difference – Tech Today w/ Ken May

NASA will test a key deep space navigation tool this year

The Deep Space Atomic Clock (DSAC) is finally ready for testing, and NASA’s JPL has begun preparing it for launch this year after working on it for two decades. Current space vehicles and observatories already use atomic clocks for navigation — they are, after all, some of the most accurate timekeeping devices ever. However, the way they work isn’t ideal for use in vessels going beyond Low-Earth Orbit. See, the atomic clocks space agencies and companies use today need to be paired with ground-based antennas. The antenna sends signals to a spacecraft, and the vessel sends them back to Earth. Current clocks use the difference in time between sending and receiving a signal to calculate a space vehicle’s location, path and velocity. It then relays commands to the spacecraft based on those calculations. While signals travel at the speed of light, that process can still take hours — the farther the spacecraft is, the longer it has to wait for a signal. Deep Space Atomic Clock solves that issue by being onboard the spacecraft itself, which means it doesn’t need to rely on two-way tracking. It can use the signal sent from Earth to calculate for its host’s position and velocity without having to toss that signal back. That means vehicles can move and change course more quickly than current ones can, and they can focus on completing mission objectives rather than spend time readjusting antennas. In addition, DSAC will allow ground-based antennas to keep track of multiple satellites in one area — say the Martian orbit — since they don’t need to wait for vehicles to respond. DSAC will launch this year attached to General Atomic’s Orbital Test Bed spacecraft, which will blast off aboard the US Air Force Space Technology Program mission. It can head to space as a hosted payload , because it’s about the size of a four-slice toaster, much smaller than current fridge-sized atomic clocks — the agency could shrink it down even further for future missions. JPL’s ultimate goal is achieving a .03 nanosecond accuracy, but it’ll call the upcoming test a success if the prototype can maintain time accurately to within two nanoseconds. Source: NASA

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NASA will test a key deep space navigation tool this year

Acer’s latest Chromebook offers 10 hours of battery for $250

Acer has been releasing Chromebooks balancing speed with affordability. The company introduced its latest Chromebook 11 at CES as a fanless, small-form laptop with touch and non-touch screens that boasts up 10 hours of battery life. While Acer didn’t release exact specs for the models — we only know they’ll sport the ‘latest Intel Celeron processors, ‘ for example — but did note they’ll come with 4GB of memory and either 16GB or 32GB of eMMC storage. The laptops will have a pair of USB 3.1 Type-C and two USB 3.0 ports as well as a MicroSD card reader. Its 11.6-inch IPS 1366 x 768 pixel display comes in either touch or non-touch variants, though it’s unclear how much the difference will affect the price (previous Acer Chromebooks saw a $50 bump for a touchscreen). It will also have support for the Google Play store and get access to Android apps. We do know that those lower-performance options have dropped the Chromebook 11’s starting price to $250, which is slightly cheaper than the rugged Chromebook C771 that Acer introduced for students last August. But it does have double the RAM of the most recent Chromebook 15 that the company released in October, making it much more capable of multitasking through Google’s Chrome app suite. If you’re looking for an affordable solution with a decent battery life, Acer’s Chromebook 11 will hit Europe, the Middle East and Africa in March and reach North America in April. Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2018.

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Acer’s latest Chromebook offers 10 hours of battery for $250

