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Google's Finally Ready to Give Us Google Glass 2, but is the World Ready?

upstart writes:

Google Glass is making a comeback:

Seven years after discontinuing the Google Glass prototype and pivoting towards business-exclusive applications, it appears that the Californian tech giant is finally ready to give consumer-focused AR tech another chance.

In an official blog post, Google announced that it would soon start publicly testing prototypes for its upcoming Google AR devices, which will focus on live translation and navigation features.

Rumors that Google is developing new AR glasses have been swirling for a while, and in one low-key swoop, it has officially confirmed they were true all along. While lacking a lot of the excitement we would have expected for such an announcement, this is a smart tactical move for Google.

[...] Even if Google is testing a single unified prototype it could face the return of an old enemy – public fear. While Google promises that its latest AR devices are restricted on how they can use their cameras and microphones, that likely won't assuage people's concerns.

[...] We'll have to wait and see how the general public reacts though, not only next month when testers start walking around with the prototypes but also when they officially launch. Another big fault of the original Google Glass was its tough-to-swallow $1,500 price tag. Given the current economic hardships many people are facing right now, a similarly expensive product could once again be doomed to fail.

Ready or Not, the Glassholes are Coming Back

upstart writes:

Is the world finally prepared for hands-free cameras?:

Every major tech company is working on computer glasses. None of them really want to go first.

They all remember how Google Glass, and the "Glassholes" who wore them in public, became the laughingstock of the world. So they've been waiting, biding their time, refining their prototypes, and every so often making sure investors know that, no, they're not going to let the first potentially iPhone-sized opportunity since the iPhone slip by.

[...] If you hate this idea, there's probably nothing I can say to convince you otherwise, nor would I necessarily want to; I'm not going to pretend to know whether such a gadget should exist in the world. I just think you should realize that if Google's test doesn't end in utter disgust, it won't be long before Apple, Microsoft, and others throw their long-awaited glasses into the ring as well.

And in 2022, I wouldn't actually bet on disgust, mainly because we've had a decade of pointing phones at things in public, documenting every element of our lives, to prepare us for what's to come.

[...] Sure, that could change if a future pair of glasses proves to be more intrusive than our existing phones and drones. There are definitely going to be serious questions about data collection and privacy, particularly given the track record of some of the companies building them.

But in 2022, I think the bigger challenge facing Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Snap is figuring out how to build AR experiences we'd actually pay for — experiences more compelling or convenient than what phones already offer.

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The city of Mayapán was the largest Mayan city from approximately 1200 to 1450 AD. It was an important political, economic and religious center, and the capital of a large state that controlled much of northwestern Yucatan in present day Mexico.

When the Spanish arrived in the early 1500s, Mayapán was fondly remembered and Mayans proudly claimed descent from its former citizens. But inherent instability meant that it was doomed to fail.

Or so the story went. This narrative has influenced views of this important city, and this period of Mayan civilization more broadly, for some time.

In a new study, my collaborators and I show that warfare, collapse and abandonment at Mayapán were not inevitable. Instead, they were exacerbated by drought.

[...] Researchers have long suspected that Mayapán collapsed violently, based on early colonial documents. These records describe a revolt led by the noble Xiu family that resulted in the massacre of the ruling Cocom family.

[...] To find out when this conflict occurred, and how it related to changes in climate, required a large number of high-precision radiocarbon dates and paleoclimate data from the vicinity of Mayapán.

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/07/russia-is-quietly-ramping-up-its-internet-censorship-machine/

Since 2019, Vladimir Putin has supercharged his plan to separate Russia from the global Internet. The country's sovereign Internet law, which came into force that November, gives officials the power to block access to websites for millions of Russians. The law was used to hit Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter with blocks and followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February.

Since then, Russian officials have continuously dripped out new policies and measures to further control the Internet, boosting the state's censorship and surveillance powers. Each small move continues to push Russia toward a more isolated, authoritarian version of the web—restricting the rights of those inside its border and damaging the foundational ideas of an open web.

