Sci-Tech Today

Virtual Reality Gets Thumbs Up with Oculus VR Funding

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:45:50 -0500

Oculus VR, makers of a virtual reality headset for video games, has raised $16 million in a Series A funding round co-led by Spark Capital and Matrix Partners, along with Founders Fund and Formation 8.

In case you aren't familiar with the concept, the company's flagship product, Oculus Rift, promises to change the way you think about gaming with a wide field of view, high-resolution display and ultra-low latency. Even with 'next generation' consoles on the horizon, virtual reality still came away with dozens of awards and accolades at E3 and Oculus Rift is on the cutting-edge of that realm.

"I got into VR because it seemed like the obvious path to the best possible gaming experience, but never expected it to take off so quickly," said Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus VR, in a blog post. "In less than a year, incredible game developers all over the world are building games designed explicitly for virtual reality, and people are beginning to understand that the tech is finally viable."

Changing Virtual Realities

The funding will open new doors for the Irvine, Calif.-based company. Luckey is no stranger to fund-raising. He used Kickstarter to get its first product, Oculus Rift, off the ground. The concept first garnered $2.4 million in support from the likes of Valve, Epic Games and Unity and more than 9,500 other potential customers.

According to the company, Oculus Rift is different from other virtual reality headsets because it offers an immersive gaming experience. Even though this space is still young, the company is already racing to a lead with its approach -- and now it's funding.

"Most products either lack the technical features required for believable immersion or sit at a very high price-point ($20,000+) reserved for the military or scientific community," the company said as part of its Kickstarter campaign....

Huawei Ascend P6 Smartphone Is a Quarter-Inch Thin

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:02:34 -0500

Huawei just unveiled what it is contending is the world's thinnest smartphone, the Ascend P6, which measures just 6.18mm thick, or less than a quarter-inch.

The device features a 1.5 GHz quad-core processor, a metallic body, a 4.7-inch high-definition in-cell display and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. The smartphone weighs just over 4 ounces and fits into small pockets. Android 4.2.2, Jelly Bean, operating system runs the phone and a 2000 mAh battery powers it.

Avi Greengart, principal analyst at Current Analysis, said the smartphone is indeed "incredibly, incredibly" thin and has decent stats.

"The phone offers a 2000 mAh battery even though the device is incredibly thin," Greengart said. "One of the reasons for that is that it's a 4.7-inch display. Huawei is able to fit a modest-sized battery in there. There's a quad-core 720p display so I don't know how good the battery life is going to be, but at least it's not a going to be a tiny battery."

Perfect for Selfies

Huawei said its Automated Discontinuous Reception and Quick Power Control battery optimization and power-saving technology improves performance by more than 30 percent compared with smartphone batteries of equal size. With its multi-screen AirSharing capability, users can connect to a range of devices to boost productivity.

Huawei said the device is perfect for "selfies" with its front-facing camera and auto facial-enhancing capabilities. The phone also offers an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with f2.0 aperture and 4cm macro view, as well as 1080p full HD video recording and playback. Huawei has also pre-installed proprietary IMAGESmart software, which offers contrast and color enhancement, auto scene recognition, object tracing focus, and what it calls "instant facial beauty support."

Huawei's Emotion user interface has been improved, including updates to Uni-Home, Me Widget, MagicTouch and SmartReading. New to Huawei's Emotion UI are the panoramic shoot and facial recognition...

Yahoo, Apple Disclose Government Data Requests

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:14:36 -0500

Following disclosures from Microsoft and Facebook last Friday, Yahoo and Apple are releasing information on thousands of requests they have received for user data related to criminal and security investigations from law enforcement and the U.S. National Security Agency.

Requests for user data that investigative agencies in the U.S. made to Yahoo from Dec. 1, 2012, to May 31 numbered between 12,000 and 13,000, including both criminal requests and those under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which is the authority the NSA uses to seek information. Yahoo said the most common requests for user data concerned fraud, homicides, kidnappings and other criminal investigations. Yahoo did not specify how many user accounts were involved in the requests.

