Day: February 12, 2018

Unknown Language Discovered in Malaysia

Researchers have cataloged close to 7, 000 distinct human languages on Earth, per Linguistic Society of America’s latest count. That may seem like a pretty exhaustive list, but it hasn’t stopped anthropologists and linguists from continuing to encounter new languages, like one recently discovered in a village in the northern part of the Malay Peninsula. From a report: According to a press release, researchers from Lund University in Sweden discovered the language during a project called Tongues of the Semang. The documentation effort in villages of the ethnic Semang people was intended to collect data on their languages, which belong to an Austoasiatic language family called Aslian. While researchers were studying a language called Jahai in one village, they came to understand that not everyone there was speaking it. “We realized that a large part of the village spoke a different language. They used words, phonemes and grammatical structures that are not used in Jahai, ” says Joanne Yager, lead author of the study, which was published in the journal Linguist Typology. “Some of these words suggested a link with other Aslian languages spoken far away in other parts of the Malay Peninsula.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Unknown Language Discovered in Malaysia

Why Paper Jams Persist

A trivial problem reveals the limits of technology. Fascinating story from The New Yorker: Unsurprisingly, the engineers who specialize in paper jams see them differently. Engineers tend to work in narrow subspecialties, but solving a jam requires knowledge of physics, chemistry, mechanical engineering, computer programming, and interface design. “It’s the ultimate challenge, ” Ruiz said. “I wouldn’t characterize it as annoying, ” Vicki Warner, who leads a team of printer engineers at Xerox, said of discovering a new kind of paper jam. “I would characterize it as almost exciting.” When she graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology, in 2006, her friends took jobs in trendy fields, such as automotive design. During her interview at Xerox, however, another engineer showed her the inside of a printing press. All Xerox printers look basically the same: a million-dollar printing press is like an office copier, but twenty-four feet long and eight feet high. Warner watched as the heavy, pale-gray double doors swung open to reveal a steampunk wonderland of gears, wheels, conveyor belts, and circuit boards. As in an office copier, green plastic handles offer access to the “paper path” — the winding route, from “feeder” to “stacker, ” along which sheets of paper are shocked and soaked, curled and decurled, vacuumed and superheated. “Printers are essentially paper torture chambers, ” Warner said, smiling behind her glasses. “I thought, This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Why Paper Jams Persist

Apple’s iOS 12 strategy: Take more time to squash the bugs

Enlarge / The new 10.5-inch iPad Pro. (credit: Andrew Cunningham) Apple has new features planned for its big, new iOS update—but not as many as you may expect. According to a Bloomberg report , the next sweeping iOS update, codenamed “Peace” and likely to be called iOS 12, will include a number of app redesigns, the expansion of Animoji into Facetime, and other changes but not some of the biggest rumored changes such as redesigned home screens for iPhone and iPad. Instead of filling iOS 12 with a bevy of new features, Apple is reportedly changing strategies to allow developers more time to perfect the new features to ensure reliability. The biggest change planned for iOS 12, slated for release this fall, is a universal app system that would allow one app to work across iPhones, iPads, and Mac computers. Currently, users have to download separate iOS and macOS apps to use the same programs across their mobile devices and desktops or laptops. Along with this change, Apple could bring some mobile-specific apps to macOS, like the Home app that controls HomeKit-enabled smart home devices. Animojis will find another home in Facetime when iOS 12 is released. Apple is reportedly working on increasing the number of AR characters available and allowing users to don them during live Facetime video chats. A new iPad is reportedly in the works that has Apple’s FaceID camera, which would allow it to support Animojis as well (Animojis are only currently available on the iPhone X , which has the new FaceID camera). Also planned for the new software update are a revamped stock-trading app and Do Not Disturb feature, an updated search view that leans more heavily on Siri, a new interface for importing photos onto an iPad, and multiplayer augmented reality gameplay. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Apple’s iOS 12 strategy: Take more time to squash the bugs

Watch The Olympics Opening Ceremony Drone Video Before It Gets Taken Down (Again)

On Saturday I was lucky enough to watch footage of the amazing drone display aired during the Olympics opening ceremony. Coordinated by Intel, 1, 218 drones performed a lightshow–pre-recorded rather than conducted live, due to logistical issues–and it was posted to Vimeo for those who missed the live broadcast. Sadly, the International Olympics Committee ordered the video removed due to copyright infringement. Fair enough–but then why not post the video themselves, so those who missed it could enjoy it? Neither they nor NBC has made the video available. So I poked around and found a pirated copy on YouTube. It’s a truncated version somewhat spoiled by commentary provided by Korean news broadcasters, but at least gives you a taste. Watch it here (it’s unembeddable) before the IOC orders it removed. It really is a shame they pulled the video, because the team behind it busted their asses to pull this off. You can see some snippets of the footage in the behind-the-scenes video below: I’m hoping the IOC comes to their senses and re-posts the full version. If they do I’ll come back to this post and insert it.

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Watch The Olympics Opening Ceremony Drone Video Before It Gets Taken Down (Again)

Scientists identify hundreds of atomically-thin materials

Enlarge / Molybdenum disulfide, one of the 2D materials we knew about. (credit: NC State ) Graphene may seem like a modern wonder-material, but it’s been with us for ages in the form of graphite. Graphene is a sheet of carbon atoms bonded to each other, just one atom thick; graphite is just an agglomeration of these sheets layered on top of each other. To study graphene, however, it took someone clever to devise a way of peeling single layers off from this agglomeration (the secret turned out to be a piece of tape). Since then, we’ve identified a handful of additional chemicals that form sheets that are a few atoms thick. These have a variety of properties—some are semiconductors and have been combined with graphene to make electronic devices . To expand the range of device we can craft that build on the advantages of these atomically thin materials, a larger catalog of chemicals like this would be handy. Now, a Lithuanian-Swiss team says it’s done just that. The team has found materials just like graphite: a bulk material with atomically thin layers hidden inside. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Scientists identify hundreds of atomically-thin materials