Newswire.ca: Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has accused four individuals in connection with the illegal export of controlled goods and technologies to China. The investigation, dubbed Project OSensor, commenced in early 2014 after the RCMP was requested to conduct a criminal investigation by Public Services and Procurement Canada – Controlled Goods Directorate and Global Affairs Canada, as a result of a written complaint having been received by them from Teledyne DALSA Inc. Waterloo. The matter involves controlled goods and technologies being shipped between Canada and China in violation of the Canadian Controlled Goods Program and related Export Laws. Police allege that the four accused involved themselves in Chinese contracts for the design and development of Controlled Goods intended for space satellite use. These contracts involved a state-owned corporation and a Chinese based company founded by two of the accused to create microelectronics destined to enhance space satellite camera technology.
Facebook is the quintessential dot-com success story:young guy invents software in his dorm room that ends up creating an entire industry and making him a storied billionaire, besides becoming a significant part of the social lives of over a billion people worldwide.Ethically speaking, on the face of it Facebook looks like a no-brainer:it's all about connecting people, right, so what can go wrong with that?Well, plenty, as shown by stories of flaming mobs and online bullying leading in some cases to suicide.But besides these more spectacular crimes and misdemeanors caused by the general cussedness of humankind, there are things that the software developers do themselves which can go awry.And here's where it gets personal—very personal.
Back in January, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg called for people to celebrate Feb. 4, the twelfth anniversary of Facebook's founding, as "Friendship Day."Now Mr. Zuckerberg is free to call for anybody to celebrate anything, and I have no problem with that.The trouble came, at least in our case, when some anonymous software engineers at Facebook had a bright idea inspired by the call and, as software engineers often do, put it into action without telling the users what they were up to in advance.
It was simply this:"Hey, why don't we take some pictures that people have posted in the last year or two and send the pictures to them along with a greeting like 'Happy Friendship Day'?What could be wrong with that?"As it turns out, plenty.
Zuckerberg himself is only 31, and it's likely that the average age of the technical staff at Facebook is somewhere around that number.If you are a well-paid employee of a giant software successful software company, death does not occupy a large part of your personal horizon.You know it's out there somewhere, and you read about it online with the other bad news, but it's not likely to have affected you personally to a great extent, except perhaps for some old relatives whose funerals you may have attended out of a sense of duty.
It turns out that in the last two years, my wife, who is 59, has lost five relatives of various degrees of closeness, ranging from a cousin she hadn't seen in years to her last remaining aunt, her sister, and her father.And in the last few years she had taken pictures of these people, and posted many of the pictures on Facebook at appropriate times.You can tell where this is going.Imagine how she felt when a couple of weeks ago, she logged on to Facebook one day and saw under the headline, "Happy Friendship Day" a photo of her father in the hospital during his final illness.He died almost exactly a year ago.
For the better part of a day, it was like walking on eggs around here.She rarely gets truly angry, but if Zuckerberg had happened to stop by our house that day, he might have come close to a personal encounter with mortality that he would never forget.
A short time later, she spent several hours systematically taking down every single photo she had ever posted on Facebook that included anyone who has since died.It was a lot of pictures, but she was determined that the machine was never going to catch her by surprise that way again.
Sometimes I amuse myself by imagining how I would explain various modern technologies to someone transported through time to the present from, say, fifty or a hundred years ago.Although Facebook shares some features in common with things that existed in 1966—photo albums, high school annuals, and the postal system, to name three—you could not express what it does simply by referring to those things.And the main feature that would be missing from that description is the way Facebook manipulates the rules, and what happens to your Facebook stuff when they play games with it like Happy Friendship Day.
Unless you happened to be living in the 1960s with a busybody aunt who lacked any sensitivity to your feelings, I can't imagine someone back then receiving a customized photo album labeled "Happy Friendship Day" that contained pictures of some of the most intimate and painful times in your entire life.But that is exactly what Facebook did to my wife.At least if a nosy aunt did such a tacky thing, she'd be standing right there where you could chew her out for it.As it is, though, the faceless System of Facebook is all she can blame, and her only defense against further manipulations of this kind is to withdraw any possibly pain-evoking images from the System so it can't fool with them.
Once my wife explained to me what had happened, in the heat of the moment I thought that whatever numskull came up with that idea ought to be tied to a chair and made to watch 200 hours of cat videos.I now think that is excessive.But certainly, some live person or persons originated the idea of recycling pictures for Happy Friendship Day, and as Zuckerberg himself has expressed enthusiasm for artificial-intelligence solutions even to programming problems, it's virtually certain that some algorithm the programmers wrote made the selection of which photos to include.Despite the best programmers Zuckerberg's money can buy, that algorithm did not have feelings, and it was therefore insensitive to the psychic pain that such actions could cause.
