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upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Could the world cope if GPS stopped working?

What would happen if GPS - the Global Positioning System - stopped working?

For a start, we would all have to engage our brains and pay attention to the world around us when getting from A to B. Perhaps this would be no bad thing: we'd be less likely to drive into rivers or over cliffs through misplaced trust in our navigation devices.

Pick your own favourite story about the kind of idiocy only GPS can enable. Mine is the Swedish couple who misspelled the Italian island of Capri and turned up hundreds of miles away in Carpi, asking where the sea was.

But these are the exceptions.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Carnegie Mellon University researchers have found that current forecasts call for the U.S. electric power sector to meet the 2020 and 2025 CO₂ reduction requirements in the Paris Agreement—even though the U.S. has announced its withdrawal—and also meet the 2030 CO₂ reduction requirements contemplated by the Clean Power Plan—even though it has been repealed.

Despite the absence of a national policy aimed at reducing CO₂ emissions, the U.S. is ahead of schedule to meet the short-term and mid-term goals of both the Paris Agreement and the Clean Power Plan, according to a recent viewpoint article published in Environmental Science & Technology.

"A year ago, it looked like our ability to meet these larger carbon reduction targets would have required more proactive steps, such as new regulation or new incentive programs," said Jeffrey Anderson, lead author of the paper and Ph.D. candidate of Engineering & Public Policy (EPP). "However, as renewable energy costs have fallen and are projected to continue decreasing even further, we are now well on the path to achieving even the 2030 goals in the Clean Power Plan."

Based on an analysis of projections from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, these carbon reductions will be met without any additional legislative or regulatory activity, said David Rode, faculty of CMU's Electricity Industry Center. The team also included EPP professors Haibo Zhai and Paul Fischbeck, also a professor of Social & Decision Sciences.

Original Submission

martyb writes:

The observant among you may have noticed I'd been posting fewer stories recently.

On October 27th I went to the hospital. After a physical examination, CT scan, and MRI, it was determined that I had had a minor stroke. I had mild loss of use of the pinky and ring finger of my left hand as well as some loss of fine motor control in my left arm and leg. A couple days later saw me in the operating room with a stent being inserted in my right carotid artery. I was released on Halloween day for a few days' recuperation at a relative's home and am now cleared to go back to work. I'm starting easy with slightly shortened work days, as I lack the stamina I had before.

Still, as these things go, I can't help but think of how fortunate I am. Nothing internal seems to have been affected (heart, lungs, etc. all working fine.) I am right-handed, so no problems there. No problem with talking or swallowing, so that's a huge plus. Thanks to neural plasticity and prescribed exercises, I have already mostly recovered. The lack of stamina manifests as my just being too tired after a day at work to be able to do much in the way of posting stories out to the site. As for my mind, I can attest that I am still as tarp as a shack! =)

As much as I would like to think I'll just bounce back to normal in no time, I acknowledge that my activities here will be at a somewhat diminished capacity for a while; time will tell.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Uber lost another $1.1 billion in the third quarter of 2019, the company announced on Monday. This wasn't a surprise: Uber lost about the same amount in the first quarter of 2019 and lost even more last quarter.

Yet the company argues that things aren't as bad as that headline figure suggests. To show why, Uber broke its earnings down by business area, distinguishing its core "rides" app from Uber Eats, Uber Freight, and other operations.

Uber says that, if you exclude certain non-operating expenses—mainly interest, depreciation, and stock-based compensation—the "rides" app actually earned a substantial $631 million profit. That's enough to cover the company's core operating expenses, the company said. But Uber's profitability was dragged down by losses in its other businesses—mainly a $316 million loss from Uber Eats.

Of course, interest, depreciation, and stock-based compensation are real costs. So the fact that Uber looks less unprofitable excluding them isn't going to be particularly reassuring to Uber investors.

But the reason these numbers could ultimately be good news for investors is that they suggest Uber's core rides business might not be perpetually money-losing. If the "EBIDTA" profitability of the ride-hailing business continues to improve—it grew from $416 million in the year-ago quarter to $631 million last quarter on an EBITDA basis—the company could eventually reach honest-to-goodness profitability.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

Indian court orders YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to block "defamatory" video worldwide

When the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that European courts can order Facebook to takedown content globally, if it's deemed to be illegal in Europe, Facebook warned that the ruling "undermines the long-standing principle that one country does not have the right to impose its laws on another country." Now Facebook's warning is manifesting outside of Europe with an Indian court recently ruling that YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter must block a video globally because it's deemed to be "defamatory" by the court.

Original Submission

martyb writes:

EVs are now outselling manual transmissions in the US

The manual transmission continues to have a pretty tough time here in America, with buyers avoiding manual-transmission cars in record numbers. Such record numbers that now EV sales have surpassed sales of vehicles with manual transmissions, according to data from J.D. Power and reported recently by Driving.ca.

Why is that important? Well, the venerable stick shift has been around since someone decided that cars needed more than one gear. While its previous popularity has been eclipsed by the automatic transmission for decades, the manual transmission has managed to hang on.

