Russia hopes to launch its own digital currency

Russia has been talking openly about the prospect of creating its own cryptocurrency, and it looks like the country might turn those words into action. Local news outlets report that Communications Minister Nikolay Nikiforov has confirmed plans to launch a state-controlled digital currency. Don’t expect to generate virtual rubles with your PC any time soon, though. While it would use blockchain to decentralize control and improve trust, you reportedly can’t mine it — instead, it’d be issued and tracked like conventional money. This would theoretically let Russia boost its internet economy without tying the fate of its currency to other countries or third-party brokers.

You could readily exchange digital coins for conventional money, although officials would reportedly require a proof of origin if you wanted to avoid a 13 percent tax meant to discourage money laundering and other dirty tricks.

There’s no mention of a time frame for launching this money, but Nikiforov apparently believes Russia can’t afford to wait. If it doesn’t introduce its own currency, neighbors in Asia and Europe will make their own move “after 2 months,” he said. That’s clearly hyperbolic, but there are reasons for Russia to be nervous. China has been cracking down on cryptocurrency in part because it saw speculators selling off the yuan in favor of bitcoins — Russia probably doesn’t want to see that happen on its own soil. Officials have already called for tight regulations on existing virtual cash.

There are concerns that Russia would be effectively profiting from fraudsters with the 13 percent tax: hey, we’ll look the other way as long as you give us a cut. Short of an outright ban on competing currencies, though, there would be nothing to stop criminals from simply relying on a different currency instead. Rather, this would repeat a familiar strategy of keeping technology on a tight leash so that it can’t be used to undermine authority.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: CoinTelegraph

‘Hovering’ antennas promise speedy 5G phone networks

Wireless networks already have to deal with increasingly crowded waves, and that’s only going to get worse when 5G rolls around. Any boost to the signal could lead to a big jump in performance, especially when you’re using very high frequencies that are more prone to interference. But how do you provide that boost? Researchers have an idea: ‘hover’ the antenna. They’ve developed millimeter wave antenna arrays that are almost entirely separated from the substrate you’d usually mount them on, preventing that substrate from weakening the signal like it does with conventional antennas.

They’ll also amplify the signal beyond that: new 3D printing techniques promise “lens” structures that focus and boost whatever signal comes out of the array.

The technology is still young, and there’s no mention of if or when it’ll come to market. However, it could be crucial to 5G and the next wave of broadband. It’ll be particularly vital for cellphones in cities, where a strong signal is crucial to overcoming crowded airspace, but it could also be helpful for bringing gigabit internet access to more homes. Instead of wiring whole neighborhoods with expensive and hard-to-deploy fiber optic lines, you could use these antennas to deliver fixed wireless with relatively little effort.

Source: RF Globalnet

Your home could be powered by solar powered batteries in the near future

Why it matters to you

Though still not widely accepted or utilized, solar power has been proving itself with its use during recent disasters.

Solar power is taking off in a big way as more and more Americans turn to renewable energy sources. However, the tech isn’t without its flaws. One of the main problems is that solar panels only generate power at certain times, and those times aren’t always in line with the needs of homeowners. Some states, such as California and Arizona, see an abundance of solar energy produced during the day, but that production falls off in the evening when power usage is at its highest. This can be a problem for both consumers and utility companies alike. That doesn’t mean there aren’t solutions to this problem. There are consumers who rely on such solutions every day to power their smartphones. We’re talking about batteries, of course.

The Wall Street Journal reported a rise in a number of start-ups supplying solar-powered batteries to utility companies and homeowners. These batteries have the possibility of saving consumers money in the long term, though “for the overwhelming majority of homeowners, the payback on a solar power system with battery storage could take decades.”

That’s not to say that solar-powered batteries are without benefits. The most obvious use for them would be to function as generators in the event that your power goes out thanks to a disaster or other disruption in service. During the fallout from Irma, Fast Company reported on the benefits of such batteries.

“We didn’t have full power — we couldn’t have the whole house running — but we cut it down to the bare minimum, like air conditioning, refrigeration, internet, that sort of thing,” said Andy Green, of Orlando, Florida, who had a Telsa Powerwall battery installed in his home.

Beyond those practical benefits, the WSJ cited the “American” appeal of such batteries, despite the fact that Europe is heavily embracing such technologies, by discussing the fact that these promote independence and decreases people’s reliance on the grid.

