Author Archives: Robin Edgar

About Robin Edgar

Organisational Structures | Technology and Science | Military, IT and Lifestyle consultancy | Social, Broadcast & Cross Media | Flying aircraft

Metalenz Wants to Jump-Start Phone Cameras Again With Better Lenses

Posted on by

A new company called Metalenz, which emerges from stealth mode today, is looking to disrupt smartphone cameras with a single, flat lens system that utilizes a technology called optical metasurfaces. A camera built around this new lens tech can produce an image of the same if not better quality as traditional lenses, collect more light for brighter photos, and can even enable new forms of sensing in phones, all while taking up less space.

[…]

“The optics usually in smartphones nowadays consists of between four and seven lens elements,” says Oliver Schindelbeck, innovation manager at the optics manufacturer Zeiss, which is known for its high-quality lenses. “If you have a single lens element, just by physics you will have aberrations like distortion or dispersion in the image.”

More lenses allow manufacturers to compensate for irregularities like chromatic aberration (when colors appear on the fringes of an image) and lens distortion (when straight lines appear curved in a photo). However, stacking multiple lens elements on top of each other requires more vertical space inside the camera module.

[…]

Phone makers like Apple have increased the number of lens elements over time, and while some, like Samsung, are now folding optics to create “periscope” lenses for greater zoom capabilities, companies have generally stuck with the tried-and-true stacked lens element system.

[…]

Instead of using plastic and glass lens elements stacked over an image sensor, Metalenz’s design uses a single lens built on a glass wafer that is between 1×1 to 3×3 millimeter in size. Look very closely under a microscope and you’ll see nanostructures measuring one-thousandth the width of a human hair. Those nanostructures bend light rays in a way that corrects for many of the shortcomings of single-lens camera systems.

[…]

Light passes through these patterned nanostructures, which look like millions of circles with differing diameters at the microscopic level. “Much in the way that a curved lens speeds up and slows down light to bend it, each one of these allows us to do the same thing, so we can bend and shape light just by changing the diameters of these circles,” Devlin says.

[…]

nd the design doesn’t just conserve space. Devlin says a Metalenz camera can deliver more light back to the image sensor, allowing for brighter and sharper images than what you’d get with traditional lens elements.

Another benefit? The company has formed partnerships with two semiconductor leaders (that can currently produce a million Metalenz “chips” a day), meaning the optics are made in the same foundries that manufacture consumer and industrial devices—an important step in simplifying the supply chain.

New Forms of Sensing

Metalenz will go into mass production toward the end of the year. Its first application will be to serve as the lens system of a 3D sensor in a smartphone. (The company did not give the name of the phone maker.)

[…]

Source: Metalenz Wants to Jump-Start Phone Cameras Again With Better Lenses | WIRED

Quest for Hollywood Fame Splits Redditors at Heart of Market Frenzy

Posted on by

Late on Wednesday, a moderator of the popular Reddit message board WallStreetBets posted several screenshots on the chat app Discord. They showed that other moderators had quietly started talking among themselves about landing a movie deal.

“What’s our cut?” one of the moderators had asked in a Discord chat, according to the screenshots.

By Thursday morning, that quest for Hollywood riches had exploded into an ugly battle, giving a glimpse into the unruly nature of a suddenly famous Reddit community.

That was when the WallStreetBets moderators who were considering the film deal began booting out other moderators who had questioned them for secretly trying to profit from the forum’s success. Eventually, employees at Reddit weighed in to try to quell the unrest.

“Can you all discuss with me what is going on?” a Reddit employee with the screen name sodypop asked, according to screenshots of the conversation shared with The New York Times.

The WallStreetBets fight is the latest twist in the saga of an online army of investors who have roiled Wall Street over the past 10 days.

[…]

Over the last week, several top moderators, who have administrative control of the message board, met in a private chat room on Discord to discuss the business opportunities arising from their sudden fame.

One moderator said he was in touch with Ben Mezrich, an author of the book that became the movie “The Social Network,” who last week secured deals to write a book and help with a movie about the GameStop saga, according to screenshots from the forum shared with The Times.

“Oof we gotta go fast i think,” another moderator wrote back. “While the studios are competing.”

None of the six moderators The Times interviewed were willing to give their real names, but The Times verified the people were in control of the board’s moderator accounts.

The conversation heated up after Mr. Rogozinski announced that he had sold the rights to his own story to a movie studio this week. Mr. Rogozinski did not respond to requests for comment.

One longtime moderator of the group, known as zjz, saw the conversation and took issue. He posted images of the conversation in a broader chat room for all the moderators.

“We suddenly find out these formerly inactive moderators are trying to *literally* sell the story of how they built the subreddit and undermine us,” zjz wrote in an email to The Times.

In a post to WallStreetBets on Wednesday night, which was quickly removed, zjz also wrote: “We’ve been taken hostage by the top mods. They left for years and came back when they smelled money.”

That led to escalating recriminations and insults that soon went beyond a movie deal. Some began criticizing the top moderators for moves they had made to raise their profile, like creating a Twitter account and hiring a public relations representative. Some also made death threats.

Late Wednesday and early Thursday, the top moderators began removing lower-ranking moderators who were asking questions.

[…]

On Thursday afternoon, Reddit stepped in to remove the top WallStreetBets moderators. They put the moderators who had sided with zjz back in control, though zjz himself was not restored.

Mr. Cormier, who has been unemployed since March when he lost his job in a shop specializing in the game Magic the Gathering, said he was dismayed by the fighting on WallStreetBets.

[…]

Source: Quest for Hollywood Fame Splits Redditors at Heart of Market Frenzy – The New York Times

Scientists develop transparent wood that is stronger and lighter than glass

Posted on by

Researchers at the University of Maryland have turned ordinary sheets of wood into transparent material that is nearly as clear as glass, but stronger and with better insulating properties. It could become an energy efficient building material in the future.

Wood is made of two basic ingredients: cellulose, which are tiny fibres, and lignin, which bonds those fibres together to give it strength.

Tear a paper towel in half and look closely along the edge. You will see the little cellulose fibres sticking up. Lignin is a glue-like material that bonds the fibres together, a little like the plastic resin in fibreglass or carbon fibre. The lignin also contains molecules called chromophores, which give the wood its brown colour and prevent light from passing through.

