#Brit boffins build'tractor beam'out of sound Researchers from Spain and The british city of Bristol have found a way to move objects using sound.
In their Nature Communications paper, the six researchers explain that ound can levitate objects of different sizes and materials through air, water and tissue...
and provides a bridge between optical and acoustical trapping. Acoustic structures shaped as tweezers, twisters or bottles emerge as the optimum mechanisms for tractor beams or containerless transportation.
Here's how Bristol University explains one goes about making acoustic pincers: The researchers used an array of 64 miniature loudspeakers to create high-pitch and high-intensity sound waves.
The tractor beam works by surrounding the object with high-intensity sound and this creates a force field that keeps the objects in place.
By carefully controlling the output of the loudspeakers the object can be held either in place, moved or rotated.
and moving your kidney stones around are among the applications the researchers think could emerge from their work.*
*Expanded polystyrene particles ranging from 0. 6 to 3. 1m diameter are levitated above single-sided arrays.
No, not the hoverboard you saw Lexus create last month for a brand activation, but one made by a little company called Arx Pax.
It hovered thanks to"Magnetic field Architecture"(MFA), a fancy name for what the company's founder,
which works just fine.""Henderson explains that his hover engine technology works with any conductive surface
which is to say it doesn't have to float over magnets nor utilize superconductors (like the Lexus hoverboard does).
The Hendo hoverboard his company created floated on a bed of copper.""So there are some limitations,
which works just fine.""Speaking of convenience, sound doesn't travel in a vacuum. When we checked out the Hendo hoverboard,
The hover engine essentially creates"swirls of electricity"that form magnetic fields both within the hover engine and the conductive surface.
and the hover engine also isn't meant to work over large distances either.""We're talking on the scale of centimeters,"Henderson notes.
"On a pound for pound basis,"Henderson claims,"there's no better way to levitate something than our engine."
and he hopes to use it to do some of the work that his engine was designed originally for:
protecting buildings against earthquakes and floods. Here's the video we shot of the original Hendo hoverboard e
who was paralyzed after suffering a spinal cord injury more than a decade ago. An array of electrodes was placed in the volunteer's sensory cortex (part of the brain that identifies touch)
and connected to pressure sensors on a prosthetic hand, with electrical signals sent from the hand to the brain.
When blindfolded the subject was able to tell"with almost 100 percent accuracy"which of the mechanical fingers on the hand were being touched."
but the full extent of their work is not yet clear. It's not the first time that prosthetic limbs have been used to restore a sense of touch,
DARPA'S RESEARCH IS AWAITING PEER REVIEW The work by DARPA is currently awaiting peer review and acceptance for publication in a scientific journal, reports the agency.
#China will make companies pay to pollute from 2017 China is committing to a new program designed to combat the country's pollution levels by setting limits on,
and charging companies for their greenhouse gas emissions, The New york times reports. The cap-and-trade system, which is due to come into effect in 2017,
Under the agreement, China's government will place a cap on annual carbon emissions, forcing any firms that go over that limit to buy permits allowing them to do so.
China will also limit public money going to high-carbon projectsthe announcement is expected to be the first step in a program that aims to halve China's emissions by 2030.
The country is the world's largest polluter, but has worked in recent years to curb its carbon emissions,
introducing cap-and-trade schemes in seven provinces in 2012 as trials for the nationwide program.
which sources say has been in the works since April, will incentivize Chinese companies to reduce costs by switching to greener energy sources.
To further push the issue, The New york times says President Xi Jinping is planning to set up a"green dispatch"scheme that will offer a price incentive to low-carbon power sources.
China will also"strictly limit"the amount of public money that will be given to projects that will result in harmful emissions,
and will offer money to less-developed countries who want to invest in low-carbon infrastructure.
President Obama attempted to introduce his own cap-and-trade system during his first term,
The inability of the president to produce coherent and strict policies on climate change at home contributed to a stalemate between the US and China on the issue,
but sources in the government say that Obama's new regulations on carbon emissions, detailed in August, helped break the deadlock.
