A team of roboticists from Caltech and Urbana-Champaign have built a biomimetic “bat bot” that uses nine joints to deform a foot-wide wing membrane to achieve breathtaking aerial maneuvers. (more…)
Continued here:
Autonomous bat bot weighs 93g, flies like a bat
If you have mastered the popping of corn , chances are you’re ready to add other crunchy, delicious, whole grains to your snack repertoire. It turns out that this is very easy to do, as most whole grains pop and puff in a manner very similar to popcorn. Read more…
See the original post:
You Can Cook Almost Any Grain Like Popcorn
Just when you thought it was safe to slip your card in a slot ATM skimmers have gotten just a bit smarter. New devices called Shimmers can now read your card number and, in certain instances, access your card’s chip. While the technique isn’t new – Shimmers began appearing in 2015 – they are still a huge security hole and far more dangerous than standard skimmers.… Read More
View the original here:
Thieves now use “Shimmers” to grab Chip/PIN card data
Earlier today Reddit banned r/altright, the primary community on the site for the so-called “alt-right.” And for a variety of reasons, that’s about all we know. Read more…
More:
Reddit Says Goodnight to ‘Alt-Right’ Community [Updates]
AT&T’s 5G wireless network just got much more tangible. The carrier has announced that its ultra-fast wireless will launch in two cities, Austin and Indianapolis, sometime later in 2017. And while it’s still early days, the company is confident enough to set some performance expectations. Initially, these 5G areas will deliver peak speeds of 400Mbps or better. And there’s definite room for it to grow — carrier aggregation and other techniques should push that to 1Gbps in “some areas” this year. The rollout is part of a larger network platform upgrade, nicknamed Indigo, that promises to be more adaptable and responsive. It’ll put more of an emphasis on software-shaped networking (covering 75 percent of the network by 2020) and lean on technologies like machine learning. AT&T is even open-sourcing the code for its network’s orchestration platform, ECOMP. Don’t expect to walk into a store and buy the 5G phone of your choosing once the service is ready. There’s still no 5G standard , for one thing. Also, new cellular wireless technology tends to launch with very limited hardware choices. Remember how Verizon launched LTE with a handful of bulky, compromised phones , and you were more likely to use it in modems and mobile routers? Expect a repeat. Until the technology has had time to mature, it’ll be more of a showcase for the network than a meaningful upgrade. Source: AT&T Newsroom
View article:
AT&T will launch 5G wireless in two cities this year
Facebook is under quite a bit of pressure of late. It’s trying to fix the rise of fake news and clickbait on its News Feed and, more recently, it’s had to deal with the Zenimax lawsuit against Oculus . But all of that hasn’t eaten into Facebook’s bottom line. As its Q4 2016 earnings report shows, the company once again raked in cash hand over fist, with $8.8 billion in revenue and $3.56 billion in profit. Its user growth also continues to climb, with 1.86 billion monthly users and 1.74 billion logging in on mobile. Mobile advertising made up 84 percent of its revenue last quarter. Those numbers are pretty good when you look at daily users too. The company reports that 1.23 billion people use Facebook everyday, with 1.15 billion doing so from mobile devices. Still, the growth is only up 3.91 percent from last quarter, which is slightly slower than the 4.67 percent reported a few months ago. Also, while $8.8 billion is certainly a hefty amount, it’ll lose around $500 million due to the Zenimax lawsuit payout announced earlier today. For the whole of 2016, Facebook made close to $27 billion, which is an increase of 57 percent from the previous year. Much of the growth can be attributed to expansions of Facebook properties like Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. We’ll report more from the earnings call later today. Developing…
View original post here:
Facebook shows no sign of stopping, now has 1.86 billion users
ZeniMax, the owner of game studios Bethestha Softworks and id Software has been awarded $500 million by a jury in its lawsuit against Oculus Virtual Reality and its parent company, Facebook. Read more…
Original post:
ZeniMax Awarded a Half Billion in Lawsuit Against Facebook
The LHCb detector. (credit: Fermilab ) Everyone, at some point in their lives, wonders why they are here. Existential questions don’t stop at the personal level, though. Why is there a Universe, and why is it filled with matter? The last question is a puzzle that has gainfully occupied the minds of and employed physicists for many years. The time spent pondering such questions has not been wasted, as it turns out, as researchers from the LHCb detector report that one of the theoretical paths that allows matter to outnumber antimatter is open for business. An overly simple reading of the Standard Model of physics predicts that matter will be produced at the same rate as antimatter. The antimatter and matter should, through simple statistics, collide and wipe each other out, leaving only energy. But that didn’t happen. The substance we label matter was, somehow, produced in greater abundance than antimatter. In the beginnings of the Universe, antimatter was eliminated, leaving only matter. A closer look at the Standard Model reveals that some imbalance is expected. But it also predicts a Universe with much less matter than we observe. And, experimentally, we’ve only observed the relevant matter/antimatter asymmetry for a particular class of particles, called mesons. That notably leaves out the particles that make up the Universe, called baryons. Luckily, baryon asymmetry is exactly what one of the LHC detectors, called LHCb, is designed to investigate. Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Continue reading here:
Matter-antimatter asymmetry confirmed in baryons
Jim Resnick Pleasing widely diverse masters can be a death sentence. For BMW’s newest 2017 5 series sedan, competing interests tug on it in a multitude of different directions. The traditional BMW enthusiast who factors fun first needs all the best of BMW’s driving machine DNA—and needs it close to the skin. Those needy for general luxury prefer isolation rather than inclusion in the driving process. The tech-focused need digital entertainment. So this is a veritable three-ring circus of sport sedan requirements. BMW’s last-generation 5 series garnered mixed feelings, so with the all-new G30 platform 5 series, BMW hopes to reboot impressions, and we’ve driven it. Launching globally on February 11, the new 5 is actually a bit lighter than the last iteration, BMW quoting a weight loss of as much as 137lb (62kg) from the outgoing model, depending on exact model compared. The new 5 also comes out of the starting gate with several engine configurations. The bottom of the range here in the US is the 2.0L turbocharged four-cylinder, issuing 248hp (185kW) and 258lb-ft (350Nm) in the 530i, netting acceleration to 60 mph in 6.0 seconds or 5.8 when equipped with BMW’s “xDrive” all-wheel-drive. A 3.0L, 335hp (265kW) inline six, which also generates 332lb-ft (450Nm) of torque, powers the 540i to 60mph in just 4.9 seconds or 4.7 seconds with xDrive. Later this spring, the M550i with all-wheel drive will debut, powered by a 456hp (347kW) turbocharged V8 packing 480lb-ft (650Nm) of torque, promising even quicker, 3.9-second 0 to 60 blasts, quicker than the outgoing M5. Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments
View original post here:
BMW’s all-new 2017 5 series stirs up a technology tsunami
An anonymous reader shares a report: A new month, and a brand new version of open-source office suite LibreOffice is now available to download. And what a release it is. LibreOffice 5.3 introduces a number of key new features and continues work on improving the look and feel of the app across all major platforms. The Document Foundation describes LibreOffice 5.3 as “one of the most feature-rich releases in the history of the application.” One of the headline features is called MUFFIN interface, a new toolbar design similar to the Microsoft Office Ribbon UI. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read More:
LibreOffice 5.3 Released, Touted As ‘One of the Most Feature-Rich Releases’ Ever