According to J.D. Power, manual transmissions have approximately 1.1% market penetration in America, which for many enthusiasts is a fairly grim figure to see. Comparatively, electric vehicles -- which have really only been commercially available to the public for the last decade or so -- now represent 1.9% of car sales in the US.

A big chunk of the reason for this likely lies in good old-fashioned availability. The manual transmission used to be the cheap transmission of choice. It was what you got when you were buying a small, affordable car and didn't want to shell out several thousand dollars for an automatic.

Now, most of those same small, affordable cars are only sold as automatics. The manual transmission was also traditionally the way you'd go if you wanted to buy a high-performance car because old automatics were often slow to shift and shifted at the wrong time. That's also changed, with many of the most high-performing models from companies offered with either paddle-shifted dual-clutch transmissions or performance-tuned automatics.

It was only a matter of time as fewer and fewer cars with manual transmissions are being manufactured at the same time as more and more electric vehicles are being built. Who here saw this coming so soon?

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Bill Gates Says You Would Be Using Windows Mobile & Not Android Right Now If It Weren't for the Pesky Feds...

Bill Gates has said that he thinks everyone would be using Windows Mobile right now and not Android if it weren't for his distractions and the antitrust investigation that his company got caught into.

"There's no doubt that the antitrust lawsuit was bad for Microsoft, and we would have been more focused on creating the phone operating system and so instead of using Android today you would be using Windows Mobile," Gates claimed during his speech at The New York Times' DealBook Conference.

[...] Microsoft cofounder also revealed that the company was almost launching Windows Mobile on a Motorola handset but missed out on it by a few months, giving Android an unbeatable advantage. While there were a lot of factors, Gates says it's this 3-months delay that led to Android's supremacy and the downfall of any mobile efforts by Microsoft.

"We were just three months too late on a release Motorola would have used on a phone, so yes it's a winner takes all game."

Related:
Nadella: Microsoft Isn't Killing Windows Phone and Will Go It Alone
Steve Balmer: Use Android to Save Windows Phone
Microsoft Breaks its Windows 10 Mobile Upgrade Promise
Microsoft Axes 2,850 More Windows Phone, Sales Staff
Windows Phone Dies, Aged 6
It's Been 5 Years Already, Let's Gawp at Microsoft and Nokia's Bloodbath
Microsoft is Embracing Android as the Mobile Version of Windows

Original Submission

takyon writes:

US Official Criticizes Europe For Letting Huawei 5G Equipment Inside Borders

At this point, the United States' open opposition to Europe adopting Chinese tech giant Huawei's 5G equipment is well known. The US considers Huawei's legal commitments to the Chinese government and potential backdoors in the company's 5G equipment a national security threat. Subsequently, the country wants its European allies to forego 5G networking gear from Huawei at the cost of being left behind in the race to adopt the next-generation networking standard.

[...] Speaking at a tech conference in Lisbon, Portugal, US Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios urged Europe to follow America's lead in dealing with Huawei. Mr. Kratsios asked Europe to ''take a stand'' against the Chinese company who the US believes can be forced by China's intelligence to hand over sensitive data at any point in time.

Mr. Kratsios' statements come at a time when Europe is welcoming Huawei with open arms. Earlier this week Hungary announced that it would allow Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone to work with Huawei in introducing 5G services in the country. The decision marked another European country that's unfazed by the US' concerns. Germany, UK and other European countries have already laid down frameworks for letting Huawei's equipment broadcast 5G within their borders, but recent statements by the German foreign minister Heiko Maas suggest that Germany might be having second-thoughts about fully trusting Huawei.

Previously: Washington Asks Allies to Drop Huawei
Germany and the EU Likely to Embrace Huawei, Rebuff the U.S.
EU to Drop Threat of Huawei Ban but Wants 5G Risks Monitored

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Researchers discover how cells know their future and forget their past

Stem cells all share the potential of developing into any specific cell in the body. Many researchers are therefore trying to answer the fundamental questions of what determines the cells' developmental fate as well as when and why the cells lose the potential of developing into any cell.

Now, researchers from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Stem Cell Biology (DanStem) at University of Copenhagen have discovered how stem cells can lose this potential and thus can be said to "forget their past." It turns out that the proteins called transcription factors play another role than the scientists thought. For 30 years, the dogma has been that transcription factors are the engines of gene expression, triggering these changes by switching the genes on and off. However, new research results published in Nature reveal something quite different.

"We previously thought that transcription factors drive the process that determines whether a gene is expressed and subsequently translated into the corresponding protein. Our new results show that transcription factors may be more analogous to being the memory of the cell. As long as the transcription factors are connected to a gene, the gene can be read (turned on), but the external signals received by the cells seem to determine whether the gene is turned on or off. As soon as the transcription factors are gone, the cells can no longer return to their point of origin," explains Josh Brickman, Professor and Group Leader, DanStem, University of Copenhagen.