We are in a strange time in which former organizational divisions of all sorts are falling down, and people who were trained to do one kind of work—software engineering, say—find themselves doing very different kinds of work—for example, manipulating on a massive scale items that have deep and powerful personal meanings for literally a billion people or more.There is an old saying, "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."It would have required the discretion and intelligence of many angels to select only those pictures which would have been appropriate to accompany a message such as "Happy Friendship Day" for each one of Facebook's users.Unfortunately, software is a poor substitute for angelic insight, and the result was in many cases foolish, or worse than foolish.
For reasons of time and disinclination, I have no Facebook page, other than possibly a dormant one my wife started for me in connection with a book publication.If anything happens on Facebook that she thinks I need to know about, she'll tell me.It has had its good moments for her, and we have reconnected through it with people around the globe whom we had lost touch with.But in the case of Happy Friendship Day, Zuckerberg blew it, at least where my wife is concerned.And it's going to be a long time before she posts personal pictures on that site again.
Epson Moverio new BT-300 AR glasses have gesture control as its main interface (Youtube):
ST presented its ToF SPAD sensors lineup:
Heptagon booth was almost completely dedicated to 3D imaging solutions. While most of them were miniature ToF cameras, there were structured light, stereo, and combined modules too. Heptagon uses an interesting tilted periodic dot pattern in its structured light solution. The claim is that it allows them to use FFT to filter out most of the noise and irrelevant background data and also simplifies processing:
Mediatek boasted its dual camera ISP:
Armdevices post a Youtube video with Mediatek reference design with Dual Rear Camera Depth Mapping:
Many smartphone manufacturers exhibited their dual rear camera devices:
ZTE Axon, 13MP + 2MP rear cameras
LG G5 rear side has 8MP wide angle camera and 12MP one for zoom, not to talk about 8MP front one
Focalmax uses dual 8MP camera for stereo recording
One of the most creative uses of the camera is a new Oral B Genius 9000 toothbrush that utilizes a smartphone camera to make sure that each and every tooth is properly brushed (WD News):
The Arctic is prone to suffer from three kinds of warming. Firstly, the Arctic is hit particularly hard by emissions, as discussed in earlier posts such as this one and this one.
Secondly, warming in the Arctic is accelerating due to feedbacks, as discussed on the feedbacks page. Many such feedbacks are related to decline of the snow and ice cover in the Arctic, which is in turn made worse by emissions such as soot.
Thirdly, the most dangerous feedback is release of methane from the Arctic Ocean seafloor, due to hydrates getting destabilized as heat reaches sediments.
Last year, Arctic sea ice reached its maximum extent on February 25, 2015. This year, there was a lot less sea ice in the Arctic on February 25 than there was last year, as illustrated by above image. The difference is about 300,000 square km, more than the size of the United Kingdom.
The image below shows that global sea ice on February 22, 2016, was only 14.22086 million square km in area. It hasn't been that low since satellite records started to measure the sea ice.
A number of feedbacks are associated with the decline of sea ice, such as more sunlight being absorbed by the water, instead of being reflected back into space as it was previously. Furthermore, there are three kinds of warming active in the Arctic, as described above and as depicted by the image below.
Sea ice can reflect as much as 90% of the sunlight back into space. Once the ice has melted away, however, the water of the ocean reflects only 6% of the incoming solar radiation and absorbs the rest. This is depicted in above image as feedback #1.
As Professor Peter Wadhams once calculated, warming due to Arctic snow and ice loss could more than double the net warming now caused by all emissions by all people of the world.
As the sea ice melts, sea surface temperatures will remain at around zero degree Celsius (32°F) for as long as there is ice in the water, since rising ocean heat will first go into melting the ice. Only after the ice has melted will ocean heat start raising the temperature of the water. Sea ice thus acts as a buffer that absorbs heat, preventing water temperatures from rising. As long as sea ice is melting, each gram of ice will take 334 Joule of heat to change into water, while the temperature remains at 0° Celsius or 32° Fahrenheit.
Once all ice has turned into water, all further heat goes into heating up the water. To raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius then takes only 4.18 Joule of heat. In other words, melting of the ice absorbs 8 times as much heat as it takes to warm up the same mass of water from zero to 10°C. This is depicted in the image on the right as feedback #14.
Above video, created by Stuart Trupp, shows how added heat at first (A) goes mainly into warming up water that contains ice cubes. From about 38 seconds into the movie, all heat starts going into the transformation of the ice cubes into water, while the temperature of the water doesn't rise (B). More than a minute later, as the ice cubes have melted (C), the temperature of the water starts rising rapidly again.
