OurCrowd’s Israel Resilience Fund makes first 8 investments

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Israeli investment platform our crowd today announced $13 million in capital commitments for $50 million. Israel Resilience Funda fund launched by the organization shortly after the Israel-Hamas war, began supporting startups affected by the war or developing solutions to Israel’s immediate needs.

The fund has already provided funding to eight companies.This includes food tech startups. blue tree and carrais a startup building thermal management solutions for EVs, and both recently had to relocate their facilities.The fund is partnering with aerial imagery specialist Edgybees. Beloboticsis a robotics startup currently focused on cleaning and inspecting the facades of high-rise buildings.

Jeff Kupietzky, Jon Medved, Alon Tal, Maya Zachodin Koren – Israel Resilience Fund team members

OurCrowd plans to raise a total of $50 million for the fund, which charges no management fees or interest. The fund will invest in around 50 startups in total.

“Many Israeli venture-backed companies, already struggling due to the global venture downturn and now facing even more serious obstacles from the Gaza war, urgently need intensive investment. “It’s happening,” he explained. our crowd Founder and CEO John Medved. “The Israel Resilience Fund aims to take advantage of the current undervalued market valuations and generate significant returns for investors, while helping many Israeli companies overcome the crisis and thrive in the long term. Masu.”

Similarly, Resilience Fund managing partner Jeff Kupietzky recently sold his startup Jeeng to OpenWeb. for $100 millionsaid that in addition to financial issues, the fund is also aimed at supporting start-ups currently facing operational problems due to the war. “Startups do not know when international investors will resume investing in Israeli startups as they wait for the conflict to subside. In addition, companies are forced to hire key personnel called into reserve. While facing operational challenges, evacuations and rocket launches have created challenges to day-to-day business operations.While businesses are resilient and continue to operate, many are “We need funding to overcome this and extend the runway and support our ultimate success,” he said.

Source: techcrunch.com

New Shocking Training Method Introduced by Johns Hopkins

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

A study by Johns Hopkins University has demonstrated that applying a gentle electric current to the cerebellum increases an individual’s ability to transfer skills from virtual reality to real-world environments, particularly in robotic surgery. The technology showed significant improvements in dexterity and skill application in participants, even without prior surgical or robotics training, and was used in training in a variety of high-tech industries, including medical and robotics. It could revolutionize the way we do things. Credit: SciTechDaily.com

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have found that gentle electrical stimulation of the cerebellum significantly improves the transition from virtual reality training to real-world tasks in robotic surgery, and in medical and technical training. It shows potential advances in the method.

People who received a mild electrical current to the back of the head learned to operate a robotic surgical tool in virtual reality and subsequently operated the robotic surgical tool in a real environment much more easily than those who did not receive such stimulation. A new study shows that.

The study results provide the first glimpse of how stimulating a specific part of the brain, called the cerebellum, could help medical professionals apply what they learn in virtual reality to the real operating room. It’s a much-needed transition in a field that is increasingly reliant on digital simulation training. “It’s important to remember that this is the case,” said author Jeremy D. Brown, a robotics engineer at Johns Hopkins University.

“Training in virtual reality is not the same as training in a real environment. Previous research has shown that skills learned in simulation can be difficult to transfer to the real world.” , said Mr. Brown of John C. Kennedy. Malone Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering. “Although it is very difficult to claim statistical accuracy, the participants in the study concluded that when they received this stimulation, they were able to more easily transfer skills from virtual reality to the real world. ”

This work was published today (December 20th). Nature scientific report.

Participants drove surgical needles through three small holes, first in a virtual simulation and then in a real-life scenario using the da Vinci Research Kit, an open-source research robot. Researchers say the exercise mimics the movements required during surgery on abdominal organs.

Participants received a subtle flow of electricity through electrodes or small pads placed on their scalp to stimulate the cerebellum of the brain. Half of the group received a steady flow of electricity throughout the test, while the remaining participants received only a short stimulation at the beginning and nothing at all for the rest of the test.

Those who received steady flow showed significant improvements in dexterity. None of them had prior training in surgery or robotics.

“The unstimulated group had a little more trouble applying the skills they learned in virtual reality to the real robot, especially the most complex movements that involve rapid movements,” said Johns Hopkins University roboticist and former robotics engineer. , said Guido Caccianiga, now of Max. Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, which designed and led the experiment; “The group that received brain stimulation did better at those tasks.”

Non-invasive brain stimulation is a method of influencing specific parts of the brain from outside the body, and scientists say they have shown how it can aid motor learning in rehabilitation therapy. Ta. Co-author Gabriela Cantarello, a former assistant professor of physical therapy and rehabilitation, said the research team is looking at how surgeons can stimulate their brains to acquire skills they might need in real-world situations. He said he was taking research to a new level by testing whether it could help. at Johns Hopkins University.

“It’s really great to be able to use this setup to actually influence behavior and really quantify every little aspect of people’s movements, deviations, and errors,” Cantarello said.

Study participants undergoing non-invasive brain stimulation sit at the console of a surgical robot and use a virtual reality simulation of needle-stroke practice. Credit: Guido Caccianiga/Johns Hopkins University.

Robotic surgical systems offer significant benefits to clinicians by improving human skills. It helps surgeons minimize hand tremors and enhance vision for detailed and precise work.

In addition to impacting the way future surgeons learn new skills, this type of brain stimulation also holds promise for skill acquisition in other industries that rely on virtual reality training, particularly in the field of robotics.

Even outside of virtual reality, this stimulation is likely to help people learn more generally, the researchers said.

“What if we could prove that if you stimulate your brain, you can learn new skills in half the time?” Caccianiga said. “This will significantly reduce costs because we can train people more quickly. We will have more resources to train more surgeons and engineers who will be working frequently with these technologies in the future. You can save.”

Reference: “Anodal cerebellar t-DCS influences skill learning and transfer in robotic surgical training tasks” by Guido Caccianiga, Ronan A. Mooney, Pablo A. Celnik, Gabriela L. Cantarero, and Jeremy D. Brown, 2023 December 20th, scientific report.
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-47404-1

Other authors include Ronan A. Mooney of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Pablo A. Selnik of the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab.

Source: scitechdaily.com

EU Identifies Three Porn Sites Subject to Stricter Online Content Regulations

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Age verification technology could be heading to adult content sites after these three sites were added to the list of platforms subject to the most stringent level of regulation under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA).

Back in April, the EU announced an initial list of 17 so-called Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) and two Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSEs) designated under the DSA. The initial list did not include adult content sites. The addition of the three platforms specified today changes that.

According to Wikipedia — which, ironically, was already named VLOP in the first wave or commission designation — XVideos and Pornhub are the world’s No. 1 and No. 2 most-visited adult content sites. Stripchat, on the other hand, is an adult webcam platform that live streams nude performers.

None of the three services currently require visitors to undergo a strict age check (i.e. age verification rather than self-declaration) before accessing their content, but all three services As a result, this area is subject to change.

As the EU points out in its report, pan-EU regulations require designated (large) platforms with an average monthly user base of more than 45 million people in the region to have a number of restrictions, including obligations to protect minors. It imposes additional obligations. press release Today — writing [emphasis ours]: “VLOPs must design services, including interfaces, recommendation systems, and terms of use, to address and prevent risks to child welfare. Relax measures to protect children’s rights and prevent minors from accessing pornographic content online (such as age verification tools)”

The European Commission, which is responsible for overseeing VLOPs’ compliance with the DSA, today reiterated that creating a safer online environment for children is an enforcement priority.

Today we are naming three more very large online platforms.

Pornhub, Stripchat, and XVideos meet stricter user standards #DSA Duty.

At DSA, creating a safer online environment for children is a priority. https://t.co/bq2XhnUqUh

— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) December 20, 2023

Other DSA obligations for VLOPs include:They are required to produce a risk assessment report on the “specific systemic risks” that their services may pose in relation to the dissemination of illegal content and content that threatens fundamental rights. It must first be shared with the committee and then published.

and to address the risks associated with the online dissemination of illegal content, such as child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and content that affects fundamental rights, such as human dignity and the right to private life in the absence of consent. , mitigation measures must also be applied. Sharing intimate content or deepfake pornography online.

“These measures may include, among other things, adaptations to terms of use, interfaces, moderation processes, algorithms, etc.,” the Commission notes.

The three adult platforms designated as VLOPs have four months to bring their services into compliance with additional DSA requirements. That means we need time until late April to make the necessary changes, such as rolling out age verification technology.

“The European Commission’s services will closely monitor compliance with the DSA obligations by these platforms, in particular with regard to measures to protect minors from harmful content and to combat the spread of illegal content,” the EU said. , further added: Please work closely with your newly designated platforms to ensure these are addressed appropriately. ”

The DSA also contains a set of more broadly applicable general obligations that apply not only to small-scale digital services but also to VLOPs. For example, ensuring that systems are designed to ensure high levels of privacy, safety and child protection. Promptly notify law enforcement authorities if they become aware of information that gives rise to suspicion of a criminal offense involving a threat to the life or safety of a person, including in cases of child sexual abuse, and compliance with these requirements; Notice deadline will start slightly earlier on February 17, 2024.

The DSA applies across the EU and EEA (European Economic Area), but post-Brexit this region will not include the UK. However, this autumn the UK government passed its own Online Safety Act (OSA), establishing communications regulator Ofcom as the country’s internet content watchdog and introducing a system of harsher penalties for breaches than the EU’s (OSA fines). (can amount to up to 10%) of global annual sales versus up to 6% based on the EU DSA).

UK law also focuses on child protection. And recent Ofcom guidance for porn sites, aimed at helping them comply with new legal obligations to prevent minors from encountering adult content online, says they are “highly effective”. It states that age checks must be conducted, and further specifies that such checks cannot include age gates that simply ask users to self-declarate that they are 18 years of age or older. .

Ofcom’s list of age verification technologies approved in the UK includes provisions such as asking porn site users to upload a copy of their passport to verify their age. Show your face to the webcam to receive an AI age assessment. Alternatively, there are methods that regulators deem acceptable, such as signing into Open Banking and proving that you are not a minor.

Source: techcrunch.com

Rite Aid Prohibits Use of Facial Recognition Software for Shoplifting Impersonation

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Rite aid It has been Banned US drugstore giant’s use of facial recognition software comes after Federal Trade Commission (FTC) finds ‘reckless use of facial surveillance system’ humiliates customers and ‘compromises confidential information’ was banned for five years.

F.T.C. orderU.S. Bankruptcy Court approval required after Rite Aid Filing for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Code In October, it directed Rite Aid to delete images collected as part of its facial recognition system rollout and products built from those images. Companies must also implement robust data security programs to protect the personal data they collect.

Reuters 2020 report Details of how the drugstore chain secretly installed facial recognition systems in about 200 U.S. stores over an eight-year period starting in 2012, using “primarily low-income, non-white neighborhoods” as testbeds for the technology. Stated.

With the increase in FTC Focus on the abuse of biometric surveillance, Rite Aid was firmly targeted by government agencies. Among the allegations: Rite Aid partnered with two contracting companies to create a “watch list database” containing images of customers it said had engaged in criminal activity at one of its stores. Includes what you did. These images are often of low quality and are taken from CCTV or an employee’s mobile phone camera.

When a customer enters a store that appears to match an existing image in the database, employees receive an automated alert instructing them to take action, which in most cases involves “walking closer and identifying”; That means verifying the customer’s identity and asking them to leave. According to the FTC, these “matches” were often false positives, causing employees to falsely accuse customers of wrongdoing and causing “embarrassment, harassment, and other harm.”

“Following false positive alerts, employees may follow consumers in the store, search them, order them to leave, call the police, confront or remove consumers, and sometimes shoplift in front of their friends and family. and other misconduct,” the suit says.

Additionally, the FTC said Rite Aid did not notify customers that facial recognition technology was being used and specifically instructed employees to: do not have Reveal this information to your customers.

face off

Facial recognition software has emerged as one of the most controversial aspects of the AI-powered surveillance era. In recent years, cities have issued broad bans on the technology while politicians have fought to regulate how police use it. Meanwhile, companies like Clearview AI have been hit with lawsuits and fines around the world for massive data privacy violations involving facial recognition technology.

The FTC’s latest findings regarding Rite Aid also shed light on the biases inherent in AI systems. For example, the FTC says Rite Aid failed to reduce risks to certain consumers due to race. The technology is “more likely to generate false positives in stores located in predominantly Black and Asian communities than in predominantly white communities.” Observation notes.

Additionally, the FTC said Rite Aid failed to test or measure the accuracy of its facial recognition system before or after its implementation.

in press releaseRite Aid said it was “pleased to reach an agreement with the FTC” but disagreed with the core of the allegations.

“The allegations relate to a pilot program for facial recognition technology that we implemented in a limited number of stores,” Rite Aid said in a statement. “Rite Aid stopped using the technology at this small group of stores more than three years ago, before the FTC’s investigation into the company’s use of the technology began.”

Source: techcrunch.com

New Strategy by Mount Sinai to Serve a Diverse Community

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

A team at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has developed a new statistical method, BridgePRS, to improve predictions of disease in non-European populations, particularly people of African descent. This method addresses the limitations of current polygenic risk scores, which are less accurate for non-European ancestry, and represents an important step toward personalized medicine and reducing healthcare disparities. Credit: SciTechDaily.com

Statistical methods enhance prediction of genetic diseases in non-European populations and address health care equity.

A team of scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has developed BridgePRS, a groundbreaking statistical method to better predict disease in people of non-European descent, particularly people of African descent. This development represents an important step towards reducing healthcare disparities and a future of more personalized and precise medical interventions based on genetic information. Details of their research can be found today (December 20, 2023). natural genetics.

Addressing healthcare inequalities with enhanced polygenic risk scores

Current polygenic risk scores (PRS) are essential tools for predicting disease risk; DNA, based on genetic data from individuals of primarily European descent. This bias makes statistics less accurate for people of African and Asian descent and exacerbates health care inequalities between different ethnic groups.

The researchers undertook this study to improve disease prediction from genetics in non-European populations. Although the main goal of personalized medicine is disease prevention, the current PRS is a weak predictor, especially in non-European populations.

BridgePRS improves prediction for individuals of African descent in the New York BioMe cohort.Credit: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Closing the gap in genetic disease prediction

“More genetic data from diverse ancestry is needed, but our method can help combine existing data to maximize disease prediction for all people,” says Genetics and Genome Sciences. Dr. Clive Hoggart, assistant professor and lead author of the paper, explained. “This progress is possible because the biology that causes disease is strikingly similar across ancestry.”

