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First-ever laser communications terminal to be tested on the Moon – SpaceFlight Insider

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Danzig

Tomasz Nowakowski

July 25th, 2017

Astrobotics Peregrine Lander will deliver a laser communications terminal built by ATLAS to the Moon. Image Credit: Astrobotic

ATLAS Space Operations Inc., a company specializing in cloud-based satellite management and control services, has announced that it will test the first-ever laser communications terminal on the lunar surface. The company has recently signed a contract with Astrobotic Technology Inc., which could see their system fly to the Moon in late 2019.

The terminal, under development by ATLAS, is expected to establish the worlds first laser communication link from the lunar surface. This could mark a significant breakthrough in terms of laser communications for planetary missions.

It is hoped this new system could serve to revolutionize deep space communications. Photo Credit: Mark Usciak / SpaceFlight Insider

Our main goal is to demonstrate the viability of a commercial laser communications capability from the lunar surface. This is a stepping-stone to establishing a permanent infrastructure in support of future lunar activity, Dan Carey, Director of Marketing at ATLAS Space Operations, told SpaceFlight Insider.

The terminal, which will be sent to the Moon on board Astrobotics Peregrine Lander, will carry out first the crucial tests for the development of this potentially ground-breaking technology. This hardware is intended to be a baseline for ATLAS future interplanetary communications technology. Carey noted that the tests on lunar surface will allow us to learn the hard lessons closer to home, on the Moon, before venturing beyond.

By sending its payload to the Moon ATLAS also aims to provide a platform for the public to access a virtual lunar experience. With this technology and lunar capability, the company would be able to provide the rest of humanity an experience that previously has been reserved for an elite class of explorers.

Organizations like NASA and MIT/Lincoln Labs are the ones who have developed the revolutionary technology. ATLAS is taking that technology and commercializing it for the advancement of human interest in space. Our company was founded on the ideal of making space accessible to all, Carey said.

The laser communications terminal is expected to weigh less than 22 pounds (10 kilograms) and will consume less than 60 W for up to 1.0 Gbps of data transfer to Earth. The ground segment of this system will be comprised of Earth Observation Stations, part of the International Laser Ranging Service adapted for this mission, and other commercially-available ground terminal technology previously used for laser communications.

For ATLAS management, the partnership with Astrobotic is considered to be key to showcase its capabilities. Moreover, both companies share the same vision of space exploration and look forward to a long-lasting collaboration.

Astrobotic is progressive and forward thinking. Our companies share a common goal in advancing human interest in lunar and interplanetary exploration. We aim to make the heavens more available and affordable than ever before to all who have similar interests, Carey concluded.

Tagged: Astrobotic Atlas Moon Peregrine lander The Range

Tomasz Nowakowski is the owner of Astro Watch, one of the premier astronomy and science-related blogs on the internet. Nowakowski reached out to SpaceFlight Insider in an effort to have the two space-related websites collaborate. Nowakowski's generous offer was gratefully received with the two organizations now working to better relay important developments as they pertain to space exploration.

First-ever laser communications terminal to be tested on the Moon - SpaceFlight Insider

Rihanna Shows Major Cleavage in Head-Turning Red Dress at ‘Valerian’ Premiere: Pics! – Entertainment Tonight

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Danzig

When it comes to making a statement on the red carpet, nobody does it better than Rihanna.

The 29-year-old singer attended the Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets European premiere in London, England, on Monday, rocking a voluminous red Giambattista Valli dress that only she could pull off. Rihanna completed the look with a simple slick-backed 'do and stunning Chopard jewels.

Photo: Getty Images

NEWS: 'Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets' Review -- A Strange, Stunning War Amid the Stars

Photo: Getty Images

Later, she posed with her good friend, Cara Delevingne, who also turned heads in a plunging black suit and a jeweled cape collar.

Photo: Getty Images

Last week, the stylish duo again made bold fashion choices at the Valerian premiere in Hollywood. Rihanna rocked a Giambattista Valli pink princess dress complete with a flowing train, while 24-year-old Delevingne sported a futuristic sheer metallic Iris van Herpen gown.

WATCH: Rihanna Jets to Ibiza With Her New Man, Billionaire Hassan Jameel

The "Wild Thoughts" singer plays a shapeshifting alien named Bubble in Valerian, and earlier this month, she gave fans a sneak peek at her role in the sci-fi epic, also starring Delevingne and Dane DeHaan.

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Rihanna Shows Major Cleavage in Head-Turning Red Dress at 'Valerian' Premiere: Pics! - Entertainment Tonight

Broken antenna delays launch of NASA communications satellite … – The Verge

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Danzig

NASA is postponing the launch of one of its communications satellites after an antenna on the vehicle was somehow damaged during mission preparations over a week ago. That satellite is the TDRS-M, for Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, and it was scheduled to launch on August 3rd from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on top of an Atlas V rocket made by the United Launch Alliance. But now, NASA, ULA, and Boeing the manufacturer of the satellite are trying to figure out a new time to launch the probe in August, so the satellites antenna can be replaced before then.

Some extra time is needed to replace the antenna

The TDRS-M satellite is meant to join a whole fleet of other TDRS satellites already in space that make up part of NASAs Space Network. These probes are crucial for helping the agency communicate with its various spacecraft in lower Earth orbit, such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station. NASA used to completely rely on ground-based radio stations to communicate with orbiting vehicles, but that didnt allow for 24/7 communication. The TDRS satellites help to provide near continuous communication instead: they sit in a super high orbit 22,000 miles up called geosynchronous orbit, and they help relay communications between spacecraft in lower orbits and the ground below.

Once TDRS-M is in orbit, it will be the 10th active TDRS satellite in the Space Network. But for now, its unclear when that will happen. NASA did not say how the antenna on TDRS-M was damaged nor how long it will take to replace the instrument. Meanwhile, NASA says its investigating a possible electrostatic discharge event that may have affected equipment needed to support the spacecraft from the ground. However, the agency did not elaborate on what that meant or when that situation would be resolved.

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Broken antenna delays launch of NASA communications satellite ... - The Verge

NASA Wants YOU to Be a Citizen Scientist for the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse – Space.com

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Danzig

A still from a new NASA video describing how a participant can use the free Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) smartphone app to record local temperatures, which drop during a total or partial solar eclipse.

A new NASA app will allow folks across the United States to become citizen scientists and collect data for an interactive map.

The NASA-sponsored Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program launched the app to allow enthusiastic spectators to document their solar eclipse observations wherever they may be along path ofthe Aug. 21 total eclipse.