[...] Lokot says that as more nations look to regulate the Internet and do so with their national security in mind, the Internet itself is put at risk. "When the conversation changes from 'the Internet as a public good' to the 'Internet, and Internet access, as a matter of national security,' the questions change," Lokot says. "We will potentially see some really problematic choices made by states—and not just by authoritarian states, but also by democratic states."

Original Submission

hubie writes:

What Harry Potter can (and can't) teach us about economics:

A new paper in Oxford Open Economics, published by Oxford University Press, explores "Potterian economics"—the economics of the world of J.K. Rawling's Harry Potter series. Comparing such economics with professional economic models indicates that while some aspects of this economy are in line with economic models, many other aspects are distorted, contradicting professional economists' views.

Evidence suggests that the public's economic literacy is low and that it acquires much of the knowledge about economics through books, newspapers, etc. There is also evidence that literature affects readers, shaping their views. It is, therefore, possible that the 7-book series may exert influence and reflect on the public's economic perspectives and sentiments. A conservative estimate suggests that more than 7.3% of the world's population has read the Potter books and millions more have seen their movie versions. Given such extraordinary popularity of the books, their effect on the economic sentiments of the public might be considerable.

[...] "A naïve reader of Harry Potter would get a distorted view of economics," said Daniel Levy, one of the paper's authors. "Consider some of the lessons we learn from Potterian economics: markets are not fair for transactions are zero sum; the political process is not transparent; markets encourage crony capitalism; capitalists want to enslave the proletariat; businessmen are deceptive and devious; wealthy people are mean and unethical; no interest is paid on deposits; there is a monopoly on information; power is concentrated; ignorance about foreigners is the norm; domestic producers are protected from foreign competition even if they are inefficient; paper checks are non-existent; creative thinking is rare; human capital does not accumulate; public employees have life-time job-security irrespective of their efficiency; the public sector is the default employer; downward social mobility is the norm; there is a constant class struggle. This is only a partial list."

"The shortcomings listed above characterize many real economies," Levy continued. "This perhaps explains why the Potterian economic model resonates with people. Despite its inaccuracies, it is consistent with folk economics, which while perhaps problematic for human flourishing in a Smithian sense, captures and reflects popular views on many economic and social issues."

Journal Reference:
  Daniel Levy and Avichai Snir, Potterian economics [open], Oxford Open Economics, 1, 2022. DOI: 10.1093/ooec/odac004

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Google, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon launched a public effort Monday to scrap the leap second, an occasional extra tick that keeps clocks in sync with the Earth's actual rotation. US and French timekeeping authorities concur.

Since 1972, the world's timekeeping authorities have added a leap second 27 times to the global clock known as the International Atomic Time (TAI). Instead of 23:59:59 changing to 0:0:0 at midnight, an extra 23:59:60 is tucked in. That causes a lot of indigestion for computers, which rely on a network of precise timekeeping servers to schedule events and to record the exact sequence of activities like adding data to a database.

The temporal tweak causes more problems -- like internet outages -- than benefits, they say. And dealing with leap seconds ultimately is futile, the group argues, since the Earth's rotational speed hasn't actually changed much historically.

"We are predicting that if we just stick to the TAI without leap second observation, we should be good for at least 2,000 years," research scientist Ahmad Byagowi of Facebook parent company Meta said via email. "Perhaps at that point we might need to consider a correction."

takyon and Freeman write:

Russia Says It Will Quit the International Space Station After 2024

The new head of Russia's space agency announced on Tuesday that Russia will leave the International Space Station after its current commitment expires at the end of 2024.

"The decision to leave the station after 2024 has been made," said Yuri Borisov, who was appointed this month to run Roscosmos, a state-controlled corporation in charge of the country's space program.

The pronouncement came during a meeting between Mr. Borisov and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Mr. Borisov told Mr. Putin that Russia would fulfill its commitments through 2024. "I think that by this time we will begin to form the Russian orbital station," he said.

Mr. Putin's response: "Good."

