Day: October 18, 2017

Samsung has qualified its 8-nanometer chip-making process for production three months ahead of schedule. It’s the same "low power plus" (LPP) process used for its current 10-nanometer silicon, not the next-gen extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography for its future 7-nanometer tech. That’ll yield chips that are ten percent more energy efficient and ten percent smaller than the 10-nanometer ones it’s making right now. At the same time, since the 8-nanometer chips use the same process, Samsung will be able to "rapidly ramp up," it said.

Samsung said that the new process will be ideal for "mobile, cryptocurrency and network/server" applications. It notably worked again with Qualcomm, its 10-nanometer chip launch customer, to perfect the new tech. Rumors in Korea had it that Qualcomm would switch its 7-nanometer production to TMSC, which is reportedly slightly ahead of Samsung in developing that tech.

However, Samsung confirmed with ZDNet that Qualcomm will be using its 8-nanometer process, without providing any specific details. Given that information, it seems likely that Qualcomm will build its next-gen Snapdragon chips with Samsung, using the tried-and-true LPP process instead of bleeding-edge 7-nanometer tech, which necessitates a switch to extreme ultraviolet lithography.

By that time, Samsung should have its own 7-nanometer EUV process up to speed, with 6-nanometer chips set to follow after that. Anyway, Samsung Mobile is probably Qualcomm’s biggest customer with its Galaxy S8 and Note 8 phones, so it would have been pretty awkward to split off to another foundry.

Though they don’t compete much in the same markets, the news puts Intel even further behind Samsung, at least in terms of chip trace sizes. Intel has yet to release any 10-nanometer chips, though it has said that when it does (in 2018 or 2019), it will be "generations ahead" of Samsung thanks to better feature density. By then, however, Samsung might have closed that gap by being two or three actual generations ahead of Intel in terms of lithography. Samsung is expected to reveal its roadmap for 8- and 7-nanometer chips later today.

Source: Samsung

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After six years in space, China’s first orbital station, the Tiangong-1 (aka the "Heavenly Palace") has finally outlived its operational limits and begun its descent back to Earth. It’s expected to re-enter the atmosphere in a few months, whereupon a majority of the 9.3-ton station should burn up before reaching the surface. This is how defunct satellites are supposed to be disposed of. Unfortunately, until very recently, that hasn’t often been the case.

For the past 50 years, we’ve been filling Low Earth Orbit with defunct satellites, launch vehicle upper stages, and various bits of broken spacecraft (including frozen water, coolant and paint flecks). Most of this comes from failed launches or spent experiments. In 1963, for example, the US military unloaded 480 million needle-sized antennas into orbit to see if they’d act as a crude radio reflector array. The idea was that radio signals from Earth would bounce up into the atmosphere and bounce back down off of them, enabling longer distance radio service. Though satellite communications have since made this technology obsolete, those antennas are still up there, just floating around waiting to go full-on Gravity with a passing satellite.

By the start of the 21st century, LEO had become increasingly crowded with satellites — more than 7,000 have been launched since Sputnik first circled the globe — though only 1,500 of them remain active. That number is expected to swell to more than 18,000 man-made objects in orbit in the coming decades as private industry begins sending up communications and observation satellites in addition to national governments. In fact, of the 98 launches that took place worldwide in 2016, nearly half carried private communications satellites.

Today, there are an estimated 20,000 pieces of debris bigger than a softball in Low Earth Orbit and another 50,000 the size of a marble. We’re not sure how much junk smaller than that is in orbit — it could be on the magnitude of tens of millions — because we lack the technology to track them from the ground. This trend is sure to cause havoc if we don’t start cleaning up after ourselves.

In some ways it already has. In 2007, China destroyed its Fengyun-1C weather satellite with a ballistic missile as a show of force to the international community. Doing so spread more than 3,000 pieces of debris throughout LEO. America’s response a few months later, blew a defunct spy satellite to smithereens, though a majority of that debris field reportedly re-entered the atmosphere. Two years later, in 2009, a defunct Russian satellite crashed into an American Iridium satellite, spreading another 2,000 bits of space junk.

"It’s a serious, serious challenge," Launchspace founder, Marshall Kaplan, told Space.com in 2013. "This is not a U.S. problem… it’s everybody’s problem. And most of the people that produced the debris, the serious offenders, like Russia, China, and the United States, are not going to spend that kind of money. It’s just not a good investment."

"We’ve reached the point of no return," he continued. "The debris will continue to get worse in terms of collision threats… even if not another satellite were launched, the problem will continue to get worse."