While these batteries still have a long way to go, there are some developments that are embracing them. Mandalay Homes has announced a plan to build 4,000 energy-efficient homes that will feature 8 kilowatt-hour batteries from battery make Sonnen. It is clear that these technologies have a long way to go, but they are becoming more and more common.

Get the band back together in the new ‘Call of Duty: WWII’ live-action trailer

Why it matters to you

The live-action trailers for Call of Duty games are always humerous and well-made, and this year’s no different.

The Call of Duty game trailers have settled into a rather predictable routine by now — you’ve got the cinematic story mode trailer, the multiplayer reveal, and of course the inevitable zombies. Always with the zombies. On top of that, there’s the pretty cool live-action trailer, almost a miniature film (some directed by top Hollywood talent, in fact), that contains no game footage at all. Who can forget Jimmy Kimmel’s “n00b tube”?

This time it’s a fairly clever premise, with the theme being “Get your squad back together,” in a montage reminiscent of Ocean’s 11 or The Blues Brothers. Now that the series is returning to its World War II roots, you need to go round up the old gang, grab some controllers, and head back into battle one last time. The trailer is scored by the Royal Blood single Figure It Out.

In an interesting twist, Activision has also released two different versions of the trailer for our friends across the pond. The setup is the same, but it features completely different characters and situations with a European flavor  — that guy in the courtroom looks like someone straight out of a Guy Ritchie film. Check out the British version of the trailer below (there is also a French trailer).

After the poor reception of Infinite Warfare, Activision went back to its glory days with the World War II setting, and that’s probably a good decision. We recently got to spend a few hours in the trenches with Call of Duty: WWII, and found it to be a comforting return to a classic old-school shooter. The squad mechanics in the story mode are an interesting addition, and the objective-driven goals in the “War” multiplayer mode emphasize team goals rather than running and gunning. Here’s everything we know so far, and we’ll have lots more coverage when the game releases in November.

The single-player story mode of COD: WWII takes place in the aftermath of the D-Day invasion and follows the U.S. Army’s First Infantry Division during the march to Berlin in 1944 and 1945. Fans got an early taste at some of the multiplayer aspects with the betas for PlayStation 4 and PC.

Call of Duty: WWII will launch worldwide for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on November 3, 2017.

Microsoft built a trio of treehouse for its employees on its Washington campus

Why it matters to you

Companies like Microsoft are going to great lengths to ensure their employees are working in the best conditions.

Microsoft is known for offering unique perks to its employees, and now the company has built treehouse workspaces for its employees, as part of its growing “outdoor districts.” Microsoft wrote all about its new outdoor meeting spaces in a recent blog post.

All of the treehouses, three in total, were put together by Pete Nelson of the TV show Treehouse Masters. Two treehouses are currently open and one, which is a sheltered lounge space, is set to open later this year. All are built on on Microsoft’s 500-acre Washington campus and, best of all, they are open to all employees. It’s all part of a new system of technology-enabled outdoor spaces connected to the buildings around the campus.  This also allows employees to work in new and creative ways.

Verified! The Microsoft treehouse is real! (And cool.) #microsoftlife pic.twitter.com/2FF0xhOaVX

— Joe Belfiore (@joebelfiore) October 13, 2017

“People said, given the opportunity, they would work more outside,” said Bret Boulter, who was leading the project and works in Microsoft’s real estate and facilities division. “The first thing when you walk into the space is that everyone is really quiet. You stop talking and are just present. It’s fascinating. People absorb the environment, and it changes the perception of their work and how they can do it.”

This is all based on research that suggests more exposure to outdoor-settings increases one’s work productivity, focus and creativity. So there are indeed some professional benefits to working in nature. A summary of some of these studies can be found on a page from the University of Washington.

The treehouses are more than 12 feet off the ground, and feature amenities like skylights, charred-wood walls, fireplace, at least one gas fireplace, wooden canopies, an outdoor network for Wi-Fi, as well as some hidden electrical outlets. Microsoft employees are even able to get something to eat at an outdoor extension of the indoor cafeteria. The buildings are built to last for at least 20 years, and are made to expand as the trees continue to grow.

Some companies have made the decision to create more green indoor spaces that function much like outdoor spaces. The treehouse spaces that Microsoft put together are truly unique. This is just one more example of Microsoft continuing to push the envelope forward.