Early attempts to make transparent wood involved removing the lignin, but this involved hazardous chemicals, high temperatures and a lot of time, making the product expensive and somewhat brittle. The new technique is so cheap and easy it could literally be done in a backyard.

Starting with planks of wood a metre long and one millimetre thick, the scientists simply brushed on a solution of hydrogen peroxide using an ordinary paint brush. When left in the sun, or under a UV lamp for an hour or so, the peroxide bleached out the brown chromophores but left the lignin intact, so the wood turned white.

Researchers demonstrated after brushing a coat of hydrogen peroxide on the opaque wood material, and exposing it to one hour of sunlight, it turns transparent. (Qinqin Xia, University of Maryland/Science Advances)

Next, they infused the wood with a tough transparent epoxy designed for marine use, which filled in the spaces and pores in the wood and then hardened. This made the white wood transparent.

You can see a similar effect by taking that same piece of paper towel, dip half of it in water and place it on a patterned surface. The white paper towel will become translucent with light passing through the water and cellulose fibres without being scattered by refraction.

The epoxy in the wood does an even better job, allowing 90 per cent of visible light to pass through. The result is a long piece of what looks like glass, with the strength and flexibility of wood.

A researcher holds up a square of transparent wood material against a green leaf. (USDA Forest Service)

As window material, it would be much more resistant to accidental breakage. The clear wood is lighter than glass, with better insulating properties, which is important because windows are a major source of heat loss in buildings. It also might take less energy to manufacture clear wood because there are no high temperatures involved.

Transparent wood could become an alternative to glass in energy efficient buildings, or perhaps coverings for solar panels in harsh environments. There could be no end of uses.

[…]

Source: Scientists develop transparent wood that is stronger and lighter than glass | CBC Radio

Terraria dev cancels Stadia port after Google disabled his email account for three weeks – Kafka has nothing on this

Posted on by

What do you do if Google disables your cloud life? Andrew Spinks, co-author of the Terraria game and president of Re-Logic Games, does not know either, but has declared Google “a liability” and cancelled the port of Terraria to its Stadia platform.Terraria, co-designed by Spinks, was first released for Windows in 2011 and has sold over 30 million copies across PC, consoles, and mobile devices, states a post on the official forums last year.The problems started, according to the official Twitter account, when Re-Logic Games received an email concerning its YouTube channel “saying there was a TOS [Terms of Service] violation but that it was likely accidental and as such, the account would receive no strikes.”Three days later, the entire Google account (YT, Gmail, all Google apps, even every purchase made over 15 years on Google Play Store) was disabled with no warning or recourse. This account links into many business functions and as such the impact to us is quite substantial,” said Re-Logic.The YouTube channel itself was not disabled, only the access to it.The complaint was spotted on Twitter by YouTube support, which provided a link to the standard Google Account Recovery process. “We have attempted this process twice and received an automated response declining our request,” said Re-Logic.That was late last month. Now it seems the problem is still not fixed. “My account has now been disabled for over 3 weeks. I still have no idea why, and after using every resource I have to get this resolved you have done nothing but given me the runaround,” said Spinks. “My phone has lost access to thousands of dollars of apps on Google Play. I had just bought LOTR 4K and can’t finish it. My Google Drive data is completely gone. I can’t access my YouTube channel. The worst of all is losing access to my gmail address of over 15 years.”I absolutely have not done anything to violate your terms of service, so I can take this no other way than you deciding to burn this bridge. Consider it burned. Terraria for Google Stadia is canceled. My company will no longer support any of your platforms moving forward. I will not be involved with a corporation that values their customers and partners so little. Doing business with you is a liability.”The incident would be unremarkable except that Spinks is not the first to complain of shoddy treatment in the one-sided relationship users have with tech giants and Google in particular. Users complain that it is challenging getting past automated responses, or equally uninformative responses from support, and that discovering and correcting the real reason for bans and blocks is challenging.

Source: Terraria dev cancels Stadia port after Google disabled his email account for three weeks • The Register

The Future Of Hydrogen Power… Is Paste?

Posted on by

We’ve been promised hydrogen-powered engines for some time now. One downside though is the need for hydrogen vehicles to have heavy high-pressure tanks. While a 700 bar tank and the accompanying fuel cell is acceptable for a city bus or a truck, it becomes problematic with smaller vehicles, especially ones such as scooters or even full-sized motorcycles. The Fraunhofer Institute wants to run smaller vehicles on magnesium hydride in a paste form that they call POWERPASTE.The idea is that the paste effectively stores hydrogen at normal temperature and pressure. At 250C, the paste decomposes and releases its hydrogen. While your motorcycle may seem hot when parked in the sun, it isn’t getting quite to 250C.Interestingly, the paste only provides half the available hydrogen. The rest is from water added start a reaction to release the hydrogen. Fraunhofer claims the energy density available is greater than that of a 700 bar tank in a conventional hydrogen system and ten times more than current battery technology.One thing that’s attractive is that the paste is easy to store and pump. A gas station, for example, could invest $20-30,000 and dispense the paste from a metal drum to meet low demand and then scale up as needed. A hydrogen pumping setup starts at about $1.2 million. Fraunhofer is building a pilot production plant that will produce about four tons of the material a year.

Source: The Future Of Hydrogen Power… Is Paste? | Hackaday

r/wallstreetbets: hostile takeover by old mods trying to monetise and push down GME price. Go to r/wallstreetbetstest and r/wallstreetbetsnew now

Posted on by

https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbetstest/comments/lcjcvm/update_i_just_got_removed_as_a_moderator_on/

I was confused, annoyed and sad trying to understand what had happened. I was removed by the senior moderator at r/wallstreetbets who is u/turdled . I messaged him asking for an explanation, but have still not been given one. It was at this same time that several other moderators were removed and getting banned left and right. I had some of my posts removed as well.

I was also starting to receive chat requests and messages from people seeing u/zjz‘s post and asking what was going on, and accusing me of being a rogue/plant mod.

I’ve been looking around the accounts of the mods of the new subreddit and these are indeed the old mods.