Much of the country relies on cheap coal fired power plants, and it has resisted traditionally outside efforts to review its industries,
In addition, efforts to stop officials using public money to build high-carbon projects may prove difficult,
China's new program makes it easier for the United states to enact its own climate change regulations.
Republicans and climate change deniers have used long China as the counterweight in their arguments, fighting against any restrictive US policies with the specter of a huge economic power unburdened by controls on emissions,
Now that power is introducing its own tight controls on carbon emissions, President Obama should have more leeway on the topic,
and more license to curb the United states'own pollution levels
#Genentech drug adds antibiotics to proteins to fight hidden bacteria Scientists at Genentech have armed the body immune system warriors with antibiotics
which means that bacteria that hide from drugs inside cells are now targets. In a study published today in Nature,
scientists linked an antibody with a derivative of a group of antibiotics called rifamycin. This resulting drug proved to be a powerful new treatment against Staphylococcus aureus;
it actually helped mice clear staph infections at a stage when conventional antibiotics normally stop being effective.
What's truly different here is that unlike the related antibiotic rifampicin the linked antibody-antibiotic unit can kill Staphylococcus bacteria inside cells.
This means that it might one day be possible to use this technique to treat people with life-threatening antibiotic-resistant infections.
repeated infections that can be fatal. And to make matters worse, certain strains have become resistant to common antibiotics.
As a result, one type of resistant staph bacteria called MRSA causes over 80,000 infections and 11,285 deaths occur every year.
That's why researchers want to find ways to kill the pathogen when it's located inside cells,
a hideout where antibiotics typically used against staph infections aren't as effective.""Staph can hide inside blood cells for a couple of hours or days,
"says Sanjeev Mariathasan, a biologist Genentech, the biotech company behind the study. That's a big problem because drugs that are used normally against staph infections can take over four hours to work far longer than it takes for Staph bacteria to move into new cells,
he says.""So we asked the question:''Can we tag the bacteria with antibodies armed with really potent antibiotics and kill these pathogens inside the cell?'"
'"MICE RECOVERED MUCH SOONER That's exactly what the researchers did in this study and it seems to work at least in mice.
Animals who received the treatment were able to recover from staph infections much sooner and with fewer negative health effects than they would have otherwise,
Antibodies are made, of course, by the immune system but for the last several decades, biotechnology companies have made them as well.
Genentech manufactured antibodies based on those the immune system makes to combat staph infections. Then, the researchers attached the antibiotics to the antibody by using amino acids as glue.
When combined the drug becomes far better at specifically targeting staph at specifically targeting Staph bacteria compared with conventional antibiotics."
"The researchers showed that the drug was effective against this strain; it worked the way it was designed to,
"says Gerald Pier, a microbiologist at Harvard university who also acts as a consultant for Visterra,
a biotechnology company that's working on a similar technique. Now, the researchers have to show that it works against multiple strains of bacteria as well,
he says. The drug is definitely in its infancy, but it holds a lot of promise. Scientists haven't been able to conclusively say
whether Staph bacteria hidden in cells are repeated responsible for infections, but if that's the case, then this treatment could put a stop to that by clearing the body of bacterial reservoirs.
it's possible that this treatment might one day help people avoid repeated infections, Mariathasan says.
THIS MIGHT HELP PEOPLE AVOID REPEATED INFECTIONS The technique might also prove to be less harsh on the body than common staph treatments.
doctors will probably only be able to give it to patients with a firm diagnosis. In some parts of the world,
that kind of diagnosis isn possible. Still, the act of combining two different weapons antibodies and antibiotics to fight off infections is an intriguing idea.
Today study suggests the technique is ripe for exploration c
#HTC One Max stored fingerprints where any app could see them HTC failed to lock down fingerprints captured by one of its phones,
leaving prints exposed to any app that knew to go looking for them, according to a report from security firm Fireeye Labs. The firm found that the HTC One Max,
a nearly two-year-old phone with a fingerprint reader, kept the fingerprints that it scanned in an unencrypted, world-readable file;
The One Max had been storing fingerprint data in a specialized bitmap file, which Fireeye was able to reconstruct into a proper scan of the print (shown right,
Fireeye's report suggests that other phones with fingerprint readers may have similar problems, though it only names the One Max.
