Month: October 2016

Enlarge / Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump (L) speaks as Democratic presidential nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton looks on during the third U.S. presidential debate in Las Vegas, Nevada. (credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

In between questions about the economy and immigration, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump made time in their debate Wednesday night to spar about what may be the world's most controversial website—WikiLeaks.

The exchange began when moderator Chris Wallace asked Clinton about speeches she gave to investment bankers, which were published by WikiLeaks. In one of those speeches, Clinton expressed a desire for a "hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders."

Clinton responded by making the role of WikiLeaks the issue.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/GSFC

For the Juno spacecraft scientists on Wednesday it was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of discovery, it was the age of disquiet, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. We could go on as Dickens might, but the point is that on Wednesday scientists who sent the probe to Jupiter had both exciting scientific news, as well as some health concerns with the spacecraft.

First, the bad news. Late last week mission managers canceled a planned engine firing to drop Juno into a shorter orbital period around Jupiter, from 53 days to 14 days. As they were checking out the spacecraft's propulsion system, the mission scientists noted that two helium check valves that play an important role in the firing of the spacecraft's main engine did not operate properly. They decided to delay the burn until at least December, but they still intended to take advantage of this week's close approach to Jupiter by taking additional data.

Enlarge (credit: Tesla)

Late Wednesday, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk announced that the company would be adding its own hardware to new all new Tesla cars to allow up to Level 5 autonomy. In the automotive industry, Level 5 denotes a fully self-driving vehicle. Musk said that it would be some time before Tesla’s software would advance to meet capabilities of the new hardware available, which the company is calling “Hardware II.”

Still, the CEO stressed that all new cars would come with the new hardware suite, even if the software isn’t activated.

The hardware includes eight cameras for a 360-degree view, twelve ultrasonic sensors, “forward-facing radar with advanced processing,” and an Nvidia Titan GPU that’s capable of 12 trillion operations per second.

A rough concept image based on current rumors of the NX's design. We'll find out how close they are to true Thursday morning.

[Update: As we tick down the final hour or so before the NX curtain is pulled back, let's enjoy three new videos of gameplay (and weather effects) from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild that just went up on Nintendo's Japanese YouTube account.

Nintendo's Japanese Twitter account suggests this morning's preview trailer unveiled this morning will only be three minutes long, which is still longer than the 30 second tease the Wii got back in April of 2006.

Nintendo's stock price is currently up over 3 percent for the day in Japanese trading in anticipation of the announcement.]

(credit: Gage Skidmore )

Anybody familiar with the US presidential election campaign knows that the GOP candidate, Donald Trump, has been called pretty much every name in the book. But labeling him a copyright pirate wasn't one of them—that is until now.

According to a federal lawsuit (PDF) brought by a UK-based photographer named David Kittos, the Trump campaign ripped off one of the copyright protected photos the artist posted on Flickr, a picture of a bowl of the candy Skittles. The Trump campaign has used the picture in online advertising to highlight what the campaign calls the "Syrian refugee problem."

The lawsuit says the photographer is a refugee from the Republic of Cyprus and that the unauthorized use of his photograph in the advertisement is "reprehensibly offensive."

Enlarge / Rhodococcus group bacteria (credit: CDC)

For years, scientists have been digging into dirt mounds and mud pits across the globe to uncover new antibiotics. But they may have to look no further than their own pile of poop.

The microbes bustling in our bellies may be gold mines for new antibiotic drugs, researchers report this week in Nature Chemical Biology. As proof of gut-bugs’ potential, the authors dug up a new bacteria-busting drug that can reverse resistance in pathogens and help kill off methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria. In mice with lethal MRSA infections, the drug helped cure 100 percent of infections.

The finding shouldn’t be surprising; many of modern medicine’s most powerful antibiotics were pilfered from microbes. The tiny critters use the drugs to defend themselves from other microbes and battle for turf and resources. But, as bacteria develop resistance—creating an urgent public health crisis—scientists have been seeking new drugs to usurp. In their search, many scientists turned to sifting through exotic soils and sediments. They assumed that the molecular weaponry of bacteria closest to us had already been tapped. Yet, as more researchers delve into the complex microbial communities within us—our microbiomes—they’re finding new depths to plumb.

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Android 7.1 Nougat is slowly trickling out to the world via the release of the Google Pixel, but now users of older Google devices are able to get in on the fun too. Google just announced the availability of the Android 7.1 Developer Preview for the Nexus 5X, 6P and Pixel C.

While the Pixel phones already have a finished version of Android 7.1, Google calls this Nexus release "beta quality." Almost every change to Android 7.1 is a Pixel-supporting feature anyway, so users aren't missing much. As the first release in Android's new "regular maintenance schedule," Google calls 7.1 an "incremental release." The company blog post calls out a few objectives:

• Since 7.1 has already launched on Pixel, we’re delivering the initial Developer Preview at beta quality for the Nexus lineup of devices. The goal is to tease out any device-specific issues.
• We’ve finalized the new APIs as API Level 25
• We’ve opened up publishing on Google Play for apps targeting the new API level, so you can update your apps soon as you are ready.

There are three ways to get the Developer Preview. You can enroll in the Android Beta Program and wait to get the OTA, you can flash the OTA manually from here, or you can wipe the whole device and flash a system image.

Enlarge / The remains of a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 at the garage it is suspected of setting fire to. (credit: The Guardian)

The saga of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 keeps going. After two recalls, the dangerous, potentially explosive device has been cancelled, and now Samsung has to deal with the mess the devices caused during their release. Several Samsung customers suffered property damage after their Note 7s burst into flame, and according to a report from The Guardian, they aren't happy with how Samsung is treating them.

A Galaxy Note 7 reportedly exploded in John Barwick's house in Illinois, unleashing a "meter long flame" and a noise that Barwick says sounded like "a whole bundle of sparklers being lit all at once." Barwick told The Guardian that the Note 7 sprayed chemicals “all over our bed, mattress, curtains, and carpet,” and he estimates the damage to be around $9,000. Barwick contacted Samsung Electronics and was eventually referred to the company's insurance company, Samsung Fire & Marine.

According to Barwick, Samsung's insurance division said it would not pay for the replacement costs of the damaged items, only the "depreciated value." "We’re not seeking a great amount of money to get rich off this." Barwick said. "We just want to be made whole.”