Google to Leave Russia

In July, the Russian parliament passed a bill decreeing that as of September 2016, foreign Internet companies can only store Russian users' data within the country's borders. As a result of a recent change, bumping the date up to this coming January 1, Google will close down its engineering office, following other tech companies such as Adobe, which left the country in September.

Russia says the new law is in the best interest of its citizens, protecting them from foreign spies, though critics believe it's a power move designed to restrict information, given the impossibility of spontaneously constructing a data storage facility. "We are deeply committed to our Russian users and customers, and we have a dedicated team in Russia working to support them," Google said in a statement, adding that its other operations would remain in Russia.

This is the third issue Google has had in Europe lately in as many weeks. The European parliament moved to have Google broken up into separate companies, combating its dominance, and earlier this week, the search juggernaut announced its dissociation with Spain.

A January copyright law will require every Spanish publication to charge outside services, such as Google News, a fee for showing any content from their publications, including headlines.

David Castellon, managing partner at Spanish agency UNO Digital, doesn't think this should be mandatory. While he sees the interest in protecting the asset that is content, he believes his government is going about doing so in the wrong way.

"According to this law, Google would be a content provider that leverages the work of others. From our point of view, Google News, or any other aggregator, is a traffic-distribution mechanism that adds value to the user legitimately," Castellon says, adding that the law "ends in a loss of value on both sides of the table." 

Germany attempted to block Google in a similar manner last month, though only briefly, as a result of the plunge in traffic on the top German news publisher's websites.

Google announced in a blog post that the service will be disabled and Spanish publishers will be removed from Google News on Tuesday.

http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/news/2386710/google-to-leave-russia

Atmospheric Water-Generation Units

Water. A vital nutrient, yet one that is inaccessible to many worldwide.

The World Health Organization reports that 780 million people don’t have access to clean water, and 3.4 million die each year due to water-borne diseases. But an Israeli company thinks it can play a part in alleviating the crisis by producing drinking water from thin air.

Water-Gen has developed an Atmospheric Water-Generation Units using its “GENius” heat exchanger to chill air and condense water vapor.

“The clean air enters our GENius heat exchanger system where it is dehumidified, the water is removed from the air and collected in a collection tank inside the unit,” says co-CEO Arye Kohavi.

“From there the water is passed through an extensive water filtration system which cleans it from possible chemical and microbiological contaminations,” he explains. “The clean purified water is stored in an internal water tank which is kept continuously preserved to keep it at high quality over time.”

Energy efficient

Capturing atmospheric humidity isn’t a ground-breaking invention in itself — other companies already sell atmospheric water generators for commercial and domestic use — but Water-Gen says it has made its water generator more energy efficient than others by using the cooled air created by the unit to chill incoming air.

“Several companies tried to extract water from the air,” says Kohavi. “It looks simple, because air conditioning is extracting water from air. But the issue is to do it very efficiently, to produce as much water as you can per kilowatt of power consumed.”

He adds: “When you’re very, very efficient, it brings us to the point that it is a real solution. Water from air became actually a solution for drinking water.”

The system produces 250-800 liters (65-210 gallons) of potable water a day depending on temperature and humidity conditions and Kohavi says it uses two cents’ worth of electricity to produce a liter of water.

Civilian uses

Developed primarily for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Water-Gen says it has already sold units to militaries in seven countries, but Kohavi is keen to stress that the general population can also benefit from the technology.

He explains: “We believe that the products can be sold to developing countries in different civilian applications. For example in India, [drinking] water for homes is not available and will also be rare in the future. The Atmospheric Water-Generation Unit can be built as a residential unit and serve as a perfect water supply solution for homes in India.”

Kohavi says Water-Gen’s units can produce a liter of water for 1.5 Rupees, as opposed to 15 Rupees for a liter of bottled water.

“This unit gives logistic independence for the forces and make us ensure that we provide the soldiers high quality water,” she says.

Dirty water

Another product Water-Gen has developed is a portable water purification system. It’s a battery-operated water filtration unit called Spring. Spring is able to filter 180 liters (48 gallons) of water, and fits into a backpack — enabling water filtration on the go.

“You can go to any lake, any place, any river, anything in the field, usually contaminated with industrial waste, or anything like that and actually filter it into the best drinking water that exists,” says Kohavi.

Major Alisa Zevin, head of the Facilities and Specialized Equipment Section for the IDF, says the unit is revolutionary for them

In 2013, the IDF took Spring to the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan devastated the island country and left 4.2 million people affected by water scarcity. The system filtered what was undrinkable water into potable water, and that is what Water-Gen hopes to accomplish elsewhere where the technology is needed.

“It’s something as a Westerner you cannot understand because you have a perfect water in the pipe, but people are dying from lack of water,” says Kohavi.

Although Water-Gen’s developments aren’t a solution for the water crisis, Kohavi believes that the technology can do for countries that lack clean water, such as Haiti, what it has done for the Philippines. It can be the technology used to not only to filter water, but to save lives.