Methane is a further feedback, depicted as feedback #2 on the image further above. As the water of the Arctic Ocean keeps getting warmer, the danger increases that heat will reach the seafloor where it can trigger release of huge amounts of methane, in an additional feedback loop that will make warming in the Arctic accelerate and escalate into runaway warming.
Sediments underneath the Arctic Ocean hold vast amounts of methane. Just one part of the Arctic Ocean alone, the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS, see map below), holds up to 1700 Gt of methane. A sudden release of less than 3% of this amount could add 50 Gt of methane to the atmosphere, and experts have warned for many years that they consider such an amount to be ready for release at any time.
Above image gives a simplified picture of the threat, showing that of a total methane burden in the atmosphere of 5 Gt (it is meanwhile higher), 3 Gt that has been added since the 1750s, and this addition is responsible for almost half of all antropogenic global warming. The amount of carbon stored in hydrates globally was in 1992 estimated to be 10,000 Gt (USGS), while a more recent estimate gives a figure of 63,400 Gt (Klauda & Sandler, 2005). Once more, the scary conclusion is that the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) alone holds up to 1700 Gt of methane in the form of methane hydrates and free gas contained in sediments, of which 50 Gt is ready for abrupt release at any time.
The warning signs keep getting stronger. Following a peak methane reading of 3096 ppb on February 20, 2016, a reading of 3010 ppb was recorded in the morning of February 25, 2016, at 586 mb (see image below).
Again, this very high level was likely caused by methane originating from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, at a location on the Gakkel Ridge just outside the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS), as discussed in the earlier post. This conclusion is supported by the methane levels at various altitudes over the ESAS, as recorded by both the MetOp-1 and MetOp-2 satellites in the afternoon, as illustrated by the combination image below showing methane levels at 469 mb.
The situation is dire a calls for comprehensive and effective action as described in the Climate Plan.
Last year, Arctic sea ice reached its maximum extent on February 25, 2015. This year, there's a lot less sea ice in the... Posted by Sam Carana on Friday, February 26, 2016
Nikkei reports few interesting details about image stabilization implementation in the recently announced Canon G7X Mark II compact camera leveraging the high speed of its image sensor:
"While the previous product stabilizes images with a gyroscope, the new product takes into account the data on the amount of camera shake obtained from the image data collected by the CMOS sensor. Canon calls this function "Dual Sensing IS."
In addition, a "panning" mode was added by using the image stabilization function. The camera instantly analyzes the moving speed of the camera and the moving speed and direction of the subject and calculates the best shooting conditions. As a result, it became easy to take an image with a flowing background while stabilizing the image of the subject."
BusinessWire: ON Semiconductor introduces the AR0135 global shutter CMOS sensor, an 1/3-inch, 1.2 MP device aimed to automotive imaging as well as high-speed barcode scanning, and emerging applications like virtual reality and 3D depth sensing. The new innovative global shutter pixel design has 10X lower dark current and 4X higher shutter efficiency vs. previous generation products. This 1280 x 960 resolution device is capable of 54fps at full resolution and 720p at 60fps.
The AR0135AT is qualified to meet the AEC-Q100 Grade 2 temperature range of -40 to 105°C, while the AR0135CS supports the standard temperature range of -30 to 70°C. Engineering samples are available now, and the devices will be in production in 3Q16.
Oppo presents its new smartphone featuring SmartSensor sensor-based image stabilization for smartphones. While OIS in most smartphones is based on lens shift, Oppo SmartSensor shifts image sensor, as shown in this Youtube video:
The advantages over the lens-based OIS are:
Not only camera yaw and pitch, but also roll is compensated
Very fast sensor movements, under 15ms time required for image stabilization, said to be 3 times faster than lens-based OIS
Power consumption as low as 10mW, said to be 50 times lower than lens-based OIS
High accuracy of of compensation of 0.3um, while lens-based systems are said to be 10 times less accurate
"So why is the SmartSensor just now arriving? Let's have a look at just how difficult it was to bring about this technology.
To achieve three-axis sensor-based stabilization, the image sensor needs to be suspended in a very small space to allow for rotation around a central axis.
Another challenge brought by suspension is signal transmission. The SmartSensor presents the challenge of having to connect over 200 signal wires from the floating sensor to the main board.
This was the key puzzle that OPPO and MEMS Drive solved through years of research."
GSM Arena reports from the MWC 2016 Oppo booth: "Oppo SmartSensor image stabilization can correct up to 1.5° of motion and works on sensors ranging from 1/1.8" (bigger than any phone yet) and 1/3" (typical of mid-range phones). It's also smaller than a typical OIS module, so we may see it in thinner phones." While being a very impressive technology, 1.5deg is somewhat limited range for a high quality OIS.