AT&T’s international data plans are now a little more reasonable

AT&T’s international data roaming packs just became slightly more practical… slightly. The carrier has updated its Passport packages to give you 1GB of data and unlimited texting in a one-time $60 purchase, and 3GB for $120. That’s a lot more headroom than before (these prices previously got you a miserly 300MB and 800MB respectively), and might make the difference between Instagramming your trip as it happens versus waiting until you return to your hotel. They can certainly be more affordable than an International Day Pass if you’re staying for a couple of weeks. With that in mind, you’re still going to have to ration data compared to how you use it back at home. Also, be sure not to run over — It costs $50 for each extra gigabyte you need. Calls to any country cost 35 cents per minute. How does it compare to other carriers? It depends on what you need. Verizon isn’t exactly generous with monthly international data: you’re only paying $25 per month outside of North America, but that gets you just 100MB with overages of $25 for every additional 100MB block. You’re better off paying for a day pass, then. T-Mobile offers unlimited free data out of the gate, but only at 128Kbps; you’ll need a One Plus plan to move to a still-paltry 256Kbps, and LTE speeds are only available in Canada and Mexico . Sprint also takes the free-but-slow approach outside of North America unless you pay for a pass, although you can spring for weekly passes (usually $25 per week) that represent better bargains. In short, AT&T’s newer Passport packs make the most sense if you have an extended stay, want fast data and want to keep your own phone number. Otherwise, you may want to opt for day passes, another carrier or (if you have an unlocked phone) a service that offers local data where you’re traveling. Source: AT&T

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AT&T’s international data plans are now a little more reasonable

New standard sets baseline for HDR on PC displays

As video enthusiasts will tell you, just saying a display is capable of high dynamic range doesn’t say much — you need to know how well it handles HDR. And that’s crucial for PC monitors , where the accuracy and intensity of the picture can make all the difference when you’re playing a game or editing video. The team at VESA wants to do something about it. They’ve unveiled an open standard, DisplayHDR, that sets the baseline levels for HDR quality on PC screens. There are three tiers, each determined by the maximum brightness. DisplayHDR 400 is aimed more at laptops, where power and size tend to limit what’s possible. A monitor meeting this spec has to reach a brightness of 400 nits, offer true 8-bit color (at 95 percent of the BT.709 gamut), provide global display dimming and support the HDR10 format. That may not sound like much, but it’s 50 percent brighter than typical laptops, many of which ‘cheat’ to get 8-bit color through dithering. DisplayHDR 600 ramps up the brightness to 600 nits while requiring improved black levels and 99 percent BT.709 color accuracy (plus 90 percent of DCI-P3). The most advanced monitors can aim for DisplayHDR 1000, which supplies at least 1, 000 nits and even deeper blacks. The spec is limited to LCD monitors for now, although there are hopes to adapt it to OLED displays and other technology. And you won’t have to wait long to see it in use — VESA is promising DisplayHDR-rated products at CES in January. This doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be blown away by a Netflix movie or an HDR-enabled game, but it should discourage companies from pulling a fast one by slapping an HDR label on a display that doesn’t do the technology justice. Also, it could improve the adoption of HDR among your preferred hardware makers. If they know what to shoot for, they may be more likely to add HDR support instead of holding back out of uncertainty. Source: VESA

An AI detected colorectal cancer with 86 percent accuracy

We’ve heard of many different uses for AI within the medical field , including for prediction of heart attacks and detection of Alzheimer’s . Now, it looks as though machine intelligence could be applied to early detection of cancer as well. A group of Japanese researchers has figured out a way to use AI to spot colorectal cancer tumors before they become malignant, according to Inverse . The team compiled a database of over 30, 000 images of pre-cancerous and cancerous cells in order to help the AI detect the difference between the two. After the machine learning process had taken place, they fed it an image of a colorectal polyp that had its magnification increased by a factor of 500. The program was able to determine within a second whether that specific polyp was cancerous. Dr. Yuichi Mora from Showa University made a presentation about these results this week at the United European Gastroenterology Conference in Barcelona. He cited the AI’s detection accuracy at 86 percent, which is impressive. This is specifically important for colorectal cancer; it’s highly treatable in early stages, but detection often comes very late, after the cancer cells have spread into the bloodstream. The cancer originates as benign polyps in the rectum and colon that turn into malignant tumors. This AI could help detect colorectal cancer early, ensuring that the cancer is treatable for more people. Source: Inverse , PubMed

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An AI detected colorectal cancer with 86 percent accuracy

