The Morning After: Monday, August 7th

Welcome to the new week. Confuse self-driving cars with stickers, fool your body into accepting organ transplants and more future-hacks in our weekend catch-up. Good luck with your Monday!

It doesn’t take much to send autonomous cars crashing into each other.
You can confuse self-driving cars by altering street signs

While car makers and regulators are mostly worried about the possibility of self-driving car hacks, University of Washington researchers are concerned about a more practical threat: defaced street signs. They’ve learned that it’s relatively easy to throw off an autonomous vehicle’s image-recognition system by strategically using stickers to alter street signs. If attackers know how a car classifies the objects it sees (such as target photos of signs), they can generate stickers to trick the car into believing a sign really means something else.

Your body can’t reject what it doesn’t detect.
Nanoparticles fool your body into allowing organ transplants

Organ transplants are frequently life-saving, but they remain a gamble because the body can reject the new organ well after the initial surgery. Yale researchers have discovered a clever solution to this: Prevent the body from noticing the organ until it settles in. They’ve developed a drug-delivery system that uses nanoparticles to slowly supply small interfering RNA (siRNA) that stops the body’s white blood cells from attacking the organ as a foreign presence.

Configured for rocket-powered flight despite no rocket.
Virgin Galactic conducts a ‘dry run’ for rocket-powered flights

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (official name VSS Unity) has just completed its sixth test glide. The reusable spaceplane still has between two to nine more staged glides to go before the aerospace company moves on to rocket-propelled tests. But this one is special because it serves as a dry run for actual rocket-powered flights.

It probably supports more HDR modes than your TV
The next Apple TV will likely support 4K and HDR.

Remember that incredibly revealing HomePod firmware? Developer Guilherme Rambo has sifted through it to discover references to both 4K and HDR support in an upcoming Apple TV model. And the HDR support is particularly broad, too.

The electric SUV still isn’t a bargain, but…Tesla lowers the Model X’s price now it’s more profitable

It’s now a better deal.

But wait, there’s more…

• After Math: Showing and Growing
• Recommended reading: Pro-soccer players train with video games
• ‘Titanfall’ boss: Despite sales stumble, expect more from the series

Google cuts up to $200 off its Pixel phones

Google’s Pixel phone has been on the market for a while now, but it’s still one of the best handsets money can buy. If it’s something you’d like to own, but are put off by the price-tag, today is your lucky day. As 9to5Google reports, the search giant has given the phone a heavy discount in the Google Store. The base-level model with a 5-inch screen and 32GB of storage will now set you back $524, rather than $649. The larger XL handset starts at $569, which is $200 cheaper than its launch price of $769. Oh, and you also get a free Google Daydream headset, which normally costs $79, with every order. So you’re potentially saving close to $300.

The design is a little plain, especially in comparison to 2017 flagships such as the Samsung Galaxy S8 and LG G6. But it still rocks one of the best smartphone cameras on the market, and you’re getting that clean stock Android experience, along with the promise of timely software updates from Google. Inside, the phone packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor and 4GB of RAM, which is plenty powerful for most people. The caveat, of course, is that the Pixel 2 has been leaking all over the place recently. If you buy the original Pixel now, you might have some buyer’s remorse when its flashier successor comes along in a few months.

Via: 9to5Google

Source: Google Store

Falcon Heavy: SpaceX teases November launch of ‘world’s most powerful rocket’

Why it matters to you

The massive rocket forms a key part of SpaceX’s plan for crewed missions into deep space, so all eyes will be on its first-ever launch.

Elon Musk, a man who could soon be at risk of having more pies than fingers, is turning his attention toward November’s debut launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket.

SpaceX, the private space company headed by Musk, touts the Falcon Heavy as “the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two.” So, yes, November’s launch is a big deal.

Over the weekend, the billionaire entrepreneur — who also has electric car and subterranean transportation projects on the go, among others — started to drum up excitement for the historic Falcon Heavy launch by posting an animation showing how the triple-barrel contraption might look when it fires up its engines.

Although widely reported as a new animation, it’s actually a shorter version of one published by SpaceX a while back. Musk posted the edited clip on Instagram over the weekend.