However:

Russian Space Station to Replace ISS Will Be Built No Earlier Than 2028:

"We propose to build it in two stages. If the decision on its construction is made before the end of the year, then the first stage will begin in 2028 with the launch of the Science Power Module by the Angara-A5M launch vehicle," Solovyov said in an interview with the Russian Space magazine.After that, the node and gateway modules will be launched on the same rocket. The first will be similar to the module that is already part of the International Space Station. The second will be used for spacewalks.

Rocky Mudbutt writes:

As noted in Daily Kos,

[...] So I was really impressed to see that a collaboration among the ETH Zurich and a few other Eurpoean organizations actually built a plant that, in real sunlight, out in the field, converts carbon dioxide and water into aviation fuel. This is the first time anyone has ever actually done this for real. Check it out in the July 20 edition of the Cell Press journal Joule .

[...] At the center of this process is an inexpensive and durable catalyst called ceria, or cerium(IV) oxide.

If we heat ceria to a very high temperature (here they used 1,500°C), we can strip off some of its oxygen atoms. Its crystal structure won't change; we'll just have vacancies where the dislodged oxygen atoms were. Those oxygen atoms will form O₂ gas up off the surface, so we can blow or vacuum that O₂ away to keep it from re-reacting with the ceria.

So now, what we're left with is an angry material that really, really wants its oxygen atoms back. If we spray it with some water vapor, it'll rip O right off of H₂O and give us H₂ (hydrogen gas). Or, if we blow some CO₂ over it, it'll likewise yank off an O and give us CO (carbon monoxide). These reactions are so vigorous that they actually produce a lot of heat, so it's best to let the stripped ceria cool down a bit before going to this step (that is, stop shining sunlight on it). When we're done, we have good old regular ceria back, and we can keep using it over and over again.

Because we can control how much H₂O and CO₂ we put in, we can make exactly the ratio of H₂ and CO that we want. The H₂-CO mixture we make is called synthesis gas, or syngas. Our H₂ and CO are much more reactive than H₂O and CO₂, so now we're in really good shape to build some bigger molecules out of them.

We do that with the Fischer-Tropsch process, which is very well-established.

upstart writes:

After five years in prison for a Ponzi scheme and a lifetime ban from the pharmaceutical industry, Martin Shkreli announces his new venture: a web3 drug discovery platform:

Martin Shkreli, sometimes known as "Pharma Bro", earned notoriety after obtaining the patent for an anti-parasitic drug and hiking the price from $13.50 a pill to $750. An FTC lawsuit ordered Shkreli in January 2022 to return almost $65 million in wrongfully obtained profits, and banned him for life from the pharmaceutical industry.

[...] If this was anyone other than Martin Shkreli, I might have been surprised to hear that, only a little over two months out of prison and while still staying in a halfway house, Shkreli is launching a "web3 drug discovery software platform".

From the press release:

"We started Druglike because in our experience, traditional drug discovery software is too difficult and expensive to use," said Martin Shkreli, Co-Founder of Druglike. "Druglike will remove barriers to early-stage drug discovery, increase innovation and allow a broader group of contributors to share the rewards."

[...] Druglike is building a decentralized computing network which provides resources for anyone looking to start or contribute to early-stage drug discovery projects. Unlike competitors, Druglike will be web-based and completely free to use. Druglike will soon release a web-based suite for target identification, drug design, and tools for both constructing and running large-scale virtual screening workflows.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The current minimum measure for broadband is behind the times and, even worse, it's harmful, warns the chairwoman of the US telecoms sector regulator, the Federal Communications Commission. 

Jessica Rosenworcel, Joe Biden's appointment for chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), wants to raise the US's national standard for minimum broadband speeds and to create a more ambitious long-term speed goal. 

The current minimums of 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload (25/3) speeds were established in 2015 under then-FCC chairman Tom Wheeler. Prior to this, the minimum was 4/1 Mbps. The minimum was not raised under the Trump Administration's FCC chairman Ajit Pai. 

Rosenworcel wants to bump up the national minimum to 100/20 Mbps and has called the current minimum "harmful" for low-income and rural communities. 

