“There is some suspicion that blockchain does not really work,” Zinke admits.
Enlarge/ Interior secretary turned blockchain booster Ryan Zinke. (credit: William Campbell-Corbis via Getty Images)
Ryan Zinke spent most of the last two years pursuing an industry-friendly agenda as secretary of the interior. Then, last month, he announced his resignation under pressure from the White House. Now Zinke is joining the blockchain industry.
"There is some suspicion that blockchain does not really work," Zinke said in an interview with the Swiss news site swissinfo.ch. "We think it does and we want to showcase the utility and flexibility of the model."
Zinke has signed on with Artillery One, a new investment firm set up in 2017 by Wall Street financier Daniel Cannon. It's not clear what kind of investments the firm is making, but the company is reportedly working on a project in Kosovo.
You’ve almost certainly seen the diagram—the layers of the Earth exposed like a slightly more complicated hard-boiled egg. The crust we live on is actually a thin shell, with the hot (but still solid) mantle forming a thick layer below that. At the center—contra Jules Verne—there are inner and outer core layers composed primarily of iron. The outer core is the only layer that’s liquid, as the inner core is actually solid.
Although you’ll never visit the core, it does affect your life quite profoundly. Earth’s magnetic field is produced by the convection of the liquid outer core, and that directs compasses and shields us from the effects of the solar wind. The history of Earth’s magnetic field is a big question—not least because we’re actually not sure when the inner core solidified.
Magnets... well, you know
There are actually geologic records of the magnetic field. Tiny crystals of magnetic minerals in cooling magma will align themselves with the magnetic field before being frozen in place. This can be useful because Earth’s magnetic field frequently flips poles (meaning compass needles would point to geographic south). The orientation of those mineral needles also indicates how close to the equator they were when they formed. The information trapped by these minerals was the last piece that cracked the case of plate tectonics, in fact, and it enables us to figure out where each continent was in the past.
You’ve almost certainly seen the diagram—the layers of the Earth exposed like a slightly more complicated hard-boiled egg. The crust we live on is actually a thin shell, with the hot (but still solid) mantle forming a thick layer below that. At the center—contra Jules Verne—there are inner and outer core layers composed primarily of iron. The outer core is the only layer that’s liquid, as the inner core is actually solid.
Although you’ll never visit the core, it does affect your life quite profoundly. Earth’s magnetic field is produced by the convection of the liquid outer core, and that directs compasses and shields us from the effects of the solar wind. The history of Earth’s magnetic field is a big question—not least because we’re actually not sure when the inner core solidified.
Magnets... well, you know
There are actually geologic records of the magnetic field. Tiny crystals of magnetic minerals in cooling magma will align themselves with the magnetic field before being frozen in place. This can be useful because Earth’s magnetic field frequently flips poles (meaning compass needles would point to geographic south). The orientation of those mineral needles also indicates how close to the equator they were when they formed. The information trapped by these minerals was the last piece that cracked the case of plate tectonics, in fact, and it enables us to figure out where each continent was in the past.
17 years after the Roomba, iRobot tackles the great outdoors.
The iRobot Terra. Check out that huge antenna. [credit:
iRobot ]
iRobot is the biggest name in home robotics thanks to its Roomba line, a robotic army of indoor cleaning bots that will suck up the dust and dirt on your floors. But what about that other giant flat surface you own that constantly needs maintaining? For that, the Roomba lawnmower is finally here: the iRobot Terra.
A Roomba lawnmower has been rumored for years. The company has robomower patents going all the way back to 2008, and as recently as 2015 the company was petitioning the FCC to allow it to make its outdoor beacon navigation system legal. The original Roomba was introduced in 2002, when iRobot mostly had the home-robotics market to itself. Waiting 17 years to tackle the great outdoors means iRobot is now jumping into a crowded field of competitors, and it will have to do battle with Robomow, Husqvarna's Automower line, Honda's Miimo, and a line of mowers from Worx, among others.
