Posts

Image
  Scientists create super-bendy ice   Ice is stiff and brittle — if you bend it, it will snap in two. Right? Not quite. Researchers just found that when grown in tiny strands, ice can defy its reputation for breakability, becoming so elastic it can even bend into a loop, according to a new study.  These ice microfibers are so bendy that they are near the theoretical limit for ice elasticity. Perhaps even cooler, the scientists who grew the bendy ice think that their teensy ice strands could lead to both an avalanche of new ways to better understand ice in its natural state and more efficient technology for transmitting light. In theory, ice in the real world could be just as bendy as the researchers' ice, but defects such as cracks and misalignments of crystals makes naturally occurring ice far more brittle. The maximum theoretical elastic strain of water ice — or the percentage of its size by which it can be stretched or bent before returning to its origina...
Image
  How Apple's efforts to bring privacy to the masses will change the web Apple has announced a swathe of upgrades for its tablet, phone and computer operating systems that could change the way millions of people’s data is transmitted over the internet – a boon for privacy enthusiasts, but a potential problem for advertisers, law enforcement agencies and governments. At Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference yesterday, the company announced that upcoming updates to its web browser will offer an anonymous browsing feature called Private Relay. This will disguise user details from website operators by using a series of intermediary servers. Software to do this, such as the Tor network , already exists, but Apple’s move will make this kind of obfuscation far more mainstream. The voice-recognition assistant Siri will also process audio on the device, rather than sending it to Apple servers for analysis, and changes to Apple’s email app will stop senders tracking when a mes...
Image
  Google and Facebook hit by faulty chips that can silently corrupt data Internet giants Google and Facebook have discovered they are experiencing computer chip failures that can corrupt data or make it difficult to unlock encrypted files. Facebook says hardware manufacturers must take notice of the problem, which has emerged due to the vast scale of computing resources the firms use. The issue surfaced at Google when multiple teams of engineers reported problems with their computations, but the company’s usual diagnostic tools showed no problem. An investigation revealed that individual chips were responsible for repeated …
Image
  Google is using AI to design processors that run AI more efficiently Engineers at Google have tasked an artificial intelligence with designing faster and more efficient processors – and then used its chip designs to develop the next generation of specialised computers that run the very same type of AI algorithms. Google operates at such a large scale that it designs its own computer chips rather than buying commercial products. This allows it to optimise the chips to run its own software, but the process is time-consuming and expensive. A custom chip usually takes two to three years to develop. One stage of chip design is a process called floorplanning, which involves taking the finalised circuit diagram of a new chip and arranging the millions of components into an efficient layout for manufacturing. Although the functional design of the chip is complete at this point, the layout can have a huge effect on speed and power consumption. For chips in smartphones, the...
Image
  Meteorite-hunting drones could help find freshly fallen space rocks Meteorite are among the most important objects scientists can study to understand the solar system, but finding them is tricky and time-consuming. Now, one team of researchers is trying to speed up the process with drones. Robert Citron at the University of California, Davis, and his colleagues have been trialling using drones and machine learning to find these rocks shortly after their blazing journey through the atmosphere. The NASA-funded study flew a camera-equipped consumer drone over a dry lake bed in Nevada, … Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2281804-meteorite-hunting-drones-could-help-find-freshly-fallen-space-rocks/#ixzz6zcmRBwFk
Image
  Quantum internet: The race is on to build an unhackable online world Great leaps are already being made in creating a super secure quantum internet. It could overturn the role of information in our lives and give us a globe-spanning quantum supercomputer MANY of us have uploaded our lives to the internet. Banking, work emails, social media, dating profiles, medical records – all that vital, sensitive information. So it is a little disconcerting that the internet has a fatal security flaw. Don’t panic; our private information is safe for now. But before very long the encryption algorithms that protect us online are going to crack. That is the urgent driving force behind a new, more secure kind of internet that harnesses the power of the quantum realm . Once up and running, the system will be able to do a lot more than protect our data. It could bring us unforeseen quantum apps, and maybe become the scaffold for a wo...
Image
  Israel used world's first AI-guided combat drone swarm in Gaza attacks     During operations in Gaza in mid-May, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) used a swarm of small drones to locate, identify and attack Hamas militants. This is thought to be the first time a drone swarm has been used in combat. Drones are usually controlled individually by remote operators, but a swarm is a single networked entity that flies itself using artificial intelligence . It can cover a wide area and keep operating even if it loses many units, and only requires a single … Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2282656-israel-used-worlds-first-ai-guided-combat-drone-swarm-in-gaza-attacks/#ixzz6zckcR3Ql