Find the new site that is not infested by people trying to short GME here:  https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbetstest

Also here https://www.reddit.com/r/Wallstreetbetsnew/

NB r/wallstreetbetsnew seems to be the Gamestonk holdout with the memes. r/wallstreetbetstest is where the “real” wsb crowds who aren’t solely obsessed with GME are hanging around.

More info: WallStreetBets Mods Are Now Battling For Control Over The Subreddit

If you want to know about the dark history and why the founder was kicked out, read here

tl;dr on tl;dr: Founder bad, greedy, got banned for being greedy. Being greedy again with new spotlight on the sub.

tl;dr, in 2020 the original founder (after being gone for years and did nothing to contribute to the sub), along with a couple of mods, attempted to monetize the sub for personal gains. Users and other mods fought back. Hundreds of users got mass banned for speaking out, mods who spoke out got removed as mods. With some help from users, mods found precedent of another sub creator getting banned for trying to monetize a sub and sent plea to Reddit admins. Reddit admins banned offenders and gave sub back to the good mods.

u/SpeaksInBooleans (RIP) investigated the circumstance of the events and made video exposing the offenders:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Mega thread after the victory for reference.

It’s important to know/remember this now, because the same person that got exiled for being a tyrant is doing a media circus, trying to ride the current spotlight for personal gain, again. Hey CNN and WSJ, stop interviewing that dipshit. The sub has always been about its people, and what you guys wanted to do (as retarded as you are). No single person speaks for the sub and controls its destiny. It is in good hands with u/zjz aka u/SwineFluPandemic

FTC fines Amazon $61.7 million for withholding tips from Flex drivers

Posted on by

Amazon will pay a $61.7 million fine to settle allegations the company had failed to properly pay out tips to its Flex delivery drivers, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on Tuesday. The fine stems from a payment change the company implemented in late 2016. At the time, Amazon said Flex drivers, which use their own cars to deliver packages and groceries for Prime Now and Whole Foods, could earn $18 to $25 per hour, plus tips for their work. That same year, it put into place a new payment policy, which the FTC says Amazon did not properly disclose to drivers, that saw it pay Flex drivers a lower hourly rate. Over a timeframe of two-and-a-half years, it used the tips they earned to make up the difference between the rate it had promised and the one it was actually paying out.

According to the agency, not only did Amazon “intentionally” fail to notify drivers of its policy changes, it actively took steps to obscure them as well and used the tips drivers earned. The entire time it also continued to advertise Flex drivers could earn tips and $18 to $25 per hour. The company only went back to the previous payment model after it became aware of the FTC’s investigation in 2019.

[…]

Source: FTC fines Amazon $61.7 million for withholding tips from Flex drivers | Engadget

India’s government threatens to jail Twitter employees unless they block critics

Posted on by

India’s government has warned Twitter that it must obey its orders to remove “inflammatory content” or employees will face potential jail time, Buzzfeed has reported. The government, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, made the edict after Twitter unblocked 257 accounts criticizing Modi’s government around farmer protests, after initially blocking them.

The accounts in question come from government opposition leaders, investigative journalism site The Caravan, along with other critics, journalists and writers. Some used the hashtag #ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide, referencing controversial proposed laws that farmers have said will reduce their income and make them more reliant on corporations.

After initially blocking the accounts, Twitter reversed its decision, saying the tweets constituted free speech and were newsworthy. In response, the IT ministry ordered them blocked again. “Twitter is an intermediary and they are obliged to obey directions of the government. Refusal to do so will invite penal action,” it told Twitter in a notice. It added that the hashtag was being used to “abuse, inflame and create tension in society on unsubstantiated grounds.”

The Caravan, which didn’t use the hashtag, said it was merely doing its job. “We don’t understand why suddenly the Indian government finds journalists should not speak to all sides of an issue,” executive editor Vinod K. Jose, told BuzzFeed News. “This is really problematic,” added internet activist and MediaNama editor Nikhail Pahwa.

Modi’s government was also incensed by western celebrities including Rhianna and Greta Thunberg who tweeted their support. Some Modi supporters railed against the tweets, including Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut. “No one is talking about it because they are not farmers, they are terrorists who are trying to divide India,” she wrote.

The latest development means Twitter, once again, must choose to either protect its employees and commercials interests, or be accused of aiding censorship in a volatile political situation. However, it may be forced to comply due to India’s IT laws that force social media platforms to remove “any information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in any computer resource” that could affect “public order.”

Source: India’s government threatens to jail Twitter employees unless they block critics | Engadget

British Troops Get Small Swarming Drones They Can Fire From 40mm Grenade Launchers

Posted on by

British Army troops in Mali are now reportedly using tiny unmanned aircraft that can be fired from standard 40mm grenade launchers. These diminutive quad-copter-type drones can be fitted with various payloads, ranging from full-motion electro-optical video cameras to small high-explosive or armor-piercing warheads, and that can fly together as a swarm after launch.

Overt Defense was first to report that members of the U.K. Task Group in Mali had received “several hundred” Drone40s from Australian firm DefendTex. British forces are in Mali as part of the country’s Operation Newcombe, which provides support to Operation Barkhane, a French-led regional counter-terrorism effort, and the United Nation’s Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, also known by its French acronym MINUSMA.

Crown Copyright

A British Army soldier holds a Drone40 during an exercise.

The Drone40, which DefendTex unveiled publicly in 2019, was among various new systems that British Army troops from the Light Dragoons and Royal Anglian Regiment were seen training with during a Mission Rehearsal Exercise (MRX) in October 2020. That MRX was part of the workup for members of those units that headed for Mali in December. It’s not clear if the British Army has decided to acquire Drone40s for widespread use among its units or if it is conducting an operational evaluation through Operation Newcombe.

The Pocket-Sized Black Hornet Drone Is About To Change Army Operations Forever By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Syrian Regime Troops Captured A Black Hornet Nano Spy Drone By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Meet RAMBO, the U.S. Army’s 3D-Printed Grenade Launcher By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
Turkey Now Has Swarming Suicide Drones It Could Export By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone
China Conducts Test Of Massive Suicide Drone Swarm Launched From A Box On A Truck By Joseph Trevithick Posted in The War Zone

The Drone40 can be fired from launchers designed to fire standard 40mm low-velocity grenades. Its overall length is variable depending on the type of payload installed, but DefendTex says the length of the core body is close to five inches. As such, a launcher designed to fire over-sized 40mm cartridges, such as variants of the Heckler & Koch AG36 under-barrel grenade launcher, which are in service with U.K. and U.S. forces, among others, is necessary to employ them. Some older launchers, most notably the very popular American-made M203, can only accommodate relatively short 40mm rounds.