“We hope our method opens the door to scientific investigation of disease risk in diverse populations around the world,” said lead author Dr. Paul O’Reilly, associate professor of genetics and genomic sciences. “The prevalence of diseases and the importance of different biological pathways vary globally. Understanding these differences is critical to advancing disease prediction and treatment.”

The field of optimizing disease prediction using PRS is highly competitive and is driving rapid progress. Dr O’Reilly said: “Our BridgePRS method is particularly promising for predicting disease in people of African descent, a population with rich genetic diversity that can provide new insights into human disease. ” states.

While recognizing the potential of genetics and DNA in predicting future disease and the role of PRS in precision medicine, it is important to understand that the biology that causes disease does not differ significantly by ancestry group or race. It is important.

Reference: “BridgePRS exploits shared genetic effects between ancestors to improve portability of polygenic risk scores,” December 20, 2023, Nature Genetics.
DOI: 10.1038/s41588-023-01583-9

All remaining authors are Icahn Mount Sinai and Dr. Shing Wan Choi, except where noted. (Regeneron Genetics Center), Judit García-González, Ph.D., Tade Souaiaia, Ph.D. (Suny Downstate Health Sciences), and Michael Prouss, Ph.D.

This research was funded by grant number R01MH122866 from the National Institute of Mental Health and grant number R01HG012773 from the National Human Genome Research Institute.

Source: scitechdaily.com

African-Owned Al Mada Ventures Raises $110 Million Fund for the African Market

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Al Mada Holding

The Group is one of Africa’s largest private investment funds. The privately held company, headquartered in Casablanca, operates in a variety of sectors, including banking, telecommunications, renewable energy, and the food industry. For many years, Al Mada’s approach has focused on acquiring majority stakes in Morocco’s largest private companies, with its portfolio spread across 27 markets, 25 of which are in Africa.

As part of its strategy and to remain relevant, the company is expanding its influence in these businesses, driving innovation within its portfolio, and increasing market share across the various sectors in which it operates while staying at the forefront of disruptive technologies that may emerge in the near future.

Last March, Al Mada launched a venture capital firm, aligning these observations with its objectives. Al Mada Ventures (AMV) was spun out. With a capital pool of $110 million (approximately AED 1.1 billion), Al Mada’s overarching plan was to create an Africa-focused company to address the gap in growth-stage investments. However, rather than relying on capital from DFIs or foreign institutional investors, the company uses capital raised exclusively from Africa. Apart from the anchor, Evergreen Fund’s limited partners include top-tier corporates and institutional investors based on the continent.

Mr. Laaresi co-founded the Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund (CAIF) before being selected to lead the Moroccan venture. The fund is a $100 million pan-African VC fund created through a partnership between private equity firm AfricInvest Group and Europe-based venture capital firm Cathay Innovation.

Source: techcrunch.com

Solar Phenomena Cast a Spell on Canadian Skies

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

by
Lindsay Dorman, NASA Earth Observatory
December 20, 2023

December 17, 2023

Increased solar activity has led to widespread aurora borealis across Canada.

A surge in solar activity in mid-December 2023 caused energetic particles to collide with Earth’s magnetosphere, creating rippling auroras across Earth’s northern latitudes. VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite)
NOAA–
NASA
The Suomi NPP satellite captured this image of light from the aurora borealis over western Canada in the early morning hours of December 17, 2023. VIIRS’s day/night band detects nighttime light at wavelengths ranging from green to near-infrared, using filtering techniques to observe signals such as city lights, moonlight reflections, and the aurora borealis.

Origin of the aurora borealis

These auroras may have resulted from several coronal mass ejections.
observed December 14th and 15th.mild to moderate
Magnetic storm situation Weather forecasts were expected within days, according to NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.
coronal mass ejection contains large amounts of
plasma It is emitted from the sun’s corona and carries an embedded magnetic field.Interactions between these emissions from the Sun and Earth’s upper atmosphere
produce light Produces a colorful aurora.

Increased solar activity

Solar activity is increasing as we approach the peak of solar cycle 25, which is predicted to occur on or around the year 25.
July 2025. The Sun’s magnetic field reverses at the peak of these cycles, and each cycle lasts about 11 years. Scientists track fluctuations in solar activity by monitoring the number and location of sunspots, the dark spots on the sun’s surface that are the main cause of solar eruptions.

Relationship between aurora and solar flares

The aurora seen here occurred several days after the aurora borealis.
strongest solar flare How has this solar cycle been so far? While coronal mass ejections take days to reach Earth, solar flares can reach Earth in minutes and disrupt radio communications. Coronal mass ejections often, but not always, occur in parallel with solar flares.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin using VIIRS day/night data from the Suomi National Polar Orbiting Partnership.

Source: scitechdaily.com

Bird, an electric scooter company, declares bankruptcy

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

bird Submitted Under Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Codecapping off a turbulent year for the electric scooter company.

in press release Bird confirmed today that it has entered a “financial restructuring process aimed at strengthening its balance sheet” and that the company is continuing business as usual in pursuit of “long-term, sustainable growth.” Announced.

Founded in 2017 by former Lyft and Uber executive Travis VanderZanden, Bird is one of many startups deploying dockless micromobility platforms around the world, helping city dwellers take short-term access to electric scooters and e-bikes. You will be able to pay for access. The company went public in late 2021 through a SPAC merger, but its stock price plummeted permanently in a crowded market built on questionable economics, and its market capitalization was $2 billion at its New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) debut. It has fallen since then. Just up to $70 million 12 months later. The decline prompted the New York Stock Exchange to issue a warning that Bird’s stock price was too low.

Things didn’t improve, the stock price continued to fall, and CEO VanderZanden eventually stepped down in June. Delisted from NYSE During September.

Separately, Bird also announced a series of layoffs shortly after acquiring rival Spin for $19 million.

Bird lands on New York Stock Exchange image credits:Spencer Pratt/Getty Images

Chapter 11

The Chapter 11 bankruptcy will allow Byrd to restructure its finances without disrupting its day-to-day operations, with existing lenders MidCap Financial, a division of Apollo Global Management, providing $25 million in financing through the bankruptcy process. will be provided.

The ultimate goal is to sell Byrd’s assets, and so-called “horse racing” agreements begin a bidding process aimed at extracting as much value as possible from Byrd, with Byrd’s lenders being Set a baseline bid before starting a deal with a potential suitor. over the next four months.

Interim CEO Michael Wasinusi will continue in his role both before and after the reorganization, the statement said.

“This announcement represents an important milestone in Bird’s transformation, which began with the appointment of new leadership earlier this year,” Washinushi said. “We are making progress towards improving profitability and aim to accelerate that progress by right-sizing our capital structure through this restructuring. We remain focused on our mission to make cities more livable by reducing volume, traffic and carbon emissions.”

It’s also worth noting that Bird’s Canadian and European operations are not included in the bankruptcy filing, and the company says it will “continue to operate as usual.”

This latest news comes just one day after rival MicroMobility.com was delisted from the Nasdaq due to low stock prices, and three years after the company also went public through a SPAC merger. And in Europe, dockless scooter startup Tia recently laid off 22% of its workforce following bankruptcy proceedings for Dutch e-bike startup VanMoof.

Overall, it hasn’t been a great year for the micromobility space.

Source: techcrunch.com

Affordable Electric Vehicles Struggle in 2023

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

This year, the rise in popularity of electric vehicles (EVs) has been substantial. This is not good news for anyone. Even if you prefer a sturdy Cybertruck over a smaller vehicle, it is still not an ideal solution. In general, cars are not a sustainable mode of transportation, such as using trains or bicycles. However, due to budget and environmental factors, many people find themselves needing a larger, tank-like truck or SUV. Unfortunately, larger electric vehicles also require more materials and energy, leading to increased greenhouse gas emissions during and after production. Despite these drawbacks, automakers continue to build large vehicles because they are popular among buyers. Several vehicles from newer companies and traditional automakers have tried to challenge the concept of “bigger is better” with more compact designs and lower prices. However, they have not been successful. Some examples include the ElectraMeccanica Solo, Sono Sion, and Mazda MX-30, all of which have failed to gain traction in the North American market. Here, we will discuss the struggles of small, affordable EVs in the current market.

Electra Mechanica Solo
The ElectraMeccanica Solo was marketed as a small EV that was legally categorized as a motorcycle. It featured a single seat, a range of 160 miles, and a price tag of $18,500. However, the company recalled all Solos in April due to power outage issues and later decided to focus on four-wheelers. The company is now planning to merge with electric truck maker Tevva and has discontinued production of the Solo.

Honda e
The Honda e debuted in Europe and Japan with a range of 160 miles and a price range of $36,000 to $43,000. Despite its appeal to critics, it failed to attract buyers due to its high price. Honda eventually announced that it would stop producing the small vehicle in January 2024.

Sono Sion
German automaker Sono introduced the Sion, a five-seater hatchback with solar panels. Priced at $25,000, the production was initially planned for 2023. However, the company pivoted to selling to third-party automakers and laid off employees as it shifted its focus to integrating solar technology into other vehicles.

GM, Honda’s affordable EV
General Motors and Honda initially announced plans to jointly develop small, affordable EVs. They aimed to release a sub-$30,000 vehicle for North America by 2027 but later called off the partnership, citing “extensive research and analysis.”

Mazda MX-30 (USA)
The Mazda MX-30, while smaller than the Cybertruck, struggled to gain traction in the United States due to its limited range and availability. Ultimately, Mazda announced that it would discontinue EV sales in the US but continue sales in Japan and the EU.

Revel Moped
Revel, a moped sharing company, faced a decline in users due to fatal accidents, leading them to transition to electric cars instead.

VanMoof
Dutch e-bike startup VanMoof experienced rapid growth but struggled to sustain it, leading to difficulties in fund-raising. It eventually suspended sales and declared bankruptcy.

Lavoie
Electric scooter maker Lavoie acquired VanMoof’s remaining assets after it emerged from bankruptcy.

Despite the struggles of some small EVs, there are still positive developments in the electric vehicle space. Urban bike share programs are on the rise, and electrification is gaining momentum. Companies like Arcimoto and Telo Trucks are making strides in the development of rare three-wheeled EVs and light trucks, respectively. Additionally, the Fiat 500e will be introduced in North America in limited quantities, and GM has decided to continue producing the Bolt EUV.

Source: techcrunch.com

Solar Activity Brings NASA’s NEOWISE 10-Year Mission to a Close

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

NEOWISE Mission

This artist’s concept shows the Wide Field Infrared Surveyor (WISE) spacecraft orbiting the Earth. The NEOWISE mission will find and characterize asteroids.
Credit: NASA/JPL-California Institute of Technology

Infrared space telescopes searching for asteroids and comets have collected vast amounts of observations, but are now at the mercy of the sun, which is accelerating their demise.

NASA’s Neowise It’s been a busy 10 years. Since its resumed mission began on December 13, 2013, the space telescope has discovered once-in-a-lifetime comets, observed more than 3,000 near-Earth objects, strengthened international planetary defense strategies, and It has helped other NASA missions rendezvous with distant space. asteroid. This is just a partial list of achievements.

But all good things must come to an end. Solar activity is pushing NEOWISE (short for Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) out of orbit. By early 2025, the spacecraft is expected to have fallen far enough into Earth’s atmosphere that it will become unusable. Eventually it will re-enter the atmosphere and burn up completely.

Approximately every 11 years, the Sun goes through a cycle of increasing activity, peaking during a period called solar maximum. Explosive events such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections will become more frequent, heating the Earth’s atmosphere and causing it to expand. Atmospheric gases increase the drag on satellites as they orbit the Earth, slowing them down. Now, as the Sun approaches its next maximum, NEOWISE will no longer be able to maintain its orbit above the atmosphere.

Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE is a composite of several heat-sensitive infrared images taken by NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) mission on March 27, 2020. Appears as a blurry red dot.
Credit: NASA/JPL-California Institute of Technology

“The mission has been planning for this day for a long time. After several years of lull, the sun is waking up again,” said NEOWISE co-principal investigator and researcher at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. said Joseph Masiello, a scientist with the organization IPAC. “With us at the mercy of solar activity and no means of staying in orbit, NEOWISE is now slowly spiraling back to Earth.”

wise beginnings

The past decade has meant a second life for the spacecraft. Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, NEOWISE is part of another mission launched in 2009, the Wide-Field Infrared Surveyor (wise). Data from WISE and NEOWISE is used to study distant galaxies, cold stars, and explosions. white dwarf Stars, gas-emitting comets, near-Earth asteroids, etc.

In 2010, WISE achieved its scientific goal of conducting an all-sky infrared survey with far greater sensitivity than previous surveys. WISE mission also discovered tens of millions of actively feeding supermassive black holes across the sky.through disc detective In this project, citizen scientists used WISE data to find circumstellar disks, which are clouds of gas, dust, and debris that rotate around stars.

Infrared wavelengths, which are invisible to the naked eye, are emitted by warm objects. To ensure that the heat generated by WISE itself does not interfere with observations in infrared wavelengths, the spacecraft relied on cryogenic coolant. NASA put the spacecraft into hibernation in February 2011 after it ran out of coolant and WISE mapped the sky twice.

Without the coolant, space telescopes could no longer observe the coldest objects in the universe, but they could still see near-Earth asteroids and comets heated by the sun. So NASA restarted the spacecraft in 2013 with a more specialized role in mind. The goal is to support planetary defense efforts by investigating and studying objects that may wander into Earth’s orbit and pose a potential collision hazard.

In addition to relying on missions to explore these objects, astronomers use that data to understand the object’s size, albedo, or how much sunlight its surface reflects, and the composition of its structure. You can also collect clues about the minerals and rocks you find.

“NEOWISE demonstrates the importance of deploying infrared space exploration telescopes as part of NASA’s planetary defense strategy while also monitoring objects in our solar system and beyond,” said lead researcher Amy, from the University of Arizona in Tucson. Mainzer said. .

Mainzer also leads NASA’s future plans. NEO surveyor, built on the NEOWISE tradition. The next generation of infrared space telescopes will search for celestial objects close to the Earth, such as dark asteroids and comets that do not reflect much visible light, or objects that approach the Earth from the direction of the sun. Sun. The launch is scheduled for 2027. JPL-Managed missions will also explore objects known as Earth Trojans – asteroids that lead or follow our planet’s orbit. The first one is wise discovery In 2011.

Comet NEOWISE and beyond

Since becoming NEOWISE, the mission has scanned the entire sky more than 20 times and made 1.45 million infrared measurements on more than 44,000 Solar System objects. This includes over 3,000 near-Earth objects, 215 of which were discovered by his NEOWISE. Data from the mission helped refine the orbits of these objects, while also measuring their sizes.

Its strength is in revealing the characteristics of asteroids near the Earth. In 2021, NEOWISE became a key component of an international planetary defense exercise focused on the dangerous asteroid Apophis.