This nationwide citizen-science experiment is easy to become a part of, and, as highlighted in the new GLOBE Observer (NASA GO) Eclipse App instructional video, requires you to have only a smartphone and a thermometer as you experience a partial or total eclipse. [The Best ISO-Certified Gear to See the 2017 Solar Eclipse]

"When the Earth goes dark for a few minutes during a total solar eclipse, animals, plants and environmental conditions react. In the path of the eclipse, temperatures and clouds can change quickly," said the NASA video's narrator.

Since all of North America will experience at least a partial eclipse on Aug. 21, NASA encourages everyone to get involved in scientific observations during this rare experience.

"No matter where you are in North America, whether it's cloudy, clear or rainy, NASA wants as many people to help with this citizen science project," Kristen Weaver, deputy coordinator for the project, said in a statement.

NASA will certainly benefit from the plethora of data it is hoping to receive from citizen scientists across the continent. However, this initiative is also a way for NASA to inspire concern and participation in an international scientific endeavor, according to GLOBE. The idea is to democratize scientific observation by helping observers to understand their surroundings and to excite folks about what they are capable of.

A still from a new video for the free NASA GLOBAL Observer app. The continental United States, as well as Canada and Mexico, will experience a partial or total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017. Observers within all ranges of the eclipse path are invited to measure temperatures in their vicinity and then upload the information to the new NASA GLOBE Observer (NASA GO) app.

By mobilizing people to empirically analyze the world around them on Aug. 21, Weaver said, "We want to inspire a million eclipse viewers to become eclipse scientists."

Once participants download the free GLOBE Observer app and register themselves, the app will guide them to record their observations. The information is then placed by the app onto an interactive map that people can view to see how individual contributions have added to the collective project.

Readers who want to get involved can download the GLOBE Observer app here. You can alsofollow the project on Twitter @NASAGo, and onFacebook here.

Editor's note:Space.com has teamed up with Simulation Curriculum to offerthis awesome Eclipse Safari appto help you enjoy your eclipse experience. The free app isavailable for AppleandAndroid, and you can view iton the web.

Follow Doris Elin Salazar on Twitter @salazar_elin.Follow us@Spacedotcom,FacebookandGoogle+. Original article onSpace.com.

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NASA Wants YOU to Be a Citizen Scientist for the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse - Space.com

Right Stuff, Wrong Gender: The Woman Astronauts Grounded by NASA – History

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Danzig

In the early 1960s, 13 trailblazing American women participated in a secret program to become Americas first female astronaut. Although the skilled pilots passed the same physiological screening tests given to the Mercury Seven astronauts, NASA abruptly shuttered the little-known Woman in Space Program before its participants could ever leave the ground. The Mercury 13 may have had the right stuff, but for NASA they were the wrong gender.

When NASA introduced its first astronaut corps in 1959, it was strictly a mens-only club. Although women werent explicitly barred from the Mercury Seven, NASAs requirement that astronauts be experienced military jet test pilotsa job open only to meneffectively prevented their selection.

However, space medicine experts such as Air Force Brigadier General Donald Flickinger and Dr. Randy Lovelace, a NASA contractor who conducted the official physical examinations of the Project Mercury candidates, believed that women could be preferable to men as astronauts because on average they are lighter, shorter and consume less food and oxygenan advantage when every pound is critical to the cost and feasibility of space flight. In addition, tests have found women more resistant to radiation and less prone to cardiovascular issues.

After a chance encounter, Flickinger and Lovelace found their perfect candidate for testing an aspiring female astronaut. Like many young pilots at the dawn of the Space Age, Jerrie Cobb had stars in her eyes. A licensed commercial pilot at the age of 18, Cobb was flying routes from California to Paraguay by the time the Associated Press profiled the 24-year-old girl pilot in 1955. Five years later, Cobb had logged a total of 10,000 hours in the cockpit, twice that of Mercury astronaut John Glenn.

In February 1960, the 29-year-old Cobb traveled to Lovelaces private clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as the first participant in his secret Woman in Space Program, which was not sanctioned by NASA. She underwent the same grueling tests given to the Mercury Seven. Researchers poured ice water into her ears to simulate vertigo and jammed a 3-foot rubber hose down her throat to test stomach acid. She was poked and prodded with needles and submerged in water and darkness to simulate sensory isolation.

Cobb not only passed all three phases of the screening program, she even surpassed the male astronauts on some tests. When Lovelace announced the test results in August 1960, Cobb became a media sensation. She appeared in Life magazine, and newspapers debated whether to call the would-be space traveler an astronautrix, astronette or lady astronaut.

To see if Cobbs results could be replicated, Lovelace recruited another two-dozen skilled female pilotsranging from 21-year-old flight instructor Wally Funk to 39-year-old Janey Hart, a mother of eight and wife of Senator Philip Hartto come to New Mexico. Famed aviatrix Jackie Cochran, the first woman to break the sound barrier, used some of the money from her successful cosmetics business to bankroll the privately run program. As with Cobb, the women outperformed the men on numerous medical and screening tests. Funk, who grew up playing with planes instead of dolls, spent more than 10 hours in the isolation tankbetter than any other astronaut trainee, male or female.

A dozen women, whom Cobb called Fellow Lady Astronaut Trainees (FLATs), passed the screening. Later dubbed the Mercury 13, the aspiring astronauts prepared to undergo space flight simulation at a Navy facility in Pensacola, Florida. Just days before leaving, however, Lovelace sent word that the testing had been abruptly cancelled once the Navy learned that his program was not sponsored by NASA.

After NASA shuttered the Woman in Space Program, Cobb and Hart met in person with Vice President Lyndon Johnson in March 1962 to lobby for its resumption. According to Stephanie Nolens book Promised the Moon: The Untold Story of the First Women in the Space Race, Johnson aide Liz Carpenter drafted a letter to NASA asking why women couldnt be astronauts. After meeting with Cobb and Hart, Johnson picked up his pen, but instead of signing the letter, he scrawled, Lets stop this now!

Cobb and Hart fared no better on Capitol Hill when they testified before a congressional subcommittee in July 1962. We seek, only, a place in our nations space future without discrimination, said Cobb, who was referred to in United Press International reports as an attractive 31-year-old astronaut aspirant. There were women on the Mayflower and on the first wagon trains west, working alongside the men to forge new trails to new vistas. We ask that opportunity in the pioneering of space.

I think that our society should cease to frown on the woman who seeks to combine family life with a career, Hart told lawmakers. Lets face it: For many women the PTA just is not enough.

Still being showered with adulation five months after becoming the first American to orbit the Earth, Glenn backed NASAs position that a new training program for women would jeopardize the goal of landing an American on the moon before the end of the decade. Glenn told lawmakers that although he believed women had the capabilities to become astronauts, I think this gets back to the way our social order is organized, really. It is just a fact. The men go off and fight the wars and fly the airplanes and come back and help design and build and test them.