The report also notes that certain phones failed to fully secure their fingerprint sensor, potentially allowing apps to step in
This flaw was present on the One Max, Samsung's Galaxy S5, and others that Fireeye leaves unnamed;
all phones with the flaw were fixed after their manufacturer was alerted of the issue. HTC and Samsung did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
As security researcher and ACLU policy analyst Chris Soghoian points out, HTC is already under order from the Federal trade commission not to mislead consumers on security.
"and failed to review software for security flaws. This was back in February of 2013
The One Max was never a particularly popular or successful phone, and it isn't known
#Google is reorganizing and Sundar Pichai will become new CEO In a blog post today,
Google cofounder Larry page announced a massive restructuring of the company, instituting Sundar Pichai as CEO and shifting himself and cofounder Sergey Brin to a larger holding company called Alphabet.
As CEO and President of Alphabet, Page and Brin will oversee Google as well as affiliated companies like the life extension project Calico and a drone delivery venture called Wing.
Alphabet will also direct Google's early-stage funding operations, dubbed Capital and Ventures. Under the new organization, each of those operations will have its own CEO and leadership
while Pichai and Google retain control of search, ads, maps, the Google Play Store, Youtube, and Android.
The reorganization also involves significant financial restructuring, as detailed in an associated SEC filing. All Google shares will now be traded as shares of the larger Alphabet holding company, news that drove the company's share price up more than four percentage points in the wake of the announcement."
"Wee long believed that over time companies tend to get comfortable doing the same thing,
the former CHROME OS and Android chief who has played an increasingly central role in Google's day-to-day operations."
and our board that it is time for Sundar to be CEO of Google, "Page said in the post."
"I feel very fortunate to have talented someone as as he is to run the slightly slimmed down Google
it's an extension of a shift that's been ongoing within Google for some time, with Brin and Page increasingly interested in ambitious projects launched through Google X or outside funding.
Alphabet formalizes that division, separating Google's traditional products from the more ambitious ventures that critics have accused of distracting from the company's core strengths.
It remains to be seen how the new divisions will play out in practice, but the intention seems to be renewed a focus on both Google's current products
and the moonshots that aim to replace those products as Alphabet's focus in the decades to come."
the new album from hip-hop mogul and Apple employee Dr dre, was streamed 25 million times in its first week on Apple Music.
In addition to the streams, Apple says the album also sold half a million downloads through itunes a solid performance that was not quite enough to push it to number one in the US charts.
Apple executives reported the figures in a statement to The New york times, but the publication did not specify
and it premiered a day early on Apple's streaming service, before full release on itunes on July 7th.
only available for stream on Apple Music and digitally through itunes. Beats cofounder Jimmy Iovine was positive about the results,
hip-hop's current kings are already old hands at disseminating their music to a huge and internet-literate fanbase.
Both artists used Twitter, Instagram, and other social networks to build suspense for their newest records,
and released them on multiple streaming services, securing more listeners than Compton could with its Apple-first approach a
#Google has a new logo Google is introducing a new logo today. Just a month after unveiling a major restructuring of the company,
Google is updating its image, too. The new Google logo is still a wordmark, but it's now using a sans-serif typeface,
making it look a lot more modern and playful. The colors are also softer than they used to be.
The logo bears a bit more resemblance to the logo of Google's new parent company, Alphabet, as well.
As Google's video introducing the new logo notes the wordmark has been evolving ever since it was created in 1998.
when Google first cleaned up the lettering and settled on its four colors. Since then, the logo has just been flattened out more and more,
Google is also changing the tiny"g"logo that you see on browser tabs. It's now going to be an uppercase"G"that's striped in all four of Google's colors.
Google says that the new design will be rolling out across all of its products soon in fact
it's already on Google's homepage, with a cute animation that wipes away the old logo and draws in the new one.
So why did Google decide to make the change? In a blog post, Google discusses how much technology has changed how we interact with its products and with the internet at large.
