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What was highest label on your first car speedometer?

  • 80 mph
  • 88 mph
  • 100 mph
  • 120 mph
  • 150 mph
  • it was in kph like civilized countries use you insensitive clod
  • Other (please specify in comments)

[ Results | Polls ]
Comments:50 | Votes:109

posted by martyb on Wednesday September 16 2020, @11:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the I've-got-you-under-my-skin dept.

Injectable hydrogel could someday lead to more effective vaccines:

Vaccines have curtailed the spread of several infectious diseases, such as smallpox, polio and measles. However, vaccines against some diseases, including HIV-1, influenza and malaria, don't work very well, and one reason could be the timing of antigen and adjuvant presentation to the immune system. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science developed an injectable hydrogel that allows sustained release of vaccine components, increasing the potency, quality and duration of immune responses in mice.

To confer resistance to infectious diseases, vaccines display parts of a pathogen—known as antigens—to cells of the immune system, which develop antibodies against these molecules. If a vaccinated person later becomes infected with the same pathogen, their immune system can quickly deploy antibodies to destroy the invader. Vaccines usually contain an additional component, called an adjuvant, that helps stimulate the immune system. In natural infections, the body is typically exposed to antigens for 2-3 weeks, compared with only 1-2 days for vaccines. Eric Appel and colleagues wondered whether they could develop an injectable hydrogel that would slowly release vaccine components over a longer period of time, more similar to what the body is used to, which might boost the immune response.

A bubble of hydrogel under the skin would dissolve and release its vaccine over time.

Journal Reference:
Gillie A. Roth, Emily C. Gale, Marcela Alcántara-Hernández, et al. Injectable Hydrogels for Sustained Codelivery of Subunit Vaccines Enhance Humoral Immunity [open], ACS Central Science (DOI: 10.1021/acscentsci.0c00732)


Original Submission

posted by martyb on Wednesday September 16 2020, @09:49PM   Printer-friendly

Al Jazeera:

A team of paleontologists has discovered what they believe is the world's oldest animal sperm, frozen inside a tiny crustacean in a blob of tree resin in Myanmar 100 million years ago.

The oldest known examples of fossilised animal sperm were previously a mere 17 million years old, according to the team of experts led by Wang He of the Chinese Academy of Science in Nanjing.

The sperm were found inside an ostracod, a kind of crustacean that has existed for 500 million years and can be found in many oceans today, researchers said in a paper published on Wednesday in the prestigious Royal Society's Proceedings journal.

The specimen was found inside the body of a fertilized female.

Journal Reference:
He Wang, Renate Matzke-Karasz, David J. Horne, et al. Exceptional preservation of reproductive organs and giant sperm in Cretaceous ostracods, Proceedings of the Royal Society B (DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2020.1661)


Original Submission

posted by martyb on Wednesday September 16 2020, @07:40PM   Printer-friendly
from the whatever-happened-to-Amdahl's-Law? dept.

Jensen Huang Says Nvidia-Branded ARM CPUs Are a Possibility

According to comments from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during a conference call yesterday, we could see Nvidia-branded CPUs in the future, setting the stage for a new level of competition with Intel and AMD.

[...] However, during yesterday's briefing, Timothy Prickett Morgan from TheNextPlatform asked Jensen Huang, "Will you actually take an implementation of something like Neoverse first and make an Nvidia-branded CPU to drive it into the data center? Will you actually make the reference chip for those who just want it and actually help them run it?"

"Well, the first of all you've made an amazing observation, which is all three options are possible," Huang responded, "[...] So now with our backing and Arm's serious backing, the world can stand on that foundation and realize that they can build server CPUs. Now, some people would like to license the cores and build a CPU themselves. Some people may decide to license the cores and ask us to build those CPUs or modify ours."

"It is not possible for one company to build every single version of them," Huang continued, "but we will have the entire network of partners around Arm that can take the architectures we come up with and depending on what's best for them, whether licensing the core, having a semi-custom chip made, or having a chip that we made, any of those any of those options are available. Any of those options are available, we're open for business and we would like the ecosystem to be as rich as possible, with as many options as possible."

Also at Wccftech.