The Mercury 13 found no more support in Congress than they had in the White House for women becoming astronauts or military test pilots. NASA hired Cobb as a consultant on womens issues, but then gave her little to do. Im the most unconsulted consultant in any government agency, she groused after a year on the job. Her frustration only grew when Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space in 1963. By the time Cobb resigned her position with NASA, the closest she had ever come to outer space was posing with a Mercury spaceship capsule for newspaper photographers.

When Neil Armstrong took one small step for a mannot a womanafter landing on the moon in July 1969, Cobb was deep in the jungles of the Amazon using her piloting skills to deliver food, medicine and humanitarian aid packages to villages, work for which she would later be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Not until 1983 did an American woman, Sally Ride, blast off into space. In 1995, eight of the 11 surviving FLATs, including Cobb, gathered together to watch as Eileen Collins roared into space as the first female space shuttle commander, a dream denied to the trailblazers but made possible for Collins by their efforts.

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Right Stuff, Wrong Gender: The Woman Astronauts Grounded by NASA - History

NASA added hundreds of experimental aircraft videos to its … – CNET – CNET

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Danzig

NASA uploaded a ton of awesome test flight footage

The past few months NASA has been hard at work uploading a ton of archive footage to the NASA Armstrong Research Center's YouTube Channel. Here are some of the highlights.

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NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center has a surprisingly prolificYouTubechannel -- it's added330 videos of experimental aircraft footageover the past few months.

The AFRC is a 70-year-old agency located at Edwards Air Force Base in California that conducts atmospheric flight research, including flying experimental aircraft and the Space Shuttle.

The videos, many decades old, show experimental aircraft in flight and in controlled impact demonstrations (aka fiery crashes). There are videos of the X-1 being dropped from a B-52 bomber and even a tire rim test that would Michael Bay smile.

Checkout the AFRC's YouTube channel for all the experimental fun.

NASA downplaying Earth science cuts while hoping for reversal – SpaceNews

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Danzig

An illustration of the proposed Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud and ocean Ecosystem (PACE) spacecraft, one of several Earth science missions that would be cancelled in the administration's 2018 NASA budget proposal. Credit: NASA

WASHINGTON As Senate appropriators prepare to mark up a NASA spending bill, agency officials are both downplaying the effects of proposed cuts on its Earth science program while also hoping the Senate reverses them.

The commerce, justice and science subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee is scheduled to mark up its fiscal year 2018 spending bill July 25. The full committee will then take up the bill July 27.

At a meeting July 24 of the science committee of the NASA Advisory Council, members complained about proposed cuts in the Earth science division at the agency. The administrations 2018 request seeks $1.754 billion for the division, $167 million less than what it received in 2017. The proposal called for the termination of five operating or proposed instruments and missions.

This is really, actually, pretty devastating, said Susan Avery, president and director emeritus of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and a member of the committee, during a discussion about the budget proposal at the meeting. This is a devastating budget for Earth sciences.

Michael Freilich, director of NASAs Earth science division, attempted to minimize the impact of the proposed cuts, arguing that most of the agencys Earth science programs would continue unaffected. It is significant, but I would say that it is not existential, he said of the cut.

He said that the agency would be judicious in how it applied the measurable, but not huge cut in research funding in Earth sciences, separate from the proposed cancellation of missions. We would not take it in a peanut butter spread, where the cuts are applied equally across all grant programs, he said. Any cuts would not affect existing research grants.

Freilich also said that NASA is not making any changes in spending in the current fiscal year to accommodate cuts in the 2018 proposal. We are not changing anything in our plans in anticipation of a future administration budget, he said. Basically, we are moving through [fiscal year] 17 at an appropriate high level of appropriation, and we are not in any way changing our plan in anticipation of the administrations [fiscal year] 18 budget.

An example of that is the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud and ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission, which Freilich said completed a review called Key Decision Point B earlier this month, clearing it to continue design and development work. PACE is one of the missions slated for cancellation in the budget proposal.

NASA is still without an operations plan that specifies how it will spend funds appropriated for this fiscal year, including any requested deviations from the appropriations bill. Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA, said at the meeting that the fiscal year 2017 plan has been submitted to Congress, but not yet formally approved. The fiscal year ends Sept. 30.

While minimizing the effects of the proposed cuts, some in the agency also expressed hope that the cuts will not be enacted in a final spending bill approved by Congress.

Were likely to see a replay of the last two or three years, where the Senate mark is similar in total but somewhat more favorable for Earth science in particular, said Craig Tupper, director of the resources management division in NASAs Science Mission Directorate (SMD), at the meeting, adding that assessment was his personal expectation. In particular, the Senate may attempt to fund some of the Earth science projects that were proposed for termination in fiscal year 2018.

In that case, he said, the House and Senate horse trade in the conference negotiations to reconcile their two bills. My guess is that the end result of that, similar to the last couple of years, is that SMD will end up with an appropriation that is even higher than the House mark that provides relief for Earth science, he said.

For fiscal year 2017, the Obama administration request $2.03 billion for Earth science. The House only offered $1.69 billion in its bill, but the Senate provided $1.984 billion. The final omnibus spending bill, approved in early May, provided $1.921 billion for Earth science at the agency.

The bottom line is, here is the budget that were dealing with, Zurbuchen said of the 2018 budget proposal at the meeting, after a committee member complained about the proposed Earth science cuts. What we will do is be the best stewards we can be to respect the recognition that Earth science is a system science.

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NASA downplaying Earth science cuts while hoping for reversal - SpaceNews

Global Metrology Software Market – Industry Forecast to 2025 … – Business Wire (press release)

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Danzig

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Global Metrology Software Market Analysis & Trends - Industry Forecast to 2025" report has been added to Research and Markets' offering.

The Global Metrology Software Market is poised to grow at a CAGR of around 12.1% during the forecast period 2016 to 2025.

Some of the prominent trends that the market is witnessing include increasing demand for portable CMM (Coordinate Measuring Machine) software, rising adoption of laser based 3D metrology, continuous advancements in nanotechnology and flexible electronics and emergence of Asia Pacific as manufacturing hub.

Based on metrology type, market is segmented into scientific metrology, industrial metrology and other metrology types. Depending on product, market is classified into Optical Digitizers and Scanners (ODS), Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM) and other products. Based on application, market is categorized into quality control and inspection, measurement & alignment, reverse engineering, virtual simulation and other applications. By end user, metrology software market is segregated into electronics and electrical, automotive, media & entertainment, power & energy, aerospace & defense, medical, industrial manufacturing and other end users.

