Zuckerberg-Chan to Give Away 99% of Facebook Shares to “Advance Human Potential and Promote Equality for All Children in the Next Generation”
December 1st, 2015Via: USA Today:
Mark Zuckerberg and Dr. Priscilla Chan celebrated the birth of a baby girl with the stunning announcement they plan to give away most of their fortune through a new initiative to “advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation.”
The billionaire Facebook founder and chief executive and his physician wife pledged to give away 99% of their Facebook shares in their lifetime, currently worth about $45 billion. They made the announcement in a letter to their newborn daughter Max posted on Facebook on Tuesday, the national day of giving known as #GivingTuesday. Max was born “early the week of Thanksgiving,” Facebook said.
“Our initial areas of focus will be personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities,” Zuckerberg and Chan wrote to their daughter. “We know this is a small contribution compared to all the resources and talents of those already working on these issues. But we want to do what we can, working alongside many others.”
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Full Text of Zuckerberg Letter
China ‘Clone Factory’ Scientist Eyes Human Replication
December 1st, 2015Eyes…
Via: AFP:
The Chinese scientist behind the world’s biggest cloning factory has technology advanced enough to replicate humans, he told AFP, and is only holding off for fear of the public reaction.
Boyalife Group and its partners are building the giant plant in the northern Chinese port of Tianjin, where it is due to go into production within the next seven months and aims for an output of one million cloned cows a year by 2020.
But cattle are only the beginning of chief executive Xu Xiaochun’s ambitions.
In the factory pipeline are also thoroughbred racehorses, as well as pet and police dogs, specialised in searching and sniffing.
Boyalife is already working with its South Korean partner Sooam and the Chinese Academy of Sciences to improve primate cloning capacity to create better test animals for disease research.
And it is a short biological step from monkeys to humans — potentially raising a host of moral and ethical controversies.
“The technology is already there,” Xu said. “If this is allowed, I don’t think there are other companies better than Boyalife that make better technology.”
Q-Carbon
November 30th, 2015Via: PhysOrg:
Researchers from North Carolina State University have discovered a new phase of solid carbon, called Q-carbon, which is distinct from the known phases of graphite and diamond. They have also developed a technique for using Q-carbon to make diamond-related structures at room temperature and at ambient atmospheric pressure in air.
Phases are distinct forms of the same material. Graphite is one of the solid phases of carbon; diamond is another.
“We’ve now created a third solid phase of carbon,” says Jay Narayan, the John C. Fan Distinguished Chair Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at NC State and lead author of three papers describing the work. “The only place it may be found in the natural world would be possibly in the core of some planets.”
Q-carbon has some unusual characteristics. For one thing, it is ferromagnetic – which other solid forms of carbon are not.
“We didn’t even think that was possible,” Narayan says.
In addition, Q-carbon is harder than diamond, and glows when exposed to even low levels of energy.
The Secret Message Hidden in Every HTTP/2 Connection
November 30th, 2015Via: jgc:
If you spy on an HTTP/2 connection starting up you’ll notice that it sends an almost-but-not-quite valid HTTP request at the very start of the connection…
Written a little more clearly that’s:
PRI * HTTP2.0
SM
The HTTP verb is PRI and the body contains just SM. Put them together and you get… PRISM.
Amazon Unveils New Prime Air Drone Prototypes
November 30th, 2015Via: USA Today:
Amazon revealed the latest prototype of drones it will deploy as part of its Prime Air service using the unmanned aerial devices to deliver packages in under 30 minutes.
According to details released Sunday by the online retailing giant, Amazon says the drones weigh 55 pounds and can carry packages weighing up to 5 pounds. The drones fly under 400 feet and use “sense and avoid” technology to dodge potential obstacles en route to its delivery destination.
Airpocalypse Now: China Pollution Reaching Record Levels
November 28th, 2015Via: Guardian:
In some areas of Shenyang, PM2.5 readings reportedly surpassed 1,400 micrograms per cubic metre, which is about 56 times the levels considered safe by the World Health Organisation.
More: Beijing Residents Told to Stay Inside, Air Pollution 15X Safe Level
DJI Launches Crop-Spraying Drone
November 27th, 201515 grand today.
