New Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ brings new features to the tiny computer
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We’ve covered every Raspberry Pi release here at TreeHugger and for good reason. For six years now, the little microcomputer has been the perfect gateway to DIY gadgetry, experimentation and education. People have made amazing projects with the devices at home and millions have been distributed to schools.
Since the first model’s launch, 19 million of these devices have been sold and 9 million of those were of the last model, the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, which was the first 64-bit version and finally included wireless connectivity — a feature that fans had been waiting for since its inception. It’s a remarkable journey for a tiny computer that was only ever meant to be an educational tool and had founders that believed they’d only sell a few thousand units.
Now, two years after the release of the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, the folks at the Raspberry Pi Foundation have released the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+. The 3B+ isn’t as huge of an upgrade as the Pi 3B was, but it does offer a faster processor and better thermal management. There’s a 200MHz increase in CPU clock frequency and three times the wired and wireless network throughput. According to the foundation, the improvements allow the computer to sustain higher performance for longer periods of time.
The 3B+ also comes with two additional USB ports and a new wireless combo chip that provides dual-band wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.2. The 3B+ also now supports Gigabit Ethernet and Power-over-Ethernet.
The B+ uses a little more power than the Pi 3B, so the makers encourage consumers to use a 2.5A power supply. As usual, this latest iteration of the Raspberry Pi is being sold for $35, the same as its predecessor and previous models are still for sale as well.
You can watch a video introduction to the latest Raspberry Pi below.
New Sanctions Against Russia Finally Take the Country’s Online Chaos Seriously
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In its first 14 months, the Trump administration has earned a reputation for being soft on the Kremlin, even as the extent of the chaos Russia’s hackers and trolls have inflicted online becomes increasingly clear. But more recently, the White House’s rhetoric towards Russia has begun to shift. And now the executive branch has not only called out the Kremlin for a broad collection of rogue actions online, but finally meted out a concrete financial punishment.
On Thursday, the US Treasury announced new sanctions against a list of Russian citizens, officials and entire agencies, including 19 individuals and five organizations. The list comprises more than a dozen members of the so-called Internet Research Agency, whose broad social-media trolling campaign to influence the 2016 election was outlined in an indictment from special counsel Robert Mueller weeks ago. It also includes several agents of the GRU, the Russian military intelligence agency believed to be responsible for both the hacking of the election-related targets like the Democratic National Committee and the creation of the malware known as NotPetya, whose outbreak last summer the White House has called the most cost cyberattack in history. And if that weren’t enough, the White House also threw in a warning about ongoing Russian probes of the US power grid and other industrial control systems, which the cybersecurity industry has warned about since late summer of last year.
“Hard as it may be to believe, it looks like the White House attitude towards Russia is hardening,” says James Lewis, the director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Technology and Public Policy Program. “The Russians have really gone overboard in doing bad things, and there’s a general consensus now in the US intelligence and military that we need to push back. Sanctions are a preferred method because it’s not a use of force, but the Russians hate them.”
‘Sanctions are a preferred method because it’s not a use of force, but the Russians hate them.’
James Lewis, Center for Strategic and International Studies
The GRU officials and the IRA-connected individuals will be banned from doing business with any US companies or traveling to the US. The sanctions also hit the IRA itself and two linked companies, Concord Management and Consulting and Concord Catering. The earlier indictment of IRA staff had included allegations two Russians travelled to the US as part of their disinformation campaign and paid for politically focused ads on Facebook—two elements of the group’s work that will be significantly harder to achieve with the new sanctions in place. “These targeted sanctions are a part of a broader effort to address the ongoing nefarious attacks emanating from Russia,” Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin wrote in a statement to reporters, promising more to come. “Treasury intends to impose additional…sanctions, informed by our intelligence community, to hold Russian government officials and oligarchs accountable for their destabilizing activities by severing their access to the US financial system.”
The financial ban, according to CSIS’s Lewis, represents more than a slap on the wrist. “It makes you sort of an outcast on Wall Street,” Lewis says. “You’re going to take a vacation to Hungary and present them with a Russian credit card? What’s a Russian credit card? You’re cutting these people off from the American economy, and that has a global effect.”