“They could actually bring solution, perfect solution, to the people over there,” says Kohavi. “For the kids … They can use the technology to filter water in the field. People are going days just to carry water. And all our solutions can be an alternative for that.”

http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2014/04/25/the-machine-that-makes-drinking-water-from-thin-air-israeli-made-of-course/

Scientists Discover an Ocean 400 Miles Beneath Our Feet

Scientists Discover an Ocean 400 Miles Beneath Our Feet

After decades of theorizing and searching, scientists are reporting that they’ve finally found a massive reservoir of water in the Earth’s mantle — a reservoir so vast that could fill the Earth’s oceans three times over. This discovery suggests that Earth’s surface water actually came from within, as part of a “whole-Earth water cycle,” rather than the prevailing theory of icy comets striking Earth billions of years ago.

As always, the more we understand about how the Earth formed, and how its multitude of interior layers continue to function, the more accurately we can predict the future. Weather, sea levels, climate change — these are all closely linked to the tectonic activity that endlessly churns away beneath our feet.

This new study, authored by a range of geophysicists and scientists from across the US, leverages data from the USArray — an array of hundreds of seismographs located throughout the US that are constantly listening to movements in the Earth’s mantle and core. After listening for a few years, and carrying out lots of complex calculations, the researchers believe that they’ve found a huge reserve of water that’s located in the transition zone between the upper and lower mantle — a region that occupies between 400 and 660 kilometers (250-410 miles) below our feet.

As you can imagine, things are a little complex that far down. We’re not talking about some kind of water reserve that can be reached in the same way as an oil well. The deepest a human borehole has ever gone is just 12km — about half way through the Earth’s crust — and we had to stop because geothermal energy was melting the drill bit. 660 kilometers is a long, long way down, and weird stuff happens down there.

Basically, the new theory is that the Earth’s mantle is full of a mineral called ringwoodite. We know from experiments here on the surface that, under extreme pressure, ringwoodite can trap water. Measurements made by the USArray indicate that as convection pushes ringwoodite deeper into the mantle, the increase in pressure forces the trapped water out (a process known as dehydration melting). That seems to be the extent of the study’s findings. Now they need to try and link together deep-Earth geology with what actually happens on the surface. The Earth is an immensely complex machine that generally moves at a very, very slow pace. It takes years of measurements to get anything even approaching useful data.

With all that said, there could be massive repercussions if this study’s findings are accurate. Even if the ringwoodite only contains around 2.6% water, the volume of the transition zone means this underground reservoir could contain enough water to re-fill our oceans three times over. I’m not saying that this gives us the perfect excuse to continue our abuse of Earth’s fresh water reserves, but it’s definitely something to mull over. This would also seem to discount the prevailing theory that our surface water arrived on Earth via a bunch of icy comets.
Finally, here’s a fun thought that should remind us that Earth’s perfect composition and climate is, if you look very closely, rather miraculous. One of the researchers, talking to New Scientist, said that if the water wasn’t stored underground, “it would be on the surface of the Earth, and mountaintops would be the only land poking out.” Maybe if the formation of Earth had be a little different, or if we were marginally closer to the Sun, or if a random asteroid didn’t land here billions of years ago… you probably wouldn’t be sitting here surfing the web.

Sources:
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/184564-scientists-discover-an-ocean-400-miles-beneath-our-feet-that-could-fill-our-oceans-three-times-over
http://earthweareone.com/scientists-discover-an-ocean-400-miles-beneath-our-feet/

Sukhoi TA-50 PAK-FA

Sukhoi TA-50 PAK-FA

A Sukhoi TA-50 PAK-FA flying at the MAKS 2011 air show.

Scheduled to go into production in 2016, a new Russian stealth jet fighter, the Sukhoi TA-50 PAK-FA, is already being hailed as a “super weapon” that could outclass US jet fighters, thereby making Russia supreme in the skies.

Appearing to be a direct competitor to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, the PAK-FA is optimized for air superiority, with an expected maximum speed of over Mach 2.0. At that speed, it could transfer a large amount of launch energy when firing air-to-air missiles, greatly increasing their range. The only question is whether the aircraft’s stealth coatings can hold up at that speed.

In an interview with National Interest Magazine, Lt. General Dave Deptula, former US Air Force intelligence chief, said “The analysis that I have seen… indicates a pretty sophisticated design that is at least equal to, and some have said, even superior to US fifth-generation aircraft. It certainly has greater agility with its combination of thrust vectoring, all-moving tail surfaces, an excellent aerodynamic design, than does the F-35.”

In addition to power and maneuverability, the PAK-FA shows that Russia has made enormous progress in the area of sensor capability. The plane is equipped with radar arrays which can detect stealth aircraft the size of US fighter planes. In addition, the PAK-FA can perform infrared searching and tracking.

Not all US officials are sold on the Russian plane’s supposed superiority. The PAK-FA’s Achilles’ heel may be its underdeveloped sensor and data fusion technology, which is used to process information about the fighter’s surroundings and transmit that information to the pilot for him to aid his combat decisions.