Apparently, the company that supplied the technology to Oppo is MEMS Drive, based in Pasadena, CA.
ST offers its advanced CIS process and pixels on a foundry basis, including regular MPW service to reduce development cost. ST has started to give access to its high-end CIS technologies to few customers 4 years ago. Based on this experience, ST has realized all the benefits that it can get from this business model and all the differentiators that its pixel technologies can bring to the customers. It is why ST has decided to include this foundry business in its Imaging strategy. Some of the processes are shown in the table:
MPW schedule for 2016, I guess
ST foundry services:
8” and 12” wafer fabs in Europe
In house µLens, color filter, 1D & 2D stitching
Process and yield tuning and optimization
Pixel architecture and design, quality and failure analysis
Broad technology portfolio and extensive expertize
Specialized silicon technology building blocks:
Small and large, rolling and global shutter sensors
BusinessWire: Heptagon announces a mobile iris scanning solution leveraging IriTech’s iris recognition algorithms and software as well as Heptagon’s newly launched mobile imaging demo platform.
The new Heptagon module features proprietary illumination and a ToF sensor optimized for iris recognition, eye tracking, and face detection applications. The solution significantly reduces host system computational complexity, latency and power consumption. Depth information is used to improve speed and accuracy of iris scan applications and enables smaller baselines for mobile integration. The system will also benefit from the Heptagon’s Focus Controlled Packaging (FCP) camera technology that allows even further miniaturization.
“We are excited to launch our new UEYE platform together with IriTech iris scanning application here at MWC 2016,” says Erik Volkerink, Heptagon’s Chief Business Officer and Executive Vice President. “IriTech’s leading edge algorithms and technologies have been proven to perform extremely well in large field studies.”
Iris recognition applications in the consumer electronics market are forecasted to grow to $3.6B by 2020 making this the fastest growing segment of the iris recognition market.
PRNewswire: OmniVision announces the OV13870 PureCel Plus-S image sensor. The 1/2.6-inch 13MP, 1.25um pixel OV13870 features a 12-bit ADC to enable better low-light SNR, PDAF, and dedicated support for dual-camera functionality.
"The trend towards bigger pixels is picking up as the resolution race slows down, making the OV13870's larger 1.25-micron pixel and high-speed architecture well-suited for premium mobile applications," said Manish Shelat, senior product marketing manager at OmniVision. "The OV13870's enhanced dual camera capability can provide key functionality to device makers as they address the growing trend of dual aperture cameras in mobile imaging that enable advanced features and better image quality."
Built on OmniVision's new 1.25um PureCel Plus-S pixel architecture, the OV13870 significant improves the low-light performance and pixel crosstalk while maintaining an optical format of 1/2.6‑inch and a compact, 5.2 mm module height for slim smartphones. The OV13870 features significantly better overall pixel performance compared to previous generation 13MP image sensors.
The OV13870 can capture full-resolution 13MP still images at 45fps or record 4K2K video at 60fps, 1080p at 240fps, or 720p at 300 FPS with binning and cropping.
The OV13870 is currently available for sampling, and is expected to enter volume production in Q2 2016.
In class we've been learning about the subatomic particles that make up atoms: protons, neutrons, and electrons. This week we read a a series of comics about subatomic particles and their positive, negative, or neutral charges. It is important to learn about subatomic particles because they make up atoms and atoms make up everything in the world around us.
In the first comic I read, the two characters, Bill and Tim discussed what an atom and its components are. Bill defines an atom as "the smallest component of an element." The comic describes an isotope as the same element with different mass. An example of an isotope is a carbon atom with an atomic number of 6 and a mass of 12 and a carbon atom with an atomic number of 6 and a mass of 10. The comic also stated that the subatomic particles that make up most of the mass of an atom are the protons and neutrons, and the subatomic particles that make up most of the volume are the electrons.
The second comic discussed the components that make up the human body. The four main elements inside us are oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen. There are also smaller amounts of calcium, phosphorous, and iron inside your body. If you removed all the empty space within all the atoms inside your body, what remained would be smaller than a grain of sand. All this shows that the human body is mostly empty space, water, and a few other different elements.
The third article talked about how electrons cause static electricity by switching between two atoms. You can harness static electricity by rubbing atoms together, for example such as when your rub your feet against the rug. This makes you negatively charged, so when you next touch someone, they feel a tiny electric shock. This happened in the Protons, Neutrons, and Electrons stations lab we did in class - I negatively charged myself and a piece of plastic by rubbing the plastic against my hand.
The above comic shows the two atoms talking after an electron switches from one atom to another, negatively charging the latter. The atom that lost the electron says to another "I'm positive!" because it's no longer negatively charged.
