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gsomlo writes:

Missing hiker ignored calls from rescuers because it was an unknown number:

Lake County Search and Rescue [(LCSAR)] says it got a report last week that a hiker hadn't returned from a hike on Mount Elbert. The hiker had set out at 9 a.m. on October 18 and wasn't back at 8 p.m., LCSAR said in a post on its Facebook page.

Rescuers tried to call the person's cell phone multiple times, but weren't able to reach them.

Five LCSAR team members looked for the hiker in areas where people tend to get lost, but called off the search at 3 a.m. A three-person search team checked another area at 7 a.m.

They got a call at about 9:30 a.m. that the hiker, who was not identified, had returned to where they were staying.

The hiker had no idea that rescuers were looking for them, the post said.

"One notable take-away is that the subject ignored repeated phone calls from us because they didn't recognize the number," LCSAR wrote. "If you're overdue according to your itinerary, and you start getting repeated calls from an unknown number, please answer the phone; it may be a SAR team trying to confirm you're safe!"

Umm, ok, but why not leave a message if the callee doesn't answer? :)

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

From SparkFun, A Patent Troll Backs Off:

We scared them off... this time.

You can read our first post about this troll and other forms of extortion here.

Lesson #1) Find an attorney that’s as pissed about this as you are. [...] I had emailed the EFF on a Hail Mary and to my surprise, got a response! EFF

Lesson #2) Fight like hell. Every time a company settles it just funds the trolls to wreak more havoc.

[...] A good attorney will be able to dig up all sorts of patents that pre-date the troll’s patent. Here is our counterclaim response and affirmative defense to the original lawsuit. Things of note in the affirmative defense is the provenance of the patent ownership in Counterclaim 3: Failure to Mark.

[...] Things of note: Altair Logix was formed June 12, 2018, or three months after the patent expired on February 27th, 2018. Patents are really screwed up investment vehicles that change value over time. In this case, Jason, smelling potential money, purchased an expired patent ‘434 from Huawei and then formed a shell company to start suing people.

From the link in the article text above, here is a bit more about what it is about:

Sal is basically saying, "Hey there. We noticed you have a website. We have patents that deal with websites. We’ve managed to (supposedly) shake-down Foot Locker and Northern Tool. You should probably call us to discuss this.”

Original Submission

upstart writes:

A breakdown in communication: Mitochondria of diabetic patients can’t keep time:

Almost all cells regulate their biological processes over a 24-hour period, otherwise called a cell's circadian rhythm. To do so, cells use a biological clock that cycles different genes on and off throughout the day and night. Scientists already know that our metabolic health can suffer when our biological clock breaks down, due to shift work or sleep disorders, for example. However, it's unclear how exactly the biological clock of people with type 2 diabetes differs from healthy people.

Now a team of international scientists has shown that the skeletal muscle in people with type 2 diabetes has a different circadian rhythm. They argue that this might arise because of a communication breakdown between a cell's time keeping molecules and mitochondria, which produce chemical energy for cells.

[...] Some of the most widely used pharmacological treatments for type 2 diabetes affect mitochondria, meaning that they may work differently depending on the time of day they are taken. As a result, these findings highlight the importance of considering cellular rhythms when prescribing treatments for type 2 diabetes.

Journal Reference:
Brendan M. Gabriel, Ali Altıntaş, Jonathon A. B. Smith, et aj. Disrupted circadian oscillations in type 2 diabetes are linked to altered rhythmic mitochondrial metabolism in skeletal muscle, Science Advances (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abi9654)

Original Submission

AnonTechie writes:

NASA is planning an interstellar mission that could last more than 100 years:

When the famous Voyager twin spacecraft left Earth in the 1970s, their mission was originally meant to last only five years. Although they’re 14 billion and 11 billion miles, respectively, away from Earth, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are continuing to provide invaluable scientific data.

However, the Voyager twins can’t go on forever. Scientists estimate that the last instruments onboard the spacecraft will shut down by 2031 at the latest, if some malfunction doesn’t happen before then. This is why NASA wants a replacement — and this time, this new interstellar mission will be designed to run for a long time from the get-go. In fact, scientists at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) who have been tasked with designing the new mission, believe this Voyager successor could function for more than a century.

