The Real Value of $100 in Each State
August 5th, 2016Via: Tax Foundation:
This map shows the real value of $100 in each state. Prices for the same goods are often much cheaper in states like Missouri or Ohio than they are in states like New York or California. As a result, the same amount of cash can buy you comparatively more in a low-price state than in a high-price state.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis has been measuring this phenomenon for two years now; it recently published its data for prices in 2014. Using this data, we have adjusted the value of $100 to show how much it buys you in each state.
For example, Ohio is a low-price state. There, $100 will buy you stuff that would cost $111.98 in a state at the national average price level. You could think of this as meaning that Ohioans are, for the purposes of day-to-day living, 11 percent richer than their incomes suggest.
The states where $100 is worth the most are Mississippi ($115.34), Arkansas ($114.29), Alabama ($113.90), South Dakota ($113.64), and West Virginia ($112.49). In contrast, $100 is effectively worth the least in the District of Columbia ($84.67), Hawaii ($85.62), New York ($86.43), New Jersey ($87.34), and California ($88.97).
MIT and DARPA Pack Lidar Sensor Onto Single Chip
August 5th, 2016Via: IEEE:
Applications such as autonomous vehicles and robotics heavily depend on lidar, and an expensive lidar module is a major obstacle to their use in commercial products. Our work at MIT’s Photonic Microsystems Group is trying to take these large, expensive, mechanical lidar systems and integrate them on a microchip that can be mass produced in commercial CMOS foundries.
Our lidar chips are produced on 300-millimeter wafers, making their potential production cost on the order of $10 each at production volumes of millions of units per year. These on-chip devices promise to be orders of magnitude smaller, lighter, and cheaper than lidar systems available on the market today. They also have the potential to be much more robust because of the lack of moving parts. The non-mechanical beam steering in this device is 1,000 times faster than what is currently achieved in mechanical lidar systems, and potentially allows for an even faster image scan rate. This can be useful for accurately tracking small high-speed objects that are only in the lidar’s field of view for a short amount of time, which could be important for obstacle avoidance for high-speed UAVs.
British Woman Questioned After Being Seen Reading Book About Syria on Plane
August 4th, 2016Via: Guardian:
Free-speech groups have condemned the detention of a British Muslim woman after a cabin-crew member reported her for “suspicious behaviour” while reading a book about Syrian culture on a flight to Turkey.
Faizah Shaheen, a psychotherapist in Leeds, was detained by police at Doncaster airport on 25 July, on her return from her honeymoon in Turkey. A Thomson Airways cabin-crew member had reported Shaheen on her outbound flight two weeks earlier, as she was reading the title Syria Speaks: Art and Culture from the Frontline.
Police officers questioned Shaheen for 15 minutes under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act, under which the police can detain individuals without grounds for suspicion of involvement in criminal activities, including terrorism.
Zika… Co-Factors
August 4th, 2016Via: Globe and Mail:
Brazil’s Ministry of Health has launched an investigation into the cluster of babies born with brain defects linked to the Zika virus, after an expected “explosion” of cases across the country did not occur.
The bulk of the cases of congenital Zika syndrome – fetal brain defects that sometimes cause microcephaly, or abnormally small skulls – remain clustered in the northeast region of the country where the phenomenon was first identified last October, the ministry says.
And that has epidemiologists and infectious disease experts asking what is going on: Is it Zika and another virus working together that damages the fetal brains? Is it Zika and an environmental factor? Or something about the women themselves whose fetuses are affected?
Sea Hunter Unmanned Sub Chaser Completes First Sea Trials
August 3rd, 2016Via: New Atlas:
The Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) has completed its first round of sea trials, during which main contractor Leidos says it met or surpassed its performance goals. Co-sponsored by DARPA and the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the autonomous 132-ft (42-m) trimaran, which is designed to track potentially hostile submarines for months at a time without a crew, was christened Sea Hunter on April 9 at the Swan Island shipyard in Portland, Oregon.
Neural Dust
August 3rd, 2016Via: UC Berkeley:
University of California, Berkeley engineers have built the first dust-sized, wireless sensors that can be implanted in the body, bringing closer the day when a Fitbit-like device could monitor internal nerves, muscles or organs in real time.
Because these batteryless sensors could also be used to stimulate nerves and muscles, the technology also opens the door to “electroceuticals” to treat disorders such as epilepsy or to stimulate the immune system or tamp down inflammation.
The so-called neural dust, which the team implanted in the muscles and peripheral nerves of rats, is unique in that ultrasound is used both to power and read out the measurements. Ultrasound technology is already well-developed for hospital use, and ultrasound vibrations can penetrate nearly anywhere in the body, unlike radio waves, the researchers say.
Private Company Wins U.S. Clearance to Fly to the Moon
August 3rd, 2016…including cremated human remains?
Via: Reuters:
A Florida-based company won U.S. government permission on Wednesday to send a robotic lander to the moon next year, the firm’s founder said, marking the first time the United States has cleared a private space mission to fly beyond Earth’s orbit.
The Federal Aviation Administration’s unprecedented go-ahead for the Moon Express mission also sets a legal and regulatory framework for a host of other commercial expeditions to the moon, asteroids and Mars.
As approved by the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, the privately held Moon Express, headquartered in Cape Canaveral, plans to fly a suitcase-sized lander to the moon for a two-week mission in 2017, said the company founder and chief executive Bob Richards.
The spacecraft will carry a number of science experiments and some commercial cargo on its one-way trip to the lunar surface, including cremated human remains, and will beam back pictures and video to Earth, the company said.
Google’s Project Wing Delivery Drones to Be Tested in U.S.
August 3rd, 2016Via: Bloomberg:
The proposed drone delivery service born in Google’s experimental labs will test its system at a U.S. site, the White House announced as part of an initiative to push research and safety measures for unmanned flight.
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Project Wing’s test program will be the most significant drone delivery trial to date in the U.S. Amazon.com Inc. announced on July 26 it would begin testing its drone delivery system in the U.K.
Jeep Hackers Take Control of Steering and Braking Systems
August 3rd, 2016Via: The Verge:
A pair of hackers have compromised their Jeep Cherokee, fooling the car into doing dangerous things like turning the steering wheel or activating the parking brake at highway speeds. It’s the same pair that hacked their Jeep remotely last year. But, because this version of the hack requires physical access to the car — in this case, through a laptop connected to the OBD II engine diagnostic port — it may not be quite as scary, except for the fact that they’re controlling way more vehicle systems.
Armed Man Busted at Trump Tower After Secret Service Calls Cops
August 3rd, 2016Via: New York Post:
A man is in custody after police responded to a call about someone showing up with a gun at Trump Tower Tuesday night.
The Secret Service asked for NYPD assistance after stopping the man at the building on Fifth Avenue by E. 56th St. just after 10 p.m., officials said.
Police sources said the man walked through a blocked-off area with a gun, and was taken in by the Secret Service because he didn’t comply with authorities.
It’s not clear if the man posed a threat to Donald Trump, or if Trump was in the building at the time of the incident.