The mission also discovered 25 comets, including long-period comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE). The comet was a dazzling object visible in the Northern Hemisphere for several weeks in 2020, making it the first comet to be visible to the naked eye since 2007, when Comet McNaught was primarily visible in the Southern Hemisphere.

Future researchers will use WISE in 2010, long after observations were made to characterize the asteroid Dinkinesh, in support of NASA’s Lucy mission before the October 2023 encounter. Just as we used the data, we will continue to rely on the vast archive of NEOWISE observations to make new discoveries.

“This is a bittersweet moment. We are sad to see this pioneering mission come to an end, but we know there are even more treasures hidden in the survey data,” Masiello said. “NEOWISE has a vast archive that covers a very long period of time and will inevitably advance the science of the infrared universe long after the spacecraft leaves.”

Mission details
NEOWISE and NEO Surveyor are part of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The NASA Authorization Act of 2005 directs NASA to discover and characterize at least 90% of near-Earth objects larger than 140 meters (460 feet) in diameter that come within 30 million miles (48 million kilometers) of Earth’s orbit. did. An object of this size could cause significant damage to the region, and it would be even worse if it crashed into Earth.
JPL manages and operates PDCO’s NEOWISE mission within the Science Mission Directorate. The Astrodynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah, built the scientific instrument. Ball Aerospace & Technologies of Boulder, Colorado, built the spacecraft. Scientific data processing will take place at IPAC at the California Institute of Technology. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

Source: scitechdaily.com

Automating Kubernetes configuration with ScaleOps for Reduced Cloud Costs

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

One of the benefits of using Kubernetes to handle container orchestration is that containers are ephemeral, lasting as long as needed and then disappearing. This was supposed to help solve the resource allocation problem, since containers only need to run long enough to process jobs. However, as Kubernetes environments become increasingly complex, another problem arises as engineering teams must manually modify Kubernetes configurations to accommodate changing needs.

Additionally, workloads are often over-allocated to ensure they continue to run regardless of usage spikes, which can result in unnecessarily high cloud charges. scale ops, an early-stage startup, wants to solve this problem. Rather than guessing and constantly adjusting static allocations, we built a system that dynamically sets configurations based on your requirements at any time. Today, the company announced a $21.5 million Series A.

Yodar Shafrir, co-founder and CEO of ScaleOps, said he often saw this overallocation problem when working at his previous company. As a result, a lot of engineering time was spent configuring resources, often resulting in high cloud charges.

“The companies we work with today are seeing 70% to 80% wasted on over-provisioned containers,” Shafrir told TechCrunch. “So we realized that the only way to free our engineers from this repetitive configuration and free them to focus on what really matters is to fully automate the resource allocation process.”

The company has created a dashboard that shows businesses what workloads are currently available and how much they can save by letting ScaleOps autoconfigure them. He said customers typically start small with a single workload to see how it works. Then, once you see your results, toggle automation to save even more.

Image credits: scale ops

He sees an opportunity for growth as companies look to save on cloud fees. The company was founded in 2022 and has dozens of paying customers since launching its product earlier this year, managing thousands of his Kubernetes clusters using its ScaleOps product. Customers include Wiz, Coralogix, and Outbrain. ScaleOps currently has 30 employees, and he plans to double that number by the end of next year.

The company’s $21.5 million Series A was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, NFX, and Glilot Capital Partners.

Source: techcrunch.com

Decoding Earth’s magnetosphere: A simplified understanding

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Earth’s magnetosphere, essential for protecting us from solar radiation, is in sharp contrast to Mars, which has lost its protective field. Studying this shield, especially through NASA missions such as the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission, is important for understanding space weather and its effects on Earth.

What is Earth’s magnetosphere?

Enveloping our planet and protecting us from the wrath of the sun is a giant magnetic bubble called the magnetosphere. It deflects most of the solar material that rushes toward us from our star at more than 1 million miles per hour. Without the magnetosphere, the relentless activity of these solar particles could strip Earth of the protective layer that protects us from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. It is clear that this magnetic bubble was the key to the development of Earth into a habitable planet.

The magnetosphere envelops our planet and protects us from the brunt of the sun, and is key to Earth’s development into a habitable planet. credit: NASA

Earth vs. Mars: The role of the magnetosphere

compare with earth Mars – A planet that lost its magnetosphere about 4.2 billion years ago. It is thought that solar winds stripped away most of Mars’ atmosphere, probably after the Red Planet’s magnetic field disappeared. As a result, Mars is the desolate, barren world we see today through the “eyes” of NASA’s orbiters and probes. In contrast, Earth’s magnetosphere appears to continue to protect the atmosphere.

“If we didn’t have the magnetic field, we might be left with a completely different atmosphere, devoid of life as we know it,” said Eftihir Zesta of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s Geospace Physics Laboratory. states.

The magnetosphere is the result of the Earth’s internal magnetic field, generated by the rotation and convection of electrically conductive material within its central core. This magnetic field spreads out into space and acts as a shield against the solar wind, forming the magnetosphere.

Understanding and researching the magnetosphere

Understanding the magnetosphere is a key element in helping scientists predict space weather that could one day impact technology on Earth. Extreme space weather events can disrupt communication networks. GPS Navigation and power grids.

The magnetosphere is a permeable shield. The solar wind periodically connects to the magnetosphere and forces its reconfiguration. This can cause cracks and allow energy to flow into our safe haven. These cracks open and close many times a day, sometimes even an hour. Most of them are small and short-lived. Others are vast and persistent. When the sun’s magnetic field connects with the Earth’s magnetic field, fireworks begin.

“Earth’s magnetosphere absorbs incoming energy from the solar wind and releases it in bursts in the form of magnetic storms and substorms,” Zesta said.

Illustration of four MMS spacecraft in orbit in the Earth’s magnetic field. Credit: NASA

Magnetic Reconnection and MMS Mission

How does this happen? Magnetic field lines converge and rearrange, resulting in magnetic energy and charged particles flying around at breakneck speeds. Scientists have been trying to understand why this crossing of magnetic field lines, called magnetic reconnection, causes such violent explosions and opens cracks in the magnetosphere.

NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS) launched in March 2015 to make the first observations of the electronic physics of magnetic reconnection. Four of her MMS spacecraft, packed with high-energy particle detectors and magnetic sensors, flew close to the region on the surface of Earth’s magnetosphere where magnetic reconnection occurs. Since then, MMS has conducted similar searches in the magnetotail.

MMS complements the missions of NASA and partner agencies such as THEMIS, Cluster, and Geotail, and will provide important new details for ongoing studies of Earth’s magnetosphere. The data obtained from these surveys not only helps us understand the fundamental physics of the universe, but also helps improve space weather forecasting.

Source: scitechdaily.com

ShareChat experiences significant decrease in valuation following new funding round

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

ShareChat is in the final stages of discussions to secure about $50 million in new funding that would bring the startup’s valuation below $1.5 billion, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Existing backers including Temasek and Tencent are among the investors in advanced stages of talks to invest in the new round, the sources said, asking not to be identified as the matter is private. Stated. ShareChat has been in talks with several potential new investors this year, and one of the potential investors the startup has engaged says that ShareChat is expected to receive a high valuation compared to its current low revenue. Many investors are hesitant to take this opportunity because of the current situation.

The terms of the negotiations are still ongoing and could change slightly, according to people familiar with the matter, but ShareChat’s current valuation is less than $1.5 billion, which is the same as when ShareChat raised funding early last year. This is a significant drop from its valuation of $4.9 billion.

The round could be completed as early as the end of the year. ShareChat did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday morning. Temasek declined to comment, citing its own policies.

The loss-making Bengaluru-headquartered startup, which operates a social network and counts X, Snap and Tiger Global among its backers, has raised more than $1.4 billion so far, according to venture intelligence platform Tracxn.

Amid the TikTok ban, ShareChat’s failed bet in India’s short video space forced it to raise capital and prompted a price cut. (TechCrunch exclusively reported earlier that in late 2020 and early 2021, X considered acquiring ShareChat in a $2 billion deal.)

Sensor Tower estimates daily active users of Google’s Android platform in India (shared with TC by industry executives). In an official statement, ShareChat claims to have over 300 million monthly active users.

ShareChat, which launched short video app Moj in mid-2020, doubled its position in the category by acquiring MXTakaTak, a video app in the Times Internet portfolio, for more than $600 million. But industry analysts say YouTube and Instagram have filled TikTok’s void as creators migrate to these much larger platforms.

Eight-year-old ShareChat is scrambling to find ways to grow revenue and cut expenses after its two co-founders left earlier this year to start a new startup. It has tried a series of initiatives, including a fantasy sports app and a live voice chat service. However, sales were still lower at the end of the fiscal year ending in March. $65 million. The company plans to cut another 15% to 20% of its workforce in the coming weeks, another person said.

Many investors around the world are devaluing their holdings in startups, as the prolonged economic slowdown has also reduced the valuations of nearly all publicly traded technology companies. Prosus recently lowered Byju’s valuation to less than $3 billion from $22 billion in early 2022. Byju’s has raised more than $5 billion through equity and debt.

Source: techcrunch.com

New Research Uncovers the Secrets of Sarcomeres

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Diagram of interacting thick and thin filaments within cardiac sarcomeres based on structural cryo-electron tomography data. Credit: MPI of Molecular Physiology

Scientists have captured the first true-to-life 3D images of the thick filaments of a mammal’s heart muscle.

Atrial fibrillation, heart failure, and stroke are among the serious health conditions that can result from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and are important factors in sudden cardiac death in people under 35 years of age.

“The heart muscle is the central engine of the human body. Of course, if you know how engines are made and how they work, it’s easy to repair a broken engine,” says Stefan Lunser. say. “At the beginning of our study of muscle, we were able to use cryo-electron microscopy to visualize the structure of key muscle components and how they interact.”

“But these were still images of proteins taken from living cells. We just don’t teach them much,” Rounser said.

through thick and thin

Skeletal and cardiac muscles contract through the interaction of two types of parallel protein filaments (thin and thick) within the sarcomere. Sarcomeres are subdivided into several regions called zones and bands, and these filaments are arranged in different ways.

Thin filaments are composed of F-actin, troponin, tropomyosin, and nebulin. Thick filaments are formed by myosin, titin, and myosin-binding protein C (MyBP-C). The latter can form bonds between filaments, while the so-called motor protein myosin interacts with thin filaments to generate force and muscle contraction.

Thick filament structures within relaxed cardiac sarcomeres. The image above shows a tomographic slice of a cardiac sarcomere. Thin filaments are marked with green marks, thick filaments with purple arrows. The middle image shows reconstructed thick filaments (purple) and thin filaments (green). The image below shows the structure of thin filaments spanning several sarcomere regions. Scale bar indicates 50 nm. credit:
Molecular Physiology MPI

Muscle research milestones

“If we want to fully understand how muscles work at the molecular level, we need to delineate their components in their natural environment. This is one of the biggest challenges in biological research today. and cannot be addressed using traditional experimental approaches,” says Rounser.

To overcome this obstacle, his team developed an electron cryo-tomography workflow specifically for examining muscle samples. The scientists flash-frozen mammalian heart muscle samples produced by his Gautel group in London at very low temperatures (-175°C). ).

3D structure of a sarcomere showing thick filaments (purple) and thin filaments (green). Credit: MPI of Molecular Physiology

This maintains moisture and microstructure, keeping it pristine. Next, a focused ion beam (FIB milling) is applied to thin the sample to a thickness of approximately 100 nanometers, ideal for transmission electron microscopy, and multiple images are acquired while tilting the sample along its axis. Masu. Finally, computational methods reconstruct his three-dimensional image in high resolution.

In recent years, Raunser’s group has successfully applied customized workflows and recently published two groundbreaking publications. They created the first high-resolution images of sarcomeres and, so far, a misty muscle protein called nebulin. Both studies investigated the 3D organization of muscle proteins in sarcomeres, such as how myosin binds to actin to control muscle contraction, and how nebulin binds to actin to stabilize it and its We provide unprecedented insight into the 3D organization of muscle proteins in sarcomeres, including what determines their length.

complete the picture

In the current study, scientists have created, for the first time, high-resolution images of the heart’s thick filaments spanning several regions of the sarcomere. “With a length of 500 nm, this makes it the longest and largest structure ever resolved by cryo-ET,” said Davide Tamborini of MPI Dortmund, lead author of the study. Masu.

Even more impressive is the new insight gained into the molecular organization of the thick filaments and, by extension, their function. The arrangement of myosin molecules depends on their position within the filament.

Scientists believe that this allows the thick filaments to sense and process a large number of muscle-regulating signals and adjust the strength of muscle contractions depending on the sarcomere area. They also revealed how titin chains run along the filament. Titin chains intertwine with myosin and serve as a scaffold for its assembly, likely regulating length-dependent sarcomere activation.

“Our goal is to one day paint a complete picture of sarcomeres. The images of thick filaments in this study are ‘only’ snapshots of the muscle in its relaxed state. “We want to analyze sarcomeres in different states, such as during contraction, to fully understand how they function and how they are regulated,” says Rounser.

Comparisons with samples from patients with muscle diseases will ultimately contribute to a better understanding of diseases such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and the development of innovative treatments.

Reference: “Structure of native myosin filaments in relaxed cardiac sarcomeres” Davide Tamborrini, Zhexin Wang, Thorsten Wagner, Sebastian Tacke, Markus Stabrin, Michael Grange, Ay Lin Kho, Martin Rees, Pauline Bennett, Mathias Gautel, Stefan Raunser, 2023 October 32nd Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06690-5

Source: scitechdaily.com

Secrets of Mesopotamian Bricks Uncovered

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Based on the interpretation of the inscription, the bricks date back to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II (c. 604-562 BC). The item was plundered from its original situation before being acquired by the Slemani Museum and was kept at the museum with the consent of the central government. Image courtesy of Slemani Museum.Credit: Slemani Museum

In a new study, researchers used bricks from ancient Mesopotamia to gain insight into changes in Earth’s magnetic field 3,000 years ago. This archaeomagnetic approach provides a more accurate way to date ancient artifacts and understand historical magnetic field fluctuations.

Ancient bricks inscribed with the names of Mesopotamian kings have provided important insights into mysterious anomalies in Earth’s magnetic field 3,000 years ago, according to a new study by UCL researchers.

This study was published on December 18th. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)So, how were changes in the Earth’s magnetic field imprinted on the iron oxide particles in ancient clay bricks, and how could scientists reproduce these changes from the names of kings carved into the bricks? It explains about Tanaka.