The new project, known as the Interstellar Probe, could launch sometime in the 2030s. It’s meant to travel faster and farther than any man made object has and probably ever will in the foreseeable future. While still in the solar system, the plan is for the spacecraft to visit one or more of the 130 known dwarf planets in the outer reaches of the solar system. There are some clues that some of these icy worlds may have formed as ocean worlds.

AnonTechie writes:

Sandia Labs shows advanced wayfinding tech could finally become compact and fieldable:

Sandia Labs shows advanced wayfinding tech could finally become compact, fieldable

For over a year, the avocado-sized vacuum chamber has contained a cloud of atoms at the right conditions for precise navigational measurements. It is the first device that is small, energy-efficient and reliable enough to potentially move quantum sensors — sensors that use quantum mechanics to outperform conventional technologies — from the lab into commercial use, said Sandia National Laboratories scientist Peter Schwindt.

Sandia developed the chamber as a core technology for future navigation systems that don’t rely on GPS satellites, he said. It was described earlier this year in the journal AVS Quantum Science.

Countless devices around the world use GPS for wayfinding. It’s possible because atomic clocks, which are known for extremely accurate timekeeping, hold the network of satellites perfectly in sync.

But GPS signals can be jammed or spoofed, potentially disabling navigation systems on commercial and military vehicles alike, Schwindt said.

So instead of relying on satellites, Schwindt said future vehicles might keep track of their own position. They could do that with on-board devices as accurate as atomic clocks, but that measure acceleration and rotation by shining lasers into small clouds of rubidium gas like the one Sandia has contained.

Also at phys.org

Journal Reference:
Bethany J. Little, Gregory W. Hoth, Justin Christensen, et al. A passively pumped vacuum package sustaining cold atoms for more than 200 days, AVS Quantum Science (DOI: 10.1116/5.0053885)

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

SpaceX needs to tame toilet trouble before weekend launch:

The company and NASA want to make sure the toilet leaks won’t compromise the capsule launching early Sunday from Kennedy Space Center or another one that’s been parked at the International Space Station since April.

During SpaceX’s first private flight last month, a tube came unglued, spilling urine onto fans and beneath the floor, said William Gerstenmaier, a SpaceX vice president who used to work for NASA. The same problem was recently discovered inside the Dragon capsule at the space station, he told reporters Monday night.

As a permanent fix, SpaceX has welded on the urine-flushing tube that's inside the company's newest capsule, named Endurance by its U.S.-German crew. NASA isn't quite finished reviewing the last-minute fix.

SpaceX To Launch On Halloween If It Tames Toilet Trouble:

[...] As for the Dragon capsule in orbit, less urine pooled beneath the floor panels than the one that carried a billionaire and three others on a three-day flight, Gerstenmaier said. That’s because the NASA-led crew only spent a day living in it before arriving at the space station.

SpaceX is conducting tests to make sure the spilled liquid didn’t weaken the orbiting capsule during the past six months, Gerstenmaier said. Any structural damage could endanger astronauts during their flight back to Earth next month. The final tests should be completed later this week, he noted.

A project to make the space toilet from Iron, Carbon and Aluminum could be called project FeCAl.

See also:
SpaceX's Crew Dragon Endurance arrives at rocket hangar in awesome photos

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

FCC kicks China Telecom Americas out of US, cites Chinese government control:

The Federal Communications Commission today voted to block China Telecom Americas from the US market, saying that the "US subsidiary of a Chinese state-owned enterprise" is "subject to exploitation, influence, and control by the Chinese government." The telco "is highly likely to be forced to comply with Chinese government requests without sufficient legal procedures subject to independent judicial oversight," the FCC said.

The vote was 4-0 with both Democrats and both Republicans approving the order to revoke and terminate China Telecom's Section 214 authority to operate in the US. The FCC said its order "directs China Telecom Americas to discontinue any domestic or international services that it provides pursuant to its Section 214 authority within sixty days following the release of the order."

Original Submission

looorg writes:

Followup for the previous story about facial recognition for pupils in school to get their food.

Nine schools in North Ayrshire have paused use of facial recognition technology days after introducing it, following UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) inquiries.

[...] Separately, Prof Fraser Sampson, biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner for England and Wales, told the BBC that he expected public services contemplating the use of facial recognition to think carefully before "deciding to use a measure as obviously intrusive as facial recognition".

[...] On Friday, North Ayrshire Council tweeted that it had decided to temporarily pause the facial recognition system in secondary schools, having received a number of inquiries about the technology.

