Ben Heck’s Logic Gate board game: Finding a purpose

The team’s having trouble with the Logic Gate board game and needs your input. Behind all good games is a fun concept, whether it’s racking up points or solving puzzles. Now, the team needs help identifying what this could be for their Logic Gate board game. Also in this episode, Ben puts together the pieces for programming the LCD screen, getting it to display a set of logical operators, such as NOR, AND and OR, by setting up the hardware as a USB mass storage device to easily copy across the puzzles. As Karen and Ben debate the game’s purpose, you can head over to the element14 Community and share your own two cents.

Monsanto bets on AI to protect crops against disease

Monsanto has drawn plenty of criticism for its technology-driven (and heavily litigious) approach to agriculture, but its latest effort might just hint at the future of farming. It’s partnering with Atomwise on the use of AI to quickly discover molecules that can protect crops against disease and pests. Rather than ruling out molecules one at a time, Atomwise will use its deep learning to predict the likelihood that a given molecule will have the desired effect. It’s whittling down the candidate list to those molecules that are genuinely promising.

The move could save massive amounts of time and money. Monsanto notes that typical crop protection takes 11 years to reach the market, and costs $250 million to develop. The AI collaboration could help the company turn a quicker profit, of course, but it could also help the agricultural industry tackle diseases and infestations before they do too much damage. It might also give researchers more time to look into possible side effects that could harm benign insects and bacteria.

Via: Feedstuffs, St. Louis Business Journal

Source: Monsanto

Jupiter is the oldest planet in the Solar System

Jupiter’s ancient name really is well-deserved: according to a new study, the king of the planets isn’t just the largest in the Solar System, it’s also the oldest. A team of researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and the University of Munster in Germany have determined that Jupiter’s core was already 20 times the size of Earth merely 1 million years after the sun took shape 4.6 billion years ago. Since newborn stars tend to release energy that blows away gas and dust for planet formation, the gas giant must have had to absorb materials very, very fast.

The team came to the conclusion after testing for the presence and abundances of molybdenum and tungsten isotopes in some iron meteorites that fell to Earth. They found that the meteorites contained components from two distinct reservoir of materials, thanks to the data from the molybdenum isotopes. One reservoir has material from a different star than ours that didn’t make it to the other reservoir. The data from the tungsten isotopes, on the other hand, showed that the two pools of materials were separated for 2 to 3 million years. In addition, they’ve been separated as early as a million years into the formation of the solar system.

The team explained that “the most plausible mechanism to efficiently separate two disk reservoirs for an extended period is the accretion of a giant planet in between them.” Yes, that gas giant is Jupiter, and while its formation slowed as the years went by, it kept growing and growing enough to create a permanent barrier between the two pools. The researchers now believe that it could also be the reason why there are no super-Earths near the sun, which are commonly found in other star systems. That means we could owe our existence to Jupiter, because who knows if and how life would flourish on Earth if it’s too near other, more massive planets.

Via: Space

Source: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

How Red Bull captured a 1,200-mile trek through Vietnam for ‘Blood Road’

Red Bull’s latest documentary is much more than an action adventure film.

Rebecca Rusch had a story to tell. The world-class endurance mountain bike racer and Red Bull athlete is known for her incredible feats of daring and adventure, but this story was about much more than that. It was something personal; so personal that when she approached Red Bull Media House with the idea for a documentary, the studio decided to produce the entire thing in-house – the first time it had ever done that for a feature-length film.

The result is Blood Road, which, on the surface, is an outdoor adventure film not unlike numerous others to which the energy drink company has lent its name. In it, Rusch, along with riding partner Huyen Nguyen, travel the length of the Ho Chi Minh Trail by mountain bike – 1,200 miles in total, through dense jungles and rushing rivers. But underneath, Blood Road is about much more than that. It’s about discovery, growth, and personal change.

Some 40 years prior to her setting out on the trail, Rusch’s father, an Air Force pilot in the Vietnam War, was shot down. Many years later, his remains were eventually recovered and identified. Blood Road is the story of Rusch’s search for his crash site, and her search for the father who died before she was old enough to even remember him.

Blood Road is the story of Rebecca Rusch’s search for the father who died before she was old enough to remember him.

This is the reason that Red Bull Media House kept the production under one roof, according to director Nicholas Schrunk. “Because of the nature of this story being so personal to Rebecca and all the intricacies and the detail of what we had to do to pull it off, this was really the first project where it fully made sense for us to do it in-house,” he told Digital Trends.