This cascade of collisions is known as the Kessler Syndrome, named for former head of NASA’s space debris program, Donald Kessler. He mathematically proved in the 1970s that there is a saturation point of how much stuff we can place into LEO. Once we reach that critical mass, the items in that orbit are sure to set off a massive collision cascade, even if we don’t place any additional objects in that orbit. "If we’re not at the critical mass, we’re pretty close to it," Kessler told The Atlantic in 1998.

But it’s not just our satellite communications that are in danger of being destroyed, all that space trash poses serious threats to manned missions as well. In 1983, a fleck of paint travelling at around 17,000 MPH, struck the windshield of the Challenger space shuttle and left a pea-sized pit. This happened with such startling regularity (read: literally during every mission) that NASA took to orbiting the shuttle upsidedown and backwards (relative to its direction of travel) so that the rockets would take the brunt of the impacts rather than the crew cabin.

The ISS isn’t much better off. That 2009 collision between the Russian and American satellites forced the ISS crew to scramble for safety aboard the Soyuz spacecraft should a piece of debris blast through the station’s hull.

Despite the dangers, there’s plenty we can do to mitigate the damage that this debris does. The first step is to know what, and how much of it, we’re dealing with. The Department of Defense has established the Space Surveillance Network to do just that. The SSN is able to track objects as small as 2 inches across at LEO and as small as 3 feet in geosynchronous orbit — around 21,000 of them in total.

The system doesn’t track each item continuously but rather uses a predictive method that calculates their orbital momentum so ground-based observers can "check in" with individual objects by pointing their telescopes to where and when the item should be overhead. All together, the DoD’s array of sensors and telescopes, which are spread from Hawaii to Greenland to the Indian Ocean, observe around 80,000 satellites (and pieces thereof) every day.

Of course, simply knowing where these debris fields are doesn’t alleviate the threat that they pose. We’ve got to come up with a means of inciting that space junk to fall back to the surface. And while nobody has managed to successfully deploy an orbital debris reclamation system yet, a number of space agencies are working on everything from magnetized wire lanyards and gigantic nets to "space brooms" and kamikaze robo-grapplers.

In 2012, NASA granted North Carolina-based Star Technology and Research $1.9 million to develop the ElectroDynamic Debris Eliminator (EDDE). This device, upon reaching orbit, would unfurl a 6-mile long tether which generates an attractive field as it moves through the Earth’s magnetic field. When the EDDE encounters a piece of space junk it captures it in a large net and drops the ensnared garbage into a lower orbit where the thicker atmosphere pulls it out of orbit. This is essentially the same process that JAXA’s Kounotori 6 spacecraft was attempting when a technical glitch caused that mission to fail earlier this year.

The European Space Agency has floated a similar idea except that in addition to, or even perhaps instead of, their orbital garbage truck would hunt its quarry using a tethered harpoon. It’s part of the ESA’s e.Deorbit mission which is scheduled to launch in 2021. The harpoon, which is being developed by Airbus Defense and Space, is just one of the proposed capture methods that will be tried during that mission.

Accurately piercing the hull of a defunct satellite using a space harpoon in microgravity is as technically challenging as it sounds. So rather than try to spear and reel in derelict objects, the startup Swiss Space Systems (S3), has devised a robotic grappler that clamps onto debris and drags it into the atmosphere. Dubbed the Clean Space One project, this 66-pound janitor satellite would be about the size of a breadbox. After being launched from the European Suborbital Reusable Shuttle in 2018, the CSO is tasked with tracking and capturing a non-operational Swisscube satellite, then dragging it back to Earth. The mission is expected to cost around $16 million.

One problem persistent debris capturing satellites like the ESA’s e.Deorbit face is maintaining a steady supply of propellent. You don’t want your janitor satellite to become another piece of debris simply because it ran out of power. Texas A&M University is working on a clever solution to that issue with the Space Sweeper with Sling-Sat (4S). This satellite would first capture a piece of debris then whip around, slinging the trash into the atmosphere while pushing itself into the path of its next target. By repeating this process, the 4S should be able to hop from one bit of trash to the next without having to expend an expensive and limited supply of fuel.

But what if we didn’t need to send new robots into orbit to capture the olds ones? In 2011, Raytheon BBN Technologies and the University of Michigan teamed up to devise the Space Debris Elimination (SPaDE) system. Rather than rely on satellites, SPaDE would puff concentrated bursts of atmospheric gas into the paths of LEO debris. The added friction from these gasses should be sufficient to slow the debris down enough that it falls back to Earth. Unfortunately, the SPaDE project never got beyond the drawing board.

