Europe will make publicly funded scientific research public
European Union (EU) ministers have agreed to make a huge amount of scientific research in the region available free of charge by 2020. The move will open up publicly funded papers and articles to a wide audience, helping individuals and businesses to make use of scientific insight. It’ll also make it simple for universities (and news publications, like this one) to access papers without having to pay heavy fees. It’s called Open Access, and it’s a big deal.
The motivation behind today’s decision is to make Europe a more attractive place to do business, and to spark innovation. Researchers will be able to look into one another’s work with ease, hopefully fostering an environment of collaboration. The official announcement namechecks not only “doctors and teachers,” but also “entrepreneurs;” a clear sign that the EU sees this as a very startup-friendly move.
To be clear, the decision will only affect the publication of research that is either fully or partly funded by public funds. Presently, that’s not the case: the results of a lot of public-private research and even some publicly funded research are behind paywalls on the sites of science journals.
In addition to the free-for-all on science papers, the EU is extending the decision to scientific data. To do this, it’s decreeing that data behind the articles and research be made publicly available and easy to reuse. In this case, it does note that there are well-founded reasons for not allowing this, such as “intellectual property rights, security or privacy.” Where warranted, researchers will be able to keep the data behind closed doors. This exception’s importance can’t be understated: without the caveat, this effort to spark innovation could have led to the exact crowd the EU is hoping to attract heading elsewhere for fear of losing their competitive edge.
It’s unclear what the knock-on effects could be. On the upside, sharing of knowledge is good for the scientific community, Europe and the world as a whole. But players on the periphery may see the move as troubling. Scientific journals rely on money from universities and businesses to sustain themselves, and by making a vast swathe of research free to access, the EU could be seriously draining an income resource.
Although there are still plenty of privately funded research initiatives, and these would be unaffected, many companies partner with public institutions and governments in order to further their research, and journals will no longer be able to make money from those papers. It’s thought that journals will charge authors for publishing papers, which could introduce its own problems.
Today’s announcement is a big win for Open Access advocates. The Netherlands, which currently holds the EU council presidency (it rotates every six months), had floated the idea back in April, but few believed it would gain such widespread approval so quickly. Today’s decision came from the EU’s Competitiveness Council, which incorporates ministers from every EU member state. All parties voted unanimously in favor of the proposal.
Source: The Netherlands EU Presidency 2016
NBC will air the 2016 Rio Olympics in 4K, HDR and Atmos
NBC has announced that it will make content from this year’s Olympic Games available to carriers in 4K and HDR, however there’s one little catch. In a setup that will seem familiar for early HDTV adopters who still can’t get Sony’s “we brought chips… and salsa!” ad out of their heads 12 years later*, 4K UHD footage of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, swimming, track and field, basketball, the men’s soccer final, and judo is coming home on 24 hour tape delay. NBC will provide a downconverted version of the 8K feed Olympic Broadcasting Services and Japan’s NHK are experimenting with, to 4K, and present it in HDR with Dolby Atmos surround sound audio. According to NBC Sports president Gary Zenkel, “The Olympics have been a consistent driver of technological advancements, and Rio will be no different.”
Of course, the big question — for those properly equipped with a 4K TV set — is will your provider actually make the content available from NBC? We haven’t received official confirmations yet, but with DirecTV broadcasting live 4K channels and Dish pushing Ultra HD to its latest TV boxes those seem like good candidates right off the bat. Multichannel News points out that Comcast has said it will begin distributing an HDR-ready Xi5 box by July, and has plans for a 4K-ready Xi6 set-top.
The 2016 Rio Olympics will start on August 5th, so you’ve got until August 6th to get your home theater setup together — or find a friend who does.
*NBC broadcast the 2004 Olympics in HD on 24 hour tape delay, however because of a mix-up, one Sony Wega ad played repeatedly all week, earning the ire of early high definition adopters who tuned in to the channel. It feature a schlub named Todd, watching sports in high definition who looked out his window to find a mass of people asking to come up and join him. The tag line was when the crowd exclaimed “We brought chips,” followed by a single voice saying “…and salsa. It echoes in my nightmares to this day.
