Saturday, 1 March 2014
A three-satellite storm-tracking system run by the U.S. government is getting some updates that will support a complete technological refresh.
Raytheon said today that it has booked $185 million in new business for the Joint Polar Satellite System's Common Ground System. The JPSS, a collaborative system between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA, is a polar-orbiting environmental system designed to both track storms and other weather events and take and send back to Earth imagery showing changes in the planet's environment over time.
Currently, the contract for the JPSS ground control system is worth $1.7 billion, and the contract modifications mean the system is getting a set of upgrades and updates meant to boost operational and data availability, Raytheon said in a release, as well as faster data delivery, information assurance, and automated mission management.
Among its many other functions, the JPSS ground control system offers support for the U.S. Department of Defense's Meteorological Satellite Program, as well as the similar organizations in Europe and Japan; the National Science Foundation; and NASA's Space Communications and Navigation program.
Ultra HD, colloquially known as "4K," is the latest buzzword, and the latest push from TV manufacturers.
While your next TV might not be Ultra HD, the one after probably will be.
Here are the basics of what you need to know about this latest advancement in TV technology.
Higher than HD resolution, and possibly more
To put it most simply, Ultra HD is resolution greater than HD. Today this most commonly means a horizontal resolution of 3,840 and a vertical resolution of 2,160. This is four times the resolution of 1080p, which is 1,920x1,080. Officially, Ultra HD is a minimum of 3,820x2,160, also known as Quad HD. It also includes cinema 4K (4,096x2,160) and future resolutions like "8K," or 7,680x 4,320.
Four resolutions compared: standard definition;
full high definition; and the two kinds of ultra high definition (Quad
HD and 4Kx2K)
Can you even see the difference?
Probably not. There's only so much detail the human eye can resolve. If you have 20/20 vision (common), sit about 10 feet from your TV (also common), and are buying a typical TV (50-inches or so), you're not going to see the additional resolution. Check out Four 4K TV facts you must know for more info, or check out Chris Heinonen's excellent 4K Calculator to see if you can benefit from the extra resolution.
Seen side by side from a typical seating distance, it's very difficult to tell a 4K TV from a 1080p one.
(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)
"Ultra HD" vs "4K"
The official moniker for this new resolution is Ultra HD. However, it's commonly referred to as "4K" or even "2160p." 4K is the cinema standard that deals with a similar resolution (generally 4,096x2160).
Most people, myself included, would rather just call it 4K. Yes, this isn't strictly accurate, but I'm not nearly pedantic enough to care. Some are. Also, 4K is easier to type and say. We did a poll, and most people agree with me.
For the record the Consumer Electronics Association, the closest the U.S. TV industry has to an authority in this matter, sees "4K Ultra HD" as a "legitimate use" in line with its guidelines. That catchall term, or some variation thereof, appears to be what most TV makers are using, at least for now.
HDMI 2.0
Your current HDMI cables can probably pass 4K. There is a new HDMI standard coming out, called HDMI 2.0. The main difference between HDMI 1.4 (which is what most equipment is now) and 2.0 is an increase in the possible framerates of the 4K signal. HDMI 1.4 can do Ultra HD at 30 frames per second. HDMI 2.0 can do 60 fps.
(Credit:
HDMI.org/Geoffrey Morrison)
There are no new cables with HDMI 2.0, this is a hardware change, not
a cable change. So your current High Speed HDMI cables should work just
fine.However, check carefully that any 4K TV you're considering has full HDMI 2.0 compliance. If it doesn't, you're not "future-proofing" yourself as much as you may think. Nearly all of the 2014 4K TVs announced at CES comply with HDMI 2.0, but it's a stickier situation with 2013 models.
The casualties
While the march of technology, um, marches on, some things get left behind. One of the biggest casualties is plasma. Panasonic, which recently pulled out of plasma production, listed the difficulty in making Ultra HD plasmas as one of the reasons they abandoned the technology. Samsung echoed this reasoning.
Could OLED, which faces similar challenges, be another casualty? Let's hope not.
The future
Like it or not, this is happening. Ultra HD displays are the future. Prices are already falling from the major manufacturers, and lesser known brands, primarily Chinese names like TCL and Seiki, are already selling ultra-cheap Ultra HD.