This microwave-based hard drive will offer 40 terabytes of storage

Why it matters to you

This hard drive offers massive storage space for the data-heavy user.

In terms of hard drives, solid-state drives are popular, including with us, because they offer speed and reliability within a smaller package than other hard drives. Those advantages do come with a trade-off when compared to older disc-based drives, namely a lack of storage capacity. SSDs simply can’t store as much information as disc-based drives. Western Digital is one of the companies that has led the way in terms of disc-based drives. BGR reports that the manufacturer recently unveiled a new technology that could help disc-based drives maintain their dominance for years to come.

WD is currently working on the production of microwave-assisted magnetic recording, or MAMR. This new technology promises to be ideal for data centers and other ventures where storage capacity, rather than speed, are the most important factors. By 2025, the company expects to have an MAMR that can store up to 40TB of data. According to Western Digital’s blog, the company believes that MAMR represents the future of data center storage.

“The company recently innovated a breakthrough in material and process that provides the required reliable and predictable performance, as well as the manufacturability to accelerate areal density and cost improvements to an estimated average of 15 percent per year,” the blog reads. “Developments in the other energy-assisted technology, specifically, heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), present new material science and reliability challenges that are not a factor in MAMR. Only MAMR demonstrates the reliability and cost profile that meets the demands of data center operators.”

The technology is certainly impressive and, if it works as promised, it will prove popular with data-heavy businesses. That being said, we imagine many consumers will prefer the faster options available from SSDs. Consumer hard drives are fairly affordable right now, so we believe that most people, especially gamers, would rather have a couple of fast hard drives than one large, slow hard drive.

Seagate, another major data storage technology manufacturer, unveiled the Seagate Game Drive for Xbox SSD last year. The device is an external solid-state storage solution built specifically for Microsoft’s Xbox One console. Seagate also offers a portable SSD built for PlayStation 4 and PS3 consoles.

Politifact inadvertently hosted a digital currency miner

You might expect a pirate website to use something as shady as a secret cryptocurrency miner, but that’s now becoming a problem with above-board sites — and it’s not on purpose. Politifact visitors have discovered that the site was inadvertently hosting JavaScript code that hijacked your processor to mine virtual coins. The fact checker tells TechCrunch that it has removed the code and is investigating just how it got there, but it’s more than a little alarming that such a popular page (3.2 million views per month) could be susceptible to parasitic code that bogs down your PC.

While the culprits aren’t known at this point, they used familiar tactics. The JavaScript relied on CoinHive, a third-party service that makes these web-based currency miners possible.

It’s not hard for sites to fend off these hidden mining operations, and you can thwart them yourself by running script blockers like NoScript or, well, closing the browser tab. However, the Politifact incident suggests that these miners are becoming more of a widespread problem. Hackers have realized that they don’t necessarily need to compromise your PC or run a phishing scam to make a tidy profit — they just have to slip their code into a site and watch the digital money roll in. That’s better for your personal security, but it could also make web surfing a hassle as opportunists bog down your system for the sake of a little cash.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Reddit, The Register

Coal power plant closures ramp up in spite of White House plans

The Trump administration may hope that it can reverse coal power’s decline by ending the Clean Power Plan and other eco-friendly efforts, but the industry’s moves suggest otherwise. Luminant has announced plans to close three major coal plants in Texas (in Freestone, Milam and Titus counties) between January and February of 2018. The shutdowns will take a combined 4,200MW of power off the grid — enough to run over 4 million homes, as Reuters notes. The news boosts the expected capacity of 2018 power plant closures to over 13,600MW, or a whopping 79 percent more than the known closures for this year. It’s not a record high (nearly 18,000MW went offline in 2015), but it’s clear that the trend is toward more closures, not fewer.

Luminant isn’t shy about the reasons for the decisions, which will unfortunately lead to roughly 950 people losing their jobs. It blames an “oversupplied” renewable energy market, but it also points to low prices for both natural gas and wholesale electricity. These coal plants haven’t been money-makers for a while, and there was nothing to suggest the market was about to turn around.

These latest closures illustrate the problems the White House faces with its plans to challenge the “war on coal” (as EPA head Scott Pruitt called it) by removing Obama-era regulations and policies. The decision to scrap the Clean Power Plan may have reduced pressure to lower carbon emissions, but that doesn’t matter if it’s no longer financially viable to run a given coal plant regardless of its emission levels. Simply put, the recent trend suggests that coal may be on an irreversible slide, and that clean energy tech like solar is still the future.