Outlook for desktops will behave a lot like the mobile app

Outlook on computers can be overwhelming, to put it gently. The interface is loaded with buttons you probably aren’t using, and it generally isn’t as intuitive or fluid as the mobile and web versions . Thankfully, Microsoft knows this — and it’s planning a revamp that could give the email and calendar app a breath of fresh air. Microsoft recently previewed Outlook redesigns for Mac and Windows that are nearly as clean and intuitive as their mobile counterparts. You can still have a customizable “ribbon” at the top, but it’s stripped down and less intimidating to newcomers. The navigation panel (on the left) also takes its cues from Outlook’s mobile apps, making it much easier to switch folders or entire accounts. Mac users may notice the difference the most. This time around, Microsoft is aiming for an “authentically Mac” look instead of shoehorning the Windows interface into a Mac app. This won’t matter much if you’re interested in features above all else, but it could help you adjust if you’re switching from Apple Mail or another Mac-native email program. There’s no mention of when the new Outlook will hit your PC, although it wouldn’t be surprising if Microsoft rolls this into Office 2019’s release next year. Whenever it arrives, it’ll reflect how much Microsoft’s software priorities have changed in the past few years. Where Outlook’s desktop version has largely focused on business users circulating memos and scheduling meetings, it now has to court home users who may just be looking for an app similar to what they have on their phones. Microsoft’s challenge will be to please these relative newcomers without alienating the corporate crowd. Via: MSPowerUser , The Verge Source: Microsoft Ignite (YouTube)

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Outlook for desktops will behave a lot like the mobile app

This is how good PS3 games were meant to look

Be sure to view full-screen and at full resolution on a high-res monitor to really see the difference. Fans of classic gaming emulation know that modern emulators can do a lot to sharpen up the standard-definition sprites and polygons made for consoles designed to be played on low-resolution tube TVs. This weekend, though, an update to the RPCS3 emulator showed how much resolution scaling can improve the look of even early HD games. While the new update technically supports rendering at up to 10K resolutions, the video above shows that upscaling to 4K resolution and adding 16x anisotropic filtering can lead to a huge improvement for games originally made to run at 720p. Upscaling the 11-year-old hardware with three times the resolution doesn’t even put too much strain on modern GPUs—the creators say in an explanatory blog post that “anyone with a dedicated graphics card that has Vulkan support can expect identical performance at 4K.” Unlike N64 emulators, which often require handmade high-resolution texture packs to make upscaled games look decent, RPCS3 can often get amazing improvements in sharpness and clarity just by using content that’s already in the PS3 software. That’s because many PS3 titles stored extremely high-resolution assets on the PS3’s Blu-Ray discs, then crushed those textures down for faster processing by the console. The result is that surfaces that looked muddy and jagged on the original hardware can take full advantage of the art as it was originally conceived when upscaled for the emulator. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Scientists record a fourth set of gravitational waves