Companies Mentioned

Key Topics Covered:

1 Market Outline

2 Executive Summary

3 Market Overview

4 Metrology Software Market, By Metrology Type

5 Metrology Software Market, By Product

6 Metrology Software Market, By Application

7 Metrology Software Market, By End User

8 Metrology Software Market, By Geography

9 Key Player Activities

10 Leading Companies

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/fr5f6s/global_metrology

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Global Metrology Software Market - Industry Forecast to 2025 ... - Business Wire (press release)

Tiny robots swim the front crawl through your veins – New Scientist

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Danzig

Michael Phelps: Faster than a nano-swimmer but wont fit in your veins

Francois Xavier Marit/AFP/Getty Images

By Leah Crane

Its no Michael Phelps, but this tiny magnetic robot swims the front crawl at 10 micrometres per second. It would take about two months for the bot to swim the length of an Olympic swimming pool in that time, Phelps could swim almost 5 million lengths. But the nano-swimmer is fast for its size, and its strong enough to pass through more viscous liquids, like blood, to deliver medicine from inside your veins.

The front crawl is the fastest way for humans to swim. So Tianlong Li at the Harbin Institute of Technology in China and his colleagues built their swimming robot to mimic that motion.

Each nano-swimmer is 5 micrometres long and has three main parts, connected together like sausage links by two silver hinges. Its gold body is flanked by two magnetic arms made of nickel, and applying a magnetic field to the tiny robot makes the arms move.

As the researchers switch the magnetic fields direction back and forth, it causes the arms of the nano-swimmer to rotate and propel it forward, just like the arms of a human swimmer doing the front crawl.

Its exciting due to its speed and its really small size, just about the same size as a blood vessel, says Eric Diller at the University of Toronto in Canada who researches micro-robots. Its small enough basically to go anywhere within the body.

Because bodily fluids are more viscous and difficult to swim through than water, the researchers also tested their nano-swimmers in serum. The bots were only able to swim 5.5 micrometres per second, but thats still faster than many other similar mini-machines.

For targeted medicine delivery without invasive procedures, these nano-swimmers could be coated with medicine and injected into the bloodstream, where their trajectories could be roughly steered by external magnetic fields.

Since they are so small, just one nano-swimmer wouldnt be able to carry enough medicine to actually help. Maybe a thousand of them would be necessary, says Diller. Theres no way to keep track of all of them, so there are a lot of questions about safety and toxicity.

The next generation of these tiny machines will have to be made from biodegradable materials before they can be used in the bloodstream. But, Diller says that for less complicated areas in the human body like the urinary tract or the eyeballs, clinical trials could begin within the next five to 10 years. Injecting a single swimmer into an eyeball, where it could deliver medication directly to the retina and then be removed, would be much less complicated than letting a swarm of them swim throughout the entire circulatory system.

We dont know how fast Michael Phelps could swim through blood thankfully, his recent race against a great white shark didnt provide a testing ground. But since you cant inject him into your bloodstream, these nano-swimmers will have to do.

Journal reference: Nano Letters, DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b02383

Read more: DNA origami nanorobot takes drug direct to cancer cell

IIT-B develops coloured nano coating for solar cells – The Hindu

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Danzig

The Hindu

IIT-B develops coloured nano coating for solar cells
The Hindu
Mr. Soman, currently a doctoral student at the Electrical Engineering Department of University of Delaware said, We wish to make solar cells customisable, attractive and irresistible to people, along with contributing to a greener planet. Imagine ...

and more »

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IIT-B develops coloured nano coating for solar cells - The Hindu

An International Meeting of Optical Minds – Photonics.com

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Danzig

Photonics.com Jul 2017 SPIE Optics + Photonics, scheduled for Aug. 6-10 at the San Diego Convention Center in California, is an international, multidisciplinary optical sciences and technology meeting that annually presents the latest research in optical engineering and applications, nanotechnology, sustainable energy, organic photonics and astronomical instrumentation.

Four conference topics are held, providing an in-depth look at specific research and other work:

Nanoscience + Engineering: Advancement of nanotechnology is enabling new applications in medicine, computing, information storage and others. In this track, researchers focusing on such areas as metamaterials, nanophotonic materials, plasmonics, quantum science and technology, nanomedicine, optical trapping, nanostructured thin films, spintronics, nanostructured devices, nanoengineering, nanoimaging, nanospectroscopy, and low-dimensional materials will present their work.

Optics + Photonics for Sustainable Energy: This segment focuses specifically on the development of new and sustainable energy sources. These include next generation solar cell technology, thermal radiation management, PV reliability, photovoltaics, thin film solar, hydrogen fuels, cell technology, BIPV and perovskites.

Organic Photonics + Electronics: This comprehensive track features research and work with organic-based materials and devices that advance renewable energy sources and other commercial applications. Technologies of focus will include OLEDs, OFETS, OHPVs, perovskite PVs, organic sensors, bioelectronics, liquid crystals, and hybrid memory devices and printed circuits.

Optical Engineering + Applications: The latest developments in optical design and engineering photonic devices and applications, x-ray, gamma-ray, and particle technologies, image and signal processing, astronomical optics and instrumentation, remote sensing, and space optical systems will be the focus of this conference segment.

The Technology Hot Topics program features scientists and engineers who will discuss topics relating to How Optics and Photonics Drives Innovation. Cesare Soci, of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, will focus on quantum devices; speaking about bioelectronics, wearables and implantables will be Nanshu Lu, of the University of Texas at Austin; Scott McEldowney, from Oculus, will discuss augmented and virtual reality; Tanja Cuk, of the University of California, Berkeley, will focus on solar fuels; and Charles D. Edwards Jr., from NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, will round out the program with a talk on autonomous vehicles.

Features again this year will be numerous plenary sessions. There will be speakers and presenters from around the world, representing industry and academia Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the U.S. Department of Energy, the University of Washington, Amazon.com Inc., and the Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne in Switzerland, among others.

Among courses offered this year are Imaging Spectrometry, Physiological Optics of the Eye for Engineers, Deep Learning and its Applications in Image Processing, and A Crash Course on Spin Physics. Others include Introduction to Interferometric Optical Testing, Advanced Composite Materials for Optomechanical Systems, Fundamentals of Molded Optics, Intermediate Lens Design, Infrared Focal Plane Arrays, and Detectors and Imaging.

An expansive exhibition is held throughout the conference, as well. Among the featured technologies:

test and measurement equipment optical components, lenses detectors, sensors cameras and imaging systems lasers, laser systems fiber optics chemicals, optical coatings, thin films nanoprecision LED and OLED technology

SPIE Optics + Photonics also holds a job fair, offering the opportunity for attendees to connect with recruiters from companies in all optics fields for positions such as optical engineers, military optics engineers, software development and others.