I guess there was a bit of a big brother backlash after it became known and the project is now on pause. Or they won't use the entire system but just the fingerprint part, not fingerprint and face scan.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59037346

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

From SpaceNews.com: Rogozin says Crew Dragon safe for Russian cosmonauts

The head of Roscosmos says he is now satisfied that SpaceX's Crew Dragon is safe enough to carry Russian cosmonauts, clearing a major obstacle for an agreement to exchange seats between Soyuz and commercial crew vehicles.

[...] Rogozin and others at Roscosmos had previously said they needed more evidence that Crew Dragon was safe enough for Russian cosmonauts

[...] NASA has sought to barter seats to create "mixed crews" of at least one NASA astronaut and one Roscosmos cosmonaut on each mission. That would ensure both countries would have a presence on the station, and ability to maintain their separate systems, if either Soyuz or commercial crew vehicles are grounded for an extended period.

The earliest a Russian cosmonaut could fly on a Crew Dragon would be the Crew-5 mission in the second half of 2022. Similarly, the next time a NASA astronaut could fly on a Soyuz would be in the fall of 2022, since NASA has decided not to acquire a seat on the Soyuz MS-21 launching in March 2022.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

2 million Brits get a raise as minimum wage jumps to $13 an hour:

London (CNN Business) Up to 2 million UK workers will be getting bigger paychecks starting in April following a hike to the minimum wage.

The minimum hourly wage for people over the age of 23 will increase by 6.6% to £9.50 ($13), the government said ahead of its budget announcement on Wednesday.

The increase to the National Living Wage is more than twice the current inflation rate of 3.1%. But it has been criticized as inadequate because inflation is expected to race higher in the coming months and the government is slashing benefits for some low earners while hiking taxes on workers.

Lower income households also spend a higher proportion of their income on energy bills, and they could come under further pressure as energy prices spike.

[...] The government has recently increased the minimum wage by more than inflation, [Nye] Cominetti said. But he cautioned that the April hike "would in fact be a smaller real rise than some recent years, given that inflation is likely to be over 4% by April 2022."

Some economists are expecting prices to surge even higher. Huw Pill, the Bank of England's top economist, told the Financial Times last week that he "would not be shocked" to see inflation top 5% early next year.

Higher wages also won't fully compensate for government cuts to a benefit claimed by lower earners called Universal Credit. The benefit was hiked during the pandemic, but is now being reduced by £20 ($27.50) a week.

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

Trump Given 30 Days To Have His Social Media Site Comply With Open Source License:

Plenty of people have raised concerns that Donald Trump's sketchy new social media site, Truth Social, is just a lightly reskinned Mastodon, which is violating Mastodon's fairly strict AGPLv3 license. As we had previously discussed, the aggressive (and sloppy) terms of service for the site claim that the code is proprietary, and even claims that "all source code, databases, functionality, software, website designs, audio, video, text, photographs, and graphics on the Site (collectively, the “Content”) and the trademarks, service marks, and logos contained therein (the “Marks”) are owned or controlled by us or licensed to us..."

Of course, part of the reason that Mastodon uses such a license is to encourage others to take the code and build on it if they abide by the terms of the license. And the nature of Mastodon's license is that if you use it, you must make the complete source code available of what you build with it.

[...] the Software Freedom Conservancy has given Trump 30 days to bring the code into compliance -- specifically by providing the source code to Truth Social to the early users who were able to sign up -- or, under the license terms, Trump's "rights in the software are permanently terminated."

For those not familiar, the AGPL license works like the GPL, but eliminates the loophole where GPL software can be used to build a web site without disclosing the GPL and all other related source code of the web site. With AGPL you can either disclose all of the code of your site as open source under AGPL, or you can take a commercial license to the AGPL code you are using.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Signs of first planet found outside our galaxy

Astronomers have found hints of what could be the first planet ever to be discovered outside our galaxy. Nearly 5,000 "exoplanets" - worlds orbiting stars beyond our Sun - have been found so far, but all of these have been located within the Milky Way galaxy.

The possible planet signal discovered by Nasa's Chandra X-Ray Telescope is in the Messier 51 galaxy. This is located some 28 million light-years away from the Milky Way.