The Arctic is experiencing a heatwave in winter, with temperature anomalies on February 23, 2016, averaging 7.84°C or 14.11°F higher than what was common 1979-2000.
The forecast for 6:00 UTC on February 23, 2016, shows an anomaly of 8.17°C or 14.71°F.
These high temperatures go hand in hand with sea ice extent that is much lower for this time of year than since records started.
As discussed in an earlier post, low sea ice extent is fueling fears that this year's maximum extent was already reached on February 9, 2016. A much higher ocean temperature is behind both the low sea ice extent and the high temperature anomalies.
Ocean temperatures are particularly high where the Gulf Stream pushes water from Atlantic Ocean into the Arctic Ocean, as illustrated by the image below that compares sea surface temperature anomalies in the Arctic between the years 2015 and 2016 for February 22nd.
This spells bad news for the sea ice in 2016, since El Niño is still going strong and ocean temperature keeps rising, as illustrated by the NOAA global ocean temperature anomalies graph for January below.
The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action, as described in the Climate Plan.
ARCTIC WINTER HEATWAVE The Arctic is experiencing a heatwave in winter, with temperature anomalies on February 23,... Posted by Sam Carana on Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Rambus expands its lensless smart sensor (LSS) technology to thermal sensing. Target applications that can benefit from the small size and affordability of thermal and visible LSS technology include automotive passenger detection, virtual and augmented reality eye tracking, and smart home presence detection.
“LSS can enable a future where IoT technology is infused into many aspects of modern life, from smart cities and transportation to medical equipment and manufacturing,” said Dr. Gary Bronner, VP of Rambus Labs. “With the addition of these new capabilities, LSS can replace traditional thermal lenses with optical gratings that are significantly less expensive, making LSS ideal for cost-sensitive IoT applications.”
PRNewswire: SoftKinetic, the fully owned Sony subsidiary, announces that Akihiro Hasegawa has joined the company as CEO. Bringing over 35 years of experience with Sony Corporation, Hasegawa's appointment follows Sony's acquisition of SoftKinetic in October 2015. His leadership and experience with Sony will harmonize the strategic vision of the two companies as SoftKinetic continues to lead and innovate in the 3D vision and gesture recognition solution markets.
"SoftKinetic's award-winning technology is behind many of the 3D and gesture-based features available today in automotive, gaming, VR and AR, and it is an important complement to Sony's image sensor business," said Mr. Hasegawa. "Yet, there is much more opportunity ahead. I am looking forward to living in Belgium, growing the SoftKinetic team and moving the company towards even greater successes."
Hasegawa's goal is to guide SoftKinetic from start-up to a mature, global company using his core values - burezu (determination), dojizu (a firm mindset), and kakujitsu (confident execution).
Hasegawa began his career with Sony as an engineer before moving on to Sony's component and device, and then to sales and marketing. He has been a VP of Sony Corporation since June 2011, and has lived in Asia as well as the US in other executive roles within Sony.
Michel Tombroff, the former Softkinetic CEO, has left the company.
BusinessWire: Heptagon developed the world’s smallest near-field optical sensing module with thickness of 350um and a 2mm2 surface area, which includes a built-in illuminator, light sensor, electronics, crosstalk prevention features, and a lens system. To put that into perspective, Heptagon’s new module is 4x thinner than a US 1 cent coin. Comparable products currently available are 40% thicker.
“We are excited to be taking our sensor technologies to an all new level,” says Hartmut Rudmann, SVP of Engineering at Heptagon, “By combining proprietary design and processes in solution development for these significantly thinner sensors, we’re enabling greater design flexibility with reduced form factor and improved aesthetics for mobile and wearable devices seeking slimmer profiles, such as smart watches. It is now possible to spread out more sensors in a device to increase coverage or for a more accurate reading.”
BusinessWire: In a separate PR, Heptagon announces it has shipped over 2 billion units to customers. The company, which is headquartered in Singapore, recently opened a new factory with expanded capacity to ship 1 billion units per year. Heptagon serves some of the largest makers of mobile and IoT products in the world.
"We are delighted to announce this latest milestone in our rapid growth and see this as ongoing acceptance by the market of our innovative, world-class products," says Christian Tang-Jespersen, CEO and President of Heptagon. "We look forward to continuing our strong growth and reaching our next billion units shipped milestone.”
"We are well positioned to pursue new market opportunities with the expansion of our fab in Woodlands, Singapore and the opening of our new factory in Ang Mo Kio, Singapore," says S.C. Leong, Heptagon’s COO. “We remain committed to uncompromising quality and our proven ability to move quickly from white board to shipping 100s of millions of units."
