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takyon writes:

AMD announced its first RDNA 2 (Radeon RX 6000 series) gaming GPUs during a live stream (24m42s) on October 28.

AMD originally planned for RDNA 2 to have 50% more performance per Watt than GPUs using the RDNA 1 microarchitecture. Now, AMD is claiming 54% more performance per Watt for the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800, and 65% more performance per Watt for the RX 6900 XT. Part of the efficiency gain is due to the use of "Infinity Cache", similar to the L3 cache found in Ryzen CPUs. This allowed AMD to use a 256-bit memory bus with 2.17x the effective memory bandwidth of a 384-bit bus, while using slightly less power.

The RX 6900 XT ($1000) has performance comparable to Nvidia's RTX 3090, with a total board power (TBP) of 300 Watts. The RX 6800 XT ($650) is comparable to Nvidia's RTX 3080, also with a 300 Watt TBP. The RX 6800 ($580) is around 18% faster than Nvidia's RTX 2080 Ti, with a 250 Watt TBP. All three of the GPUs have 16 GB of GDDR6 VRAM and 128 MB of "Infinity Cache".

The 6800 XT and 6800 will be available starting on November 18, while the 6900 XT will be available on December 8.

Also at Tom's Hardware, Phoronix, Ars Technica, and Guru3D.

Previously: Nvidia Announces RTX 30-Series "Ampere" GPUs
AMD Announces Zen 3 CPUs

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Emissions from China coal plants fertilize North Pacific Ocean – study:

They state that peak measurements showed that up to nearly 60% of the iron in one vast swath of the northern part of the ocean emanates from smokestacks.

"It has long been understood that burning fossil fuels alters Earth's climate and ocean ecosystems by releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere," Seth John, senior author of the study and professor at the University of Southern California, said in a media statement.

"This work shows fossil fuel burning has a side effect: the release of iron and metals into the atmosphere that carry thousands of miles and deposit in the ocean where they can impact marine ecosystems."

[...] In May 2017, they boarded a research vessel and took water samples along a north-south transect at latitudes between 25 degrees and 42 degrees north. They found peak iron concentrations in about the middle, which corresponded with a big wind event over east Asia one month before. The peak iron concentrations were about three times greater than the background ocean measurements.

[...] Since the North Pacific notably lacks iron, the scientists say that an influx of metals and other substances can help build the foundation for a new ecosystem. However, this situation must be interpreted as a 'good news, bad news' outcome for Earth.

"Microscopic iron-containing particles released during coal burning impacts algae growth in the ocean, and therefore the entire ecosystem for which algae form the base of the food chain," John said.

[...] "In the short term, we might think that iron in pollution is beneficial because it stimulates the growth of phytoplankton, which then take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere as they grow to offset some of the carbon dioxide released during the initial burning process. However, it's totally unsustainable as a long-term geoengineering solution because of the deleterious effects of pollution on human health."

Journal Reference:
Paulina Pinedo-González, Nicholas J. Hawco, Randelle M. Bundy, et al. Anthropogenic Asian aerosols provide Fe to the North Pacific Ocean [$], Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2010315117)

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takyon writes:

RIAA Sued By YouTube-Ripping Site Over DMCA Anti-Circumvention Notices

A company operating a YouTube-ripping platform has sued the RIAA for sending "abusive" DMCA anti-circumvention notices to Google. According to the complaint and contrary to the RIAA's claims, the Yout service does not "descramble, decrypt, avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair" YouTube's rolling cipher technology.

Last Friday, the RIAA caused [outrage] on the Internet when it filed a complaint that took down the open source software YouTube-DL from Github.

According to the RIAA, the "clear purpose" of YouTube-DL was to "circumvent the technological protection measures used by authorized streaming services such as YouTube" and "reproduce and distribute music videos and sound recordings owned by our member companies without authorization for such use."

As the debate and controversy over the complaint rages on, a company based in the US that operates a YouTube-ripping platform has filed a lawsuit alleging that similar complaints, filed by the RIAA with Google, have caused its business great damage.

