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Riot Games has been using League of Legends as a psychology lab to run scientific experiments and reduce toxic player behavior for a while now. This article explains some of the experiments they're doing, and what the results have been.
"For example, one product is a restricted chat mode that limits the
number of messages abusive players can type per match. It’s a temporary
punishment that has led to a noticeable improvement in player behavior
afterward —on average, individuals who went through a period of
restricted chat saw 20 percent fewer abuse reports filed by other
players. The restricted chat approach also proved 4 percent more
effective at improving player behavior than the usual punishment method
of temporarily banning toxic players. Even the smallest improvements in
player behavior can make a huge difference in an online game that
attracts 67 million players every month."
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Google to enter wireless business
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_27368231/google-enter-wireless-business
"It's not surprising. Google has limitless ambitions," said
analyst Scott Cleland, president of Precursor, a Virginia-based
consulting firm and author of a book that raised concerns about the
company's growing influence. "They're going to play Sprint and T-Mobile
against each other to get a really low price, so Google can offer a
really low price."
Citing unnamed sources, news sites The Information, The Verge and
the Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday about Google's plans to
run a new wireless service that resells what is provided on Sprint and
T-Mobile networks.
Google, Sprint and T-Mobile declined to confirm the reports Wednesday.
Google is not registered as a wireless carrier in California, according to the state's Public Utilities Commission.
Telecommunications experts disagree about how much Google's
entrance into the wireless business will disrupt the industry, and big
players such as AT&T and Verizon, and how much the move will bring
down prices and increase network speeds. Google's plans are to become a
mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO, which allows the company to
sell wireless service using its own brand name even though it does not
manage the network.
"MVNOs are cool, they're a good way for Google to get its brand
out there and offer interesting pricing plans," said John Bergmayer, a
senior staff attorney at Public Knowledge, which advocates for a more
open Internet. "But they don't really change the competitive dynamics of
the wireless industry. They're just reselling Sprint or T-Mobile."
MOUNTAIN
VIEW -- Google is taking a leap into the wireless business, according
to reports that say the Internet giant plans to partner with Sprint and
T-Mobile to sell mobile phone plans directly to customers.
Microsoft’s Holographic Goggles - Project Baraboo - Hololens
http://www.wired.com/2015/01/microsoft-hands-on/#slide-id-1710301
Project HoloLens: Our Exclusive Hands-On With Microsoft’s Holographic Goggles
MICROSOFT 
Alex Kipman. Andrew Hetherington
Andrew HetheringtonRight from the start, he makes it clear that Baraboo will make Kinect seem minor league.
Kipman leads me into a briefing room with a drop-down screen, plush couches, and a corner bar stocked with wine and soda (we abstain). He sits beside me, then stands, paces a bit, then sits down again. His wind-up is long. He gives me an abbreviated history of computing, speaking in complete paragraphs, with bushy, expressive eyebrows and saucer eyes that expand as he talks. The next era of computing, he explains, won’t be about that original digital universe. “It’s about the analog universe,” he says. “And the analog universe has a fundamentally different rule set.”
Translation: you used to compute on a screen, entering commands on a keyboard. Cyberspace was somewhere else. Computers responded to programs that detailed explicit commands. In the very near future, you’ll compute in the physical world, using voice and gesture to summon data and layer it atop physical objects. Computer programs will be able to digest so much data that they’ll be able to handle far more complex and nuanced situations. Cyberspace will be all around you.
What will this look like? Well, holograms.
First Impressions
That’s when I get my first look at Baraboo. Kipman cues a concept video in which a young woman wearing the slate gray headset moves through a series of scenarios, from collaborating with coworkers on a conference call to soaring, Oculus-style, over the Golden Gate Bridge. I watch the video, while Kipman watches me watch the video, while Microsoft’s public relations executives watch Kipman watch me watch the video. And the video is cool, but I’ve seen too much sci-fi for any of it to feel believable yet. I want to get my hands on the actual device. So Kipman pulls a box onto the couch. Gingerly, he lifts out a headset. “First toy of the day to show you,” he says, passing it to me to hold. “This is the actual industrial design.”Oh Baraboo! It’s bigger and more substantial than Google Glass, but far less boxy than the Oculus Rift. If I were a betting woman, I’d say it probably looks something like the goggles made by Magic Leap, the mysterious Google-backed augmented reality startup that has $592 million in funding. But Magic Leap is not yet ready to unveil its device. Microsoft, on the other hand, plans to get Project HoloLens into the hands of developers by the spring. (For more about Microsoft and CEO Satya Nadella’s plans for Project HoloLens, read WIRED’s February cover story.)