Archaeomagnetic dating: a new dating tool

The researchers believe that by using this technique, “archaeological magnetism,” which looks for traces of the Earth’s magnetic field in archaeological items, they can improve the history of the Earth’s magnetic field and date artifacts more precisely than was previously possible. I hope it will be possible to identify it.

Co-author Professor Mark Altaweel (UCL Institute of Archeology) said: “To figure out the age of ancient Mesopotamia, we often rely on dating methods such as radiocarbon dating. However, some of the most common cultural remains, such as bricks and pottery, Because it does not contain organic material, it typically cannot be easily dated. This research is now an important study that will allow others to benefit from absolute dating using archaeomagnetics. It helps create a baseline for dating.”

The Earth’s magnetic field weakens and strengthens over time, and these changes leave distinct imprints on hot minerals that are sensitive to the magnetic field. The research team analyzed magnetic signatures hidden in iron oxide mineral particles embedded in 32 clay bricks excavated from archaeological sites across Mesopotamia, which overlaps with present-day Iraq. The strength of the planet’s magnetic field was etched into minerals when they were first burned by bricklayers thousands of years ago.

At the time the bricks were made, each brick was engraved with the name of the reigning king, and archaeologists have dated the names to various eras. Combining the engraved names with measurements of the iron oxide particle’s magnetic strength yielded a historical map of changes in the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field.

Uncovering geomagnetic anomalies during the Iron Age in the Levant

Researchers were able to confirm the existence of a “Levantine Iron Age geomagnetic anomaly.” This occurred between approximately 1050 and 550 BC, a period when the Earth’s magnetic field was unusually strong for unknown reasons around modern-day Iraq. Evidence of anomalies has been detected as far away as China, Bulgaria and the Azores, but data from the southern Middle East itself has been sparse.

“We can estimate the age of ancient heated artifacts by comparing them to what we know about ancient magnetic field conditions,” said lead author Professor Matthew Howland of Wichita State University. We can do that.”

Advanced technology and historical significance

To measure the iron oxide particles, the team carefully scraped off small pieces from the damaged surface of the brick and used a magnetometer to precisely measure the pieces.

By mapping changes in the Earth’s magnetic field over time, this data also provides archaeologists with new tools to help date some ancient artifacts. The magnetic strength of the iron oxide particles embedded within the fired product can be measured and matched against the known strength of the Earth’s historical magnetic field. The reigns of kings lasted anywhere from a few years to several decades, providing higher resolution than radiocarbon dating, which can only date artifacts to within a few hundred years.

A further benefit of archaeomagnetic dating of artifacts is that it can help historians more precisely pinpoint the reigns of somewhat obscure ancient kings. Although the length and sequence of their reigns are well known, there has been disagreement within the archaeological community as to the exact year they ascended the throne, as the historical record is incomplete. The researchers found that their technique is consistent with an understanding of the king’s reign known to archaeologists as “subchronology.”

The researchers also found that the Earth’s magnetic field appears to have changed dramatically over a relatively short period of time, from five samples taken during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, from 604 BC to 562 BC. and added evidence to the hypothesis that the intensity increased rapidly. Is possible.

Reference: “Exploring geomagnetic variation in ancient Mesopotamia: an archaeomagnetic study of carved bricks from the 3rd to 1st millennium BC” by Matthew D. Howland, Lisa Tokes, Shai Godin, Mark Altaweel, Brendan Syke, and Erez Ben-Yosef, 2023 December 18th, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2313361120

Co-author Professor Lisa Tax of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (USA) said: Well-dated archaeological remains of the rich Mesopotamian culture, especially bricks inscribed with the names of particular kings, allow researchers to study changes in magnetic field strength with high temporal resolution over periods of decades or even shorter periods. provides an unprecedented opportunity to track changes that have occurred over time. ”

This research was conducted with funding from the U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation.

Source: scitechdaily.com

New EU initiative to provide increased support for AI startups using supercomputers for model training

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

The European Union plans to support its own AI startups by providing access to processing power for model training on the region’s supercomputers, announced and launched in September. According to the latest information from the EU, France’s Mistral AI is participating in an early pilot phase. But one early learning is that the program needs to include dedicated support to train AI startups on how to make the most of the ‘s high-performance computing. “One of the things we’ve seen is that we don’t just provide access; facility — In particular, the skills, knowledge and experience we have at our hosting centers — to not only facilitate this access, but also to develop training algorithms that take full advantage of the architecture and computing power currently available at each supercomputing center. however, an EU official said at a press conference today. The plan is to establish a “center of excellence” to support the development of specialized AI algorithms that can run on EU supercomputers. Rather than relying on the processing power provided by supercomputers as a training resource, AI startups may be accustomed to training their models using specialized computing hardware provided by US hyperscalers. Access to high-performance computing for AI training programs is therefore being enhanced with support wrappers, said EU officials speaking in the background ahead of the formal ribbon-cutting, mare nostrum 5a pre-exascale supercomputer, which goes live on Thursday at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center in Spain. “We are developing a facility to help small and medium-sized enterprises understand how best to use supercomputers, how to access supercomputers, how to parallelize algorithms so that they can develop models in the case of AI,” said a European Commission official. “In 2024, we expect to see a lot more of this kind of approach than we do today.” “AI is now considered a strategic priority for the , they added. “Next to the AI Act, as AI becomes a strategic priority, we are providing innovation capabilities or enabling small businesses and startups to make the most of our machines and this public infrastructure. “We want to provide a major window of innovation.” ” Another EU official confirmed that an “AI support center” was in the works, including a “special . “What we need to realize is that the AI community hasn’t used supercomputers in the past decade,” they noted. “They’re not new users of GPUs, but they’re new to how to interact with supercomputers, so we need to help them. “A lot of times the AI community comes from a huge amount of knowledge about how many GPUs you can put in a box. And they’ve been very good at it. What you have is a bunch of boxes with GPUs, and you need additional skillsets and extra help to scale out the supercomputer and exploit its full potential.” The bloc has significantly increased its investment in supercomputers over the past five years, expanding its hardware to regionally located clusters of eight machines, interconnected via a Terabit network. We also plan to create federated supercomputing resources. Accessed in the cloud, it is available to users across Europe. The EU‘s first exascale supercomputers are also expected to come online in the next few years, with one in Germany (likely next year) and a second in France (expected in 2025). The European Commission also plans to invest in quantum computing, providing hybrid resources co-located with supercomputers and combining both types of hardware, so that quantum computers can act as “accelerators”. There are plans to acquire a quantum simulator that will As the committee states, it is a classic supercomputer. Applications being developed on the EU‘s high-performance computing hardware include projects that simulate Earth’s ecosystems to better model climate change and weather systems. destination earth and one more thing needs to be devised Digital twin of the human body This is expected to contribute to the advancement of medicine by supporting drug development and making personalized medicine possible. Leveraging his resources in supercomputing to launch his AI startup has recently been announced, especially after the EU president announced this fall that his AI model would have computing access to his training program. It is emerging as a strategic priority. The bloc also announced what it called the “Large-Scale AI Grand Challenge.” This is a competition for European AI startups “with experience in large-scale AI models” and aims to select up to four promising domestic startups for a total of four. Access to millions of hours of supercomputing to support foundational model development. According to the European Commission, there will be a prize of 1 million euros to be distributed to the winners, who will be able to release their developed model or publish their research results under a non-commercial open source license. It is expected. The EU already had a program that provided industry users with access to core hours of supercomputing resources through a project recruitment process. However, the bloc is increasing its focus on commercial AI with dedicated programs and resources, and there is an opportunity to incorporate the growing supercomputing network into a strategic power source for expanding ‘Made in Europe’ general purpose AI. They are intently aiming for this. Thus, France’s Mistral, an AI startup that aims to compete with US infrastructure model giants like OpenAI and claims to offer “open assets” (if not fully open source), is an early adopter of It seems no coincidence that the beneficiaries of the Commission‘s Supercomputer Access Program. (That said, the technology company, which just raised €385 million in Series A funding that includes US investors including Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst and Salesforce, is at the front of the line for computing giveaways.) That may raise some eyebrows, but hey, it’s another sign of the high-level strategic bets being made on “big AI.”) The ‘s “Supercomputing for AI” program is still in its infancy, so it’s still unclear whether there will be enough benefits in model training to warrant reporting from dedicated access. (We reached out to Mistral for comment, but he did not respond as of press time.) But the committee’s at least hope is that by focusing support on AI startups, they will be able to move into high-performance computing. It is about being able to leverage investments. The construction of supercomputer hardware is increasingly being procured and configured with AI model training in mind, and this is due to the fact that local, hyperscalar-like US AI giants are starting at a disadvantage. This will be a competitive advantage for the AI ecosystem. “We don’t have the massive hyperscalers that the Americans have when it comes to training this kind of basic model, so we’re using supercomputers and a new generation that is increasingly compliant with AI. “We intend to develop a supercomputer,” a committee official said. “The objective in 2024, not just with the supercomputers that we have now, is to move in this direction so that even more small and medium-sized businesses can use supercomputers to develop these basic models. It is to do.” The plan includes acquiring “more dedicated AI supercomputing machines based on accelerators rather than standard CPUs,” they added. Will the ‘s AI support strategy align with or diverge from certain member states’ ambitions to develop national AI champions? We heard a lot about this during the recent difficult negotiations to develop the ‘s AI rulebook, in which France took the lead in pushing forward the AI rulebook. Regulatory carve-outs to the underlying model It drew criticism from small and medium-sized businesses. – As seen. But Mistral’s early presence in the ‘s supercomputing access program may suggest a consensus.

Source: techcrunch.com

Corrosion Reimagined: A Revolutionary Approach

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Scientists have used environmental TEM to uncover atomic-level secrets about how water vapor interacts with metals, causing corrosion and passivation. Their research provides insights into improved corrosion management and clean energy solutions, with broad economic and environmental benefits. Credit: SciTechDaily.com

Groundbreaking research reveals new details about water vapor and metal interactions at the atomic level, with implications for corrosion control and clean energy development.

When water vapor comes into contact with metal, corrosion can occur and cause mechanical problems that negatively impact the performance of the machine. Through a process called passivation, a thin inert layer can also be formed that acts as a barrier against further degradation.

In any case, the exact chemical reactions are not well understood at the atomic level, but a technique called environmental transmission electron microscopy (TEM) allows researchers to directly observe interacting molecules on the smallest possible scale. Thanks to you, things are changing.

Innovative research in atomic reactions

Professor Guangwen Zhou, a faculty member in Binghamton University’s Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, has been studying the secrets of atomic reactions since joining the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 2007. The national lab, along with collaborators at the University of Pittsburgh and Brookhaven University, has been studying the structural and functional properties of metals and the manufacturing process for “green” steels.

Their latest research, “Atomic Mechanism of Water Vapor-Induced Surface Passivation,” was recently published in a journal. scientific progress. Co-authors include his Binghamton doctoral students Xiaobo Chen, Dongxiang Wu, Chaoran Li, Shuonan Ye, and Shyam Bharatkumar Patel, MS ’21. Dr. Na Kai, 12 years. Dr. Zhao Liu, 2020. At the University of Pittsburgh, he is Weitao Shan, MS ’16, and Guofeng Wang. Sooyeon Hwang, Dmitri N. Zakharov, and Jorge Anibal Boscoboinik of Brookhaven National Laboratory;

Transmission electron microscopy images of aluminum oxide surfaces show that the passive oxide film formed in water vapor consists of an inner amorphous aluminum oxide layer and an outer crystalline aluminum hydroxide layer.Credit: Provided

In their paper, Chou and his team introduced water vapor to cleaned aluminum samples and observed the surface reactions.

“This phenomenon is well known because it occurs in our daily lives,” he says. “But how do water molecules react with aluminum to form this passive layer? [research] In the literature, how this happens at the atomic scale has not been well studied. If you want to use it for good, there is some way to control it and you need to know it. ”

They discovered something that had never been observed before. In addition to the aluminum hydroxide layer formed on the surface, a second amorphous layer developed underneath. This indicates that there is a transport mechanism that allows oxygen to diffuse into the substrate.

“Most corrosion research focuses on the growth of the passive layer and how it slows down the corrosion process,” Zhou says. “We feel that if we look at the atomic scale, we can fill in the gaps in knowledge.”

Guangwen Zhou is a professor of mechanical engineering in the Watson College of Engineering and Applied Sciences.Credit: Jonathan Cohen

Economic and Environmental Impact of Corrosion Research Economic and Environmental Impact of Corrosion Research

The cost of remediating corrosion worldwide is estimated at $2.5 trillion annually, which is more than 3% of global GDP. Therefore, developing better ways to manage oxidation would be an economic boon.

Additionally, understanding how the hydrogen and oxygen atoms in water molecules break down and interact with metals could lead to clean energy solutions, and the U.S. Department of Energy is excited about this research and Zhou’s past work. That’s why we funded a similar project.

“If you split water into oxygen and hydrogen, when they recombine, it’s just water again,” he says. “There is no fossil fuel pollution and no carbon dioxide production.”

Because of its impact on clean energy, the Department of Energy has periodically renewed Chou’s grant over the past 15 years.

“We are very grateful for the long-term support for this research,” said Zhou. “This is a very important issue for energy devices and systems because of the large amount of metal alloys used as structural materials.”

Reference: “Atomic mechanism of water vapor-induced surface passivation” Xiaobo Chen, Weitao Shan, Dongxiang Wu, Shyam Bharatkumar Patel, Na Cai, Chaoran Li, Shuonan Ye, Zhao Liu, Sooyeon Hwang, Dmitri N. Zakharov, Jorge Anibal Boscoboinik Written by Wang Feng and Zhou Guangwen, November 1, 2023, scientific progress.
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adh5565

Source: scitechdaily.com

Okta Purchases Security Firm Spera for Over $100 Million

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Identity and access management company Okta acquires security company Spera.

According to Okta, the Spera acquisition is expected to close during the fiscal first quarter, beginning in early February, and will build on Okta’s existing identity threat detection and response (ITDR) capabilities and provide customers with the system management and technology to improve the identification of personal information, detect and remediate risks.

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but Calcalist report Okta is paying Spera approximately $100 million to $130 million, depending on milestones.

“As a leading identity partner, we remain committed to providing our customers with the tools and knowledge they need in an increasingly challenging environment, and we look forward to seeing how Spera Security enhances our ITDR efforts to help our customers. We’re excited to deliver safer outcomes.” Post published this morning on Okta blog To read.

Spera, which my colleague Frederic has covered previously, was co-founded several years ago by entrepreneurs Dole Fredel and Ariel Kadicevic. Based in Palo Alto and Tel Aviv, the platform provides tools to identify silos across Software-as-a-Service and infrastructure apps, discover vulnerabilities across user populations, and address regulatory, attack vector, and industry challenges. Helps prioritize security issues based on best practices.