"Democracy demands accountability," Yahoo said in a statement authored by CEO Marissa Mayer and General Counsel Ron Bell. "Recognizing the important role that Yahoo can play in ensuring accountability, we will issue later this summer our first global law enforcement transparency report, which will cover the first half of the year. We will refresh this report with current statistics twice a year.

"As always, we will continually evaluate whether further actions can be taken to protect the privacy of our users and our ability to defend it. We appreciate -- and do not take for granted -- the trust you place in us."

Apple Data Requests

For Apple, from Dec. 1, 2012, to May 31 the company received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from U.S. investigative agencies for customer data. Between 9,000 and 10,000 accounts or devices were specified in those requests, which came from federal, state and local authorities and included both criminal investigations and national security matters. Apple said the most common form of request came from police investigating robberies and other crimes, searching for missing children, trying to locate a patient with Alzheimer's disease,...

Scientists Moving 15-Ton Magnet from NY to Chicago

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:11:27 -0500

Scientists on Long Island are preparing to move a 50-foot (15-meter)-wide electromagnet 3,200 miles (5,150 kilometers) over land and sea to its new home at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. The trip is expected to take more than a month.

"When we first started thinking about this, we all thought it wouldn't be possible," said Bill Morse, a physicist at Brookhaven National Lab on eastern Long Island. "But if you have a big problem, you find good people who can fix the problem. That's physics."

The electromagnet, which weighs at least 15 tons, was the largest in the world when it was built by scientists at Brookhaven in the 1990s, Morse said. Brookhaven scientists no longer have a need for the electromagnet, so it is being moved to the Fermi laboratory, where it will be used in a new experiment called Muon g-2.

The experiment will study the properties of muons, subatomic particles that live only 2.2 millionths of a second. The results of the experiment could create new discoveries in the realm of particle physics, said Chris Polly, manager of the Muon g-2 project at Fermilab.

The move is expected to cost about $3 million, but Polly estimated that constructing an entirely new electromagnet needed for the Muon g-2 experiment could cost as much as $30 million.

He noted the magnetic ring is constructed of aluminum and steel, with superconducting coils inside. It cannot be taken apart or twisted more than about 1/8th of an inch (0.32 centimeters) without irreparably damaging the coils, Polly said. A specially designed truck and barge will be used to transport the secured magnet from Long Island, east of New York City,to Illinois.

Scientists will begin the move next Saturday, taking the magnet from its location on the...

Official: Solar Plane To Help Energy Use on Ground

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:11:05 -0500

The plane parked outside the airport looks more like a giant exotic insect or maybe an outsized balsa wood toy airplane.

When it's in flight, there's no roar of jet engines. It's strangely quiet. And as it crisscrosses America, the spindly plane doesn't use a drop of fuel. Day, and even night, it flies on the power of the sun.

And it's that fact that has the U.S. energy secretary, and the plane's two pilots and fans around the world, so excited.

The one-man craft called Solar Impulse has been flying cross-country in short hops as part of a 13-year privately funded European project that is expected to cost $150 million.

Ernest Moniz, who heads the U.S. Department of Energy, praised the effort at a news conference Monday at Dulles International airport where the plane landed in the dark early Sunday morning. Moniz said it highlighted a cleaner energy future for the nation.

"It's also a poetic project," said Bertrand Piccard, one of the pilots taking turns flying this aircraft across the United States. "It's about flying with the sun. It's about flying with no fuel."

It's not that the experimental European plane is going to change the way the rest of us fly, Moniz said. But it may change the way we drive and the buildings we live in sooner than we think.

The high-flying lightweight technology will pay off on the ground far more readily than in the air. This project should lead to cleaner appliances, greener cars and more energy-efficient building, said Solar Impulse CEO Andre Borschberg, who also is one of the pilots.

