Comment Birthday (Score 1) 63
Google celebrates English mathematician George Boole's 200th birthday.You can see the video here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Submission + - Scientists have created an invisibility cloak fit for Harry Potter
jan_jes writes: Scientists have devised an ultra-thin invisibility “skin” cloak that can conform to the shape of an object and conceal it from detection with visible light. Although this cloak is only microscopic in size, the principles behind the technology should enable it to be scaled-up to conceal macroscopic items as well. Unlike the fictional character, the ultrathin cloak is real. The scientists used brick-like blocks of gold nanoantennas to form the 80-nanometer-thick cloak, which conformed to the arbitrary bumps and dents in the 1,300-square-micrometer sample object. The cloak, a metamaterial engineered to bend light in ways not seen in nature, was able to reflect red light as if it were bouncing off a flat mirror. Last year, a “super black” material “vantablack,” have developed by a British Company, which is so dark that the human eye cannot understand what it is seeing. Shapes and contours are lost. If it was used to make black dresses, the wearer’s head and limbs might appear to float around a dress-shaped hole.
Submission + - Wikipedia blocks 381 user accounts for "black hat" editing
jan_jes writes: Wikipedia have announced that they have blocked 381 user accounts for “black hat” editing after weeks of investigation. The reason to block is that the accounts were engaged in undisclosed paid advocacy—the practice of accepting or charging money to promote external interests on Wikipedia without revealing their affiliation, in violation of Wikimedia’s Terms of Use. Every day, volunteer editors make thousands of edits to Wikipedia: they add reliable sources, introduce new topics, expand articles, add images, cover breaking news, fix inaccuracies, and resolve conflicts of interest. In addition to blocking the 381 “sockpuppet” accounts—a term that refers to multiple accounts used in misleading or deceptive ways—the editors deleted 210 articles created by these accounts.
Submission + - Facebook is now working on its own digital assistant called M (betanews.com)
Mark Wilson writes: Sounding like a character from a James Bond movie, M is Facebook's personal digital assistant. Ready to compete with the likes of Cortana, M will live inside Facebook Messenger and take artificial intelligence a step further. Rather than just helping you to find information or create calendar entries, M will actually perform tasks on your behalf.
Once up and running, M will be able to book restaurants for you, purchase shopping, and more. It will also be possible to use the service to ask for advice — such as looking for somewhere to visit nearby, or gift suggestions — and Facebook says the AI behind M is "trained and supervised by people".
Once up and running, M will be able to book restaurants for you, purchase shopping, and more. It will also be possible to use the service to ask for advice — such as looking for somewhere to visit nearby, or gift suggestions — and Facebook says the AI behind M is "trained and supervised by people".
Submission + - MIT's new file system, guaranteed not to lose data during crashes
jan_jes writes: At the ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles in October, MIT researchers will present the first file system that is mathematically guaranteed not to lose track of data during crashes. Although the file system is slow by today’s standards, the techniques the researchers used to verify its performance can be extended to more sophisticated designs. Ultimately, formal verification could make it much easier to develop reliable, efficient file systems. MIT researchers has already presented a system that repairs dangerous software bugs by automatically importing functionality from other, more secure applications.
Submission + - Mobile phone data can track the spread of infectious diseases (rtoz.org)
jan_jes writes: Researchers have used anonymous mobile phone records for more than 15 million people to track the spread of rubella disease in Kenya and were able to quantitatively show that mobile phone data can predict seasonal disease patterns. The researchers compared the cellphone analysis with a highly detailed dataset on rubella incidence in Kenya. They matched; the cellphone movement patterns lined up with the rubella incidence figures. In both of their analyses, rubella spiked three times a year. This showed the researchers that cellphone movement can be a predictor of infectious-disease spread.
Submission + - New blood-cleansing device removes pathogens, toxins from blood (rtoz.org)
jan_jes writes: A team of scientists at the Wyss Institute last year described the development of a device to treat sepsis that works by mimicking the human spleen. The device cleanses pathogens and toxins from blood flowing through a dialysis-like circuit. Now the team has developed an improved device that works with conventional antibiotic therapies and is better positioned for near-term use in clinics. The improved design is described in the October issue of Biomaterials. This approach can be administered quickly, even without identifying the infectious agent.
Submission + - MIT and Samsung Researching Solid-State Batteries (mit.edu)
jones_supa writes: Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Samsung have developed a new approach to one of the three basic components of batteries, the electrolyte. The new findings are based on the idea that a solid electrolyte, rather than liquid, could greatly improve both device lifetime and safety, while also providing a significant boost in power density. The new type of electrolyte would also cope better in cold temperatures. The results are reported in the journal Nature Materials in a paper by MIT postdoc Yan Wang, visiting professor of materials science and engineering Gerbrand Ceder, and five others.