RIAA's YouTube-DL Takedown Ticks Off Developers and GitHub's CEO

An RIAA takedown request, which removed the YouTube-DL repository from GitHub, has ticked off developers and GitHub's CEO. Numerous people responded by copying and republishing the contested code, including in some quite clever ways. Meanwhile, GitHub's CEO is "annoyed" as well, offering help to get the repo reinstated.

Yout v. RIAA complaint.

Previously: GitHub has Received a DMCA Takedown from RIAA for youtube-dl

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy_:

Vitamin deficiencies linked to respiratory conditions, including COVID-19:

Oct. 27 (UPI) -- Increasing vitamins A, E and D through diet changes or supplements reduces a person's risk for breathing and respiratory conditions, including flu and COVID-19, a study published Tuesday by the journal BMJ Nutrition Prevention & Health found.

People who consumed recommended amounts of the three key nutrients were less likely to develop the flu, colds, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma, the data showed.

Research has linked vitamin D, in particular, with boosting immune system function, and being deficient in the nutrient has been found to increase a person's risk for severe COVID-19.

Vitamins A, E and D -- as well as vitamin C -- are all considered micronutrients, meaning they are needed in relatively small doses to live.

[...] Major dietary sources of vitamin A include liver, whole milk and cheese, as well as carrots, dark green leafy vegetables and orange-colored fruits, while vegetable oils, nuts and seeds are primary sources of vitamin E.

Adequate intake of vitamin D through diet is more difficult to achieve, given that it is not found naturally in most foods, though it can be acquired by spending time in the sun. But people often take supplements to ensure adequate levels of the vitamin, the researchers said.

Journal Reference:
Suzana Almoosawi, Luigi Palla. Association between vitamin intake and respiratory complaints in adults from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey years 1–8 [open], BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health (DOI: 10.1136/bmjnph-2020-000150) direct link

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

60-year-old limit to lasers overturned by quantum researchers:

A team of Australian quantum theorists has shown how to break a bound that had been believed, for 60 years, to fundamentally limit the coherence of lasers.

The coherence of a laser beam can be thought of as the number of photons (particles of light) emitted consecutively into the beam with the same phase (all waving together). It determines how well it can perform a wide variety of precision tasks, such as controlling all the components of a quantum computer.

Now, in a paper published in Nature Physics, the researchers from Griffith University and Macquarie University have shown that new quantum technologies open the possibility of making this coherence vastly larger than was thought possible.

"The conventional wisdom dates back to a famous 1958 paper by American physicists Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes," said Professor Howard Wiseman, project leader and Director of Griffith's Centre for Quantum Dynamics.

[...] "They showed theoretically that the coherence of the beam cannot be greater than the square of the number of photons stored in the laser," he said.

"In our paper, we have shown that the true limit imposed by quantum mechanics is that the coherence cannot be greater than the fourth power of the number of photons stored in the laser," said Associate Professor Dominic Berry, from Macquarie University.

"When the stored number of photons is large, as is typically the case, our new upper bound is much bigger than the old one."

Journal Reference:
Travis J. Baker, Seyed N. Saadatmand, Dominic W. Berry, et al. The Heisenberg limit for laser coherence, Nature Physics (DOI: 10.1038/s41567-020-01049-3)

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Apple, Google and a Deal That Controls the Internet:

OAKLAND, Calif. — When Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai, the chief executives of Apple and Google, were photographed eating dinner together in 2017 at an upscale Vietnamese restaurant called Tamarine, the picture set off a tabloid-worthy frenzy about the relationship between the two most powerful companies in Silicon Valley.

As the two men sipped red wine at a window table inside the restaurant in Palo Alto, their companies were in tense negotiations to renew one of the most lucrative business deals in history: an agreement to feature Google's search engine as the preselected choice on Apple's iPhone and other devices. The updated deal was worth billions of dollars to both companies and cemented their status at the top of the tech industry's pecking order.