Then again, why even expend the effort to drag dead satellites into the atmosphere when you can simply repurpose their functional (albeit unpowered) pieces? That’s what DARPA hopes to do with its Phoenix project. This system would rely on a new class of microsatellites, dubbed "satlets", which would seek out and affix themselves to dead satellites in geosynchronous orbit.

Each satlet would restore an essential satellite function (ie power, movement control or sensors) and share data, power and thermal management capabilities among themselves. By connecting these devices in different combinations, deactivated satellites could be resurrected and their operational lifespans drastically increased. DARPA expects to launch a demonstrator mission around 2020 and commercialize the technology shortly thereafter.

This mission could prove valuable for both the military and the commercial space industry, DARPA program Manager Gordon Roesler told Via Satellite in 2015, wherein a civilian firm would own and operate the satellites themselves and the military "could just pay a commercial operator for the service."

Despite the myriad capture options that these various systems offer, they all share one aspect in common: not one of them is ready to be put into service. It’s not economically viable at this point to send up robots like the d.Deorbit to dispose of a single piece of space junk and likely won’t be for years to come. What’s more, the government may soon face a legal minefield in its cleanup efforts as more and more privately-owned satellites come to occupy and operate in LEO.

"Removal from orbit, collision avoidance, satellite servicing and repair, satellite recycling in orbit, debris storage locations, change to using a ‘stable plane’ at higher altitudes especially in Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO)… are all possibilities," Donald Kessler told Space.com in 2013. "Some are mutually exclusive and may not be appropriate at all altitudes, while others could combine to be more effective."

"I believe it is time that the international community takes a serious look at the future of space operations," he concluded. "There’s need to begin a process to answer these questions and determine which path will most effectively provide a sustainable environment for spacecraft in Earth orbit."

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Pricking your fingers may someday be a thing of the past for diabetics as new technologies aim to make blood sugar regulation more convenient.

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Pricking your fingers may someday be a thing of the past for diabetics as new technologies aim to make blood sugar regulation more convenient.

Alden Chadwick/Getty Images

For people with diabetes, keeping blood sugar levels in a normal range – not too high or too low – is a lifelong challenge. New technologies to ease the burden are emerging rapidly, but insurance reimbursement challenges, supply shortages, and shifting competition make it tough for patients to access them quickly.

One new product is a fast-acting insulin from Novo Nordisk. It is designed to help to minimize the high blood sugar spikes that often occur when people with diabetes eat a meal containing carbohydrates.

This new formulation, branded “Fiasp,” adds niacinamide (vitamin B3), which roughly doubles the speed of initial insulin absorption compared to current fast-acting insulins taken at mealtime. This new insulin hits the bloodstream in under three minutes.

Another advance is Abbott’s new monitoring device called the FreeStyle Libre Flash. It’s new in the U.S. but has been available in Europe since 2014. It’s a round patch with a catheter that is inserted on the arm for up to 10 days and a durable scanning device that the user waves over the patch to read their blood sugar level.

The FreeStyle Libre Flash lets users monitor blood glucose levels without having to frequently prick their fingers for blood testing.

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Abbott

The Libre works a bit differently than the two currently available continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) made by Dexcom and Medtronic. The Libre doesn’t require users to prick their fingers for blood tests to calibrate it, whereas users of the other monitors must perform twice-daily fingerstick calibrations.

Also, the Libre is approved for longer wear – 10 days (14 in Europe) versus seven days for the two current CGMs. And, it is likely to be considerably less expensive, although Abbott isn’t providing cost information for the U.S. just yet. In Europe, the Libre system costs about four Euros a day (about $4.70).

But, unlike the current devices, the Libre doesn’t issue alarms to users when their blood glucose levels get too high or too low. And the U.S. version also doesn’t allow for the “share” capability, by which loved ones can follow Dexcom glucose monitor users’ blood sugar levels remotely via a smartphone app.

The Libre has been extremely popular in Europe among people with type 1 diabetes. There, fewer people use traditional CGMs compared to the U.S., in large part because they are not frequently covered by European insurance.

Type 1 diabetes requires regular insulin doses to allow cells to use glucose, because the pancreas does not make any of its own. With type 2 diabetes, the insulin being made doesn’t adequately meet the body’s needs.

About a quarter of people with type 2 diabetes take insulin, and of those, a smaller number take fast-acting insulin before meals. Those doses can lead to low or high blood glucose levels if not matched perfectly by timing and amount to the meal’s carbohydrates. There’s lots of room for user error.

University of California, Los Angeles endocrinologist Dr. David T. Ahn, who specializes in diabetes technology, believes that in the U.S., the Libre will be more useful for people with type 2 diabetes. Most people with type 2 do not use CGMs and may also not perform frequent fingerstick checks.