$499 in… three years?
Via: BBC:
Billion-dollar drone company DJI is expanding from consumer and camera drones into the agriculture industry.
The Chinese firm’s latest model is a crop-spraying drone, which it claims is “40 times more efficient” than manual spraying, despite having just 12 minutes of flight time.
It will be released in China and Korea where hand-spraying is more common.
DJI made $500m (£332m) in drone sales in 2014 and some analysts predict the firm will hit $1bn in sales this year.
The Agras MG-1 has eight rotors and can carry up to 10kg of crop-spraying fluids per flight.
The foldable device is also dustproof, water-resistant and made of anti-corrosive materials, the firm says on its website (in Chinese).
Farmers around the world have used drones for some time but generally for monitoring their crops and livestock.
Huge farms use aircraft for crop-dusting but they can be very expensive.
The Next Frontier in Formula Racing: Driverless Cars
November 27th, 2015Via: Los Angeles Times:
Imagine taking Google’s driverless car, mashing it up with Tesla’s zero-to-60-in-three-seconds “ludicrous mode,” and then pushing it to speeds of over 100 mph. Now imagine nearly two dozen of these souped-up robotic cars all speeding around on the same closed track and trying to outdo one another — without a human behind the wheel.
That’s basically what we’ll get next year in the Roborace, a high-speed stress test for 10 teams of driverless car designers who will compete as a part of Formula E, the global auto racing series that uses only electric cars.
Roborace is being billed as the world’s first race involving all-electric, driverless vehicles. With automation becoming increasingly common in consumer cars that move at much slower speeds, Roborace has the promise to showcase vehicle technology that’s even more nimble, more reliable and more capable than what’s on the market today. Just like real drivers, the cars will have to be programmed to pass each other, pull tight turns, make decisions about when and how to accelerate and, above all, avoid crashes at deadly speeds. (Of course, there won’t be any drivers in the cars to get hurt if there is a collision.)
Air Force Hires Civilian Drone Pilots for Combat Patrols
November 27th, 2015Via: Los Angeles Times:
The Air Force has hired civilian defense contractors to fly MQ-9 Reaper drones to help track suspected militants and other targets in global hot spots, a previously undisclosed expansion in the privatization of once-exclusively military functions.
For the first time, civilian pilots and crews now operate what the Air Force calls “combat air patrols,” daily round-the-clock flights above areas of military operations to provide video and collect other sensitive intelligence.
Contractors control two Reaper patrols a day, but the Air Force plans to expand that to 10 a day by 2019. Each patrol involves up to four drones.
Civilians are not allowed to pinpoint targets with lasers or fire missiles. They operate only Reapers that provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, known as ISR, said Air Force Gen. Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle, head of Air Combat Command.
“There are limitations on it,” he said. The contractors “are not combatants.”
China Announces Military Overhaul to Make Army More Combat Ready
November 26th, 2015Via: Bloomberg:
President Xi Jinping announced a major overhaul of China’s military to make the world’s largest army more combat ready and better equipped to project force beyond the country’s borders.
Under the reorganization, all branches of the armed forces would come under a joint military command, Xi told a meeting of military officials in Beijing, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Bloomberg in September reported details of the plan, which may also seek to consolidate the country’s seven military regions to as few as four.
The Chinese president said the reform aimed to “build an elite combat force” and called on the officials to make “breakthroughs” on establishing the joint command by 2020, Xinhua said. Xi announced the changes at the end of a three-day meeting attended by about 200 top military officials, Xinhua said.
Xi, who also became chairman of the Central Military Commission upon taking power in 2012, is directly managing the overhaul. He made a public display of his commitment to the reforms when he announced that the People’s Liberation Army would shed 300,000 troops at a September military parade in Beijing to mark the 70th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II.
“This is the biggest military overhaul since the 1950s,” said Yue Gang, a retired colonel in the PLA’s General Staff Department. “The reform shakes the very foundations of China’s Soviet Union-style military system and transferring to a U.S. style joint command structure will transform China’s PLA into a specialized armed force that could pack more of a punch in the world.”