Now Nvidia Is Armed To The Teeth

Huang reminded everyone that we are at the end of Moore's Law, and that we are in the era of accelerated computing – what we would prefer to call hybrid and highly tuned collectives of computing – and that Nvidia was really after creating one overarching (and hopefully not overreaching) architecture that would come from one company and span the entire $250 billion semiconductor total addressable market for datacenter, edge, embedded, and client markets.

So, when you look at a TAM like that and you realize that Arm still has a chance to take a chunk of the $67 billion or so in datacenter compute chips that are sold, then $12 billion in cash and $28 billion in stock issuance doesn't seem that expensive.

NVIDIA's Arm Acquisition Against British National Interest Says Union

NVIDIA Corporation's $40 billion acquisition of British chip design house Arm is at the receiving end of a backlash from the U.K. trade union Unite. Members of the union have requested British members of parliament to review the deal, on concerns that the acquisition is not in the best interest of the United Kingdom and that it will end up winding down the chip designer's operations in the country reports ITPro.

The trade union's concerns come after shadow business secretary Ed Milliband asked the government to ensure that the acquisition would not result in Arm's headquarters being moved outside the U.K. last week. Arm is one of the most valuable companies on the far side of the Atlantic, and its importance in the tech world is only set to grow in the near future. While the company's chip architecture has traditionally been used to create microprocessors and other components for low power devices such as smartphones, advances in semiconductor fabrication and packaging have allowed the company to expand its presence into applications such as supercomputers.

Previously: Nvidia Announces $40 Billion Acquisition of Arm Holdings


Original Submission

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday September 16 2020, @05:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the Why-should-nVidia-have-all-the-fun? dept.

TikTok will spin off into a separate company, partly owned by Oracle

Oracle plans take an ownership stake in a newly formed TikTok corporation as part of the recently announced deal, the Financial Times reports. The new arrangement will not cleave off TikTok regionally, but it will create a separate corporate entity for the app, in which Oracle will take a minority stake. Oracle will also ensure that data from American users is stored and processed in the United States, per the recommendations of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).

TikTok was already headquartered in California, with nominal independence from ByteDance's China operation. The main change made by the deal is Oracle's minority stake in the company, the size of which is still unclear. But while Oracle's stake makes TikTok a more legally distinct corporation, it's still likely that the resulting company will rely on algorithms and applications developed and deployed from China.

TikTok has committed to increasing hiring within the US, and in an interview with CNBC, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin described the deal as part of a broader effort to establish TikTok as a "US-headquartered company."

TikTok Could Be Spun Off Rather Than Sold to Oracle

The Financial Times reports that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said ByteDance is committing to "create TikTok Global as a U.S.-headquartered company," with other outlets saying the deal could be approved as soon as this evening.

See also:
TikTok taps Oracle as US partner
TikTok users rejoice over Oracle deal, but saga with Trump isn't over
Oracle's TikTok non-acquisition seeks Treasury, White House approval
'It's done' — Cramer says Trump administration will approve Oracle-TikTok deal Tuesday
TikTok rejects Microsoft bid at eleventh hour


Original Submission

posted by martyb on Wednesday September 16 2020, @03:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the worry-about-the-ones-they-did-not-find dept.

Tory Bruno reveals Chinese company tried to infiltrate ULA's supply chain

A supplier of software used in machine tools at United Launch Alliance's rocket factory turned out to be partially owned by Chinese interests, ULA's CEO Tory Bruno said on a virtual fireside chat aired Sept. 15 during the Air Force Association's Air Space Cyber Conference.

Bruno revealed the incident in a pre-recorded video in response to a question from Lt. Gen. David Thompson, vice commander of the U.S. Space Force.

Thompson noted that China has been known to steal U.S. intellectual property and exfiltrate sensitive data from systems "to catch up and move forward quickly" in the development of advanced technology. China is "working their way into our supply chains. What are you all doing about that?" Thompson asked Bruno.

Bruno said the Chinese-owned vendor identified in ULA's supply chain was a provider of software for tools used to manufacture the company's next-generation rocket Vulcan Centaur. Because the issue was detected quickly, no sensitive information was extracted by that supplier, Bruno said.

The Pentagon has shown growing concern about the problem and continues to impose cybersecurity requirements on contractors. "But I have to tell you this is just shocking in terms of the scale and ubiquity of this threat and this effort on the part of China to not only gain access to intellectual property through traditional means — hacking or espionage — but through infiltration of the supply chain," Bruno said.