The sanctions notably address not just election meddling, but Russia’s broader destabilizing cyberattacks. In a press call with reporters, one senior official emphasized that the GRU sanctions came in response to the NotPetya malware attack, a data-destroying worm that rippled out from targets in Ukraine to cripple companies and organizations around the world last summer, including business giants like Merck, Maersk, and FedEx. “We have an additional expectation that tools like NotPetya not be used in a reckless fashion, causing $10 billion in damage or more across the globe,” said one senior intelligence official, naming a new estimate yet of NotPetya’s damage, the highest number yet that officials have named. “We’ve made clear the rule, we’ve started to make clear the penalty associated with that rule.”
Piled on top of the sanctions announcement was a distinct, disturbing warning from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, providing the first public statement yet tying Russia to a series of attacks on US infrastructure targets that first came to light last summer. Those attacks, which the industry has pinned on a hacker group known as Dragonfly 2.0 or Palmetto Fusion, gained direct access to the industrial control system interfaces of US power grid targets, including nuclear facilities, potentially giving hackers the opportunity to start flipping switches at will.
The new alert from the FBI and DHS confirms that deep intrusion, even including a screenshot of a control panel the hackers accessed, as well as pointing the finger at the Russian government for the first time as the source of the attacks. In their report, the two agencies describe the attacks as a “multi-stage intrusion campaign by Russian government cyber actors who targeted small commercial facilities’ networks where they staged malware, conducted spear phishing, and gained remote access into energy sector networks. After obtaining access, the Russian government cyber actors conducted network reconnaissance, moved laterally, and collected information pertaining to Industrial Control Systems (ICS).”
Taken with the sanctions, the grid-hacking warning represents a serious message from the Trump administration to Russia that its multifaceted internet mischief will no longer be ignored, says John Hultquist, a director of research at the security intelligence firm FireEye who has closely followed Russia’s state-sponsored hacking campaigns. “This seems like a coordinated action between multiple departments to expose multiple Russian activities,” Hultquist says. “They’ve created some repercussions for those actions. It’s a pretty strong statement.”
The sanctions add to a mounting backlash against Russia’s provocations, both digital and physical. They follow an indictment last month from the special counsel Robert Mueller that described Russia’s online trolling and disinformation in new detail, with charges against 13 individuals involved. They also follow new sanctions from the UK against the Kremlin for its use of a nerve agent to attack a former Russian military intelligence officer and his daughter in the city of Salisbury last week.
“This is a bad day for the Russians. They’ve been smacked by the UK and now by the US,” CSIS’s Lewis said. “I can’t think of a better candidate for being smacked.”
AI can make your smartphone notifications less annoying
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AI can make your smartphone notifications less annoying
Apps could show you fewer, better alerts by using a new deep-learning trick.
The problem: If an app sends too many push notifications, users may well delete it. Send too few, and they might not use it. But deep learning could help find the Goldilocks amount of notifications—where they’re not annoying, but help boost use of the app.
A solution: A paper published on the arXiv describes how researchers trained an AI on data like browsing history, shopping history, and financial details to build a recommendation engine for when and what to show in notifications. Using it, they were able to accurately forecast a user’s preferences for frequency and content.
More for less: When the AI was tested out on a number of Taiwanese apps, it reduced the number of notifications while increasing the click-through rate.
Tech
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A Chinese shipbuilder accidentally revealed its major navy plans
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For a brief moment, the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (CSIC), put online China’s next big naval projects (but quickly pulled them down). The revelation, of which screenshots were taken before censors intervened, provided a picture of China’s ambitions for a world class navy.
CSIC is a major shipbuilder for the People’s Liberation Army Navy, responsible for high ticket items like aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. The biggest item in CSIC’s not-so-secret portfolio is China’s first nuclear-powered carrier. Popularly identified as the Type 003, it will be the largest non-American warship in the world when its launched in the late 2020s. CSIC’s Dalian Shipyard, which refurbished the aircraft carrier Liaoning, and launched China’s first domestically built carrier, CV-17, in 2017, will presumably build China’s first “Type 003” CVN.
The Type 003 will displace between 90,000-100,000 tons and have electromagnetically assisted launch system (EMALS) catapults for getting aircrafts off the deck. It’ll likely carry a large air wing of J-15 fighters, J-31 stealth fighters, KJ-600 airborne early warning and control aircraft, anti-submarine warfare helicopters, and stealth attack drones. When joined with Type 055 destroyers and next-generation attack submarines, it would provide the PLAN a highly capable task force for representing China on global missions.