Kipman’s prototype is amazing. It amplifies the special powers that Kinect introduced, using a small fraction of the energy. The depth camera has a field of vision that spans 120 by 120 degrees—far more than the original Kinect—so it can sense what your hands are doing even when they are nearly outstretched. Sensors flood the device with terabytes of data every second, all managed with an onboard CPU, GPU and first-of-its-kind HPU (holographic processing unit). Yet, Kipman points out, the computer doesn’t grow hot on your head, because the warm air is vented out through the sides. On the right side, buttons allow you to adjust the volume and to control the contrast of the hologram.
Microsoft’s
Lorraine Bardeen demonstrates HoloLens at the Windows 10 event at the
company’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington on Wednesday, Jan. 21,
2015. Elaine Thompson/AP
Elaine Thompson/APTricking Your Brain
Project HoloLens’ key achievement—realistic holograms—works by tricking your brain into seeing light as matter. “Ultimately, you know, you perceive the world because of light,” Kipman explains. “If I could magically turn the debugger on, we’d see photons bouncing throughout this world. Eventually they hit the back of your eyes, and through that, you reason about what the world is. You essentially hallucinate the world, or you see what your mind wants you to see.”To create Project HoloLens’ images, light particles bounce around millions of times in the so-called light engine of the device. Then the photons enter the goggles’ two lenses, where they ricochet between layers of blue, green and red glass before they reach the back of your eye. “When you get the light to be at the exact angle,” Kipman tells me, “that’s where all the magic comes in.”
Thirty minutes later, after we’ve looked at another prototype and some more concept videos and talked about the importance of developers (you always have to talk about the importance of developers when launching a new product these days), I get to sample that magic. Kipman walks me across a courtyard and through the side door of a building that houses a secret basement lab. Each of the rooms has been outfitted as a scenario to test Project HoloLens.
A Quick Trip to Mars
The first is deceptively simple. I enter a makeshift living room, where wires jut from a hole in the wall where there should be a lightswitch. Tools are strewn on the West Elm sideboard just below it. Kipman hands me a HoloLens prototype and tells me to install the switch. After I put on the headset, an electrician pops up on a screen that floats directly in front of me. With a quick hand gesture I’m able to anchor the screen just to the left of the wires. The electrician is able to see exactly what I’m seeing. He draws a holographic circle around the voltage tester on the sideboard and instructs me to use it to check whether the wires are live. Once we establish that they aren’t, he walks me through the process of installing the switch, coaching me by sketching holographic arrows and diagrams on the wall in front of me. Five minutes later, I flip a switch, and the living room light turns on.Another scenario lands me on a virtual Mars-scape. Kipman developed it in close collaboration with NASA rocket scientist Jeff Norris, who spent much of the first half of 2014 flying back and forth between Seattle and his Southern California home to help develop the scenario. With a quick upward gesture, I toggle from computer screens that monitor the Curiosity rover’s progress across the planet’s surface to the virtual experience of being on the planet. The ground is a parched, dusty sandstone, and so realistic that as I take a step, my legs begin to quiver. They don’t trust what my eyes are showing them. Behind me, the rover towers seven feet tall, its metal arm reaching out from its body like a tentacle. The sun shines brightly over the rover, creating short black shadows on the ground beneath its legs.
MicrosoftAfter exploring Mars, I don’t want to remove the headset, which has provided a glimpse of a combination of computing tools that make the unimaginable feel real. NASA felt the same way. Norris will roll out Project HoloLens this summer so that agency scientists can use it to collaborate on a mission.
A Long Way Yet
Kipman’s voice eventually brings me back to Redmond. As I remove the goggles, he reminds me that it’s still early days for the project. This isn’t the kind of thing that will be, say, a holiday best seller. It’s a new interface, controlled by voice and gesture, and the controls have to work flawlessly before it will be commercially viable. I get that. I love voice controls, and I talk to Siri all the time. But half the time, she doesn’t give me a good answer and I have to pull up my keyboard to find what I’m looking for more quickly. Project HoloLens won’t have a keyboard. If the voice and gesture controls don’t work perfectly the first time, consumers will write it off. Quickly.That said, there are no misfires during three other demos. I play a game in which a character jumps around a real room, collecting coins sprinkled atop a sofa and bouncing off springs placed on the floor. I sculpt a virtual toy (a fluorescent green snowman) that I can then produce with a 3-D printer. And I collaborate with a motorcycle designer Skyping in from Spain to paint a three-dimensional fender atop a physical prototype.
As I make my way through each, Kipman seems less nervous than when we began, but no less focused. It has been three hours since we met. In each scenario, he watches a screen that shows him what I am seeing, and he watches me trying to use his device for the first time. His eyebrows draw down in deep concentration as he checks to see if every calculation is perfect—noting the touch of my thumb and forefinger as I make an upward gesture, the words I reach for instinctively to instruct the computer. Seven years in, he is trying to see Project HoloLens as if for the first time. To see it through the eyes of a 30-something female New Yorker. But that is one thing his magical head-mounted holographic computer cannot do. At least not yet.
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Invisible boyfriend / girlfriend
With Valentine’s Day
fast approaching, countless singletons are no doubt gearing up
to respond to that dreaded question from parents, grandparents and other
nosy relatives: “So, are you seeing anyone?”
Instead of trying to justify your single status to your crotchety aunt, there’s also another option—downloading an Invisible Boyfriend or Girlfriend, which launched today from private to public beta.
Yep, we’re for real. The apps, founded by St. Louis’s Matthew Homann and Kyle Tabor, let users pay for “believable social proof” that they’re in a relationship. They generate everything from photos and meet-cutes to text messages and actual voicemails—all of them totally fake, but also totally realistic.
“It really helps people tell a better story about a relationship they’re not in,” Mr. Homann told Betabeat.
Mr. Homann first bought the invisibleboyfriend and invisiblegirlfriend domains nine years ago, when he was newly divorced. For years he didn’t do anything with them besides use them as “a good cocktail party story.”
But at a 2013 Startup Weekend in St. Louis, he and a small team decided to pitch Invisible Boyfriend and Girlfriend as a veritable business idea. They placed first.
Today, Mr. Homann and Mr. Tabor don’t see their product as a joke. They suggested a host of very legitimate potential use cases, from soldiers overseas “without a girl back home,” to employees seeking a way to fend off a coworker’s unwelcome advances.
“[Imagine] you’ve got conservative grandparents in the Bible Belt who can’t believe you might be gay or lesbian,” Mr. Homann suggested.
Besides helping people create fake beaux, the app has had some
surprising effects the cofounders didn’t expect. Mr. Tabor explained how
one male user secured a real-life girlfriend when the woman he’d been
dating spotted some text messages on his phone.
“She saw that he had an upcoming date with another girl—his Invisible Girlfriend,” Mr. Tabor said. “That put a fire underneath her—she needed to lock things down.”
We needed to know: how does the service generate text messages and voicemails that seem real? We should make it clear that users don’t just receive generic, robotic texts; the messages read like they come from a human, and your Invisible partner will actually respond if you text them back.
Mr. Homann said the recipe is a “secret sauce,” but hinted that “you can tell in many cases there’s a real person on the other end of the message.”
“One of our users,” he said, “[has] actually told us she’s texted her Invisible Boyfriend practicing things she might say to a young man she might meet in St. Louis that she’s interested in.”
Invisible Boyfriend and Girlfriend also generate believable pics of your pretend partner by soliciting selfies from ordinary people, as opposed to using posed-looking stock images.
Unfortunately, the service doesn’t come for free.
“Our inaugural service is $24.99 and includes 100 texts, 10 voicemails, and 1 handwritten note,” Mr. Tabor told Betabeat in a later email. “We’re looking to create both less and more expensive packages as we learn what our users need.”
Additionally, it’s currently only available in the U.S. and Canada, but Mr. Homann and Mr. Tabor are hoping to raise funds so they can expand to other parts of the world—like to countries where it’s a crime to be gay, and people might have an extra-pressing need for a fake heterosexual relationship.
“When we [started] in November of 2013, it seemed to be easy to joke about the idea of the service,” Mr. Homann said. “[But] we really have been surprised and humbled—there are people who look at this, it’s not a joke for them.”
“We really think people signing up,” he continued, “are filling a meaningful void.”
Instead of trying to justify your single status to your crotchety aunt, there’s also another option—downloading an Invisible Boyfriend or Girlfriend, which launched today from private to public beta.
Yep, we’re for real. The apps, founded by St. Louis’s Matthew Homann and Kyle Tabor, let users pay for “believable social proof” that they’re in a relationship. They generate everything from photos and meet-cutes to text messages and actual voicemails—all of them totally fake, but also totally realistic.
“It really helps people tell a better story about a relationship they’re not in,” Mr. Homann told Betabeat.
