Enlarge (credit: Dr. Sebastian Schulz, KIT) Modern solar panel technology is pretty damned awesome. I say this from personal experience, since my roof is pretty much maxed out. I may even move the inverter into the lounge to replace the television as my visual entertainment of choice. Most people don’t view solar panels as a source of entertainment, though. They want power, and the big thing that everyone talks about when it comes to power is the panels’ efficiency: how many photons that hit them liberate electrons. The usual answer is… not many. There is a fundamental limitation , called detailed balance, that helps limit the efficiency. Essentially, absorption of a photon and emission of a photon are the same thing (you just reverse the direction of time). So, if something is good at absorbing photons, it’s also good at emitting photons. When your solar panel absorbs a lot of photons, there are lots of excited electrons around, and many of them will lose their energy by emitting other photons. In the end, where these two processes balance out helps set the maximum possible efficiency of a standard solar cell. Read 21 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Solar cells with a dark side may be in your future

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

Enlarge (credit: AT&T ) AT&T yesterday unveiled free robocall blocking for postpaid smartphone customers. Named Call Protect , the service blocks some fraud calls at the network level before they reach customers’ phones. In other cases, when it’s less clear whether the call is fraudulent, Call Protect doesn’t block the call but shows “suspected spam warnings on the incoming call screen which let customers choose whether or not to answer calls that originate from a suspected spam source,” AT&T’s announcement said. At least for now, the service is available only for AT&T postpaid wireless customers with iPhones or Android phones that support AT&T’s HD Voice technology. Call Protect is not automatically enabled. Instead, customers can add the feature in their AT&T account settings or the Call Protect app for iPhone and Android . Some Android users complained in the Google Play store reviews that Call Protect doesn’t support unlocked devices like the Google Pixel. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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AT&T unveils network-level robocall blocking, call spam warnings

Enlarge (credit: Alan Levine/Flickr ) There’s a new Wi-Fi standard in town, and it takes speed to another level. 802.11ad Wi-Fi is rated for data throughput up to 4,600Mbps, or four times faster than the current speed champ 802.11ac. That’s much faster than standard gigabit Ethernet and most home broadband speeds, although—as any Wi-Fi user knows—there’s a big difference between theoretical speed and what’s possible in practice. Still, want to stream high-bitrate 4K, HDR films over Wi-Fi? That won’t be a problem with 802.11ad. Even the best triple-layer UHD Blu-rays top out at 128Mbps bitrates. There’s even a chance it could make high-end wireless virtual reality headsets more practical. 802.11ad will at first be available via a new wave of home routers, a couple of which have already hit the shelves: the Netgear Nighthawk X10 and the TP-Link Talon AD7200 . As ever with brand-new tech, the routers demand a hefty premium, with the AD7200 costing an eye-watering £350/$360—that’s as much as even sophisticated mesh-based systems like the Ubiquiti Amplifi . Is 802.11ad Wi-Fi worth the cost? Is there anything you can even reasonably use it for right now? Or should you hold out for the inevitable price drops? Let’s find out. How does 802.11ad Wi-Fi work? Like previous versions of Wi-Fi, 802.11ad is an official standard ratified by the Wi-Fi Alliance. Unlike previous versions, however, the tech behind it didn’t come from the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). Instead, it’s based on tech created by the WiGig (Wireless Gigabit) Alliance, which was officially announced back in 2009, entered draft stage with the IEEE in 2011, and finally emerged as the standard it is today when the WiGig Alliance merged with Wi-Fi Alliance in 2013. Read 38 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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4.6Gbps Wi-Fi: How 60GHz wireless works—and should you use it?

Enlarge (credit: Faraday Future) Faraday Future, set to reveal its first production model at CES in just under a month, has left little doubt as to its ambition with its latest teaser video. The company no doubt hopes to avoid a repeat of last year’s underwhelming visit to Las Vegas, when hordes of tech journalists expecting a Tesla rival found a concept car instead. Leading up to this year’s event, the company has been setting expectations with a series of short teasers of a camouflaged prototype car in testing. The most recent shows us that Faraday is aiming high, with the new EV benchmarked against Bentley, Ferrari, and Tesla. That means we can probably forget the idea of Faraday Future exploiting some new niche in the EV marketplace. No, we think the new electric SUV is gunning straight for the Tesla Model X, a vehicle that’s both bonkers-fast and also rather practical . And we think the inclusion of Bentley’s Bentayga as another rival means a more upmarket interior than the rather barebones Tesla. However, we still don’t even know the name of the production car, nor an expected price, how long it will take to charge, or pretty much anything concrete. And although we asked for a sneak-peek before CES, it seems like everyone else we shall have to wait until January 3rd to find out the answers to those questions. Read on Ars Technica | Comments