Now, the partnership is in jeopardy. Last Tuesday, the Justice Department filed a landmark lawsuit against Google — the U.S. government's biggest antitrust case in two decades — and homed in on the alliance as a prime example of what prosecutors say are the company's illegal tactics to protect its monopoly and choke off competition in web search.

The scrutiny of the pact, which was first inked 15 years ago and has rarely been discussed by either company, has highlighted the special relationship between Silicon Valley's two most valuable companies — an unlikely union of rivals that regulators say is unfairly preventing smaller companies from flourishing.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy_:

NASA scientists spot "really unexpected" molecule in atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon:

Using a massive radiotelescope in Chile, a team of NASA scientists say they've spotted a highly unusual molecule in the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's largest moon.

The molecule in question is cyclopropenylidene[*], or C3H2. It's an exciting find because molecules similar to it form parts of the nucleobases of DNA and RNA, structures that carry the genetic code of life — though, the researchers were quick to point out, that doesn't necessarily mean the discovery is proof of life on Titan.

"When I realized I was looking at cyclopropenylidene, my first thought was, 'Well, this is really unexpected,'" research lead Conor Nixon, a planetary scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a statement.

Previously, the rare molecule had only been spotted in clouds of gas between star systems, regions NASA says are too cold and empty for exciting chemical reactions to occur.

Titan's atmosphere, however, appears to be teeming with reactions, one of the many reasons NASA wants to study the world using a beefy octocopter drone called Dragonfly.

[...] READ MORE: NASA Scientists Discover 'Weird' Molecule in Titan's Atmosphere [NASA]

[*] Cyclopropenylidene on Wikipedia.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

First Habitable-Zone, Earth-Sized Exoplanet Discovered With Planet-Hunter TESS:

TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, was launched in 2018 with the goal of discovering small planets around the Sun's nearest neighbors, stars bright enough to allow for follow-up characterizations of their planets' masses and atmospheres. [...] In a series of three papers that appeared together this month, astronomers report that one of these planets, TOI-700d, is Earth-sized and also located in its star's habitable zone; they also discuss its possible climate.

CfA astronomers Joseph Rodriguez, Laura Kreidberg, Karen Collins, Samuel Quinn, Dave Latham, Ryan Cloutier, Jennifer Winters, Jason Eastman, and David Charbonneau were on the teams that studied TOI-700d, one of three small planets orbiting one M dwarf star (its mass is 0.415 solar masses) located one hundred and two light-years from Earth. The TESS data analysis found the tentative sizes of the planets as being approximately Earth-sized, 1.04, 2.65 and 1.14 Earth-radii, respectively, and their orbital periods as 9.98, 16.05, and 37.42 days, respectively.

[...] The TESS team observed TOI-700 with IRAC in October of 2019 and January of 2020, acquiring clear detections of the planets with about twice the signal-to-noise of TESS, enough to give a 61% improvement in the planet's orbit and to significantly refine our knowledge of its other characteristics, refining the radius as above and finding the mass to be 2.1 Earth-masses. The results, especially when compared with other planets' properties, suggest that this planet may be rocky and likely to be "tidally locked" with one side of the planet always facing the star.

Journal References:

1. Emily A. Gilbert, et. al., The First Habitable-zone Earth-sized Planet from TESS. I. Validation of the TOI-700 System - IOPscience, The Astronomical Journal (DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/aba4b2)
2. Joseph E. Rodriguez, et. al., The First Habitable-zone Earth-sized Planet from TESS. II. Spitzer Confirms TOI-700 d - IOPscience, The Astronomical Journal (DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/aba4b3)
3. Gabrielle Suissa, et. al., The First Habitable-zone Earth-sized Planet from TESS. III. Climate States and Characterization Prospects for TOI-700 d - IOPscience, The Astronomical Journal (DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/aba4b4)

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Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/10/spacex-starlink-public-beta-begins-its-99-a-month-plus-500-up-front/

SpaceX has begun sending email invitations to Starlink's public beta and will charge beta users $99 per month plus a one-time fee of $499 for the user terminal, mounting tripod, and router. The emails are being sent to people who previously registered interest in the service on the Starlink website. One person in Washington state who got the email posted it on Reddit. Another person who lives in Wisconsin got the Starlink public-beta invitation and passed the details along to Ars via email.

