Cloning goes horribly wrong in The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey, a darkly funny debut science-fiction novel with just enough science to make it believable Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24933230-400-the-echo-wife-review-a-darkly-comedic-look-at-the-risks-of-cloning/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Tag: Echo
Amazon Plans Wall-Mounted Echo as Smart Home Command Center
Amazon is developing a new Echo device with a large touchscreen that attaches to the wall and serves as a smart home control panel, video chat device and media player, Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the plans. From a report: The company’s Lab126 hardware division is designing the device to be a digital command center, showing users upcoming calendar events,…
A new look at the universe’s oldest light
New work agrees with older research suggesting the oldest light in the universe – from the most distant galaxy yet known – started its journey toward us 13.77 billion years ago. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/a-new-look-at-the-universes-oldest-light…
Google’s Annual Spectacle at CES is No More, With Tech Show Going Virtual
One of the biggest disappointments from CES 2021 going virtual will be the lack of a splashy booth by Google. Whether you cared about the company’s bevy of Google Assistant-related announcements, it was hard to deny the stagecraft employed by the tech giant. From a report: For the last few years, Google boasted some of the most eye-catching CES booths, from…
How Powerful Forces Collaborated to Peddle Misinformation about the Origins of the Coronavirus
There’s “an overwhelming body of evidence” for scientists’ belief that the coronavirus originated in an animal before making the leap to humans, reports the New York Times. (Alternate URL here.) They add that U.S. intelligence agencies also “have not found any proof” for a fringe theory it somehow leaked from a lab. Yet as recently as September, a Hong Kong researcher…
Why Amazon’s Echo Shines an Ominous Red Light When Its Microphone is Muted
This year Amazon followed up its cylindrical Echo (and its hockey puck-shaped Echo Dot) with a cloth-wrapped sphere-shaped Echo device. And Fast Company reports that one significant change was to the light pipe, “that glowing ring on top of the Echo that signals it’s talking or thinking. “For the fourth generation, that light pipe has been moved to the bottom of…
Will Parler Spread Misinformation – or Just Segregate It Onto a Single App?
“The rising popularity of alternative social media app Parler is raising concerns over the spread of misinformation and potential for radicalizing users on a platform that’s taken a hands-off approach to regulating content,” reports The Hill’s reporter on technology policy: The app has been boosted by conservatives, surging since Election Day, as Republicans amp up allegations of anti-conservative bias from social…
GPS and Water Don’t Mix. So Scientists Have Found a New Way To Navigate Under the Sea
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: [E]ven today’s most sophisticated GPS systems are still unable to map a huge chunk of the Earth: that which is located under oceans, seas, or rivers. The technology, in effect, doesn’t mix well with water, which breaks down the radio waves GPS relies on to function. MIT scientists have been looking at ways…
‘Echo mapping’ in faraway galaxies could measure vast cosmic distances
When you look up at the night sky, how do you know whether the specks of light that you see are bright and far away, or relatively faint and close by? One way to find out is to compare how much light the object actually emits with how bright it appears. The difference between its true luminosity and its apparent brightness…
Facebook Busts Russian Disinfo Networks As US Election Looms
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Facebook announced on Thursday that it has taken down three “coordinated inauthentic behavior” networks promoting disinformation that included nearly 300 Facebook and Instagram accounts along with dozens of Facebook Pages and Groups. While the efforts were seemingly run independently, and focused primarily outside of the US, each has ties to Russian intelligence –…