Submission + - Brain scan predicts the success of social anxiety disorder treatment (rtoz.org)
jan_jes writes: MIT research study performed brain scans on 38 SAD patients, found that these scans contain clues that indicate, with about 80 percent accuracy, which SAD patients will do well in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), an intervention designed to help patients change thinking patterns. Use of the scans to predict treatment outcomes improved predictions fivefold over use of a clinician’s assessment alone. The researchers used a form of brain imaging that scans patients in a state of rest. Resting-state images can be done quickly, in about 15 minutes, and reliably, since they don’t require patients to follow instructions, so they have the potential to be used in a clinical setting as a tool that helps doctors select the best treatments for patients. The findings are reported in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
Comment Re:Its a Google Alphabet (Score 1) 235
*Shhh* people around here don't read SEC filings. It gets in the way of their head in their asses pontifications...
I know that but Google has included some more details in SEC filings. Tech people want to know these, so only i did this "Larry Page will become the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Alphabet, Sergey Brin will become the President of Alphabet, Eric E. Schmidt will become the Executive Chairman of Alphabet, Ruth Porat will become the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Alphabet and David C. Drummond will become the Senior Vice President, Corporate Development, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary of Alphabet. Concurrently upon completion of the Alphabet Merger, Sundar Pichai, will become the new CEO of Google Inc. Later this year, Google intends to implement a holding company reorganization (the “Alphabet Merger”), which will result in Alphabet owning all of the capital stock of Google."
Comment Its a Google Alphabet (Score 0) 235
As per US security and Exchange commission, "On August 10, 2015, Google Inc. (“Google”) announced plans to create a new public holding company, Alphabet Inc. (“Alphabet”), and a new operating structure to increase management scale and focus on its consolidated businesses. Under the new operating structure, its main Google business will include search, ads, maps, apps, YouTube and Android and the related technical infrastructure (the “Google business”).
Businesses such as Calico, Nest, and Fiber, as well as its investing arms, such as Google Ventures and Google Capital, and incubator projects, such as Google X, will be managed separately from the Google business."
Also another info, it has xyz domain.
It shows Google's best Easter Egg too...
Submission + - MIT designed an inexpensive fusion reactor that boosts power by tenfold (rtoz.org)
jan_jes writes: Advances in magnet technology have enabled researchers at MIT to propose a new design for a practical compact tokamak (donut-shaped) fusion reactor. The stronger magnetic field makes it possible to produce the required magnetic confinement of the superhot plasma — that is, the working material of a fusion reaction — but in a much smaller device than those previously envisioned. The reduction in size, in turn, makes the whole system less expensive and faster to build, and also allows for some ingenious new features in the power plant design.
Submission + - MIT yolk and shell nanoparticle improve rechargeable batteries
jan_jes writes: A new "yolk-and-shell" nanoparticle by the researchers at MIT and Tsinghua University in China, could boost the capacity and power of lithium-ion batteries. The researchers have created an electrode made of nanoparticles with a solid shell, and a “yolk” inside that can change size again and again without affecting the shell. The new findings, which use aluminum as the key material for the lithium-ion battery’s negative electrode, or anode, are reported in the journal Nature Communications. The use of nanoparticles with an aluminum yolk and a titanium dioxide shell has proven to be “the high-rate champion among high-capacity anodes".
Submission + - Drone drops drugs onto Ohio prison yard (cnn.com)
Okian Warrior writes: Officers rushed into the north yard of Mansfield Correctional Institution in Mansfield, Ohio, last week after noticing 75 inmates gathering and a fight breaking out.
It wasn't until authorities later reviewed surveillance tape that they saw what led to the fisticuffs: A drone had flown over the yard and delivered 144.5 grams of tobacco, 65.4 grams of marijuana and 6.6 grams of heroin before the fight ensued.
If the heroin is half pure, that package amounts to about 140 individual doses,
It wasn't until authorities later reviewed surveillance tape that they saw what led to the fisticuffs: A drone had flown over the yard and delivered 144.5 grams of tobacco, 65.4 grams of marijuana and 6.6 grams of heroin before the fight ensued.
If the heroin is half pure, that package amounts to about 140 individual doses,
Submission + - Microsoft creates a quantum computer-proof version of TLS encryption protocol (technologyreview.com) 2
holy_calamity writes: When (or if) quantum computers become practical they will make existing forms of encryption useless. But now researchers at Microsoft say they have made a quantum-proof version of the TLS encryption protocol we could use to keep online data secure in the quantum computing era. It is based on a mathematical problem very difficult for both conventional and quantum computers to crack. That tougher math means data moved about 20 percent slower in comparisons with conventional TLS, but Microsoft says the design could be practical if properly tuned up for use in the real world.