First draft animation of the Falcon Heavy three core launch. FH is twice the thrust of the next largest rocket currently flying and ~2/3 thrust of the Saturn V moon rocket. Lot that can go wrong in the November launch …

A post shared by Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on Aug 4, 2017 at 3:00am PDT

The animation shows the massive three-booster Falcon Heavy leaving the launchpad before various separation processes begin. It closes with two of the booster cores returning to Earth, landing pretty much alongside each other. The third lands a short while later. SpaceX’s system has been designed to enable the reuse of rockets to vastly reduce the cost of space travel.

Musk noted alongside his Instagram post that there’s much that can go wrong with the launch. The cautiousness is borne from experience, with the CEO’s team of engineers having suffered a slew of setbacks as it worked toward perfecting the launch and landing of its less powerful Falcon 9 rocket over the last few years.

Musk said recently that going from the single-core Falcon 9 to a triple-core vehicle has been “shockingly difficult,” but the company’s past achievements suggest that even if they don’t get the Heavy’s launch and landing right first time, the team will nail it before too long.

The “beast”

The 230-feet-tall (70 meters) Falcon Heavy is, by any standards, a beast. In fact, Musk has used that very word to describe the rocket.

“Its first stage is composed of three Falcon 9 nine-engine cores whose 27 Merlin engines together generate more than 5 million pounds of thrust at lift-off, equal to approximately eighteen 747 aircraft,” SpaceX says on its website.

While the Falcon 9 is designed for shorter missions, its big brother “restores the possibility of flying missions with crew to the moon or Mars,” SpaceX said.

New computer models could direct scientists to epic cosmic events

Now that they’re spotting gravitational waves more often, scientists are expanding their search for cosmic events. Specifically, they’re using new computer models to depict the cataclysmic collision that occurs when a black hole joins a neutron star (the remnants of an exploded star). The simulations will help detectors track down the actual mergers using telescopes and advanced versions of LIGO (the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory).

The visualizations — carried out by a team of researchers at Berkeley Lab — show an ejection of radioactive matter during the fusion. Although black holes can swallow neutron stars whole, sometimes the process releases the exotic matter packed inside the formerly giant stars. This can include gold, platinum, and a range of radioactive elements (estimated to range up to about one-tenth of the mass of the sun). Unleashed into space, this matter then mutates into a kind of radioactive waste, the glow from which can be seen from more than a hundred million light years away.

The resulting observable glimmer, known as a “kilonova,” is the so-called needle in a haystack for astronomers. Separate simulations also show the first milliseconds (thousandths of a second) in the merger, and the disk of material that forms rapidly after it.

The new computer models are intended to help astronomers hone in on the gravitational wave signals the mergers produce. Telescopes, too, can seek out the bursts of gamma-rays emitted by them. All with a little guidance, of course. “With improved models, we are better able to tell the observers exactly which flashes of light are the signals they are looking for,” said Daniel Kasen, a scientist in the Nuclear Science Division at Berkeley Lab. “This could also allow us to observe events that we have not even imagined,” he said.

Source: Berkeley Lab

Google slashes price of Pixel and Pixel XL by up to $200, throws in a free Daydream View

Grab the 32GB Pixel with Daydream View for just $524.

With the Pixel 2 on the horizon, Google has started offering lucrative discounts on the Pixel and Pixel XL. The 32GB Pixel is on sale for $524, a $125 discount from its retail price. The Pixel XL, meanwhile, is seeing a $200 decrease in price, and is now available for just $569 for the 32GB variant and $669 for the 128GB model. Google is also throwing in a free Daydream View with every order — just add the VR headset to your cart along with either the Pixel or Pixel XL.

Here’s the breakdown of the new pricing:

• 32GB Google Pixel – $524 – down from $649 ($125 off)
• 128GB Google Pixel – $624 – down from $749 ($125 off)
• 32GB Google Pixel XL – $569 – down from $769 ($200 off)
• 128GB Google Pixel XL – $669 – down from $869 ($200 off)

Google mentions that the free Daydream View promotion is valid only until supplies last. If you’re interested in either the Pixel or Pixel XL, now is the time to act.

See at Google Store

Asteroid family is as old as the Solar System itself

To date, astronomers haven’t seen asteroid families (that is, asteroids with a common source) in the Solar System older than about 3 billion years — well after the star system came to be 4.5 billion years ago. However, they’ll have to rethink their expectations. Researchers studying asteroid data (including infrared radiation from the WISE space telescope) have found an asteroid family that’s over 4 billion years years old, and likely as old as the Solar System itself. The trick was to both rule out existing asteroid families and look for the telltale signs of a very, very old group of rocks.