SpaceX is calling it the "Better Than Nothing" beta, perhaps partly because the Starlink satellite service will be most useful to people who cannot get cable or fiber broadband. But the email also says, "As you can tell from the title, we are trying to lower your initial expectations."

[...] SpaceX has said it will reach "near global coverage of the populated world by 2021."

[There are reports of additional expenses for taxes, ridgeline mount, and shipping. --martyb]

That's a bit higher than I'd hoped, but still doable. That's 50% more expensive than what I'm paying for point-to-point wireless for about 5X or better speed than what I am getting. Also, those are really nice latencies. My point-to-point wireless service has worse latency than that.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Microsoft is taking desperate steps to stop you using Internet Explorer:

In the summer, Microsoft confirmed it would kill off defunct web browsers Internet Explorer and Edge Legacy, as plans for a phased termination are brought to a close.

However, a sizable pool of users have remained loyal to Internet Explorer, forcing Microsoft to take additional steps to incentivize switching to the new Chromium-based Edge.

Now, when an Internet Explorer user visits an incompatible site - of which there are currently more than 1,000 - the page will be launched automatically in Microsoft Edge, along with a message that reads: "This website doesn't work in Internet Explorer".

The roster of websites that do not support Internet Explorer is ever-expanding and currently includes popular services Twitter, Instagram, Google Drive, Yahoo Mail and more.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Algae-inspired polymers light the way for enhanced night vision:

In a study recently published in ACS Applied Polymer Materials, researchers from the University of Tsukuba synthesized an infrared-transmitting polymer—based on low-cost, widely available materials—that retains its shape after stretching. The properties of this polymer are highly applicable to the preparation of cheaper night-vision lenses that retain focus while imaging at variable distances.

[...] The researchers' polymer is based on sulfur and compounds derived from algae and plants. The polymer is easy to prepare using a chemical process called inverse vulcanization: simply mix the constituent compounds together and stir while heating. As a first step, the researchers designed a polymer that is elastic—that is, reverts to its original shape—after being repeatedly restretched by 20%.

[...] The fabrication of conventional infrared night-vision lenses, in a way that allows users to easily change focus from one position to another, is typically difficult. Without a variable-focus capability, details that are pertinent to criminal or research investigations, for example, may be lost.

The researchers say the lenses will enable higher resolution night vision equipment.

Journal Reference:
Junpei Kuwabara, Kaho Oi, Makoto M. Watanabe, et al. Algae-Inspired, Sulfur-Based Polymer with Infrared Transmission and Elastic Function, ACS Applied Polymer Materials (DOI: 10.1021/acsapm.0c00924)

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Making it possible to create larger 3-D-printed objects with ceramics:

Ceramics are typically excellent electrical and heat insulators that are hard, strong, biocompatible and robust when faced with many chemicals and temperatures. These unique properties mean ceramics could help improve quality of living, save energy, reduce wear and increase the lifetime of components in many different applications. However, these qualities also make it likely that deformations and cracks occur at some stage during the 3-D printing process—usually, because of stresses within the material.

Although increasingly mainstream for other materials, AM [Additive Manufacturing] is not well understood for ceramics. Until now, it has mostly been used to produce low volumes of very detailed objects smaller than a few cm. Bigger objects run a high risk of cracking.

Westbeek created a model of the physical processes inside the 3-D printer, to help improve understanding of 3-D printing of ceramics and make it possible to print larger objects. AM of ceramics is a two-step process: first, very thin layers of a mixture of ceramic powder and a binder are laid down, hardened by UV light between each layer. This creates the final shape of the object. Second, the object is heated in an oven to remove the binder—much like baking a clay sculpture.

