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Lack of seaweed on Galveston beaches is good and bad news – KHOU

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Danzig

While Galveston beaches don't see much seaweed anymore, scientists say it may be good for beachgoers but it isn't good for wildlife like sea turtles and fish.

Larry Seward, KHOU 10:31 PM. CDT July 06, 2017

(Photo: KHOU 11 News)

GALVESTON, Texas Do you remember seeing seaweed piles for miles along Galveston beaches about three years ago? Now, the island hardly gets any and experts say that is good and bad.

While some tourists cheer, scientists from Galveston to France worry.

Guests visiting Galveston called their cove of Gulf Coast beach picture perfect Wednesday evening. The Salcido family from San Diego, were on the island for the first time and said its shores feel more open than any they find back home.

Over there you have to fight for parking and battle to get there more, said Rebecca Salcido.

One familiar floating bug-a-boo is mostly missing in action in Galveston.

It feels like you dont know if its seaweed or a jelly fish, said Delbert Purvis, a tourist from Dallas.

Spring and summer tides usually carry sargassum seaweed. In 2014, visitors saw waist deep piles on beaches.

While the change may help tourism, Texas A&M Galveston marine sciences professor Dr. Tom Linton worries that it signals a change in the Gulf Stream.

Its currents feed the Gulf of Mexico sargassum that's become an important natural nursery keeping baby turtles, shrimp and some 100 species of fish protected, Dr. Linton said.

If there is something thats causing it to be reduced, that is a concern, he added.

The seaweed also helps protect beaches from erosion. Dr. Linton counts charter fishermen and fish stock managers among those vulnerable to negative impacts too.

Though many tourists want their seafood and seaweed-free beach fun, some seem ready to roll with any tide.

I probably prefer to have the fish, said beachgoer, Rob Salcido.

2017 KHOU-TV

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Lack of seaweed on Galveston beaches is good and bad news - KHOU

Malloy: Christie a bully for closing the beaches – CT Post

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Danzig

Photo: Andrew Mills / Associated Press

Governor Dannel Malloy gets a tour of the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk from President and CEO Jennifer Herring to promote state tourism destinations.

A boardwalk accesses the beach from the parking area at Silver Sands State Park in Milford, Conn. on Thursday, May 18, 2017.

Visitors cool off in the Housatonic River at Indian Well State Park in Shelton, Conn. on Wednesday, July 6, 2016.

Sherwood Island State Park in Westport, Conn. June 23, 2017.

In this Sunday, July 2, 2017, photo, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, right, uses the beach with his family and friends at the governor's summer house at Island Beach State Park in New Jersey.

Malloy: Christie a bully for closing the beaches

A political line has been drawn in the sand this summer, with the governors of Connecticut and New Jersey taking opposite sides on whether to keep state beaches open during a budget impasse and throwing shade at each other.

Connecticut still has no budget agreement, but Democrat Dannel P. Malloy signed an executive order last week to avert a government shutdown and keep state beaches and parks open for now.

Contrast that with Republican Chris Christie, who basked in the sunshine with his family at a New Jersey state beach over the weekend that was closed to the public because of a budget standoff in Trenton.

By July 4, a budget deal was in place and the beaches reopened, but not before Christie became an internet meme inspiration and got a sunburn from critics, including his longtime adversary Malloy.

It turned out to be a whale of a story, Malloy told Hearst Connecticut Media Thursday. Ultimately, I thought it was a bullying type move. We should not try to punish our citizens for ... governments failures. (Christie) can read from whatever governors (manual) he reads from. I dont know why punishing his citizens was deemed an appropriate way to put pressure on anyone.

Christies spokesman Brian Murray said Malloy is hardly in a position to be telling New Jerseys governor how to run his state.

As Governor Malloy drives GE to Massachusetts and Aetna to New York due to eight years of his failed tax-and-spend policies, he should probably focus on emulating New Jerseys success with an unemployment rate nearly a full point lower than Connecticuts, Murray said. Despite his misguided comments, we would be happy to give him a seminar on how to grow an economy rather than destroy jobs, as he has done for his entire tenure as governor.

The animosity between Malloy and Christie has defined their overlapping tenures, with Christie campaigning for Malloys GOP opponent, Tom Foley, in 2010 and 2014, when Christie led the Republican Governors Association. Malloy is the current head of the Democratic Governors Association.

From whose state has a better business climate to gun control, the gubernatorial adversaries have clashed early and often, which made the following observation from Malloy Thursday about the budget impasse in New Jersey a rare cease-fire.

Now Ill give him credit. They got a budget, Malloy said.

Connecticut lawmakers arent scheduled to reconvene until July 18 for a special session to try to close a $5 billion, two-year budget deficit. Admission and camping fees collected at Connecticut parks and beaches, Malloy said, are enough to sustain state-run recreational facilities. State beaches were such a popular destination during the weekend, the governor said, that they reached capacity early in the day.

Tess Marchant-Shapiro, an associate political science professor at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, said the image of Christie frolicking in the sand will be remembered more than the governors ability to consummate a budget deal.

Christie did manage to parlay (the beach closure) into an agreement this week, which was astounding to me, Marchant-Shapiro said. Certainly, I think Malloys strategy was wiser.

Christie and his family were photographed from a plane by NJ Advance Media Sunday on an empty beach in Berkeley Township, where there is an official summer residence for the governor at Island Beach State Park. Christie has said the residence is separate from the park and that he didnt use any state services there.

But Marchant-Shapiro said Christies response to reporters when questioned about the visual of the first family of New Jersey having the beach all to itself didnt help the governor.

That line that he made, Well if you want to be on the beaches, why dont you run for governor? Thats just not a politic thing to say, she said.

As for Malloys holiday weekend, he said it was no day at the beach.

If I was gonna go to the beaches, I would have tried to go to New Jersey, he said, sarcastically.

nvigdor@hearstmediact.com; 203-625-4436; http://twitter.com/gettinviggy

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Malloy: Christie a bully for closing the beaches - CT Post

Monte Rio Beach on Russian River closed over excessive bacteria levels – Santa Rosa Press Democrat

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Danzig

(1 of ) The Big Rocky Games at the Monte Rio Beach brings back good old all-American fun with sack races, rock skipping and ice cream eating contests. (John Burgess/The Press Democrat)

MARY CALLAHAN

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT | July 6, 2017, 7:49PM

| Updated 1 hour ago.

Water quality information

Sonoma Countys beach hotline offers information on beach closures in English and Spanish, at (707) 565-6552.

Additional information and full beach test results are available here.

Sonoma County health officials have closed Monte Rio Beach on the Russian River to swimming, wading and other activities that would put visitors in direct contact with the water because of elevated bacterial levels in the wake of an extremely busy holiday weekend.

The Department of Health Services posted signs on the beach Thursday afternoon warning of contaminated water after recent testing that showed both E. coli and total coliform levels were above state standards, officials said.

Those bacterial strains are used as markers for the possible presence of fecal material, though the testing does not distinguish which E. coli strains may be present or whether any of the bacteria in evidence are from a human source or some other mammal, according to Dr. Karen Holbrook, the countys deputy public health officer.

Its also impossible to determine whether bacteria was introduced through some kind of septic tank leak, homeless encampment or some other form of direct contamination along the river.

The beach was crowded with people for four days, starting Saturday with the two-day Big Rocky Games, Sunday nights fireworks, a busy Monday and overwhelming visitorship on Tuesday, Monte Rio Recreation and Park District officials said.

Tuesday we had the biggest crowd weve ever had, said Steve Baxman, district chairman and the local fire chief. It was unreal.

But the level of total coliform at Monte Rio already was elevated on Monday, when all 10 river beaches that are part of the countys weekly testing program were sampled.

