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Pillars of the Eagle Nebula in Infrared Newborn stars are forming in the Eagle Nebula. Gravitationally contracting in pillars of dense gas and dust, the intense radiation of these newly-formed bright stars is causing surrounding material to boil away. This image , taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in near infrared light , allows the viewer to see through much of the thick dust that makes the pillars opaque in visible light. The giant structures are light years in length and dubbed informally the Pillars of Creation . Associated with the open star cluster M16 , the Eagle Nebula lies about 6,500 light years away. The Eagle Nebula is an easy target for small telescopes in a nebula-rich part of the sky toward the split constellation Serpens Cauda (the tail of the snake). June 20, 2018 via NASA https://ift.tt/2K9n4vy ...

Robotic technology has a staggering range of applications, but getting it to perform adequately can be a challenge, requiring specific programming based around the way humans communicate with language. But now, researchers from MIT have developed a way to control robots more intuitively, using hand gestures and brainwaves. The team harnessed the power of brain signals called "error-related potentials" (ErrPs), which naturally occur when people notice a mistake. The system monitors the brain activity of a person observing robotic work, and if an ErrP occurs -- because the robot has made an error -- the robot pauses its activity so the user can correct it. This happens via an interface that measures muscle activity -- the person makes hand gestures to select the correct option for the robot. In one trial, the team used "Baxter", a robot from ...

How do you make nature exciting to a generation growing up with Snapchat and Instagram? The California Academy of Sciences has an idea: bring the nature to the apps that generation is using. It just trotted out a series of augmented reality Snapchat Lenses (the first of their kind, CAS said) that show reef life in your own corner of the world. You can get up close to creatures like sea turtles, nudibranches and moray eels without having to put on some diving gear or incurring the wrath of conservationists. These are Lens Studio creations, so you only need to grab the relevant Snapcodes (at the source link) to get started. No, this won't stand in for a documentary or classroom lecture. However, that's not really the point -- this is more about fostering interest in the reefs, whether you're interested in preserving them or are just curious about what ...

Mesh WiFi routers are no longer all that special, so how do you stand out? If you're TP-Link, you roll in a smart home hub. It just introduced a Deco M9 Plus router that builds on last year's model with a hub for ZigBee- and Bluetooth-based devices like light bulbs and thermostats. If you're not fond of connecting dedicated hubs and bridges but still want good whole-home networking coverage, this might scratch your itch. TP-Link is promising compatibility with Alexa and IFTTT commands when steering your household gadgets. The Deco M9 Plus does have some upgrades to its core network, with tri-band AC2200 WiFi (albeit still at a peak 867Mbps on the 5GHz band) that can handle over 100 devices at once. You'll find two gigabit Ethernet jacks and a USB 2.0 port if you still need to attach printers and other wired devices. Be ready for a price hike, though. ...

Amazon Studios has greenlit an animated series based on the comic Invincible , which was created by artist Cory Walker and writer Robert Kirkman, who made The Walking Dead . The new show's source material tells the story of Mark Grayson, an ordinary teen whose father is the planet's Superman-like guardian. When Mark manifests powers himself, he discovers what it means to be a superhero -- with a twist that switches up the classic alien-becomes-Eart h's-protector story. The comic series, which ended with issue 144 back in February, was Kirkman's first landmark series when it launched in 2002 (a year later, he followed it up with The Walking Dead ). Film rights were sold in 2005 and a version was in the works with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg as recently as this year, but an animated series might make more sense, especially with the comic's bright,...

You may have seen drones that behave like bees , but drones the size of bees are another matter. How do you help it navigate when virtually any conventional computing power would be too heavy and power-hungry? Make it incredibly tiny, that's how. MIT scientists have developed a new navigation chip, Navion, that's small enough (about 0.03 square inches) and power efficient enough (24mW) that it can fit in a honeybee-sized drone, yet pow erful enough to process camera images at 171 frames per second. This is ultimately a second shot at the concept. Early work tweaked an existing design, but it still used a 'massive' 2W of power. MIT designed Navion from the ground up, and achieved its power savings in part by minimizing the amount of data the chip stores at any given time, maximizing its flow. It even goes to the extreme of cutting out math calcu...

Denial of service attacks are serious by themselves , but doubly so when they target vital systems... and one perpetrator is finding that out first-hand. A court has sentenced Arizona resident Randall Charles Tucker (who nicknamed himself the "Bitcoin Baron") to 20 months in prison for launching distributed denial of service attacks against city websites, including damaging attacks against Madison, Wisconsin. He not only took down the city's website, but "crippled" its emergency communication system to the point where first responders had trouble reaching the 911 center. It also 'degraded' the automatic dispatching for emergency crews. Tucker had already pleaded guilty to the charge in April 2017 after making the mistake of bragging about it on social networks. He's expected to pay just under $69,332 in restitution to his vict...

As in all children's toys, representation in American Girl's line of dolls is key: The last to be introduced was a Latin American girl destined to reach Mars. But maybe owners just want to see theirs kick back, relax, and play a few rounds of Fortnite like they do. American Girl has released a pack of 'gamer' paraphernalia including a headset, chair and an Xbox One S, finally solving the debate of where the brand falls in the system wars. For $50, you can set up your doll in a 'gamer chair,' headset, and Xbox One S with a couple faux games. The tiny console box doubles as an actual projector: Plug a Viewfinder-style disc in and it shows a handful of static 'gameplay' scenes. The included chair has built-in speakers and a 3.5mm plug, so you can use it to pump out game audio or tunes. $50 is predictably steep for the American Gir...

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has demanded that the company behind a gadget called the Autopilot Buddy stops selling the device in the US. The gizmo makes Tesla's Autopilot think a driver has their hands on the steering wheel, and stops the system from urging drivers to put them there. Autopilot only works when a driver's hands are in the correct place and apply some pressu re. The Autopilot Buddy is marketed as a "Tesla Autopilot nag reduction device." It's a $199 magnetic, plastic gadget that clasps around the wheel and makes Autopilot thinks the driver's hands are in the correct spot. However, that could embolden drivers to let Autopilot have sole control of the car, which is a major safety concern for the NHTSA. A number of Tesla crashes have occurred because their drivers were reportedly not paying atte...

GitHub and Medium have scrubbed a database of ICE employees off their platforms, soon after a New York-based artist posted the scraped LinkedIn information. Sam Lavigne, who has previously worked on projects like a white collar predictive policing program , wrote in a Medium post today that, "As ICE continues to ramp up its inhumane surveillance and detention efforts, I believe it's important to document what's happening, and by whom, in any way we can." In an attempt to do that, Lavigne wrote a program that scraped LinkedIn for profiles that listed ICE as an employer. The program returned information on nearly 1,600 people, and Lavigne posted the resulting data publicly on GitHub. The database included information like job description,... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts https://ift.tt/2JOBmSR ...