As Frederick said in the interview, services like Spera also serve a purpose beyond security, helping businesses reduce licensing costs by helping them find dormant accounts that can be turned off.

Spera, which has about 25 employees, had raised $10 million before acquiring Okta. Investors included YL Ventures and angel investors from tech giants like Google, Palo Alto Networks, Akamai, and Zendesk.

Okta believes Spera will enable customers to better assess the identity infrastructure and security posture of their apps and services, helping to attract new customers to the Okta platform.company quote Gartner research suggests that by 2026, 90% of organizations will have some kind of embedded ITDR strategy, compared to the current rate of 5% to 20%.

“With Spera Security, we provide our customers with richer insights and technology to better manage their identity security posture and quickly identify, detect, and remediate risks,” the blog post continues. “They can take advantage of specific suggestions from Spera Security, such as identifying SSO. [single sign-on] or M.F.A. [multifactor authentication] Improve your security posture and remediate potential threat vectors before they become critical by excluding privileged and service accounts. ”

Okta’s acquisition of Spera comes after Okta acquired the a16z-backed password manager Uno and after a rosy fiscal quarter for Okta. 6 billion dollar company beat Wall Street’s expectations for the fourth quarter suggest that publicly traded companies are on the right track, at least in the eyes of shareholders.

Source: techcrunch.com

High-profile ocean models accelerated by custom software

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

This figure shows surface currents simulated by MPAS-Ocean.Credit: Los Alamos National Laboratory, E3SM, U.S. Department of Energy

A new solver algorithm for the MPAS-Ocean model will significantly enhance climate research by reducing and improving computational time. Accuracy. This breakthrough in integrating Fortran and C++ programming is a step forward in efficient and reliable climate modeling.

On the beach, ocean waves provide soothing white noise. However, in scientific laboratories, they play an important role in weather forecasting and climate research. The ocean, along with the atmosphere, is typically one of the largest and most computationally intensive components of Earth system models, such as the Department of Energy’s Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM).

A breakthrough in ocean modeling

Most modern ocean models focus on two categories of waves: barotropic systems, where the wave propagation speed is fast, and baroclinic systems, where the wave propagation speed is slow. To address the challenge of simulating these two modes simultaneously, a team from DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories has We have developed a new solver algorithm to shorten it. -Ocean, E3SM ocean circulation model, increased by 45%.

The researchers tested the software on the Summit supercomputer at ORNL’s Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, a DOE Office of Science user facility, and the Compy supercomputer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. They ran the main simulations on the Cori and Perlmutter supercomputers at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and their results were International Journal of High Performance Computing Applicationss.

Computing innovations for climate modeling

because TrilinosBecause open source software databases ideal for solving scientific problems on supercomputers are written in the C++ programming language, and Earth system models like E3SM are typically written in Fortran, the team took advantage of the advantages of For Trilinois an associated software library that incorporates Fortran interfaces into existing C++ packages to design and customize new solvers focused on barotropic waves.

“A nice feature of this interface is that you can use all the components of the C++ package in the Fortran language, so you don’t have to translate anything, which is very convenient,” said lead author Hyun, a computational earth systems scientist. Kang said. ORNL.

Improvements to MPAS-Ocean

This work is built on Research results announced before Journal of Advances in Earth System Modeling In this paper, researchers at ORNL and Los Alamos National Laboratory handcrafted code to improve MPAS-Ocean. This time, the ForTrilinos-enabled solver overcomes the remaining shortcomings of the solver obtained in previous studies, especially when the user runs his MPAS-Ocean using a small number of computing cores for a given problem size. Did.

MPAS-Ocean’s default solver is an explicit sub-solver, a technique that uses a large number of small time intervals or time steps to compute barotropic wave properties in conjunction with baroclinic calculations without destabilizing the model. Cycle dependent. If the barotropic and barotropic waves can be advanced with time step sizes of 300 and 15 seconds, respectively, then to maintain the same speed the barotropic calculation would need to complete over 20 times more iterations, a huge amount requires computational power.

In contrast, the new solver for barotropic systems is semi-implicit. That is, it is unconditionally stable, allowing researchers to use the same number of large time steps without sacrificing accuracy, saving significant time and computational power.

The community of software developers has spent years optimizing Trillinos and Fort Lilinos’ various climate applications. As such, a modern MPAS-Ocean solver that leverages this resource will outperform hand-crafted solvers and enable other scientists to accelerate their climate research efforts.

“If we had to code every algorithm individually, it would require much more effort and expertise,” Kang said. “But with this software, you can run simulations quickly and quickly by incorporating optimized algorithms into your programs.”

Future enhancements and impact

Current solvers still have scalability limitations for high-performance computing systems, but they perform very well up to a certain number of processors. This drawback exists because the semi-implicit method requires all processors to communicate with each other at least 10 times per time step, which can reduce model performance. To overcome this obstacle, researchers are currently optimizing processor communication and porting solvers to GPUs.

In addition, the team updated the time-stepping method of the pressure clinic system to further improve the efficiency of MPAS-Ocean. Through these advances, researchers are making climate predictions faster and more reliable, an essential upgrade to ensure climate security and enable timely decision-making and high-resolution forecasting, aims to be more accurate.

“This barotropic mode solver enables faster calculations and more stable integration of models, especially for MPAS-Ocean,” said Kang. “Extensive use of computational resources requires enormous amounts of power and energy, but by accelerating this model we can reduce energy usage, improve simulations, and improve performance over decades and even beyond.” It will be easier to predict the effects of climate change thousands of years into the future.”

Reference: “MPAS-ocean implicit pressure mode solver using a modern Fortran solver interface” by Hyun-Gyu Kang, Raymond S Tuminaro, Andrey Prokopenko, Seth R Johnson, Andrew G Salinger, Katherine J Evans, 2023. November 17th, International Journal of High Performance Computing Applications.
DOI: 10.1177/10943420231205601

This research was supported by E3SM and the Exascale Computing Project (ECP). E3SM is sponsored by the DOE Office of Science’s Biological and Environmental Research Program, and ECP is managed by DOE and the National Nuclear Security Administration. The DOE Office of Science’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research Program funds OLCF and NERSC.

Source: scitechdaily.com

New Shepard’s triumphant return: Blue Origin’s latest success

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

blue originNew Shepard has officially resumed operations, with the company today successfully launching a suborbital rocket for the first time in more than 15 months.

The rocket lifted off from the Blue Origin launch site in west Texas at around 10:42 a.m. local time. The mission, named NS-24 to commemorate its 24th launch, carried 33 payloads for a wide range of customers, including NASA, Honeybee Robotics, and the nonprofit research and engineering company Draper. The mission was successfully completed in her 10 minutes, and the capsule returned safely to Earth after a short suborbital flight.

The company had originally targeted a Monday launch, but canceled the launch due to “ground system issues.” Blue Origin did not elaborate further on the specific issue.

This will be Blue Origin’s first New Shepard launch since September 2022, when an anomaly caused an automatic abort mid-flight. The capsule, which had no people on board at the time, was ejected from its booster and landed on Earth via parachute, but the booster was destroyed. The company discovered an issue with the engine nozzle that caused higher than normal operating temperatures.

Blue flew New Shepard four times in 2022, including a failed launch. Phil Joyce, Blue’s senior vice president for the New Shepard program, said in a statement after the launch that the company will fly the rocket more frequently next year. In 2024, the flight rhythm will improve,” he said.

Erica Wagner, Blue Origin’s senior director, said on the launch livestream that the company looks forward to flying its next crewed flight “soon.” There is no doubt that prospects breathed a sigh of relief when they saw another successful flight recorded on the blue belt.

Watch the launch again here:

Source: techcrunch.com

The Consequences of a Fat Cat: The Perspectives of Scientists

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

by University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences December 19, 2023

A study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign revealed the effects of overfeeding on cats’ digestive systems and gut microbiota. The study involved 11 cats and showed that an unrestricted diet led to significant weight gain, changes in gastrointestinal transit time, and changes in fecal microbiota and acidity. These findings contribute to the understanding of obesity in pets and inform weight management strategies such as feeding restriction and promotion of physical activity.

Cat owners want their pets to be happy, but overfeeding can have unintended consequences. The prevalence of obesity in cats is increasing, impacting their health, lifespan, and overall well-being. A new study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign looks at what happens to cats’ digestive systems and gut microbiota when they overeat.

“About 60% of cats in the United States are overweight, which can lead to health problems such as diabetes and chronic inflammation. A lot of research has been done on weight loss in cats; “There has been little focus on the reverse process. In this study, we wanted to learn more about the metabolic and gastrointestinal changes that occur as a result of overeating and weight gain in cats,” said study co-author and author of Animal Science said Kelly Swanson, professor and interim director of the department. The Department of Nutritional Sciences (DNS), part of the U of I College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences (ACES).

Methodology and initial findings

The study included 11 spayed adult cats. They were fed standard dry cat food and allowed to eat as much as they wanted after 2 weeks of baseline measurements. Researchers regularly took blood and fecal samples and monitored physical activity.

Once the cat was able to overeat, her food intake immediately increased significantly and she began to gain weight. The mean body condition score (BCS) at the start of the study was 5.41 on a 9-point scale. After 18 weeks of overeating, the weight increases to 8.27, which corresponds to 30% overweight. According to Swanson, BCS corresponds to a person’s body mass index (BMI), and anything above 6 is considered overweight.

Researchers at the University of Illinois have discovered that when cats overeat and gain weight, it affects their digestive systems and gut microbiota.Credit: Lauren Quinn, University of Illinois

Source: scitechdaily.com

Astrobotic readies for early January launch of Peregrine lunar module

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

astrobotic‘s first lunar module is ready for launch.

The company announced Tuesday that the lander, called Peregrine, has completed final inspection and refueling after mating with United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket last month. All that remains is the January 8th launch — and then, of course, the historic moon landing.

“If you’ve followed the lunar industry, you know that landing on the moon is incredibly difficult,” Astrobotic CEO John Thornton said in a statement. . “That being said, our team has continually exceeded expectations and demonstrated incredible ingenuity during flight reviews, spacecraft testing, and major hardware integration.”

“We are ready for launch and landing.”

The Peregrine lander, which is approximately 2 meters tall, will carry 20 payloads for government and commercial customers. The lander has a payload of 90 kg and will operate for approximately 192 hours after landing on the moon. During that time, it provides power and communications to the payload. According to Astrobotic’s payload user guide on his website, the company charges about $1.2 million per kilogram of mass delivered to the lunar surface.

Astrobotic is performing this mission as part of a $79.5 million contract from NASA under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. The company also won her second CLPS contract for the larger Griffin lander. The mission is scheduled to launch at the end of 2024.

Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic is one of the few commercial companies betting on the growing market for lunar payload delivery services. Other companies include Intuitive Machines, which aims to launch its first lander on January 12, days after Peregrine, Firefly Aerospace, and the Japanese company whose moon launch attempt failed earlier this year. Includes ispace etc.

After Peregrine lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the spacecraft will perform a series of burns to position it for landing on the moon’s surface on February 23.

Astrobotic isn’t the only company with a lot at stake in the January 8 launch. This mission also marks the first flight of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket. The rocket was hit by delays that postponed its debut for years. . ULA aims to launch several Vulcan flights next year and will ultimately need to sign a multibillion-dollar 38-vehicle launch deal with Amazon for its Project Kuiper satellite broadband constellation.

Astrobotic and ULA originally targeted a Dec. 24 launch date, but it was later postponed to give ULA time to complete a wet dress rehearsal. According to ULA, the wet dress was finally completed on December 14th.

Source: techcrunch.com

Tesla requests a break in federal racial discrimination lawsuit to focus on finalizing other legal matters

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Tesla wants to suspend a federal lawsuit against it for racial bias against black workers at its Fremont assembly plant.

The electric car maker said in a filing Monday in San Francisco federal court that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a lawsuit against Tesla in September as part of “harmful interagency competition” with the California civil rights agency. accused of rushing. The company sued the automaker last year on similar grounds.

The EEOC’s lawsuit alleges that Tesla violated federal law by condoning widespread and ongoing racial harassment of Black employees and retaliating against some employees who opposed the harassment. EEOC filings state that Black workers were accused of using slurs and epithets such as the N-word, variations such as “monkey,” “boy,” and “black bitch,” as well as racist graffiti that called for violence against Black people. There are detailed reports that it has withstood casual use. Other forms of abuse.

The California Civil Rights Division’s complaint against Tesla also includes similar examples of harassment from black workers.

Both lawsuits are pending in state court and allege that Tesla violated California anti-discrimination laws. The EEOC’s lawsuit also includes allegations that Tesla violated federal laws prohibiting racial discrimination and harassment in the workplace.

Tesla also faces a proposed class action lawsuit filed by workers in 2017 alleging racial harassment.

The EEOC did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.

Tesla’s Monday filing says a federal court should refuse to file a third lawsuit until the existing lawsuit is resolved. Lawyers for the automakers argued that prosecuting the three cases simultaneously would involve a “substantial duplication of effort,” risk “inconsistent court decisions,” and waste judicial resources.

Tesla is calling for something called the Colorado River Abstention Principle here. This is a legal principle that allows a federal court to recuse itself from hearing a case if there is a parallel case in a state court dealing with the same issue. The goal behind this principle is to avoid duplicative litigation and promote more efficient justice.

The turf battle Tesla refers to in its filing is between the EEOC and the California Civil Rights Department (CRD), formerly the Department of Fair Employment and Housing. The filing argues that historically the EEOC and CRD have worked together to protect entities from being subject to the same lawsuits from both agencies.

“That historic coordination and cooperation has disintegrated as agencies have become increasingly eager to file headline-grabbing complaints and report multi-million dollar settlements,” the filing said. It is stated in

Tesla has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in multiple racial discrimination incidents. Monday’s filing called the allegations “false” and accused the EEOC of “hastily covering them up.”[ping] Launching a bogus pre-litigation investigation. ”

The company is also appealing a $3.2 million award in a separate racial bias lawsuit to a black former contractor at the Fremont plant.

Source: techcrunch.com

The use of oral contraceptives correlates with decreased rates of depression

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

One study found that women who currently use oral contraceptives have lower rates of depression than women who previously used them. The study, which included 6,239 American women, suggests that reduced pregnancy concerns and potential “survivor bias” may explain this difference.

Researchers analyzed data from 6,239 women in the United States in the new study.

A recent study revealed that women who use oral contraceptive pills (OCP) are less likely to experience depression.

The study analyzed data from 6,239 U.S. women between the ages of 18 and 55. They found that current OCP users had a significantly lower rate of major depression at 4.6%, compared to 11.4% for women who had previously used OCPs.