Crown Copyright

A British Army soldier holds an L85 assault rifle equipped with a variant of the Heckler & Koch AG36 40mm under-barrel grenade launcher.

The Drone40 can also be deployed by hand, as was demonstrated during the British Army’s MRX in 2020, as seen in the video below. Its design would mean that, regardless of the employment method, troops could carry them in web gear intended to carry standard 40mm grenades.

While Drone40s configured with the video camera payload were shown in videos from the MRX, it’s not clear if British troops in Mali have received any other types. DefendTex says that payload can be readily swapped in the field and that when fitted with the cameras, the drones can be recovered and reused.

The feed from Drone40s equipped with the cameras is transmitted back to the operator via a line-of-sight link and is on a hand-held tablet-like device. This is also how the drone’s movements are controlled after launch, via a GPS-enabled navigation system.

The camera configuration by itself would be an obvious boon for troops, especially those operating in small units. Drone40s with these payloads offer a way to scout ahead for enemy forces or other hazards, especially in areas full of natural or man-made cover, such as dense urban environments.

In addition, though, DefendTex offers high-explosive and anti-armor warhead options, as well as smoke and less-than-lethal flash-bang payloads. There is also an option to fit the drones with small electronic warfare jammers or laser designators to mark targets.

DefendTex

The official Drone40 product sheet from DefendTex.

These other payloads would give units equipped with Drone40s a host of other capabilities. Friendly units safely behind cover could send out armed examples to fly over enemy positions and launch attacks from above. They could also deploy smoke screens to shield their movements or jam enemy communications systems or sensors to confuse or disorient them. Laser pointer-equipped types could paint targets for other units to engage with precision-guided munitions.

On top of all this, DefendTex says that Drone40s can operate together as at least semi-autonomous swarms after launch. They also offer was it described as multiple round simultaneous impact (MSRI) capabilities.

What this means is that a single individual could fire multiple Drone40s with kinetic payloads and then they could be directed to fly to a designated point, after which they would all drop at the same time. With a mix of different warhead types, this could allow for more effective engagement of complex and dispersed targets all at once, such as troops standing in the open near light armored vehicles.

Combined with a camera-equipped type, the Drone40s could act as loitering munitions, hovering over a certain area, waiting for targets to emerge, and then being directed to engage them when they do. DefendTex says that the unmanned aircraft have a range of at least 12 miles and can remain airborne for 30 to 60 minutes, all depending on what type of payloads they’re carrying. Of course, line-of-sight restrictions exist for the command links between the operator and the drones, but it may be possible to use another drone to work as a relay.

For British troops in Mali, who are tasked with conducting patrols over broad areas in a region where various militant groups are very active, the benefits of just having small drones to provide additional immediate situational awareness are obvious. If they have received other types of payloads for their Drone40s beyond the camera package, it could provide them with an additional means of engaging enemies in the event of an ambush or any other kind of firefight.

For these exact reasons, very small so-called nano-drones are becoming increasingly popular among military forces around the world. Interestingly, the U.K. armed forces had previously employed early versions of the Black Hornet, a tiny hand-launched drone helicopter, in Afghanistan, starting in 2012, before withdrawing them from service in favor of larger individually-launched types sometime between 2016 and 2017. You can read more about the Black Hornet, variants of which are now in service in almost 20 different countries, in this past War Zone piece.

The Drone40 is also not the only drone intended to be launched from a 40mm grenade launcher presently on the market. The U.S. Army evaluated another type, Skyborne Technologies’ Cerberus GL, during its annual Army Expeditionary Warfare Experiment AEWE in 2019. It’s interesting to note that Skyborne Technologies is also based in Australia.

Last year, researchers at the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) filed a patent on another camera-equipped 40mm drone design, known simply as the Grenade Launched Unmanned Aerial System (GLUAS). That unmanned aircraft can remain aloft for up to 90 minutes, but has a maximum range of just over one mile, indicating that it may be slower than the Drone40 and more limited in range in terms of its command and control interface options.

US Army

A rendering of the US Army-developed Grenade Launched Unmanned Aerial System (GLUAS) drone.

All told, the British Army’s fielding of the Drone40, even in limited numbers with forces in Mali, is another example of how drones and other unmanned capabilities are only becoming more and more ubiquitous, including at the very lowest operational levels, among military forces around the world.

Source: British Troops Get Small Swarming Drones They Can Fire From 40mm Grenade Launchers

How to Restore Recently Deleted Instagram Posts – because deleted means: stored somewhere you can’t get at them

Posted on by

Instagram is adding a new “Recently deleted” folder to the app’s menu that temporarily stores posts after you remove them from your profile or archive, giving you the ability to restore deleted posts if you change your mind.

The folder includes sections for photos, IGTV, Reels, and Stories posts. No one else can see your recently deleted posts, but as long as a photo or video is still in the folder, it can be restored. Regular photos, IGTV videos, and Reels remain in the folder for up to 30 days, after which they’re gone forever. Stories stick around for up to 24 hours before they’re permanently removed, but you can still access them in your Stories archive.

[…]

Source: How to Restore Recently Deleted Instagram Posts

It’s nice how they’re framing the fact that they don’t delete your data as a “feature”

Amazon Plans to Install Creepy Always-On Surveillance Cameras in Delivery Vans

Posted on by

Not content to only wield its creepy surveillance infrastructure against warehouse workers and employees considering unionization, Amazon is reportedly gearing up to install perpetually-on cameras inside its fleet of delivery vehicles as well.

A new report from The Information claims that Amazon recently shared the plans in an instructional video sent out to the contractor workers who drive the Amazon-branded delivery vans.

In the video, the company reportedly explains to drivers that the high-tech video cameras will use artificial intelligence to determine when drivers are engaging in risky behavior, and will give out verbal warnings including “Distracted driving,” “No stop detected” and “Please slow down.”