Also At: Air Force Magazine


Original Submission

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday September 16 2020, @01:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the going-back-to-the-old-neighborhood dept.

Bridenstine hints Artemis 3 could land near Apollo site

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine suggested Sept. 14 that NASA would be open to sending the first Artemis human landing mission to a location other than the south pole of the moon.

In remarks at an online meeting of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG), Bridenstine said there could be benefits to sending a mission to the moon's equatorial regions instead, including the vicinity of an Apollo landing site.

"If you're going to go to the equatorial region again, how are you going to learn the most? You could argue that you'll learn the most by going to the places where we put gear in the past," he said, referring to the equipment left behind at the Apollo landing sites.

"There could be scientific discoveries there and, of course, just the inspiration of going back to an original Apollo site would be pretty amazing as well," he said. He also cited creating "norms of behavior" for protecting those sites from other expeditions.

NASA has been working toward returning humans to the moon at in the south polar regions, where deposits of water ice thought to exist there are both of scientific interest and may provide resources to support human exploration.


Original Submission

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday September 16 2020, @11:03AM   Printer-friendly
from the donors-needed dept.

Gene editing to produce 'super dad' livestock

Scientists have produced gene-edited animals they say could serve as "super dads" or "surrogate sires". The pigs, goats, cattle and mice make sperm carrying the genetic material of donor animals.

The researchers used a hi-tech gene editing tool to knock out a male fertility gene in animal embryos. The animals were born sterile, but began producing sperm after an injection of sperm-producing cells from donor animals.

The technique would enable surrogate males to sire offspring carrying the genetic material of valuable elite animals such as prize bulls, said a US-UK team. This would be a step towards genetically enhancing livestock to improve food production, they added.

Also at Reuters and Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News.

Donor-derived spermatogenesis following stem cell transplantation in sterile NANOS2 knockout males (open, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2010102117) (DX)


Original Submission

posted by martyb on Wednesday September 16 2020, @08:54AM   Printer-friendly
from the tables-are-turning dept.

Vinyl sales surpass CDs for the first time since 1986:

A mid-year revenue report from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has revealed vinyl sales in 2020 have surpassed compact disc (CD) sales for the first time since the mid-1980s. The report also reveals the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the physical media music market hard but streaming music subscriptions are up.

For the last decade the resurgence of vinyl has been slow and steady. From a constant parade of novel turntable designs to Sony resuming vinyl production in one of its Japanese plants after a 30-year pause, it's been clear this old medium has a growing fanbase.

In the newly released RIAA revenue report, it seems vinyl has finally put the CD back in its place. For the first time since 1986 gross vinyl sales were higher than CD sales. According to the report, across the first half of 2020 American vinyl sales accounted for US$232 million in revenue compared to just $129.9 million for CD sales.

Vinyl sales have not grown much, but CD sales have crashed.


Original Submission

posted by chromas on Wednesday September 16 2020, @06:46AM   Printer-friendly

Linux 5.9 Dropping Soft Scrollback Support From FB + VGA Console Code - Phoronix:

VGACON/FBCON for the basic Linux console has supported a software scrollback buffer with the Shift + PageUp keyboard sequence for scrolling up in the output for contents out of view. But with most people not making heavy use of the frame-buffer console these days and the code being unmaintained, it's being stripped out from Linux 5.9.

As a post-5.9-rc5 change, Linus dropped the FBCON code and the similar VGACON scrollback support.

[Linus] Torvalds wrote, "This (and the VGA soft scrollback) turns out to have various nasty small special cases that nobody really is willing to fight. The soft scrollback code was really useful a few decades ago when you typically used the console interactively as the main way to interact with the machine, but that just isn't the case any more. So it's not worth dragging along."

I dunno about you lot but I absolutely still use soft scrollback. Not every day by any means but it's damned near essential if you or a system or driver update have somehow managed to get X into a hosed state and you don't normally have sshd enabled.


Original Submission

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday September 16 2020, @04:47AM   Printer-friendly
from the plugging-the-holes dept.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/09/new-windows-exploit-lets-you-instantly-become-admin-have-you-patched/

Researchers have developed and published a proof-of-concept exploit for a recently patched Windows vulnerability that can allow access to an organization's crown jewels—the Active Directory domain controllers that act as an all-powerful gatekeeper for all machines connected to a network.

