Comment Re:Well they can try... (Score 2) 31
Who says?
Submission + - Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Gives $120 Million To Historically Black Colleges (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Reed Hastings, the co-founder of Netflix, and his wife, Patty Quillin, donated $120 million to the United Negro College Fund, Spelman College and Morehouse College, the largest-ever individual gift to support scholarships at historically black colleges and universities. The record donation comes amid protests after the police killing ofGeorge Floyd, and the national conversation about how to end systemic racism. That conversation has included discussions about how to provide more education and job opportunities for African Americans. Unlike the Ivy League universities that have endowments in the tens of billions of dollars — Harvard University’s endowment tops $40 billion — the top historically black colleges and universities, or H.B.C.U.s, have endowments that are hundreds of millions of dollars. Spelman’s, for example, is around $390 million. Mr. Hastings said he and Ms. Quillin wanted to help change that.
They have made education a primary focus of their philanthropy, and have given smaller amounts in the past several years to the same institutions. “I think white people in our nation need to accept that it’s a collective responsibility,” Mr. Hastings said. Mr. Floyd’s killing and the emotional outpouring that followed were “the straw that broke the camel’s back, I think, for the size of the donation,” he added. Mr. Hastings said he hoped that the donation would lead other wealthy individuals to give to H.B.C.U.s. “Generally, white capital flows to predominantly white institutions, perpetuating capital isolation,” he and Ms. Quillin saidin a statementannouncing the donation on Wednesday.
They have made education a primary focus of their philanthropy, and have given smaller amounts in the past several years to the same institutions. “I think white people in our nation need to accept that it’s a collective responsibility,” Mr. Hastings said. Mr. Floyd’s killing and the emotional outpouring that followed were “the straw that broke the camel’s back, I think, for the size of the donation,” he added. Mr. Hastings said he hoped that the donation would lead other wealthy individuals to give to H.B.C.U.s. “Generally, white capital flows to predominantly white institutions, perpetuating capital isolation,” he and Ms. Quillin saidin a statementannouncing the donation on Wednesday.
Submission + - SPAM: Diluting blood plasma rejuvenates tissue, reverses aging in mice.
schwit1 writes:
In 2005, University of California, Berkeley, researchers made the surprising discovery that making conjoined twins out of young and old mice — such that they share blood and organs — can rejuvenate tissues and reverse the signs of aging in the old mice. The finding sparked a flurry of research into whether a youngster’s blood might contain special proteins or molecules that could serve as a “fountain of youth” for mice and humans alike.
But a new study by the same team shows that similar age-reversing effects can be achieved by simply diluting the blood plasma of old mice — no young blood needed.
In the study, the team found that replacing half of the blood plasma of old mice with a mixture of saline and albumin — where the albumin simply replaces protein that was lost when the original blood plasma was removed — has the same or stronger rejuvenation effects on the brain, liver and muscle than pairing with young mice or young blood exchange. Performing the same procedure on young mice had no detrimental effects on their health.
This discovery shifts the dominant model of rejuvenation away from young blood and toward the benefits of removing age-elevated, and potentially harmful, factors in old blood.
Does this mean donating blood helps?
Link to Original Source
Submission + - AWS Said It Mitigated a 2.3 Tbps DDoS Attack, the Largest Ever (zdnet.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Amazon said its AWS Shield service mitigated the largest DDoS attack ever recorded, stopping a 2.3 Tbps attack in mid-February this year. The incident was disclosed in the company's AWS Shield Threat Landscape [PDF], a report detailing web attacks mitigated by Amazon's AWS Shield protection service. The report didn't identify the targeted AWS customer but said the attack was carried out using hijacked CLDAP web servers and caused three days of "elevated threat" for its AWS Shield staff. [...] The previous record for the largest DDoS attack ever recorded was of 1.7 Tbps, mitigated by NETSCOUT Arbor in March 2018. Before that, the biggest DDoS attack ever recorded was a 1.3 Tbps DDoS attack that hit GitHub, a month before, in February 2018.
Submission + - Americans Are the Unhappiest They've Been In 50 Years (go.com)
An anonymous reader writes: It's been a rough year for the American psyche. Folks in the U.S. are more unhappy today than they've been in nearly 50 years. This bold — yet unsurprising — conclusion comes from the COVID Response Tracking Study, conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. It finds that just 14% of American adults say they're very happy, down from 31% who said the same in 2018. That year, 23% said they'd often or sometimes felt isolated in recent weeks. Now, 50% say that. The survey, conducted in late May, draws on nearly a half-century of research from the General Social Survey, which has collected data on American attitudes and behaviors at least every other year since 1972. No less than 29% of Americans have ever called themselves very happy in that survey.
Submission + - Snapchat Firm Unveils Platform Plan To Take On Google and Apple (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Snap, the company behind Snapchat, has revealed plans for a fully fledged digital platform taking on not only Facebook but also Google and Apple. The company is launching an app store, expanding its games platform and offering the facility for external developers to upload machine-learning models to build augmented reality experiences. It is allowing other apps to integrate its camera software for the first time, and incorporating businesses into its maps alongside users’ friends.