A big issue right now, like the early days of HD, is the lack of content. While Netflix is claiming they'll start streaming certain shows in Ultra HD this year, and if you buy a Sony TV, you can get a 4K media streamer, there's very little to watch. The new consoles (PS4 and Xbox One), can't do Ultra HD gaming, though a reasonably powerful PC can.
Netflix plans to offer 4K Ultra HD streaming of the drama House of Cards this year
(Credit:
Netflix)
So content is an issue now, but it won't always be. It's just something to keep in mind if you feel you must get a 4K TV now: there's not much to take full advantage of it.
What does all that mean for you? Right now, Ultra HD televisions are impressive up close, but not a vital purchase. It's likely that in a few years, we'll get better, cheaper, and more capable Ultra HD TVs. Ideally, with a lot more 4K stuff to watch on them.
For a more in-depth look at the history and more of the issues surrounding 4K, check out What is 4K UHD? Next-generation resolution explained.
It appears Google is looking to temper some of the backlash it's experienced over its high-tech commuter buses in San Francisco.
The Web giant has donated $6.8 million to the city to fund the Free Muni for Low Income Youth program for two years. This program, which launched last year, provides low- and moderate-income students free rides on San Francisco's public buses. Since it began, the program has assisted more than 31,000 students.
Google's donation is one of the largest private contributions toward direct city services that San Francisco has ever received, according to the mayor's office. And now that the city doesn't have to pay for the program, those tax dollars can be used elsewhere.
"With this unprecedented gift from Google, we can keep this successful pilot program running for at least two more years at no cost to taxpayers or Muni riders and free up critical funds for other vital Muni maintenance and services," San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said in a statement. "Google is demonstrating with real action and real resources that they are a true partner in addressing our city's affordability crisis for lower and middle-income families."
Google and other tech companies have recently been under fire for increasing income inequality in the Bay Area. With high-paid tech employees moving in, San Francisco has experienced increased gentrification and rising rents.
The commuter buses that roam the city each morning and evening, picking up and dropping off tech employees, have become a symbol of wealth disparity and the target of a slew of protests.
Adding to some residents' resentment was the fact that the buses had been picking up passengers at stops designated for the city's official public transportation without paying the city. However, Mayor Lee announced last month that the city is now charging the tech buses for stopping at public stops. But the city apparently won't see increased revenue from this, according to the San Francisco Bay Guardian.
"San Francisco residents are rightly frustrated that we don't pay more to use city bus stops," a Google spokesperson told CNET. "So we'll continue to work with the city on these fees, and in the meantime will fund Muni passes for low income students for the next two years."
Texting or chatting on the phone while driving is illegal in California, but the law seems still to be catching up with technology when it comes to other aspects of smartphone use behind the wheel.
A court of appeals has reversed an earlier court decision that ruled map reading on a cell phone was taboo under the law, according to the Associated Press. The 5th District Court of Appeal said the law currently applies only to talking and texting on mobile devices and doesn't yet have legal language for app use.
The case came about in January 2012 after Fresno resident Steven Spriggs got a ticket for checking his iPhone 4 map when he was caught in a traffic jam, according to the AP. While he was searching for a better route on his phone, a California Highway Patrol officer stopped him and fined him $165.
After losing a challenge to the case in traffic court, Spriggs appealed the ticket to a Fresno County Superior Court. He lost again. Undeterred, he brought the case to the district court of appeals.
The panel of appellate judges ruled in favor of Spriggs, saying California law stipulates that "listening and talking" on cell phones without a hands-free device is illegal, but it doesn't specify other ways in which phone use is unlawful, according to the AP.
While this is a clear win for Spriggs, and he'll be able to get back his $165, the case could be appealed by the state attorney general's office to the California Supreme Court.
Ever wanted to know the best escape route out of a city in case of an emergency? How about which of the world's coral reefs are in the greatest danger? Or, the exact route of the Lewis and Clark Trail in 1814?
All of these maps are now far easier to find because of a feature Google launched on Thursday called Google Maps Gallery. This gallery is full of interactive digital maps from a variety of businesses, governments, and nonprofit organizations, such as National Geographic, World Bank Group, and the US Geological Survey.
The topics covered in the maps run the gamut, including construction projects, historic battlefields, Internet users worldwide, US congressional districts, climate change data, public school ratings, and much more. Before being published on the Web, many of these maps were mostly inaccessible to the public.