While the journey itself would last 23 days on the trail, it would take three years to finish the film. Preparing for the project was no easy task, and while the small crew and support staff would need to be able to travel light, Schrunk did not want to sacrifice his desired look for the film. Early on, he had decided to go with anamorphic lenses – a type of lens historically used in Hollywood to achieve a widescreen look that has seen a resurgence in modern digital cinema, thanks to its unique optical properties.

“With anything, you want to adhere to a visual style that supports the story,” Schrunk explained. “This was such a personal story that I wanted to find a way to document it that really brought he human characters to life.”

The anamorphic lenses created a warmer, softer look that helped breathe life into skin tones and wasn’t as hyper-sharp and clinical as many modern lenses can be. But it wasn’t just the human characters that needed to be brought to life. One of Schrunk’s secret weapons was a Cooke I 65mm anamorphic macro lens, the first one to roll off the production line. It would be used for close-up shots of the maps, which Schrunk says became their own characters in the film.

Josh Letchworth

Josh Letchworth

Josh Letchworth

Josh Letchworth

Additional lenses used included a 32mm, 50mm, and 100mm – all from the Cooke i-series. Schrunk decided on Cooke lenses because they could hold up to the extreme temperature and moisture changes in the jungle, where older or cheaper alternatives would have failed. In a setting with no room for redundancy and no time to send lenses in for service, the crew needed gear that they could rely on 100 percent.

But in this type of production, those Cooke lenses came with one significant drawback: they were very large and heavy. On the single-track trail, the six-person film crew would be traveling by way of dirt bike. That meant all of the gear had to be packed into backpacks, and as they wouldn’t be returning to a home base at the end of each day, they had to be able to carry absolutely everything with them – not just production gear, but also food, water, clothing, and first aid equipment.

With the Cooke lenses locked in, the crew had to save space elsewhere, starting with the cameras. They elected to use the carbon fiber version of the Red Dragon, which may be large compared to a consumer camcorder, but significantly smaller than other professional cinema cameras from the likes of Sony and Arri. The team also coordinated with local drivers who could transport larger pieces of equipment in trucks, meeting up with them every few days as the trail allowed.

An eye in the sky

Another critical component of the film’s visuals was the aerial photography, which does much more than give the film that “epic” look that drone enthusiasts lust after. In this case, letting the audience look down from the sky was integral to telling the story.

“Aerial shots were really important because that was the way Rebecca’s father, as a pilot, saw the country,” said Schrunk. They also revealed landscapes that just couldn’t be viewed adequately from the ground. “There are whole fields of bomb craters that are still there. If you get a camera up in the air, you can really see the extent of the impact of the bombing campaign.”

In order to improve the quality of the GoPros, the stock lenses were stripped out and replaced.

The crew relied on two different drones to achieve these shots: two DJI Phantom II (which was new at the time) and a massive Freefly CineStar that could support the weight of a Red Dragon, Cooke I lens, and a Movi gimbal. The CineStar was too large to travel by motorbike on the trail, but the team would use it whenever they could link up with the transport vehicles.

The Phantom IIs, on the other hand, were great because they could travel in a backpack and get airborne within seconds when needed. The problem is that the GoPro Hero4 cameras they were outfitted with didn’t match the look of the rest of the film. Or at least, not by default.

In order to improve the quality of the GoPros, the stock lenses were stripped out and replaced with custom lenses with narrower angles of view and anamorphic elements. Snake River Prototyping, a company specializing in custom GoPro and drone accessories, then made bespoke neutral density (ND) filters for those lenses, which would allow the GoPros to shoot at slower shutter speeds, bringing the look of the footage in line with that of the Red cinema cameras.

Josh Letchworth

During a pick-up shoot, the crew was able to use a DJI Inspire 1 RAW with a Micro Four Thirds (MFT) mount. Even then, the consumer MFT lens they used was first shipped off to Duclos Lenses to have its coatings stripped in order to get it to flare more and look closer the anamorphic lenses.

An emotional journey

In the end, every detail of production was about conveying the feeling of the film. What started as an intense journey and a struggle against the elements became a much deeper, more profound experience. After spending 23 days together on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, Schrunk and the crew weren’t just outside observers to the story, they were living it. This allowed them to connect on an individual level to Rusch’s story, which aided their ability to document it. This is something that Schrunk hopes comes across to the audience.

While the film contains all of the elements of a traditional adventure epic, including the exploration of culture and environment, it also goes beyond that. “It’s an emotional journey of a daughter looking for her father,” Schrunk said. “So people will get this feeling of adventure, but my hope is that they really see that emotional journey and see Rebecca change, and live this story through her. It’s her change as a character which is what I think we were the most successful at documenting.”