The hardening phase is where stresses can typically crack the ceramic structure.

Journal Reference:
K. H. J. Classens, T. M. Hafkamp, S. Westbeek, et al. Multiphysical modeling and optimal control of material properties for photopolymerization processes, (DOI: https://research.tue.nl/en/publications/multiphysical-modeling-and-optimal-control-of-material-properties)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

AMD in $35 Billion All-Stock Acquisition of Xilinx

After a couple of weeks of rumor, as well as a couple of years of hearsay, AMD has gone feet first into a full acquisition of FPGA manufacturer Xilinx. The deal involves an all-stock transaction, leveraging AMD's sizeable share price in order to enable an equivalent $143 per Xilinx share – current AMD stockholders will still own 74% of the combined company, while Xilinx stockholders will own 26%. The combined $135 billion entity will total 13000 engineers, and expand AMD's total addressable market to $110 Billion. It is believed that the key reasons for the acquisition lie in Xilinx's adaptive computing solutions for the data center market.

[...] As part of the acquisition, Victor Peng will join AMD as president responsible for the Xilinx business, and at least two Xilinx directors will join the AMD Board of Directors upon closing.

Part of the enablement of the acquisition is AMD leveraging its market capitalization of ~$100 billion, and a lot of the industry will draw parallels of Intel's acquisition of FPGA-manufacturer Altera in December 2015 for $16.7 billion. The high-performance FPGA markets, as well as SmartNICs, adaptive SoCs, and other controllable logic, reside naturally in the data center markets more than most other markets. With AMD's recent growth in the enterprise space with its Zen-based EPYC processor lines, a natural evolution one might conclude would be synergizing high-performance compute with adaptable logic under one roof, which is precisely the conclusion that Intel also came to several years ago. AMD reported last quarter that it had broken above the 10% market share in Enterprise with its EPYC product lines, and today's earnings call is also expected to see growth. AMD is already reporting revenue up +56% year on year company-wide, with +116% in the Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom markets.

Also at The Register, Phoronix, and Wccftech.

Previously: AMD Negotiating to Acquire Xilinx

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Samsung's next-gen OLED panels could upgrade to five-figure pixel densities:

A new paper [DOI: 10.1126/science.abc8530] [DX] in the journal Science describes a new and revolutionary type of OLED panel. It may boost the material's pixel counts, brightness and general quality by a significant margin, thanks to a Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) scientist's idea to apply the latest in photonics for solar panels

This research has resulted in the development of a new kind of reflective bottom layer for these devices. They are made of metal processed to exhibit a specific texture at the nanoscopic level. These "corrugations" harness recent breakthroughs in the understanding of how light behaves at the same scale

[...] the experimental panel's pixels had a "higher color purity and a twofold increase in luminescence efficiency" compared to regular OLED. These results also translated to a density of about 10,000 pixels per inch (ppi). For context, even the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra has one of just under 500 ppi.

On the other hand, the Science paper's authors base these findings on a relatively small prototype panel. However, SAIT appears confident that it can be scaled up quickly and easily. Therefore, we might see this ultra-dense, color-rich and bright new form of OLED in real-world devices fairly soon.

Also at IEEE Spectrum.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

With all of the controversy about elections and the pandemic, it's nice to just sit back and admire nature's handiwork.

Blizzards, ice, lightning and rainbows light up Weather Photographer of the Year 2020 contest:

The winners are in for this year's annual Weather Photographer of the Year competition, hosted by the Royal Meteorological Society in association with AccuWeather.

The top-ranking image, taken by Rudolf Sulgan, shows a crowd of people on New York's Brooklyn Bridge during a 2018 blizzard. Judges said it made them feel like they were there standing in the cold with the pictured subjects.

The main page showcases and links through to all of the winners and runners-up for this year.

Original Submission