[...] Rosenworcel also wants the FCC to set a separate national of 1 Gbps/500 Mbps for the future. She's proposing the FCC consider affordability, adoption, availability, and equitable access as part of its determination as to whether broadband is being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion. 

[...] But there are questions over whether the FCC can currently implement the new minimum speed as debate kicks off again about net neutrality, as the Washington Post reports. Democrats generally support net neutrality while Republicans generally oppose it. 

Since Biden's administration begun, the five-seat FCC board has been deadlocked with two Democrats and two Republicans due to delays in nominating the fifth, which progressives hope is Biden's pick, Gigi Sohn, co-founder of telecom advocacy group Public Knowledge. 

Do other countries mandate minimum speeds, and if so, how do they compare?

Original Submission

Both upstart and Arthur T Knackerbracket processed the following story:

A secretive seller of cyberattack software recently exploited a previously unknown Chrome vulnerability and two other zero-days in campaigns that covertly infected journalists and other targets with sophisticated spyware, security researchers said.

CVE-2022-2294, as the vulnerability is tracked, stems from memory corruption flaws in Web Real-Time Communications, an open source project that provides JavaScript programming interfaces to enable real-time voice, text, and video communications capabilities between web browsers and devices. [...]

Avast said on Thursday that it uncovered multiple attack campaigns, each delivering the exploit in its own way to Chrome users in Lebanon, Turkey, Yemen, and Palestine. The watering hole sites were highly selective in choosing which visitors to infect. Once the watering hole sites successfully exploited the vulnerability, they used their access to install DevilsTongue, the name Microsoft gave last year to advanced malware sold by an Israel-based company named Candiru.

"In Lebanon, the attackers seem to have compromised a website used by employees of a news agency," Avast researcher Jan Vojtěšek wrote. "We can't say for sure what the attackers might have been after, however often the reason why attackers go after journalists is to spy on them and the stories they're working on directly, or to get to their sources and gather compromising information and sensitive data they shared with the press."

upstart writes:

We test an electric Mercedes that can go 747 miles on a single charge:

Mercedes wouldn't tell us the program's exact budget, simply warning us that the sole EQXX should be considered priceless [...]

[T]he aim was to build an electric vehicle capable of at least 621 miles (1,000km) on a single charge. Also like the Bugatti, it's road-legal: In April of this year, less than two years after the project was given the green light, the team drove the EV 625 miles (1,006 km) from Sindelfingen in Germany to Cassis, France, arriving with 15 percent state of charge in the battery.

Two months later, the team followed that up with a longer drive that involved descending down fewer mountains, driving from Stuttgart, Germany, to the Silverstone racetrack in the UK, where reigning Formula E champion Nyck de Vries then used the remaining charge to drive some hot laps. The car eventually completed 747 miles (1,202 km) before coming to a halt in the pit lane.

[...] The Vision EQXX is a one-off, a concept car come to life, but it's more fully realized than any other concept I've yet encountered. A pure engineering exercise or world record breaker wouldn't bother with a functional infotainment system that uses a single 44-inch 8K display, nor a completely trimmed interior, even if it's one that uses a cactus fiber fabric instead of leather, bamboo fiber carpets, and a biotech-derived silk, among other innovations.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Nuclear power plants are struggling to stay cool:

From its humble start as a glacial trickle in the Swiss Alps, the Rhône River quickly transforms into one of the world's most industrialized waterways. As it winds through the south of France toward the Mediterranean Sea, its chilly water is drawn into boilers, sucked through pipes as coolant, deviated for agriculture. Among its biggest customers is a battalion of nuclear reactors. Since the 1970s, the river and its tributaries have helped generate about a quarter of France's atomic energy.