For more information about SPIE Optics + Photonics 2017, visit https://spie.org/conferences-and-exhibitions/optics-and-photonics. And be sure to visit Photonics Media at the show, at Booth 739!

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An International Meeting of Optical Minds - Photonics.com

Could Bacteria-Coated Nanofiber Electrodes be Key to Cleaning Polluted Water? – TrendinTech

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Danzig

Researchers from Cornell University have recently discovered a cost-effective and unique method of cleaning wastewater. Bioelectrochemical engineers and material scientists made nano fiber electrodes from electro-spun carbon then covered them in PEDOT, a conductive polymer. This coating allowed a certain type of bacteria, *Geobacter sulfurreducens, to be applied electrically. The entire process takes several hours until it forms an easily visible sheet of nanofibers.

Interestingly, the bacteria not only feed on pollutants, but it also produces electricity as it grows. The carbon nanofiber electrode is customizable and ideal for its biocompatibility with the bacteria, its high porosity, and surface area. Researchers hope that wastewater treatment plants will utilize these electrodes to capture pollutants at a greater rate than current methods while also reducing the amount of land required to do so.

Electrodes are expensive to make now, and this material could bring the price of electrodes way down, making it easier to clean up polluted water, said co-lead author Juan Guzman, a doctoral candidate in the field of biological and environmental engineering.

The research project was a collaboration across colleges, disciplines, students, and professors. Lars Angenent, a senior author on the paper and professor of biological environmental engineering says, This defines radical collaboration. We have fiber scientists talking to environmental engineers, from two very different Cornell colleges, to create reality from an idea that was more or less a hunch that will make cleaning wastewater better and a little more inexpensive.

*Geobacter sulfurreducens is a gram-negative metal and sulphur-reducing proteobacterium. It is rod-shaped, obligately anaerobic, non-fermentative, has flagellum and type four pili, and is closely related to Geobacter metallireducens.Wikipedia

The complete findings of the project were recently published in the Journal of Power Sources./ Article Source; Cornell University

DARPA Continues Investment in Post-Moore’s Technologies – HPCwire (blog)

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Danzig

The U.S. military long ago ceded dominance in electronics innovation to Silicon Valley, the DoD-backed powerhouse that has driven microelectronic generation for decades. With Moores Law clearly running out of steam, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is attempting to reinvigorate and leverage a vibrant domestic chip sector with a $200 million initiative designed among other things to push the boundaries of chip architectures like GPUs.

DARPA recently announced that its Electronics Resurgence Initiative seeks to move beyond Moores Law chip scaling. Among the new fronts to be opened by the defense agency are extending GPU frameworks that underlie machine-learning tools to develop reconfigurable physical structures that adjust to the needs of the software they support.

While it remains unclear how enterprises might benefit directly from the chip initiative overseen by DARPAs Microsystems Technology Office, the agency does have a reputation dating back to the earliest days of the Internet for funding high-risk technology R&D that eventually makes its way into the commercial sector.

The DARPA effort also attempts to lay the groundwork for a post Moores Law era where, according to the agency, research will focus on integrating different semiconductor materials on individual chips, sticky logic devices that combine processing and memory functions and vertical rather than only planar integration of microsystem components.

As the focus of chip technology zeroes in on data driven enterprise applications, DARPA said it would cast a wider net to harness semiconductor innovation that would lead to a post-Moores Law generation of microelectronic systems benefitting military and commercial users.

The effort runs in parallel withrecent attempts by DoDto tap into the sustained burst of technology and development innovation in Silicon Valley. As the technology entrepreneurSteve Blankhas documented, the 20thcentury electronics explosion was initially funded by the U.S military beginning as early as World War II, continuing throughout the Cold War confrontation with the former Soviet Union.

The DARPA effort primarily seeks to establish new development models that go beyond chip scaling. We need to break away from tradition and embrace the kinds of innovations that the new initiative is all about, emphasized William Chappell, director of DARPAs Microsystems Technology Office. The program will embrace progress through circuit specialization and to wrangle the complexity of the next phase of advances, which will have broad implications on both commercial and national defense interests, Chappell added.

The post-Moores Law research effort will complement the recently createdJoint University Microelectronics Program(JUMP), a research effort in basic electronics being co-funded by DARPA and Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), an industry consortium based in Durham, N.C. Among the chip makers contributing to JUMP are IBM, Intel Corp., Micron Technology and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

SRC members and DARPA are expected to kick in more than $150 million for the five-year project. Focus areas include high-frequency sensor networks, distributed and cognitive computing along with intelligent memory and storage.

As DARPA continues to invest in device technology, it is also attempting to leverage what Chappell calls the software-defined world. The agency sees virtualization and other software technologies as one way of addressing skyrocketing weapons costs. Hence, the agency is also investing more research funding in areas such as algorithm development and circuit design for applications such as dynamic spectrum sharing, a capability that would allow the military to squeeze more capacity out of crowded electromagnetic spectrum.

DARPA Continues Investment in Post-Moore's Technologies - HPCwire (blog)

Is Moore’s Law coming to an end? – Blasting News

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Danzig

It all started when Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel, made an observation. The observation being, the density of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. Although more of a statement, Moore's Law has held up its stance for almost half a century. But not for long -- or so it seems.

With technology advancing at an exponential rate we seem to be approaching an invisible wall. In other words, we seem to be approaching the limits of our technology. The number of transistors in a circuit is directly proportional to the size of the transistor. Meaning the smaller the transistor, the higher the number of transistors that can be put into a circuit dice.

To put this exponential growth into perspective, in 2000 the density of transistors in an integrated circuit used for an average computer was 37.5 million. In 2009 the number of transistors grew to 904 million. Meaning in 9 years, the number of transistors in an average computer increased 24.1 times. Most processors used in the latest computers average around 100 million to 150 million transistors, in other words, from 2009 to 2017 the number of transistors increased less than 1.5 times. Meanwhile, the size of a transistor went from 100+ nanometer in 2000 to <20 nano meters in 2017.

Now, things get tricky when the size of a transistor becomes smaller and smaller. Once the size of a transistor reaches below 5nm or so, we will reach a breaking point. At such small distances, electrons act differently.

Electrons can freely pass through any barrier at such distances, as transistors rely on a barrier to stop the flow of electrons. it leaves a transistor virtually and literally useless.

We are fast approaching this limit and once we hit this limit, there is no way out.

We can't be sure, but one thing for sure is that Moore's Law has bent but has not broken. Major companies are trying to use different materials with semiconductor properties to try and face this challenge, this will help to an extent, but it's definitely not a permanent solution. Meanwhile, several other companies and researchers are taking a completely different approach to this. Trying to redefine what a transistor is, by heading into the realm of #Quantum computing and #Carbon Nanotubes.

