Philippines
Russian warships visit Philippines; admiral suggests wider exercises cnn v
There were differing reports from Russian media as to the exact nature of the visit by the Russian destroyer Admiral Tributs and the sea tanker Boris Butomato, which arrived in Manila on Tuesday.
According to a report from Russia's state-run Sputnik News, Russian Navy Rear Adm. Eduard Mikhailov said the Russian ships would be conducting joint exercises with Philippine forces to fight maritime piracy and terrorism.
A report from the Russian website RT.com however said the "Russian marines are expected to discuss and share tactics to help combat terrorism and piracy in the region" with an eye toward future joint exercises.
Also see Russian warships on five-day visit to Philippines navaltoday
Duterte recently made the admission to a local news site after claiming the Islamic State group was behind two recent bombings in the country that left scores of people dead.
Military
For The First Time Since World War II, No US Carriers Are Deployed Anywhere In The World zerohedge
Last weekend, when commenting on China's public demonstration of its one and only aircraft carrier, which China then proceeded to sail in close proximity to Taiwan to make a clear diplomatic "statement", we noted something tangentially troubling: " a quick look at the latest positioning of US aircraft carriers, amphibious ready groups, and other navies around the globe shows a gaping hole in the region of the East or South China Sea, and even in proximity to Japan, a place where the US navy traditionally has maintained at least one carrier group. In fact, according to Stratfor, the only active carrier group is USS Dwight D. Eisenhower CSG, conducting naval operations in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations in support of U.S. national security interests in Europe."
False Religion
Evangelicals should be deeply troubled by Donald Trump’s attempt to mainstream heresy washingtonpost
Inaugurations are always curious rituals of American civil religion. It would not be surprising to see a non-Christian religious leader participating. But what’s problematic for me as an evangelical is how Trump’s ceremony is helping to mainstream this heretical [Word of Faith] movement.
Televangelist White has a lot in common with Trump, besides being fans of Osteen. Both are in their third marriage and have endured decades of moral and financial scandal. According to family values spokesman James Dobson, another Trump adviser, White “personally led [Trump] to Christ.”
Archaeology
Hanukkah hikers find rare 2nd Temple-era etchings of menorah and cross timesofisrael
A group of Israel Caving Club members were exploring hidden caves in the Judean lowlands lowlands over the weekend when they discerned the limestone carvings: a three-footed menorah with seven branches similar to the one that stood in the Jerusalem temple, a cross, and a depiction of an ancient key. Other as yet unidentified carvings were also found, the IAA said.
Medical
New organ named in digestive system bbc
The mesentery, which connects the intestine to the stomach, was previously thought to be made up of lots of separate parts.
AI
A mysterious AI 'Master' is beating top players at a Chinese board game businessinsider
The AI, being referred to simply as "Master," has played more than 50 games against top Go players and won every single one of them.
There is a small chance that "Master" is a highly competent human Go player but, as one Reddit user put it: "It seems highly unlikely that any known human player could amass that record."
Privacy
Artist finds brilliant way to mess with facial recognition technology mashable
With the HyperFace project ahprojects, Adam Harvey uses thousands of "algorithm-specific optimized false faces which reduce the confidence score of your true face," as he told Mashable via e-mail.
In other words, these patterns, which can be printed on clothing or textiles, appear to have all facial features that the visual software can interpret as a face, thus overloading and over saturating the algorithm so that it can't really tell which faces are real.
Tech
World’s first solar panel road opened in France impactlab.net
The road is roughly 1 km (0.6 miles) long, with one lane covered entirely in a patchwork of small solar cells that look rather like bathroom tiles, or a very dirty version of the road in theWizard of Oz.
The panels are coated in a special silicon film that helps protect them from the weight of trucks. The road will likely see around 2,000 vehicles a day, passing through the town of roughly 3,400 residents.
France’s project was not cheap: The short stretch of roadway cost about €5 million ($5.2 million) to build. It may not prove to be the most cost-effective use of capital either. Solar panels are more efficient when they are tilted at an angle toward the Sun, rather than flat to the ground, and the road’s construction cost may well be greater than the amount of energy it can produce. “We have to look at the cost, the production [of electricity] and its lifespan,” Jean-Louis Bal, the president of the French renewable energy union SER, told the Guardian. “For now I don’t have the answers.”
Your next home security system could deploy patrol drones engadget
Alarm alarm has developed a machine learning algorithm, called the Insights Engine, that continually monitors sensors placed around your property to learn how things are normally run and to quickly identify unexpected events -- say, a break-in or a water leak -- when they occur. If the system does spot something out of the ordinary, it will deploy a swarm of autonomous UAVs built on Qualcomm's Snapdragon Flight drone platform qualcomm to investigate. These little fliers will swarm over the event site and provide live video feeds to your phone. You can also opt in to share that video data with either Alarm.com's central monitoring facility or directly with emergency responders.
You can 3D-print your own Trek-style tractor beam, really cnet
Asier Marzo, a research assistant at the University of Bristol, was part of a team that developed a tractor beam that can trap small objects in the real world. It levitates, pushes and pulls them them in mid-air using sound waves
Also see Portable Acoustic Tractor Beam: build it at your home v
Robot
Amazing robot arm is dexterous, easy to program, and surprisingly affordable digitaltrends v
“It is the robot assistant for anyone, and it can do things that no other robot is capable of,” creator Sami Haddadin told Digital Trends. “It is extremely affordable, can be used by anyone, is safe, and has unrivaled performance.”
The article forgot one point - it is sooooo slow (and makes what looks like the world's worst cup of lemonade, ever) :)
Other...
Finally, you can buy a U.S. president. Legally. washingtonpost w!
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