According to a video posted to Vimeo a week ago, the hardware and software for the cameras will be provided through a partnership with California-based company Netradyne, which is also responsible for a platform called Driveri that similarly uses artificial intelligence to analyze a driver’s behavior as they operate a vehicle.

While the camera’s automated feedback will be immediate, other data will also reportedly be stored for later analysis that will help the company to evaluate its fleet of drivers.

Although it’s not clear when Amazon plans to install the cameras or how many of the vehicles in the company’s massive fleet will be outfitted with them, the company told The Information in a statement that the software will be implemented in the spirit of increasing safety precautions and not, you know, bolstering an insidious and growing surveillance apparatus.

Source: Amazon Plans to Install Always-On Surveillance Cameras in Delivery Vans

These 3D-Printed Fish Bots Can Swarm and School

Posted on by

Researchers have made a smart school of robotic fish that swarm and swim just like the real deal, and they offer promising insights into how developers can improve decentralized, autonomous operations for other gizmos like self-driving vehicles and robotic space explorers. Also, they’re just pretty stinking cute.

These seven 3D-printed robots, or Bluebots, can synchronize their movements to swim in a group, or Blueswarm, without any outside control, per research published in Science Robotics this month from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.

Equipped with two wide-angle cameras for eyes, each bot navigates their tank by tracking the LEDs lights on their peers. Based on the cues they observe, each robot reacts accordingly using an onboard Raspberry Pi computer and custom algorithm to gauge distance, direction, and heading.

“Each Bluebot implicitly reacts to its neighbors’ positions,” explains Florian Berlinger, a PhD candidate at SEAS and Wyss and first author of the research paper, per a press release. “So, if we want the robots to aggregate, then each Bluebot will calculate the position of each of its neighbors and move towards the center. If we want the robots to disperse, the Bluebots do the opposite. If we want them to swim as a school in a circle, they are programmed to follow lights directly in front of them in a clockwise direction.”

Previous robotic swarms could navigate in two-dimensional spaces, but operating in three-dimensional spaces like air or water has proven tricky. The goal of this research was to create a robofish swarm that could move in sync all on their own without the need for WiFi or GPS and without input from their human handlers.

Source: These 3D-Printed Fish Bots Can Swarm and School

Synology to enforce use of validated disks in enterprise NAS boxes. And guess what? Only its own disks exceed 4TB

Posted on by

Synology has introduced its first-ever list of validated disks and won’t allow other devices into its enterprise-class NAS devices. And in a colossal coincidence, half of the disks allowed into its devices – and the only ones larger than 4TB – are Synology’s very own HAT 5300 disks that it launched last week.

Seeing as privately held Synology is thought to have annual revenue of around US$350m, rather less than the kind of cash required to get into the hard disk business, The Register inquired if it had really started making drives or found some other way into the industry.

The Taiwanese network-attached-storage vendor told us the drives are Synology-branded Toshiba kit, though it has written its own drive firmware and that the code delivers sequential read performance 23 per cent beyond comparable drives. Synology told us its branded disks will also be more reliable because they have undergone extensive testing in the company’s own NAS arrays.

[…]

So to cut a long story short, if you want to get the most out of Synology NAS devices, you’ll need to buy Synology’s own SATA hard disk drives.

The new policy applies as of the release of three new Synology NAS appliances intended for enterprise use and will be applied to other models over time.

The new models include the RS3621RPxs, which sports an unspecified six-core Intel Xeon processor and can handle a dozen drives, then move data over four gigabit Ethernet ports. The middle-of-the-road RS3621xs+ offers an eight-core Xeon and adds two 10GE ports. At the top of the range, the RS4021xs+ stretches to 3U and adds 16GB of RAM, eight more than found in the other two models.

[…]

Source: Synology to enforce use of validated disks in enterprise NAS boxes. And guess what? Only its own disks exceed 4TB • The Register

I guess HDD vendor lock in is a really really good reason to not buy Synology then.

Jeff Bezos To Step Down as Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy AWS Boss to succeed

Posted on by

Amazon announced on Tuesday that AWS CEO Andy Jassy will replace Jeff Bezos as CEO during the third quarter of this year. Bezos will transition to executive chair of Amazon’s board. In a statement, Bezos said: I’m excited to announce that this Q3 I’ll transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and Andy Jassy will become CEO. In the Exec Chair role, I intend to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives. Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have. He will be an outstanding leader, and he has my full confidence. This journey began some 27 years ago. Amazon was only an idea, and it had no name. The question I was asked most frequently at that time was, “What’s the internet?” Blessedly, I haven’t had to explain that in a long while. Today, we employ 1.3 million talented, dedicated people, serve hundreds of millions of customers and businesses, and are widely recognized as one of the most successful companies in the world. How did that happen? Invention. Invention is the root of our success. We’ve done crazy things together, and then made them normal. We pioneered customer reviews, 1-Click, personalized recommendations, Prime’s insanely-fast shipping, Just Walk Out shopping, the Climate Pledge, Kindle, Alexa, marketplace, infrastructure cloud computing, Career Choice, and much more. If you get it right, a few years after a surprising invention, the new thing has become normal. People yawn. And that yawn is the greatest compliment an inventor can receive.

Source: Jeff Bezos To Step Down as Amazon CEO – Slashdot

Musk see: Watch SpaceX’s latest Starship rocket explode while trying to touch down • The Register

Posted on by

The latest prototype of SpaceX’s Starship rocket, the SN9, burst into flames as the vehicle attempted to land on Earth on Tuesday.

All eyes were on the craft after its predecessor, the SN8, exploded during touchdown in December in Boca Chica, Texas. You can watch today’s detonation in the video below. The accident occurs after six minutes into the flight (skip to 11:51 to see it burst into flames).

Like the previous launch, SN9 was also a high-altitude flight test. The vehicle got ten kilometres (32,800 feet) into the sky before shifting to a near-horizontal position to descend but, unfortunately, it exploded in the air before it could flip the right way up and touch down.

spacex

Let’s just say not an ideal landing … the SN9’s explosion Source: SpaceX. Click to enlarge

It’s not clear what caused the rapid unscheduled disassembly this time. It’s possible the rocket suffered the same mishap as SN8, considering how similar both launches unfolded. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk blamed SN8’s blowout on low pressure in the rocket’s fuel tank that caused it to meet the ground at a faster-than-desired velocity.