In addition to opening the new factory in Singapore, Heptagon has expanded its sales, marketing and engineering presence in Silicon Valley. Heptagon’s newly created Silicon Valley Labs and Executive Briefing Center showcase the latest interface and sensing technologies while providing convenient access for the innovators and decision makers in Silicon Valley.
BusinessWire: ON Semiconductor presents AR1337, a 1/3.2-inch 13MP BSI device for consumer products such as smartphones and tablets. The AR1337 incorporates SuperPD PDAF technology, which delivers focus speeds of 300 ms or less - even in low lighting conditions below 25 lux. Furthermore, by utilizing its on-chip PDAF processing the AR1337 simplifies integration into smartphone platforms.
This AR1337 image sensor has a 4208 x 3120 array of the company’s proprietary advanced 1.1µm pixels, said to have the best in class SNR. Its QE reaches up to 82%, providing industry-leading sensitivity. The AR1337 speed at full resolution is 30fps and supports many video modes including 4K video at 30 fps and 1080P video at 60 fps. The camera synchronization controls enable dual camera video capture.
“Consumers expect increasingly high performance for their smartphone cameras. They demand great image quality, the ability to take photos in lower light conditions and more recently, the desire for lightning fast autofocus,” comments Vladi Korobov, GM and Senior Director of Technology for the Mobile & Consumer Image Sensor at ON Semiconductor. “With the AR1337 we are responding to each of these demands. Not only does it have great image quality, but its SuperPD technology enables OEMs to achieve fastest possible autofocus locking times.”
The AR1337 is sampling in Bare die format today and is expected to be in mass production in Q2 2016.
When Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik died in a hail of gunfire last December 2 after killing 14 people at a San Bernardino office party, the FBI recovered Farook's iPhone within a few hours.One of the critical unanswered questions about the San Bernardino shootings is whether the couple had outside help, and the data on the iPhone may hold the answer.Problem is, the FBI can't get at the data, and Apple, the iPhone's maker, won't help them.
Why not?Let's let Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, answer that one:"[T]he U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone."A little historical perspective is in order to put this situation into context.
With the advent of powerful digital computers, advanced encryption algorithms were designed and adopted by both sides of the Cold War (both the U. S. and the Soviet Union) for secret communications in the 1970s and onward.The U. S. National Security Agency, long used to spying on analog communications in which good radios were the most elaborate equipment needed, found itself behind the technology curve and spent millions on advanced computing technology to maintain its ability to crack enemy codes.The computing power of those early NSA computers now resides on your smartphone, and after a run-in with NSA a few years ago involving spying on Apple, the tech company and its president resolved to do a better job than ever in protecting its customers' privacy.The latest iPhone operating system has a feature that not only encrypts the user's private data, but destroys the internal encryption key if it detects more than 10 attempts to unlock the phone using the 4-digit password.After that happens, nobody but God can retrieve the data.
At first the FBI was hoping that the phone was backed up to the iCloud, where the data might be recovered.But it turns out that the automatic backup feature was turned off last October, possibly by Farook to avoid just such snooping.After trying everything they could think of, including things Apple suggested, the FBI has asked Apple to do something that the firm claims is unprecedented.
The FBI wants Apple to write a new operating system for Farook's phone that will allow unlimited password tries electronically, which will allow the FBI to access the phone's data.They say it will only be used on Farook's phone, and so there is no risk to anybody else's phone.The FBI has put this request in the form of a court order, and Tim Cook has vowed to fight it.
Why? Apple claims the risks of that system getting loose, either accidentally or by command, are simply too great, and they have dug in their heels.For example, it has been suggested that once it becomes generally known that Apple has developed such a backdoor, repressive regimes will order the firm to give it to them, or else kick Apple out of the country.
This is not the first time that Apple and the federal government have been at loggerheads over encrypted data.In a 2014 case, Apple was ordered to extract data from an iPhone, but it is not immediately clear from the record whether they complied.In both that case and the San Bernardino situation, the FBI cited as its authority the All Writs Act of 1789, which basically lets courts issue writs (orders) "necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law."To the ears of this non-lawyer, it sounds like the law basically says you can do whatever you want, but the Act is typically hauled out as a kind of last resort, as subsequent case law has erected a set of four conditions that must be fulfilled before a court can issue an order under the Act.Of course, the FBI thinks the conditions are fulfilled, and Apple doesn't.
Apple's stand is based on the idea, not that common among high-tech companies, that even Apple doesn't have any business with your personal data, which is why they designed the iPhone operating system to be so hard to crack.This differs from practices of other firms, who happily mine their customers' private data for commercially valuable things like brand names and so on.Privacy advocates from across the political spectrum have joined Cook in his opposition to the order, and the outcome of this case could have wide implications not only for the FBI and smartphones, but for digital privacy generally.