As Gizmodo notes, the scientists used a process of elimination to focus their attention on the handful of asteroids that couldn’t be linked to families, but shared similar albedos (reflection factor). It wasn’t hard to tell that they were ‘dark’ asteroids whose primitive material composition and large size indicated they were born in the Solar System’s early days, when huge collisions were par for the course.

The findings at once validate and challenge notions of what the early Solar System was like. They support the notion of a far larger asteroid belt with some of the larger planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) closer to the Sun. However, they also raise questions: what does it mean that asteroids formed when the Solar System looked much different than it does now? And what can we learn about the very beginnings of our cosmic home? There’s a lot more work to be done to get better answers, but this is an intriguing start.

Via: Gizmodo

Source: Science

Everyone is crazy for Ethereum, but Bitcoin is still the beast to beat

We’ve come a long way in the eight years since Bitcoin’s original release. Back in 2009, when the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto launched the cryptographically verified digital asset, it was just a curiosity. With time, though, new uses have been found for it, from buying drugs, to transferring money near-instantaneously across the globe. Its value has peaked and troughed to reach considerable worth today – right now, a single Bitcoin is worth almost $2,800, close to its record high of $2,964.

The success of Bitcoin has inspired many imitators. That includes the classics, like Litecoin and Dogecoin, along with more contemporary and serious alternatives, like Ethereum and Zcash. They’re all subtly different, and often more volatile, than their Bitcoin foundation.

There’s now more than 900 cryptocurrencies in the wild. While many of them hog attention with their potential for larger earnings on less upfront investment, differing features, or philosophy, their futures still rest in the hands of that cryptocurrency created way back in 2009.

They are all built off the same core technology as Bitcoin, and susceptible to the same whims of human nature.

Bitcoin: The foundation and face of cryptocurrency empires

“Bitcoin underpins and backs up the entire crypto economy. When Bitcoin falls, the rest fall, when Bitcoin rises, the rest rise,” the host of the Bitcoin News Show, Vortex, told Digital Trends. “The alt coins are simply an extension of Bitcoin, most of them are even based on its source code.”

“Nothing like bitcoin could ever emerge again as the path to its inception is absolutely unique.”

There’s many “alt coins,” most with a unique spin. Some use different cryptographic hash functions, others build in smart contracting functionality, while others look to be more centralized. Yet at their core, they are all built around similar technology to Bitcoin, which is partly why their pasts and futures have been, and are, so dependent on the first mainstream cryptocurrency.

“Bitcoin will remain the digital gold that backs up the entire crypto-economy,” Vortex told us. “Nothing like bitcoin could ever emerge again as the path to its inception is absolutely unique. It was created anonymously with no pre-mine, no intent for profit, no attachment to any corporation, and essentially donated to the community by its founder.”

Although there have been some stumbling blocks over the years, with minor changes required to keep Bitcoin functioning as it should, it’s organic growth, and the lack of a desire to drive profit for its creators, that make Bitcoin so unique.

A quick look at the value charts shows that Bitcoin is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition. Its value was, at the time this article was published, four times greater than the nearest competition. That suggests a confidence in the long-standing currency that is far grander than its contemporaries.

Part of that comes from its very value, which makes large fluctuations in its worth less likely. It’s a sturdier investment than many other currencies – though that doesn’t mean it isn’t susceptible to fluctuation. Its price today is close to double what it was at the start of the year.

NurPhoto/Getty Images

Bitcoin also acts as the face of the industry. It’s the original, most publicized, and close to a household name. That means first time investors are likely to consider it over other, more obscure investments. In turn, this popularity gives Bitcoin influence over its competitors. When the world sees Bitcoin doing well, other currencies usually benefits, too.

“The entire cryptocurrency market often moves up or down based on what’s happening with Bitcoin,” said Stewart Dennis, CEO of cryptocurrency email system Bitbounce. “If Bitcoin’s value continues to appreciate, that bodes well for the future of other currencies.”

That may leave graphics card manufacturers shaking in their boots.

A fork in the road?

Predicting the future appreciation of Bitcoin is difficult. As we have seen over the past couple of years, it can tumble back down following major world events. China’s decision to ban financial institutions from using Bitcoin in 2013 saw the currency nearly halve in value over a few weeks. Hacks of major Bitcoin exchange services, and speculative bubbles, have led to other temporary downturns in its fortunes.

