Amazon Can Make Just About Anything — Except a Good Video Game

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg, which is “based on interviews with more than 30 current and former Amazon employees, most of whom spoke under the condition of anonymity citing fears of litigation or career repercussions.” From the report: Mike Frazzini had never made a video game when he helped start Amazon Game Studios. Eight years later, he has…

Ancient Mayan civilization used advanced water treatment technology

The oldest known example of a water treatment system in the Western Hemisphere was recently discovered in Guatemala. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/ancient-mayan-civilization-used-advanced-water-treatment-technology…

Korean Artificial Sun Sets the New World Record of 20-Sec-Long Operation At 100 Million Degrees

The Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research(KSTAR), a superconducting fusion device also known as the Korean artificial sun, set the new world record as it succeeded in maintaining the high temperature plasma for 20 seconds with an ion temperature over 100 million degrees. Phys.Org reports: On November 24 (Tuesday), the KSTAR Research Center at the Korea Institute of Fusion Energy (KEF) announced…

Fujifilm and IBM Set World Record With 580TB Magnetic Tapes

An anonymous reader quotes a report from PCMag.com: Mark Lantz, Manager of Advanced Tape Technologies at IBM Research, explains how researchers at IBM and Fujifilm brought together more than 15 years of work to set a new world record in tape storage. What they achieved is an areal density of 317Gbpsi (gigabits per square inch), which translates to a single tape…

Scientists Just Set a New World Record In Solar Cell Efficiency

According to a paper published in the journal Science, researchers report they they have now hit an efficiency of 29.15 percent in the perovskite/silicon tandem solar cell category. ScienceAlert reports: For this type of panel, the long-term target of more than 30 percent is now tantalizingly within reach. The latest lab tests edge ahead of the maximum 28 percent efficiency that…

Massachusetts Votes on Expanding Access To Car Data, ‘Could Set the National Standard’

On Tuesday Massachusetts will vote on expanding the state’s right-to-repair law to include more access to car data, in an initiated state statute known as “Question 1.” Wired reports: The measure is meant to address how data sharing will work as cars start to suck in and share more wireless data. The Coalition for Safe and Secure Data, backed by giant…

Loon Sets Stratospheric Sustained Flight Record With 312-Day Balloon Trip

Alphabet’s Loon, the company focused on creating new networking capabilities using stratosphere-based infrastructure, has set a new world record for a continuous stratospheric flight. One of Loon’s ultra high-altitude balloons flew for 312 days straight, beating the existing record of 223 days by a considerable margin, and nearly racking up a full year of sustained time aloft. From a report: The…

The Battle Over Chips is About to Get Uglier

“We’re in a new world where governments are more concerned about the security of their digital infrastructure and the resiliency of their supply chains,” Jimmy Goodrich, vice president of global policy with the Washington-based Semiconductor Industry Association, tells Bloomberg. “The techno-nationalist trends gaining traction in multiple capitals around the world are a challenge to the semiconductor industry.” At once highly globalized…

Your covid-19 risk: How to navigate this new world of uncertainty

Baffling statistics and their impact on our emotions can make it hard to evaluate risk in this pandemic. But there are simple steps you can take to put risk in context and feel more confident in your decisions Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24833050-700-your-covid-19-risk-how-to-navigate-this-new-world-of-uncertainty/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…

Technology ready for back-up detector X-IFU in Athena space telescope

In 2031, ESA launches its new X-ray space telescope Athena. SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research plays a large role in building one of its two instruments, the X-IFU spectrometer, by producing the camera plus the back-up detectors. SRON scientists have now successfully developed detectors that are optimized for a readout based on a special system called Frequency Domain Multiplexing. They…