National Reviewcommentator Kevin Williamson (from whose column I first learned about this matter) takes the view that the FBI is taking the easy way out by simply ordering Apple to do its job.There is evidence to support this claim.For example, in its instructions to Apple, the FBI asked them to rig a bluetooth link to the phone so they could try the 9999 different number combinations electronically, instead of having to make somebody sit there and do it by hand.This apparently minor detail has the aroma of a royal order to underlings—"and while you're at it, fix it so I don't mess up my manicure wearing my fingers out on that touchscreen of yours."Back in the days of telephone hacking in the 1960s, teenagers with time on their hands would amuse themselves by dialing all 9999 numbers in a given 3-digit telephone exchange (e. g. 292-0000 to 292-9999) just for the thrill of discovering the test and supervisory numbers the phone company used for long-distance routing and maintenance.Apparently, the FBI can't be bothered with such tedium.
The matter is in the hands of lawyers now, and if the issue does indeed go all the way to the Supreme Court, its fate may well depend on whether President Obama gets to appoint a new member after Justice Scalia's recent demise, or whether the next president does, or whether a split Court ends up doing nothing (split decisions leave the lower court's decision standing).Whatever happens, I admire Tim Cook for taking a principled and consistent stand for a cause that he could so easily abandon:the notion that privacy still means something in a digital age.
Samsung has increased the pixel pitch from 1.12um to 1.4um in its latest flagship smartphones Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, reducing the resolution from 16MP in the previous generation to 12MP now. The new sensor feature Dual Pixel AF (all pixel PDAF):
"The advantage of the Dual Pixel image sensor in the Galaxy S7 is most evident when taking pictures in a low-light environment. The newest smartphone model is equipped with 1.4um pixels (a 56 percent increase in size compared to the Galaxy S6) and a large F1.7 aperture (which allows for 25 percent more brightness). Combined, these features enable for 95 percent more light compared to its predecessor, which subsequently results in a much brighter and sharper image. Furthermore, the new model employs autofocusing at considerably faster speeds, allowing for faster shooting."
The company's Youtube videos emphasize the PDAF speed and low light capabilities of the new camera:
SPIE publishes an article on curved sensor optics benefits "Current trends in miniature camera lens technology" by Dmitry Reshidko and José Sasian. The curved sensor are said to give a 1-stop advantage due to allowing optics with a larger aperture:
MTF of a mobile camera. (a) Conventional flat field design at f/2.2. (b) Representative lens imaging on a curved sensor at f/1.6. The lens imaging on a curved sensor is one f-number faster and shows more uniform performance over the field. OTF: Optical transfer function.
Sensitivity to lens element decenter (left) and tilt (right). Lens imaging on a curved sensor shows better as-built performance. The horizontal line indicates the nominal criterion value. RSS RMS: Root sum square, root mean square.
Turbine Characteristics • Torque and RPM are inversely proportional (i.e. as RPM increases, torque decreases and vice versa). • RPM is directly proportional to flow rate (at a constant torque). • Torque is a function of flow rate, mud density, blade angle and the number of stages, and varies if weight-on-bit varies. • Optimum power output takes place when thrust bearings are balanced. • Changing the flow rate causes the characteristic curve to shift. • Off bottom, the turbine RPM will reach “run away speed” and torque is zero. • On bottom, and just at stall, the turbine achieves maximum torque and RPM is zero. • Optimum performance is at half the stall torque and at half the runaway speed, the turbine then achieves maximum horsepower. • A stabilized turbine used in tangent sections will normally cause the hole to “walk” to the left.
Turbine Observations • There is minimal surface indication of a turbine stalling. • Turbines do not readily allow the pumping of LCM. • Sand content of the drilling fluid should be kept to a minimum. • Due to minimal rubber components, the turbine is able to operate in high temperature wells. • Pressure drop through the tool is typically high and can be anything from 500 psi to over 2000 psi. • Turbines do not require a by-pass valve. • Usually, the maximum allowable bearing wear is of the order of 4mm.
Directional Turbine This is a short tool which has a set number of stages and its bearing section entirely within one housing. That is, it is not a sectional tool and will be typically less than 30 feet long. It is designed for short runs to kick off or correct a directional well, using a bent sub as the deflection device. Steerable turbodrills do exist and will be discussed later.
Bearing Section Usually, thrust bearings are made up of rubber discs (Figure 5-24) which are non-rotating (being fixed to the outer housing of the tool) and rotating steel discs attached to the central rotating shaft. Long bearing sections known as cartridges are used for long life in tangent or straight hole drilling sections. These are changeable at the rigsite. If the bearings wear past the maximum point, considerable damage can be inflicted as the steel rotors will crash into the stators below.