William B. Hamilton, Yaron Mosesson, Rita S. Monteiro, Kristina B. Emdal, Teresa E. Knudsen, Chiara Francavilla, Naama Barkai, Jesper V. Olsen, Joshua M. Brickman. Dynamic lineage priming is driven via direct enhancer regulation by ERK^[$]. Nature, 2019; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1732-z

Original Submission

Booga1 writes:

The Wasington Post has a report on the FDA investigation into illnesses and lung damage caused by vaping.

State and federal health officials investigating mysterious lung illnesses linked to vaping have found the same chemical in samples of marijuana products used by people sickened in different parts of the country and who used different brands of products in recent weeks.

[...] That same chemical was also found in nearly all cannabis samples from patients who fell ill in New York in recent weeks, a state health department spokeswoman said. While this is the first common element found in samples from across the country, health officials said it is too early to know whether this is causing the injuries.

[...] State and federal health authorities have said they are focusing on the role of contaminants or counterfeit substances as a likely cause of vaping-related lung illnesses. Many patients have told officials and clinicians that they bought cannabis products off the street.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Paul Kamma used to lead an uncomplicated life. As a video games enthusiast, he'd while away his time playing first-person shooters and other high-octane games.

Then he got married and started a family.

"When you come home, you play with your kids… You don't have much time to play big games like GTA [Grand Theft Auto]," he says.

"But I still wanted to do this because I loved it."

RandomFactor writes:

MIT Labs has released its pack of 9 robot dogs upon an unsuspecting Killian Court and they are highlighted running, jumping, playing dead, rolling in the leaves, following the leader, kicking around a soccer ball, synchronized flipping, etc.

There's nothing I like more on bright and cold autumnal days than heading down to the park and watching the robot dogs playing in piles of leaves. To hear the scuttle of their little metal legs! To imagine the joy in their tiny silicon brains! Ah, what bliss.

The dogs are the model known as 'Mini Cheetah' but they're more doglike than catlike.

Video

If you've not experienced these delights before, then the video above from MIT's biomimetics lab will give you the basic idea. The bots you can see are the university's Mini Cheetah: a lightweight and modular quadruped that's been under development for years. We saw the Mini Cheetah earlier in 2019 when it learned to backflip, but the biomimetics lab has obviously cranked up production and now has at least nine of these little bots.

Each one weighs about 20 pounds (or nine kilograms), is powered by 12 electrical motors, and can reach speeds of around six miles per hour (or 2.5 meters per second). As you can see in the video, they're all being steered manually using what look like RC controllers.

Previous coverage of the somewhat similar Boston Dynamics SpotMini

When you see them jump out of the concealing leaves together you will know that humanity's time has come to an end.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29505/the-navys-secretive-nemesis-electronic-warfare-capability-will-change-naval-combat-forever

NEMESIS is not just some 'paper program.' From publicly available, but obscure documents we've collected, it's clear that, for years, the Navy has been developing and integrating multiple types of unmanned vehicles, shipboard and submarine systems, countermeasures and electronic warfare payloads, and communication technologies to give it the ability to project what is, in essence, phantom fleets of aircraft, ships, and submarines. These realistic-looking false signatures and decoys have the ability to appear seamlessly across disparate and geographically separated enemy sensor systems located both above and below the ocean's surface. As a result, this networked and cooperative electronic warfare concept brings an unprecedented level of guileful fidelity to the fight. It's not just about disrupting the enemy's capabilities or confusing them at a command and control level, but also about making their sensors tell them the same falsehoods across large swathes of the battlespace.

Original Submission

rigrig writes:

Zanzibar tests drones spraying rice fields to fight malaria

For the first time drones are being tested to help fight malaria on the island of Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania.

The drones will spray a silicone-based liquid on rice paddies, where there are large expanses of stagnant water where malaria-carrying mosquitoes lay their eggs. The substance will spread across the water and prevent the eggs from hatching. It is hoped this will significantly reduce the numbers of the malaria-carrying anopheles mosquitoes in the area.

The spraying by drones is a test to see if it will help the government of Zanzibar reach its goal of eliminating malaria on the archipelago by 2023, according to the strategic plan adopted by Zanzibar Malaria Elimination Program.

This seems to be a step up from just tracking the mosquitoes using drones.

(DJI press release)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

AMD has announced its latest Threadripper high end desktop CPUs, along with a launch date for the Ryzen 9 3950X:

AMD is set to close out the year on a high note. As promised, the company will be delivering its latest 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X processor, built with two 7nm TSMC chiplets, to the consumer platform for $749. Not only this, but AMD today has lifted the covers on its next generation Threadripper platform, which includes Zen 2-based chiplets, a new socket, and an astounding 4x increase in CPU-to-chipset bandwidth.

Reviews of the 16-core 3950X will appear on November 14, with retail availability on November 25. The "mainstream" CPU has a 3.5 GHz base clock, 4.7 GHz single-core boost clock, and 24 PCIe 4.0 lanes. Unlike most Ryzen CPUs, the 3950X will not come with a bundled cooler, and AMD has published a list of recommended coolers instead.

All Ryzen 3000-series CPUs can now be configured to use a lower TDP using AMD's software: