Month: December 2017

Enlarge (credit: ESO/N. Kornmesser/Aurich Lawson)

When the object 1I/2017 U1 ‘Oumuamua was first picked up by telescopes in October, there was no question that it was an odd duck—and that’s saying a lot considering that we recently explored a comet that looks like a duck. ‘Oumuamua seems to be a momentary visitor from another star system, punching through the plane of our Solar System from “above” like it hadn’t read our traffic signs. Oh, and it’s shaped like a cigar.

The list doesn’t end there. While it’s incredible to identify something that isn’t from our Solar System, it’s not a shock that such wanderers exist. Models of star and planet formation show that the growth of gas giants from the rotating disk of rubble that makes up an infant star system could easily fling some objects out into interstellar space. And since gas giants form beyond the “snow line”—the distance from the star at which water can exist as ice—most of these exiles should be comets, which are composed primarily of ice and dust rather than solid rock.

But while ‘Oumuamua passed fairly close to the Sun, it showed no signs of the long tail that comets usually sport as warm sunlight turns ice to vapor. And that means there’s no ice on its surface. So what is it?

Enlarge / Say hello (or "yikes") to Magic Leap One. (credit: Magic Leap)

Fans and hopefuls in the VR and AR spaces have long wondered when Magic Leap would finally reveal anything to cash in on years of hype and $1.9 billion in investments. Most people who saw the company's first product announcement on Wednesday may still be waiting.

The company has finally announced a product, dubbed the Magic Leap One, which includes a headset, a single wand controller, and a "lightpack" processing unit—the latter to be worn on your waist like a high-tech fanny pack. The kit is currently advertised as a "developer" device and has a vague launch window of 2018—which will hopefully be enough time for the company to actually show us the final, physical product. No price has yet been announced.

Wednesday's announcement, unfortunately, only shows a few static images of what the product will look like, and thanks to perfectly smooth details and a lack of realistically dangling cord connecting the headset to the lightpack, it's fair to assume that Magic Leap has only delivered a Photoshop render of its long-in-development product. No video footage of the device being worn was released on Wednesday.

Enlarge / Net neutrality supporters march past the FCC headquarters before a commission meeting on May 15, 2014. (credit: Getty Images | The Washington Post)

A New York state legislator has proposed a net neutrality law in one of the latest state-level challenges to the repeal of federal net neutrality rules.

The Federal Communications Commission last week voted to repeal its own net neutrality rules and to preempt states from issuing their own net neutrality laws.

New York Assemblymember Patricia Fahy, a Democrat who represents Albany, thinks she has a way to pass a net neutrality law without violating the FCC's attempt at preemption. Her bill, as reported in Fast Company yesterday, "requires the state government, state agencies, and local governments (including New York City) to do business only with ISPs that adhere to net neutrality principles of no-blocking or slowing down access to any legal content." The bill (full text here) would treat paid prioritization in the same way.

Enlarge / A totally not official rendering of what the Chrome Adblocker logo might look like. (credit: Ron Amadeo)

Google recently announced a go-live date for its forthcoming ad blocker: February 15. On that date, the Internet's largest advertising company will start blocking ads in the Internet's most popular browser, Google Chrome.

Google announced its ad-blocking plan earlier this year in a blog post titled "Building a better Web for everyone." Google's strategy is to fight ad blockers by becoming an ad-blocking company, where it will have more control over the ad-blocking process. While most ad blockers block all ads, Google's ad blocker will only block ads deemed "unacceptable" by the Coalition for Better Ads, an industry group that counts Google and Facebook among its members. With a major Web browser, advertising platform, and a seat on the ad coalition, Google can help steer the direction of the ad requirements, make sure its own ads are compliant, and then block any competing advertisers that don't adhere to the new requirements. Google is in a powerful position to dictate terms to websites and advertisers.

The Coalition has examples of unacceptable ad experiences on its website. These are things like autoplaying video ads with sound, interstitial ads with countdowns, and large "sticky" ads. Chrome will only block ads like these while allowing less annoying ads through. Ad blocker per site is an all-or-nothing proposition. If a site runs a single ad that runs afoul of Google's requirements, it will have all of its ads blocked, even the non-offending ones. Google's "Ad Experience Report" site will allow for reporting and reviewing of unacceptable ads. Once reported, Web developers have 30 days to clean up a site or face ad-blocking from Chrome.

Enlarge / In this photo illustration the new smart phone taxi app 'Uber' shows how to select a pick up location on July 1, 2014 in Barcelona, Spain. Taxi drivers in various cities have been on strike over unlicensed car-hailing services. (credit: David Ramos/Getty Images)

The Court of Justice of the European Union, the bloc’s top court, has ruled that Uber is properly classified as a transportation service and as such can be regulated under member states’ local laws.

Uber had previously claimed, as it has in the United States, that as merely a "platform" or "intermediation service" that simply connects those who want rides with those who seek them, it is not bound by historic taxi and other transportation rules. Stateside, the company initially ran roughshod through local regulations and, in many cases, got state and local governments to create an entirely new class of regulations for "transportation network companies" or TNCs.

The CJEU didn’t buy it.