CSIC’s website also boasted that it would build a new nuclear-powered submarine, likely the Type 095 nuclear attack submarine (SSN). The Type 095 SSN would be built at CSIC’s Bohai Shipyard, which is China’s sole nuclear submarine shipyard. Compared to the Type 093 SSN, the Type 095 SSN will include new noise reduction measures, like an integrated electric propulsion system and possibly a shaftless rim drive, single hull, and electronic noise cancellation. CSIC is also working on a separate ‘quiet’ submarine project, presumably to be built at its Wuhan conventional submarine shipyard. This submarine is presumably quieter than the air-independent propulsion (AIP) Type 039B Yuan submarine; it’ll likely have quieting measures like a single hull, a new AIP system, and lithium-ion batteries. A new generation of Chinese submarines could help the PLAN remedy its historic technologic disadvantage against the submarines forces of the American and Japanese navies.
The big CSIC announcement also covers 21st century naval wish lists, like autonomous robot submarines. This is the first official confirmation of China pursuing armed unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), in addition to unmanned surface vehicles already offered for exports. Autonomous UUVs, armed with torpedoes and missiles, could act as expendable scouts or wingmen for manned Chinese submarines and surface warships, such as undertaking dangerous missions like probing enemy minefields, launching sneak attacks, and drawing away enemy forces.
To defend Chinese home waters and expand the anti-access/area denial umbrella underwater, CSIC is designing an underwater attack and defense system. It could likely be an armed variant of the “Underwater Great Wall” of UUVs, other maritime robots and seafloor sensors. With built in modularity, it could be tailored to defend naval bases with surveillance UUVs and counter torpedo defenses on one end, and at the other end of the spectrum; a networked minefield of armed and smart UUVs supported by automated underwater listening posts. These capabilities would require not just the platforms, though; CSIC would need to master emerging technologies like underwater high capacity datalinks, combat AI, and multi-spectrum sensors.
, there’s no better time to become reacquainted with the quirky internal-combustion engine. And there’s hardly a better way to become reacquainted than by peering into a running rotary engine, which you can do with the video above.
by putting a clear cylinder head on top of a flathead engine. This new video shows off the rotary engine by adding a clear side to a tiny model-airplane engine, something that we weren’t aware existed and are glad to know about now. Despite the tiny size, the engine is functionally almost exactly like the bigger versions you’ll find
. It has intake and exhaust ports on the edges of the rotor housing, and the triangular rotor swings about in a peanut-shaped housing.
For maximum effect, jump to right around the 7:40 timestamp. This is the point at which a bit of acetylene is added to the air-fuel mix for a brighter flame. It’s at this point that you can really see when the mixture combusts and how the pressure of the flame pushes the rotor to produce rotational motion. Each stage of the video does slow things down to make everything as clear as possible. Even if you already knew how rotary engines worked, it’s still fascinating to watch, first because it’s something you don’t get to see usually, and also because of the engine’s elegant simplicity.
How restaurants can make dining out seamless for blind people
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I’m told I have a unique perspective on the restaurant world. I’m an entrepreneur with a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of California, Davis, and I co-founded a sensory-design company called Senspoint that helps companies enhance the design of products and experiences from the perspective of all five senses.
When we hear the word “sensory” in the context of food and drink, our mind typically goes straight to the plate or the glass. While I have a well-trained palate, our company also helps clients focus on all sensory aspects of their space outside the plate or glass—from the sound of a space to smell, temperature, and touch. It’s amazing how much the subconscious, sensory elements of our surroundings play into the overall experience we have while dining. I know this because I was born blind, without any light perception (the ability to perceive the presence or absence of light).
But beyond my identity as a sensory designer or a blind person, I love experiencing food, both dining out and cooking at home. It’s a large part of what got me into sensory design. Frankly, before I started working on this piece, I didn’t think much about dining as a blind person, what works and what doesn’t. My dining experience is determined by me and the way I choose to interact with the staff. But my experience does differ depending on whether I am alone or with friends or clients—I’ll explain how a bit later.
I carry a white cane, which I’ve found can alarm people who are going to be working with you, waiting on you, etc. I’ve learned the best way to mitigate any fear they may have is to act normally and treat people with the same respect with which I would like to be treated. There are a few easy ways that staff, other diners, and I can work together to make the experience seamless.