The study was led by researchers at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), along with experts from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and the University of California, Davis.

Possible explanations and observations

The researchers suggest two possible explanations for the study results that run counter to the commonly held belief that OCPs can cause depression.

One is that taking the pill relieves anxiety about unwanted pregnancies and helps OCP users improve their mental health. The results may also have been influenced by “survivor bias,” where women who experienced signs of depression while using OCPs stopped taking them and were placed in the category of former users.

This cross-sectional study used data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and controlled for demographic characteristics, chronic conditions, and antidepressant use.

Among both users and former users, women who were widowed, divorced or separated, obese, or had a history of cancer were more likely to report depression. Additionally, among former users, depression was more commonly reported among women who were black or Hispanic, smoked, had lower education, or experienced poverty.

Meaning and comments

Dr Julia Gawronska, lead author and postdoctoral researcher at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), said: “Contraception is an important component of preventive health care. Most women tolerate oral contraceptives without experiencing symptoms of depression, but some women experience unpleasant side effects and even depression. It is possible to develop a disease, and the reasons for this are not entirely clear.

“Unlike some previous studies, we found that women currently taking oral contraceptives reported more clinically relevant depression than women who previously took oral contraceptives. Turns out it’s much less likely.

“Taking the pill may have positive mental health effects for some women simply by relieving them of anxiety about pregnancy. A ‘survivor effect’ may also be at play. Women who experience symptoms of depression are more likely to stop taking the drug, placing them in a group of former users.

“However, stopping the pill without a suitable alternative increases the risk of unplanned pregnancy. Make sure women are well supported, well informed and provided with alternative contraceptive methods if necessary.” It is important that it be done.”

References: “The Association between Oral Contraceptive Use and Depression in U.S. Women” by Julia Gawronska, Katherine Meese, Lee Smith, Chao Cao, Nan Wang, and Susan Walker, October 11, 2023. Affective Disorders Journal.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2023.10.041

Source: scitechdaily.com

Nasdaq has delisted MicroMobility.com

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Micromobility.com (formerly Helbiz) was delisted from Nasdaq on Monday after the company violated the exchange’s listing rules, according to a regulatory filing.

Competitor Bird, the only shared micromobility company to venture into the public markets, was also delisted from the stock exchange in September.

The company’s common stock and warrants were suspended from trading at the start of business Wednesday.

MicroMobility.com was kicked off the stock market for failing to maintain a stock price of at least $1 and failing to comply with Nasdaq’s minimum equity requirements to remain listed.

The company’s stock has struggled to remain compliant since going public through a special purpose acquisition merger in 2021. The company conducted a reverse stock split in March to bring prices back into compliance, but the gains didn’t last long. MicroMobility.com also recently announced that it intends to seek approval for a further reverse stock split at a special general meeting scheduled for January 2024. Its shareholder meeting was postponed, and further reverse stock split moves were also postponed.

MicroMobility.com said in a filing that it plans to apply for over-the-counter trading of its common stock and warrants. After Bird was delisted in September, the company opted to move its shares to the over-the-counter market as well. Bird recently announced layoffs, and its third-quarter results indicate the company may be nearing bankruptcy filing.

MicroMobility.com said the move to the OTC market “will have no impact on its business or operations.” The startup’s rebrand was meant to encapsulate its push into retail. MicroMobility.com opened its first brick-and-mortar store in New York City’s Soho in September. e-commerce site We carry electric scooters, electric bicycles, helmets, water bottles, and more.

Start-up income A company had revenue of $1.5 million in the third quarter and a net loss of $9.5 million. The balance sheet also shows that MicroMobility.com’s debt of $61.7 million significantly exceeds its assets of $9.4 million.

The company’s stock closed Monday at $0.44.

MicroMobility.com’s delisting comes amid turmoil in the shared micromobility industry. Superpedestrian closed last week and is considering selling its European operations. Tier Mobility announced its third layoff of the year in November after selling Spin to Bird a few months ago.

Source: techcrunch.com

NASA’s Laser Technology Beams Ultra-HD Cat Video from 19 Million Miles Away

Posted on December 19, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

NASA has made a significant advancement in deep space communications by successfully transmitting high-definition video from 19 million miles away. This breakthrough paves the way for advanced data transmission in space exploration. The video was transmitted from a cat named Taters and marked a historic milestone for NASA’s laser communications demonstration.

The Deep Space Optical Communications Experiment on December 11 transmitted ultra-high-resolution streaming video from a record-setting distance of 19 million miles. This milestone is part of a NASA technology demonstration aimed at streaming extremely high-bandwidth video and other data from deep space to enable future crewed missions beyond Earth orbit.

NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy stated, “This achievement confirms our commitment to advancing optical communications as a key element in meeting future data transmission needs. Increasing bandwidth is essential to achieving future exploration and science goals, and we look forward to continued advances in this technology and the transformation of how we communicate during future interplanetary missions.”

The 15-second test video was transmitted using a Flight Laser Transceiver at a maximum bit rate of 267 Mbps and took 101 seconds to reach Earth. The instrument transmitted a coded near-infrared laser to the Hale Telescope at the Palomar Observatory, where it was downloaded. Each frame of the video was transmitted “live” to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in real time.

The video was sent via a Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) technology demonstration flight laser transceiver that was installed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Center in April 2021 and later integrated with NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. The technology aims to transmit data from deep space 10 to 100 times faster than the most advanced radio frequency systems used in today’s deep space missions.

The ultra-high-definition video features a cat named Taters and was transmitted from deep space on December 11, 2023. The video was part of a technology demonstration known as Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) as the Psyche spacecraft heads towards the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

The system has demonstrated faster data downlink speeds and increased pointing accuracy during weekly checkouts. The project demonstrated downlink bit rates of 62.5 Mbps, 100 Mbps, and 267 Mbps, comparable to broadband Internet download speeds. The team was able to download a total of 1.3 terabits of data during that time, marking a significant technological achievement.

Source: scitechdaily.com

Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi to implement Tesla charging standards

Posted on December 19, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Volkswagen Group is the latest automaker to announce it will adopt Tesla’s so-called North American Charging Standard (NACS), and one of the last major automakers to adopt what is now the de facto EV plug in the United States. It becomes.

The German giant announced on Tuesday that future vehicles from its brand portfolio, which includes Audi, Porsche and the group’s emerging EV business Scout Motors, will include NACS charging ports from 2025.

Volkswagen Group was one of the last holdouts, but its charging network, Electrify America, recently announced plans to adopt the NACS standard. This is a strong sign that automakers aren’t far behind.

The announcement comes at the tail end of a queue of other automakers jumping on the charging standard, after Tesla announced last year that it would open up access.

Ford started this trend in May 2023 by announcing that EV owners would soon be the first to have access to approximately 12,000 Tesla chargers through adapters. Ford added that its next-generation EVs will be integrated with Tesla’s charging ports, called the North American Charging Standard (NACS), starting in 2025. Since then, major automakers such as GM, Rivian, Honda, Mercedes, Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, and recently Subaru have made their own announcements leveraging Tesla’s charging standards. Lucid, a small luxury EV company, announced in November that it would adopt the NAC standard.

Stellantis, the parent company of numerous brands including Jeep, Ram, Chrysler and Peugeot, does not participate in the NAC standard. The company previously told TechCrunch that it was evaluating charging standards.

Source: techcrunch.com

Becoming a Fluid Mechanics Expert: Crafting Four Classic Cocktails

Posted on December 19, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Proteins come together to create the foam in gin fizz.

alex oberheiser

You may think that complex equations and alcohol don’t or shouldn’t mix. But when you make your favorite cocktail, you’ll unknowingly encounter one of the most complex processes in fluid mechanics, the study of how liquids flow.

When researchers try to predict how fluids move, bubble, and wave, they often encounter complex equations. The starting point for solving almost all of these problems is the Navier-Stokes equation, named after Claude-Louis Navier and George Gabriel Stokes. They invented it in the 1800s, which was also the golden age of mixology.

So what better way to learn about fluid mechanics than with a cocktail? From how to make bubbles to unusual cloud formations to supersonic jets of liquid, there are some great surprises hidden inside your drinks! . Roll up your sleeves and get out your cocktail shaker!

gin fizz

Experience the wonders of bubble miniatures

First, something squishy. Made with two parts gin, one part lemon juice, a splash of syrup, and a splash of soda water, gin fizz is easy to make without a layer of foam.

Bubbles challenge physicists. Sometimes they behave like solids. Sometimes it behaves like a liquid. When washing dishes, soap bubbles flow like water, but the hard foam from beer can be cut off in one go.

This difference is due to the bubbles. Bubbles form when bubbles gather. But how…

Source: www.newscientist.com

EthSign Introduces DocuSign-like Features to Line and Telegram with a Web3 Spin

Posted on December 19, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Despite the continued regulatory crackdown on the cryptocurrency industry and the collapse of some of its leading figures, the underlying decentralized technology continues to push internet incumbents into the Web3 realm.

Telegram and Line are two of the world’s most popular messengers with hundreds of millions of monthly users, and both have integrated encryption features in recent months. One of the features being introduced in these apps is electronic signatures provided by a startup called EthSign.

Backed by all three Sequoia divisions: Sequoia Capital, Sequoia Capital India, and Sequoia Capital China (now called HongShan), Singapore-based EthSign promises an additional layer of transparency and trust. We aim to provide the Web3 equivalent of DocuSign. Therefore, its task is to convince the public that signing contracts on the blockchain is better than traditional methods.

“First, it is much easier to authenticate the identity of each signer and see the history of their interaction with the signed document,” said EthSign, who previously worked in the strategic investment department of a centralized exchange. Co-founder and CEO Xin Yan explained. Huobi.

If traditional e-signature service providers shut down, records of users’ signatures would also be lost, but this is an issue unrelated to distributed ledger technology, Yang told TechCrunch. And once signed, the data is immutable. This is one of the most promising features of blockchain.

EthSign will be deployed on the respective blockchain networks running on Telegram and Line, TON and Finschia. Once a user connects his cryptocurrency wallet to Messenger, he can start signing documents through EthSign in the same way he interfaces with DocuSign.

EthSign is one of many Web3 projects built on Telegram’s blockchain partner TON, helping the messenger work towards its vision of becoming a super app like WeChat.

EthSign, which is already running on Line as a web app, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Finschia for further integration in the coming months.

The idea of enabling immutable signatures in messaging apps is not new. Back in 2018, a mini-app called “Little Protocol” was launched on Chinese messaging giant WeChat. The feature, which allows users to enter into contracts using their girlfriend’s WeChat ID and the contents of documents recorded on Ethereum, attracted more than 100,000 hits for her overnight. However, within 48 hours, the app was removed by WeChat.

To date, EthSign has connected approximately 250,000 unique wallet addresses. Although still free to use, its goal is to become an authentication services platform in the future, providing support for authentication, verification, and other user activities, rather than pursuing a traditional SaaS model that monetizes through subscription fees. It’s about charging.

“Certification of on-chain information is about bringing trust to the on-chain world, where the most promising use case is vampire attacks,” Yang explained, adding that users can use established cryptocurrencies to He mentioned the phenomenon of Web3 being directed to forked versions. Projects with enhanced incentives.

Source: techcrunch.com

The future of startups in 2024 remains uncertain

Posted on December 19, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Even though the economy is showing some improvement, 2024 may not be much better than 2023 in terms of startups getting a slice of the budget pie.

All articles on TechCrunch+ are available to members only.
Use discount code TC Plus Roundup Save 20% on a 1-year or 2-year subscription.

If startups want to have any chance of making it through another difficult year, they need to prove their worth now more than ever. Investors told TechCrunch’s Ron Miller and Rebecca Szkutak that they still expect some growth. And let’s not forget the elephant in the room: generative AI.

thank you for reading!

Karin

The Law of X and how cloud leaders should think about growth and profits

Set line protractor square root of x glyph abacus geometric shapes sphere tetrahedron graph computer monitor with chart graph schedule chart diagrams and icons. vector.

Image credits: Kostyantin Filichkin/Getty Images

Bessemer Venture Partner Byron Dieter and Bessemer Investor Sam Bondi said, “Many financial executives like the ‘Rule of 40’ because of the clarity of the rules, but it’s important to understand that late-stage business growth “Equivalent emphasis on profitability and profitability is flawed and leads to poor business decisions.”

That’s why the company wants to introduce a new formula into the ring. It is, according to the author, a “rule of X” that provides more “accurate weighting.” [a company’s] Growth and future recurring revenue. ”

Breaking down the pitch deck: Metafuels’ $8 million climate technology seed deck

Image credits: meta fuel (Opens in new window)

Metafuel has raised $8 million in seed funding to support its plan to reduce aircraft emissions. However, resident pitch expert Hadje Jan Kamps quickly realized that there were some areas that could be improved. The competition slides are missing, the team his slides are a bit lacking in vibrancy, and the lack of clear questions and use of the funding slides.

Still, Metafuels can paint a picture of a rapidly growing market and how it is positioning itself as a key player within it.

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Why 30 Web3 founders are optimistic about 2024

Image credits: Raw Pixel/Getty Images

CoinFund’s Founder Forecast looked at 30 companies across the company’s Web3 portfolio and found that things are looking good for Web3 companies heading into 2024. For example, he found that 70% of respondents said they were planning to hire in the next year, but no companies were looking to downsize.

A quick guide to ethical and responsible AI governance

Image credits: DNY59/Getty Images

“A strong ethical and risk management framework is essential to navigate the complex landscape of AI applications,” said Phani Dasari, Chief Information Security Officer, Hinduja Global Solutions.

Dasari thoroughly implements key components of AI governance, including policies, procedures, and the processes themselves, helping businesses avoid the risks and benefits of using AI.

Source: techcrunch.com

An alarming increase in unnoticed deaths in England

Posted on December 19, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Research in England and Wales shows an alarming increase in the number of decomposing bodies found, which is linked to social isolation and indicates a breakdown in social support systems, particularly among men.

Exploratory research has revealed worrying trends in England and Wales. This means that an increasing number of people are being found dead or decomposed.

This study Journal of the Royal Society of Medicinesuggesting an association between increased social isolation and these deaths; COVID-19 (new coronavirus infection) Pandemic.

The study was authored by a team led by Dr. Lucinda Hiam. oxford university and Dr. Theodore Estrin-Cerluis, Registrar of Histopathology at Imperial College NHS Healthcare Trust.