Last year, researchers confirmed the existence of gravitational waves with two Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors. Shortly thereafter, they detected two additional gravitational wave-causing events that sent ripples through the universe. Well, we can now add a fourth to that list, as astronomers announced another set of waves. And for the first time, they observed the waves with a third detector — the Italy-based Virgo. Let’s review a little before we dig into the huge benefits that come with having three detectors rather than two. First, gravitational waves are essentially ripples in spacetime. When some major event occurs in the universe — like, for example, when two black holes merge into one — a ripple is sent out in all directions and it travels through spacetime at the speed of light. Albert Einstein predicted these sorts of waves existed, but it wasn’t until the LIGO project that researchers could actually observe them. The LIGO and Virgo detectors are all largely the same design. Two very long tunnels are arranged perpendicular to each other. At the point where they meet, a laser beam is split and part of it travels down one tunnel, and the other part down the second tunnel. Mirrors at the tunnel ends bounce the beams back and if no major cosmic activity has occurred, the two beams cancel each other out. However, if say two black holes slam into each other and create gravitational waves, those waves will stretch and pull spacetime, changing the length of the tunnels ever so slightly. When that happens, the two laser beams are bounced back at slightly different times and when they meet, the difference between them provides astronomers with all sorts of information about what happened, where and when. The earlier detections of gravitational waves were done with the two LIGO detectors in Washington and Louisiana. Virgo joined them on August 1st and scored its first detection on August 14th. The gravitational waves that were detected were created by two black holes — 31 and 25 times the mass of our Sun — merging around 1.8 billion light-years away. The resulting black hole is approximately 53 times the mass of the Sun. What happened to those three leftover solar masses? They were converted into gravitational wave energy. A third detector means scientists can get a much better idea about which direction the waves came from and it works similar to the way seismometers pinpoint the location of an earthquake. The two LIGO detectors themselves can provide a general direction of the event — a pretty large area equal to around 1/40th of the night sky. But adding Virgo into the mix reduces the window to a tenth of that area, which means once a signal is detected, astronomers can swing a telescope towards the region of origin and maybe catch a glimpse of it in action. The Virgo team hints in their press release that more detections from the three units will be announced sometime soon and some are hoping to hear that they’ve snagged a measurement, and maybe even a visual, of another big celestial event — two neutron stars merging . The recent detection was described in a paper published in Physical Review Letters . Image: NASA Via: BBC Source: Physical Review Letters , Virgo , National Science Foundation

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Scientists record a fourth set of gravitational waves

Replacement screens can be used to hijack your phone

A new study has shown that one of the most common fixes to a stock smartphone ailment can be used to steal your data, and compromise your device. In the newly published paper, researchers from Israel’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev reveal how a replacement screen can easily be altered to override your mobile. By embedding a malicious integrated chip within a third-party touchscreen, the research team were able to manipulate the communications system on a Huawei Nexus 6P and LG G Pad 7.0. This essentially allowed them to record keyboard inputs, snap pictures of the user and forward them via email, install apps, and direct the user to phishing websites. A second class of attack also saw them exploit vulnerabilities in the handset’s operating system kernel. Scariest of all, the researchers claim these hazardous screens can be made to look identical to the real thing — meaning even handset technicians may not be able to distinguish the difference. Furthermore, the entire process is file-less, allowing it to go undetected by anti-virus software. This type of low-cost attack is known as the “chip-in-the-middle” scenario. To carry out their malicious tasks, the researchers used an Arduino platform running on an ATmega328 micro-controller module. They also used an STM32L432 micro-controller, adding that most other micro-controllers could also do the job. They then used a hot air blower to separate the touchscreen controller from the main assembly boards, in order to access its copper pads. Next, they soldered a copper wire to attach their chips to the device. Although this set-up looks far from inconspicuous, the team claims a little more effort could easily hide the altered part within a reassembled device. It’s not just Android phones that are at risk either. The paper also indicates that iPhones could fall prey to the same types of attacks. Source: Yossi Oren

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Replacement screens can be used to hijack your phone

In dying, blood-starved heart, bacteria injections offer cellular life support

Enlarge / False-colored scanning electron micrograph of multiple S. elongatus cyanobacteria (green) with a single rat heart muscle cell (red). (credit: Cohen et al. ) For the faint of heart, a microbial flash mob might just do the trick. A direct injection of photosynthetic bacteria—plus a little light— provided cellular life-support to the weak, blood-starved hearts of rats suffering simulated heart attacks. The bacterial jolt supplied much-needed oxygen to the gasping tissue and prevented long-term damage, Stanford researchers report this week in Science Advances . In fact, after a short recovery period the treated rodents had a 30-percent boost in heart function compared with control animals. “In humans, an increase of this magnitude would have profound clinical implications, likely representing the difference between a healthy patient and one suffering from heart failure,” the authors conclude. They’re hopeful that one day the microbial menders could be used to help human heart attack patients and those undergoing heart surgery or heart transplants. There are some tall hurdles to get to those goals, the authors admit, but the results so far show promise. Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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In dying, blood-starved heart, bacteria injections offer cellular life support