Within the next decade or two, it will be the end of an era, the end of basic transistors as we know it. Instead, there will be a technological revolution that will change the way we define a computer. Be it quantum computing or carbon nanotubes, Moore's Law will still live on. #Moore Law

Tiny Tornado Boosts Performance of Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry – Technology Networks

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Danzig

The DRILL device is connected to a mass spectrometer to sort charged droplets and improve desolvation of ionized biomolecules for analysis. The device requires no modification of the mass spectrometer, and can be accommodated within the standard work flow now used by researchers. (Credit: Rob Felt, Georgia Tech)

Adding the equivalent of a miniature tornado to the interface between electrospray ionization (ESI) and a mass spectrometer (MS) has allowed researchers to improve the sensitivity and detection capability of the widely-used ESI-MS analytical technique. Among the scientific fields that could benefit from the new technique are proteomics, metabolomics and lipidomics which serve biomedical and health applications ranging from biomarker detection and diagnostics to drug discovery and molecular medicine.

Known as Dry Ion Localization and Locomotion (DRILL), the new device creates a swirling flow that can separate electrospray droplets depending on their size. In this application, one of many potential uses for DRILL, the smaller droplets are directed to enter the mass spectrometer, while the larger ones which still contain solvent remain in the vortex flow until the solvent evaporates. Removing the solvent allows analysis of additional ions that may be lost in current techniques and reduces the chemical noise that inhibits selectivity of the mass spectrometer.

A major challenge for detecting small quantities of biomolecules using mass spectrometry technology is that we cant see everything that is actually in the sample, said Matthew Torres, an assistant professor in Georgia Techs School of Biological Sciences. The DRILL device provides a new way to solve that problem by increasing the number of ions we can get into the mass spec instrument so we can productively detect them. The ions are there now, but not necessarily in a form that the mass spec can handle.

Developed by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology with support from North Carolina State University, DRILL can be added to existing electrospray ionization mass spectrometers without modifying them.

The principle is to make the droplets rotate and use inertia to separate them out by size, explained Andrei Fedorov, a professor in Georgia Techs Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. We want the droplets to stay in the flow long enough to remove the solvent. In practice, smaller droplets remain in the center, where they are can be removed first for analysis, while the larger ones remain on the edge of the flow until they are dried.

The key idea of DRILL is based on Fedorovs 2007 invention Confining/Focusing Vortex Flow Transmission Structure, Mass Spectrometry Systems, and Methods of Transmitting Particles, Droplets, and Ions." (US Patent No. 7,595,487). In the past three years, the DRILL device has been developed with support from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, and its latest version was described June 14 in the American Chemical Society journal Analytical Chemistry.

In electrospray ionization (ESI), an electric potential is applied to a solution inside a capillary, producing a strong electric field at the spray capillary tip. That leads to the expulsion of an aerosol containing charged droplets that carry the molecules to be analyzed. The ejected droplets then break up into smaller droplets, creating a plume that expands spatially beyond the inlet intake capacity of the mass spectrometer, resulting in sample loss. The DRILL device provides an effective interface for collection and transmission of charged analytes from ionization sources, such as ESI, to detection devices, such as mass spectrometers, resulting in significantly improved detection capability.

As much as 80 to 90 percent of large biopolymers (proteins, peptides, and DNA) are currently lost to analysis using existing ESI-MS techniques, which have grown in importance to the life sciences community. Capturing all of the biopolymers could lead to new discoveries, said Torres, whose lab studies post-translational changes in proteins. By allowing analysis of large biomolecules, DRILL could facilitate top-down proteomics in which complete protein molecules could be studied without the need to enzymatically break them up into smaller pieces before MS analysis.

This could allow us to see combinatorial modifications that exist on a single protein molecule, said Torres. Its very important for us to understand how proteins communicate with one another, and DRILL may allow us to do that by more effectively removing the solvent from these types of samples.

The Georgia Tech researchers are using DRILL in their lab to interface between liquid chromatography and the ESI-MS instrument. Multiple electrodes and inlet/outlet ports enable precise control over the flow generation and guiding electric field inside the DRILL, so the device can be configured for a variety of uses, Fedorov noted. In a general sense, DRILL adds a new approach for manipulating the trajectory of charged droplets, which, when combined with hydrodynamic drag forces and electric field forces, provides a rich range of possible operational modes.

DRILL can improve the signal-to-noise ratio by a factor of 10 in the detection of angiotensin I, a peptide hormone, and boost the sensitivity for angiotensin II ten-fold to picomole levels. DRILL demonstrated improved signal strength up to 700-fold for eight of nine peptides included in a test extract of biological tissue.

DRILL could potentially allow the study of entire cell contents, analyzing thousands of different molecule types simultaneously. That could allow researchers to see how these molecules change over time to detect problems in chemical pathways and to determine why drugs work in some people and not others.

This could be a huge advance for biologists and others who are interested in protein biochemistry and cell biology because it enhances the sensitivity of the analytical technical and overcomes a major hurdle in studying large biological molecules, Torres added. We expect to be able to see things we havent been able to see before.

The Georgia Tech researchers have been collaborating with David Muddiman, a professor in the Department of Chemistry at North Carolina State University, on developing DRILL and its analytical characterization using state-of-the-art mass spectrometry experiments. A unique contribution of the North Carolina State University researchers is in using a powerful statistical method called design of experiments to guide the multi-parameter optimization of the DRILL device, resulting in the identification of a sweet spot for optimal operation.

Fedorov and Torres hope to expand use of the DRILL device beyond Georgia Tech laboratories and further enhance its design. Among the near-term improvements planned is the addition of internal heating to accelerate the removal of solvent. We see many additional improvements that will allow DRILL to further enhance the ESI-MS process, said Fedorov. We plan to continue evolving it as more labs start to use the device.

This article has been republished frommaterialsprovided by Georgia Institute of Technology. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source. ReferencePeter A. Kottke, et al., DRILL: An ESI-MS interface for improved sensitivity via inertial droplet sorting and electrohydrodynamic focusing in a swirling flow, (Analytical Chemistry, 2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.7b01555.

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Tiny Tornado Boosts Performance of Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry - Technology Networks

Sales taxes crimp city’s plans; MU shutters biomedical research institute; one downtown project down, more to go – Bonner County Daily Bee

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Danzig

Sorry for the delay, folks a glitch prevented this newsletter from going out earlier this morning.

We finally got a break from the heat. The high might not even make 90 today, and that's all right by us. We've got the full forecast below. Now, the news:

Sales taxes are putting Columbia in a bind. At his annual budget address, city manager Mike Matthes said he's proposing three ballot measures to raise revenues for new initiatives. He's also pitching some budget cuts and creative spending decisions, like hiring civilians instead of trained officers to increase police staffing. Check out all the highlights here.