Researchers analyzed data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to identify deaths where bodies were found decomposed. They used new proxies with deaths coded as R98 (“neglected death”) and R99 (“other unclear causes of death”) according to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) and previous versions. did. “Unspecified death.”

amazing discovery

The study found that between 1979 and 2020, there was a steady increase in ‘unspecified deaths’, or deaths of people found decomposed, for both men and women. Male deaths exceed those of females, and male deaths increased significantly from the 1990s to the 2000s, when overall mortality rates were rapidly improving. The authors said the increase in deaths found in decomposing conditions, especially in men, was a worrying trend.

“Many people would be shocked to find out that someone could lie dead in their home for days, weeks, or even longer, without anyone in their community raising the alarm,” Estrin said. Dr. Serrui says: “The increase in people found dead and in decomposing conditions suggests that there was a broader societal breakdown in both formal and informal social support networks even before the pandemic. and warrants urgent further investigation.”

The study’s authors call on national and international authorities to consider measures to make it easier to identify deaths when people’s corruption is more easily detected in routine data.

Reference: ‘Deadly Silence: Why are the number of people found decomposing in England and Wales increasing?’ Lucinda Higham, Theodore Estrin-Cerlouis, Danny Doring, Martin Mackie , by John Minton, November 20, 2023, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.
DOI: 10.1177/01410768231209001

Source: scitechdaily.com

Breakr, a music marketing startup, secures new funding and allocates $3.5 million to support creators

Posted on December 19, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

The last thing I wrote was breaker — a platform that connects record labels, artists, and brands with social media influencers to run large-scale campaigns in a programmatic manner — when it closed a $4.2 million round in 2021. In the past two years, Breaker has hired over 30,000 influencers and generated $3.5 million in deals with creators. Now, to fuel growth, Breaker has secured an additional $1.9 million in his investment at a valuation of $20 million.

Slow Ventures will lead the expansion, which the company will use for recruiting and product development. Breakr is led by Marc Benioff, a16z/TxO, former Tik Tok CEO Kevin Mayer, RGA Ventures, Charles Hudson (Precursor Ventures), Complex founder Rich Antoniello, and Ro Tony. To date, it has raised $8.7 million from an impressive list of investors including (Plexo). Capital), Ant Selah (WdrCo), and Quiet Capital.

While Breakr’s user growth highlights the scale of the creator economy, the modest size of this funding round and the total deal value over the past two years suggests that many of the sector’s business models are still It shows that it is in its early stages.

Still, there is much hope. goldman sachs I estimate that Total addressable market for creator economy could reach $480 billion by 2027.

Players who pay attention to and do business with Breakr will also tell their stories. These include Def Jam, Samsung, Billboard, Rolling Loud, Live Nation, Meta, Tidal, Epic, Kit Kat, P&G, Celsius, Mountain Dew, White Claw, and more. Labels and brands use Breakr to connect music to their campaigns. Meanwhile, musicians include Megan Thee Stallion, Future, Rick Ross, Gunna, J.I.D., Sleepy Hallow, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Pink, Young Thug, Kanye West, Brent Fayers, Toby Nwigwe, Includes the Pink Panther, Armani White, Charlie Ona Friday, and Nas. Investor).

There are many platforms on the market today that connect creators, brands, and content (not just music but other media) to build influencer campaigns. Breakr’s unique selling point is that it effectively treats this basic concept as a programmatic opportunity, similar to how online advertising is created, sold, and distributed today.

“Breakr wants to be Google Ad Words, powered by creators,” co-founder Anthony Brown told TechCrunch. “With the underlying audience data, a ton of liquidity, and intelligence capabilities, I think going to Breakr and spending $15,000 should be as easy as setting it and forgetting it on Google. We believe.”

The company recently started with a more hands-on approach and exited closed beta as a self-service SaaS platform. SaaS platforms are backed by wallets that act as escrow accounts. You can pay money from your wallet for your involvement and services provided.

“This move to a SaaS model aligns with our goal to streamline and democratize the influencer marketing process, making it more accessible and efficient for a wide range of users inside and outside the music industry.” Brown explained.

Currently, Breakr is set up like a three-sided marketplace. On the creator side, individuals submit their profiles to the platform to be considered for campaigns.

On the music side, artists (or labels) submit music to specific campaigns. And once the music is selected, it will be promoted to new audiences. Musicians may pay to have their music used, but as a result, they also take a cut of some of the revenue generated by the campaign.

On the marketing side, brands look for influencers to run promotions and access each influencer’s 40 data points (language, voice location, type of interests, etc.). You can also check those influencers’ past content and engagement rates, or more pointedly, scrutinize their brand safety and see if the influencer in question is dabbling in fake followers. You can also run some diagnostics (to determine how much of a factor, if any, it’s for them).

“The creator economy, especially the music sector, is rapidly evolving with a shift to direct, curated, and scalable relationships between digital marketers and creators. Traditional management tools are becoming obsolete and more efficient is paving the way for relationship-focused technologies. These include platforms that move away from high-cost, short-term campaigns and make it easier to deliver personalized content and offers to creators. “This trend toward continuous, evergreen marketing has proven to be effective, emphasizing the importance of ongoing engagement over one-off interactions,” said Brown.

While music marketing is the company’s main bread and butter, Breaker hopes to eventually branch out into other areas such as film and television.

Source: techcrunch.com

Anticipating the Future: 8 AI Predictions for 2024

Posted on December 19, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

It was shocking for AI, as it moved from niche to mainstream technology faster than ever before. But 2024 will be the year when this hype really becomes reality as people consider the capabilities and limitations of AI as a whole. Here are some ways we think that could happen.

OpenAI becomes a product company

After a management shake-up in November, OpenAI will be a different company — it may not look like it on the outside, but the trickle-down effect of Sam Altman taking more full charge will make all the difference. You can feel it on the level. And one of the ways we expect that to manifest is through the idea of “shipping.” You can see that in the GPT store. Originally he was scheduled for release in December, but was understandably delayed due to executive turmoil. “AI app store” will continue to be strongly promoted as a platform to get AI toys and tools. Don’t worry about Hugging Face or any other open source model. They have a great model called Apple and they follow it all the way to the bank. Expect to see more similar moves from OpenAI in 2024, as the prudence and academic reserve exhibited by previous boards gives way to unseemly greed for markets and customers. Other big companies working on AI will likely follow this trend (e.g. we expect Gemini/Bard to get into a ton of Google products), but I suspect it will be more pronounced in this case.

Agents, generated videos, and generated music graduate from quaint to experimental

Some niche applications of AI models, such as agent-based models and generative multimedia, will grow beyond “meh” status by 2024. If AI is going to help you do more than summarize things or create lists, it will need access to spreadsheets, ticket-buying interfaces, transit apps, and more. In 2023, several attempts were made with this “agent” approach, but none really caught on. I don’t expect anything to really take off in 2024 either, but I think agent-based models will look a little more convincing than they did last year. We’ll also see some clutch use cases that are notorious for tedious processes such as submission. Insurance claims. Video and audio will also find a niche where their shortcomings are less obvious. In the hands of skilled creators, the lack of photorealism will not be an issue and AI video will be used in fun and interesting ways. Similarly, generative music models are likely to be adopted by some major productions, such as games, where professional musicians can also leverage the tools to create endless soundtracks.

The limitations of monolithic LLM become clearer

So far, there’s been a lot of optimism about the capabilities of large-scale language models, and they’ve actually proven to be better than anyone expected, and can be used to create more computing power. As more are added, its capabilities further increase accordingly. But 2024 will be the year that something will be given. There is a lot of research going on at the forefront of this field, so it is impossible to predict exactly where this will happen. The seemingly magical “new” features of the LLM will be further studied and understood in 2024. Also, things like LLM not being able to multiply large numbers would make more sense. At the same time, the returns on number of parameters also start to decrease, and while training a 500 billion parameter model might technically yield better results, the compute required to do so could probably be more effectively deployed. may be. A single monolithic model is unwieldy and expensive, whereas a combination of multiple experts (a collection of smaller, more specific and perhaps multimodal models) is much easier to update in parts. However, it may prove to be nearly as effective.

Marketing meets reality

The simple fact is that it will be very difficult for companies to live up to the hype built in 2023. Marketing claims about machine learning systems that companies deploy to keep up will be subject to quarterly and annual reviews…and there is a strong possibility that they will be found to be inadequate. It is high. We expect significant customer withdrawal from AI tools as the benefits do not justify the costs and risks. At the other end of the spectrum, we may see litigation and regulatory action with AI service providers who are unable to substantiate their claims. Capabilities will continue to grow and advance, but it is not far off that all 2023 products will survive, and there will be a round of consolidation as the wave’s erratic riders decline and are consumed.

Source: techcrunch.com

One hundred elephants die in drought-stricken park in Zimbabwe

Posted on December 19, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Zimbabwe’s largest national park has seen the death of at least 100 elephants in recent weeks due to drought, a grim indication of the impact of climate change and the El Niño phenomenon.

Wildlife officials and conservation groups fear more deaths as parts of southern Africa, including Hwange National Park, anticipate decreased rainfall and warmer temperatures. The International Fund for Animal Welfare has labeled this a crisis for elephants and other wildlife.

Tinashe Farawo, spokesperson for the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, stated, “El Niño conditions are exacerbating an already dire situation.”

El Niño is a natural weather event that warms parts of the Pacific Ocean and affects global weather patterns. This year’s El Niño has also brought about deadly flooding. Forecasters expect below-average rainfall across southern Africa into East Africa.

Zimbabwe has already experienced a delayed start to the rainy season, with below-average rainfall predicted for the summer. Experts believe climate change has strengthened the El Niño phenomenon, resulting in more severe consequences.

Authorities are worried about a repeat of 2019 when over 200 elephants died in Hwange due to severe drought.

Philippe Kwawoga, program director at the International Fund for Animal Welfare, alerted authorities to the situation in Hwange in a recent report.

According to research, longer and more severe dry periods have become more frequent in Zimbabwe in recent years. Trevor Lane of the B-Jane Trust, a conservation organization, stated, “El Niño could soon bring back sunshine as rainfall in our region has significantly reduced.”

The B-Jane Trust has been working to help by pumping 1.5 million liters of water per day to the Hwange waterhole from more than 50 wells it manages in partnership with the Parks Department.

Conservationists emphasize that saving elephants is not only about the animals themselves. They play a crucial role in forest regeneration and are key allies in the fight against climate change through their impact on ecosystems.

“They play a much bigger role in forest regeneration than humans,” Lane says, “That’s one of the reasons we fight to keep elephants alive.”

Source: www.nbcnews.com

Google Play undergoes changes following US settlement

Posted on December 19, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Google today announced that it will pay $700 million as part of a settlement with the U.S. Attorney General’s Office in a lawsuit over the Google Play Store. In addition, the company also agreed to take certain actions related to Google Play billing, sideloading, and how sideloaded apps are updated.

Here is the list of changes that Google has agreed to implement: All of these provisions will apply from the effective date of the Settlement.

Third-party app stores and sideloading

Google will support installing apps on Android outside of Google Play through a variety of methods, including third-party app stores, for at least seven years.
Google will not force developers to release apps on Google Play at the same time or sooner for at least four years. This includes not entering into agreements with developers to provide versions with more features on Google Play.
For four years, Google has announced that third-party companies can use APIs to automatically update apps, use “split features” to download portions of apps on demand, and allow third-party companies to Support a consent mechanism to stop updates.
Google should also allow pre-installed apps or third-party app stores to maintain “exclusive” rights to update apps unless users choose to update from another source. However, developers can opt out of the ability to allow users to update their apps from another source.
Currently, Google displays a warning screen when you try to install apps from alternative sources. Next, the user must tap the settings button to allow installing apps from other sources. For at least 5 years, Google should merge these two screens into one and display the following message: “Your phone is not currently configured to install apps from this source.” Giving this source permission to install apps could put your phone and data at risk . “

alternative billing

Google must allow developers to offer alternative billing mechanisms for in-app purchases for at least five years. Additionally, we can’t force developers to offer the lowest prices through Google Play billing.
If a consumer chooses a different billing option, Google may only collect the minimum amount of data necessary from developers. Additionally, the company cannot use this data to compete with apps.

Google will allow developers to contact users outside of their apps with their consent for promotions related to pricing and billing using information collected from outside or inside their apps for at least six years. There is a need.
Developers can offer discounts and display them within the app to promote other billing systems. Additionally, Google can’t stop you from displaying prices linked to Google Play or Google Play’s billing system.
For six years, Google will allow developers to display information about other purchasing options, such as “Available for purchase on our website for $9.99,” without a link.

OEM clause

Google cannot enter into a deal with a phone manufacturer to put Google Play on the device’s home screen as a dedicated app store for at least five years.
During the same period, device manufacturers will no longer need to ask Google for “consent” to preload third-party app stores.
For at least four years, Google will be required to grant OEM installer rights to preloaded apps.

These changes may seem like a lot, but they may be small changes for Google. As we found out during the Epic vs. Google trial, Google is offering his 4% discount on user-selected charges May not be enough for developers to switch If the cost exceeds the savings, transfer to another payment processor. Additionally, other app stores should provide enough incentives and large numbers of users so that developers can earn more revenue through these app stores.

Source: techcrunch.com

Guac, backed by Y Combinator, uses algorithms to predict grocery demand

Posted on December 19, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Poor forecasting of food demand results in more waste than expected.

According to someone sauce, U.S. grocery stores throw away 10% of the approximately 44 billion pounds of food the country produces annually.It’s not just bad for the environment – food waste is a major source carbon emissions — but expensive for grocery stores. around Retail Insights Food and grocery retailers lose up to 8% of revenue due to inventory shortages.

Entrepreneurs Euro One and Jack Solomon say they have experienced first-hand the micro-level impact of prediction problems, as their local supermarkets often run out of their favorite guacamole.

“We found that even the largest retailers are having trouble predicting future demand and are frequently experiencing overstocks and understocks,” Wang told TechCrunch in an email interview. Told. “Recent extreme weather events have exacerbated fresh produce shortages, making it even more important to allocate limited supplies efficiently. Added to this is inflationary pressures and rising labor costs. , grocery store profits are increasingly threatened.”

Wang and Solomon co-founded the company with the idea of using technology to tackle problems. Guac, a platform that uses AI to predict how many items a grocer will sell per item at a given store location each day. Guac recently raised $2.3 million in a seed round led by 1984 Ventures with participation from Y Combinator and Collaborative Fund.

“Food waste and food security are issues that Jack and I care deeply about, and we were very excited about the opportunity to actually solve food waste at the source,” Wang said.

Previously, Wang worked at Boston Consulting Group and Solomon researched AI for grocery logistics. We both graduated from Oxford University, where we met.

