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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Sharks are often the subject of TV specials or news stories focusing on their attacks on humans. But scientists are finding that sharks could inspire a new type of surface that would attack bacteria, helping humans instead of hurting them. As reported in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, researchers have designed a coating that is infused with antimicrobial agents and has the patterned diamond-like texture of shark skin.

Fighting bacteria is an ongoing battle, resulting in more than 2 million infections and 23,000 deaths in the U.S. every year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As a result of overusing antibiotics, bacterial resistance to these drugs is on the rise. Patients in hospitals who are already battling illnesses or have compromised immune systems are especially at risk of developing infections just by touching contaminated bedrails and door knobs. Scientists have been developing coatings for these high-touch surfaces to fight the spread and growth of microbes. For example, Sharklet AF™ is a coating designed to mimic a shark's skin, and it reduces the ability of bacteria to adhere to surfaces. But long-term use will result in bacteria accumulation. James J. Watkins, Jessica D. Schiffman and colleagues wanted to see if adding titanium dioxide (TiO₂) nanoparticles, which are antibacterial, to a shark skin material would efficiently fight off microbes.

The team printed their own shark skin surfaces with polymer and ceramic composites, and added titanium dioxide nanoparticles to them. The shark skin surface without nanoparticles reduced the attachment of E. coli by 70 percent compared to smooth films. But shark skin surfaces with TiO₂ nanoparticles exposed to UV light for one hour killed off over 95 percent of E. coli and 80 percent of Staphylococcus aureus. The group says the fabrication method could be scaled up for mass production.

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takyon writes:

Uber applies for patent to spot drunk passengers

Taxi app company Uber has applied for a patent to use artificial intelligence to determine how drunk potential passengers might be.

The app used to summon rides could also feed other information to the driver, including a passenger's location, how accurately they are typing and even the angle they are holding their phone at.

It could help drivers who do not want to pick up inebriated riders.

But critics said it could also be used to identify vulnerable passengers.

According to the application to the US patent office, the system would spot "uncharacteristic user activity".

Also at The A.V. Club.

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takyon writes:

The Dawn spacecraft has entered its lowest-ever orbit around Ceres:

Dawn entered orbit around 1 Ceres on March 6, 2015. Up until this year, Dawn's orbits brought it no closer than 483 kilometers (300 miles) from the rock's surface. The complicated process of entering the new 27-hour, 13-minute orbit around the asteroid began on April 16th, when NASA engineers instructed Dawn to fire its ion engines. The new orbit has a periapsis of less than 48 km above the pockmarked surface of Ceres and an apoapsis of 4,000 km.

[...] Attaining a low orbit around Ceres object is no mean feat, as the asteroid's gravitational field is lumpy due to the asteroid's uneven composition. NASA engineers looked at over 45,000 possible trajectories before settling on the solution. A lower orbit will allow researchers to map Ceres's gravitational field and hence its internal mass distribution. Surprises may be in store, though: Dawn's reaction wheels failed earlier this year, so it now uses its hydrazine-fueled thrusters to control its orientation in space.

[...] We can enjoy the final closeups of Ceres before Dawn falls silent later this year. Then, the excitement in asteroid exploration will shift towards the arrival of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's Hayabusa-2 at 162173 Ryugu this July, as well as Osiris-REX's arrival at 101955 Bennu this August.

Check out Landslides Along Occator Crater's Rim and other recent images.

162173 Ryugu and 101955 Bennu.

Previously: Dawn Mission Extended at Ceres
Dawn's Orbit Around Ceres: A New Low

Related: Ceres May Have Had a Global Surface Ocean in the Past
Evidence of a Seasonal Water Cycle and Surface Changes Found on Ceres

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Sony chiefs are under pressure to respond to complaints about "cross-play" restrictions imposed on Fortnite. Gamers have discovered that if they had first played the title on a PlayStation console, they are unable to use the same Fortnite account with the newly released Nintendo Switch edition. This prevents them from being able to make use of outfits and other in-game purchases and rewards they had accrued.

