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canopic jug writes:

Software developer Bert Hubert explores reverse engineering the source code of the BioNTech/Pfizer SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate being rolled out. Pfizer claims to have used mRNA to encode instructions for producing the distinctive outer layer of protein coating the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Welcome! In this post, we’ll be taking a character-by-character look at the source code of the BioNTech/Pfizer SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine.

Now, these words may be somewhat jarring - the vaccine is a liquid that gets injected in your arm. How can we talk about source code?

[...] The BNT162b mRNA vaccine [has] digital code at its heart. It is 4284 characters long, so it would fit in a bunch of tweets. At the very beginning of the vaccine production process, someone uploaded this code to a DNA printer (yes), which then converted the bytes on disk to actual DNA molecules.

What follows is a reasonably accessible explanation of what the vaccine does, and how it does it, step-by-step.

Hubert also has a much older blog post on DNA sequencing.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956_:

A Photograph With an Eight-Year Exposure Was Taken With a Beer Can:

A week after the 2012 London Olympics closing ceremony, a Master's student at the University of Hertfordshire placed a film-lined beer can on the side of a campus observatory and seemingly at some point forgot about it. Eight years later, in September 2020, there was a picture on the inside of the can with one of the longest exposure photographs ever taken.

Regina Valkenborgh was experimenting with pinhole camera techniques when she created this project, according to a University of Hertfordshire statement. She decided to build a simple, makeshift camera using a can to capture the rising and setting of the sun for an indeterminate length of time. It ended up sitting there for eight years—according to the university, 2,953 arced trails of the star were captured on the film inside of the can. This is believed to be the longest-exposure photograph taken.

"To me the most exciting thing is that this rudimentary way of photographing in this technology-driven era still has value," Valkenborgh said in an email to Motherboard. "Yet in all its simplicity it has the capability of 'capturing' a photograph way beyond the slowest shutter speed you can set on any digital camera. The images are also totally unique, the light photons travel through the actual pinhole and touch the paper inside the can. You can compare it with your footprint in the sand as opposed to drawing a foot with a stick. The foot actually touched the sand and likewise the sun's rays actually touched the paper."

Officially titled "Days in the Sun", the image documents the sun's path in the Northern Hemisphere's sky. The highest arches coincide with the Summer Solstice (i.e. the longest day of the year), and as time goes on, the lowest ones indicate the Winter Solstice (the shortest day). Breaks in the light trails indicate cloudy days and saturated spots imply sunny ones.

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c0lo writes:

Exclusive: Apple targets car production by 2024 and eyes 'next level' battery technology - sources

(Reuters) - Apple Inc is moving forward with self-driving car technology and is targeting 2024 to produce a passenger vehicle that could include its own breakthrough battery technology, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The iPhone maker’s automotive efforts, known as Project Titan, have proceeded unevenly since 2014 when it first started to design its own vehicle from scratch. At one point, Apple drew back the effort to focus on software and reassessed its goals. Doug Field, an Apple veteran who had worked at Tesla Inc, returned to oversee the project in 2018 and laid off 190 people from the team in 2019.

Since then, Apple has progressed enough that it now aims to build a vehicle for consumers, two people familiar with the effort said, asking not to be named because Apple’s plans are not public. Apple’s goal of building a personal vehicle for the mass market contrasts with rivals such as Alphabet Inc’s Waymo, which has built robo-taxis to carry passengers for a driverless ride-hailing service.

Central to Apple’s strategy is a new battery design that could “radically” reduce the cost of batteries and increase the vehicle’s range, according to a third person who has seen Apple’s battery design.

Apple declined to comment on its plans or future products.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

Putting on the pressure improves glass for fiber optics:

Rapid, accurate communication worldwide is possible via fiber optic cables, but as good as they are, they are not perfect. Now, researchers from Penn State and AGC Inc. in Japan suggest that the silica glass used for these cables would have less signal loss if it were manufactured under high pressure.

"Signal loss means that we have to use amplifiers every 80 to 100 kilometers (50 to 62 miles)," said John C. Mauro, professor of materials science and engineering, Penn State. "After that distance, the signal wouldn't be detected properly. Across continents or across oceans that becomes a big deal."

