Society
London couple go to Isle of Man for UK's first civil partnership bbc
The couple, who have two children, added: "We want a less encumbered, light-touch civil union that recognises our relationship on our terms, free from the trappings and social pre-conditions of marriage, while protecting our family financially and in law.
Security
Waves of cyber attacks hit Netflix, Spotify, Twitter usatoday
At least two successive waves of online attacks blocked multiple major websites Friday, at times making it impossible for many users on the East Coast to access Twitter, Spotify, Netflix, Amazon, Tumblr and Reddit.
The first attacks appear to have begun around 7:10 am Friday, then resolved towards 9:30 am, but then a fresh wave began.
U.S. Calls Alleged Theft By NSA Contractor 'Breathtaking' In Longevity, Scale npr.org
The FBI is investigating whether Martin may have transferred six bankers boxes' worth of paper documents and 50,000 gigabytes of electronic materials to anyone else, according to documents filed Thursday. So far, investigators said they have not found any connection to a foreign power. Martin's public defenders, James Wyda and Deborah Boardman, have said that he presents no flight risk and that "there's no evidence he intended to betray his country."
Military
British warplanes set for drills in Japan, South Korea cnn
The British deployment marks the first time ever Japan's Air Self Defense Force has hosted joint exercises with aircraft from a nation other than the United States.
Philippines
Philippines’ Duterte called for a ‘separation’ from U.S. His trade minister is now backtracking. washingtonpost v
But Lopez did not attempt further interpretation of Duterte's remarks and the apparent pro-China shift in the country's global outlook. Duterte "has decided to strengthen further and rekindle the ties with China and the ASEAN region," Lopez said, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations asean.org.
Also see Philippines Backtracks on Rodrigo Duterte's 'separation' from U.S. Comments newsweek and U.S. has few good options for response to Philippines' Duterte reuters
Africa
South Africa to Withdraw From International Criminal Court nytimes
The move came three days after after Burundi’s president bbc signed a decree making his country the first to withdraw from the court, which had planned to investigate political violence that followed the president’s decision last year to pursue a third term.
“There is a real chance that there will now be large-scale African withdrawals,” said David L. Bosco, an associate professor of international studies at Indiana University who has written a book on the court. “The Burundi decision was easy to dismiss as a government seeking to avoid direct scrutiny; South Africa’s is much more significant. The African Union has been a forum for anti-I.C.C. sentiment, and countries like Kenya and Uganda may now seek to capitalize on the momentum.”
Also see Why African states have started leaving the ICC sfgate
Drugs
Colorado marijuana's potency getting 'higher' cnn v
Slatkin pulled up a recent test report showing a flower with about 32% total THC, acknowledging that it's one of the highest THC levels he had seen in tests at TEQ. CMT Laboratories, another state-licensed testing facility, reported test results with THC content as high as 28%.
Brain
$100 million project to make intelligence-boosting brain implant newscientist
The company, Kernel kernel.co, was launched earlier this year by entrepreneur Bryan Johnson. He says he has spent many years wondering how best to contribute to humanity. “I arrived at intelligence. I think it’s the most precious and powerful resource in existence,” says Johnson.
Research
How to build a nanoscale computer fieldnotes.mike-walsh
A carbon nanotube computer is a system built using carbon nanotubes rather than silicon transistors. In 2013, a team of researchers at Stanford University built the world’s first computer prototype based entirely on carbon nanotubes. They named it Cedric.
Prof. Subhasish Mitra, one of the project’s co-leaders, compared the capabilities of their carbon nanotube processor to the original Intel 4004 wikipedia.org released in 1971. Slow, with just a single bit of information, Cedric could only count to 32. But what made the project interesting was how the team overcame many of the challenges of growing carbon nanotubes straight enough to fit on a wafer.
Swarms of tiny, cute robots will one day bring you your phone, like this techcrunch
The bots, named after the individual creatures that make up colonial organisms, were presented earlier this week at the Association for Computing Machinery’s UIST conference. Their creators, a multi-university group of roboticists, propose them as the beginning of a new type of “swarm user interface.”
Also see Zooids: Building Blocks for Swarm User Interfaces v
Space
NASA’s Juno orbiter reboots itself – and misses out on a Jupiter photo op geekwire
The computer problem was the second glitch affecting the bus-sized spacecraft this month. Last week, mission managers decided to postpone a burn of the spacecraft’s main engine, due to a problem with the performance of a pair of valves that are part of its propulsion system. That burn would have reduced Juno’s orbital period from 53.4 days to 14 days.
White House makes a big bet on small satellites theverge
These tiny space probes — which weigh anywhere between a few hundred pounds to just a few ounces — can be valuable tools for planetary scientists, as well as provide internet access and monitor space traffic. That’s why the White House is looking for ways to boost smallsat production, as well as find ways these private spacecraft can benefit the government. So as part of the new initiative, NASA will be spending up to $25 million to purchase data collected by private companies’ smallsats. For now, the space agency is looking for data that can help with its study of Earth science, like detailed images of the planet’s surface. NASA will also spend an extra $5 million to make this smallsat technology even more robust.
Automation
A nuTonomy self-driving taxi was just involved in a minor accident here hardwarezone.sg
The driverless car reportedly collided “at a low speed” with a truck, which caused damage to both vehicles. Fortunately, no one was injured in the accident, and nuTonomy has since said that the car was traveling with two engineers on board but was not carrying any passengers. It added that it was working with the Singapore Traffic Police and LTA to investigate the incident, and was looking into the matter itself as well.
Jaguar Land Rover and Ford test connected cars in Britain thestar.my
Jaguar Land Rover, Ford and Tata Motors are testing connected cars which can communicate with each other using technology designed to speed up journeys and cut accidents, the first such trials in Britain.
Weed-slaying robot could save farm sector $1.3 billion a year abc.net.au
Agricultural robotics program leader Tristan Perez said the robot also had a camera array that allowed it to identify weeds in real time and decide the best way to eradicate them. "The robot uses images from a camera, and then we have artificial intelligence that we have trained using examples, and based on that it looks up particular features," Professor Perez said.
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