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Google

Now Googlers Are Protesting Company's Cloud Deals With Big Oil (bloomberg.com) 105

Posted by BeauHD from the no-shortage-of-things-to-complain-about dept.
Activists inside Google are calling on management to ditch deals with oil and gas companies, the latest flare-up inside the technology giant. Bloomberg reports: In a letter published on Monday, more than 1,100 workers asked Google Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat to release a "company-wide climate plan" that commits to cutting carbon emissions entirely. The letter also asks Google to drop contracts that "enable or accelerate the extraction of fossil fuels." Since 2017, Google's cloud-computing unit has disclosed contracts with oil-services giant Schlumberger Ltd., Chevron Corp. and French energy company Total SA. Saudi Arabia's Aramco, the world's largest oil company, announced a tentative cloud deal with Google last year, although the internet giant has never confirmed the partnership.

"If Google is going to confront its share of responsibility for the climate crisis, that means not helping oil and gas companies extract fossil fuels," Ike McCreery, an engineer in Google's cloud division, said in an email. "This is a moment in history that requires urgent and decisive action." Alphabet Inc.'s Google has touted its green credentials for years. The company announced the largest ever corporate purchase of renewable energy in September. Starting in 2017, the company has matched the electricity bill from its massive data centers with equal purchases from renewable energy sources. The Google employee letter also asks the company not to do business with U.S. immigration authorities, "arguing that more people are being forced to move across borders due to climate change," reports Bloomberg. Business Insider reports that U.S. Customs and Border Protection is testing a Google cloud service called Anthos, which lets organizations use multiple cloud providers at once.

Comment Changing the balloon's surface: black and white (Score 1) 90

by yo303 (#58481726) Attached to: Scientists Develop Self-Propelling Phoenix Aircraft That Inhales Air

It's an old idea, but they could have a way to change the outside surface between black and white, to absorb more or less sun heat, to alter the temperature and the density of the lifting gas. It might be more efficient than compression.

Buckminster Fuller gave us Cloud Nine: city-sized tensegrity spheres. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Comment Better summary (Score 4, Informative) 157

by yo303 (#58282620) Attached to: 'Halo Drive' Would Use Black Holes To Power Spaceships

TFS doesn't say this, but the idea is to use spinning pairs of black holes. You shoot photons back, and by gravitational slingshot they come back with more energy, and they propel the vessel by hitting the sail.

Co-orbiting black holes, moving at relativistic speeds before their merger, are untapped batteries. There are an estimated 10 million black hole pairs in our galaxy.
Space

FCC Authorizes SpaceX's Ambitious Satellite Internet Plans 102

Posted by BeauHD from the always-connected dept.
The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday approved an application by Elon Musk's SpaceX, allowing the aerospace company to provide broadband services using satellites in the U.S. and worldwide. "With this action, the Commission takes another step to increase high-speed broadband availability and competition in the United States," the FCC said in a statement. CNBC reports: This marks the first time the FCC has allowed a U.S.-licensed satellite constellation to provide broadband services through low-Earth orbit satellites. "We appreciate the FCC's thorough review and approval of SpaceX's constellation license. Although we still have much to do with this complex undertaking, this is an important step toward SpaceX building a next-generation satellite network that can link the globe with reliable and affordable broadband service, especially reaching those who are not yet connected," Gwynne Shotwell, President and Chief Operating Officer at SpaceX said in a statement.

SpaceX will begin launching the constellation it dubbed "Starlink" in 2019. The system will be operational once at least 800 satellites are deployed. Starlink will offer broadband speeds comparable to fiber optic networks.The satellites would offer new direct to consumer wireless connections, rather the present system's redistribution of signals, transforming a traditionally high-cost, low reliability service.
Space

NASA Spacecraft Reveals Jupiter's Interior In Unprecedented Detail (theguardian.com) 52

Posted by BeauHD from the finer-details dept.
NASA's Juno spacecraft has revealed that Jupiter's iconic striped bands, caused by immensely powerful winds, extend to a depth of about 3,000km below the surface. The findings also provide a partial answer to the question of whether the planet has a core, "showing that the inner 96% of the planet rotates 'as a solid body,' even though technically it is composed of an extraordinarily dense mixture of hydrogen and helium gas," reports The Guardian. From the report: The findings are published in four separate papers in the journal Nature, describing the planet's gravitational field (surprisingly asymmetrical), atmospheric flows, interior composition and polar cyclones. A crucial question was whether the bands on Jupiter, caused by air currents that are five times as strong as the most powerful hurricanes on Earth, were a "weather" phenomenon comparable to the Earth's jet streams or part of a deep-seated convection system. Juno's latest observations point to the latter, showing the jets continued to around 3,000km beneath the surface -- deep enough to cause ripples and asymmetries in the planet's gravitational field that were perceptible to detectors on the spacecraft. On Earth, the atmosphere represents about a millionth of the mass of the whole planet. The latest work suggests that on Jupiter the figure is closer to 1%. The new findings, based on extremely sensitive gravitational measurements, also begin to paint a picture of the internal structure of the planet.
Software

Oculus Rift Headsets Are Offline Following a Software Error (polygon.com) 111

Posted by BeauHD from the out-of-reach dept.
Polygon reports that Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets around the world are experiencing an outage. The outage appears to be a result of an expired security certificate. "That certificate has expired," said the Oculus support team on its forums, "and we're looking at a few different ways to resolve the issue. We'll update you with the latest info as available. We recommend you wait until we provide an official fix. Thanks for your patience." Polygon reports: One place where users experiencing the issue are gathering is on the Oculus forums. Last night user apexmaster booted up his computer, tried to open the Oculus app and was greeted by an error indicating that the software could not reach the "Oculus Runtime Service." That same error is cropping up on computers all around the world, including several devices here at Polygon. Once it has appeared, there's no way to restart the Oculus app, which renders the Rift headset unusable.

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