[...] Mauro and his team used molecular simulations to investigate the effects of pressure when making optical fibers. They reported their results in npj Computational Materials. The simulations showed that using pressure quenching of the glass, the Rayleigh scattering loss could be reduced by more than 50%.

[...] Mauro's work is a molecular simulation, but Madoka Ono of AGC Inc.'s Materials Integration Laboratories, who is an associate professor in the Research Institute for Electronic Science at Hokkaido University in Japan, tested bulk pieces of silica glass and found that the results matched the simulation.

Journal Reference:
Yongjian Yang, Osamu Homma, Shingo Urata, et al. Topological pruning enables ultra-low Rayleigh scattering in pressure-quenched silica glass [open], npj Computational Materials (DOI: 10.1038/s41524-020-00408-1)

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takyon writes:

MediaTek leapfrogs Qualcomm as the world's largest smartphone chipset vendor thanks to huge growth in India and Latin America

In Q3 2019 the two companies held 26% (MediaTek) and 31% (Qualcomm) market share; in Q3 2020 these figures had changed to 31% for MediaTek and 29% for Qualcomm. There is a three-way tie for third position, with HiSilicon, Samsung, and Apple all snatching 12% of the share, leaving Unisoc with 4%.

The surge for MediaTek's chipsets is attributed to numerous factors: The Dimensity range has been adopted by big-name smartphone vendors like Xiaomi (Redmi), Realme, and OPPO, and the MediaTek Dimensity 1000 series SoCs have been especially praised for their performances. Also, Huawei's trade issues have helped MediaTek increase its share, and sales of affordable (US$100-US$250) smartphones featuring its chipsets have grown significantly in markets such as India and Latin America.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

The ACLU Is Suing For Info On The FBI's Encryption Breaking Capabilities:

The American Civil Liberties Union announced on Tuesday that it plans to sue for information related to the FBI's shadowy and relatively new ability to break into encrypted devices at will.

The lawsuit will reportedly seek to target information related to the FBI's Electronic Device Analysis Unit (EDAU) and its apparent acquisition of software that would allow the government to unlock and decrypt information that is otherwise securely stored on cell phones.

[...] The problem, however, is that the FBI's refusal to acknowledge whether the records exist or not is particularly implausible in light of how much information on the agency's attempts to access encrypted devices is already publicly available. The ACLU has now appealed to a federal court in an attempt to compel the DOJ and FBI to turn over all relevant documents on the EDAU and its technological capabilities. In the blog post, the ACLU wrote that the FBI's chilling refusal to provide information isn't just shutting the door on the investigation — "they've shut the door, closed the windows, drawn the shades, and refused to acknowledge whether the house that we're looking at even exists."

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[2020-12-25 22:18:22 UTC -- Corrected typo (with thanks to maxwell demon) --martyb]
[2020-12-25 21:32:03 UTC -- Updated with staff info and reformatted the story. --martyb]

martyb writes:

First, on behalf of the staff at SoylentNews, please accept our best wishes for a happy (and safe and healthy) holiday!

Next, here are a few quick items of note that bear calling to your attention.

Please join me in welcoming requerdanos to the editorial staff at SoylentNews! He has already jumped in with both feet and had stories appear on the main page. Welcome aboard requerdanos!

Of note, as well, takyon has not only posted 1364 stories to the site, and he has submitted just shy of 6,100 stories (as I write this it stands at 6,097 submissions... there's more(!) how about posting over 20,000 comments! Thank you SO much!

I always feel reluctant to mention anyone specifically as running this site is a team effort. I sense there are some staff who prefer to work in the background and shun the limelight. We appreciate their efforts nonetheless! Recall the early days when site crashes were a request frequent occurrence. We've come a long way from then and I count it a privilege to have worked with such knowledgeable folk who have been so generous with their time and energy!

Lastly a huge thank-you to those who responded so generously to our end-of-the-year fundraiser! As of this writing, we have had 21 subscriptions totaling $567.40 since our request went out a couple weeks ago.