At that point, Monte Rio Beachs result for total coliform was 10,462 organisms per 100 milliliter. The state standard is 10,000 organisms per 100 ml.

E. coli levels were well below the 235-organism-per-100-ml threshold, at 41.

Additional samples were collected at Monte Rio on Wednesday, under the countys retesting protocol, and showed total coliform of 11,199 organisms per 100 ml.

Measurements of E. coli were 833 organism per 100 ml on Wednesday, almost four times the state standard of 235.

When those results came back from the lab Thursday showing excessive and increasing concentrations of both bacterial families, the need to close the beach was clear, Holbrook said.

None of the other Russian River beaches have shown exceeding levels of the contaminants.

Additional samples at Monte Rio were collected Thursday, with the possibility that lab results available today will show bacterial levels already have fallen below the state standard. If they do not, the health department will decide whether to test through the weekend, she said.

Baxman said he expected strong seasonal river flows to return the water to safe standards promptly, and said many beach visitors present when the signs went up on Thursday chose to stay, but just refrained from swimming.

Holbrook said river testing at all the beaches bounces up and down. She noted that Patterson Point, in Villa Grande on the lower river, had a total coliform level of 8,164 on July 3, 932 on June 26 and 1,658 June 19.

Cases of excessive bacterial levels have generally been relatively rare.

Im hopeful that this was a blip based on all of the bodies that were out in the water at Monte Rio Beach over the weekend and on the Fourth, and we timed our testing perfectly to capture that that given a little time, thats going to dissipate, Holbrook said.

Water quality information

Sonoma Countys beach hotline offers information on beach closures in English and Spanish, at (707) 565-6552.

Additional information and full beach test results are available here.

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Monte Rio Beach on Russian River closed over excessive bacteria levels - Santa Rosa Press Democrat

All South Shore beaches open – Wicked Local Norwell

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Danzig

For the second straight week, all 65 salt-water beaches on the South Shore passed bacteria tests this week and are open for swimming.

See water quality test results for each community and for Cape Cod, the South Coast and North Shore.

For more on Quincy beaches, call 617-376-1288, or visit tpl-beaches. For more on Wollaston Beach, call 617-626-4972.

HOW BEACHES ARE TESTED

Sixy-five beaches on the South Shore are tested for intestinal bacteria found in humans and animals.

High levels indicate the possible presence of disease-causing microbes that are present in sewage but are more difficult to detect. Bacterial colonies are filtered from three ounces of water and placed on a gel infused with nutrients and chemicals designed to promote growth.

Left in an incubator, the single cells isolated on the filter grow explosively, forming colonies visible to the naked eye. After one day, the colonies are counted and if they exceed 104 colonies, the beach is closed to swimming.

If the past five samples have a mean exceeding 35 colonies, the beach must also be closed to swimming.

Show raises awareness about keeping beaches clean – Boston Herald

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Danzig

One mans flotsam is anothers fashion as evidenced by the repurposed beach finds rocking the runway at last nights second annual Cisco Trashion Show on Nantucket, where models decked out in recyclable materials wowed the crowd to raise awareness about protecting the coastline.

The best part about the event is how many people make this possible, Nantucket blACKbook founder Holly Finigan told the Herald. There are about 75 people who made this come together, so its become a really wonderful community event.

The Trashion Show, presented by The Nantucket blACKbook, was held at Cisco Brewers Nantucket and featured 22 local models who walked the runway in outrageous handmade get-ups crafted out of everything from Solo cups, wristbands and straws to magazines, beach toys and balloons.

Proceeds from the show benefitted the Nantucket-based nonprofit ACK Clean Team, which works to remove trash and debris from the islands shoreline.

Former Patriots cheerleader and Dirty Water Media reporter Camille Kostek, who wore a magazine skirt, was among the models taking part.

Finigan said the idea for the show was hatched in 2015, when island officials launched an awareness campaign centered on the hundreds of pounds of litter and debris that was being picked up after Fourth of July celebrations on Nobadeer Beach.

It wasnt a good look for our island, Finigan said, adding that the fashion show is preceded by a beach cleanup.

On July 5 we all meet at Cisco for a big beach clean and then the next day we have the trashion show, Finigan said.

The great news about this year is that last year we had a lot of trash to pick up but this year the beaches were so clean that we were hardly filling half of our garbage bags. It shows people are recognizing what to do with their trash in order to protect the environment.

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Show raises awareness about keeping beaches clean - Boston Herald

Amateur Astronomers Association of New York

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Danzig

Welcome to the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York

UPCOMING EVENTS

Note: only the next scheduled observing event for each location is shown. For a complete list, see our Observing page or consult our Calendar.

Jul 6 (THU) - Observing, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn - see map for new location [CANCELLED]

Jul 7 (FRI) - Observing, Hunters Point Park, Queens

Jul 7 (FRI) - Observing, Carl Schurz Park, Manhattan

Jul 7(FRI) - Observing, Lincoln Center, Manhattan

Jul 8 (SAT) - Observing, Tanabata Festival, Manhattan

Jul 8 (SAT) - Observing, Lincoln Center, Manhattan

Jul 8 (SAT) - Observing, Riverside Park South, Manhattan

Jul 9 (SUN) - Observing, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn

Jul 11 (TUE) - Solar Observing, High Line, Manhattan

Jul 11 (TUE) - Observing, High Line, Manhattan

Jul 13 (THU) - Observing, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn - see map for new location

Jul 16 (SUN) - Solar Observing, Central Park, Manhattan

Jul 22 (SAT) - Dark Sky Observing, North South Lake

Jul 29 (SAT) - Observing, Great Kills, Staten Island

Jul 30 (SUN) - Solar Observing, Riverside Park South, Manhattan

Aug 1 (TUE) - Observing, Riverdale, Bronx

Aug 5 (SAT) - Observing, Brooklyn Museum Plaza, Brooklyn

Sep 22 (FRI) - Observing, Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn

Oct 14 (SAT) - Solar Viewing, Brooklyn Central Library

JUNE'S SKY

SEE FULL CALENDAR

BECOME A MEMBER

MEMBER PORTAL (RENEW MEMBERSHIP)

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Amateur Astronomers Association of New York

Mars may be more toxic to life than we thought – Astronomy Magazine

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Danzig

Life on Mars does it exist? Depending on when you last checked in with news about the Red Planet, you could probably be convinced either way. As we discover more and more about the composition and planetary dynamics of Mars, there has been cause for both elation and disappointment regarding the likelihood that organic life could manage to eke out a living on the planet.

The pendulum swung back toward the no side today with the release of a study examining how a special kind of salt on Mars interacts with ultraviolet radiationthere. Martian soil islaced with perchlorates, an ioncomposed of one chlorine and four oxygen atoms, and which binds to a number of different elements to form various compounds. Its classified as a salt, and was initially cause for celebration among extraterrestrial hopefuls because it drastically lowers the freezing point of water, meaning that liquid H20 might conceivably exist on the surface. It can also be used to produce rocket fuel and oxygen, another plus for future settlers.

It turns out that these perchlorates are actually highly toxic to life when bathed in UV radiation that pummels Mars. Researchers from theUnited Kingdom Centre for Astrobiology at the University of Edinburgh exposed a strain of bacteria commonly found on spacecraft to levels of perchlorates and UV light found on the Red Planet and found that nearly all of them were dead within a minute. They tried this with several different kinds of perchlorate, and found similar results every time. Adding in additional environmental factors found on Mars like low temperatures, additional minerals found on Mars and a lack of oxygen also failed to keep the bacteria alive.

This was a bit surprising for the researchers because the strain of bacteria used,Bacillus subtilis, belongs to a genus that actually does fine in the presence of perchlorates, as studies of the microbesinterrestrial environmentshave confirmed. These findings were initially good news for researchers looking for extraterrestrial life, as they suggested that some forms of life could survive in Martian analogue conditions.