It doesn't really settle on a specific reason that a redesign was needed, but it says that this logo should better reflect the reality that Google is no longer a site you visit on a desktop computer it's a huge collection of sites, apps,
and services that you visit on PCS, Chromebooks, smartphones, and anywhere you can find a web browser.
Google writes that its new logo is meant to reflect"this reality and show you when the Google magic is working for you,
even on the tiniest screens.""Making the logo look good on small screens seems to have been a major consideration.
The new, simpler lettering is supposed to scale better to smaller sizes, making the wordmark more distinct and easier to read.
It's also supposed to be easier for Google to display on low-bandwidth connections:
Google says that it's made a version of its logo that's"only 305 bytes,
compared to our existing logo at 14,000 bytes.""Given that one of new Google CEO Sundar Pichai's big goals is to bring the internet and Google,
of course to areas of the globe that don't already have it, that small difference is definitely going to be an important one r
#Qualcomm's new Quick Charge will take batteries from 0 to 80 percent in 35 minutes Fast charging is an increasingly widespread and popular addition to modern smartphones.
Almost every new Android handset features some sort of solution for giving it a rapid injection of energy,
and one of the most popular varieties among them is Qualcomm's Quick Charge. It's an option built into the company's current line of Snapdragon processors,
and it's getting an upgrade to version 3. 0 with the 2016 family, headlined by the Snapdragon 820.
A new Intelligent Negotiation for Optimum Voltage (INOV) algorithm will allow portable devices to"determine what power level to request at any point in time for optimum power transfer
while maximizing efficiency.""Together with a series of other advancements, this will result in 38 percent more efficient charging than the second-generation Quick Charge,
and a doubling of charging speed from the original Quick Charge 1. In practical terms,
says Qualcomm, this will mean that the typical smartphone can be recharged from a flat battery all the way to 80 percent in 35 minutes.
Qualcomm also notes that it's implemented"additional steps to help protect battery cycle life,
"so its new solution should be both more efficient and more forgiving on the battery.
The Snapdragon 820 chipset will be joined by the Snapdragon 620 618,617, and 430 in supporting the latest variety of Quick Charge.
They are available to Qualcomm's hardware partners today and will be making their debut in devices coming in 2016 6
#A new material made from orange peels could remove mercury pollution from the ocean Since the Industrial revolution,
our exposure to mercury has risen quite sharply. The upper ocean now has 3. 4 times as much mercury as it did Preindustrial Revolution
and it easily makes its way into the food chain. Yellowfin tuna stocks have seen a 3. 8 percent increase in mercury levels every year
since 1998 and they've even discovered that the Grand canyon is full of mercury, far exceeding wildlife toxicity thresholds.
The burning of coal and the mining industry are the biggest culprits and too much exposure to mercury can lead to serious health problems for humans and wildlife.
There have been ideas for ways to remove mercury pollution, but none have been cost-effective or able to scale up to a global solution.
Researchers at Flinders University in Australia believe that they have finally found the solution that meets both of those criteria.
They have created a new material that is made from waste from the citrus and petroleum industries and is capable of sucking mercury out of both soil and water.
The dark red polymer material is made using limonene, a compound found in orange peels, and sulphur. It turns yellow
when it absorbs mercury, making it suitable for both mercury detection and cleanup. Because the components to make the material come from large waste streams
the university says the material is"dirt cheap"to produce meaning it could easily be used in widespread applications like lining pipes for domestic and waste water, large-scale environmental cleanup operations and even for reducing mercury levels in large bodies of water like the oceans.
The petroleum industry creates about 70 million tons of sulphur every year and the citrus industry produces 70,000 tons of limonene.
large waste streams are being remade into something useful while mercury is removed from the environment.
The researchers found that the material can also remove other toxic metals from water and it safely stores the pollutants until it can be removed.
The team's findings will be published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition and they are working on making a commercial version of the material l
#White house promotes diversity at Demo Day WASHINGTON he White house on Tuesday became a technology incubator with a goal of increasing diversity and inclusion across the tech industry.
Companies such as Box and Xerox have pledged to introduce the Rooney rule interview, instituted by the National Football league and named after Pittsburgh steelers owner Dan Rooney,
The president also thanked nearly four dozen venture capital firms for pledging to increase diversity in their own ranks and in their portfolio companies.