In this second half of the year (July 1 through December 31) we have raised $1908.15 from 85 subscriptions towards our $3,500.00 goal. THANK-YOU!

We realize it's been a tough year for everyone; take care of your friends, family, and community first. But, if you do have the means, we'd really appreciate your subscribing and helping us to keep things going for you and our community! Please see this comment to our previous story for step-by-step instructions on how to subscribe.

Why subscribe? Why not? Besides, you'll get all the benefits listed on the "SoylentNews - Why Subscribe?".

NB: If you'd prefer, you can subscribe anonymously. There's an option to make a gift subscription, as well. For any questions or difficulty, please reach out on IRC, send an email to admin@soylentnews.org, or just post a comment to this story.

Thank you!

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

Police Seize VPN Service Beloved by Cyber-criminals:

A virtual private network (VPN) used by some of the world's leading cyber-criminals has been shut down in an international law enforcement action led by German police.

The Safe-Inet service was deactivated yesterday as part of Operation Nova, a coordinated effort that involved the Federal Bureau of Investigation and European law enforcement agencies acting through Europol.

Servers used by the service were taken down, and its infrastructure was seized in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States. Visitors to the Safe-Inet webpage are now greeted by a domain seizure notice.

Safe-Inet was active for eleven years prior to yesterday's action, describing itself as an international team of "experienced technical specialists who understand how important anonymity on the network is for our clients."

[...] "This VPN service was sold at a high price to the criminal underworld as one of the best tools available to avoid law enforcement interception, offering up to 5 layers of anonymous VPN connections," said a spokesperson for Europol.

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Tesla Allowed to Clear Part of Forest Near Berlin for New Factory, Reports Say

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

Tesla Allowed to Clear Part of Forest Near Berlin for New Factory, Reports Say:

The Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court has ruled that Tesla can clear a part of a forest near Berlin to build a new manufacturing site there, Reuters reported. The ruling prohibited clear-cutting the forest in peripheral areas of the site, but stressed that the same ban for the rest of the area "could not be justified".

The court turned down a complaint from the Gruene Liga Brandenburg group, stating that local authorities didn't violate laws when they allowed work on the factory to start.

Hibernating Lizards are Blocking Tesla's Plan for a Berlin Gigafactory

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

Hibernating lizards are blocking Tesla's plan for a Berlin Gigafactory:

Tesla has run into yet another snag while it tries to construct its Gigafactory near Berlin, Germany.

On Friday, a German court rule that Tesla cannot raze as much of the nearby forest as it'd planned to, according to Business Insider. The reason? The forest is home to a protected species of sand lizard that's already hunkered down for its winter hibernation. In the face of yet another ecological delay, it seems increasingly likely that Tesla will have to revisit its planned completion date of July 2021.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

Google told scientists to use 'a positive tone' in AI research, documents show:

Google this year moved to tighten control over its scientists' papers by launching a "sensitive topics" review, and in at least three cases requested authors refrain from casting its technology in a negative light, according to internal communications and interviews with researchers involved in the work.

Google's new review procedure asks that researchers consult legal, policy and public relations teams before pursuing topics such as face and sentiment analysis and categorizations of race, gender or political affiliation, according to internal webpages explaining the policy.

"Advances in technology and the growing complexity of our external environment are increasingly leading to situations where seemingly inoffensive projects raise ethical, reputational, regulatory or legal issues," one of the pages for research staff stated. Reuters could not determine the date of the post, though three current employees said the policy began in June.

Google declined to comment for this story.

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TommyJ writes:

Over the next three years, ten new satellites the size of a shoebox are to be built after a signing between the European Space Agency and AAC Clyde Space UK. The satellites will be built in Glasgow, and the initiative comes as part of a new innovative constellation service.

The satellites will be manufactured as part of a three-year project labeled 'xSPANCION', which will focus on the production of a satellite constellation with the aim of providing businesses with services such as Earth Observation, remote sensing, and satellite-based communications.