Theres more to Mars than just the soil though, and when the Edinburgh researchers added in a few more Mars-like factors UV specifically the bacteria died in short order. They think this happens because the UV light breaks apart the perchlorate molecules into more reactive ions that wreak havoc on living cells. This hypothesiswas backed up by the observation that low temperatures, which slow down chemical reactions, extended the lifespan of the bacteria in the perchlorates but still resulted in them dying. If they cant survive there, it significantly lowers our chances of finding life on Mars life that looks similar to organisms on Earth at least. The researcherspublished their findingsThursday inNature Scientific Reports.

While its a blow to the possibility of finding life on Mars, there is at least one upside to the news: NASA regularly worries about the possibility of contaminating other planets with Earthly bacteria, even going so far as tocrash probes into Saturnso that they dont hit the planets moons. If Mars is so hostile to bacteria that they cant even make it a minute on the surface, our fears of contamination could be pretty much resolved.

This article originally appeared on Discover.

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Mars may be more toxic to life than we thought - Astronomy Magazine

JAXA, NASA approve replacement for failed Hitomi astronomy satellite – Spaceflight Now

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Danzig

Artists concept of the failed Hitomi satellite. Credit: JAXA

The Japanese space agency is moving ahead with a smaller-scale X-ray astronomy satellite to replace the failed Hitomi observatory, which spun out of control about a month-and-a-half after its launch last year.

The X-ray Astronomy Recovery Mission, or XARM, could launch as soon as March 2021, filling a potential gap in astronomers X-ray vision of the universe, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.

NASA has agreed to a junior partner in XARM pronounced charm and supply X-ray telescopes and a spectrometer instrument for the Japanese-led mission, according to Paul Hertz, directory of NASAs astrophysics division.

The Japanese Diet approved spending on XARM for the Japanese governments current fiscal year, which started in April, and officials are in the final stages of formally kicking off development of the mission, Hertz said in a recent interview with Spaceflight Now.

The Hitomi satellite failed in March 2016 after a series of attitude control problems caused the orbiting observatory to spin up and shed segments of its power-generating solar panels. Ground controllers lost contact with the satellite as it orbited more than 350 miles (575 kilometers) above Earth.

Astronomers viewed the roughly $400 million mission as a stepping stone between current flagship-class X-ray telescopes, like NASAs Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agencys XMM-Newton, and an upgraded, more sensitive X-ray observatory called Athena due for launch in the late 2020s.

Hertz said XARM will not have the observing range of Hitomi, which carried four scientific instruments sensitive to a range of X-ray wavelengths and gamma-rays, exposing astronomers to the workings of some of the most extreme events and environments in the cosmos, such as black holes, neutron stars and the creation of galaxies in the distant, ancient universe.

XARM will instead carry replacements for Hitomis two lower-energy instruments the Soft X-ray Imager and the Soft X-ray Spectrometer. Both instruments contain critical parts provided by NASA, and the spectrometer is primarily a U.S.-developed payload.

The mission will not be a carbon copy (of Hitomi), but the NASA contribution will be a carbon copy, Hertz said in an interview. The XARM mission is going to have only two of the four instruments that Hitomi had. It will have the Soft X-ray Spectrometer and the Soft X-ray Imager. The latter is a JAXA instrument, but we provided the telescope for both of those.

XARM will not need an extendable 20-foot (6-meter) boom like Hitomi, Hertz said, because it will fly without the hard X-ray instruments that needed the deployable arm. Hard X-rays are at the higher-energy, shorter-wavelength end of the spectrum of X-ray light.

That makes it a simpler mission, so although our part will be built-to-print, there will obviously be some changes on the bus, Hertz said.

The Soft X-ray Imager on XARM will also have improved resolution over the instrument on Hitomi, JAXA officials said.

JAXA managers said NASAs NuSTAR telescope, which sees the universe in hard X-rays, could fill in for the missing high-energy instruments on XARM. The two observatories could conduct coordinated, tandem observations to help realize Hitomis original science objectives.

NASA will spend between $70 million and $90 million on its part of the XARM observatory, according to Hertz. Flight spares at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center from the original Hitomi development will help save some money, he said.

The European Space Agency is also a minor partner in Hitomis replacement mission.

A Japanese government document dated May 30 indicated JAXA would set up a project team and select a manufacturer for the XARM spacecraft within one year.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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JAXA, NASA approve replacement for failed Hitomi astronomy satellite - Spaceflight Now

Celestial sleuthing around a spectacular spiral galaxy – SYFY WIRE (blog)

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Danzig

In the late 18th century, comet hunter Charles Messier was becoming irritated. He scanned the skies with his telescope looking for the fuzzy visitors, but kept getting fooled by other fuzzy objects that didnt appear to move from night to night. Frustrated, he created a list of these distractions, so that in the future he wouldnt mistake them for comets.

Messier may not have invented irony, but he sure gave us a great example of it. The Messier Catalog, as we now know it, compiles 110 of the most glorious deep sky objects you can see through the telescope and is a staple of amateur astronomers the world round. Star clusters, supernovae remnants, nebulae, and quite a few spectacular galaxies make up the catalog.

The 77th object on his list is a spiral galaxy that is located just under 50 million light years from us, and its gorgeous. Dont believe me? Well then, see for yourself:

[VLT image of the spiral galaxy M77. Credit: ESO. Click here to embiggen.]

Oh, yeah. Now that, there, is a spiral.

That image was taken using Antu, one of the four monster 8-meter telescopes making up the Very Large Telescope in Chile. Its comprised of images taken in four filters: Blue, yellow, red, and another called H-alpha, which brings out the light from hydrogen gas (in order theyre displayed as blue, green, orange, and red).

The red marks the location of vast clouds of hydrogen gas, glowing due to the energy of massive, hot stars newly born inside them. The blue glow of these stars can be seen throughout the galaxy, too.

The core of this galaxy is odd. Can you see how, at the very center, its quite bright? Thats because M77 is an active galaxy. Every big galaxy we see has a supermassive black hole at its heart, formed along with the galaxy, itself. Our Milky Way has one, four million times the mass of the Sun. But ours is quiescent, calm. Its not feeding on any material falling into it.

M77s central black hole, on the other hand, is quite eagerly consuming material. As this stuff falls into the black hole, it heats up tremendously, and glows furiously before it takes that last step from which there is no return, into the maw of the black hole. This powerful glow from the material is what makes the center of M77 so bright.

As I gazed at this image in awe, I noticed something else odd. Theres a very bright star to the left of the galactic center; thats actually a star in our own galaxy, shining brightly in the image because its much closer to us than M77. But look just to its left and little below: Theres a multi-colored streak there, going from blue to green to red.

Whats that?

As soon as I saw it, I had an idea: It must be a satellite, a human-made object orbiting our own planet. These sometimes move across astronomical images, leaving streaks during the long exposures. In this case, the observation of M77 was taken using different filters, so during each exposure as the satellite moved it left a different color streak (its missing one color, so perhaps that observation was taken at a different time).

But even then, I was baffled for a moment. Why are the streaks so short? Usually exposure times are long, so the streaks are, too. Even an exposure time of a minute should result in a streak going clear across the image!

What kind of satellite leaves a short streak? Well, I reasoned, one that doesnt move quickly. A-ha! This must be a geosynchronous satellite, one that orbits over the Earths equator about 40,000 km up. A satellite in that orbit takes 24 hours to orbit the Earth once, the same time the Earth spins once. From their point of view, they see the same face of the planet, making them useful watchdogs on weather, or for communications. From our point of view on Earth, they appear to stay in one point in the sky, moving only a little bit if their orbit is tilted a bit to the equator or is not perfectly circular.

