Month: March 2021

These researchers in Switzerland can get electricity by compressing wood

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Researchers at ETH Zurich and Empa have chemically modified wood and made it more compressible, turning it into a mini-​generator. When compressed, it generates an electrical voltage. Such wood could serve as a biosensor or as a building material that harvests energy. Ingo Burgert and his team at public research university ETH Zurich and Swiss Read more about These researchers in Switzerland can get electricity by compressing wood[…]

Google halves Android app fee to 15% for lower-earning devs > $1m as monopolist hunters close in

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Google will reduce the service fee it charges Android developers from 30 per cent to 15 per cent, though only on the first $1m in Google Play revenue. […] Google’s change of heart follows a similarly structured fee abatement by Apple last year and lawsuits filed recently in the US, the UK, and Australia by Read more about Google halves Android app fee to 15% for lower-earning devs > $1m as monopolist hunters close in[…]

California bans website ‘dark patterns’, confusing language when opting out of having your personal info sold

Posted on by Robin Edgar

The rule amendments [PDF], just approved by the American state’s Office of Administrative Law, were proposed last October after a set of initial rules for enforcing the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) were adopted last August, a month after CCPA enforcement began. The CCPA amendments: Clarify that businesses operating offline need to provide a way Read more about California bans website ‘dark patterns’, confusing language when opting out of having your personal info sold[…]

Following Supreme Court ruling, Uber UK recognizes drivers as workers, offers min wage, holiday pay, pension

Posted on by Robin Edgar

After years of aggressively fighting any efforts to force it to recognize its drivers as employees, on Tuesday Uber performed a U-turn on the streets of Britain and recognized all of its drivers as working for the company rather than serving as freelancers. The change is the result of a court ruling last month that Read more about Following Supreme Court ruling, Uber UK recognizes drivers as workers, offers min wage, holiday pay, pension[…]

A Different Kind Of 3D Printer: Desktop Holograms

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Holograms aren’t new, but a desktop machine that spits them out could be available soon, presuming LitiHolo’s Kickstarter pans out. The machine will have a $1600 retail price and fits in a two-foot square. It can generate 4×5 inch holograms with 1mm hogels (the holo equivalent of a pixel). The machine allows for 23 view Read more about A Different Kind Of 3D Printer: Desktop Holograms[…]

Facebook is using AI to understand videos and create new products

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Facebook has taken the wraps off a project called Learning from Videos. It uses artificial intelligence to understand and learn audio, textual, and visual representations in public user videos on the social network. Learning from Videos has a number of aims, such as improving Facebook AI systems related to content recommendations and policy enforcement. The Read more about Facebook is using AI to understand videos and create new products[…]

Game Artists Not Happy That Developer Is Selling Their Nearly Decade-Old Work As NFTs

Posted on by Robin Edgar

[…] indie developer Jason Rohrer has added a new wrinkle by creating an NFT auction using artwork he commissioned from other people in 2012—long before NFTs were ever created. NFT is short for “non-fungible token,” a cryptographic token that is, unto itself, one of a kind. NFTs have been tied to images, videos, and even Read more about Game Artists Not Happy That Developer Is Selling Their Nearly Decade-Old Work As NFTs[…]

Having Lost Its Original Atmosphere, This Planet Is Now Growing a New One

Posted on by Robin Edgar

[…] Whereas Earth has always been a terrestrial, rocky world, GJ 1132 b began its life as a gaseous, Neptune-like planet. But as new research shows, a nearby red dwarf obliterated its original hydrogen- and helium-rich atmosphere with powerful radiation, so GJ 1132 b, having been stripped down to its rocky core, is now technically Read more about Having Lost Its Original Atmosphere, This Planet Is Now Growing a New One[…]

‘Wearable microgrid’ uses the human body to sustainably power small gadgets using sweat and motion

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a “wearable microgrid” that harvests and stores energy from the human body to power small electronics. It consists of three main parts: sweat-powered biofuel cells, motion-powered devices called triboelectric generators, and energy-storing supercapacitors. All parts are flexible, washable and can be screen printed onto clothing. Read more about ‘Wearable microgrid’ uses the human body to sustainably power small gadgets using sweat and motion[…]

Pixels Are Bluetooth Dice That Let You Play Online Games and Flash An internal LED

Posted on by Robin Edgar

A pair of good dice is a guilty pleasure for a tabletop RPG gamer. You can never have enough, but I can tell you this: None are going to be as flashy as Pixels. These dice have an ace up their sleeve that the rest of your dice don’t have, because they light up and Read more about Pixels Are Bluetooth Dice That Let You Play Online Games and Flash An internal LED[…]

Towards real-time photorealistic 3D holography with deep neural networks for every device

Posted on by Robin Edgar

The ability to present three-dimensional (3D) scenes with continuous depth sensation has a profound impact on virtual and augmented reality, human–computer interaction, education and training. […] The computationally taxing Fresnel diffraction simulation further places an explicit trade-off between image quality and runtime, making dynamic holography impractical4. Here we demonstrate a deep-learning-based CGH pipeline capable of Read more about Towards real-time photorealistic 3D holography with deep neural networks for every device[…]

Cracking of Sky CC app dealt major blow to organised crime

Posted on by Robin Edgar

The cracking of the expensive messaging app, called “Sky ECC,” was what allowed over 1,500 police officers across Belgium to be simultaneously deployed in at least 200 raids, many of which were centred around Antwerp and involved special forces. Investigators succeeded in cracking Sky ECC at the end of last year, according to reporting by Read more about Cracking of Sky CC app dealt major blow to organised crime[…]