There is no such limitation when moving between the Xbox One and Switch. Gamers were already unable to share a Fortnite account between Microsoft and Sony's platforms. But the appeal of the Switch is that its portable nature allows owners to play when away from home, and so many have bought it as a second games machine.

Sony has yet to confirm it is responsible for the constraint, but it issued the following statement to the BBC.

"We're always open to hearing what the PlayStation community is interested in to enhance their gaming experience," it said.

"With... more than 80 million monthly active users on PlayStation Network, we've built a huge community of gamers who can play together on Fortnite and all online titles.

"We also offer Fortnite cross-play support with PC, Mac, iOS, and Android devices, expanding the opportunity for Fortnite fans on PS4 to play with even more gamers on other platforms."

[...] Sony has faced criticism for blocking cross-play in other titles in the past, including Minecraft and Rocket League. But the sheer scale of Fortnite's success means the backlash has the potential to be more damaging this time round.

Epic said this week that the title has amassed 125 million players worldwide.

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DeathMonkey writes:

Satellites monitoring the state of the White Continent indicate some 200 billion tonnes a year are now being lost to the ocean as a result of melting.

This is pushing up global sea levels by 0.6mm annually - a three-fold increase since 2012 when the last such assessment was undertaken.

Scientists report the new numbers in the journal Nature.

Governments will need to take account of the information and its accelerating trend as they plan future defences to protect low-lying coastal communities.

The researchers say the losses are occurring predominantly in the West of the continent, where warm waters are getting under and melting the fronts of glaciers that terminate in the ocean.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44470208

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0179-y

See also: Ars Technica, Phys Org and University of Leeds.

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takyon writes:

Elon Musk's Boring Co. Wins Chicago Airport High-Speed Train Bid

Elon Musk's Boring Co. is the winner in a bid to build a multibillion-dollar high-speed express train to O'Hare International Airport, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The result gives the young company a big boost in legitimacy as it tries to get transportation projects underway in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

The company beat out a consortium that included Mott MacDonald, the civil engineering firm that designed a terminal at London's Heathrow Airport, and JLC Infrastructure, an infrastructure fund backed by former basketball star Earvin "Magic" Johnson, said the people, who declined to be identified because they weren't authorized to speak publicly. The city is expected to announce the news as soon as Thursday, one person said.

It's a sizeable victory for a company that was launched just 18 months ago, is working with unproven futuristic ideas, and—aside from a test tunnel it is digging in the Los Angeles suburb Hawthorne, California—lacks construction experience.

Also at Chicago Tribune, CNBC, and The Verge.

Previously: Elon Musk to Compete for High-Speed Rail Loop in Chicago

Related: Elon Musk Claims to Have "Verbal Approval" to Build New York to Washington, D.C. Hyperloop
Washington, D.C. Granted Elon Musk's Boring Company an Excavation Permit for Possible Hyperloop
Elon Musk pitches $1, 150 MPH "Loop" Rides under Los Angeles

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

Tesla fatal crash: 'autopilot' mode sped up car before driver killed, report finds

A Tesla driving in "autopilot" mode crashed in March when the vehicle sped up and steered into a concrete barrier, according to a new report on the fatal collision, raising fresh concerns about Elon Musk's technology.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said that four seconds before the 23 March crash on a highway in Silicon Valley, which killed Walter Huang, 38, the car stopped following the path of a vehicle in front of it. Three seconds before the impact, it sped up from 62mph to 70.8mph, and the car did not brake or steer away, the NTSB said.

[...] The NTSB report [...] has once again raised serious safety questions about the limits and performance of the autopilot technology, which is meant to assist drivers and has faced growing scrutiny from experts and regulators. Mark Fong, an attorney for Huang's family, also said the report appeared to "contradict Tesla's characterization" of the collision.

The NTSB press release includes this link to the preliminary report, for anyone inclined to read the slightly longer version of events.

