Tag: Natural disasters

Pioneering a way to keep very small satellites in orbit

A cubesat, largely built by undergraduate students and scheduled to launch on Sunday, will explore the feasibility of a new propulsion method that could enable very small satellites to move around Earth’s orbit without carrying fuel. This could pave the way for tiny satellites that stay in orbit for long periods and operate in swarms, monitoring storms and natural disasters, for…

Tesla Powerwall Rival Seeks To Bring Hydrogen Into Your Home

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: It’s about the size of Tesla Inc.’s Powerwall, but can store up to three times as much energy over a longer period. That’s the promise of a new hydrogen-based energy-storage system for homes and businesses being developed by Australian startup Lavo Hydrogen Technology Ltd. The technology, developed with scientists at the University of…

How One Piece of Hardware Took Down a $6 Trillion Stock Market

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg on how a data storage and distribution device brought down Tokyo’s $6 trillion stock market: At 7:04 a.m. on an autumn Thursday in Tokyo, the stewards of the world’s third-largest equity market realized they had a problem. A data device critical to the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s trading system had malfunctioned, and the automatic…

Bridgefy, the Messenger Promoted For Mass Protests, Is a Privacy Disaster

Bridgefy, a popular messaging app for conversing with one another when internet connections are heavily congested or completely shut down, is a privacy disaster that can allow moderately-skilled hackers to take a host of nefarious actions against users, according to a paper published on Monday. The findings come after the company has for months touted the app as a safe and…

Microsoft, Energy Department To Develop Disaster-Response AI Tools

The U.S. Department of Energy and Microsoft on Tuesday announced a partnership to develop artificial-intelligence tools aimed at helping first-responders better react to fast-changing natural events, such as floods and wildfires. From a report: “There are just so many technologies where we can solve some of the toughest problems, in a moment where we’re having an explosion of wildfires and floods…

Hackers Could Use IoT Botnets To Manipulate Energy Markets

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: At the Black Hat security conference on Wednesday, [researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology] will present their findings, which suggest that high-wattage IoT botnets — made up of power-guzzling devices like air conditioners, car chargers, and smart thermostats — could be deployed strategically to increase demand at certain times in any of…

Nearly Half of Twitter Accounts Pushing To Reopen America May Be Bots

According to a new study from Carnegie Mellon University, researchers have found that bots may account for between 45 and 60% of Twitter accounts discussing covid-19. The normal level of bot involvement for U.S. and foreign elections, natural disasters, and other politicized events is usually between 10 and 20%. MIT Technology Review reports: Many of those accounts were created in February…

The past can help us deal with the pandemic’s mental health fallout

Lessons learned from natural disasters and the military can help guide our responses to help people’s mental health during the covid-19 pandemic Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24632792-800-the-past-can-help-us-deal-with-the-pandemics-mental-health-fallout/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…

Massive US Coronavirus Stimulus Includes Research Dollars, Some Aid To Universities

sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: The $2 trillion stimulus package that the U.S. Senate is working to approve today is aimed at helping the country cope with the massive impact of the coronavirus pandemic. But it also includes at least $1.25 billion for federal research agencies to support scientists trying to better understand coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In addition,…