Source: NBC Sports
Latest robot roach can leap like the real thing
Look away entomophobes: a collaboration between South Korea’s Seoul National University and UC Berkeley has created an unholy robotic cockroach that can not only crawl around to gross you out, but can also jump a solid five feet in the air and then prop itself up and keep on walking.
The JumpRoACH is a simple, two-ounce device with six crawling feet and a diamond-shaped jumping/launching mechanism powered by eight stretchy latex bands and small DC motor. While the usefulness of a robotic insect is debatable, it is definitely staying true to its source material. the major robotics breakthrough here is the robo-roach’s ability to actually control the power of its tiny catapult mechanism and time its launch so it makes the jump. While the JumpRoACH (thankfully) can’t fly just yet, it does have wings it can open to flip itself over onto its feet and keep on marching into your nightmares. Observe:
While this is not the first robotic cockroach designed at UC Berkeley, we can all be thankful that we’re not dealing with an army of actual robot zombie cockroaches.
Activists say Vietnam shut down Facebook during Obama’s visit
During President Obama’s three-day trip to Vietnam this week, authorities in the country blocked access to Facebook in an attempt to silence political dissidents, according to reports from two activist organizations. Digital-rights group Access Now and local pro-democracy organization Viet Tan collected reports from within the country and concluded that Facebook was fully blocked or restricted in Vietnam from Sunday through Wednesday, Reuters reports.
Blocking Facebook is a piece of the Vietnamese government’s broader strategy to suppress the use of social networks by political activists planning protests in the country, Reuters says. Vietnamese authorities blocked the site a handful of times in May amid protests over an environmental disaster that resulted in mass fish deaths along Vietnam’s coast. Access to Facebook was shut down on Sunday as pro-democracy groups called for a boycott of parliamentary elections in the country.
Other nations have blocked or restricted access to Facebook in efforts to halt political unrest, including Egypt, China and Bangladesh. One person on the ground in Vietnam tells Engadget that it’s commonplace to see the internet throttled or Facebook blocked as tensions rise in the country — seeing a downed social network is one way citizens know to check the news.
Why did you block Facebook in Vietnam????😡😜 pic.twitter.com/mnqlosw4ne
— Nguyen Le Chau Tue (@TriTue_NT) May 22, 2016
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Reuters
Google and Ray Kurzweil are making chatbots together
While we don’t often hear Ray Kurzweil’s name associated with Google products, Mountain View hired him back in 2012 to work on unspecified machine learning and language processing projects. Now, the famous futurist has finally revealed one of the projects his team has been working on: chatbots that can talk like humans do. He lifted the veil on the big G’s chatbot initiative at the latest Singularity conference — an annual conference on science, tech and the future.
Although Kurzweil didn’t spill a lot of details, he did say that one of those chatbots is named Danielle. Since it’s based on a character he wrote for one of his unpublished novels, we’re guessing they’re feeding it samples of his writing to give it the personality he envisions.
The futurist is known for his prediction that AIs will pass the Turing test in 2029, and developing these bots is a step in that direction. Kurzweil says they’re planning to release some of the chatbots they’ve been working on later this year. Hopefully, Google learned from Microsoft’s experience, so Danielle doesn’t turn out like Tay.
Via: The Verge
Source: Singularity Videos (YouTube)
Showrunner / executive producer leaves Netflix’s talk show
Netflix’s first talk show is finally here, but less than a month after launching it will be moving forward without showrunner/executive producer Bill Wolff. Deadline reported the TV veteran’s departure but didn’t give a clue as to why he’s leaving after less than a month and just nine episodes. Chelsea Handler will continue to executive produce her show, and the showrunner role will remain vacant, at least for now.