Mr. Homann first bought the invisibleboyfriend and invisiblegirlfriend domains nine years ago, when he was newly divorced. For years he didn’t do anything with them besides use them as “a good cocktail party story.”
But at a 2013 Startup Weekend in St. Louis, he and a small team decided to pitch Invisible Boyfriend and Girlfriend as a veritable business idea. They placed first.
Today, Mr. Homann and Mr. Tabor don’t see their product as a joke. They suggested a host of very legitimate potential use cases, from soldiers overseas “without a girl back home,” to employees seeking a way to fend off a coworker’s unwelcome advances.
“[Imagine] you’ve got conservative grandparents in the Bible Belt who can’t believe you might be gay or lesbian,” Mr. Homann suggested.
(Invisibleboyfriend.com)
“She saw that he had an upcoming date with another girl—his Invisible Girlfriend,” Mr. Tabor said. “That put a fire underneath her—she needed to lock things down.”
We needed to know: how does the service generate text messages and voicemails that seem real? We should make it clear that users don’t just receive generic, robotic texts; the messages read like they come from a human, and your Invisible partner will actually respond if you text them back.
Mr. Homann said the recipe is a “secret sauce,” but hinted that “you can tell in many cases there’s a real person on the other end of the message.”
“One of our users,” he said, “[has] actually told us she’s texted her Invisible Boyfriend practicing things she might say to a young man she might meet in St. Louis that she’s interested in.”
Invisible Boyfriend and Girlfriend also generate believable pics of your pretend partner by soliciting selfies from ordinary people, as opposed to using posed-looking stock images.
Unfortunately, the service doesn’t come for free.
“Our inaugural service is $24.99 and includes 100 texts, 10 voicemails, and 1 handwritten note,” Mr. Tabor told Betabeat in a later email. “We’re looking to create both less and more expensive packages as we learn what our users need.”
Additionally, it’s currently only available in the U.S. and Canada, but Mr. Homann and Mr. Tabor are hoping to raise funds so they can expand to other parts of the world—like to countries where it’s a crime to be gay, and people might have an extra-pressing need for a fake heterosexual relationship.
“When we [started] in November of 2013, it seemed to be easy to joke about the idea of the service,” Mr. Homann said. “[But] we really have been surprised and humbled—there are people who look at this, it’s not a joke for them.”
“We really think people signing up,” he continued, “are filling a meaningful void.”
Monday, January 19, 2015
Designer Babies
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30742774
Dr Tony Perry, a pioneer in cloning, has announced precise DNA editing at the moment of conception in mice.
He said huge advances in the past two years meant "designer babies" were no longer HG Wells territory.
Other leading scientists and bioethicists argue it is time for a serious public debate on the issue.
Designer babies - genetically modified for beauty, intelligence or to be free of disease - have long been a topic of science fiction.
Dr Perry, who is based at the University of Bath, told the BBC: "We used a pair of molecular scissors and a molecular sat-nav that tells the scissors where to cut.
"It is approaching 100% efficiency already, it's a case of 'you shoot you score'."
New era
It is the latest development of "Crispr technology" - which is a more precise way of editing DNA than anything that has come before.
Prof Perry said the technique could one day be performed during fertility treatment
It was named one of the top breakthroughs in 2013, hailed as the start of a new era of genetics and is being used in a wide-range of experiments in thousands of laboratories.
As well simply cutting the DNA to make mutations, as the Bath team have done, it is also possible to use the technology to insert new pieces of genetic code at the site of the cut.
It has reopened questions about genetically modifying people.
Prof Perry added: "On the human side, one has to be very cautious.
"There are heritable diseases coded by mutations in DNA and some people could say, 'I don't want my children to have these mutations.'"
This includes conditions such as cystic fibrosis and genes that increase the risk of cancer.
"There's much speculation here, but it's not completely fanciful, this is not HG Wells, you can imagine people doing this soon [in animals].
"At that time the HFEA [the UK's fertility regulator] will need to be prepared because they're going to have to deal with this issue."
He said science existed as part of a wider community and that it was up to society as a whole to begin assessing the implications and decide what is acceptable.
Time for debate
Prof Robin Lovell-Badge, from the UK Medical Research Council, has been influential in the debate around making babies from three people and uses the Crispr technology in his own lab.
However, he could see such potential uses of "germ-line therapies" for men left infertile by damaging mutations.
While they can have children through IVF, any sons would still have the mutations and would in turn need IVF. Genetic modification could fix that.