Via: Reuters

Source: Luminant (1), (2)

Apple considering a stylus compatible version of the iPhone for next year

Why it matters to you

Apple has never made a stylus-compatible before so this could be a game changer.

Apple is considering creating a new version of the Apple Pencil for an upcoming version of the iPhone. The Korea Herald has reported that sources close to to the company said that “Apple is preparing to launch the phone as early as 2019.”

Apple debuted the Apple Pencil in 2015 and has been a staple of the iPad Pro ever since. However, the company has never released one that is compatible with the iPhone. Apple’s reluctance to create an iPhone-compatible stylus likely has to do with Steve Jobs’ distaste for styluses. The Apple founder was known for his hatred of styluses and once reportedly said “God gave us 10 styluses. Let’s not invent another.”

While Jobs may have had an aversion to styluses, it’s clear that other tech companies and, more importantly, tech consumers, do not. The disaster that was the exploding Note 7 aside, Samsung’s Galaxy Note series has consistently sold well and styluses, in general, have proven popular with many people, especially artists.

The stylus for the Samsung Galaxy Note 8’s stylus was made in a partnership with Wacom, a company well-known for its stylus and tablets geared towards artists. While the Note 8 is more of a business-oriented, our review revealed that the Note 8 still worked well for drawing.

We don’t know who will make Apple’s new stylus, but the Korea Herald’s reports indicate that the stylus-compatible version of the iPhone will have some major differences from Samsung’s line Note phones. The Note 8’s stylus was made using electromagnetic resonance, which requires additional panels under the phone’s screen. Apple’s stylus will reportedly be a supercapacitor stylus, which is less expensive to make.

“A supercapacitor type is cheaper to make compared to the EMR stylus. It also offers a more pen-like feel,” one of the Herald’s sources said.

Another obstacle facing Apple is that there A-series line of mobile hardware will likely need an upgrade in order to support handwriting and drawing features on the smartphone. This was reportedly a problem for the iPhone X, where Apple was forced to reduce the touch-screen’s performance in order to make up for the fact that it had to use an older chipset.

Octopus and their camouflage techniques inspired this cool new morphing material

Why it matters to you

This new morphing material could make for next-generation camouflage or even disappearing surfaces.

If James Bond were an animal, doubtless he’d be an octopus. Sure, these tentacled sea dwellers may not seem like the most suave of animals, but they certainly could serve as super spies. You see (or don’t see, in this case), a certain species of this cephalopod known as the mimic octopus does just that — it mimics things better than just about any other creature on Earth. Capable of changing colors and shapes, the octopus is apparently able to bear a striking resemblance to anything from a lion fish to a shrimp to an anemone. And now, humans are trying to create camouflage based on this remarkable animal.

A team of materials scientists and engineers at Cornell University, along with octopus expert Roger Hanlon from the Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts, have cracked the code of the mimic octopus with rubber and mesh. As per the results of their study published in Science, the team managed to create a “thin membrane that contorts into complex 3-D shapes — much like the shape-shifting skin of an octopus,” the Washington Post reports.

In just seconds, this membrane can mimic a potted plant, or a pile of stones. And when applied ore broadly, this invention could have major implications, from military camo to adaptable smart devices.

“For a few decades, scientists and engineers have been trying to control the shape of soft, stretchable materials,” said James Pikul, lead author of the paper, and an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania. To solve this longstanding problem, Pikul and the team cut a series of concentric rings into silicon rubber and mesh. This way, when the rubber was inflated, the membrane contorted based on the shape of the cuts.

“The width of the concentric rings determine how much radial stretch there is in the membrane,” Pikul told the Post. “This stretch is directly related to the slope of the inflated shape, so if you know your final shape, you can calculate the slope and match the ring patterns to that slope.”

While the material isn’t being widely used quite yet, Pikul says that he can imagine many different uses. “One of the things that we’re really interested is this idea of vanishing interfaces,” he told CBC News. If you think about your car’s dashboard, he noted, “It’s flat, it almost looks like leather and there’s not much there. If you had the material that we engineered, you could inflate it, and then coming out from that leather could be a joystick that you use to drive your car, or it could be a display. You’d have this cool interface — and when you don’t need it anymore, it disappears and looks like a dashboard again.”