Deptula was also quoted as saying “Even more important (than aerodynamic performance) will be the ability to ubiquitously share knowledge to the point that we have a faster decision advantage than any adversary.”

In fact, when that inferior sensor-data fusion is considered in combination with the lessened stealth measures, it’s not surprising that one senior official in the US aviation industry anonymously said, “Some may claim that the PAK-FA is a 5th-generation fighter, but it’s more of a 4.5-generation fighter by US standards.”

That assessment aside, there is no denying that the 33,000 pounds of thrust power and maneuverability supplied by the Izdeliye 117 engines and the next-evolution avionics suite give the Sukhoi TA-50 PAK-FA a level of flight performance and in-the-air presence a mechanical advantage over what is currently found in the US arsenal.

Drones now come in swarms & butterflies

The future is here and this is not a butterfly on your wall, as Israeli drones are getting tiny. Their latest project – a butterfly-shaped drone weighing just 20 grams – the smallest in its range so far – can gather intelligence inside buildings.

The new miniscule surveillance device can take color pictures and is capable of a vertical take-off and hover flight, just like a helicopter, reports the daily Israel Hayom. Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) says this may come in handy in ground clashes, when a soldier would merely take it out of a pocket and send behind the enemy’s line.

The insect-drone, with its 0.15-gram camera and memory card, is managed remotely with a special helmet. Putting on the helmet, you find yourself in the “butterfly’s cockpit” and virtually see what the butterfly sees – in real time.

“The butterfly’s advantage is its ability to fly in an enclosed environment. There is no other aerial vehicle that can do that today,” Dubi Binyamini, head of IAI’s mini-robotics department, told Israel Hayom.

Structures under observation can be anything from train stations or airport terminals – or office buildings – to battlefields and even forests in, say, southern Lebanon, where Israel believes Hezbollah hides its ambush squads.

The virtually noiseless “butterfly” flaps its four wings 14 times per second. Almost translucent, it looks like an overgrown moth, but is still smaller than some natural butterflies.

This is bio-mimicry, when technology imitates nature. And this has proved to hide a trap. When the device was tested at a height of 50-meters, birds and flies tended to fall behind the device arranging into a flock.

The IAI, Israel’s major aerospace and aviation manufacturer, needs two more years to polish their “butterfly” project. The product seems to fall into the trend of reducing drone size. Their recent models promoted for city observation and conflicts were the Ghost, weighing 4 kg, and Mosquito, which weighs only 500 grams.

While the “butterfly” may bring “a real technological revolution,” as the developer predicts, to the military field, questions remain how it will change the civil life. The drone is also propped up for police use and there is little doubt that secret services will be only too happy to grab such an intricate weapon.

A small insect or a mosquito over your ear may now be much more than simply annoying. Those could easily be micro drones which now come in a swarm of bug-sized flying spies.
In an effort to create a hard-to-detect surveillance drone that will operate with little or no direct human supervision in out of the way and adverse environments, researchers are mimicking nature.

The University of Pennsylvania GRASP Lab showed off a network of 20 nano-quad rotors capable of agile flight, which could swarm and navigate in an environment with obstacles.

This is another step away from bulky heavily armed aerial vehicles or humanoid robots to a much smaller level of tiny remote-control devices. While current drones lack manoeuvrability, can’t hover and move fast enough, these new devices will be able to land precisely and fly off again at speed. One day the military hope they may prove a crucial tactical advantage in wars and could even save lives in disasters. They can also be helpful inside caves and barricaded rooms to send back real-time intelligence about the people and weapons inside.

A report in NetworkWorld online news suggests the research is based on the mechanics of insects, which potentially can be reverse-engineered to design midget machines to scout battlefields and search for victims trapped in rubble.

In an attempt to create such a device, scientists have turned to flying creatures long ago, examining their perfect conditions for flight, which have evolved over millions of years.

Zoologist Richard Bomphrey has told the British Daily Mail newspaper he has conducted research to generate new insight into how insect wings have evolved over the last 350 million years.

“By learning those lessons, our findings will make it possible to aerodynamically engineer a new breed of surveillance vehicles that, because they are as small as insects and also fly like them, completely blend into their surroundings,” the newspaper quotes him as saying.

The US Department of Defense has turned its attention to miniature drones, or micro air vehicles long ago.
As early as in 2007 the US government was accused of secretly developing robotic insect spies when anti-war protesters in the US saw some flying objects similar to dragonflies or little helicopters hovering above them.  No government agency has admitted to developing insect-size spy drones though some official and private organizations have admitted that they were trying.

In 2008, the US Air Force showed off bug-sized spies as “tiny as bumblebees” that would not be detected when flying into buildings to “photograph, record, and even attack insurgents and terrorists.”

The same year US government’s military research agency (DARPA) conducted a symposium discussing ‘bugs, bots, borgs and bio-weapons.’