Keep the conversation flowing. Upon entering a restaurant, I take great care to make interacting with me feel natural for the staff member guiding me. If they are already walking ahead of me, I don’t stop them to ask if I can have an arm. Rather, when they say things like, “Right this way,” or “Follow me,” I keep the conversation going so I always know where they are. It is difficult to follow behind someone if they stop making noise. I am a gregarious, chatty person anyway, which makes it easier to keep them talking.
I never say things like “You need to keep talking so I can follow you,” because people get nervous and don’t know what to say. In one instance, a host started whistling. Another sang a song out of tune. One started beeping like a large truck reversing. The beeper, singer, and whistler meant no harm and were very nice people; they just were nervous and didn’t know how to treat me. I quickly put a stop to the strange noises by making conversation.
For a blind person, getting to the restroom is not as difficult as people think. Often, staff can simply describe the route and I walk there myself. We may tap some furniture on our way, but we will find the bathroom. If the restaurant I am in is particularly noisy, I will often take someone’s arm to find the restroom. Almost always, I do not have them wait for me. I remember the general direction of the restroom and can find my way back independently.
Please don’t grab my cane. Apparently my cane can also be confusing. In a fine-dining restaurant, I had a gentlemen tow me through the dining room to my table by picking up the end of my cane. When we arrived at the table, he set the tip of my cane on the table and asked me if I needed to explore the table top. I explained to him that I typically walk with my cane on the ground so I can feel the ground. The cane isn’t a tow bar and locating a wine glass with my cane would be a challenge, to say the least.
Talk to me about the menu. Dining alone is often easier than dining with a group because the server has no choice but to interact with me. If the restaurant has a braille menu, they are usually very excited because they don’t get to hand it out very often. If a text version of the menu is online and accessible, I prefer using my phone to read the web version aloud to me. If the online menu is not available, it’s usually easiest to simply ask my server about his/her favorite items. Nine times out of ten, the wait staff is excited to tell me about their menu because they are proud of it.
No, I don’t need help cutting my food. Frustratingly, staff sometimes ask if I need help cutting my food. Since I learned how to cut my food when I was a small child, I politely decline this offer. I thank them very much for their concern and explain that I would have asked for extra assistance if I had needed it.
Really, just talk to me. When I’m dining with a group, often a server will speak at a normal volume to everyone else and then increase their volume when it’s my turn. (I’m blind, not deaf.) When this happens, I nicely explain that I can hear just fine.
The most bothersome experience is when a server asks someone else in my group what I’d like. “Does he need a fork?” or “What will he be having today?” When this happens, I quickly but politely inform him/her that I can speak. I do not need an interpreter to place my order. If I am eating pasta, do they really think I’m going to shovel it with a spoon—or worse yet, my hand? I’m never rude to the staff even when I am frustrated because rudeness accomplishes nothing. I simply explain that I can talk and use a fork.
Lastly, don’t assume I’m drunk. I was with some friends on a recent New Year’s Eve, and we stopped into a bar for a beer. On the way in, I bumped into a table with my hip. The bartender proceeded to inform me that I was cut off and was clearly a liability concern. I’m guessing he thought I was drunk. Really? I had simply missed the table with my cane. After spending 30 minutes convincing him that I was not a liability, we promptly left to find a more enjoyable spot.
Ultimately, dining out as a blind person is the same as dining out as a sighted person. I take any opportunity I can to educate people rather than ridicule them. Whether you are blind or sighted, laugh with people, and have the heart of a teacher as much as you can.
SteamVR’s auto resolution knows what your GPU can handle
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Valve updated SteamVR today with a new feature that automatically adjusts your headset’s resolution up to what your GPU can optimally render. This should function like autofocus, taking the decision-making out of the user’s hands and reassuring developers that their content is being enjoyed at the best resolution. But it could also make VR more accessible, since it also auto-selects settings on lower-performing GPUs, letting experiences run more smoothly on more affordable machines.
Whether boosting or lowering resolution, the process is simple, according to Steam’s blog post: SteamVR runtime measures your GPU’s speed and instructs applications to render at a resolution appropriate to its power. For users with graphics chips that can’t render their headset’s native resolution, SteamVR will down-res it (but not lower than the Vive or Rift’s native resolution).
It’s good to see SteamVR moving past adding digital tchotchkes to improving features, like adding support for Windows Mixed Reality headsets and a YouTube 360 video app. The new autoresolution is live in beta, so you’ll have to opt in (find SteamVR under Tools in the Steam Library and right-click to find ‘beta’ in properties).