Wondering if I was right, I checked the sky coordinates of M77. To my delight, I found it to be at a declination (a celestial version of Earthly latitude) of almost exactly 0: precisely above the Earths equator!

A-ha, again! Thats exactly where youd expect to see a geosynch satellite, so Im pretty sure my guess is correct.

[Hubble has a higher resolution than VLT, so you can see more detail in this image, but it also has a smaller field of view, so you don't get the same context.Credit: NASA, ESA & A. van der Hoeven. Click here to galactinate.

Ill admit Im pretty pleased with myself and my sleuthing. But thats what science is all about, right? You see something in your observations, you wonder what it is, and you come up with an explanation. You can then ask what predictions you can make, and then test them to see if they pan out.

And mine did!

But could I be wrong? Sure! Another idea is that the streaks are from an asteroid, a smallish rock orbiting the Sun. It, too, would leave short multi-colored streaks in the image. Asteroids tend to stick to the plane of the solar system, though, and M77 is about 15 off that plane. Not hugely far, and its entirely possible to find an asteroid out there. But the exposure time for these images is pretty short, and an asteroid wouldnt move much in that time.

Its not impossible that this is an asteroid, but I lean more toward it being a satellite. Most likely, Ill never know, which is OK in this case; its not of cosmic importance. But the point is, its fun to investigate, to examine these images closely, and to wonder whats in them. There is beauty and art to science, as this image makes obvious.

But also? Its so much fun.

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Celestial sleuthing around a spectacular spiral galaxy - SYFY WIRE (blog)

Annual Brite Lake astronomy event coming July 22-23 – Tehachapi News

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Danzig

On Saturday, July 22, the Antelope Valley Astronomy Club, in partnership with the Tehachapi Valley Recreation and Parks District, will be holding our annual Star-B-Cue picnic, followed by a public Star Party in the main parking lot, near Pavilions 1 and 2, at the Brite Lake Recreational Facility. This will be the seventh year that we have held this event at Brite Lake, and every year we have hundreds of local visitors, as well as many from the Antelope Valley and beyond, with whom we share the views of the cosmos.

The public event will take place from sunset on Saturday, July 22 till dawn on Sunday, July 23. This is a new moon weekend and the sky will be darkest for astronomical observing. As in years past, the club will be having a private picnic prior to the Star Party and the public are asked to arrive after 7:30 p.m. Local astronomers who wish to set up in the parking lot may arrive as early as 7 p.m. in order to get their equipment set up before dark.

Because the main parking lot will be used as the telescope field, visitors are asked to park along the dirt road immediately to the east of the parking lot. If arriving after dark, please use parking lights only if possible as you approach the event as headlights will interfere with viewing and affect the night adapted vision of the participants. Please be aware of the extreme fire danger and avoid driving or parking on dry grass.

On the night of the event, sunset is at 8:04 p.m. with end of Astronomical Twilight (when it is dark enough to really start seeing deep sky objects like galaxies and nebulae) not occurring till approximately 9:45 p.m. While Jupiter and Saturn will be viewable throughout the event, visitors wanting to see deep sky objects should be prepared to stay later when it is truly dark. Please bear in mind also that many of the telescopes require darkness in order to be aligned so they can find objects. If visitors arrive too early, they will have to wait till they are ready for use.

We will also have several special solar telescopes available for people who might happen by earlier in the day and we will be handing out special Eclipse Shades for safe viewing of the solar eclipse on Aug. 21 as well as literature about that event.

Once again, the Tehachapi Valley Recreation and Parks District will be turning off the parking lot lights and the Tehachapi Cummings County Water District will be turning off the lights at their facility to ensure truly dark skies.

At a Star Party, astronomy club members and visitors view celestial objects such as planets, galaxies, globular clusters, nebulae, and sometimes even comets through serious, observatory quality, telescopes of various types, designs, and sizes. Last year, the largest telescope at the event was a dobsonian reflector with a 24 inch mirror. To preserve night adapted vision, only red lighting will be allowed and visitors are asked not to use white light flashlights. We understand that visitors may want to preserve their participation in the event with a photograph, but we ask that if you use flash you warn others so that they may turn away or cover their eyes to preserve their night vision.

For additional information, or if you have questions, visit avastronomyclub.org or call Frank or Rose Moore at 822-4580 or 972-4775. Information will also be available on our Facebook page at facebook.com/avastronomyclub.

Frank Moore is the president of the Antelope Valley Astronomy Club, Inc.

Originally posted here:

Annual Brite Lake astronomy event coming July 22-23 - Tehachapi News

Astronomy exhibition – The Hindu

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Danzig

The Hindu

Astronomy exhibition
The Hindu
An astronomy exhibition comprising of fun-filled activities was organised by students of astronomy club of Classes VII, VIII and IX at Sachdeva Public School, Rohini, on April 22. A plethora of activities were conducted to popularise astronomy and ...

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Astronomy exhibition - The Hindu

RHS astronomy club sends balloon sailing across the state – Redmond Reporter

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Danzig

Students in the Redmond High School astronomy club prepare to launch their balloon. Contributed photo Students in the Redmond High School astronomy club prepare to launch their balloon. Contributed photo

Students from Redmond High Schools astronomy club made a trek to Ellensburg last week as they chased down a weather balloon they launched from their school.

Keenan Ganz, a junior, started the club this year and said in an email they initially estimated the balloon would land near North Bend and Snoqualmie when they launched it on June 22.

The balloon itself was inflated to just under 6 feet in diameter. Ganz said they were unable to inflate it to 6 feet, and balloons with smaller diameters travel farther.

They astronomy club also ran into technical problems when they were creating a parachute to safely land the payload the balloon was carrying, which included a styrofoam container holding a GPS unit, a GoPro camera and insulation to keep the instruments warm as it reached heights possibly exceeding 50,000 feet.

Instead of purchasing a pre-folded parachute, the club hand-cut and sewed a parachute made of Tyvek, which is a type of covering used during building constructions.

Ganz said while it is strong, light and cheap, it doesnt fold very well.

So instead of packing it, they wrapped it around the top of the balloon, so when the balloon was popped, the parachute would already be deployed, Ganz said.

The group also used travel simulators developed by the University of Cambridge and the University of Michigan to estimate where the balloon could land.

Ganz said these estimates can be inaccurate due to how many factors go into the projections. He gave the example of a balloon inflated to 5 feet will float nearly 10,000 feet higher than a balloon inflated to 6 feet.

The team would also be tracking the balloon from two different vehicles, one which would tail it and one which would head out in front of the balloon. They also had to wait for a day with little wind and clear skies.

Finally on the Thursday of the launch, Ganz said the conditions aligned and they launched the balloon. The club was nervous, Ganz said, because if the balloon landed on a large tree or on a mountain, it would be unrecoverable, and the equipment that had either been loaned or belonged personally by the club members would be lost.

The group tracked the flightpath of the balloon as it shot rapidly southeast from Redmond. At one point, it was moving at more than 90 mph as it moved over the Cascade Range toward Easton.

While Ganz said they cant know the exact altitude the balloon reached, the onboard GPS unit stops working at 50,000 feet, and they lost contact with it for a brief period, possibly meaning the balloon exceeded that limit.

Chad Keddie was part of the astronomy club and a member of the team that tracked down the balloon when it finally landed near Ellensburg.

We had no idea where it was going for around a half hour, he said. We had to go to one to the local places, get Wi-Fi and basically kind of update the location.

They continued to track the balloon after they confirmed it cleared the mountains and eventually sent a cluster of eight pings on a property owned by a Methodist church camp around 13 miles west of Ellensburg.