But in recent weeks that hasn't been the case. Amidst a slow-burning heat wave that has killed hundreds and sparked intense wildfires across Western Europe, and combined with already low water levels due to drought, the Rhône's water has gotten too hot for the job. It's no longer possible to cool reactors without expelling water downstream that's so hot as to extinguish aquatic life. So a few weeks ago, Électricité de France (EDF) began powering down some reactors along the Rhône and a second major river in the south, the Garonne. That's by now a familiar story: Similar shutdowns due to drought and heat occurred in 2018 and 2019. This summer's cuts, combined with malfunctions and maintenance on other reactors, have helped reduce France's nuclear power output by nearly 50 percent.

Of all the low-carbon energy sources that will likely be necessary to fight climate change, nuclear power is usually thought of as the least perturbable. It's the reinforcement that's called in when the weather doesn't cooperate with other zero-carbon energy sources, like wind and solar. But the nuclear industry faces its own climate risks.

The proposal to enforce AC posting for logged in members only on the main page was promulgated to all staff and members of the board 7 days ago. Thank you to all those who contributed to the earlier discussions and clearly expressed their own views, suggestions and potential enhancements. All are being studied for implementation, if feasible, when staffing and resources permit.

There has been unanimous agreement from all responses received in favour of the proposed restriction. However, it was also apparent that there was a wish that this will be only until other alternative methods of restricting spamming, abuse and other disruptions to discussions can be identified and implemented. This is unlikely to be achievable in the short to medium term; other sites are struggling unsuccessfully with the same problem. The long-term aim remains to include AC posting in all discussions if at all possible

Therefore, beginning immediately, all AC posting on the main site will be limited to registered members who have logged in to their account. We regret that this leaves a number of AC community members unable to contribute as they once did, but anonymity remains a personal choice.

This will not affect discussions in journals which will have no limits and will be open to all.

If there is a demand for it, I will look at alternative methods of publishing a small number of stories each day into a journal.

On a more positive note, there is evidence that because of the recent restrictions on AC posting a significant number of existing accounts have returned and are commenting in the discussions. The quality of discussions (i.e. signal-to-noise ratio) is significantly better than it was several weeks ago. Although we have lost overall numbers of comments, the value of many of those lost comments appears to have been quite low. There has also been a noticeable improvement in moderations being awarded with more positive moderations being given when compared to negative ones. It is too early yet to draw any firm conclusions from other site statistics.

janrinok

takyon writes:

US launches environmental study for Thirty Meter telescope on Mauna Kea

The National Science Foundation will examine the environmental impacts of a proposed optical telescope on the summit of Hawaii's tallest mountain, a project that has faced strong opposition from Native Hawaiians who consider the area sacred.

Native Hawaiians have long protested the plan to build what would be one of the world's largest optical telescopes on Mauna Kea, and say the $2.65bn project will further defile an area already harmed by a dozen other observatories.

The National Science Foundation on Tuesday published a notice of its plans to prepare an environmental impact statement for the $2.65bn Thirty Meter telescope, along with another proposed telescope on Spain's Canary Islands. It will host several meetings on the Big Island of Hawaii in August and said only after it considers public input, the environmental review and the project's technical readiness, will it decide whether to fund the project.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

AMD Establishes New CPU Design Center in NY:

As AMD's sales skyrocketed in recent years, so did its Research and Development (R&D) budget. With hundreds of millions in R&D budget per quarter, AMD is undoubtedly looking for more personnel, and this time, it is opening up an all-new CPU design center in New York.

"AMD's CPU side is hiring as well- they're even building an entirely new site in Poughkeepsie, NY," wrote AMD's Mike Evans on Twitter (opens in new tab).

Based on the hiring entry at AMD's website, AMD's CPU division plans to hire verification engineers (most of them) and then even a CPU core performance architect (that's an important part!) as well as a 'senior Infinity Fabric verification engineer.' Given the diversity of positions and nature of those positions, we might be looking at the establishment of another AMD R&D site that is ready to grow.

Following the roaring success of Ryzen CPU for client devices and EPYC processor for data centers, AMD's R&D budget rose from about a billion U.S. dollars in 2016 to approximately $2.8 billion in 2021 (R&D expenses are a percentage of sales), which gives the company vast amounts of resources to develop hardware and software.

Original Submission