Yeast could hold the key to custom-built DNA

Scientists have been playing with DNA for a long time, but now researchers are taking things a step further by building DNA from scratch in a bid to conquer life’s blueprint. An international team of 11 labs from four continents are working together to “rewrite” the yeast genome, a project which could reveal the hidden rules that govern the structure of all living things.

The controversial work, headed up by New York University, aims to enable scientists to create custom-made DNA codes. These could then be placed into living cells, changing how they function and giving valuable insight into disease. Much further down the line, scientists may even be able to create entirely new organisms. The right adjustments could also make yeast create new, efficient biofuels.

Also in the pipeline is redesigned DNA — a disconcerting idea on paper, as this would effectively allow scientists to create genetically-altered people. But this isn’t the team’s intention (although they do plan on consulting ethicists and the general public before they do it). Instead, the altered DNA would be inserted into cells for medical benefits, such as making the body better at pumping out pharmaceutical proteins, or to engineer stem cells as a safe source of lab-grown tissue needed for organ transplants.

The work is underway, but it will be a while time before we see it come to fruition. Rewriting the yeast genome is an enormous undertaking involving 12 million chemical links (the human genome has 3.2 billion). Once the new yeast genome has been created, the scientists will have added, removed or edited around one million DNA letters.

Via: Phys.org

Airbnb and NAACP partner to boost minority-hosted rentals

Airbnb is doing everything it can to repair its image after a racist host cancelled a reservation earlier this month. The next step of that is to help people of color rent out their homes or spare rooms. “Under the new partnership, Airbnb and the NAACP will conduct targeted outreach to communities of color to help more people use their homes to earn extra income,” the NAACP writes.

In addition to helping minority communities list their homes via the service, Airbnb will give 20 percent of what it makes from this to the NAACP. From there, the social justice organization will work with Airbnb to improve its workforce diversity and ensure that there are plenty of minority-listed homes.

The NAACP stresses that the money Airbnb shares won’t affect host pay-outs, and that even more news will be shared about the initiative in the near future. Now, this isn’t the direct result of the awful sub-letter, Airbnb has been pushing for diversity amongst its hosts. Last year, the company started requiring that hosts agree to anti-discrimination clauses after discovering that racism skewed rentals.

Source: NAACP

Audi, BMW and Mercedes cars will share live traffic jam data

It’s not too hard to find real-time traffic data, but it’s usually specific to one car make. Wouldn’t it be great if cars of all brands could regularly coordinate? They’re not quite there yet, but they’re getting closer. Here has unveiled a Real-Time Traffic service that has cars from Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz (all co-owners of Here) sharing their live sensor data to provide more accurate traffic alerts than you’d get from external probes alone. It’s particularly helpful on ‘arterial’ roads, Here says. And more than 30 of the 60-plus countries covered by the service can also take advantage of safety warnings based on sensor data you expect from incidents, such as hard braking to avoid a crash.

Partners will have to adopt the service for it to be useful, but it’s open to new customers from any industry, not just the automotive world. It’s easy to imagine cities drawing on Here’s info to adjust traffic light patterns and adjust roadways, while ridesharing companies and navigation app developers could use it to provide better arrival time estimates. Even if you don’t drive, you might notice the improvements in the years ahead.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Here

Overwatch League pro players will earn at least $50,000 a year

Activision Blizzard is taking Overwatch eSports seriously. The Overwatch League begins next year and it completely transforms the face of professional play, tying teams to specific cities around the world and establishing a baseline of player protections, including minimum salaries and benefits. But, Blizzard has kept most details of its new system under wraps — until today.

Players in the Overwatch League will earn at least $50,000 a year and be guaranteed year-long contracts with their signing teams. Plus, organizations are required to provide health insurance and a retirement savings plan for each player, and at least 50 percent of all bonuses the team earns in tournaments and events will be distributed directly to the players. This isn’t chump change: Teams will be vying for a bonus pool of $3.5 million in the first season, with the year’s champions taking home at least $1 million.