CVE-2020-1472, as the vulnerability is tracked, carries a critical severity rating from Microsoft as well as a maximum of 10 under the Common Vulnerability Scoring System. Exploits require that an attacker already have a foothold inside a targeted network, either as an unprivileged insider or through the compromise of a connected device.


Original Submission

posted by martyb on Wednesday September 16 2020, @02:38AM   Printer-friendly
from the anticipation-was-breathless dept.

Microsoft's underwater server experiment resurfaces after two years:

Back in 2018, Microsoft sunk an entire data center to the bottom of the Scottish sea, plunging 864 servers and 27.6 petabytes of storage 117 feet deep in the ocean. Today, the company has reported that its latest experiment was a success, revealing findings that show that the idea of an underwater data center is actually a pretty good one.

[...] The benefits are big. Microsoft says the underwater data center had just one-eighth the failure rate of a land-based data center, a dramatic improvement. That lower failure rate is important, given that it's much harder to service a busted server when it's in an airtight container at the bottom of the ocean.

Next up for Microsoft's Project Natick team: showing that the servers can be easily removed and recycled once they reach the end of their life.

From the report:

Datacenter Designation   "Northern Isles" (SSDC-002).
Pressure Vessel Dimensions   12.2m length, 2.8m diameter (3.18m including external components); about the size of a 40' ISO shipping container you might see on a ship, train, or truck.
Subsea Docking Structure Dimensions   14.3m length, 12.7m width.
Electrical Power Source   100% locally produced renewable electricity from on-shore wind and solar, off-shore tide and wave.
Electrical Power Consumption   240 KW.
Payload   12 racks containing 864 standard Microsoft datacenter servers with FPGA acceleration and 27.6 petabytes of disk. This Natick datacenter is as powerful as several thousand high end consumer PCs and has enough storage for about 5 million movies.
Location   European Marine Energy Centre, Scotland, UK.
Internal Operating Environment   1 atmosphere pressure, dry nitrogen.
Time to Deploy   Less than 90 days from factory to operation.
Planned Length of Operation Without Maintenance   Up to 5 years.


Original Submission

posted by chromas on Wednesday September 16 2020, @12:25AM   Printer-friendly

Brain’s mechanism of creating detailed and enduring memories unravelled in a new study:

The study, published in Nature Communications, highlights "inhibitory connections" in the brain, which keep the brain functioning healthy by dampening the nerve cell activity.

Memories are created when connections between the nerve cells which send and receive signals from the brain are made stronger, the media release of the study says. This prompts a response from the neighbouring nerve cells in the hippocampus – a region of the brain crucially important for memory formation – which get "stimulated" or "excited". This is where the inhibitory connections come into play. They prevent neurons from being stimulated, thereby preventing any changes and ensuring that the memory is 'stabilized', the experiment found.

[...] Apart from stabilizing memories, computational modelling showed that this inhibitory learning also enabled the hippocampus to “prevent information from interfering with and disrupting memories”. The findings provide insight into how humans form expectations and make near-accurate predictions about what could happen in the future.

Journal Reference:
Matt Udakis, Victor Pedrosa, Sophie E. L. Chamberlain, et al. Interneuron-specific plasticity at parvalbumin and somatostatin inhibitory synapses onto CA1 pyramidal neurons shapes hippocampal output [open], Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18074-8)


Original Submission

posted by chromas on Tuesday September 15 2020, @10:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the send-me-a-sample dept.

SiFive to Debut RISC-V PC for Developers based on Freedom U740 next-gen SoC

In recent years, people have discussed the need to have Arm-based PCs or workstations for developers to work directly on the target hardware, and there are now several options including SynQuacer E-Series 24-Core Arm PC, Ampere eMAG 64bit Arm Workstation, and HoneyComb LX2K 16-core Arm Workstation.

Now it appears we'll soon get something similar for RISC-V architecture with SiFive to debut the first RISC-V PC for developers at the Linley Fall Processor Conference 2020 taking place on October 20-22 and October 27-29. The PC will be powered by Freedom U740 next-generation RISC-V processor that will also be introduced at the event.