The talk show and its near-live format have been a big departure for Netflix, and so far, I haven’t watched enough to see if it’s working. That’s despite a few Netflix innovations to make this a truly worldwide show, enabling distribution in over 200 countries and a number of languages just a few hours after each episode is recorded. With three new episodes every week, it’s hard to know if Netflix will be able to wait for audiences to find the show and binge watch later, like they do with a lot of its content, so let us know — are you tuning in to see if Chelsea can “revolutionize” the talk show?
Are you watching ‘Chelsea’ on Netflix?
Source: Deadline
Is Jawbone about to go out of business?
It looks like Jawbone isn’t doing so well.
The company, which is known for making both speakers and fitness trackers, is reportedly ending production of all its fitness trackers and wants to sell its speaker business, all of which makes it appear like Jawbone might be going out of business. According to a report from Tech Insider, Jawbone not only ceased making its Up line of fitness trackers but has sold all the remaining inventory to a third-party reseller at a discount.
Meanwhile, a report from Fortune claimed Jawbone is hoping to find a buyer for its speaker business. The company was a pioneer in the portable Bluetooth speaker space with its Jambox line of speakers. In our 2013 review of the Mini Jambox, for instance, we came away really impressed. Its fitness trackers, however, didn’t receive as much critical success and seemed to struggle when pitted against Fitbit’s affordable offerings.
Jawbone was reportedly forced to sell its UP2, UP3, and UP4 devices to a third-party reseller at a discounted price. That news, when combined with the other report about Jawbone liquidating its remaining speaker inventory, has led many to wonder what Jawbone has left to hawk at consumers. Fortune said Jawbone wants to focus on wearables still, while an older Tech Insider report said Jawbone is working on a “clinical-grade” tracker.Jawbone hasn’t introduced a new product since early 2015, and it laid off 15 per cent of its global workforce last autumn. But the company did manage to raise $165 million in funding last January. We’ve contacted Jawbone for a comment and will update when we learn more.
The Public Access Weekly: Time of the preacher
This week something happened on Game of Thrones, and I cannot tell you what that thing is because I am two seasons behind (and I don’t give out spoilers). But I can tell you that a picture of Hodor did indeed appear in the elevator of the Engadget offices, so I look forward to finding out whatever terribleness that’s all about. Personally, I’m really excited about the premiere of the Preacher on AMC last Sunday– I’ve been meaning to re-read the comic series for a while, and given that I’m a big Walking Dead fan, I’ve got high hopes that AMC can pull this off. Did anyone else watch the pilot? What’d you think?
And, as I’ve mentioned previously, next week marks our official first anniversary of Public Access! That’s right, our very first posts went up last year on June 1st. In the past 365 days, our community content page has published over 575 articles, with more than 500,000 page views just since January. Over 1,300 people have signed up as members and four Public Access articles have made it to the Engadget home page. That’s terrific work, and we’re so excited to see what you publish next! Happy birthday Public Access members!
In order to celebrate our first year, there will be special posts and activities all throughout the month of June from special assignments, to retrospective posts, to videos and more. We’ll highlight everything that happens in the Public Access Weekly posts for those who want to stay in the loop. On June 1st, you can look forward to stories highlighting the twelve most-read stories from Public Access’ first year, and the twelve most-prolific contributors.
To kick the festivities off, here’s a fun fact you may not have realized: Every Public Access Weekly headline is actually a veiled (or not so veiled) reference to something that happened the week preceding it — usually a pop culture/music/entertainment reference. For example, this week’s headline “Time of the preacher” is a reference to the Willie Nelson song that appears in the pilot episode of AMC’s Preacher.
Now here’s where it gets fun: The Public Access member or reader who correctly guesses the most title references from the Public Access Weekly posts will be our next Q&A guest star! If you’ve ever wanted the chance to get profiled in our Q&A or answer pithy questions like “What is your worst tech habit?” then now is your chance! If you need to see all seventeen titles, just click here; we’ll also pull them all together in one official post with details on June 1st. Answers can be emailed to us up until June 15th.