Drive Section This will consist of a series of bladed stators, fixed to the outer tool housing and bladed rotors fixed to the central rotating shaft. Mud flow is deflected at a pre-determined angle off the stator blades to hit the rotor blades and cause the shaft to rotate. The angle of the blades will affect the torque and speed output of the turbine
It was brought to my attention that in 2007, IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science published Max Plank Institute paper "A Novel Way of Single Optical Photon Detection: Beating the 1/f Noise Limit With Ultra High Resolution DEPFET-RNDR Devices" by Stefan Wolfel, Sven Herrmann, Peter Lechner, Gerhard Lutz, Matteo Porro, Rainer Richter, Lothar Struder, and Johannes Treis. The paper is also available for free download here. The described pixel structure allows a multiple reading and averaging of the photoelectric signal, so that 1/f noise can be averaged:
"In this work we demonstrate theoretically and experimentally the capability to reduce the readout noise of an optical and X-ray photon detector based on the semiconductor DEPFET device below a level of only 0.3e- ENC (equivalent noise charge). The readout method used is called "repetitive non destructive readout" (RNDR) and was realized by placing two single DEPFET-devices next to each other and by coupling their charge storing region by an additional gate. By transferring the stored charge from one DEPFET to the other and vice versa the same charge can be measured non-destructively and arbitrarily often. Taking the average value of a large number n of these measurements, the noise is reduced by 1/radicn. The main advantage of such a detector is to greatly reduce the contribution of the 1/f noise to the readout noise. The theoretically and experimentally achievable resolution for different operating parameters (leakage current, readout noise, number and duration of readouts) was investigated by Monte-Carlo simulations and verified on a real RNDR minimatrix (pixelarray). Single optical photon detection with high quantum efficiency and, even more fascinating, the possibility to distinguish between different numbers of photons, e.g., 100 from 101 are demonstrated in measurements."
An earlier post wondered whether maximum extent for this year had already been reached, i.e. on February 9, 2016, when sea ice extent was 14.214 million km2.
As illustrated by the image below, extent since has been lower, including on the two most recent days on the image, i.e. on February 16 and 17, 2016, when extent was respectively 14.208 and 14.203 million km2.
Last year (2015), maximum sea ice extent was reached on February 25. That's close to the most recent date on the image of February 17, so with El Nino still going strong, it may well be that the maximum in 2016 will be reached early.
On the other hand, strong winds could spread out the sea ice and speed up its drift out of the Arctic Ocean, which may result in a larger extent, but which won't do much to strengthen the sea ice.
UPDATES: On February 18, 2016 (arrow), Arctic sea ice extent was 14.186 million square km, i.e. less than it was on February 9. In fact, sea ice extent hasn't been higher on any day since February 9, 2016. So, the question is, has this year's maximum extent already passed us by (i.e. on February 9)?
The image below shows the heat is having a huge impact on the sea ice, with some areas (black) showing sea surface temperature anomalies above 8°C (or above 14.4°F).
Ominously, sea surface off the North American east coast was as much as 11.8°C or 21.3°F warmer on February 19, 2016, than it was in 1981-2011 (at the location marked by the green circle in the image below).
Temperatures over the Arctic Ocean are forecast to remain extremely high for the next five days, with anomalies in a large part of the Arctic Ocean at the top end of the scale, i.e. 20°C or 36°F.
As the image below shows, Arctic sea ice area was at a record low for the time of year on February 18, 2016.
The image below shows that Arctic sea ice extent on February 20, 2016, was only 14.166 million km2 (arrow), adding to fears that this year's maximum was already reached on February 9.
The image below shows that Arctic sea ice extent on February 21, 2016, was only 14.160 million km2 (arrow), further fueling fears that this year's maximum was already reached on February 9.
Meanwhile, very high methane levels, as high as 3096 parts per billion, were recorded on February 20, 2016, as shown by the image below.
Further analysis indicates that these high levels likely originated from destabilizing methane hydrates in sediments, from a location about latitude 85°North and longitude +105° (East), on the Gakkel Ridge, just outside the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, at the location of the red marker on the map below.
Below is a map with sea surface temperature anomalies on February 20, 2016. The green circle marks the likely location of sediment destabilization and subsequent methane plume, at about latitude 85°North and longitude +105° (East), on the Gakkel Ridge, just outside the East Siberian Arctic Shelf.
If you like, you can discuss this further at the Arctic News group or below.
On February 18, 2016 (arrow), Arctic sea ice extent was 14.186 million square km, i.e. less than it was on February 9.... Posted by Sam Carana on Friday, February 19, 2016