We have very few details about this point in time, but the company points the SiFive Freedom U740 (FU740) SoC will enable professional developers to create RISC-V applications from bare-metal to Linux-based. The processor is said to combines[sic] a heterogeneous mix+match core complex with modern PC expansion capabilities, which probably means PCIe, SATA etc.., and the company will provide tools to ease professional software development.

Freedom U740 details are unknown, but Freedom U540 is a quad-core CPU that was used in the HiFive Unleashed single-board computer.

Related: SiFive Introduces RISC-V Linux-Capable Multicore Processor
SiFive HiFive Unleashed Not as Open as Previously Thought
SiFive Announces a RISC-V Core With an Out-of-Order Microarchitecture
GlobalFoundries and SiFive Partner on High Bandwidth Memory (HBM2E)


Original Submission

posted by chromas on Tuesday September 15 2020, @08:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the RFC1945-what-RFC1945 dept.

University of Ottawa law professor, Michael Geist, writes on the copyright front that Canadian Heritage Minister, Steven Guilbeault, said the other day that it is immoral and unacceptable for web sites to link to other web sites without paying for each link.

Facebook has said that it will block all news sharing on its platform in Australia if the government proceeds with a mandated payment system, noting the limited value of the links and arguing that its referrals that are worth hundreds of millions to the news organizations. If Canada were to pursue the same strategy, Canadian news sites would also likely be blocked and a trade complaint under the USMCA would be a virtual certainty.

Yet despite the significant risks and survey data that this could lead to a less informed public, Guilbeault is aligning with Rupert Murdoch, the chief advocate for these payments in Australia. He characterizes non-payment as “immoral and unacceptable”, claiming that Facebook makes hundreds of millions of dollars from Canadian media content without fair compensation. This points to a showdown like the one taking place in Australia, even though Canada has announced significant support for the sector that Guilbeault has thus far largely failed to deliver.

He plans for new legistation sometime soon and is tangled with the use of the giants to spread disinformation and strife. Trouble has been brewing for some while as the CRTC tries to find ways for streaming companies to fund Canadian content. Guilbeault is expected to try to add new powers to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to enable a "link tax" on the Canadian part of the web. Perhaps that is ignoring, or in ignorance of, RFC 1945, the Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.0.

Previously:
(2018) EU’s Proposed Link Tax Would Still Harm Creative Commons Licensors
(2017) EU Study Finds Even Publishers Oppose the "Link Tax"


Original Submission

posted by chromas on Tuesday September 15 2020, @06:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the making-better-use-of-what-you've-got dept.

Predicting the slow death of lithium-ion batteries:

Batteries fade as they age, slowly losing power and storage capacity.

[...] Now, a model developed by scientists at Stanford University offers a way to predict the true condition of a rechargeable battery in real-time. The new algorithm combines sensor data with computer modeling of the physical processes that degrade lithium-ion battery cells to predict the battery’s remaining storage capacity and charge level.

“We have exploited electrochemical parameters that have never been used before for estimation purposes,” said Simona Onori, assistant professor of energy resources engineering in Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth). The research appears Sept. 11 in the journal IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology.

The new approach could help pave the way for smaller battery packs and greater driving range in electric vehicles. Automakers today build in spare capacity in anticipation of some unknown amount of fading, which adds extra cost and materials, including some that are scarce or toxic. Better estimates of a battery’s actual capacity will enable a smaller buffer.

“With our model, it’s still important to be careful about how we are using the battery system,” Onori explained. “But if you have more certainty around how much energy your battery can hold throughout its entire lifecycle, then you can use more of that capacity. Our system reveals where the edges are, so batteries can be operated with more precision.”

The accuracy of the predictions in this model – within 2 percent of actual battery life as gathered from experiments, according to the paper – could also make it easier and cheaper to put old electric car batteries to work storing energy for the power grid. “As it is now, batteries retired from electric cars will vary widely in their quality and performance,” Onori said. “There has been no reliable and efficient method to standardize, test or certify them in a way that makes them competitive with new batteries custom-built for stationary storage.”

Not just car batteries — I'd like to know if it could be applied to cell phones, tablets, and laptops.

Journal Reference:
Anirudh Allam, Simona Onori. Online Capacity Estimation for Lithium-Ion Battery Cells via an Electrochemical Model-Based Adaptive Interconnected Observer, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology (DOI: 10.1109/TCST.2020.3017566)


Original Submission