In an in-flight interview Friday, while he was over Indiana at 30,000 feet and controlling the plane with just two fingers, Borschberg said this experiment isn't about aviation being cleaner; airplanes only produce 3 percent of the world's heat-trapping gases, he...

NASA Picks Eight New Astronauts, Four of Them Women

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:11:16 -0500

NASA has eight new astronauts -- its first new batch in four years. Among the lucky candidates: the first female fighter pilot to become an astronaut in nearly two decades. A female helicopter pilot also is in the group. In fact, four of the eight are women, the highest percentage of female astronaut candidates ever selected by NASA.

Monday's announcement came on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the launch of the first American woman in space, Sally Ride. She died last summer.

The eight -- all in their 30s -- were chosen from more than 6,000 applications received early last year, the second largest number ever received. They will report for duty in August at Johnson Space Center in Houston and join 49 astronauts currently at NASA. The number has dwindled ever since the space shuttles stopped flying in 2011. Many astronauts quit rather than get in a lengthy line for relatively few slots for long-term missions aboard the International Space Station.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said these new candidates will help lead the first human mission to an asteroid in the 2020s, and then Mars, sometime in the following decade. They also may be among the first to fly to the space station aboard commercial spacecraft launched from the U.S., he noted. Russia ferries the astronauts now.

"These new space explorers asked to join NASA because they know we're doing big, bold things here -- developing missions to go farther into space than ever before," Bolden said in a statement.

The Class of 2013's Nicole Aunapu Mann, a major in the Marines, is an F/A-18 pilot serving at the U.S. Naval Air Station in Patuxent River, Md. Army Maj. Anne McClain is a helicopter pilot. The two other women, Christina Hammock and Jessica Meir, are scientists.

All four men have military backgrounds, including...

Airborne Laser Reveals Hidden City in Cambodia

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:10:54 -0500

Airborne laser technology has uncovered a network of roadways and canals, illustrating a bustling ancient city linking Cambodia's famed Angkor Wat temple complex.

The discovery was announced late Monday in a peer-reviewed paper released early by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The laser scanning revealed a previously undocumented formally planned urban landscape integrating the 1,200-year-old temples.

The Angkor temple complex, Cambodia's top tourist destination and one of Asia's most famous landmarks, was constructed in the Th century during the mighty Khmer empire. Angkor Wat is a point of deep pride for Cambodians, appearing on the national flag, and was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Archaeologists had long suspected that the city of Mahendraparvata lay hidden beneath a canopy of dense vegetation atop Phnom Kulen mountain in Sim Reap province. But the airborne lasers produced the first detailed map of a vast cityscape, including highways and previously undiscovered temples.

"No one had ever mapped the city in any kind of detail before, and so it was a real revelation to see the city revealed in such clarity," University of Sydney archaeologist Damian Evans, the stud's lead author, said by phone from Cambodia. "It's really remarkable to see these traces of human activity still inscribed into the forest floor many, many centuries after the city ceased to function and was overgrown."

The laser technology, known as Lida, works by firing laser pulses from an aircraft to the ground and measuring the distance to create a detailed, three-dimensional map of the area. It's a useful tool for archaeologists because the lasers can penetrate thick vegetation and cover swaths of ground far faster than they could be analyzed on foot. Lida has been used to explore other archaeological sites, such as Stonehenge.

In April 2012, researchers loaded the equipment onto a helicopter, which spent days...

Don't Ignore Bullying by a Sibling, Experts Warn

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:10:42 -0500

Bullying and aggressive behavior by a sibling can be as damaging as bullying by a classmate, neighbor or other peer, finds a new study that links it to increased depression, anxiety and anger among victimized kids and teens.

And that association holds true for the various types of aggressive behavior studied, both mild and severe, from physical and psychological aggression to property victimization, researchers say.

Although peer bullying has increasingly become a recognized problem and the focus of preventive efforts, sibling bullying has historically been viewed as "benign and normal and even beneficial" for a child's social development and ability "to learn to handle aggression in other relationships," according to the study, in the July issue of the journal Pediatrics, published online today.