MU's budget fallout claimed another victim. At the end of June, the International Institute of Nano and Molecular Medicine was shuttered, affecting 17 employees. The institute, led by Frederick Hawthorne, a recipient of the National Medal of Science, did not have enough grant funding to offset its costs, officials said.

The Rise apartment building is nearing completion and affected streets downtown are reopened. Don't be too thrilled, there are still two major downtown projects affecting roads and sidewalks. There's no word yet on when students might start moving in, but the city has cleared the building for occupancy.

Around CoMo this week

5:30 p.m. Monday: Cornerstones of Columbia plaque presentation and celebration. Begins at 10 Hitt St., ends at The Blue Note.

6 p.m. Wednesday: Science on Tap returns to Craft Beer Cellar with presentations by two MU researchers.

All day Thursday Friday: The District hosts its Dog Days Sidewalk Sale at participating shops.

Friday Sunday: The Show-Me State Games continue.

Biologics: The pricey drugs transforming medicine – Houston Chronicle

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Danzig

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Ian Haydon, University of Washington

(THE CONVERSATION) In a factory just outside San Francisco, theres an upright stainless steel vat the size of a small car, and its got something swirling inside.

The vat is studded with gauges, hoses and pipes. Inside, its hot just under 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Sugar and other nutrients are being pumped in because, inside this formidable container, there is life.

Scientists are growing cells in there. Those cells, in turn, are growing medicine. Every two weeks or so, the hot, soupy liquid inside gets strained and processed. The purified molecules that result will eventually be injected into patients with Stage IV cancer.

Drugs that are made this way inside living cells are called biologics. And theyre taking medicine by storm. By 2016, biologics had surged to make up 25 percent of the total pharmaceutical market, bringing in US$232 billion, with few signs their upward trend will slow.

Common medicines such as aspirin, antacids and statins are chemical in nature. Though many were initially discovered in the wild (aspirin is a cousin of a compound in willow bark, the first statin was found in a fungus), these drugs are now made nonbiologically.

To read this article in one of Houston's most-spoken languages, click on the button below.

Conventional medicines are stitched together by chemists in large factories using other chemicals as building blocks. Their molecular structures are well defined and relatively simple. Aspirin, for example, contains just 21 atoms (nine carbons, eight hydrogens and four oxygens) bonded together to form a particular shape. A single aspirin tablet even kid-sized contains trillions of copies of the drug molecule.

Biologic drugs are a different story. This class of medication is not synthesized chemically instead they are harvested directly from biology, as their name suggests. Most modern biologics are assembled inside vats or bioreactors that house genetically engineered microbes or mammalian cell cultures. Efforts are underway to make them in plants.

Biologic drugs can be whole cells, alive or dead. They can be the biomolecules produced by cells, like antibodies, which are normally secreted by our immune systems B cells. Or they can be some of the internal components of cells, like enzymes.

Biologics are typically much larger molecules than those found in conventional pharmaceuticals, and in many cases their exact composition is unknown (or even unknowable). Youre unlikely to find biologic drugs in tablet form they tend to be delicate molecules that are happiest in liquid solution.

While biologics are one of the fastest-growing drug categories in the U.S., they arent exactly new. The Biologics Control Act, passed in 1902, was the first law aimed at ensuring the safety of some of the earliest biologics vaccines. Congress was moved to pass the law after a contaminated batch of diphtheria shots left 13 children dead. Jim, the horse from which the diphtheria antitoxin had been extracted, had contracted tetanus.

Fortunately, scientists have dramatically improved the way they manufacture biologic drugs since then. For starters, the recombinant DNA revolution of the 1970s means that drug makers no longer have to extract many of the most important biologics from whole animals.

The gene that codes for human insulin, for example, can be pasted into a microbe which will happily churn out the drug in bulk. After a multi-million dollar purification process, the injectable insulin that results is indistinguishable from the version a healthy human body would produce. This is how some forms of insulin are made today.

Both conventional and biologic drugs work by interacting with our own biology. Most conventional drugs function as inhibitors theyre just the right size and shape to jam themselves into some molecular cog in our cells. Aspirins pain-reducing power comes from its ability to disrupt an enzyme in the body called cyclooxygenase, an important player in pain signaling.

Conventional drug discovery largely consists of finding new compounds that specifically disrupt only disease-associated processes. Because these drugs are quite small, and because the inside of any cell is a sea of other molecular components, finding a new small drug that blocks only problematic processes is tricky. Off-target interactions can produce side effects of all types.

The large size of biologic drugs can be an asset here. An antibody, for example, has lots of specific points of contact with its target. This enables therapeutic antibody drugs to bind with extreme precision only their target molecule should be an exact match. This binding can lead to inhibitory effects, much like a conventional drug might. In some cases, therapeutic antibodies can also stimulate the immune system in a problem area, like at a tumor, prompting the body to take it out.

Many biologics target molecular processes that no conventional drug can, and they can treat a growing list of diseases. Cancer treatments dominate the list, but since 2011 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved new protein-based biologics for the treatment of Lupus, Crohns disease, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, kidney failure, asthma and high cholesterol.

New types of biologic drugs continue to emerge as well. In late 2015, the FDA approved a first-of-its-kind treatment for patients with advanced melanoma: an engineered herpes virus. Researchers genetically programmed the virus, called T-VEC, to target only cancerous cells, and it can also prompt the immune system to start wiping out cancer. Additional virus-based therapies are currently working their way through the lengthy U.S. drug approval process.

Amgen, the company that produces T-VEC, estimates it will cost an average of $65,000 per patient and that doesnt come close to topping the list of priciest biologic medications. The most expensive drug ever made recently won approval by the FDA. Brineura, a biweekly enzyme replacement therapy produced by BioMarin Pharmaceutical, delays the loss of walking in individuals with a rare genetic disorder. Its price tag? $27,000 per injection, or more than $700,000 for a full years treatment.

The steep prices of biologic drugs are alarming to many patients, physicians and researchers. In an effort to drive costs down, provisions of the Obama administrations Affordable Care Act accelerated the approval process for new biologics intended to compete with already approved medicines. Like generic drugs, so-called biosimilars are designed to be interchangeable with the biologic they seek to replace.

Unlike generic versions of conventional drugs, however, biosimilar drugs are often only similar to not identical with their competition. This means these complex drugs still require lengthy and expensive trials of their own to make sure theyre effective and safe. Because of this, the Federal Trade Commission estimates that biosimilars may only produce an overall 10 to 30 percent discount for patients.

