500ft (152m), could not see the drone, the report added. The board said the case had prompted discussions about whether the service which helps the military plan routes through UK airspace should incorporate information from other sources.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

'Murdered' Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko turns up alive

A Russian journalist and critic of the Kremlin, reported to have been shot dead in Ukraine, showed up alive at a press conference on Wednesday to declare that his murder was faked by Ukrainian security services in an effort to foil an assassination plot against him.

In a stunning development, Arkady Babchenko, 41, walked into a room of journalists in Kiev who had been expecting to get an update on his murder.

He apologized to his wife Olechka -- who on Tuesday was reported to have found him bleeding to death at his apartment -- for the "hell" she had gone through. Ukrainian officials offered a jaw-dropping explanation for his so-called death -- to expose a Russian plot against him.

Script flipped.

Also at BBC.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Oculus launches live entertainment app Venues for Oculus Go and Gear VR headsets

Oculus VR's new platform for live entertainment experiences is launching today for the new, standalone Oculus Go headset and Samsung's Gear VR. The platform, called Oculus Venues, was first announced at Facebook's F8 developer conference at the beginning of May. It's centered on delivering live events like sporting matches, concerts, and comedy shows in the style of a streaming TV service — but in VR. That means viewers effectively get front-row seats to live shows from the comfort of their home, so long as they're content with wearing a VR headset for an extended period of time.

The first Venues event will be a live Vance Joy concert at Colorado's Red Rocks Amphitheater, followed by a Gotham Comedy Live show streamed from New York City in partnership with live events platform NextVR. Oculus has also released an entire summer lineup through August 27th that includes a pretty diverse slate of sports matches, live shows, and movies.

Also at Engadget and TechCrunch.

Previously: Facebook Launches Oculus Go, a $200 Standalone VR Headset

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Sex on Mars is going to be risky, but it could create a new human subspecies

In a new research paper published in Futures, an international team of scientists examines the challenges of reproduction on the Martian surface. It's a risky proposition, but if humans succeed in conceiving, carrying, and birthing offspring on another world it might actually be the start of a new species.

In the paper, the researchers tackle a huge number of potential problems that could crop up when humans are finally ready to rear young on Mars. The first and most obvious hurdle is the low gravity environment, which could pose a serious threat to the conception and pregnancy processes that seem so simple here on Earth.

[...] The paper also examines the inherent challenges of bolstering the numbers of a small colony of settlers on the planet. The concept of "love" might have to take a back seat to pure survival, with men and women being paired up by their biology rather than emotion. Additionally, some individuals may never be allowed to have children due to undesirable traits that are a risk to the colony as a whole.

In a somewhat scary aside, the researchers also note that editing the genes of future Mars babies might be an easy way to increase the prospects of survival.

Also at Live Science.

Biological and social challenges of human reproduction in a long-term Mars base (DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2018.04.006) (DX)

Related: Space colonization and suffering risks: Reassessing the "maxipok rule" (DOI: 10.1016/j.futures.2018.04.008) (DX)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Google promises ethical principles to guide development of military AI

Google is drawing up a set of guidelines that will steer its involvement in developing AI tools for the military, according to a report from The New York Times. What exactly these guidelines will stipulate isn't clear, but Google says they will include a ban on the use of artificial intelligence in weaponry. The principles are expected to be announced in full in the coming weeks. They are a response to the controversy over the company's decision to develop AI tools for the Pentagon that analyze drone surveillance footage.

[...] But the question facing these employees (and Google itself) is: where do you draw the line? Does using machine learning to analyze surveillance footage for the military count as "weaponized AI"? Probably not. But what if that analysis informs future decisions about drone strikes? Does it matter then? How would Google even know if this had happened?

Also at VentureBeat and Engadget.

Previously: Google vs Maven
Google Employees on Pentagon AI Algorithms: "Google Should Not be in the Business of War"
About a Dozen Google Employees Have Resigned Over Project Maven

Original Submission

takyon writes:

De Beers admits defeat over man-made diamonds

The world's largest diamond miner is doing the unthinkable: Selling stones produced in a laboratory. De Beers launched a new jewelry brand on Tuesday that features synthetic diamonds, a major reversal for a company that had implored consumers to stick with "real" stones.

The brand, called Lightbox, will offer synthetic diamonds at a fraction of the price it charges for stones pulled out of the earth. De Beers framed the move as a response to consumer demands. "Lightbox will transform the lab-grown diamond sector by offering consumers a lab-grown product they have told us they want but aren't getting: affordable fashion jewelry that may not be forever, but is perfect for right now," said De Beers CEO Bruce Cleaver.

[...] De Beers had been an outspoken critic of synthetic diamonds. Company executives vowed never to sell artificial stones, and it participated in the diamond industry's "real is rare" campaign. It even developed a machine that spots lab-grown stones.

Also at Bloomberg and TechCrunch.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Sonic and ultrasonic attacks damage hard drives and crash OSes

Attackers can cause potentially harmful hard drive and operating system crashes by playing sounds over low-cost speakers embedded in computers or sold in stores, a team of researchers demonstrated last week.

The attacks use sonic and ultrasonic sounds to disrupt magnetic HDDs as they read or write data. The researchers showed how the technique could stop some video-surveillance systems from recording live streams. Just 12 seconds of specially designed acoustic interference was all it took to cause video loss in a 720p system made by Ezviz. Sounds that lasted for 105 seconds or more caused the stock Western Digital 3.5 HDD in the device to stop recording altogether until it was rebooted.

[...] "For such systems, the integrity of the recorded data is vital to the usefulness of the system, which makes them susceptible to acoustic interference or vibration attacks," the researchers wrote in a paper titled "Blue Note: How Intentional Acoustic Interference Damages Availability and Integrity in Hard Disk Drives and Operating Systems."

Nice title.

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

The Center for American Progress reports

Tesla has expanded its list of worker injuries following a report published in Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, which flagged under-counting and safety problems at the company's Fremont, California facility last month.

The move also comes one week after CEO and founder Elon Musk blasted the media for reporting on the discrepancies and threatened to start a Yelp-like site to rate journalists.

"Tesla disputed our reporting showing that it left worker injuries off the books", Reveal tweeted [May 29]. "Now, it's begun adding some of the injuries that had been missing."

The original Reveal report, published on April 16, claimed that Tesla officials were under-reporting work-related injuries sustained by employees in order to make the company's safety numbers appear more favorable to industry critics. The company instead wrote many complaints off as "personal medical issues or minor incidents requiring only first aid", according to internal company records. In May, pressure on the company doubled after an unfavorable review by Consumer Reports found troubling flaws in the Tesla Model 3's braking system, the second critical report from the austere publication.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Experts from the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI have upgraded a method to synthesize complex oxides. This will result in materials with the best properties to create radioactive waste recycling matrices and heat-resistant ceramic coatings. In addition, the new materials can act as heat-resistant coatings in aircraft engines and turbines.

In the past few years, researchers have been studying complex oxides in the Ln₂O₃-MO₂ systems where Ln denotes rare-earth elements, with M standing for an element in the titanium subgroup. Scientists are interested in the phase-transition phenomenon for a conversion from "order" to "chaos." This phenomenon deals with the position of atoms inside crystal lattices.

As a rule, research papers provide data obtained during studies of the structure and properties of crystallized Ln₂M₂O₇ compounds, obtained using a high-temperature solid-phase synthesis method. In this case, scientists are interested in the amorphous compound's transition to a crystalline state.

According to the research paper's authors, this method makes it impossible to collect data about the formation of nano-crystal structures and their evolution.