Looking for something to read? Check out:
In Florida, a man who hid a cellphone jammer under the passenger seat of his vehicle was hit with a hefty fine — which provoked some strong thoughts and opinions in the comments section about driving safety, Bluetooth and OnStar and the FCC.
Amazon recently stopped offering refunds for items that dropped in price after a product had been ordered (which they used to do within seven day of the purchase); this was the general reaction:
This story about a hacker and a self-driving car in Las Vegas begins with the quote “I’m an idiot.” And it gets better from there.
Looking for something to write on? Mull over:
We posted the Wirecutter’s guide to the best PC gaming controller earlier today, in which the publication declared the Sony DualShock 4 Wireless Controller the best overall, and a lot of folks are weighing in with their objections in the comments. Can the best PC controller be a console device? What do you use for PC gaming? Write a review of your favorite PC gaming controller, or a how-to on select the right controller for PC gaming.
A lot of people had thoughts about what Microsoft is going to reveal next month at E3 — streaming devices, new consoles, cross platform play. What do YOU think Microsoft will have to show off at E3? Write up a post and predict the future!
Blizzard released Overwatch this week and while it won’t get ranked play until next month, early feedback and reviews are glowing with praise. Have you played it yet? On which platform? How do you like it? Does the current lack of ranked play inform your feelings at all? Write up a review of the game, and tell us how excited you are for the addition of ranked play to the game.
SpaceX’s next rocket launch and landing is just minutes away
Another sunny day in Florida, another launch and potential landing on a droneship for SpaceX. This time the company is launching the Thaicom 8 communications satellite, and the launch windows is just minutes away from opening. Naturally, you can watch the whole thing via livestream, either with hosts or without. SpaceX has a couple of successful missions under its belt now, but today’s landing is said to be a “very hot and fast first-stage reentry.”
Update: And we have a successful liftoff!
Update 2: And…yet another successful landing! The rocket is back on earth, standing on the I Still Love You droneship. The video feed dropped out just as the rocket came in, but came back just after the rocket touched down. That makes three successful sea landings in a row for SpaceX, while also launching cargo to orbit.
Weather 90% go for 5:40pm ET launch today. Droneship landing challenging — very hot and fast first-stage reentry pic.twitter.com/IU66G2SntU
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 26, 2016
Source: SpaceX Webcast
NASA’s first expandable habitat test on the ISS defeated by friction
NASA hopes that expandable habitats could dramatically expand livable space on the space station and Mars, but yesterday’s first test on the ISS failed. Today, NASA and habitat builder Bigelow Aerospace announced the cause of the problem. After being packed away for an extended time, friction between fabrics increased pressure to unpredicted levels, endangering the habitat.
The first three steps of the test went off smoothly, but then the habitat failed to fully inflate. While trying to manually expand the habitat, known as the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), it encountered higher forces and pressures than anticipated. In a Facebook post, Bigelow Aerospace explained that the BEAM was packed away for 15 months before attempting to expand, 10 months longer than planned.
Because of this extensive storage, Bigelow said that “there is a potential for the behavior of the materials that make up the outside of the spacecraft to act differently than expected.” According to Space News, a Bigelow Aerospace engineer said that the fabric material’s “memory” takes longer to reform into its intended shapes the longer it’s compressed and packed away.
NASA scientists are already including the additional pressures in a new unfolding procedure, which they plan to test tomorrow and will stream live on their site at 9:00 AM ET. If that doesn’t work, they’ll deflate the habitat and try again at a later date. If NASA can safely inflate it, they plan to use it for a two-year experiment to determine whether it’s safe for astronauts. Unfolded, the BEAM is seven feet long and 7.7 feet in diameter, but fully inflated it is 13 feet long and 10.6 feet in diameter. This makes it somewhat smaller than the Unity module, which is 15 feet in diameter and about 18 feet in length but seven times heavier than the BEAM’s 3,000 pounds.
Via: The Verge
Source: Space News
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