National Geographic Maps director of digital development Frank Biasi points out that the majority of its maps could only be seen in paper form. But now that the organization has joined Google's Gallery, these maps are available to all.
"Over the last 125 years, National Geographic has developed and published more than 800 maps, as one of our primary vehicles for achieving our mission to inspire people to care about the planet," Biasi said in a statement. "But access to these maps has been limited due to their physical printed nature and their range of publication dates. Maps Gallery makes our entire collection and individual maps discoverable and viewable to the world through a simple Google Maps user experience."
The Maps Gallery is an expansion of Google Maps Engine, which is a public data program launched last year. The Maps Engine allows groups to share and publish their maps online.
Besides being able to dig through maps in the Gallery, users can also find these maps on Google Earth and in searches.
Typically, to view super small objects like molecules, the samples must first be dipped in a chemical preservative bath of death that keeps all parts entirely locked in place and thus viewable via very sophisticated tech such as X-ray devices and electron microscopes. The problem, of course, is that those molecules don't behave the same in death as they do in life, so while our current views of life at the nanoscale level are extremely detailed, they're technically speaking views of death, or at the very least, life frozen.
Now scientists at the University of Göttingen in Germany say that, using a new approach with one of the world's most sophisticated X-ray machines, the Petra III, they've been able to view -- however briefly -- actual living cells in their natural environment.
Reporting in the journal Physical Review Letters, the researchers say they grew cancer cells from the adrenal cortex on a silicon nitrate substance that is nearly transparent to X-rays. They then fed those cells nutrients and pumped away their metabolic products so that they could keep the cells alive in as close to a natural environment as possible while still being viewable by the higher-energy (aka "hard" X-ray) Petra III. While lower-energy "soft" X-rays can al
To avoid killing the cells with the powerful X-ray beams, they exposed the sample in a series of frames that each lasted a mere 0.05 seconds. They then used this same nanodiffraction approach on chemically fixed cells for comparison and found that their cellular structures were noticeably different when viewed on a scale of 30 to 50 nanometers (that is, millionths of a millimeter).
While this initial test was performed using extremely brief and powerful blasts on petri dish cancer cells, the researchers say it offers evidence that we should be able to study living cells at super high resolution without first having to change their molecular behavior -- which could dramatically improve our understanding of life, including diseases and treatments, at the nanoscale level.
ready image living cells, the resolution isn't as good.
Fathers, don't let your daughters anywhere near Facebook. Especially when you've just come into $80,000.
This is the painful moral from another day in Florida.
The story began so brightly for the Snay family. As the Miami Herald reports, Patrick Snay used to be the headmaster at Miami's Gulliver Preparatory School.
In 2010, his contract wasn't renewed. He claimed age discrimination. He also claimed there had been retaliation against his daughter, who was a pupil at the school.
At the end of 2011, Snay won a settlement, with $80,000 going to him personally, as well as $10,000 in previous earnings. But one of the conditions was that everything had to kept confidential.
Snay told his daughter, Dana. She popped along to Facebook to pop off to 1,200 of her closest friends.
She wrote: "Mama and Papa Snay won the case against Gulliver. Gulliver is now officially paying for my vacation to Europe this summer. SUCK IT."
So, about that confidentiality agreement.
Patrick Snay told the Herald: "We knew what the restrictions were, yet we needed to tell her something." This is understandable, but surely he also needed to tell her to not shout it to her 1,200 closest Facebook friends.
You'll be stunned into performing a pedicure with a hacksaw when I tell you that among her 1,200 closest Facebook friends were Gulliver students.
The school's lawyers were quickly informed and refused to pay. On Wednesday, Florida's Third District Court of Appeal ruled for the school.
Snay isn't yet all out of appeals. He can still try the Florida Supreme Court, for example. However, one wonders how Dana Snay feels about the whole thing.
It surely can't be easy knowing that you might have blown your dad's hard-earned settlement, through a moment of social indiscretion.
I went to Facebook (where else?) to see if I could locate her, and found a Dana Snay who claims her home as Miami and says she's a former student of Gulliver Preparatory School.
She now studies at Boston College and works as a barista at Starbucks.
Her timeline seems to be set to private.
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