Rules? Pah

It has also emerged SpaceX asked the FAA for a waiver to exceed the limits of US federal public safety regulations during the SN8 launch. The regulator declined to issue the waiver, and SpaceX went ahead anyway with the fateful experiment.

As a result of that non-compliance, as the FAA put it, the agency demanded SpaceX carry out an investigation of the explosion and make changes to its public safety procedures in light of the failure. Those changes were approved by the regulator this week, and SpaceX was thus permitted to launch its SN9 craft.

[…]

 

Source: Musk see: Watch SpaceX’s latest Starship rocket explode while trying to touch down • The Register

wouldn’t be too happy getting on Musk’s rockets

Air Force Says KC-46 Is A “Lemon” That It’s Trying To Make Lemonade Out Of

Posted on by

The U.S. Air Force has described its bedeviled KC-46A Pegasus tanker as a “lemon,” amid ongoing problems that prevent it from performing its primary aerial refueling mission on a day-to-day basis. Now the Air Force is trying to find other ways to make use of these aircraft, of which it has already received 42 examples located at four operating bases.With deliveries set to continue at a rate of two aircraft per month, the service is now looking to put the Pegasus to work by fast-tracking at least some of the aircraft already delivered into “limited operations,” but probably not involving its core mission set of aerial refueling. Nevertheless, the move could enable the Pegasus to at least provide some utility during real-world operations as the Air Force counts down to the declaration of full operational capability, which won’t happen until late 2023 or 2024 at the earliest.U.S. Air Force/Louis BrisceseA KC-46A Pegasus arrives at Travis Air Force Base, California, in March 2017.“As I look over the 10 years, I have to say… right now where we’re at in the program is we’re making lemonade out of lemons,” General Jacqueline Van Ovost, the head of Air Mobility Command, told members of the press, as reported by the Defense One website. The embarrassing setbacks that have become an all-too-familiar aspect of the next-generation tanker program were also highlighted yesterday in an unusually candid tweet from the U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM), which admitted that problems with the tanker put “America’s ability to effectively execute day-to-day operations and war plans at risk.”

Source: Air Force Says KC-46 Is A “Lemon” That It’s Trying To Make Lemonade Out Of

Tesla Claims Failing Touchscreens in 135000 car NHTSA Recall Were Only Meant to Last 5-6 Years Anyway

Posted on by

his week, Tesla finally gave in to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s request to recall its Model S sedans and Model X SUVs over flash memory failures that will cause the cars’ signature 17-inch portrait-oriented central touchscreens to fail after a certain length of time—but not without pushback on the very definition of the word “defect,” according to a letter from Tesla’s legal department made public today.

Addressing federal regulators, Tesla Vice President of Legal Al Prescott made the case that the touchscreen failures didn’t constitute a defect worthy of a recall because the parts were only expected to last five to six years in the first place, which is certainly a novel strategy.

[…]

“[The eMMC flash memory] is inherently subject to wear, has a finite life (as NHTSA itself acknowledges), and may need replacement during the useful life of the vehicle…While the wear rate is heavily influenced by the active use of the center display system, even more so when the vehicle is in drive or charging, given a reasonable average daily use of 1.4 cycles, the expected life would be 5-6 years. NHTSA has not presented any evidence to suggest that this expected life is outside industry norms.”

Further, Prescott argued that it was wrong for the NHTSA to assert that the touchscreen “should last at least the useful life of the vehicle, essentially double its expected lifespan.” The fact that the average age of vehicles on U.S. roads hit an all-time high of 11.6 years in 2020, per CNBC.

He went on to call the eMMC “state of the art” for the time when it was designed and claimed the NHTSA’s regulations around defective parts were “anachronistic,” pushing back further on the NHTSA’s lifespan expectations

[…]

The fact that the flash memory device was only rated to handle half the lifespan of the average vehicle on the road raises numerous questions around new vehicles’ technology and planned obsolescence. If this was only expected to last five or six years, what else on the roads could fail earlier than consumers expect?

As the Washington Post notes, the way in which Teslas’ high-tech components wear could have dire consequences on the vehicles’ resale value. Unless there’s a way to recycle and reuse these throwaway components, the disposable nature of them could also leave a bad taste in eco-conscious consumers’ mouths.

Furthermore, why should consumers be expected to think that an internal component that’s required to access key safety features of the car should be a wear item? While Tesla has since added alerts that warn owners of a pending eMMC failure, a processor embedded in the internal components of a car isn’t something you can easily check on like a set of brake pads or tires, nor is it something that most consumers know to watch out for after so many miles of use.

The recall includes 134,951 Model S and Model X cars, making it Tesla’s biggest recall to date. It encompasses 2012 through 2018 Model S sedans as well as 2016 through 2018 Model X crossovers. This is fewer than the 158,000 cars requested by the NHTSA for recall, as Tesla excluded the vehicles that have already had memory upgrades or touchscreen replacements, reports the Washington Post.

Failures of the recalled memory chips are not the only issues that have dogged Model S and Model X touchscreens. Tesla CEO Elon Musk once bragged about sourcing the then-groundbreaking 17-inch screens outside of the usual automotive supply chain to save costs. Unfortunately, the screens weren’t built to handle the vibration loads and temperature fluctuations found in a car’s interior, causing them to prematurely yellow, bubble and even leak.

Source: Tesla Claims Failing Touchscreens in NHTSA Recall Were Only Meant to Last 5-6 Years Anyway

Wow, you really do get a piece of shit for buying a car from the most valuable car company in the world. Whilst Toyota has just stolen the crown from VW for selling the most cars per year.

CNBC, others tell you redditors want to pump SLV, others. They don’t. SLV is owned by Citadel, the people redditors hate. It’s only about GME, AMC, BB.

Posted on by

Below is from the CNBC website. SLV spiked yesterday and some people will have you believe it’s the Gamestop buying and holding redditors from wallstreetbets that are pushing it. They are not. SLV is being pushed up by Capital Investments, the people the redditors are trying to destroy.

Below is a list of stories from CNBC – explicitly saying that redditors are going after this.