Ganz said they got permission to search for the balloon and after an hour of hiking around the property, they located it in a tree and eventually were able to recover it.

When they finally got it down, Ganz said the GPS was still working and the GoPro had shut off after recording around 30 minutes of the balloon hanging in the tree after its trip across the Cascades.

The camera also recorded around two hours of its journey across the Cascades, including shots of Puget Sound, Lake Washington, the Olympics and Lake Sammamish.

Keddie said being a part of the astronomy club during its first year was a good experience.

It was awesome, a lot of fun from the very beginning, he said.

This project in particular really caught the teams attention, he said.

The club didnt have much, if any, funding, so the members had to get resourceful and rely on either donations or make the items themselves.

Its just really cool to see when you have an idea and you have all these pieces moving and working together, he said.

As next year is Keddies senior year, he said he hopes to inspire younger students to join the astronomy club to keep it going in future years.

Were looking for more people to expand and keep the club going, he said.

Read the rest here:

RHS astronomy club sends balloon sailing across the state - Redmond Reporter

Artificial intelligence-based system warns when a gun appears in a video – Phys.Org

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Danzig

July 7, 2017 Credit: University of Granada

Scientists from the University of Granada (UGR) have designed a computer system based on new artificial intelligence techniques that automatically detects in real time when a subject in a video draws a gun.

Their work, pioneering on a global scale, has numerous practical applications, from improving security in airports and malls to automatically controlling violent content in which handguns appear in videos uploaded on social networks such as Facebook, Youtube or Twitter, or classifying public videos on the internet that have handguns.

Francisco Herrera Triguero, Roberto Olmos and Siham Tabik, researchers in the Department of Computational and Artificial Intelligence Sciences at the UGR, developed this work. To ensure the proper functioning and efficiency of the model, the authors analyzed low-quality videos from YouTube and movies from the '90s such as Pulp Fiction, Mission Impossible and James Bond films. The algorithm showed an effectiveness of over 96.5 percent and is capable of detecting guns with high precision, analyzing five frames per second, in real time. When a handgun appears in the image, the system sends an alert in the form of a red box on the screen where the weapon is located.

A fast and inexpensive model

UGR full professor Francisco Herrera explained that the model can easily be combined with an alarm system and implemented inexpensively using video cameras and a computer with moderately high capacities.

Additionally, the system can be implemented in any area where video cameras can be placed, indoors or outdoors, and does not require direct human supervision.

Researcher Siham Tabik noted that deep learning models like this represent a major breakthrough over the last five years in the detection, recognition and classification of objects in the field of computational.

A pioneering system

Until now, the principal weapon detection systems were based on metal detection and found in airports and public events in closed spaces. Although these systems have the advantage of being able to detect a firearm even when it is hidden from sight, they unfortunately have several disadvantages.

Among these drawbacks is the fact that these systems can only control the passage through a specific point (if the person carrying the weapon does not pass through this point, the system is useless); they also require the constant presence of a human operator and generate bottlenecks when there is a large flow of people. They also detect everyday metallic objects such as coins, belt buckles and mobile phones. This makes it necessary to use conveyor belts and x-ray scanners in combination with these systems, which is both slow and expensive. In addition, these systems cannot detect weapons that are not made of metal, which are now possible because of 3-D printing.

For this reason, handgun detection through video cameras is a new complementary security system that is useful for areas with video surveillance.

Explore further: Tracking humans in 3-D with off-the-shelf webcams

More information: Automatic Handgun Detection Alarm in Videos Using Deep Learning. arxiv.org/abs/1702.05147

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Volvo plans to build only electric and hybrid vehicles starting in 2019, making it the first major automaker to abandon cars and SUVs powered solely by the internal combustion engine.

The first Tesla Model 3 electric car for the masses should come off the assembly line on Friday with the first deliveries in late July, the company's CEO says.

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Artificial intelligence-based system warns when a gun appears in a video - Phys.Org

Anthony Hilton: How artificial intelligence can help us save – Evening Standard

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Danzig

The level of saving in Britain in the first quarter of this year was the lowest since records began in this case 1963, according to figures published last week by the Office for National Statistics.

Over those intervening 54 years the British, on average, have managed to save 9.2% of their income every year.

However, last year taxes went up but people felt confident enough to keep on spending even with less money in their pocket.

As a result, in the first quarter, the savings ratio dropped to just 6.1%.

The spending spree continued throughout last summer and by the final quarter of last year, savings had virtually halved again to 3.3%.

Then they halved again: in the first three months of this year it was an almost invisible 1.7%.

It has been calculated separately that 16 million people in the UK have less than 100 to their name though that obviously includes a lot of children and more than 2.5 million of the adults in this group live permanently under water on their credit cards.

The financial services industry tends to think it is the solution, but it is in fact part of the problem.

Every week someone somewhere in the business warns of the dire consequences which will befall the population in its old age if it does not immediately enrol in a pension scheme, an ISA, or even open a deposit account.

But they ignore the fact that there is a generation of savers out there who once believed them and whom they subsequently let down.

The world is full of people who bought 25-year with-profits endowment policies in the late Eighties and early Nineties, saved religiously every month, and were then presented with a final cheque by the UK saving industry which was for less than they paid in over all those years.

The insurance companies think they have put this problem behind them by forgetting about it selling off their with-profit books of business to a consolidator and washing their hands of the continuing responsibility.

Those policyholders who have, in effect, been cut loose and abandoned by the organisation they trusted are hardly likely to advise their children the millennials to sign up to their successors.

Similarly with pensions. One of the five largest pension schemes in the UK is the Pension Protection Fund, an organisation which was brought into existence a little over a decade ago to put some kind of rescue in place for pension schemes which had failed elsewhere.

Today, it has assets of 28 billion, the aggregate of all those failed schemes plus some investment return and has paid out more than 3 billion.

The fund is a big improvement on the void which existed before and it has more than a quarter of a million members who depend on it because they had previously been in schemes that failed.

Unfortunately but necessarily, to keep costs manageable it pays out to most of them rather less than they had previously been promised in their original pension schemes.

Though grateful to the fund that leaves another 250,000 people who might reasonably feel let down by the long-term savings industry.

But the biggest problem of all is that the naked self-interest of the savings industry drives it to design products which suit itself not its customers often requiring quite large initial lump sums, a commitment to regular payments and restrictions and penalties for early cash withdrawal.

It then tries to sell these to the public, and the offerings are studiously ignored.

When the public dont buy them, rather than change the products (as should happen in a capitalist system), the savings industry demands instead that young people be educated as if this was North Korea to turn them away from being feckless.

However, if alternatively, the savings industry were to look at the problems facing young people mountains of student debt, stagnant incomes and unaffordable housing and set about designing products which might actually help, it might get a better response.

We shall soon see.

This week Seedrs, the crowdfunding site, began raising money for Plum which has a product specifically designed to help non- savers to save.

To people of my generation this sounds positively Orwellian, but it is also very clever.

Artificial intelligence can predict financial behaviour by closely monitoring a persons existing pattern of spending and comparing it with what has gone before.

Thus the founders of Plum have developed an algorithm which monitors a persons bank account.

It then notes every couple of days when, on the basis of its predictions, there might be a small amount of cash which could be diverted to savings, without impinging on the persons lifestyle, and duly makes the transfer.

It is the electronic equivalent of emptying ones pockets into a jar at the end of the day, but with the advantage that it will do it only when it believes you will not need to dip back into the jar.

Interestingly, before launching, the companys joint founders road-tested the idea.

One of them set aside all the money left in his bank current account at the end of the month; the other relied on the algorithm to analyse his transactions and calculate how much he could safely put aside during the month. The algorithm won hands down.

The implications of this are profound because if artificial intelligence can predict financial behaviour then it paves the way for a complete solution to personal financial management.