“I think it’s something that really empowers people, and that’s what’s really exciting, Ahn says. “[Y]ou literally see firsthand what exercise, diet, rest, and stress do to your blood sugars.”

Of course, he adds, “There’s benefit really for everybody, but the most important question is where is the cost justified. I would say that at least right now, it probably is only worth the cost for someone on insulin, especially on fast-acting insulin.”

Jared Watkin president of Abbott Diabetes Care Division, tells Shots that the Libre was designed for people with either type of diabetes who require frequent glucose testing, and the lack of alarms was intentional. Research shows “alarm fatigue” is one of two main reasons many patients mention for not wanting to use CGM systems, he says. The other reason is cost.

He points out that research on the Libre has also shown that people using the device achieve better glucose control and experience fewer low blood sugar episodes overnight compared to fingersticks alone even without the alarms, presumably because they’re making more insulin dose adjustments.

Aaron Kowalski is the chief mission officer for JDRF, formerly the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, which funds much of the research into diabetes technologies. He says it will be interesting to see how U.S. patients with type 1 diabetes who haven’t adopted CGM take to the Libre. “If you’re coming at it from fingersticking, it makes massive sense … For some people with type 1, I think it will be a really good option.”

Closing the Loop: Progress And Pitfalls

Both continuous glucose sensing and fast-acting insulin are critical components to the development of so-called “closed-loop” or artificial pancreas systems, which aim to automate insulin delivery to the point that patients themselves don’t need to make complicated and error-prone calculations about how many carbs are in their meals or how much to cut back their insulin doses for exercise.

In September 2016, The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Medtronic’s 670G, the first device that partially accomplishes the closed-loop goal via an algorithm that allows the system’s CGM to instruct its insulin pump to cut off delivery if the user’s blood sugar drops, or increase it if the levels go too high.

Several other companies are working on similar technology. One of those, a start-up called Bigfoot Biomedical is working with Abbott to use a next-generation version of the Libre’s sensor. Except for Medtronic, the other major closed-loop competitors – Insulet, Tandem, and Beta-Bionics – are all collaborating with Dexcom.

At the same time, a group of do-it-yourself hackers has figured out how to create their own closed-loop systems using older equipment and instructions that are freely available. Since that endeavor isn’t regulated by the FDA, people who have done it – believed to number in the thousands at this point – proceed at their own risk. No major problems have been reported.

Bumps in the Road, But Optimism Overall

As might be expected, not everything in this field has gone smoothly. Due to both high demand and the fact that one of Medtronic’s manufacturing plants located in Puerto Rico was damaged by Hurricane Maria, it has been unable to ship part of the 670G to new users, and may not be able to meet demand until 2018.

In addition, the insurance company Anthem has said it won’t cover the 670G because it has concluded “there is not yet enough data on the longer-term safety and efficacy” for the system.

Meanwhile, although Medicare agreed in January 2017 to cover the Dexcom continuous glucose monitor for beneficiaries who use insulin, the agency recently determined that the device would not be covered if beneficiaries use the accompanying smartphone app that reads the glucose levels via bluetooth, because it doesn’t meet the definition for “durable medical equipment.”

The decision means that seniors have to carry around a separate receiver device, and don’t have access to the share function. Dexcom is negotiating with federal regulators to work out a solution. In a recent blog post, Ahn wrote “While CGM approval by Dexcom is a huge win overall (it really is), restricting smartphone integration is absolutely ridiculous.”

In another blow to the diabetes technology world, major pump manufacturer Animus recently announced that it was pulling out of the market and is shifting its approximately 90,000 current customers to Medtronic. Not surprisingly, some of Medtronic’s competitors are offering deals to lure them to their own products.

Despite the roadblocks, Kowalski says, “I have tremendous optimism about the future for people with type 1 diabetes. These tools are really starting to … improving blood sugar and making life easier. And that’s a great thing. The more options the better.”

Miriam E. Tucker is a freelance journalist specializing in medicine and health. You can follow her on Twitter: @MiriamETucker

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Electronics design is often limited by the shape of the battery – a critical, but frequently uncompromising product component. A new kind of battery conforms to meet the specific shape of a given device.

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In a screen-focused world, board games can seem antiquated to some, particularly kids. But in our family, we have found that putting down the tablets and phones for some throwback fun with board games (and a big bowl of popcorn) makes for a successful family night. With children ranging from two to 11, our games vary in complexity. Tip: Have the big kids team up with the little kids!      

Here are some of my family’s favorite games, including both classics and newer ones, categorized by age group.

