Month: April 2018

Enlarge / President Donald Trump, before signing the "Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act" at the White House. (credit: Getty Images | Chris Kleponis)

President Donald Trump today signed the controversial FOSTA/SESTA bill into law, paving the way for more law enforcement actions against websites that facilitate prostitution.

Websites started shutting down sex-work forums even before Trump signed the bill. Craigslist removed its "Personals" section, Reddit removed some sex-related subreddits, and the Erotic Review blocked any user who appears to be visiting the website from the United States.

The bill becoming law will likely lead to more "voluntary" site shutdowns or law enforcement actions against sites that continue to be used for prostitution. The White House said the action "makes it a Federal crime to own, manage, or operate a website with the intent to promote or facilitate prostitution."

Enlarge / Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Penn.), shows his phone to the media as he FaceTimes his daughter at the Capitol in 2015. (credit: Al Drago/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images)

VirnetX Holding Corporation—a Nevada company that many would dub a "patent troll" as it has no meaningful source of income outside of patent litigation—has won a $502.6 million judgement against Apple in a legal case that has dragged on since 2012.

In October 2017, Apple was also ordered to pay over $439 million as its "VPN on Demand" feature and FaceTime were determined to violate VirnetX's patents.

However, this verdict may not stand on appeal.

The Vela pulsar, as imaged by the Chandra X-ray telescope. (credit: NASA/CXC/University of Toronto/M. Durant, et al.)

Neutron stars are the most dense form of matter in our Universe (black holes cram more stuff into a smaller space, and it's not clear if that stuff is still "matter"). A neutron star is produced by the collapse of a stellar core, which crams a bit more mass than our Sun into a sphere about 20 kilometers across.

At this density, matter does strange things. Models based on theoretical considerations suggest that there's a distinct "crust" that sits atop a superfluid of subatomic particles, but it's not like we can visit one and confirm this. Now, researchers have done the next-best thing: they've arranged for a telescope to stare at a neutron star for three years, waiting for it to undergo a "glitch" in its normal behavior. The results give us one of our first direct tests of competing models for what's beneath the surface of a neutron star.

The glitch

While a neutron star is composed primarily of neutrons (duh!), there are also protons present in its interior. All the particles there form a superfluid, which can flow without any friction. The flow of these charged particles inside the star can create an intense magnetic field, one that can accelerate charged particles near the star and cause them to emit photons. The rapid rotation of the star means that these jets of charged particles sweep a large area of space with the photons they produce. On Earth, we see this as a flash of light appearing from the same source many times a second—a pulsar. The pulses of photons that give these stars their name arrive with such regularity that we've used them as an extremely precise test of relativity.

Enlarge (credit: Mike Mozart)

AT&T says its 5G wireless trials have been producing speeds of more than a gigabit per second from millimeter wave frequencies, even in bad weather and—in some cases—without a line-of-sight connection. Latencies have been as low as 9ms, the company said.

Current-generation 4G LTE networks generally use frequencies below 1GHz, which are best for covering long distances and penetrating obstacles such as building walls. 5G networks are expected to rely heavily on millimeter wave signals—30GHz and above—which are easily blocked by obstacles and generally require line-of-sight connections.

AT&T and other carriers plan to use 5G for smartphones connecting directly to mobile networks and for fixed wireless connections in areas that lack fiber-to-the-premises or cable. There is a lot of available millimeter wave spectrum, which means carriers can easily ramp up the bits per second. But there will be challenges in actually getting that data to smartphones when there are obstacles between the cell sites and handheld devices.

Enlarge / ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA - SEPTEMBER 29: Tesla Powerpack batteries during Tesla Powerpack Launch Event at Hornsdale Wind Farm on September 29, 2017 in Adelaide, Australia. (Photo by Mark Brake/Getty Images) (credit: Getty Images)

Last week, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) released an initial report (PDF) on the performance of the 129MWh Hornsdale battery system that was installed by Tesla last November. It seems the market operator is pleased with the new battery, writing that the service provided by the battery system "is both rapid and precise, compared to the service typically provided by a conventional synchronous generation unit."

A conventional synchronous generation unit refers to a spinning generator, like a coal or a natural gas plant. If there's excess demand for electricity, sometimes these generators can increase their output if there's some headroom, or grid managers can bring so-called "peaker plants" online to help meet peak demand.

But often these units need a little bit of time to start spinning at the appropriate rate. Batteries, on the other hand, have the advantage that they can start putting power on the grid right away; no need to wait for ramping up. Tesla's installation in particular can rapidly discharge 100MW for about 75 minutes. It's also charged by the wind farm that's right next door.