Blood Road is currently screening around the country and will be available for purchase on June 20. For a screening schedule and more information, head to the film’s official website.

Galaxy S8 update gets rid of the black navigation bar, lets you auto-hide nav keys

Galaxy S8 picks up a slew of new features in latest update, but not all of them are great.

The Galaxy S8 and S8+ are receiving an update that brings the June 1, 2017 security patch along with several UI tweaks. There’s now an icon to the left of the navigation bar that lets you auto-hide the navigation keys when you’re in an app. allowing you to make full use of that 18.5:9 panel. You can toggle it with a quick tap, giving you the option to automatically hide or display the navigation bar.

If you don’t like the auto-hide feature, you can disable it entirely from the settings by going to Settings > Display > Navigation bar > Show and hide button. The update also limits the color options that can be used as the navigation bar’s background. Previously, you could use an RGB scale to tweak the background to your liking, but Samsung now offers a narrow set of seven light colors. With the update, there isn’t an option to use a black navigation bar.

Samsung is also making it easier to use apps in fullscreen mode. There’s a button that sits above the navigation bar that allows you to go fullscreen mode for apps that don’t support the Galaxy S8’s native 18.5:9 resolution. The prompt has the self-explanatory label, “Tap here to fill entire screen.” Once you hit the button, the app will restart and launch in fullscreen mode.

The lack of a black navigation bar is certainly an annoyance, and there’s no reasoning as to why Samsung decided to roll out the change. It is possible the manufacturer was worried about burn-in issues on the AMOLED panel. The update comes in at 454.18MB, and is now rolling out in India. It should be available in other markets shortly.

Hackers stole credit card data from Buckle stores’ cash registers

If you shopped at Buckle in the past several months, you might want to check your financial statements — the clothing store has confirmed a Krebs on Security report of a data breach. Intruders planted malware on the chain’s cash register systems to steal credit card data between October 28th, 2016 and April 14th, 2017. The potential data loss is limited if you used a relatively secure chip-based card, but it’s much worse if you relied on the magnetic stripe. The malware looked at stripe tracking data to collect names, card numbers and expiration dates.

Buckle says it “promptly” took steps to investigate and scrub the malware (which didn’t touch its online store), but it’s not clear how many customers could have been affected or who’s behind the breach. If the attackers wanted, though, they could have used the info to duplicate cards and go on shopping sprees.

The incident is a reminder of the ongoing problems with magnetic card security at American stores, some of which aren’t the fault of the retailers. It’s clearly a problem that Buckle didn’t catch the malware for months, and that we’re only hearing about the breach two months after Buckle resolved it. However, there’s only so much that shops can do to mitigate the damage from these thefts. Some American banks still haven’t issued chip-based cards, and you aren’t obliged to replace an existing stripe-only card until it expires. It may take years before chips dominate American shopping the way they do in other countries, and that makes it all too tempting to hijack their point-of-sale systems in the meantime.

Via: Krebs on Security

Source: Buckle

Your Amazon login can sign you into HBO Now and Showtime apps

Amazon has begun changing the way its Channels pay-TV service works, giving users more freedom to choose where to stream their next show. The tech titan began allowing Prime subscribers to tack streaming services to their accounts through Channels back in 2015. While it’s certainly one way to cut the cord, users only have access the add-ons they pay for, including HBO’s and Cinemax’s offerings, through Channels itself — they can’t exactly log into the services’ applications. According to TechCrunch, though, Amazon has recently launched a new feature that gives HBO’s and Showtime’s Channels subscribers the power to log into those networks’ standalone apps.

TC says folks paying for HBO through Amazon have been able to log into the HBO Now app since Wednesday. All they need to do is use the log-in credentials for their Amazon account with the Now apps for iOS, Android, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Kindle and Fire TV devices, PlayStation 3, PS 4 and Samsung Smart TVs. The feature will also roll out to the Roku and Xbox 360 applications “soon.”

The publication notes that Showtime subscribers have been able to access the Anytime app with their Amazon log-ins since February, but that’s pretty much all of it. Unfortunately, the tech titan hasn’t given Cinemax the same treatment yet, though it sure would be great if the feature becomes a standard for all of Channels’ offerings in the future.

Source: TechCrunch

Could ‘Angry Birds’ maker Rovio finally be headed for an IPO or acquisition?

Why it matters to you

You may not have heard of Rovio, but the maker of ‘Angry Birds’ might have a lucrative future ahead.