Preschoolers

Candy Land

Because no reading is required, Candy Land is a perfect game for the preschool set. All that is necessary is an ability to follow directions as well as some basic counting skills. The goal is to find King Kandy, the lost king of Candy Land, and each player takes a turn drawing a card that advances them to the next space of whatever color is specified on the card. Candy-themed locations and characters appear throughout the board game, and my kids think Gramma Nutt is ridiculous because who would want to live in a house made of peanut brittle? They enjoy playing this one over and over.

Perfection

The ticking of the timer on this game makes everyone nervously excited to play. Perfection is a matching game, where players have 60 seconds to put all twenty-five pieces in their matching-shaped spaces and push down. If you get all the pieces in place, you can turn off the timer, but if you are still working when the timer runs out, the pieces you have places will pop out of place and go everywhere. No matter how many times we play this game, the pieces scattering when the timer runs out never stops startling my kids, and they love it.

Sequence for Kids

Unlike Candy Land, which focuses on simply following directions and moving forward, Sequence for Kids encourages kids to anticipate what the other players might do with their turn. Each player is given three cards and a pile of game chips to start. When it is your turn, you put one of your colored chips on the space that matches your card anywhere on the board: a small image of an animal. For each card you use, you discard and take a new one. In order to win, you must get four spaces in a row. The strategy comes when you use your chips to block your opponent’s attempts to get four in a row. Older siblings can help younger ones with these more complex skills.

Early Elementary

Monopoly Junior

Games of regular Monopoly can last for a long time, losing the attention of young players quickly, so we like the smaller board of Monopoly Junior. Instead of just street locations like Monopoly proper, the Junior edition has properties such as Skate Park and Toy Store, making it more relatable. Money amounts are much lower for the Junior version, making the math easier for young players. Properties can still be bought and sold, and for the game to end, only one player must go bankrupt as opposed to all remaining players. The winner is the player who has the most money when the first bankruptcy occurs. Monopoly Junior is a great way for kids to practice budgeting skills, but don’t tell the kids that’s why I like it.

Hedbanz

This game can get loud, so it’s not recommended for a time when you’ve put the baby down for a nap, but it is good fun. Each player has a plastic headband, and is issued a card, face down, which they then put in the headband so that everyone else can see the image on the card. After setting a timer, the player tries to ask each of the other players a question that will lead them to guess what the image on the card is. The only banned question is, “What am I?” Cooperation and communication are musts for Hedbanz success. Most of the fun can be found in the wrong assumptions of the players, and even mom and dad manage to make some ridiculous guesses.

Sorry!

While some updates have been made to this game, our family still plays the classic version of Sorry! This is a great game for kids as they become more comfortable with not always winning or even being knocked out of place. Each player has four pawns to start, and in order to get out of start, must draw a one or two card. After that, players move their pawns up the board. If another player lands on the same spot, however, they bump your pawn back to the start. There are also slides on the board which can force your pawn back several spaces. Overall, this game can get heated, but it’s a good way to practice good sportsmanship as well as gracious losing.

Late Elementary to Middle School

Rummikub

My kids love this game. The younger ones start out learning on teams with their older siblings, and the older ones have been playing since they were on teams with the adults as young children. Each player picks fourteen tiles randomly from the pile and lines them up on their board. In order to “come out,” players must have a value total of 30. From that point on, players must have either a run of consecutive numbers of the same color, or sets or the same number in different colors. After the first turn, you can add a tile or two to another players run or set in order to keep playing. The game ends when the first player runs out of tiles and the players with remaining tiles have to deduct points for all the tiles they have left.

Pyramix

This is a relatively new addition to our board game collection, but so far we are loving it. The board starts out with the pieces stacked in a pyramid shape, and each player takes a turn removing a cube. Each cube color has a point value, and you can remove it so long as it isn’t touching a cobra cube and two or three of the faces of the cube can be seen. When you take out cubes, other cubes get closer to the base, until there is only a single layer remaining, which is when the game ends. Each player then adds up their colors, and if you have the highest number of that color, you get to collect the same colors left at the bottom for your personal stash. Add up your scores to find the winner!

Clue

A murder mystery game does seem a little macabre for family game night, but the silly names and even weapons manage to make light of a serious subject. The goal of Clue is to figure out who the murderer is and what weapon was used. Each player takes a turn on the board and ends up in one of the nine rooms of the Tudor mansion represented. Notetaking is an essential part of succeeding at Clue, and my kids get better at deductive reasoning by playing, even if they mostly just notice the silliness of names such as Professor Plum and Colonel Mustard.

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