The study "shows that sibling aggression is linked to worse mental health (for the victim), and in some cases it's similar to what you find for peer aggression," says lead author Corinna Jenkins Tucker, an associate professor of family studies at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

Tucker and colleagues analyzed data from The National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence, focusing on nearly 3,600 kids 17 and under with at least one sibling living in the household. Kids were interviewed by phone about victimization in the past year. A parent or other adult caregiver answered on behalf of children under age 9.

Measures of mental health and four different types of victimization were assessed:

� Mild physical assault (hit, beaten or kicked without an object/weapon or resulting injury);

� Severe physical assault (hit, beaten or kicked with an object/weapon or causing injury);

� Property aggression (forcible theft, taking and not returning property; breaking or ruining property on purpose);

� Psychological aggression (feeling bad or scared because a sibling said mean things, called them names or excluded them).

"For all types of sibling aggression,...

Free Videomail Comes to Skype

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 09:55:23 -0500

Feature by feature, Microsoft's Skype is becoming a full communications suite. Microsoft announced Monday that its video messaging function, where users can leave videomail as well as voicemail, has now moved out of beta into general release.

The new, free feature is available for Skype versions on Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry. Users can send and receive as many video messages as desired, with no charge. The preview version of Skype video messaging was launched in May. However, users were limited in preview to 20 free messages, after which a Skype Premium subscription was required.

On a posting on its official Skype blog, Microsoft's Yasmin Khan wrote of the possible use cases. "Want to say goodnight to your kids while traveling, but you'll be up in the air? Need to wish your dad a happy birthday, but can't seem to catch up? Spot something interesting while you're out and about, and want to share with your friend?"

Skype for Windows 8

To do so, a user simply taps the "video message" button, clicks the record button to capture the video message, and then records up to three minutes. Messages can be previewed before sending, and, if so desired, deleted and re-recorded before sending.

Some of the video messaging features are still to be completed, however. For example, although video messages should show up in chat history, they do not currently. Additionally, there is a reported bug in some situations where the thumbnail image for a video message sometimes leads to the record function instead of playback.

Although Skype was a major pioneer in free, voice-and-video-over-IP communications, competing communication apps are popping up all over. Startups include Glide and Viber, which offer features for non-synchronous video communications, and in this environment, Microsoft has been rushing to get out new Skype features and versions....

Climate-Proofing a City: What The World Is Doing

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:10:34 -0500

From Bangkok to Miami, cities and coastal areas across the globe are already building or planning defenses to protect millions of people and key infrastructure from more powerful storm surges and other effects of global warming.

Some are planning cities that will simply adapt to more water.

But climate-proofing a city or coastline is expensive, as shown by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's $20 billion plan to build floodwalls, levees and other defenses against rising seas.

The most vulnerable places are those with the fewest resources to build such defenses, secure their water supplies or move people to higher ground. How to pay for such measures is a burning issue in U.N. climate talks, which just wrapped up a session in the German city of Bonn.

A sampling of cities around the world and what they are doing to prepare for the climatic forces that scientists say are being unleashed by global warming:

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands

In a country where two-thirds of the population lives below sea level, the battle against the sea has been a matter of life and death for centuries.

The Dutch government devotes roughly 1 percent of its annual budget to its intricate system of dikes, dunes and sea walls. Improvements to cope just with the effects of climate change have been carried out since 2003 -- though planning began well before that.

The focus in the 20th century was on a spectacular series of sea defenses, including massive steel and concrete barriers that can be quickly moved to protect against storm surges.

But current techniques embrace a philosophy of "living with water:" Floods are inevitable, and it's better to prepare for them than to build ever-higher dikes that may fail catastrophically.

Thousands of waterways are being connected so the country can essentially act as one big sponge and absorb sudden influxes of water. Some areas have...