Here it is

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c0lo writes:

Stop the spread: no more plosive consonants (watch it)

Picked from abc.net.au

In the joke clip, Mr Prowse suggests the sounds produced by the letters P, T and C will be phased out and replaced with the sounds produced by N, F and L.

"Consonants project the virus for much greater distances than vowels, and certain consonants — the so-called plosive sounds — are worst of all," he says in the video, which was posted online earlier this month.

[...] Speaking conventionally to ABC Radio Adelaide this morning, Mr Prowse said the public response to the video was completely unexpected.

[...] "It happened all around the world, largely due to a rapper called Zuby, who re-posted it to [a] third-of-a-million followers."

Despite the video being marked as a joke on his YouTube page, some viewers were fooled into taking it seriously.

"Quite a lot of them [are] in America and a lot of them didn't actually realise it was a joke," he said.

Other similar jokes in French and German and some more details here.

No news on the classical Greek; aristarchus could not be contacted

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

Video game revenues in 2020 set to top sports, movie industries:

Global video game revenue is up 20 percent in 2020, and will finish the year at an eye-watering $180 billion according to data from IDC. That figure beats the pre-coronavirus $100 billion that movies brought in in 2019, and the $75 billion brought in by the major sports leagues around the world.

And unlike sports and movies, which were both hit hard this year by the shuttering of stadiums and theaters, video games have only seen their popularity increase as people have looked for new ways to pass the time.

[...] Indeed, in an interview with MarketWatch, IDC’s Lewis Ward said that he doesn’t see a slowdown in video game sales coming any time soon.

Specifically mentioned game systems with higher demand are the Nintendo Switch, the Xbox Series X, and the Playstation 5.

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fliptop writes:

After spending years working behind the scenes to persuade regulators and law enforcement agencies in Washington DC, 30 states, and at least a dozen other countries, Oracle's efforts to rein in Google's search-and-advertising business are paying off:

With great fanfare last week, 44 attorneys general hit Google with two antitrust complaints, following a landmark lawsuit the Justice Department and 11 states lodged against the Alphabet Inc. unit in October.

[...] Officials in more than a dozen of the states that sued Google received what has been called Oracle’s “black box” presentation showing how Google tracks users’ personal information, said Ken Glueck, Oracle’s top Washington lobbyist and the architect of the software company’s antitrust campaign against Google.

Glueck outlined for Bloomberg the presentation, which often entails putting an Android phone inside a black briefcase to show how Google collects users’ location details — even when the phones aren’t in use — and confirmed the contours of the pressure campaign.

[...] The onslaught of antitrust challenges is hardly just Oracle’s doing. Government officials, academics, lawmakers and public-interest groups have agreed for some time that U.S. technology giants have gotten so big that they are squeezing out competition and dragging down economic growth. Oracle acted on those concerns early, even if largely out of self-interest.

Original story reported by Bloomberg and appeared on MSN.

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AnonTechie writes:

DeepMind's New AI Masters Games Without Even Being Taught the Rules: (Javascript required)

The folks at DeepMind are pushing their methods one step further toward the dream of a machine that learns on its own, the way a child does.

The London-based company, a subsidiary of Alphabet, is officially publishing the research today, in Nature, although it tipped its hand back in November with a preprint in ArXiv. Only now, though, are the implications becoming clear: DeepMind is already looking into real-world applications.

DeepMind won fame in 2016 for AlphaGo, a reinforcement-learning system that beat the game of Go after training on millions of master-level games. In 2018 the company followed up with AlphaZero, which trained itself to beat Go, Chess and Shogi, all without recourse to master games or advice. Now comes MuZero, which doesn't even need to be shown the rules of the game.

The new system tries first one action, then another, learning what the rules allow, at the same time noticing the rewards that are proffered—in chess, by delivering checkmate; in Pac-Man, by swallowing a yellow dot. It then alters its methods until it hits on a way to win such rewards more readily—that is, it improves its play. Such learning by observation is ideal for any AI that faces problems that can't be specified easily. In the messy real world—apart from the abstract purity of games—such problems abound.

So, how far do you think this approach can advance ?

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