An Anonymous Coward writes:It's a day for Australia as Telstra, one of the main ISPs providing internet access with the newly built NBN network, declares 100Mbps plans will no longer be sold as they cannot be used. This change has been made due to the determination that the NBN cannot deliver the speeds promised. With the original plan in tatters after the Liberal government downgraded the network components to use "Multi Technology Mix" many customers lack the physical components to connect to the NBN to be able to receive the full speeds available. While some of the initial rollout delivered fibre to the premises the Liberal government switched the rollout to use copper and existing cable systems with many customers connect via FTTN leaving a lot to be desired in terms of speed. Farewell 100Mbps, we hardly knew you.No large scale infrastructure plan survives contact with an incoming government.Original SubmissionRead more of this story at SoylentNews.
NotSanguine writes:Ars Technica has a "review" of the new Amazon Go Grocery store in Seattle, WA.Apparently, the author's first thought was to engage in some petty theft, given that there are no cashiers or visible security guards.The article is fairly verbose, with lots of photos of the crime scene store. Overall, the new store is just like the original Amazon Go stores, but with extra surveillance features.Read more of this story at SoylentNews.
cafebabe writes:Here's a quick overview of "documentaries" to watch before, during and after a pandemic:The Andromeda Strain film: An early Michael Crichton adaptation which came before the Westworld film and series and the Jurassic Park film series. Like many Michael Crichton stories, factual science is extended with credible speculation. In this case, a prion-like infection has killed almost everyone in a village and the survivors are seemingly unrelated. The film is best known for its cartoonish but very photogenic indoor set which serves as the backdrop of a Level 4 Biolab. Such eloborate sets were common in the era. (Other examples include Rollerball and disaster parody/Airplane predecessor, The Big Bus.) The film features concurrent action which was a common experimental film technique in the 1960s but, nowadays, is most commonly associated with Kiefer Sutherland in the 24 series. There is also a lesser-known mini-series.Outbreak: A rather dull film which nevertheless provides a graphic portrayal of uncontained pandemic and towns being quarantined. It would be marginally improved if the antagonists were re-cast. Possible source material for DeepFaking.The Resident Evil film series: These films considerably advanced the tropes of amoral corporation, rogue artificial intelligence as antagonist, reality within reality, experimentation without informed consent and the horror of a medicalized vampire/zombie rabies virus. The Red Queen versus White Queen subplot dovetails with Alice in Wonderland, prey versus predator evolution and Umbrella Corp's red and white logo which - in a case of life mirroring art - was copied by Wuhan's Level 4 Biolab. Many people prefer the competent and detailed Resident Evil series of computer games which are arguably better than the Half Life series or the SCP game.Read more of this story at SoylentNews.
RandomFactor writes:Science Daily reports on a new study published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports that details how researchers have created a hybrid neural network allowing both biological and artificial neurons to communicate across the internet.
RandomFactor writes:A new study tells the cataclysmic tale of an explosion 390 Million light years away, the largest ever detected by a factor of five, that tore through the heart of the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster (archive) leaving a crater fifteen Milky Way galaxies wide.
Many nations have begun to take special measures to address the problem of the spread of the COVID-19 virus over every continent. It would be pointless to report the details of all such measures; they are limited to each specific country and liable to frequent change as the situation develops. The USA FDA (Food and Drug Administration) have carried out what they describe as a "Supply Change Update", see the link below, but for others we suggest using a bit of web-search-fu to discover a site more appropriate to your own area of interest.Worldwide, newspapers and other media need to maintain sales and subscriptions — many tend, therefore, to sensationalize their reporting. This has two undesirable effects: firstly it can result in data being quoted out of context to support the report they are making and, secondly, it tends to stress the possible effects of the COVID pandemic, should it be declared as such. In a comment elsewhere, I reported 2 tables which contain the most accurate figures we can find from a reputable source. They indicate the vulnerability of people to the virus by age, and any links to comorbidity (as far as they are known). There is no doubt that the virus poses a serious threat but it is not the same for all ages and many deaths are attributed to a combination of COVID-19 infection and other pre-existing conditions. For the latter it has not be proven that the virus was the sole cause of death; it is possible that the person would have died anyway. As postmortems have not been carried out in the vast majority of cases, the figures are open to misinterpretation. The WHO (World Health Organization) stresses that they will be unable to clarify these findings for a long time to come.As it stands, for a person below the age of 70 with no other medical conditions, the chances of dying from a COVID-19 infection is less than 1%. That is still a large number of people at risk and the implications for every nation are significant. It is, however, much lower than some of the figures that have been quoted in the press. The figures for people over 70 and with other conditions cause the rate to rise quite sharply, and I would suggest that we all keep an watchful eye on the elderly or infirm members of our family and friends.The majority of people will only suffer mild flu-like symptoms and will make a full recovery. - janrinokRead more of this story at SoylentNews.
canopic jug writes:Hans Wennborg does a deep dive into the history and evolution of the Zip compression format and underlying algorithms in a blog post. While this lossless compression format became popular around three decades ago, it has its roots in the 1950s and 1970s. Notably, as a result of the "Arc Wars" of the 1980s, hitting BBS users hard, the Zip format was dedicated to the public domain from the start. The main work of the Zip format is performed through use of Lempel-Ziv compression (LZ77) and Huffman coding.