It would be a simple matter then to link those savings flows into an automated investment platform such as EQ Investors or Nutmeg and thereby get people not only saving but investing without having to think about it.

And it would pose an existential long-term challenge to existing fund managers whose business models rely heavily on attracting clients who already have money.

Read the rest here:

Anthony Hilton: How artificial intelligence can help us save - Evening Standard

A Look At The Artificial Intelligence Companies And My Top 5 – Seeking Alpha

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Danzig

Note: This article first appeared on my Trend Investing Marketplace service on June 8. All data is therefore as of that date.

I wrote previously about the relatively new trend of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in my article. This time I plan to take a look at the main companies to consider for investing in AI, and select my top 5.

AI - "machines with brains"

Source

Many AI companies are unlisted and acquired before IPO

According to CB Insights, "over 200 private companies using AI algorithms across different verticals have been acquired since 2012, with over 30 acquisitions taking place in Q1'17 alone." Perhaps CB Insights will be next. The graph below gives further details. The left side list also gives an idea of the current AI leaders and acquirers.

Source: CB Insights

Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG, GOOGL)

Wikipedia quotes: "According to Bloomberg's Jack Clark, 2015 was a landmark year for artificial intelligence, with the number of software projects that use AI within Google increased from a "sporadic usage" in 2012 to more than 2,700 projects."

Google's research projects often have the idea of automating everything, and connecting everything and everyone online (such as "Project Loon").

Google search is already using complex algorithms (e.g. RankBrain) and deep learning techniques.

Google's Home is a recent example of Google's move into AI with their inbuilt "Google Assistant" (similar to Siri, Alexa, Bixby, M, Cortana and Watson). The assistant responds to any sentence beginning "Hey Google". A key is the voice recognition technology and microphones, so that the assistant can correctly understand you and make appropriate responses.

Google announced its first chip, called the Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), in 2016. That chip worked in Google's data centers to power search results and image-recognition. A new version will be available to clients of its cloud business.

Google is a leader in autonomous car systems, which uses plenty of AI. It helps they already have Google maps. Google also have android auto car entertainment and internet capability.

Some AI acquisitions include: DNNresearch (voice and image recognition), DeepMind Technologies (deep learning, memory), Moodstock (visual search), Api.ai. (bot platform), Kaggle (predictive analytics platform).

Amazon Echo Dot has Alexa, Google Home has Hey Google, and Apple smartphone has Siri

Source

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN)

Amazon's home speaker Echo (and Echo Dot) and personal assistant "Alexa" is an example of Amazon's move into AI. Alexa is perhaps the most successful AI powered personal assistant thus far, especially as it is able to do over 10,000 online and offline functions.

Amazon Web Services ("cloud") offers deep-learning capabilities, allowing users to use up to 16 of Nvidia's Tesla K80 GPUs.

Amazon's AI acquisitions include Orbeus (automated facial, object and scene recognition), Angel ai (Chatbots), and Harvest.ai (cyber security).

Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD)

AMD are a semiconductor manufacturer. The company's new AI chips are the Radeon Instinct series. AMD are also racing to put its chips into AI applications. AMD will release its ROCm deep-learning framework, as well as an open-source GPU-accelerated library called MIOpen. The company plans to launch three products under the new brand in 2017.

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL)

Apple has been an AI leader with their voice (and face) recognition software used by their personal assistant Siri (on your smartphone), introduced in 2011. In October 2016, Apple hired Russ Salakhutdinov from Carnegie Mellon University as its director of AI research.

Apple is working on a processor devoted specifically to AI-related tasks. The chip is known internally as the "Apple Neural Engine". Apple have an autonomous vehicle development team that uses AI, and they are also said to be working on augmented reality using AI chips. Apple is reportedly developing a specific AI chip for mobile devices.

Apple is also a leader in the areas of Virtual Reality ((VR)) and Augmented Reality ((AR)) headsets. Apple's ARKit will available soon and may one day may replace the smartphone. Apple iPhone users could get their first taste of AR technology later this year. The 10-year anniversary Apple iPhone will be enhanced with AR features.

Apple has made several AI acquisitions including Perceptio (deep learning technology for smartphones, that allows phones to independently identify images without relying on external data libraries), Emotient (can assess emotions by reading facial expressions), and RealFace (facial recognition).

VR and AR headsets are the next potential big thing

Source

Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU)

Baidu are the Google of China, so not surprisingly they have followed in Google's footsteps developing deep learning search functionality, as well as autonomous driving.

Facebook (NASDAQ: FB)

Mark Zuckerberg has become very interested in AI, since initially using it for simple tasks. Facebook has chatbots and Zuckerberg has developed his own personal assistant "M". The Facebook site uses AI to then direct targeted advertising to match your likes.

Facebook holds more than $32 billion in cash on its balance sheet and produced more than $13 billion in free cash flow over the last year. The company does not pay any dividends and has no debt. This means Facebook can pretty much buy up any rivals or promising new AI or tech companies. Some acquisitions include Face.com (facial recognition), Masquerade (a selfie app that lets you do face-swaps), Occulus (virtual reality), Eye Tribe (eye tracking software) and Zurich Eye (enables machines to see).

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has recently said that "the next big thing is augmented reality." He sees a world where we use AR glasses to project an image like a computer screen. The tricky part is the mouse, and so Facebook's team are looking at using direct brain to glasses technology, or something like eye movements to control your screen.

International Business Machine's (NYSE: IBM)

IBM should not be underestimated in AI, as they have previously led the AI industry. They became famous in this area when their supercomputer/personal assistant Watson was able to beat two quiz champions live on television. Apparently Watson can read 40 million documents in 15 seconds.

IBM have acquired Cognea (virtual assistants with a depth of personality), Alchemy deep learning, natural language processing (specifically, semantic text analysis, including sentiment analysis) and computer vision (specifically, face detection and recognition), and Explorys (a healthcare intelligence cloud company that has built one of the largest clinical data sets in the world, representing more than 50 million lives).

Intel (NASDAQ: INTC)

Intel are the global leading semiconductor manufacturer, with a dominant position in the desktop/PC market.

Intel also acquired Indisys (intelligent dialogue systems), Saffron (cognitive computing), Itseez (vision systems), and recently paid $15.3b for Mobileye (used in autonomous driving). Intel also recently spent $400 million to buy deep-learning startup Nervana. The company intends to integrate Nervana technology into Xeon and Xeon Phi processor lineups. Intel claims Nervana will deliver up to a 100-fold reduction in the time it takes to train a deep learning model within the next three years.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT)

Microsoft's background is in PC/desktop software (Office etc), and in gaming (XBox).

AI was first adopted by hyperscale data centers such as Microsoft, Facebook, and Google, which used AI for image recognition and voice processing. Microsoft's Azure offers deep-learning capabilities support for up to four of Nvidia's slightly older GPUs.

Microsoft also have a personal assistant name "Cortana".

Microsoft AI acquisitions include : Netbreeze (social media monitoring and analytics), Equivio (machine learning), SwiftKey (analyzes data to predict what a user is typing and what they'll type next), Genee (an AI app that acts as a digital personal assistant to schedule meetings), and Maluuba (deep learning, natural language processing).

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA)

Nvidia design and sell industry leading AI chips, which puts them at the top of the AI pyramid. They collaborate, design and sell their various types of chips to almost all the top tech companies.

Nvidia's background is as a designer and seller of graphic processing units ((GPUs)) to dominate the gaming industry.

The company has expanded their products to include AI chips such as the Tesla P100 GPU, making them a leader in AI. Those chips are popular with data centers, and autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles. Tesla recently decided to drop Mobileye and go for Nvidia technology for their autonomous vehicles.