A lot of the Roomba basics make the trip to the outdoors. The Terra is still a battery-powered robot that wheels around your property. It has all the usual self-docking capabilities that allow it to park itself on the outdoor charger when it's low on power, and it can pick up right where it left off. It uses the same "Home" app as the Roomba, so you can relax indoors and still monitor the robot as it toils in the hot sun.
17 years after the Roomba, iRobot tackles the great outdoors.
The iRobot Terra. Check out that huge antenna. [credit:
iRobot ]
iRobot is the biggest name in home robotics thanks to its Roomba line, a robotic army of indoor cleaning bots that will suck up the dust and dirt on your floors. But what about that other giant flat surface you own that constantly needs maintaining? For that, the Roomba lawnmower is finally here: the iRobot Terra.
A Roomba lawnmower has been rumored for years. The company has robomower patents going all the way back to 2008, and as recently as 2015 the company was petitioning the FCC to allow it to make its outdoor beacon navigation system legal. The original Roomba was introduced in 2002, when iRobot mostly had the home-robotics market to itself. Waiting 17 years to tackle the great outdoors means iRobot is now jumping into a crowded field of competitors, and it will have to do battle with Robomow, Husqvarna's Automower line, Honda's Miimo, and a line of mowers from Worx, among others.
A lot of the Roomba basics make the trip to the outdoors. The Terra is still a battery-powered robot that wheels around your property. It has all the usual self-docking capabilities that allow it to park itself on the outdoor charger when it's low on power, and it can pick up right where it left off. It uses the same "Home" app as the Roomba, so you can relax indoors and still monitor the robot as it toils in the hot sun.
Die Telekom will ihre erprobte Zusammenarbeit mit Huawei weiterführen. Bei einem Treffen im Bundeswirtschaftsministerium am Mittwoch wurde von allen Anbietern die Prüfung des Quellcodes gefordert. Huawei ist einverstanden. (Huawei, Mobilfunk)
Die Telekom will ihre erprobte Zusammenarbeit mit Huawei weiterführen. Bei einem Treffen im Bundeswirtschaftsministerium am Mittwoch wurde von allen Anbietern die Prüfung des Quellcodes gefordert. Huawei ist einverstanden. (Huawei, Mobilfunk)
Last week, a Virginia federal court dismissed a piracy lawsuit against the popular stream ripping sites FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com. The court dismissed the case arguing that it lacked jurisdiction over these type of sites. The record labels clearly disagree with this conclusion and have just announced that they will appeal.
Over the years we have covered dozens of piracy-related lawsuits, mostly from United States courts.
In many of these cases, defendants are foreign sites or services which don’t put up much of a fight.
That’s not true for the copyright infringement lawsuit a group of major record labels, backed by the RIAA, brought against Tofig Kurbanov last year.
The Russian operator of YouTube rippers FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com fought back with a motion to dismiss. This request was granted last week. Judge Claude Hilton ruled that the court lacked jurisdiction over these types of sites if they are operated from abroad.
“As the Websites are semi-interactive, the interactions with the users are non-commercial, and there were no other acts by the Defendant that would demonstrate purposeful targeting, the Court finds that Defendant did not purposefully avail himself of the benefits and protections of either Virginia or the United States,” the Judge wrote.
The legal win is a modern-day David vs. Goliath story. The record labels, good for billions of dollars in annual revenue, were defeated by the Russian operator of the two stream-ripping sites.
However, this battle isn’t over just yet. In his memorandum opinion, Judge Milton stressed that the labels are not allowed to refile their case in another district court. They can appeal the dismissal though, which is exactly what they’ve just done.
In a filing submitted yesterday, the record labels announce that they are appealing the ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Via this route, they hope to overturn the dismissal.
Yesterday’s filing
“The court got it wrong,” RIAA spokesperson Cara Duckworth commented to Billboard.
“Its decision represents a big step backward in the protection of American culture and the creators that fuel it. We look forward to laying out our arguments in the weeks ahead,” she added.
During the appeal, the court will consider the arguments from both sides once more.
The owner of the sites, Tofig Kurbanov, has hired a team of legal experts from and will continue to fight back. Kurbanov himself has never been to the United States and his sites don’t purposefully target either Virginia or the US.