It would also be useful in circumstances when all embryos would carry the undesirable, risky genes.
Prof Lovell-Badge told the BBC News website: "Obviously in the UK, this is not allowed and there would have to be a change in regulations, which I suspect would have enormous problems.
"But it is something that needs to start to be debated.
"There has been a blanket ban on germ-line therapy, so there needs to be a debate about that and some rational thought rather than knee-jerk reactions that, 'No you can't possibly do that.'"
Such a debate would also have to move beyond therapies into the field of babies designed to have desirable traits.
Some alternations would only require small changes to DNA, such as some changes to eye colour or to make a child HIV-resistant.
The respected Nuffield Council on Bioethics is understood to be considering a report on the issue.
Its verdict in 2012 that it was ethical to create babies from three people formed a core part of the public debate on the issue.
At the time it said a much wider debate on germ-line therapy was still needed.
Complex ethics
Its director, Hugh Whittall, told the BBC: "I think this is a challenge, for all of us, we should get onto looking at this fairly rapidly now."
He said the field raised questions of social justice around techniques available only to the rich and what constituted identity as well as "issues of governance and regulation".
Dr David King, from the campaign group Human Genetics Alert, echoed calls for the public to engage with the issue.
He said: "I think it's pretty inevitable that we'll get to a point where it's scientifically possible, certainly these new techniques of genome editing have made something look much more feasible than it did five years ago.
"But that does not mean to say it's inevitably the way we have to go as a society."
This is still a matter of science fiction and there is a huge amount of research - particularly on unwanted mutations, efficiency and safety - that needs to be done before any attempt of humans would even be considered.
A spokesman for the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority said: "We keep a watchful eye on scientific developments of this kind and welcome discussions about future possible developments."
He said it "should be remembered that germ-line modification of nuclear DNA remains illegal in the UK" and that new legislation would be needed from Parliament "with all the open and public debate that would entail" for there to be any change in the law.
'Designer babies' debate should start, scientists say
Rapid
progress in genetics is making "designer babies" more likely and
society needs to be prepared, leading scientists have told the BBC.
He said huge advances in the past two years meant "designer babies" were no longer HG Wells territory.
Other leading scientists and bioethicists argue it is time for a serious public debate on the issue.
Designer babies - genetically modified for beauty, intelligence or to be free of disease - have long been a topic of science fiction.
This is not HG Wells, you can imagine people doing this soon”
Dr Perry, who was part of the
teams to clone the first mice and pigs, said the prospect was still
fiction, but science was rapidly catching up to make elements of it
possible.
In the journal Scientific Reports, he details precisely editing the genome of mice at the point DNA from the sperm and egg come together.Dr Perry, who is based at the University of Bath, told the BBC: "We used a pair of molecular scissors and a molecular sat-nav that tells the scissors where to cut.
"It is approaching 100% efficiency already, it's a case of 'you shoot you score'."
New era
It is the latest development of "Crispr technology" - which is a more precise way of editing DNA than anything that has come before.
Prof Perry said the technique could one day be performed during fertility treatmentAs well simply cutting the DNA to make mutations, as the Bath team have done, it is also possible to use the technology to insert new pieces of genetic code at the site of the cut.
It has reopened questions about genetically modifying people.
Prof Perry added: "On the human side, one has to be very cautious.
"There are heritable diseases coded by mutations in DNA and some people could say, 'I don't want my children to have these mutations.'"
This includes conditions such as cystic fibrosis and genes that increase the risk of cancer.
"There's much speculation here, but it's not completely fanciful, this is not HG Wells, you can imagine people doing this soon [in animals].
"At that time the HFEA [the UK's fertility regulator] will need to be prepared because they're going to have to deal with this issue."
He said science existed as part of a wider community and that it was up to society as a whole to begin assessing the implications and decide what is acceptable.
Time for debate
Prof Robin Lovell-Badge, from the UK Medical Research Council, has been influential in the debate around making babies from three people and uses the Crispr technology in his own lab.
Prof Robin Lovell-Badge Medical Research CouncilThere needs to be a debate... and some rational thought rather than knee-jerk reactions that, 'No you can't possibly do that'”
He said testing embryos for
disease during IVF would be the best way of preventing diseases being
passed down through the generations.
While they can have children through IVF, any sons would still have the mutations and would in turn need IVF. Genetic modification could fix that.
It would also be useful in circumstances when all embryos would carry the undesirable, risky genes.
Prof Lovell-Badge told the BBC News website: "Obviously in the UK, this is not allowed and there would have to be a change in regulations, which I suspect would have enormous problems.