Latest iShares Silver Trust News

8 Hours AgoOptions Action: Silver

8 Hours AgoThese two indicators could determine whether the GameStop rally is near its end

9 Hours AgoSilver is the new target for Reddit traders – 3 market analysts on what to watch

11 Hours AgoTrading Nation: Silver ETF hits highest level since 2013

13 Hours AgoCNBC ProHow Nuveen’s chief equity strategist views the silver trade

13 Hours AgoEntire silver industry is wiped out: Online precious metals dealer

13 Hours AgoBob Doll on silver: I’m surprised it hasn’t happened before

18 Hours Ago5 things to know before the stock market opens Monday

January 31, 2021Silver jumps 8% as Reddit traders try their squeeze play with the metal

It doesn’t take much in the way of research to find out that this is nonsense:

https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/search?q=slv&restrict_sr=1

Just search the wallstreetbets subreddit, which is where the GME holders are concentrated

You will see loads of bots with almost no posts mentioning to buy SLV, NOC and others with people deriding them. But the main theme is absolutely to stay away from them and to hold GME, BB and AMC

For a good list of people running the redditors pursuing SLV misinformation (and thus in the pockets of the hedge funds), check out this reddit thread

Diamondhands GME! Hold that stonk!

Google side with Hedge funds, wipes Play Store reviews of RobinHood by pissed off GameStop traders

Posted on by

Google has removed a wave of negative reviews of popular stock-market trading apps targeted by furious investors.

Platforms such as Robinhood have been hit after preventing independent traders buying GameStop and AMC shares.

Users of a Reddit message board had managed to upset the market by buying the shares and inflating their value, hitting established hedge funds.

Many online traders, feeling betrayed by Robinhood’s restrictions, have hit back with critical reviews of the app.

Google has removed tens of thousands of one-star reviews for the widely-used trading app – which had previously had a four-star average.

It says it takes action when it sees “fake ratings”, designed to manipulate a product’s average score.

But more one-star ratings – the minimum possible – have continued to appear.

While Robinhood stopped independent users from buying some shares after the surge in investment by independent traders, they still remained available to large, professional traders elsewhere- leading to accusations that Robinhood was effectively protecting big investors and manipulating the stock market.

Robinhood said that the restrictions were put in place for “risk-management” reasons – and not because it had been told to limit activity by anyone else.

But as first reported by 9to5Google, it prompted a co-ordinated campaign to hit the app with a barrage of one-star reviews.

The site reported that more than 100,000 negative reviews had brought the average rating from four stars down to just one.

Hours later, Google intervened to delete roughly 100,000 reviews, according to the review counter, restoring the app’s high rating.

A selection of three one-star reviews pulled from the Google Play Storeimage copyrightGoogle Play

Google rules are designed to prevent so-called “review bombing” – when reviewers co-ordinate to drag down an app’s rating, usually because of some external scandal or political disagreement.

It has not yet responded to requests to comment on its Play Store decision.

‘Unacceptable’

While there had been calls on social media to review Robinhood negatively, many investors feel they have a legitimate grievance.

Some users of the Reddit WallStreetBets community, which is at the centre of the movement, believe they are taking a principled stance against hedge funds short-selling the stocks, hoping the company will fail.

The concern is also reflected by some major US politicians from both parties.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on Twitter

Democrat congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said Congress should investigate Robinhood, calling the app’s decision to block small traders “unacceptable”.

Her long-time political enemy, Republican Ted Cruz, tweeted that he fully agreed, as did entrepreneur Elon Musk.

Within hours, Senator Sherrod Brown – who runs the Senate Banking Committee – said he planned to hold a hearing on the current state of the US stock market.

“People on Wall Street only care about the rules when they’re the ones getting hurt,” he said.

Source: Google halts Play Store ‘review bombing’ by GameStop traders – BBC News

Let’s be clear – these guys have a very legitimate grievance with RobinHood.

ProtonMail, Tutanota among authors of letter urging EU to reconsider encryption rules

Posted on by

Encrypted service providers are urging lawmakers to back away from a controversial plan that critics say would undercut effective data protection measures.

ProtonMail, Threema, Tresorit and Tutanota — all European companies that offer some form of encrypted services — issued a joint statement this week declaring that a resolution the European Council adopted on Dec. 14 is ill-advised. That measure calls for “security through encryption and security despite encryption,” which technologists have interpreted as a threat to end-to-end encryption. In recent months governments around the world, including the U.S., U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India and Japan, have been reigniting conversations about law enforcement officials’ interest in bypassing encryption, as they have sporadically done for years.

In a letter that will be sent to council members on Thursday, the authors write that the council’s stated goal of endorsing encryption, and the council’s argument that law enforcement authorities must rely on accessing electronic evidence “despite encryption,” contradict one another. The advancement of legislation that forces technology companies to guarantee police investigators a way to intercept user messages, for instance, repeatedly has been scrutinized by technology leaders who argue there is no way to stop such a tool from being abused.

The resolution “will threaten the basic rights of millions of Europeans and undermine a global shift towards adopting end-to-end encryption,” say the companies, which offer users either encrypted email, file-sharing or messaging.

“[E]ncryption is an absolute, data is either encrypted or it isn’t, users have privacy or they don’t,” the letter, which was shared with CyberScoop in advance, states. “The desire to give law enforcement more tools to fight crime is obviously understandable. But the proposals are the digital equivalent of giving law enforcement a key to every citizens’ home and might begin a slippery slope towards greater violations of personal privacy.”

[…]

Source: ProtonMail, Tutanota among authors of letter urging EU to reconsider encryption rules

Robinhood, TD Ameritrade restrict buying of GameStop, AMC stock – shorters continue game, killing pumpers. Reps + Dems agree market manipulation. The shorters are big customers and are reloading their short positions.