The features announced by Snap at its annual developer summit, held virtually last week, are the early stage of that revolution. One series of tools, called Scan, let users identify plants, trees and dogs by pointing their camera at them. A planned integration with Yuka, a dieting app, will offer a similar function for packaged foods. Another new product lets developers build their own AI filters for cameras. Initially, the tool will probably be used to generate ever more inventive lenses for the company’s messaging product – examples already include a filter that turns a video into the style of Van Gogh’s Starry Night, and a simple hand-tracking tool that places stars at your fingertips. [T]he goal is that eventually creativity will expand to include utility.
In Snap’s vision of the future, its camera platform replaces the home screen of a smartphone or the newsfeed of Facebook as the default starting point from where all other tasks begin. New AR technology is one way to achieve that, but another is getting more apps into the camera, and its camera in more apps. The latter is achieved by CameraKit, which lets other applications replace their default camera with Snapchat’s. The idea is that there is mutual benefit: the app doesn’t have to build a fully featured camera function if it just wants to include the ability to take or send photos, while Snapchat’s camera platform becomes increasingly valuable to developers who might be on the fence about whether to build features for it. For the former, Snap launched Minis, a feature that allows for micro-apps to be embedded within SnapChat, which can be opened without installation.
The features announced by Snap at its annual developer summit, held virtually last week, are the early stage of that revolution. One series of tools, called Scan, let users identify plants, trees and dogs by pointing their camera at them. A planned integration with Yuka, a dieting app, will offer a similar function for packaged foods. Another new product lets developers build their own AI filters for cameras. Initially, the tool will probably be used to generate ever more inventive lenses for the company’s messaging product – examples already include a filter that turns a video into the style of Van Gogh’s Starry Night, and a simple hand-tracking tool that places stars at your fingertips. [T]he goal is that eventually creativity will expand to include utility.
In Snap’s vision of the future, its camera platform replaces the home screen of a smartphone or the newsfeed of Facebook as the default starting point from where all other tasks begin. New AR technology is one way to achieve that, but another is getting more apps into the camera, and its camera in more apps. The latter is achieved by CameraKit, which lets other applications replace their default camera with Snapchat’s. The idea is that there is mutual benefit: the app doesn’t have to build a fully featured camera function if it just wants to include the ability to take or send photos, while Snapchat’s camera platform becomes increasingly valuable to developers who might be on the fence about whether to build features for it. For the former, Snap launched Minis, a feature that allows for micro-apps to be embedded within SnapChat, which can be opened without installation.
Submission + - Scientists Say Most Likely Number of Contactable Alien Civilizations Is 36 (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader writes: They may not be little green men. They may not arrive in a vast spaceship. But according to new calculations there could be more than 30 intelligent civilizations in our galaxy today capable of communicating with others. In 1961 the astronomer Frank Drake proposed what became known as the Drake equation, setting out seven factors that would need to be known to come up with an estimate for the number of intelligent civilisations out there. These factors ranged from the the average number of stars that form each year in the galaxy through to the timespan over which a civilisation would be expected to be sending out detectable signals.
But few of the factors are measurable. “Drake equation estimates have ranged from zero to a few billion [civilisations] – it is more like a tool for thinking about questions rather than something that has actually been solved,” said Christopher Conselice, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Nottingham and a co-author of the research. Now Conselice and colleagues report in the Astrophysical Journal how they refined the equation with new data and assumptions to come up with their estimates. “Basically, we made the assumption that intelligent life would form on other [Earth-like] planets like it has on Earth, so within a few billion years life would automatically form as a natural part of evolution,” said Conselice.
The assumption, known as the Astrobiological Copernican Principle, is fair as everything from chemical reactions to star formation is known to occur if the conditions are right, he said. “[If intelligent life forms] in a scientific way, not just a random way or just a very unique way, then you would expect at least this many civilisations within our galaxy,” he said. Under the strictest set of assumptions – where, as on Earth, life forms between 4.5bn and 5.5bn years after star formation – there are likely between four and 211 civilisations in the Milky Way today capable of communicating with others, with 36 the most likely figure. But Conselice noted that this figure is conservative, not least as it is based on how long our own civilisation has been sending out signals into space – a period of just 100 years so far. The team add that our civilisation would need to survive at least another 6,120 years for two-way communication.
But few of the factors are measurable. “Drake equation estimates have ranged from zero to a few billion [civilisations] – it is more like a tool for thinking about questions rather than something that has actually been solved,” said Christopher Conselice, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Nottingham and a co-author of the research. Now Conselice and colleagues report in the Astrophysical Journal how they refined the equation with new data and assumptions to come up with their estimates. “Basically, we made the assumption that intelligent life would form on other [Earth-like] planets like it has on Earth, so within a few billion years life would automatically form as a natural part of evolution,” said Conselice.