Blizzard also outlined how teams will fill their rosters. There are seven confirmed Overwatch League teams around the world — Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Miami-Orlando, San Francisco, Shanghai and Seoul — with more to be announced in the future. Even though some of these spots were bought out by eSports organizations with previously established Overwatch teams, no one person is guaranteed a slot in the Overwatch League. Instead, every Overwatch player of a high enough skill level and age is eligible to participate in the professional scene, opening the door for a wave of fresh professionals.

In June, the Overwatch League conducted an email survey with top Overwatch players from around the world. This data will be gathered in a scouting report for teams, so they can potentially pluck new, highly skilled players out of obscurity.

The first-ever Overwatch League player-signing window will run from August 1st to October 30th. All teams, even ones that join the League during the signing window, will be able to negotiate contracts at this time.

“It’s important to note that this system for selecting players will be unique to the League’s first season,” Blizzard says. “In future seasons, the pre-season player signing process will be updated to serve the needs of an established league, its teams, players and fans.”

Traditional sports teams are diving into eSports and game studios are finally implementing critical regulations designed to make the industry last. Compare Blizzard’s plan to the changes Riot Gams recently laid out for the professional League of Legends scene: Player salaries start at $75,000 next year (plus bonuses based on performance and contribution to the league), and there are a raft of perks built into a new Players’ Association.

These protections are crucial for eSports’ stability going forward, as many professional Overwatch and League of Legends players get their start while still in high school. With a renewed, serious focus on player health and longevity, it’s starting to feel like eSports are here to stay.

Source: Activision Blizzard

Disney plans to make augmented reality a shared experience

Augmented and mixed reality experiences tend to be solo affairs: you’re either looking at your phone or wearing a headset. For Disney Research, that’s not nearly social enough. Its scientists have created the Magic Bench, a blend of augmented and mixed reality that entire groups can share. It uses the combination of a camera and a depth sensor to produce a 3D recreation of you and the bench, letting virtual characters and objects interact with you as if they were there. And the seating is key to this — it can tell the system how many people are present, where they’re facing, and vibrate when a digital actor sits down. The activity you participate in depends directly on how many people are involved and what they’re doing.

Everyone involved can see what they’re doing through a mirrored projection of the room, so they don’t have to wear headsets or other devices.

Given that this is coming from Disney’s research team, it’s easy to see the entertainment uses for the Magic Bench: you could have theme park attractions where numerous guests can play with their favorite animated heroes. There are some practical uses, though. You could have shared virtual interfaces, or presentations that change depending on who’s attending. The big challenge is creating a shared experience that doesn’t depend on a prop — you’d need more advanced techniques to base an activity solely on the people within the scene.

Via: EurekAlert

Source: Disney Research

Bitcoin grows up and gets its first federally regulated exchange

Bitcoin is set to be given the same financial safeguards as traditional assets. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has granted LedgerX, a cryptocurrency trading platform operator, approval to become the first federally regulated digital currency options exchange and clearinghouse in the US.

Despite reaching dizzying new highs this year — and overtaking the value of gold — Bitcoin has so far gone unregulated. LedgerX’s new role will allow investors to hedge against price swings in digital currencies in the same way that traditional assets are protected.

The move supports the Bitcoin community’s efforts to attract a broader user base while cementing its position in the financial markets — something a number of investment companies and prominent traders are keen to see. LedgerX plans to offer one- to six-month bitcoin-to-dollar options contracts from late September to early October, with plans to add other digital currencies soon after.

Via: Bloomberg

Source: US Commodity Futures Trading Commission

Facebook pledges funding to non-profit election security group

Just last week, Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center launched Defending Digital Democracy, an across-the-aisles bipartisan effort to find ways to protect against election hacking. The group includes campaign managers from Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns as well Google and Facebook security staffers. A new report on Reuters says that Facebook will also provide an initial funding of $500,000 to the nonprofit.