“If Bitcoin’s value continues to appreciate, that bodes well for the future of other currencies.”

Of course, there’s always the competition looking to use one of these disruptions to make an attempt on the crown. The latest is Bitcoin Cash, a “hard-fork” from Bitcoin, designed to offer larger capacity than its predecessor to reduce transaction fees. Does it stand to find success as an alternative top-tier currency where others have failed?

“Anyone at any time can fork Bitcoin as it is open source,” Vortex told us, dismissively. “This is what Litecoin and many other coins did. They forked Bitcoin, tweaked a few things, and called it something else.”

The only difference with Bitcoin Cash, he claims, is that it’s the first currency to attempt to use the original Bitcoin name. Although Bitcoin Cash has quickly become one of the more valuable cryptocurrencies ($400 at the time of writing), Vortex points out that it does not have much support.

“It only has two developers [and] is highly centralized and controlled. The core [Bitcoin] developers want nothing to do with it,” he said.

For the sake of argument, though, let’s assume Bitcoin Cash is successful, or some major calamity caused Bitcoin to fail and fall from grace. What would happen to the market then?

“If Bitcoin were to fall, faith in crypto itself would be lost for many years, at least as a store of value,” Vortex told us. “As a currency however, it would still flourish. Gold is what made and broke nations for thousands of years. Digital gold, or Bitcoin, is what will make or break nations for the next thousand years.”

Others, like BitBounce’s CEO, believe that the market itself would recover much more quickly, and that some other coin that would pick up the reins where Bitcoin left off.

“A [Bitcoin] calamity would cause other cryptocurrencies to lose significant value in the short-term,” he said. “But in the medium to long term, it could create an opening for currencies such as Ether to become the most valuable cryptocurrency.”

Predicting the future with Bitcoin’s past

Although Bitcoin’s future remains a little uncertain, we can draw something from its past. As the cryptocurrency with the greatest longevity and the most proven track record, we use it to get an idea of what may happen to its younger competitors as they grow and mature.

At the time of writing, Ethereum is one of the more popular, vogue currencies, and in terms of its market capital, is second only to Bitcoin, even if it does trail it by a significant margin. Though it has suffered a recent downturn in value, it reached a new high less than a month ago, peaking just shy of $400 per Ether.

If we look at a graph of its growth and fall and compare that to Bitcoin’s earliest peaks in 2013, the similarities are hard to ignore. The only difference is that Ether has yet to recover in quite the same manner as Bitcoin. While there are no guarantees of such a thing happening, Bitbounce’s Dennis believes it will soon.

Bitcoin value graph

Ethereum value graph

“Bitcoin has repeatedly appreciated to an all-time high and then corrected to a lower price for a while, before eventually reaching an even greater high. I see similar trends with other younger currencies,” he told DigitalTrends.

Indeed, Dennis sees those currencies one day even eclipsing that of Bitcoin.

“Bitcoin is still important because it started everything and has the widest adoption. However, Bitcoin’s dominance has been fading. Before too long, I expect other currencies to become even more valuable, and have greater adoption than Bitcoin.”

The outcome of other currencies is far less certain.

Vortex, however, disagrees. While he believes that Bitcoin will continue to underpin cryptocurrencies and even worldwide economies in the forseeable future, the outcome of other currencies is far less certain.

“Nothing is predictable,” he said, but reiterated that Bitcoin’s fortunes will be reflected in those of others currencies.

While he does see that any sort of success in Bitcoin cash would be a potential indicator for more hard-fork currencies being created in the future, “that trick only works a few times” and will ultimately just bring more attention to the original currency that started it all. Bitcoin.

If this rundown has peaked your interest in Bitcoin and you’re thinking of investing in it, or any other cryptocurrency yourself, make sure to read our Bitcoin first time buyer’s guide. Cryptocurrency is a complicated topic, and it pays to be prepared.

Body sensor collects vital data by making you sweat

Medical sensors that sample your sweat are great, as they can accurately gather some of the data you’d get from blood without having to poke through your skin. There’s just one problem: this usually means going for a run or otherwise doing something taxing to produce that sweat. However, researchers have an elegant solution. They’ve devised a relatively small sensor (about the size of a Band-Aid) that stimulates the sweat glands on a small patch of skin so that you can get sweat data without exerting yourself. The device uses a tiny electrical current (0.2mA) to send carbachol, a chemical found in eyedrops, into the upper layer of your skin. From there, it’s just a matter of measuring the electrolytes concentrated in your sweat.