It’s been six years since we first told you about Angry Birds maker Rovio’s plans to go public, but now, it seems as though action is on the horizon. As per a report from The Information, the Finnish game maker and animation studio “could list on the stock exchange in the future.” The company would not, however, comment on reports that another exit strategy could be an acquisition by Tencent Holdings, China’s giant investment company with a penchant for buying game developers.

The Information did not name its sources in suggesting that Tencent could be considering a bid of up to $3 billion for Rovio. And it certainly wouldn’t be an unprecedented move for the company. After all, over the course of the last year, Tencent has made a number of acquisitions totaling a cool $19 billion, and among its new holdings include companies like Supercell Oy, yet another Finnish game creator which created the Clash of Clans franchise.

Of course, Rovio is a lot less prolific, seeing as it has exactly one claim to fame — Angry Birds. But given that one game’s continuing popularity, it’s certainly an attractive company. After all, the game not only has worldwide appeal, but has also inspired a whole line of paraphernalia, and even a movie.

That said, Rovio has fallen upon tougher times lately. Last year was the first time in quite some time that the company made a profit, thanks to the success of the Angry Birds movie, which seemed to improve game sales. But prior to that, earnings at Rovio had taken a tumble, jobs were cut, and divestments were made.

As such, a more likely alternative could be an IPO. “We and our shareholders regularly assess different alternatives to further develop Rovio,” the company said in an emailed statement on Friday to Reuters. “A stock exchange listing at some point in the future could be possible in order to support the continued strong growth of Rovio and its strategic targets. However, Rovio and its owners have not made any decisions regarding a possible IPO.”

Horizontal lines make it almost impossible to count the Jubilee’s decks

Why it matters to you

You’ll save yourself a lot of decisions if you have your superyacht delivered in turn-key condition.

Get your order or your reservations in early if you’re in the market to buy or charter a superyacht. Superyacht sales and charters are hot markets today. The 110-meter Jubilee, the largest superyacht ever built in Holland, was launched by Oceanco Yachts in February and is finishing sea trials now, according to Boat International.

Jubilee was ordered by Burgess Yachts, a London-based superyacht sales and charter company with locations worldwide. Turin-based Lobanov Design was in charge of the yacht’s exterior styling, which includes unique horizontal lines that give a visual effect of more than her six decks. Freemantle, Western Australia-based Sorgiovanni Designs designed the interior, but no photographs have been yet revealed to the public. Owner representation by Burgess was continuously involved.

According to an Oceanco release, for the first time in yacht building, Jubilee was ordered as “a fully turn-key project, completely outfitted at delivery including all owner’s supplies, tenders, spares, watersports equipment, china, crystal, silverware, table linen, sheets, loose furniture, cushions, etc.”

Jubilee can accommodate 31 guests in 15 doubles and one single cabin. In addition, there is an entirely private owner’s deck. There’s crew space for 45 to attend to the needs of the ship and the guests.

Amenities include a large pool deck with a built-in aquarium, a substantial beach club aft, and main deck port and starboard balconies adjacent to the dining room and lounge. There is also a forward certified helicopter deck for an Augusta GrandNew, an 8-passenger light helicopter that by itself has an $8.1 million price tag. It’s not clear whether the helicopter is included with the yacht’s “turn-key” status.

Jubilee has a steel full displacement hull, aluminum superstructure, and teak deck. Power is supplied by two 4,828 hp MTU 20V 4000 M73L diesel engines rated for continuous operation with a heavy load. The yacht has an 18.5-knot maximum speed and a range of approximately 5,000 nautical miles at its 14-knot cruising speed.

Once Jubilee finishes her sea trials, she’ll be available for sale and is already listed on the Burgess site. The price is not listed, other than “On Application,” meaning you have to be, or seem to be, a potential buyer. Given the list prices of somewhat similar superyachts, you probably should figure the price will be somewhere between $1.5 and $2 billion. That’s a lot of money, but don’t forget sheets and table linens are included.

Assuming Jubilee will be available for charter after she’s purchased, which is usually the case, the price will likely be just over $1 million a week plus all expenses. Figure another 20 to 40 percent for expenses; more if your guests demand things like having special booze flown in for dinner.

Superyachts take 3 to 5 years from start to finish. Jubilee was announced in 2012.

At 110 meters  (360 feet and 11 inches), Jubilee will be the 29th largest superyacht in the world once she’s put in service, based on Boat International’s list. Two other yachts on the list, Lürssen’s Ona and Radiant, currently holding spots 29 and 30 on the list are the same length as Jubilee, but each has a 16.3-meter beam, while Jubilee has a 16.4-meter width so she’s larger.