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Faraday Future targets Ferrari, Tesla and Bentley with a new teaser

The British Museum To flesh out the features on the so-called Jericho Skull, archaeologists at the British Museum have worked for more than two years to reconstruct the face of a man whose skull had been reshaped by ritual throughout his long life. While he was an infant, his head had been bound tightly with cloth to change its shape. After he died at a ripe old age, his skull was then plastered, decorated, and put on display. This Jericho Skull gives us a glimpse of life in the Levant long before the rise of religions that describe a great battle at the city’s walls. Jericho, located today in Palestine, dates back more than 11,000 years and is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on Earth. It’s very likely that this man lived behind the earliest versions of Jericho’s infamous walls, built more than 9,000 years ago, but that doesn’t mean he lived a hardscrabble existence threatened by war. Recent archaeological investigation of Jericho’s Neolithic walls shows that they were not used for defense. Based on layers of silt that collected around them, researchers surmise that Jericho’s first walls were built to prevent the city from being flooded during the rainy season. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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This man’s skull was ritualistically transformed 9,000 years ago in Jericho

Enlarge (credit: Getty | Aurich) Current and former AT&T customers will get refunds or bill credits totaling $88 million within the next 75 days, satisfying the terms of a settlement between AT&T and the Federal Trade Commission, the FTC announced today . The AT&T customers were victimized by “mobile cramming,” charges for third-party services that were placed on their phone bills without the customers’ authorization. AT&T agreed to pay for the refunds and credits in a settlement  announced in October 2014 , and it agreed to notify current customers about the process for applying for refunds. The process, which was led by a third-party contractor that validated each customers’ claim , is finally just about over. Some of the money was also recovered from  Tatto and Acquinity , two companies that were allegedly behind cramming schemes that affected AT&T customers. Customers were allowed to apply for refunds for any unauthorized third-party charges that occurred in 2009 and later. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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AT&T customers get $88 million in credits and refunds for illegal charges

Enlarge (credit: Klaus with K ) A former IT specialist at Expedia has admitted he used his privileged position to access executives’ e-mails in an insider stock-trading scheme that netted almost $330,000 in illegal profits, prosecutors said. During the two-year span that Jonathan Ly, 28, of San Francisco, worked at the online travel service, he accessed e-mail accounts belonging to the company’s chief financial officer, head of investor relations, and other high-ranking employees, prosecutors with the US attorney’s office in Seattle alleged in a criminal complaint filed late last week. The correspondence included upcoming earnings reports, a draft of an upcoming press release announcing Justice Department approval of Expedia’s acquisition of competitor Orbitz, and other stock-moving developments that weren’t yet public. Ly used the information to buy Expedia stock at a low price and then sell it after the disclosures went public at a much higher price. “Beginning in 2013, and continuing through October 2015, Ly secretly and fraudulently accessed the contents of Expedia executives’ computer files and corporate e-mail accounts in order to obtain material, non-public, and proprietary information belonging to Expedia without the knowledge and permission of the executives or Expedia,” the complaint alleged. “Ly fraudulently obtained the information in order to execute a series of well-timed and lucrative securities trades in Expedia options. As a result of his scheme, Ly obtained through his securities trades net profits in excess of $331,000.” Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Disgraced IT worker stole confidential Expedia e-mails even after he left

Virgin Galactic It has been a long road back from a fatal 2014 accident for Virgin Galactic, the splashy spaceship company founded by Sir Richard Branson to bring the masses into space. After its VSS Enterprise crashed into the Mojave Desert during a test flight, killing vehicle co-pilot Michael Alsbury, the company has had to redesign some key safety systems and rebuild its spacecraft. It revealed the VSS Unity in February. Since then Virgin Galactic has completed a series of ground tests and mating to the “mothership” aircraft, Eve. Following captive carry tests in September, the company performed its first glide test on Saturday, when VSS Unity was released at an altitude of about 15km. The spacecraft reached a velocity of mach 0.6 during its 10-minute descent back to the ground in California. It then made a safe landing at test facilities in Mojave. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Virgin Galactic returns to flight with its VSS Unity spacecraft