Bloomberg summarizes well; "Nvidia has become one of the chipmakers leading the charge to provide the underpinnings of machine intelligence in everything from data centers to automobiles. As the biggest maker of graphics chips, Nvidia has proved that type of processor's ability to perform multiple tasks in parallel has value in new markets, where artificial intelligence is increasingly important."

Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM)

Qualcomm's revenue has mostly come from wireless modem licensing fees, especially as a key supplier to Apple. However the company are currently facing legal (U.S. FTC and Apple litigation) and other issues such as pressure on declining smartphone related revenues. Qualcomm are also operate in the areas of IoT, security and networking industries. Given the coming boom in autonomous vehicles, Qualcomm are in the process of buying NXP Semiconductors (NASDAQ:NXPI) (for $47b), the leader in high-performance, mixed-signal semiconductor electronics - and a leading solutions supplier to the automotive industry.

Qualcomm Inc.'s latest Snapdragon chip for smartphones has a module for handling artificial intelligence tasks.

Samsung (OTC: SSNLF)

Samsung are the global number 2 semiconductor manufacturer, and the global number 1 smartphone seller. The rise of AI will lead to a huge increase in demand for both computer processing chips and memory chips - which Samsung can supply.

Samsung's "Bixby" is similar to Apple's personal assistant Siri.

In virtual reality (VR) headsets, as of Q1 2017, Samsung is the current market leader with 21.5% market share. Sony is second with 18.8%, followed by HTC with 8.4%, Facebook with 4.4%, and TCL 4%. Total worldwide shipments of augmented reality and virtual reality headsets reached 2.3M in the first quarter, according to IDC. The VR headsets represented over 98% of the sales. An IDC report from March predicts the amount of shipped AR and VR headsets will reach 99.4M units by 2021.

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA)

Tesla are the global leader in Autonomous Vehicles ((AVs)). As AVs progress from stage 1 to stage 5 (full autonomy) Tesla can be a large beneficiary in terms of electric car sales and transport as a service (taxi company). Tesla may also benefit from selling their AV technology to other car manufacturers, or if they expand into using AI in the home as they already have the power wall and solar roof. Meaning Tesla may end up being your taxi company, your energy supplier, and your content provider both in your car and home. All of these can be run using AI programs from your smartphone. Elon's latest venture is neural networks - wherein he is looking at how we can connect the brain directly to a device.

Others to consider

Ebay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY), General Electric (NYSE:GE), Nice Ltd (NASDAQ:NICE), Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM), Skyworks Solutions (NASDAQ:SWKS), Softbank (OTC:SFBTF)(they bought out chip designer ARM, and own 4.95% of Nvidia), Sophos Group (LN:SOPH) (IT security), and Twitter (NYSE:TWTR).

The companies that make the hardware behind the AI boom - especially the optics (transceivers, transponders, amplifiers, lasers and sensors)

With all booms often it is wisest to buy those that make the picks and shovels. In this case it is the optics (transceivers, transponders, amplifiers, lasers and sensors), cameras, semiconductors and so on. I have already discussed Samsung, Nvidia, Intel, Qualcomm, and AMD above, as they will do well from semiconductor design and sales.

Some of the major optics providers that can do very well include:

Note: I will most likely write a separate article on how to benefit from the AI boom by buying the picks and shovels stocks behind the boom.

Conclusion

AI will be invisible, yet it will be everywhere. AI appears on our smartphones, with virtual assistants, augmented and virtual reality headsets, robots, in data centers, and in semi and fully autonomous vehicles.

My top 5 AI stocks to play the coming AI boom are Apple, Samsung, Alphabet Google, Facebook, and Nvidia. If I could find the next Nvidia or listed small cap AI company with potential I would include them in a top 6. For now I have not yet found, as mostly they get bought out by the tech giants before going public.

Apple and Samsung are chosen as they are the global top two smartphone sellers (the smartphone and AR/VR devices will mostly be the operating systems for mass market retail AI), they have very loyal customer bases to cross-sell new AI products to, and also control what chips they use in their devices. Apple may move towards their own AI chip, and Samsung are the global number 2 chip maker already.

Alphabet Google and Facebook dominate the internet, and therefore have a large influence on the retail and business market. They are both already leaders in AI, with the financial backing to buy out any competitive threats. We could perhaps add Amazon to this group also.

Nvidia are the clear chip design leader in the AI space, and have an excellent track record. They are a must have in any AI portfolio. AMD would be a cheaper alternative for those worried about Nvidia's valuation.

Finally an equally wise move would be to buy the "pick and shovel" makers behind the boom such as Applied Optoelectronics and Fabrinet.

I am interested to hear your favorite AI stock and why. As usual all comments are welcome.

Disclosure: I am/we are long GOOG, FB, SSNLF, FN, AAOI.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Additional disclosure: The information in this article is general in nature and should not be relied upon as personal financial advice.

Editor's Note: This article discusses one or more securities that do not trade on a major U.S. exchange. Please be aware of the risks associated with these stocks.

A Look At The Artificial Intelligence Companies And My Top 5 - Seeking Alpha

Google gives journalists money to use artificial intelligence in reporting – The Hill

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Danzig

Google is giving British journalistsover 700,000 to help them incorporate artificial intelligence into their work.

Google awarded thegrantto The Press Association (PA), the national news agency for the UK and Ireland, and Urbs Media, a data driven news startup. It's one of the largest handed out by Googles 150 million Digital News Initiative (DNI) Innovation Fund.

Peter Clifton, editor-in-chief of PA, explained that humans would still be involved in producing AI-assisted stories.

Skilled human journalists will still be vital in the process, but RADAR allows us to harness artificial intelligence to scale up to a volume of local stories that would be impossible to provide manually, Clifton said in a statement.

The news organizations expressed optimism for development of their AI tools with the new grant.

PA and Urbs Media are developing an end-to-end workflow to generate this large volume of news for local publishers across the UK and Ireland, they said in a release.

The funds will also help develop capabilities to auto-generate graphics and video to add to text-based stories, as well as related pictures. PAs distribution platforms will also be enhanced to make sure that all local outlets can find and use the large volume of localised news stories.

PA and Urbss AI push is not the first time mediaoutlets have taken advantage of the technology to supplement their reporting. Reporters at the Los Angeles Times have been working with AI since 2014 to assist them in writing and reporting stories about earthquakes.

"It saves people a lot of time, and for certain types of stories, it gets the information out there in usually about as good a way as anybody else would, then-Los AngelesTimes journalist Ken Schwencke who wrote a program for automated earthquake reporting told the BBC.

"The way I see it is, it doesn't eliminate anybody's job as much as it makes everybody's job more interesting."

See the original post here:

Google gives journalists money to use artificial intelligence in reporting - The Hill

What Does Baidu Have In Its Artificial Intelligence Pipeline? – Barron’s

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Danzig

Barron's

What Does Baidu Have In Its Artificial Intelligence Pipeline?
Barron's
As COO of Baidu Mr. Qi Lu said, Baidu will all in AI and continues to emphasize AI (artificial intelligence) as the key strategic focus given the window of opportunity for Baidu. Its AI strategy will be empowered by DuerOS (conversational AI ...
China can seize opportunity to lead global AI development, Baidu executives sayCNBC
Baidu embraces artificial intelligence, set to build an open ecosystemGlobal Times
NVIDIA and Baidu Partner Up on AI and Self-Driving CarsInvestorplace.com

all 104 news articles »

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What Does Baidu Have In Its Artificial Intelligence Pipeline? - Barron's

XCOR Aerospace to lay off the rest of its workforce GeekWire – GeekWire

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Danzig

XCOR Aerospace had to put work on the Lynx suborbital space plane on hold. (XCOR Illustration)

After more than a years worth of workforce shrinkage, XCOR Aerospace has laid off the remainder of its employees putting projects ranging from its Lynx suborbital space plane to its work on rocket propulsion systems into deep limbo.