The Mountain View Fire Department applied about 200 gallons of water and foam to extinguish the post-crash fire. The battery reignited five days after the crash in an impound lot and was extinguished by the San Mateo Fire Department.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Once again the flailing Australian National Broadband Network is in the news with a couple in Melbourne being quoted up to 1.2 million dollars to connect to the NBN. The primary reason for this is the the house in question is seven kilometres of fibre would be needed to connect the property. With the copper network being switched off around Australian, even in places where it is still viable, the only option is to switch to the NBN unless a competing network already exists. The NBN has stated that it can cost $30,000 to run fibre for a "few hundred metres". It is getting to the point where it can be cheaper just to move house if the internet is bad.

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow8317

When the CPU utilization on a computer is high, games become less responsive, frame rate goes down, and gameplay stutters. To diagnose these problems, users will commonly open process manager utilities such as Task Manager, Process Explorer, or Process Hacker to determine if any processes are using too much of the CPU power.

Knowing this, the developer of this mining Trojan does something pretty clever; they terminate the miner when the processes for popular games or process managers are launched. This causes the computer to appear to be operating normally when running certain games and when trying diagnose CPU utilization.

Source: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/cryptocurrency-miner-plays-hide-and-seek-with-popular-games-and-tools/

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takyon writes:

Radical plan to split California into three states earns spot on November ballot

California's 168-year run as a single entity, hugging the continent's edge for hundreds of miles and sprawling east across mountains and desert, could come to an end next year — as a controversial plan to split the Golden State into three new jurisdictions qualified Tuesday for the Nov. 6 ballot.

If a majority of voters who cast ballots agree, a long and contentious process would begin for three separate states to take the place of California, with one primarily centered around Los Angeles and the other two divvying up the counties to the north and south. Completion of the radical plan — far from certain, given its many hurdles at judicial, state and federal levels — would make history.

It would be the first division of an existing U.S. state since the creation of West Virginia in 1863.

Also at CNN and The Hill.

Previously: Proposal to Divide California Into Three States Could Land on the November Ballot

Related: Secessionists Formally Launch Quest for California's Independence
California Secession Leader has Russian Ties
Calexit: the "Bad Boys of Brexit" Throw Their Weight Behind Move to Split State

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JoeMerchant writes:

A Norwegian study published Monday found a seven-point dip in IQ test scores per generation among men born from 1962 to 1991. The results suggest a reversal in the Flynn effect, an observed increase in IQ scores throughout the 20th century in developed countries.

Coverage from The Week adds:

The reasons for the Flynn effect and its apparent reversal are disputed. "Scientists have put the rise in IQ down to better teaching, nutrition, healthcare and even artificial lighting," says The Times.

But "it is also possible that the nature of intelligence is changing in the digital age and cannot be captured with traditional IQ tests", adds the newspaper.

"Take 14-year-olds in Britain. What 25% could do back in 1994, now only 5% can do," Shayer added, citing maths and science tests.

More from The Daily Mail:

Two British studies suggested that the fall was between 2.5 and 4.3 points every ten years.

But due to limited research, their results were not widely accepted.

In the latest study Ole Rogeburg and Bernt Bratsberg, of the Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research in Oslo, found that Norwegian men's IQs are lower than the scores of their fathers when they were the same age.

The pair analysed the scores from a standard IQ test of over 730,000 men – who reported for national service between 1970 and 2009.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

Those interested in the patent system have long complained of patent thickets as a barrier to efficient production of new products and services. The more patents in an area, the argument goes, the harder it is to enter. There are several studies that attempt to measure the effect of patent thickets, with some studies arguing that thickets can ease private ordering. I'd like to briefly point out another (new) one. Charles deGrazia (U. London, Royal Holloway College), Jesse Frumkin, Nicholas Pairolero (both of USPTO) have posted a new draft on SSRN, called Embracing Technological Similarity for the Measurement of Complexity and Patent Thickets.