This is not only less invasive than a blood sample, it’s potentially much more practical. You can’t always take blood (a pilot isn’t about to try it mid-flight), and it’s not realistic to monitor blood continuously. With sweat, that’s not a problem — the scientists could track electrolytes for up to five hours at a time. That could be vital for tracking conditions where you need continuous data, such as the performance of an athlete, stress levels at a high-intensity job or a recent surgery patient.

The best part: this may be a practical reality sooner than you think. One of the researchers co-founded a company, Eccrine Systems, that’s in the midst of refining and commercializing the sweat-inducing sensor. There’s no guarantee that you’ll buy one off the shelf, but you may eventually wear it when some future doctor or coach needs your health stats.

Via: Reddit

Source: UC Magazine, RSC, Eccrine Systems

Find ‘Rick and Morty’ rants with a quote search engine

Rick and Morty is chock-full of quotable moments, so it would only make sense that someone would eventually find a way search every single word, wouldn’t it? Sure enough, it’s here. The creators of the Simpsons and Futurama search tools (Paul Kehrer, Sean Schulte and Allie Young) have trotted out Master of All Science, a web engine that lets you find any Rick and Morty line and create a meme or animated GIF to match. If you want to share the existential despair of a butter robot or understand why the entire series revolves around Mulan, you just have to punch in the right keywords.

As before, the team’s system revolves around tying closed caption text to hundreds of thousands of frames plucked from the show. In a sense, the Rick and Morty engine is the culmination of the developers’ work so far: it’s proof that their technology can search virtually any show where it was originally very Simpsons-specific. It’s even relatively quick to update (it has the latest shows as of this article). It can’t search for objects, alas, but it’s easy to imagine imagine TV networks using this engine to index their shows and let fans share their favorite moments.

Via: AV Club

Source: Master of All Science

In just two weeks, Virgin Galactic has completed two test flights

Why it matters to you

After multiple test flights, Virgin Galactic’s latest endeavor shows that rocket-powered flights are not too far off in the future.

It wasn’t so long ago that we were celebrating Virgin Galactic’s return to the skies after a two-year hiatus. And now, just over a year later, the company has conducted its sixth test glide with the VSS Unity. While we celebrated Virgin Galactic’s first couple test runs last December, this latest achievement is notable because it was a dry run for real rocket-powered flights. It carried propulsion components onboard, as well as 1,000 pounds of water to mimic the weight of fuel casing.

“Our major first today though was that with the exception of the rocket motor fuel grain, called the CTN (Case-Throat-Nozzle), we flew with all the spaceship’s principle propulsion components on-board and live,” Virgin Galactic announced. “This meant that Unity took off with her forward pressurant tank loaded with helium and for the first time, her centrally positioned Main Oxidizer Tank fully charged with nitrous oxide.”

The test is said to have gone “smoothly,” as Unity’s mothership, Eve, took both aircraft past 40,000 feet to the drop point. “After a clean separation from Eve and an approach-to-stall test, Unity’s tail-booms were raised into their re-entry position for the second time in flight,” Virgin Galactic noted. “Once back into the normal glide configuration, the pilots used the descent to execute the remaining test points, including a high-g pull-up maneuver and bank-to-bank rolls.”

Test flights in late 2016 certainly set the stage for an ambitious 2017, and already, Virgin Galactic has made good on its promise to run more tests. Last October, company president Mike Moses noted that Virgin Galactic would continue testing until it had completed all its test objectives, which could be done in approximately 10 flights.

“We’ll start slow,” Moses said in October of these yet-to-occur flights. At first, the SpaceShipTwo will only be accelerated to Mach 1 (it hasn’t hit that first sound barrier yet). “Once that’s under our belts, we’ll punch through to full duration, expand the envelope, and look at all the off-nominal conditions that can occur,” Moses concluded.

It’s yet to be determined when Virgin Galactic’s glider could begin commercial flights, but that certainly hasn’t stopped space enthusiasts from paying for a ticket beyond Earth’s atmosphere once SpaceShipTwo is ready to go. In fact, Virgin Galactic says, it has about 700 customers who have already signed up to be passengers. Who knows? Maybe you’ll want to join them.

Update: Virgin Galactic has conducted a successful dry run of a rocket-powered flight.