Facebook’s chief of security Alex Stamos announced the initial amount during the opening of the Black Hat information security conference in Las Vegas, but did not reveal how much Facebook would spend in total. “Right now we are the founding sponsor, but we are in discussions with other tech organizations,” Stamos told Reuters before the speech. “The goal for our money specifically is to help build a standalone ISAO (Information Sharing and Analysis Organization) that pulls in all the different groups that have some kind of vulnerability.”

The social network’s security chief also encouraged companies to be open to complying with law enforcement requests, as across-the-board rejection of such requests could lead to encryption-unfriendly legislation. “We’re not going to be effective unless we demonstrate that we have the same goals,” said Stamos in his speech. “I want to present our position that strong cryptography is a critical part of building a safe, trustworthy future.”

We’ve reached out to Facebook for comment on this matter and will update the post when we hear back.

Source: Reuters

Google tests your tolerance for autoplaying video

Google is testing the scourge of Facebook and Twitter, autoplaying videos, in its searches. The SEM Post noticed some result pages started included them, specifically when searching for upcoming films. Trailers for the respective movies appeared in the right-hand sidebar next to Google’s list of results as is typical, but these started playing automatically.

“We are constantly experimenting with ways to improve the Search experience for our users, but have no plans to announce at this time,” a Google spokesperson told Engadget.

Google confirmed it was conducting a test with movie trailers for a limited period of time. For now, the company says it has no plans to make the addition a permanent fixture in your search results.

It’s notable that the autoplayed ads The SEM Post noticed ran silently: back in February, Facebook confirmed that it would soon add sound to the videos it automatically plays in users’ News Feeds. While that feature hasn’t been fully rolled out, it hovers on the edge of every Facebook user’s fear, haunting them with the possibility the internet will return to the nightmare mid-aughts when pages blared audio without permission. We’ll wait to see whether Google cozens to the idea or leaves it alone.

Via: The Guardian

Source: The SEM Post

Google drops Instant Search to unify mobile and desktop queries

Google introduced the by-now familiar Instant Search back in 2010. The idea was to make searching faster by updating the results of your search in real time while you typed. Now the company is dropping the feature, according to SearchEngineLand, to bring it more in line with mobile search. The change is effective today.

More than half of all Google searches happen on mobile, so it makes sense that Google would want to unify the way results are displayed across all devices. While you’ll still be able to see search suggestions, the results below won’t update until you click on Enter or a result, says SearchEngineLand.

“We launched Google Instant back in 2010 with the goal to provide users with the information they need as quickly as possible, even as they typed their searches on desktop devices,” a Google spokesperson told Engadget in an email. “Since then, many more of our searches happen on mobile, with very different input and interaction and screen constraints. With this in mind, we have decided to remove Google Instant, so we can focus on ways to make Search even faster and more fluid on all devices.”

Source: SearchEngineLand

Google is spending $50 million to modernize the job hunt

Google.org is investing $50 million to alter how we think about work. From throwing money at training in in-demand fields like coding, to simply making life easier for people in low-wage positions, Mountain View is looking to the future. For example, the internet juggernaut knows that college isn’t for everyone, so it’s working on a tool so people can easily compare vocational and technical training programs. Google hasn’t specified how such a system will work, or how many training providers will be included, but in theory it’d put tech-ed programs alongside one another so you could find out which would suit your needs or offer the skills needed to land a job in your current city.

Missing a day of work can dramatically alter a paycheck, so Google has partnered with the National Domestic Workers Alliance and its Alia program to assist low-income workers. Contributing a “small” amount of money each month means that if you’re hurt, Alia will supplement your income so a sick day doesn’t sting your checking account so badly. It sounds a lot like what Geico offers — passive income when you’re not able to clock in to work.

And to help people find jobs in the first place, Google is giving money to French company Bayes Impact, which uses machine learning to analyze job-seeking strategies and listings to make finding your dream position less of a grind.

Coupled with Google Hire, it hints that the firm might be ahead of the curve when it comes to modern employment.

Source: Google