So the 110-meter Jubilee was Holland’s and Oceanco’s largest built superyacht, but the distinction won’t last. In late February, soon after Jubilee’s launch for sea trials, Oceanco announced Amara, a 120 meter (392 foot) “resort” yacht. No launch date has been set, but figure 2021 or even 2022 to be safe.

Keeping the same phone for two years

Long term support should be as important as the hardware when it comes to our next phone purchase.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Apple, Samsung, and Google are pricing their premium phones high enough to make a dent in most everyone’s bank account. There’s a lot of room to talk about phones, no matter how smart, being worth the asking prices, but talk probably won’t change anything there. The prices are what they are, and we all expect to spend upwards of $900 on a new phone from any of the three the next time a new model comes along. If we buy one, that is.

As prices rise and hardware gets better, our phones will keep doing cool things longer than they used to.

And that’s the thing. Along with the creeping prices, the features and parts used to build them are getting better, too. And I think we’re at the point where a phone from almost any of the companies who make them could last two years, for even the enthusiast. That’s us — people who read about phones on the internet because we love them enough to read about them.

I know some of us are already there. Pick any article about a new phone and there’s a good chance you’ll find someone happily keeping their Note 4 or Nexus 5, and people have been using iPhones for two to three years for a while now. The same goes for phones from LG, HTC, Motorola or anyone else. In 2019 we’ll still see people who love their Axon 7. What used to be rare among the enthusiast crowd — keeping a phone because you like it and it still works fine — is a lot more common now. And that’s one of those good things I like to mention every now and again.

Let’s take Apple out of the picture here. An iPhone 5S is still a very usable phone because it was well built and Apple still supports it. There are people who bought one when it was first sold who will keep it until it stops working and an Apple Store employee helps them get a brand new model. Even the most die-hard Android fanatic has to recognize that Apple has nailed the after-sale support, and it’s well worth paying for if you don’t rush to buy the new thing every time it’s shown to you.

Supporting a product costs a lot more than making it did.

Androids don’t have that level of longevity. In a perfect world, Samsung puts its own processor inside every phone it sells, and it supports them for years. As long as it still turns on, it’s fine. Samsung doesn’t do this because it can’t afford to put its Exynos processor inside every phone and it wouldn’t be able to compete with the rest of the companies making Android phones if it had this sales model. The first might change once the courts sort out Qualcomm’s fair-use patent pricing. But even then, Samsung just doesn’t have the profit-per-unit (I’m sure there is a fancy accounting term for this) that Apple has and it can’t make money this way. And the rest of the companies making Android phones? Pfffft. They would make one last model then disappear in a cloud of Chapter 13.

That’s important. If you have a phone you want to use and it has some horrible glitch every time you try a certain thing, you need it fixed with an update. Of course, there are also security concerns, which is why Microsoft has to keep sending out updates for software it sold in 2002. These things matter to most of us, but what if your phone works just fine and you’re not concerned about security? (You should be concerned about security, and you should lie to me if you’re not so I can sleep at night.) That Note 4 does everything Joe wants it to do and does it well, so Joe is keeping it until it falls apart.

The reasons why phones can’t be updated for a longer period makes sense, but that’s a problem for a billion dollar company to sort out.

I think Joe might have the right idea. I was using my Nexus 5X yesterday and realized I could use it every day until it stopped getting monthly security patches in 2018. There will be cool things coming in the next software update for newer phones that I might like, but it does everything I need it to do just fine. The same can be said for a Galaxy S7 or an LG V10. They are great phones with stable software, and they still do everything they did when they were brand new. This isn’t a brand thing because every company makes phones that someone just loves.

The only issue I see with keeping the Nexus 5X (or any phone) for two years or more is the software update situation. Because security updates are important to me, it probably matters more than it does for others, but we need to know the company who made it and took our money is willing to be there to fix whatever needs fixing when it comes to the software it runs. And unfortunately, you can’t count on long-term support from any company in the Android space, even Google.

Keeping something you paid $900 for more than 12 months is not a crazy idea.

There are plenty of reasons why, and most of them make sense. But that doesn’t matter because Apple and Microsoft can do it. We should expect the same service from a company as big as Google or Samsung or LG. Problems with component vendors or profit margins may be valid, but that’s for the billion dollar companies to sort out and do whatever it takes.

We deserve better, and we deserve to be able to keep a $900 phone as long as we want. It would also mean we’ll probably buy the same brand next time because we feel like we were taken care of. There is competition between the companies for more than just specs or screen resolution when it comes to our gadgets, and it needs to be just as important as how much RAM your next phone will have.