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Apr 26, 2024

Almost every Chinese keyboard app has a security flaw that reveals what users type

Posted by in categories: encryption, security

An encryption loophole in these apps leaves nearly a billion people vulnerable to eavesdropping.

Apr 26, 2024

This solar giant is moving manufacturing back to the US

Posted by in category: futurism

Tariffs and IRA tax incentives are starting to reshape global supply chains—but vast challenges lie ahead, explains Shawn Qu, founder of Canadian Solar.

Apr 26, 2024

From Poverty To Stanford, Memoir Tells A Physicist’s Remarkable Tale

Posted by in categories: alien life, physics

I believe that utopian societies need to help all people.


Hakeem Oluseyi was born as James Plummer Jr. The book opens the night his parents split up (a bright, proud and decidedly urban mother and handsome, capable and “country” father). For the next few years, Oluseyi’s mom moves him and his sister to different cities and different Black neighborhoods. As Oluseyi grows older, he simultaneously becomes aware of the inherent racism of the social world around him and his own inherent, interior focus on the natural world. The first section of the book details the challenges he faces in communities that are both rich in relationship and struggling with inequality. At the same time, he faces his own struggle as his mother deals with mental illness and his father takes him into the entirely new universe of rural life in Piney Woods Mississippi.

All through these changes, Oluseyi becomes progressively aware of his own questions about the universe and his strange (to everyone else) capacities as a questioner. As a shy kid trying to steer clear of bullies, he counts things relentlessly and, in his counting, begins to find order and pattern in the world. He begins a life of experimentation, much to his mother’s chagrin, pressing burning incense cones into the shower curtain to see how long they take to make a hole. And, on a glorious night out in the country, he catches a glimpse of the dark night sky awash in stars. By his teen years, the fire of inquiry was burning hard in the young man.

Continue reading “From Poverty To Stanford, Memoir Tells A Physicist’s Remarkable Tale” »

Apr 26, 2024

A Catholic ‘priest’ has been defrocked for being AI

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

An AI chatbot for a Catholic group claimed to be a real priest and said baptism in Gatorade was OK. He was quickly defrocked.

Apr 26, 2024

Diamonds grown without extreme pressures

Posted by in category: futurism

Tiny crystals grown within molten metals at atmospheric pressure.

Apr 26, 2024

Amazon drone delivery is coming to Arizona

Posted by in categories: drones, evolution

We’re now adding a new location and entering into the next stage of the program’s evolution. Later this year, drone deliveries are coming to the West Valley of the Phoenix Metro Area in Arizona.

With this new location, we’ll be fully integrated into Amazon’s delivery network, meaning, for the first time, drones will deploy from facilities next to our Same-Day Delivery site in Tolleson. These smaller sites are hybrid—part fulfillment center, part delivery station. They allow us to fulfill, sort, and deliver products all from one site so we can get packages out to our customers even quicker. Our Same-Day Delivery sites are situated close to the large metro areas they serve, which means customers get their orders faster. And with connections to the larger Amazon fulfillment centers nearby, we are able to offer Same-Day Delivery on millions of items.

We’re currently working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and local officials in Tolleson to obtain all necessary permissions to conduct these deliveries in Tolleson. Once we’ve received all the necessary approvals, we’ll begin reaching out to customers in the West Valley so they can receive drone deliveries when the service goes live later this year.

Apr 26, 2024

Researchers outline path forward for tandem solar cells

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

As the old saying goes, two heads are better than one. The same is true when it comes to solar cells working in tandem. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have prepared a roadmap on how to move tandem solar cells—particularly those that mesh different photovoltaic technologies—closer to commercialization.

As the researchers pointed out in an article in the journal Joule, considerably more solar power must be added globally beyond the currently installed 1 terawatt of capacity. Because of the growing population and increased electrification of all energy sectors, experts are predicting the world will need 75 terawatts of photovoltaics (PV) by 2050.

The vast majority of solar modules in use today rely on a single junction, which is able to absorb only a fraction of the solar spectrum and thus are limited to how efficient they can be. Tandem solar cells, which consist of two or more junctions, hold the potential to reach much higher efficiencies. Because tandems are stacked on top of each other, the total area a module requires decreases—in turn, raising the efficiency and potentially lowering the total system cost.

Apr 26, 2024

Hugo de Garis: The Artilect War

Posted by in categories: military, singularity

Extract from the documentary “Singularity or Bust”.Pr. Hugo de Garis describes his view of a potential future warfare resulting from the conflict between pro…

Apr 26, 2024

How the cosmic microwave background proves the Big Bang

Posted by in category: cosmology

In the 20th century, many options abounded as to our cosmic origins. Today, only the Big Bang survives, thanks to this critical evidence.

Apr 26, 2024

Tweak to Schrödinger’s cat equation could unite Einstein’s relativity and quantum mechanics, study hints

Posted by in categories: information science, particle physics, quantum physics

Physicists have proposed modifications to the infamous Schrödinger’s cat paradox that could help explain why quantum particles can exist in more than one state simultaneously, while large objects (like the universe) seemingly cannot.

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