The assumption, known as the Astrobiological Copernican Principle, is fair as everything from chemical reactions to star formation is known to occur if the conditions are right, he said. “[If intelligent life forms] in a scientific way, not just a random way or just a very unique way, then you would expect at least this many civilisations within our galaxy,” he said. Under the strictest set of assumptions – where, as on Earth, life forms between 4.5bn and 5.5bn years after star formation – there are likely between four and 211 civilisations in the Milky Way today capable of communicating with others, with 36 the most likely figure. But Conselice noted that this figure is conservative, not least as it is based on how long our own civilisation has been sending out signals into space – a period of just 100 years so far. The team add that our civilisation would need to survive at least another 6,120 years for two-way communication.
Submission + - Boston Dynamics Starts Selling Its Spot Robot — For $74,500
An anonymous reader writes: Boston Dynamics today opened commercial sales of Spot, its quadruped robot that can climb stairs and traverse rough terrain. Businesses can purchase the Spot Explorer developer kit for $74,500 at shop.bostondynamics.com. Spot Explorer includes the robot, two batteries, the battery charger, the tablet controller, a robot case, a power case, and Python client packages for Spot APIs. Boston Dynamics will also be selling Spot payloads, and customers will get software updates "when available." The company is offering free shipping for a limited time — the website currently states that Spot Explorer ships in six to eight weeks.
The announcement marks a couple of milestones for the company founded in 1992. It's the first time businesses can purchase a Boston Dynamics robot directly. It's also the company's first online sales offering. Spot is only for sale in the U.S. for commercial and industrial use, but the company hopes to expand internationally this year. "We plan to manufacture around a thousand Spots in the next year but can increase that based on the demand," a Boston Dynamics spokesperson told VentureBeat. "We are exploring opportunities for enabling sales overseas this year." The company was originally planning to finish building 1,000 Spots by mid-2020, but the coronavirus pandemic disrupted that timeline.
The announcement marks a couple of milestones for the company founded in 1992. It's the first time businesses can purchase a Boston Dynamics robot directly. It's also the company's first online sales offering. Spot is only for sale in the U.S. for commercial and industrial use, but the company hopes to expand internationally this year. "We plan to manufacture around a thousand Spots in the next year but can increase that based on the demand," a Boston Dynamics spokesperson told VentureBeat. "We are exploring opportunities for enabling sales overseas this year." The company was originally planning to finish building 1,000 Spots by mid-2020, but the coronavirus pandemic disrupted that timeline.
Submission + - You can help a Mars Rover's AI learn to traverse the Red Planet (techcrunch.com)
shirappu writes: For eight years now, the Mars Rover Curiosity has been exploring the surface of Mars. Even now, it's still exploring, and still getting upgrades. According to Tech Crunch, NASA is now looking to interested volunteers to help upgrade the rover's terrain-scanning AI systems by annotating image data of the planet itself.
Volunteers go through a short tutorial after which they can label images to help the rover better understand the terrain on which it drives. The system is expected to be used in future planet rover robots, and the project marks an interesting example of open crowd-sourcing to improve machine learning systems, and how it is impacting technology even on other planets.
AI4Mars site link where people can volunteer: https://www.zooniverse.org/pro...
Volunteers go through a short tutorial after which they can label images to help the rover better understand the terrain on which it drives. The system is expected to be used in future planet rover robots, and the project marks an interesting example of open crowd-sourcing to improve machine learning systems, and how it is impacting technology even on other planets.
AI4Mars site link where people can volunteer: https://www.zooniverse.org/pro...
Comment Licenses (Score 3, Funny) 493
Apparently, Microsoft thought the cost of licenses for all the code on GitHub was included in the price.
Comment yup, stupid idea (Score 1) 120
Doesn't appear to apply to mine but...
It came from north of Vancouver BC, in the mountains. And from the look of the underside spent half it's buried in snow. But now is in Spokane for the last 6 months after living in the mountains for 7 years. It's not that humid here so not a problem, right?!?
Not exactly comforting, all these recalls lately seem to miss me by a model year.
Comment tech is cool and all but..... (Score 1) 34
That walker doesn't look all that great. It is very far forward in front of the person. The best wheeled ones let you walk in between the handles like the standard alum ones do. Even the common wheeled ones are closer to you than this one is. It appears to lack support for..umm..walking. Besides a motorized walker just sounds like trouble. It is going to pull grandma along without pulling her over?
If you insist on high tech there is one that shines a laser on the ground to show you where to step, kinda cool for Alzheimers and stuff.
That back support is cool but I can't see a nursing home paying over $1000/month, they balk at a $150 patient lift.
Comment sure, i am convinced (Score 2) 180
"Zimmerman also said the Guardian has had a months-long partnership with Whisper that used the very techniques the article decries."
Would that be the technically impossible ones or the ones they would NEVER use?
Comment Couple of issues (Score 3, Interesting) 72
1st this was done 4 years ago. The future is now.
But mostly...
Why were none of the tests more than 4 hours long? What happens after the test period, do they need to recover or something?
If this is so efficient why are we talking about a 4 year old test instead of the implementation 3 years ago?!?
Comment wrong focus (Score 1) 92
I am a little more concerned with why they think my frig is gonna need 4.6Gbps