Last week we made fun of Porsche for their optional giant fingerprint printed on the hood.This week they made (trade magazine) news with something more sensible(?) Taking advantage of the "auto parking" capabilities already built into their SUVs, they've added some cameras around a dealership and service center in Ludwigsburg, Germany. They have also added an "AI" computer and communication between the car and base (also known as vehicle-to-everything, V2X).Now when you bring your Porsche in for service, it can drive itself into the service bay. Well, not really -- it is directed by workers using a tablet. You leave it in the customer parking lot and there are no more greasy mechanics climbing into your luxury ride!https://www.autonomousvehicleinternational.com/videos/porsche-tests-autonomous-vehicles-in-the-workshop.html (with video)
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:Listed on Forbes "30 under 30" for Science in 2017, Michelle Kunimoto has discovered 17 new, extra-solar planets.Astronomy student discovers 17 new planets, including Earth-sized world:
canopic jug writes:The Helsinki Times reports that Finland's Minister of Finance suggested during a recent foreign policy speech that Finland and the EU could pursue self-sufficiency in computing, in particular to avoid over dependence on just a handful of companies. She pointed out that this overreliance on said companies has become so severe that company policy has already started to override existing relevant legislation. The topic had earlier been brought up by President Sauli Niinistö. So far, though, not even Russia has made progress in that direction despite over a decade passing since announcing plans.
An Anonymous Coward writes:Clinical trials of remdesivir, an experimental drug to treat COVID-19, have begun at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) in Omaha. More detail is provided in an article posted by the National Institutes of Health. The initial trial will involve 400 patients and will be conducted internationally but is beginning in Nebraska. There are currently 15 patients being monitored at UNMC, 13 of whom have tested positive for COVID-19. According to the daily update from UNMC, all of the 15 patients are now in the National Quarantine Unit, which has 20 beds. Previously, some of the patients had been in the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit, which is the largest facility of its kind in the country and had previously been used to treat ebola patients.Note: The February 25 edition of the daily update mentioned the clinical trial, so there's a good possibility that additional updates will be posted in UNMC's daily update. The additional discussion may help explain why the trial is beginning in Nebraska even though there haven't been any cases that reported there -- all of the COVID-19 patients at UNMC were either sent there originally or were previously quarantined at Camp Ashland or were transported there from elsewhere.Read more of this story at SoylentNews.
kazzie writes:A recent murder trial involving the most medieval of weapons has recently concluded with a guilty verdict, thanks to some high-tech sleuthing.From the BBC's report:
New Temporary Moon in Earth OrbitJoeMerchant writes:On February 15th 2020 a magnitude 20 object designated 2020 CD3 was observed and projected to be in a 47 day elliptical orbit of the Earth. Projections do not all agree yet, but the orbit is believed to be unstable and should not last more than about 3 years. 2020 CD3 is estimated to be between 1 and 6 meters in diameter, though reportage varies wildly on the size estimates. Nobody seems to be commenting on perigee, though the simulation images suggest it is approximately at lunar orbit distance - of course with the 47 day period apogee is well beyond lunar orbit.This is only the second "captured asteroid" to be observed in Earth orbit, 2006 RH120 was observed to be in Earth orbit from September 2006 to June 2007 - although 1991 VG was weakly captured for a month in 1992 and is expected to return in the future.Many stories have already been published elsewhere - Wikipedia has already been updated; but, nobody seems to be asking the important questions like: if Pluto can be disqualified as a planet, how can 2020 CD3 be called a moon? ;-) EarthSky was unable to be consulted, perhaps due to the traffic spike, but other astronomers have referred to the object as a TCO - Temporarily Captured Object, while some question if 2020 CD3 is in fact an artificial object like a spent Apollo era booster stage.Earth has a new mini-moon -- but it's only temporaryGaaark writes:
fliptop writes:Clearview AI, which contracts with law enforcement after reportedly scraping 3 billion images from the web, now says someone got "unauthorized access" to its list of customers:
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