"But it is something that needs to start to be debated.
"There has been a blanket ban on germ-line therapy, so there needs to be a debate about that and some rational thought rather than knee-jerk reactions that, 'No you can't possibly do that.'"
Some alternations would only require small changes to DNA, such as some changes to eye colour or to make a child HIV-resistant.
The respected Nuffield Council on Bioethics is understood to be considering a report on the issue.
Its verdict in 2012 that it was ethical to create babies from three people formed a core part of the public debate on the issue.
At the time it said a much wider debate on germ-line therapy was still needed.
Complex ethics
Its director, Hugh Whittall, told the BBC: "I think this is a challenge, for all of us, we should get onto looking at this fairly rapidly now."
He said the field raised questions of social justice around techniques available only to the rich and what constituted identity as well as "issues of governance and regulation".
Dr David King, from the campaign group Human Genetics Alert, echoed calls for the public to engage with the issue.
He said: "I think it's pretty inevitable that we'll get to a point where it's scientifically possible, certainly these new techniques of genome editing have made something look much more feasible than it did five years ago.
"But that does not mean to say it's inevitably the way we have to go as a society."
This is still a matter of science fiction and there is a huge amount of research - particularly on unwanted mutations, efficiency and safety - that needs to be done before any attempt of humans would even be considered.
A spokesman for the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority said: "We keep a watchful eye on scientific developments of this kind and welcome discussions about future possible developments."
He said it "should be remembered that germ-line modification of nuclear DNA remains illegal in the UK" and that new legislation would be needed from Parliament "with all the open and public debate that would entail" for there to be any change in the law.
Elon Musk's Proposed Internet-by-Satellite System Could Link With Mars Colonies
You have to hand it to Elon Musk who has occasionally be referred to
as a real life "Tony Stark." The man helped to co-found PayPal and Tesla
Motors. Musk also helms SpaceX, which just recently made its fifth
successful trip the International Space Station (ISS) to deliver
supplies via the Dragon capsule. The secondary mission of the latest ISS
launch resulted in the "successful failure" of the Falcon 9 rocket,
which Musk described as a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (RUD) event. In
addition to his Hyperloop transit side project, Musk is eyeing a space-based Internet network that would be comprised of hundred of micro satellites
orbiting roughly 750 miles above Earth.
The so-called "Space Internet" would provide faster data speeds than traditional communications satellites that have a geosynchronous orbit of roughly 22,000 miles. Musk hopes that the service will eventually grow to become "a giant global Internet service provider," reaching over three billion people who are currently either without Internet service or only have access to low-speed connections. And this wouldn't be a Musk venture without reaching for some overly ambitious goal. The satellite network would truly become a "Space Internet" platform, as it would form the basis for a direct communications link between Earth and Mars. It's the coming thing.
Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson this week said he wants to launch as many as 2,400 small satellites in an effort to set up a constellation capable of bringing broadband communications through a company called OneWeb to millions of people who do not have it. He said he plans to initially launch a low-earth-orbit satellite constellation of 648 satellites to get the project rolling.
The so-called "Space Internet" would provide faster data speeds than traditional communications satellites that have a geosynchronous orbit of roughly 22,000 miles. Musk hopes that the service will eventually grow to become "a giant global Internet service provider," reaching over three billion people who are currently either without Internet service or only have access to low-speed connections. And this wouldn't be a Musk venture without reaching for some overly ambitious goal. The satellite network would truly become a "Space Internet" platform, as it would form the basis for a direct communications link between Earth and Mars. It's the coming thing.
Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson this week said he wants to launch as many as 2,400 small satellites in an effort to set up a constellation capable of bringing broadband communications through a company called OneWeb to millions of people who do not have it. He said he plans to initially launch a low-earth-orbit satellite constellation of 648 satellites to get the project rolling.
Shanghai Company 3D Prints 6-Story Apartment Building and Villa
from slashdot:
ErnieKey writes Last year, a Shanghai based company made news by 3d printing a bunch of houses. Now that same company, WinSun has accomplished something never seen before. They have successfully 3d printed a 6-story apartment building as well as an incredibly detailed home. The structures were unveiled at the Suzhou Industrial Park. "These two houses are in full compliance with the relevant national standards," Ma Rongquan, the Chief engineer of China Construction No.8 Engineering Bureau, explained. "It is safe, reliable, and features a good integration of architecture and decoration. But as there is no specific national standard for 3D printing architecture, we need to revise and improve such a standard for the future."
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