Cost-cutting innovations in the biologic production pipeline are desperately needed. The FDA has called on scientists and drug developers to invent biosimilars that resemble FDA-approved medicines and to develop the tools needed to quickly demonstrate their safety.

As this promising class of drugs continues to grow in number and popularity, their lifesaving power will be limited if costs make them inaccessible to patients who need them.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article here: http://theconversation.com/biologics-the-pricey-drugs-transforming-medicine-80258.

Biologics: The pricey drugs transforming medicine - Houston Chronicle

Microsoft is working on a HoloLens 2 headset with a custom AI chip – Pocket-lint.com

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Danzig

Microsoft is hard at work on theHoloLens 2, and by the sounds of it, it'll packsome fancy new hardware.

Microsoft justannouncedthat the next generation of its HoloLens headset will featurecustom silicon. More specifically, it'll have an artificial intelligence chip - a coprocessor - designed by Microsoft. With this chip, HoloLens 2 will be able to analyse visual data directly, without having to upload the data to the cloud, which should result in more efficient performance overall.

Keep in mind AI is all the rage right now. That, and technologies like augmented reality and virtual reality. So, it makes sense that Microsoft'smixed reality headset would leverage the power of AI. You see, by getting AI to run directly on the device, Microsoft said you'll not only get aquicker performance, but it also means the device won't require a continuous internet connection.

The next HoloLens should therefore offer a trulymobile, powerful experience, along with processing that is more secure, because your data will stay on thedevice. Now, remember, Apple is thought to be building its own customAI processor for the iPhone, so Microsoft is basically doing the same thing for its HoloLens. Clearly, there's some sort of AI race going on in Silicon Valley.

Microsoft'sAI coprocessor will be built into the headset's Holographic Processing Unit, or HPU, a central vision-processing chip that handles data from all the on-board sensors, likehead-tracking unit and infrared cameras. But theres still no release date yet for the HoloLens 2. Rumour has it we can expect it to arrive sometime in 2019.

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Microsoft is working on a HoloLens 2 headset with a custom AI chip - Pocket-lint.com

iRobot, the company behind Roomba, wants to collect home mapping data & sell it to companies like Apple – 9to5Mac

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Danzig

A new report from Reuters outlines the push from Roombo vacuum maker iRobot to expand further into smart home territory. According to the report, iRobot is looking to start collecting mapping information and sell it to tech companies such as Apple to help improve their smart home information.

In an interview, iRobot CEO Colin Angle explained that with the expansion of smart home accessories, the mapping data collected from a Roomba could be used for accessory makers to have a better idea on how homes are designed and laid out:

Theres an entire ecosystem of things and services that the smart home can deliver once you have a rich map of the home that the user has allowed to be shared, said Angle.

Reuters adds that Amazon, Apple, and Alphabet are all fans of the technology. iRobot hopes to ink a deal with one of the tree major tech companies in the next couple of years. Such a deal would see iRobot sell its maps data to improve the design of future smart phone products and accessories.

One analyst also thinks Apple could use the mapping data to help surround sound systems match home acoustics, or to help air conditioners schedule airflow by room. Smart lightning could be adjusted based on window placement and time of day.

The obvious issue that jumps to mind with this strategy is privacy. Angle says, however, that iRobot wont sell any data without customer permission, but he doesnt think it will be hard to gain permission from customers in exchange for such smart home features:

One potential downside is that selling data about users homes raises clear privacy issues, said Ben Rose, an analyst who covers iRobot for Battle Road Research. Customers could find it sort of a scary thing, he said.

Angle said iRobot would not sell data without its customers permission, but he expressed confidence most would give their consent in order to access the smart home functions.

What do you think of iRobots plans? Would you allow it to sell data from your Roomba in exchange for more advanced smart home features? Let us know what you think down in the comments.

Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news:

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iRobot, the company behind Roomba, wants to collect home mapping data & sell it to companies like Apple - 9to5Mac

Sonam Kapoor Flaunts Ample Cleavage in Sexy Nude Strapless Bra Because She Can! See Picture – India.com

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Danzig

Sonam Kapoor is one of the fearless celebrities of the industry. The Bollywood actress neither fears to speak her mind or doing what her heart pleases. Sonam recently posted a gorgeous picture on Instagram from her LOreal Paris campaign photoshoot, and it is everything graceful and hot. Known for her eccentric fashion sense, Sonam flaunted sexy cleavage-baring nude strapless bra wearing a gorgeous dotted dress. This picture comes just a few days after Sonam Kapoor was slut-shamed for posting a selfie with Anushka Sharma dressed in a floral outfit that put her ample bust on display. The Neerja actress is not the one to be meddled with has amicably shut the trolls down by uploading yet another sexy snap.Sonam Kapoors Cleavage Revealing Dress in Selfie With Anushka Sharma Receives Major Backlash from Online Trolls! See Hot Picture.

The actress who is currently vacationing in New York with her rumoured boyfriend, Anand Ahuja stunned her fans by posting a resplendent image on her official Instagram account. She captioned the image, Had an amazing time shooting for LOreal Paris Pure Clay Masks! Checkout my BTS images from LOreal only in my App! #InstaDetox @lorealmakeup @lorealindia. She wears a chic nude dotted with strapless outfit, highlighting her curves to the fullest. With a picturesque locale serving as the perfect background, this photograph will go down as yet another dreamy affair of Sonam Kapoor.Sonam Kapoor looks drop dead RAVISHING in this new photoshoot! View Pics and Video!

Sonam Kapoor is quite a busy bee these days courtesy her modelling assignments. After flooring the world with her silvery bridal avatar while walking the ramp for Ralph & Russos 2017 fall/winter Haute Couture collection at the Paris Fashion Week earlier this month, she recently became the showstopper for Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla for their new Couture and bridal collection. Sonam nailed both the events with her flawless and impactful walk that reflects the actress grace and poised personality.

Had an amazing time shooting for LOreal Paris Pure Clay Masks! Checkout my BTS images from LOreal only in my App! #InstaDetox @lorealmakeup @lorealindia

A post shared by sonamkapoor (@sonamkapoor) on Jul 24, 2017 at 3:55am PDT

The actress who will next be seen in Veere Di Wedding and Untitled Sanjay Dutt Biopic is presently taken some time off and spending quality time with her alleged beau, Anand Ahuja. The happy pair has taken over the New York streets, as they share new clicks on their Instagram accounts. There have been a lot of murmur about their impending marriage plans in the media, which was aptly shut down by Sonam in a detailed tweet addressed to gossip columnists. Well, this girl does not mince her words when giving a piece of her mind!

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Sonam Kapoor Flaunts Ample Cleavage in Sexy Nude Strapless Bra Because She Can! See Picture - India.com

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