At Guac, engineers Wang, Solomon, and Guac have developed a custom algorithm that predicts grocery order quantities by taking into account variables such as weather, sporting events, betting odds, and even Spotify listening data. We are trying to understand consumer purchasing behavior by building a. Guac customers receive recommendations such as expiration dates, minimum order quantities, promotions, and supplier lead times that are integrated into their existing inventory ordering software and workflows.

“Traditionally, forecasting was done using Excel formulas or simple regression models,” Wang says. “But for fresh produce that expires quickly, you need something better. Because we use so many external variables, we can identify the real-world variables that cause changes in demand.”

Guac is certainly not the only startup in the food demand forecasting game. Crisp, which provides an open data platform for each link in the grocery supply chain, and Freshflow, which is building AI-powered predictive tools to help retailers optimize fresh food inventory replenishment.

But Wang says Guac is differentiated by both its commitment to transparency and its thorough tweaking of its predictive models.

“Rather than a black box that magically predicts a 20% increase in demand, our machine learning model tells our customers: “This 20% increase is due to conferences being held nearby,” Wang said. “Even if a retailer is already using machine learning, we can improve our predictions by having access to more external data sets. Including only specific datasets (such as weather or holidays) actually doubles the prediction error.”

Some early customers seem confident that Guac can add value. The company partners with retailers including grocery delivery companies in North America, Europe and the Middle East, including an unnamed supermarket chain with about 300 locations. Guac is also already profitable and expects to expand its engineering team next year.

“The grocery industry is quite resilient to economic downturns,” Wang said. “Everyone has to eat, but when the economy slows down, fewer people eat out and more people actually buy groceries. The pandemic has also accelerated the digitalization of grocery stores, making predictions We can now integrate more seamlessly with our customers’ systems. Speaking of the pandemic, shopper behavior has been very different during the pandemic, as grocers only have access to historical sales data from the past three years. This means that it is very difficult to rely on and predict future demand. Our algorithm allows us to adjust for how the pandemic biased sales data in 2020 and 2021. “We can also adjust for the residual effects of the pandemic afterwards.”

Source: techcrunch.com

Exploring the Future of Materials Science: A Innovative Twist

Posted on December 19, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

When a strong laser pulse hits a steel alloy, the material briefly melts where it is irradiated, forming a small magnetic region.Credit: HZDR / Sander Munster

The research team has shown that ultrashort laser pulses can magnetize iron alloys. This discovery has great potential for applications in magnetic sensor technology, data storage, and spintronics.

To magnetize a steel nail, simply stroke its surface several times with a bar magnet. But there is a more unusual method. it is, Helmholtz – Zentrum Dresden – Rossendorf (HZDR) Some time ago, a certain iron was discovered. alloy It can be magnetized with ultrashort laser pulses. The researchers are currently working with the Laser Institute of Mitweida University (LHM) to further investigate this process. They found that this phenomenon also occurs in different classes of materials. This greatly expands the range of potential applications.The working group will publish its results in a scientific journal Advanced functional materials.

Groundbreaking discovery in magnetization

An unexpected discovery was made in 2018. When the HZDR team bombarded a thin layer of iron and aluminum alloy with ultrashort laser pulses, the nonmagnetic material suddenly became magnetic. Explanation: Laser pulses rearrange the atoms in the crystal so that the iron atoms are closer to each other, forming a magnet. The researchers were then able to demagnetize the layer again using a series of weaker laser pulses. This allowed them to discover how to create and erase tiny “magnetic spots” on surfaces.

However, the pilot experiment still left some questions unanswered. “It was unclear whether the effect only occurs in iron-aluminum alloys or in other materials,” explains HZDR physicist Dr. Rantei Bali. “We also wanted to track the process over time.” For further investigation, he collaborated with his Dr. Theo Pflug at LHM and colleagues at the University of Zaragoza in Spain.

Flipbook using laser pulse

Experts especially focused on iron-vanadium alloys. Unlike iron-aluminum alloys, which have a regular crystal lattice, the atoms in iron-vanadium alloys are more randomly arranged, forming an amorphous glass-like structure. To observe what happens during laser irradiation, physicists used a special method called the pump-probe method.

“First, we bombard the alloy with powerful laser pulses to magnetize the material,” explains Theo Pflug. “At the same time, he uses a second, weaker pulse that is reflected off the material surface.”

Analysis of reflected laser pulses reveals the physical properties of the material. This process is repeated several times to continually lengthen the time interval between the first “pump” pulse and subsequent “probe” pulses.

As a result, time-series reflection data are obtained, which can characterize the processes induced by laser excitation. “The whole procedure is similar to creating a flipbook,” he says Pflug. “Similarly, a series of individual images that animate when viewed in succession.”

rapid dissolution

Results: Although they have a different atomic structure than iron-aluminum compounds, iron-vanadium alloys can also be magnetized by lasers. “In both cases, the material melts for a short time at the point of irradiation,” he explains Rantej Bali. “This causes the laser to erase the previous structure and create small magnetic regions in both alloys.”

Promising results: Apparently, this phenomenon is not limited to a particular material structure and can be observed in a variety of atomic arrangements.

The team also tracks the temporal dynamics of the process. “At least we know on what time scale something will happen,” explains Theo Pflug. “Within femtoseconds, a laser pulse excites electrons in the material. After a few picoseconds, the excited electrons transfer their energy to the nucleus.”

Consequently, this energy transfer causes a rearrangement into a magnetic structure, which is then stabilized by rapid cooling. In follow-up experiments, the researchers aim to observe exactly how the atoms rearrange by examining the magnetization process with powerful X-rays.

Perspectives towards applications

Although still in its early stages, this research already provides a first idea of possible applications. For example, one could place small magnets on the chip surface via a laser. “This could be useful in producing highly sensitive magnetic sensors such as those used in vehicles,” he speculates Rantej Bali. “It could also have applications in magnetic data storage.”

Moreover, this phenomenon seems to be related to a new type of electronics: spintronics. Here, instead of electrons passing through transistors as usual, magnetic signals must be used for digital computing processes, providing a possible approach to future computer technology.

Reference: “Laser-Induced Positional and Chemical Lattice Reordering Generating Ferromagnetism” by Theo Pflug, Javier Pablo-Navarro, Md. Chabad Anwar, Markus Olbrich, César Magén, Manuel Ricardo Ibarra, Kay Potzger, Jürgen Faßbender, Jürgen Lindner, Alexander Horn. Lantei Bali, November 21, 2023, Advanced functional materials.
DOI: 10.1002/adfm.202311951

Source: scitechdaily.com

Nearly 36 million Xfinity customer records hacked, says Comcast

Posted on December 19, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Comcast has confirmed that hackers who exploited a security vulnerability rated critical gained access to sensitive information of approximately 36 million Xfinity customers.

The vulnerability, known as CitrixBleed, was discovered in Citrix networking devices commonly used by large enterprises and has been widely exploited by hackers since late August. Citrix made the patch available in early October, but many organizations did not apply the patch in time. Hackers used the CitrixBleed vulnerability to hack high-profile victims including aerospace giant Boeing, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and international law firm Allen & Overy.

Comcast’s cable TV and Internet division, Xfinity, has become the latest victim of CitrixBleed, the company has confirmed. Notice to customers on monday.

The US telecommunications giant said hackers who exploited a CitrixBleed vulnerability accessed its internal systems from October 16th to October 19th, but the company did not detect any “malicious activity” until October 25th. Stated.

By Nov. 16, Xfinity had determined that “information may have been obtained” by the hackers, and in December that it had determined that this included customer data, including usernames and “hashed” passwords. concluded that they were scrambled and stored in an unreadable manner. To humans. It is not immediately clear how the password was scrambled or what algorithm was used, as some weak hashing algorithms can be cracked.

The company said the hackers may have also accessed the names, contact information, dates of birth, last four digits of Social Security numbers, and security questions and answers for an unspecified number of customers.

Comcast said it “continues to analyze our data and will provide additional notifications as appropriate,” suggesting other types of data may have been accessed as well.

The notice did not say how many Xfinity customers would be affected, and Comcast spokesperson Joel Shadle declined to comment when asked by TechCrunch.in Filings with the Maine Attorney General, Comcast confirmed that approximately 35.8 million customers were affected by this breach.Comcast Latest earnings report The company has more than 32 million broadband customers, suggesting this breach affected most, if not all, Xfinity customers.

Whether Xfinity received a ransom demand, how the incident affected the company’s operators, and whether the incident was reported to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, as required by the regulator’s new data breach reporting rules. It is still unclear whether it was submitted. A Comcast spokesperson declined to comment.

Xfinity says it requires customers to reset their passwords and recommends the use of two-factor or multi-factor authentication (which the company does not require by default) for all customer accounts.

Source: techcrunch.com

Spiff, an automated commission management platform, acquired by Salesforce

Posted on December 19, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

sales force is announced plan to obtain Spiff, a platform that automates commission management for sales teams. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in 2017, Spiff provides a low-code interface designed to help companies easily create sales compensation plans that automatically update based on talent meeting pre-agreed goals. . Native integration with popular enterprise CRM and ERP systems allows you to handle the most complex commission structures, including any conditions to trigger a payout, while giving sales reps the ability to see in real-time the commissions owed. He Spiff says.

The Salt Lake City-based startup invested in Spiff’s Series B round in 2021, including a cash infusion from Salesforce’s own venture capital firm Salesforce Ventures, which previously led a $50 million Series C round. , which has raised more than $110 million in its six-year history. this year.

Spiff image credits: Spiff

Once the acquisition is complete (expected within the first few months of 2024), Salesforce says it plans to bring Spiff to life internally. Sales performance management The software is a CRM connectivity product that connects customer and sales team data.

It’s worth noting that both companies have a history that goes beyond stock investments. Spiff becomes available It has been available on the Salesforce AppExchange for several years.

The deal is also the latest in a series of ecosystem companies that Salesforce has ultimately brought in-house. Back in September, Salesforce acquired Airkit, a low-code platform for building AI customer service agents. Airkit’s founders have previously exited Salesforce by selling a big data startup called RelateIQ for his $390 million in 2014, as well as Salesforce Ventures, which he founded in 2017. Since then, I have invested in Airkit several times. And like Spiff, Airkit was also available. On AppExchange.

So it’s clear that Salesforce continues to view proven ecosystem companies as a safe option for its M&A efforts, and that “low code” is also a key element.

Source: techcrunch.com

Groundbreaking Model Opens Doors to Remarkable Drug Discoveries

Posted on December 19, 2023 by Igor Mitreski

Researchers have made significant progress in understanding neuromuscular diseases by developing a two-dimensional neuromuscular junction model using pluripotent stem cells. This model enables high-throughput drug screening and complements previously developed three-dimensional organoids. (Artist’s concept) Credit: SciTechDaily.com

Scientists have developed a groundbreaking two-dimensional model to study neuromuscular diseases. This has enabled efficient drug testing and improved our understanding of diseases such as spinal muscular atrophy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Researchers have so far identified about 800 different neuromuscular diseases. These conditions are caused by problems with how muscle cells, motor neurons, and peripheral cells interact. These diseases, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and spinal muscular atrophy, can cause muscle weakness, paralysis, and even death.

“These diseases are very complex and the causes of dysfunction are diverse,” said Dr. Mina Gouti, head of the Max Delbrück Center’s Developmental Stem Cell Modeling and Disease Laboratory. The problem could be in the neurons, the muscle cells, or the connections between the two. “To better understand the causes and find effective treatments, we need human-specific cell culture models that allow us to study how motor neurons in the spinal cord interact with muscle cells.”

Innovative research using organoids

Researchers working with Gouti had already developed a three-dimensional neuromuscular organoid (NMO) system. “One of our goals is to use our cultures for large-scale drug testing,” Gouti says. “Three-dimensional organoids are so large that they cannot be cultured for long periods of time in the 96-well culture dishes we use to conduct high-throughput drug screening studies.”

Human self-assembling 2D neuromuscular junction model. Immunofluorescence analysis of the whole dish shows myocytes (magenta) organized into bundles surrounded by spinal neurons (cyan). Credit: Alessia Urzi, Max Delbrück Center

For this type of screening, an international team led by Gouti has now developed a self-organizing neuromuscular junction model using pluripotent stem cells. The model includes neurons, muscle cells, and chemicals. synapse It is called the neuromuscular junction, which is necessary for two types of cells to interact. The researchers have now published their findings in the journal. nature communications.

“The 2D self-assembled neuromuscular junction model allows us to perform high-throughput drug screening for various neuromuscular diseases and study the most promising candidates in patient-specific organoids,” says Gouti. .

2D neuromuscular model development

To establish a 2D self-organizing neuromuscular junction model, the researchers first needed to understand how motor neurons and muscle cells develop in the embryo. Although Minas’ team does not conduct embryo research themselves, they use a variety of human stem cell lines and induced pluripotent stem cell lines (iPSCs), which are allowed for research purposes under strict guidelines.

“We tested several hypotheses. We found that the cell type required for functional neuromuscular connections is derived from neuromesodermal progenitor cells,” says doctoral student and author of the paper. says lead author Alessia Urzi.

Urji discovered the right combination of signaling molecules that allow human stem cells to mature into functional motor neurons and muscle cells, and the necessary connections between them. “It was very exciting to see muscle cells contracting under the microscope,” Urji says. “That was a clear sign that we were on the right path.”

Another observation was that upon differentiation, cells organized into regions containing muscle cells and nerve cells, rather like a mosaic.

Optogenetic advances in neuromuscular research

Myocytes grown in culture dishes contract spontaneously as a result of their connections with neurons, but without any meaningful rhythm. Urji and Guti wanted to solve it. In collaboration with researchers at the Charité University of Berlin, they used optogenetics to activate motor neurons. Neurons activated by the flash of light fire and contract muscle cells in synchrony, causing them to move in a way that mimics the physiological conditions of an organism.

Modeling and testing for spinal muscular atrophy

To test the effectiveness of the model, Professor Urji used human iPSCs taken from patients with spinal muscular atrophy. Spinal muscular atrophy is a serious neuromuscular disease that affects children during their first year of life. Neuromuscular cultures generated from patient-specific induced pluripotent stem cells showed severe problems with muscle contraction similar to the patient’s disease state.

For Gooty, 2D and 3D cultures are important tools to study neuromuscular diseases in more detail and test more efficient and personalized treatment options. As a next step, Gouti and her team hope to conduct high-throughput drug screens to identify new treatments for patients with spinal muscular atrophy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. “We want to start by using new drug combinations to see if we can achieve more successful outcomes to improve the lives of patients with complex neuromuscular diseases. ” says Gooty.

Reference: “Efficient Generation of Self-Assembling Neuromuscular Junction Models from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells,” Alessia Urzi et al., December 19, 2023. Nature Communications.
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-43781-3

Source: scitechdaily.com