Bucks County woman created ‘deepfake’ videos to harass rivals on her daughter’s cheerleading squad, DA says

Posted on by Robin Edgar

A Bucks County woman anonymously sent coaches on her teen daughter’s cheerleading squad fake photos and videos that depicted the girl’s rivals naked, drinking, or smoking, all in a bid to embarrass them and force them from the team, prosecutors say. The woman, Raffaela Spone, also sent the manipulated images to the girls, and, in Read more about Bucks County woman created ‘deepfake’ videos to harass rivals on her daughter’s cheerleading squad, DA says[…]

Two Companies are Turning Airborne CO2 into Diamonds

Posted on by Robin Edgar

two companies are selling diamonds made in a laboratory from CO2 that once circled the Earth. […] Each carat of a diamond removes 20 tons of CO2. That, he said, is more invisible gas than the average person produces in a year. With the purchase of a 2-carat diamond, Shearman pointed out, “you’re essentially offsetting Read more about Two Companies are Turning Airborne CO2 into Diamonds[…]

California will soon be home to the world’s first 3D-printed housing community

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Mighty Buildings, a construction tech company, specializes in 3D printed homes of varying sizes, presenting a technology-forward solution that could address issues like the housing crisis and sustainability. And so far, this formula has found the company success: last month, Mighty Buildings raised $40 million in a Series B round. The California-based business isn’t the Read more about California will soon be home to the world’s first 3D-printed housing community[…]

Belgium’s Hard-Worked F-16 with P&W F100 engines Fighter Fleet Has Just Been Grounded

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Belgium’s entire fleet of F-16 fighter jets, the backbone of its combat air force, has been grounded since yesterday after one of the Vipers experienced problems with its Pratt & Whitney F100 engine. As of today, the air defense of the European country has now been taken over by the neighboring Netherlands. “While technicians work Read more about Belgium’s Hard-Worked F-16 with P&W F100 engines Fighter Fleet Has Just Been Grounded[…]

Construction Of A Large Runway Suddenly Appears On Highly Strategic Island In The Red Sea

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Satellite imagery shows that, earlier this year, construction began on a new, approximately 6,150-foot-long runway on Perim, an island right in the middle of the highly strategic Bab Al Mandeb Strait, which links the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. In addition to its location inside this critical maritime junction, which is an important Read more about Construction Of A Large Runway Suddenly Appears On Highly Strategic Island In The Red Sea[…]

Hackers Looted Passenger Data From Some of the Biggest Airlines through Supplier SITA

Posted on by Robin Edgar

SITA, a data firm that works with some of the world’s largest airlines, announced Thursday that it had been the victim of a “highly sophisticated cyberattack,” the likes of which compromised information on hundreds of thousands of airline passengers all over the world. The attack, which occurred in February, targeted data stored on SITA’s Passenger Service Read more about Hackers Looted Passenger Data From Some of the Biggest Airlines through Supplier SITA[…]

Facebook uses one billion Instagram photos to build massive object-recognition AI that partly trained itself

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Known as SEER, short for SElf-supERvised, this massive convolutional neural network contains over a billion parameters. If you show it images of things, it will describe in words what it recognizes: a bicycle, a banana, a red-and-blue striped golfing umbrella, and so on. While its capabilities aren’t all that novel, the way it was trained Read more about Facebook uses one billion Instagram photos to build massive object-recognition AI that partly trained itself[…]

Results of US ‘Universal Basic Income’ Program? Employment Increased

Posted on by Robin Edgar

After getting $500 per month for two years without rules on how to spend it, 125 people in California paid off debt, got full-time jobs and reported lower rates of anxiety and depression, according to a study released Wednesday. The program in the Northern California city of Stockton was the highest-profile experiment in the U.S. Read more about Results of US ‘Universal Basic Income’ Program? Employment Increased[…]

Furious AI Researcher Creates Site Shaming Non-Reproducible Machine Learning Papers

Posted on by Robin Edgar

The Next Web tells the story of an AI researcher who discovered the results of a machine learning research paper couldn’t be reproduced. But then they’d heard similar stories from Reddit’s Machine Learning forum: “Easier to compile a list of reproducible ones…,” one user responded. “Probably 50%-75% of all papers are unreproducible. It’s sad, but Read more about Furious AI Researcher Creates Site Shaming Non-Reproducible Machine Learning Papers[…]

Waymo simulated (not very many) real-world (if the world was limited to 100 sq miles) crashes to prove its self-driving cars can prevent deaths

Posted on by Robin Edgar

In a bid to prove that its robot drivers are safer than humans, Waymo simulated dozens of real-world fatal crashes that took place in Arizona over nearly a decade. The Google spinoff discovered that replacing either vehicle in a two-car crash with its robot-guided minivans would nearly eliminate all deaths, according to data it publicized Read more about Waymo simulated (not very many) real-world (if the world was limited to 100 sq miles) crashes to prove its self-driving cars can prevent deaths[…]

The “Crazy Huge Hack” of Microsoft, Explained – it dwarfs SolarWinds

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Last week, Microsoft announced that the on-premises version of its widely used email and calendaring product Exchange had several previously undisclosed security flaws. These flaws, the company said, were being used by foreign threat actors to hack into the networks of U.S. businesses and governments, primarily to steal large troves of email data. Since then, Read more about The “Crazy Huge Hack” of Microsoft, Explained – it dwarfs SolarWinds[…]