Currently, only about 3%of venture capital-backed start-ups are led by women, and only 1%are led by African americans,
while positively impacting their economy, "she said. Among several entrepreneurs and start-ups who met with administration officials were based New york Thinkup cofounders Anil Dash and Gina Trapani,
who chose the occasion to launch a new web destination called Makerbase. Dash described it as cross between Wikipedia and Internet Movie Database,
but for the app economy. Innovators can add themselves to Makerbase or others can add them to the current database of projects.
Beta testers have been using the service since January. Those seeking work can search the offerings for likely matches
and contact them.""When I talk to young folks who are starting out their career,
they say, 'I will learn to code...but how do I get coffee with the person who made that product that
#How do you laugh on Facebook? LOS ANGELES-How do you express laughter in a Facebook post?
By saying LOL, Haha or Hehe? The folks at Facebook recently crunched the numbers of the billions of daily posts to see how its members expressed their humor,
and they found that 15%use laughter of some kind in a post. At one point, the acronym surely would have been LOL,
Facebook looked at posts in May to come up with these conclusions and also researched specific cities,
A quick note that the desktop version of Facebook doesn offer many opportunities to attach digital laughs,
you need to go to the Facebook Messenger mobile app, where not only are there tons of way more emoji syymbols available for your posts,
Google shares jump off Alphabet announcement Here's a surprise that shareholders seemed to like: Google shocked Wall street Monday afternoon after suddenly announcing the creation of Alphabet, its new publicly traded parent company.
Shares of Google were up more than 6%during Tuesday morning trading. Let's take a look at the tech stocks to watch Tuesday:
Google (GOOG: Google's new overlord will contain its zany experimental ventures, such as its driverless cars,
and 3g-beaming balloons, while Google (now a subsidiary of Alphabet) will"slim down "and exclude companies that are not a part of its core internet business.
Sundar Pichai will be the new CEO of Google, while Google cofounders Larry page and Sergey Brin will head Alphabet.
Twitter (TWTR: Twitter's stock was back down to red Tuesday morning after bouncing back Monday.
Interim CEO Jack Dorsey showed a bid of confidence in the lagging company Monday, buying more than 31,000 shares of Twitter for about $875, 000.
Following Dorsey's purchase, shares jumped 9%to close at $29. 50 on Monday. The company also pleased investors after announcing an expanded deal with the NFL,
which will streamline more of the leagues content on the platform. Company shares were down more than 1%Tuesday morning.
Symantec (SYMC: Symantec announced plans to sell its data storage business, Veritas, for $8 billion cash.
According to Reuters, the company will sell Veritas to a group including Carlyle Group and Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC.
Company shares were down more than 1%during Tuesday morning trading. Apple (AAPL: Apple shares have been quite volatile lately.
Shares were down more than 2%Tuesday morning after climbing up to more than 2%during Monday trading.
The company's stock is down 12 %since July 21 nd have found itself in correction territory,
falling 14%from their all-time high of $134. 54 that it clocked in April. Alibaba (BABA:
Alibaba shares were falling Tuesday morning after the Chinese e-commerce giant announced that it bought a 19.9%stake in major Chinese electronic retailer, Suning.
#Tinder goes on Twitter rant over'Vanity fair'article Popular dating app Tinder erupted into a storm of angry,
"but rather in the midst of reviving the dating culture by building something that is changing the world"and leading to"meaningful relationships."
we were saddened to see that the article didn't touch upon the positive experiences that the majority of our users encounter daily,
#Twitter drops character limit for direct messages witter users will no longer be confined to 140 characters
The social network says it has removed limits on the length of a direct message, allowing users to send tweets at whatever length they choose.
However, Twitter says the standard public tweet will remain 140 characters.""Today change is another big step towards making the private side of Twitter even more powerful and fun,
says Twitter product manager Sachin Agarwal in a blog post detailing the changes. The change rolls out starting today across Twitter's mobile apps, desktop and web clients and Tweetdeck,
and continue rolling out globally over the next few weeks s
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