Val Gurvits, one of the attorneys who represented the site operator, informs TorrentFreak that the defense already expected the RIAA labels to appeal.
“We’re not at all surprised by the RIAA decision to appeal – this opinion really struck a blow at their strategy of suing people in places where they’ve never even visited, assuming that they’ll get a quick default judgment before the court ever realizes that there wasn’t any jurisdiction to begin with.”
The attorney doesn’t believe that the record labels are going to succeed. The District Court made a thoughtful and well-reasoned decision and it’s going to be hard for them to overturn on appeal, he says.
If the fact that .com and .biz domains are administered by companies located in Virginia is enough to establish jurisdiction, as the labels argued, then millions of foreign companies could be easily sued in Virginia, without any further presence there.
“At the end of the day, our client is an individual who lives in Russia, who has never been to the United States, and who had no substantive connection to the United States,” Gurwitz says.
“If he could be subject to personal jurisdiction here, then there’s no reason that an American citizen couldn’t be subject to jurisdiction in China or Russia for typing out lines of code in his living room in Boston. That would be a dangerous path to travel – the District Court wisely declined to go down that path and we think the 4thCircuit will similarly decline,” he adds.
The record labels, assisted by the RIAA, hoped to resolve the matter quickly but it didn’t turn out that way. For now, it’s clear that the stream-rippers and their operator have won the first battle.
During the month to come it will become clear whether the dismissal will stand or not. If the record labels lose the appeal as well, they could also choose to file a lawsuit in Russia.
Superhuman speed and precision helped a StarCraft AI defeat two top players.
Enlarge/ Two groups of Stalkers controlled by AI AlphaStar approach the army of Grzegorz "MaNa" Komincz in the decisive battle of the pair's fourth game. (credit: DeepMind)
DeepMind, the AI startup Google acquired in 2014, is probably best known for creating the first AI to beat a world champion at Go. So what do you do after mastering one of the world's most challenging board games? You tackle a complex video game. Specifically, DeepMind decided to write an AI to play the realtime strategy game StarCraft II.
StarCraft requires players to gather resources, build dozens of military units, and use them to try to destroy their opponents. StarCraft is particularly challenging for an AI because players must carry out long-term plans over several minutes of gameplay, tweaking them on the fly in the face of enemy counterattacks. DeepMind says that prior to its own effort, no one had come close to designing a StarCraft AI as good as the best human players.
Last Thursday, DeepMind announced a significant breakthrough. The company pitted its AI, dubbed AlphaStar, against two top StarCraft players—Dario "TLO" Wünsch and Grzegorz "MaNa" Komincz. AlphaStar won a five-game series against Wünsch 5-0, then beat Komincz 5-0, too.
Two Chinese companies unveiled smartphones with no ports or buttons last week, and now you can put down some money to buy one. The Meizu Zero is up for pre-order through a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. Before you pull out your wallet though, ther…
Two Chinese companies unveiled smartphones with no ports or buttons last week, and now you can put down some money to buy one. The Meizu Zero is up for pre-order through a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. Before you pull out your wallet though, there are a few things you should know. First, this phone is […]
Intel will erneut viel Geld in Israel ausgeben. Gerade wurde ein Angebot für den End-to-End Ethernet-Ausrüster für Rechenzentren erhöht. (Intel, Prozessor)
Intel will erneut viel Geld in Israel ausgeben. Gerade wurde ein Angebot für den End-to-End Ethernet-Ausrüster für Rechenzentren erhöht. (Intel, Prozessor)
Die Telekom will ihre erprobte Zusammenarbeit mit Huawei weiterführen. Bei einem Treffen im Bundeswirtschaftsministerium am Mittwoch wurde von allen Anbietern die Prüfung des Quellcodes gefordert. Huawei ist einverstanden. (
Over the years we have covered dozens of piracy-related lawsuits, mostly from United States courts.
Intel will erneut viel Geld in Israel ausgeben. Gerade wurde ein Angebot für den End-to-End Ethernet-Ausrüster für Rechenzentren erhöht. (
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