Posted on by

GameStop’s stock has continued to make big moves, briefly crossing $450 a share on Thursday, fueled by Reddit users collectively taking on the Wall Street establishment. But individual investors looking to make trades have faced multiple issues on trading sites and apps over recent days, with many experiencing service disruptions, according to Bloomberg. The frenzy over GameStop stock has led to TD Ameritrade restricting certain trades, while Robinhood froze any new purchases of particular stocks (GameStop and AMC, among others). It also led to the Wall Street Bets subreddit temporarily getting locked and a Discord server getting shut down for violating terms of service. Watch this: What does GameStop’s skyrocketing stock have to do with…10:15On Thursday morning, Twitter users began posting screenshots of their Robinhood app that showed a message appended to the stocks of GameStop, AMC, Nokia and Bed, Bath and Beyond: “This stock is not supported on Robinhood.”Editors’ top picksSubscribe to CNET Now for the day’s most interesting reviews, news stories and videos.Yes, I also want to receive the CNET Insider newsletter, keeping me up to date with all things CNET.By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.Robinhood explained the move in a blog post Thursday morning, just before the stock exchanges opened: “In light of recent volatility, we are restricting transactions for certain securities to position closing only, including $AMC, $BB, $BBBY, $EXPR, $GME, $KOSS, $NAKD and $NOK.”The @wsbmod Twitter account (which is tied to the Wall Street Bets subreddit community driving recent trades), responded in a tweet: “Individual investors are being stripped of their ability to trade on [the Robinhood app]. Meanwhile, hedge funds and institutional investors can continue to trade as normal.”

Source: Robinhood, TD Ameritrade restrict trading of GameStop, AMC stock – CNET

Here comes the slander: Discord Bans r/WallStreetBets For Hate Speech Violations

Posted on by

After kicking off a historic rally around GameStop stock that has incited the ire of hedge fund tycoons and the SEC, the r/wallstreetbets channel was banned from Discord on Wednesday over apparent hate speech violations.

While some on Reddit were quick to speculate that the server had been taken down by hackers as part of a covert attempt to disrupt their push to drive the stock’s price higher, a Discord spokesperson told Gizmodo that the channel had been banned “for continuing to allow hateful and discriminatory content after repeated warnings.” On both Discord and Reddit, wallstreetbets users frequently refer to themselves collectively as “retards” and “autists,” and have been known to deploy the kinds of racial slurs and deliberately offensive language that have become commonplace in 4chan-style posting forums.

This is slightly disengenious at the very least. Just saying “shit” somewhere puts you in this category.

Here’s the full statement from Discord:

The server has been on our Trust & Safety team’s radar for some time due to occasional content that violates our Community Guidelines, including hate speech, glorifying violence, and spreading misinformation. Over the past few months, we have issued multiple warnings to the server admin.

Today, we decided to remove the server and its owner from Discord for continuing to allow hateful and discriminatory content after repeated warnings.

To be clear, we did not ban this server due to financial fraud related to GameStop or other stocks. Discord welcomes a broad variety of personal finance discussions, from investment clubs and day traders to college students and professional financial advisors. We are monitoring this situation and in the event there are allegations of illegal activities, we will cooperate with authorities as appropriate.

Moments after confirmation of the Discord ban surfaced online, the official r/wallstreetbets subreddit was set to private by its moderators, but has since been made public again. In a new post, moderators for r/wallstreetbets argued that the staggering growth of the community in just a few days’ time had made moderating it effectively impossible, and blamed Discord and Reddit’s software for any shortcomings in cracking down on offensive language.

Source: Discord Bans r/WallStreetBets For Hate Speech Violations

Note there is no statement from anyone from wallstreetbets. I recommend you read the  reddit yourself.

Very poor reporting, Gizmodo.

Solar material can ‘self-heal’ imperfections, new research shows

Posted on by

A material that can be used in technologies such as solar power has been found to self-heal, a new study shows.The findings—from the University of York—raise the prospect that it may be possible to engineer high-performance self-healing materials which could reduce costs and improve scalability, researchers say.The substance, called antimony selenide (Sb2Se3), is a solar absorber material that can be used for turning light energy into electricity.Professor Keith McKenna from the Department of Physics said: “The process by which this semi-conducting material self-heals is rather like how a salamander is able to re-grow limbs when one is severed. Antimony selenide repairs broken bonds created when it is cleaved by forming new ones.

Source: Solar material can ‘self-heal’ imperfections, new research shows

Firefox 85 removes support for Flash and adds protection against supercookies

Posted on by

Mozilla has released Firefox 85 ending support for Adobe Flash Player plugin and has brought in ways to block supercookies to enhance a user’s privacy. Mozilla, in a blog post, noted that supercookies are store user identifiers, and are much more difficult to delete and block. It further noted that the changes it is making through network partitioning in Firefox 85 will “reduce the effectiveness of cache-based supercookies by eliminating a tracker’s ability to use them across websites.”

“Trackers can abuse caches to create supercookies and can use connection identifiers to track users. But by isolating caches and network connections to the website they were created on, we make them useless for cross-site tracking,” Mozilla noted.

It explained that the network partitioning works by splitting the Firefox browser cache on a per-website basis, a technical solution that prevents websites from tracking users as they move across the web. Mozilla also noted that by removing support for Flash, there was not much impact on the page load time. The development was first reported by ZDNet.

[…]

Source: Firefox 85 removes support for Flash and adds protection against supercookies – Technology News

Update Your iPhone and iPad Right Now

Posted on by

Do you have an iPhone or iPad? You should update your device right now to iOS 14.4. No, not later today or after lunch or whatever. Update now.Why is it so crucial to update your iOS software as soon as possible? As TechCrunch first reported, Apple is reporting three security vulnerabilities that “may have been actively exploited” by hackers.We don’t have any real details yet, but Apple rarely has to admit such stunning vulnerabilities. The researchers who reported the security flaws have been granted anonymity by Apple.As Apple explains: Kernel Available for: iPhone 6s and later, iPad Air 2 and later, iPad mini 4 and later, and iPod touch (7th generation) Impact: A malicious application may be able to elevate privileges. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited. Description: A race condition was addressed with improved locking. CVE-2021-1782: an anonymous researcher WebKit Available for: iPhone 6s and later, iPad Air 2 and later, iPad mini 4 and later, and iPod touch (7th generation) Impact: A remote attacker may be able to cause arbitrary code execution. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited. Description: A logic issue was addressed with improved restrictions. CVE-2021-1871: an anonymous researcher CVE-2021-1870: an anonymous researcher

Source: Update Your iPhone and iPad Right Now