Word of the layoffs came viaParabolic Arcs Douglas Messier on Wednesday, and was confirmed by the Midland Reporter-Telegram in Texas.

XCOR is based in Midland, although it also had employees at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.

The job cuts began last year when XCOR let go of 25 employees, about 50 percent of its workforce, and decided to focus on propulsion system development rather than the Lynx rocket plane. XCOR extended the layoffs last week.

Due to adverse financial conditions XCOR had to terminate all employees as of 30 June 2017, the company said in a statement provided to Parabolic Arc as well as Space News.

XCOR said some employees would be brought back on as contractors to maintain the companys intellectual property and explore other options to get the company up and running again.

The company set up operations in Texas starting in 2012 to capitalize on $10 million in potential incentives from the Midland Development Corp. The Reporter-Telegram quoted Brent Hilliard, board chairman for the development group, as saying the layoffs and its impact on the incentive deal would be the subject of discussions with XCORs executives.

Three of XCORs co-founders left the company in 2015 to found a new space venture called Agile Aero. The executive who took over as XCORs president and CEO, Jay Gibson, left the company last month when the White House nominated him for the post of deputy chief management officer at the Defense Department.

XCORs two-seat Lynx rocket planewas once seen as a competitor for Virgin Galactics SpaceShipTwo and Blue Origins New Shepard in the suborbital spaceflight market.

The company suspended work on the Lynxfollowing last years round of job cuts, and concentrated instead on its rocket propulsion work for United Launch Alliance.

XCORs hydrogen-fueled 8H21 engine was competing with Blue Origins BE-3 engine and Aerojet Rocketdynes enhanced RL-10 engine for use on United Launch Alliances ACES upper stage, which is destined to be added to ULAs next-generation Vulcan rocket in the 2020s.

Here is the original post:

XCOR Aerospace to lay off the rest of its workforce GeekWire - GeekWire

OPINION: Will Russia’s gamble on aerospace exports backfire? – Flightglobal

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Danzig

Russia has turboprops, regional jets, narrowbodies and alone and in partnership with China widebodies in production or development. It also is working on new high-bypass turbofan engines for single- and twin-aisle aircraft. And the government is encouraging a newly consolidated cadre of systems integrators to displace Western suppliers on Russian-built aircraft.

Russias commercial revival recalls the closing days of the Cold War, when the mighty Soviet Union still tried to match European and US offerings from regional turboprops to intercontinental supersonic transports.

But this time it prompts a fundamental question: why? Airbus and Boeing are powerful global competitors, as Bombardier has discovered by daring to attack even a thin slice of the single-aisle segment. Russia and China are taking an even bolder approach, attacking the duopoly head-on with the MC-21 and C919, respectively.

It is no mystery which aspiring usurper has the advantage. China is expected to be the fastest-growing market for single-aisle aircraft in the world over the next two decades, so its investment in the C919 can be repaid with domestic orders placed by state-owned carriers. To recoup its spending on the MC-21, Russia will likely need an order backlog populated mainly by export customers, but once-reliable Soviet-era clients have long since converted to Airbus and Boeing.

Irkut

The logic of capitalism is clearly not driving Russias commercial aviation revival, but that does not mean it is fundamentally illogical. Moscow perhaps inevitably appears to be playing a different game.

If short-term profits are not the priority, Russia has other advantages to gain by rebuilding a domestic civil transport enterprise. Its government, not least, may enjoy more options in foreign policy matters if the threat of being cut off from Western technology is removed as a negotiating ploy. In the long term, the advanced technologies pioneered by the MC-21, like its state-of-the-art fly-by-wire controls and structural manufacturing processes, may pay off if transferred to the Sino-Russian widebody project, which shows great promise of competing aggressively with the West.

But there is a catch. In one of the most global industries, extricating existing or new types fully from Western supply chains is tricky, if not impossible. Its widebody project will require engines made by GE Aviation or Rolls-Royce to compete with Airbus and Boeing for exports. Best-in-class systems suppliers remain exclusively based in Europe or the USA.

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OPINION: Will Russia's gamble on aerospace exports backfire? - Flightglobal

NASA: Mike Pence Loves Space, but Does He Believe in Science? – Newsweek

Posted on July 6, 2017 by Danzig

Vice President Mike Pence has a deep-seated love for space, at least by his own account, and in his new role as vice presidenthes like a kid in celestial candy shop. The biggest prize so far has been the National Space Council, which Trump officially relaunched last week with an executive order and which Pence will chair.

"Im honored and frankly enthusiastic about the role @POTUS has asked me to play in renewing our nations commitment to space," Pence tweeted Friday after the announcement.

A National Aeronautics and Space Councilwas first formed under President Dwight Eisenhower in 1958 and existeduntil 1973. The National Space Council was formed in 1989, but ceased operations in 1993.Pence and his colleagues in the resurrected group will review American space policy, develop a strategy and recommendations for national space activities, policies and issues, advise on international space activities and "facilitate the resolution of differences concerning major space and space-related policy matters," according to the executive order that revivedthe National Space Council.

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Exactly a week after Trump formally signed the order, Pence is already beginning to make good on his space-related responsibilities. On Thursday, Pence visited the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, arriving on Air Force Two at noon.

You know, I caught Space Fever as a little boy in a small town in Southern Indiana, Pence said in his remarks at Johnson Space Center in Houston last month for NASAs announcement of a new astronaut class. Some of the most precious memories of my youth were gathered around the television, watching the black and white images of your predecessors expanding the horizons of human knowledge with American leadership and American courage.

As a member of Congress, I asked to serve on the NASA subcommittee, and had the privilege, along with my wife and children, to attend several shuttle launches at the Kennedy Space Center, he added.

Pencereturned to Kennedy on Thursdayto address the workforce in the Vehicle Assembly Building and to take a tour tolearn about how it functions as a spaceport for government and commercial clients and to get updates on NASAs progress to send humans past the moon and eventually to Mars.

I have no doubt that my son, who is now a Marine Corps aviator, was inspired as he sat in the grandstands and watched with awe as Americas heroic astronauts hurtled into the heavens, he said in his early June speech. I said at the time, that to see the sights and sounds of a launch at Cape Canaveral was like seeing the Earth giving birth to a piece of the sun and sending it home.

With his hardly-scientific Earth giving birth comment, Pence highlighted the irony of his love for space, considering his track record on science.Back in 2009, Pence had the following exchange on Hardball With Chris Matthews:

Matthews: Okay, you want to educate the American people about science and its relevance today. Do you believe in evolution, sir?

Pence: Do I believe in evolution? I embrace the view that God created the heavens and the Earth, the seas and all thats in them.

Matthews: Right. But do you believe in evolution as the way he did it?

Pence: The means, Chris, that he used to do that, I cant say. But I do believe in that fundamental truth.

He has also said he believes that some day, scientists will come to see that only the theory of intelligent design provides an even remotely rational explanation for the known universe.

As the sciencesite IFLScience put it, this man is Americas vice president, and hes certainly a curious human being. Being a proponent of creationism and someone who until recently didnt think smoking kills people, hes not exactly a fan of sciencewhich is why its so surprising hes been tasked with heading the National Space Council (NSC).

Pences love for space might be authentic, but in many ways his enthusiasm for space exploration is counterintuitive. NASA explains that human space exploration helps to address fundamental questions about our place in the Universe and the history of our solar system. And its research and answers have the potential to makePence as uncomfortable as he seemed when Matthews cornered him about evolution.

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NASA: Mike Pence Loves Space, but Does He Believe in Science? - Newsweek

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