December 22, 2016 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

China Claims Tests of ‘Reactionless’ EM Drive Were Successful

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Popular Science: The “reactionless” Electromagnetic Drive, or EmDrive for short, is an engine propelled solely by electromagnetic radiation confined in a microwave cavity. Such an engine would violate the law of conservation of momentum by generating mechanical action without exchanging matter. But since 2010, both the United States and China have been pouring serious resources into these seemingly impossible engines. And now China claims its made a key breakthrough. Dr. Chen Yue, Director of Commercial Satellite Technology for the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) announced on December 10, 2016 that not only has China successfully tested EmDrives technology in its laboratories, but that a proof-of-concept is currently undergoing zero-g testing in orbit (according to the International Business Times, this test is taking place on the Tiangong 2 space station). If China is able to install EmDrives on its satellites for orbital maneuvering and altitude control, they would become cheaper and longer lasting. Li Feng, lead CAST designer for commercial satellites, states that the current EmDrive has only a thrust of single digit millinewtons, for orbital adjustment; a medium sized satellite needs 0.1-1 Newtons. A functional EmDrive would also open up new possibilities for long range Chinese interplanetary probes beyond the Asteroid belt, as well freeing up the mass taken up by fuel in manned spacecraft for other supplies and equipment to build lunar and Martian bases. On the military side of things, EmDrives could also be used to create stealthier, longer lasting Chinese surveillance satellites. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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China Claims Tests of ‘Reactionless’ EM Drive Were Successful

Dutch scientists’ artificial leaf can create medicine anywhere

Wouldn’t it be great to have the ability to concoct medicine anywhere the sun shines, even if it’s on another planet? A team of Dutch scientists from Eindhoven University of Technology have developed an artificial leaf-like device that could make that happen. The researchers, inspired by plants that can make their own food through photosynthesis , used materials that can match leaves’ capability to capture and store sunlight for later use. These materials are called luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs), which have special light-sensitive molecules that can capture huge amounts of incoming light. The team designed a device that looks like a leaf by incorporating thin, microchannels mimicking veins in a silicon rubber LSC. By pumping liquids into those channels, their molecules can get into contact with the sunlight absorbed by the LSC. The energy is intense enough to trigger chemical reactions. According to the researchers, the device’s chemical production was 40 percent higher than the rate demonstrated by similar experiments without LSC. “Using a reactor like this means you can make drugs anywhere, in principle, whether malaria drugs in the jungle or paracetamol on Mars, ” lead researcher Dr. Timothy Noël explained. “All you need is sunlight and this mini-factory.” Source: Eindhoven University of Technology

Online RPG ‘Asheron’s Call’ to shut down after 17 years

Well-done online role-playing games tend to have a long shelf life , but the Asheron’s Call series has lasted longer than most. It got started way back in 1999, and has lasted through three publisher changes, a shift to a buy-once model and even a full-on resurrection , among other tribulations. However, even classics have to call it quits at some point. Turbine has announced that it’s ending support for both the original Asheron’s Call and Asheron’s Call 2 on January 31st, 2017. The series will be completely free to play for any account holder until then, but you won’t get to create a new account to see what the fuss is about. The shutdown wasn’t exactly unexpected. Asheron’s Call support has been limited to maintenance for over two years, so it wasn’t about to experience a revival. And just a day before the closure announcement, Turbine revealed that it was spinning off the Dungeons & Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online teams into a separate company, Standing Stone Games. Given that those are Turbine’s only active projects, it’s not hard to see what’s likely happening — Turbine may still own Asheron’s Call , but it doesn’t have the staff needed to keep the lights on. Don’t expect a revival like the series saw in 2012. There is a crowdfunding effort from fans hoping to buy the franchise and keep it alive, but that’s contingent on both sufficient support and Turbine being willing to sell. Turbine had talked about shifting to privately-run servers, but that didn’t happen. As it stands, massively multiplayer online games aren’t as red hot as they used to be. Even World of Warcraft is nowhere near the subscriber count of its heyday. It’s sad to see Asheron’s Call go, but the MMO world has changed a lot since it arrived 17 years ago. Source: Asheron’s Call (Facebook)

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Online RPG ‘Asheron’s Call’ to shut down after 17 years

LibreOffice Will Have New ‘MUFFIN’ UI

New submitter iampiti writes: The Document Foundation has announced a new user interface concept for LibreOffice. Users will be able to choose from several toolbar configurations including the “Notebook bar” which is similar to Microsoft Office’s ribbon. According to TDF, “The MUFFIN (My User Friendly — Flexible Interface) represents a new approach to UI design, based on the respect of user needs rather than on the imposition of a single UI to all users” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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LibreOffice Will Have New ‘MUFFIN’ UI

Encrypted chat app Signal circumvents government censorship

Just days after Open Whisper Systems concluded the Egyptian government had blocked access to its encrypted messaging service, Signal, the company rolled out an update that circumvents large-scale censorship systems across Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. The update also adds the ability to apply stickers, text and doodles to images, but that’s just icing on the censorship-evading cake. “Over the weekend, we heard reports that Signal was not functioning reliably in Egypt or the United Arab Emirates, ” Open Whisper Systems writes . “We investigated with the help of Signal users in those areas, and found that several ISPs were blocking communication with the Signal service and our website. It turns out that when some states can’t snoop, they censor.” Open Whisper Systems circumvents filtering systems with domain fronting, a technique that routes all messages through a popular domain name — in this case, Google. All Signal messages sent from an Egypt or UAE country code will look like a normal HTTPS request to the Google homepage. In order to block Signal in these countries, the governments would have to disable Google. “The goal for an app like Signal is to make disabling internet access the only way a government can disable Signal, ” the company says. The blog post continues, “With enough large-scale services acting as domain fronts, disabling Signal starts to look like disabling the internet.” Source: Signal

After Uber defied California’s DMV, the DMV revoked Uber’s registrations

If these people are in California, this is not a self-driving Uber with an engineer up front. (credit: UberPop) On Wednesday night, the California DMV issued a statement saying it would revoke the registrations of 16 cars owned by Uber, which the company had been using to test its self-driving system. The DMV said that “the registrations were improperly issued for these vehicles because they were not properly marked as test vehicles.” The move from the California DMV comes after a contentious public battle last week, when Uber suddenly announced the launch of its pilot program in San Francisco (the same program had been running in Pittsburgh for a few months already). But Bloomberg noted that the ride-hailing company still hadn’t registered with the state’s DMV , which requires that companies looking to test self-driving cars apply for a special permit to do so on public roads. Uber countered that its system wasn’t very advanced yet and was indistinguishable from a mere Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS), which do not require special permits. Uber cited Tesla’s autopilot software, which drivers currently use without adhering to the DMV’s autonomous vehicle rules. Tesla, however, has registered with the state’s motor department to test autonomous vehicles. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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After Uber defied California’s DMV, the DMV revoked Uber’s registrations