[...] The authors use natural language processing to determine overlap in patent claims (and just the claims, arguing that's where the thicket lies) for both backward and forward citations in "triads" - patents that all cite each other. Using this methodology, they compare their results to other attempts to quantify complexity and find greater overlap in more complex technologies - a sign that their method is more accurate. Finally, they validate their results by regressing thickets against examination characteristics, showing that the examination factors more likely to come from thickets (e.g. pendency) are correlated with greater thickets.

https://writtendescription.blogspot.com/2018/06/measuring-patent-thickets.html

Original Submission

hubie writes:

The price of Bitcoin went on a tremendous bull run that peaked in late 2017. The New York Times is reporting that an academic paper suggests that the price of Bitcoin was being manipulated. They argue that the sudden gain in value in Bitcoin and other virtual currencies in the last year was caused by a small group of participants, particularly the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex.

Mr. Griffin looked at the flow of digital tokens going in and out of Bitfinex and identified several distinct patterns that suggest that someone or some people at the exchange successfully worked to push up prices when they sagged at other exchanges. To do that, the person or people used a secondary virtual currency, known as Tether, which was created and sold by the owners of Bitfinex, to buy up those other cryptocurrencies.

This paper follows another paper published in 2017 that tied the sudden and large increases in Bitcoin value seen in late 2013 to manipulation by the currency exchange M. Gox.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Intel's First (Modern) Discrete GPU Set For 2020

In a very short tweet posted to their Twitter feed yesterday, Intel revealed/confirmed the launch date for their first discrete GPU developed under the company's new dGPU initiative. The otherwise unnamed high-end GPU will be launching in 2020, a short two to two-and-a-half years from now.

[...] This new GPU would be the first GPU to come out of Intel's revitalized GPU efforts, which kicked into high gear at the end of 2017 with the hiring of former AMD and Apple GPU boss Raja Koduri. Intel of course is in the midst of watching sometimes-ally and sometimes-rival NVIDIA grow at a nearly absurd pace thanks to the machine learning boom, so Intel's third shot at dGPUs is ultimately an effort to establish themselves in a market for accelerators that is no longer niche but is increasingly splitting off customers who previously would have relied entirely on Intel CPUs.

[...] Intel isn't saying anything else about the GPU at this time. Though we do know from Intel's statements when they hired Koduri that they're starting with high-end GPUs, a fitting choice given the accelerator market Intel is going after. This GPU is almost certainly aimed at compute users first and foremost – especially if Intel adopts a bleeding edge-like strategy that AMD and NVIDIA have started to favor – but Intel's dGPU efforts are not entirely focused on professionals. Intel has also confirmed that they want to go after the gaming market as well, though what that would entail – and when – is another question entirely.

Previously: AMD's Radeon Technologies Group Boss Raja Koduri Leaves, Confirmed to be Defecting to Intel
Intel Planning a Return to the Discrete GPU Market, Nvidia CEO Responds

Original Submission

takyon writes:

M&A gates open with judge's blessing on AT&T-Time Warner merger

A federal judge on Tuesday gave a ringing endorsement to AT&T Inc's planned acquisition of Time Warner Inc without any conditions, opening the door for companies such as Comcast Corp and Verizon Communications Inc to pursue deals to buy creators of media content.

The ruling by Judge Richard Leon bit.ly/2Jxx6qE of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia brings an end to a six-week antitrust trial in which U.S. regulators argued that the $85 billion deal would give AT&T undue leverage against rival cable providers that relied on Time Warner's content.

The judge's strong approval, and scathing opinion that urged the government not to seek a stay if they opposed the ruling, will give telecommunications providers the confidence that similar types of acquisitions will also have a shot at clearing regulatory hurdles, and could spur other copycat mergers this year, industry analysts and dealmakers said.

See also: AT&T-Time Warner Ruling Shows a Need to Reboot Antitrust Laws (archive)

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