[...] Dr Rosanne Di Stefano and colleagues searched for dips in the brightness of X-rays received from a type of object known as an X-ray bright binary. These objects typically contain a neutron star or black hole pulling in gas from a closely orbiting companion star. The material near the neutron star or black hole becomes superheated and glows at X-ray wavelengths. Because the region producing bright X-rays is small, a planet passing in front of it could block most or all of the X-rays, making the transit easier to spot.

The team members used this technique to detect the exoplanet candidate in a binary system called M51-ULS-1.

[...] The transit lasted about three hours, during which the X-ray emission decreased to zero. Based on this and other information, the astronomers estimate that the candidate planet would be around the size of Saturn, and orbit the neutron star or black hole at about twice the distance Saturn lies from the Sun.

Also at NASA.

A possible planet candidate in an external galaxy detected through X-ray transit

Previously: Detection of Extragalactic Exoplanets and Large Organic Molecules

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Pimax Announces $2399 Standalone Headset With 5.7K Per Eye & 200° Field Of View

Pimax just announced Reality 12K QLED, a future $2399 standalone VR headset with 5.7K per eye resolution and an astonishing 200 degree horizontal field of view.

Reality will use dual 5620×2720 200Hz HDR LCD panels with Mini LED backlighting and a quantum dot layer. While traditional small LCD panels use a single backlight behind the entire display, Mini LED instead uses thousands of tiny LED elements, delivering contrast levels close to OLED – though with the tradeoff of some blooming. The quantum dot layer should deliver an extremely wide color range, which Pimax claims surpasses even OLED.

Pimax says Reality will use a compound lens design combining a fresnel and aspheric element to get the advantages of both. The company claims the geometric distortion seen in the peripheral view on its current products will no longer be present in Reality. The field of view is listed as 200 degrees horizontal and 135 degrees vertical – covering the majority of human vision.

Four cameras on the front edges of Reality are used for inside-out tracking of the headset and its Oculus Touch-like controllers – or your hands freely. Through a partnership with Tobii it will have integrated eye tracking cameras, powering automatic lens separation adjustment and dynamic foveated rendering.

That covers pretty much every feature a VR headset should have.

It also has additional cameras for body tracking and facial expression tracking.

Also at Tom's Hardware and VRFocus.

Previously: Pimax Launches Kickstarter for "8K" Virtual Reality Headset

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Young Australians lodge human rights complaints with UN over alleged government inaction on climate:

Five young Australians, including members of First Nations and disability communities, have lodged three human rights complaints with the United Nations over what they claim is the Morrison government’s inaction on climate.

The complainants – aged between 14 and 24 years old – argue that the Australian government’s 2030 emissions reduction target fails to uphold the rights of every young person in Australia.

They claim the target is putting young First Nations people and people with disabilities at risk of acute harm from climate change.

They filed the complaint just days before the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow, where key allies, like the US and UK, will expect to see improvements to Australia’s emissions reduction targets.

[...] Australia currently has a 2030 target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28% of 2005 levels. The target has been widely criticised as inconsistent with scientific advice and inadequate to slow global warming.

The group, represented by lawyers from Environmental Justice Australia, have filed complaints with the UN special rapporteurs for human rights and the environment, the rights of Indigenous people, and the rights of persons with disabilities.

Senior climate specialist lawyer at Environmental Justice Australia, Hollie Kerwin, says this is significant because special rapporteurs have the power to investigate a breach of human rights, and report these breaches to the Australian representative to the United Nations, and the UN Human Rights Council.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

EU scientists reveal long-term brain damage caused by Covid:

A European study has found that Covid-19 can affect blood vessels in the human brain in a study that has raised more questions about the long-term consequences of the disease.

Research by French, Spanish and German scientists published Thursday in the scientific journal Nature Neuroscience reveals that, in addition to attacking the lungs, the virus can also can kill certain brain cells.

They're known as endothelial cells and are located around the brain, protecting the cerebellum and facilitating blood flow.

The brains of #COVID-19 patients have damaged blood vessels (more so-called string vessels representing remnants of lost capillaries); SARS-CoV-2 infects brain endothelial cells and leads to microvascular pathology via RIPK signalinghttps://t.co/vR0mgZ9EbS

— Nature Neuroscience (@NatureNeuro) October 21, 2021

[...] Scientists discovered that the virus had destroyed endothelial cells by observing patients who died of Covid.

"Blood enters regions of the brain that should not normally see molecules leaving the bloodstream," said report co author Vincent Prévot, from the Inserm research centre in Lille.