Daily Archives: January 26, 2018

1.7-Billion-Year-Old Chunk of North America Found Sticking to Australia

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Geologists matching rocks from opposite sides of the globe have found that part of Australia was once attached to North America 1.7 billion years ago.

Researchers from Curtin University in Australia examinedrocks from the Georgetown region of northern Queensland. The rocks — sandstone sedimentary rocks that formed in a shallow sea — had signatures that were unknownin Australia but strongly resembled rocks that can be seen in present-day Canada.

The researchers, who described their findings online Jan. 17 in the journal Geology, concluded that the Georgetown area broke away from North America 1.7 billion years ago. Then, 100 million years later, this landmass collided with what is now northern Australia, at the Mount Isa region. […]
Previous research suggested that northeast Australia was near North America, Siberia or North China when the continents came together to form Nuna, Nordsvan and colleagues noted, but scientists had yet to find solid evidence of this relationship.

Source: 1.7-Billion-Year-Old Chunk of North America Found Sticking to Australia

Scientists Found a Way to Make Inexpensive, Solid-Looking 3D Holograms / volumetric displays

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Researchers at Brigham Young University in Utah made something they’re calling an Optical Trap Display (OTD). The device traps a tiny opaque particle in mid-air using an invisible laser beam, then moves the beam around a preset path in free space. At the same time, it illuminates the particle with red, green, or blue lights. When the particle moves fast enough, it creates a solid holographic image in the air. Move it even faster, and you can create the illusion of movement.
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“We can think about this image like a 3D-printed object,” lead author Daniel Smalley, an assistant professor in electroholography at Brigham Young University, explained in a Nature video. “A single point was dragged sequentially through all these image points, and as it did, it scattered light. And the accumulated effect of all that scattering and moving was to create this 3D image in space that is visible from all angles.”

Scientifically, what Smalley and his team are creating are known as volumetric images, which differentiates them from 2D-hologram technologies. Other companies and scientists have made devices that create volumetric images, but the researchers say theirs is the first to generate free-floating images that can occupy the same space as other objects, as opposed to volumetric images that need to be contained inside a specially designed field. Other devices often require a much more elaborate set-up as well, while the OTD is relatively cheap, made with commercially available parts and low-cost lasers.
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That said, the device does have its limitations. Namely, that the images produced right now are quite tiny: smaller than a fingernail. Making the images bigger will require the researchers learn how to manipulate more than one particle at a time. And it’s unlikely the device will be usable outdoors for the foreseeable future, since fast moving air particles can muck up the process. Video cameras also have a problem capturing the images the way our eyes or still cameras do—a video’s frame rate makes the image look like it’s flickering, while our eyes only see a solid image.

Source: Scientists Found a Way to Make Inexpensive, Solid-Looking 3D Holograms

Microsoft whips out tool so you can measure Windows 10’s data-slurping creepiness

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The software giant has produced a tool that’s claimed to show users how much personal information its Windows 10 operating system collects and sends back to Redmond for diagnostics.The application is dubbed Diagnostic Data Viewer, and is free from the Windows Store. It reveals that stuff like the computer’s device name, OS version, and serial number, as well as more detailed records such as installed apps, preference settings, and details on each application’s usage, are beamed back to Microsoft.
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Microsoft says the Diagnostic Data Viewer will run separately from the Windows Privacy Dashboard that is bundled with Windows 10. That app will also be upgraded to provide users with more information on data collection, including activity history for the user’s Microsoft account.

Microsoft is also planning an update to the app to allow users to export dashboard reports, view media consumption information, and delete reported data (for some reason this isn’t already allowed).

The Dashboard and Data Viewer apps arrive after Microsoft was taken to task by governments for what many saw as overly intrusive data collection by Windows 10.

Source: Microsoft whips out tool so you can measure Windows 10’s data-slurping creepiness • The Register