Uncategorized – Page 243

March 16, 2020

[Review] USCCA Tennessee Online Concealed Carry Course

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Looking for something to do on a Saturday night?

Well if you live in Tennessee, and don’t have a concealed carry license yet, what could be better than an online course to get your permit?

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Before We Get Started

First things first: as of January 1st 2020, Tennessee now has two types of Concealed Carry Permits: Concealed Handgun Carry Permit (CHCP); and the Enhanced Handgun Carry Permit (EHCP).

The EHCP is actually just a new name for the handgun carry permit issued by the state before January 1st 2020, which allows for both concealed carry and open carry.

The CHCP only allows for concealed carry.

The trade-off is that the CHCP has fewer requirements, which can be satisfied through an online-only course.

For those of you looking for the EHCP, you’ll need to attend an in-person training course approved by the State.

Everyone else only interested in being able to carry concealed with a CHCP can take an online course like the one offered by the USCCA.

Carrying Concealed under the Propper Full Zip Tech Sweater

So What’s Involved?

After you pay for the course (for just one easy payment of $37.97!), you’ll gain access to the USCCA online CCW course.

Because it’s an online course, you may think that it just involves a lot of sitting back and watching videos. And you’d be mostly right. Luckily, the 90-minute course offered by the USCCA does involve some interactive portions that keep things interesting.

What’s more, because it’s a browser-based course, the interface is very user-friendly, with a simple and clean look.

Mixing things up with short videos and interactive portions.

The course consists of video segments followed by text portions that review the material addressed in the videos.

Some portions of the course also require user interaction to make sure you’re following along and not just letting the video play in the background while you watch TV.

Most importantly, unlike most online courses we’ve come across, you can’t just sit through the videos and scroll through the text and expect to complete the course.

Certain points throughout the course require you to answer some simple questions on the topic before you can proceed to the next section.

At the very end of the course, there is a 50 question quiz to make sure you actually learn something!

As long as you score 80% or higher, you’ll pass.

Honestly, just paying attention and going through the course should get you easily over the 80% requirement.

Overall, with the way the short videos and interactive portions are structured, it actually broke up the course into good-sized chunks so things never got boring.

In fact, only two or three of the videos ever exceeded 5 minutes, with the average video length being only about 1 to 2 minutes.

What’s Covered?

Because the course meets the state requirements for a CHCP, the topics covered aren’t really any surprise.

Everything from handgun basics, including the basic safety rules of firearms, to the difference between semi-automatics handguns and revolvers, and even single action vs double action are all covered in the course.

Since it’s a concealed carry course, important topics like holster selection and even clothing are covered as well.

Basically, if you come into this course knowing nothing about firearms at all, at the end of the 90-minute lesson you’ll have a basic understanding of firearm safety and function, the laws surrounding use of deadly force, and some practical information for going about carrying concealed.

The course covers basic information even the noobiest of gun noobs will understand.

So What’s The Verdict?

Overall, the USCCA course definitely provides some value to shooters of all skill levels, from those with no skill at all, to experienced shooters with lots of range time under their belt.

For those of you looking to get a CHCP from Tennessee, then this is definitely a great option you can do from the comfort of your home.

This wouldn’t be a complete review, if we didn’t point out the one big issue that we came across. Near the end of the course, as the instructor went over the rules for carrying concealed, he stated that you have a duty to inform an officer that you were carrying concealed.

This actually isn’t true, as there is no duty to inform an officer unless you are asked. Not a huge deal, though still an important piece of information you want to make sure you are aware of.

*Update* 2/25/2020: USCCA read this post and fixed the issue! Now that’s some fast response time.

Finally, keep in mind that just because this course meets the requirements for receiving a CHCP, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to get some range time with your handgun of choice.

No amount of online learning can ever replace time spent actually handling and manipulating a firearm.

If nothing else, you’ll be able to figure out which holsters and what clothing works best for your new life as a CCW permit holder.

A box of holsters – the time-honored rite of passage for every gun owner.

What kind of class will you be attending? Think online classes are too easy or will they make CCWs more accessible? While you’re at it, you may also want to consider getting some CCW insurance too. Take a look at our reviews to see which works best for you. Oh…and Best Concealed Carry Holsters!

The post [Review] USCCA Tennessee Online Concealed Carry Course appeared first on Pew Pew Tactical.

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February 20, 2020 at 02:08PM

March 16, 2020

Microsoft To Bring Its Defender Antivirus Software To iOS and Android

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Microsoft said today it plans to bring its antivirus software, Defender Advanced Threat Protection, to phones and other devices running Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. From a report: The software, also called Defender ATP, is already available on Windows and MacOS. It offers features like preventive protection, post-breach detection and automated investigation and response, according to Microsoft. When it comes to mobile devices, Microsoft’s Rob Lefferts said that the Defender software could help companies protect employees from things like malware and phishing attacks. Apple’s and Google’s app stores are "pretty safe," Lefferts said, but "malware does happen on those platforms."

Watch This Jetpack Pilot Zip Around Like a Real-Life Iron Man

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Holy hell, that is fast.

The gravity-defying maniacs over at Jetman Dubai achieved a major company milestone on Friday. In a company first, one of their pilots executed a successful ground-level take-off that transitioned into a high altitude flight. All previous take-offs had been from elevated platforms, i.e. helicopters and the like. This time around, though, “Jetman” Vince Reffet blasted off like a real-life Iron Man straight from the runway at Skydive Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

A video of Reffet’s feat was uploaded Monday, which you can watch below. Now, I know this sounds click-baity, but I audibly gasped around the two and a half minute mark. He zooms so fast!

The manually controlled, carbon-fiber wingsuit he’s wearing is powered by four mini jet engines, and they’ve got enough kick to shoot him more than 3,000 feet (1,000 meters) into the air in just 30 seconds. During his three-minute flight, he zipped along at nearly 150 miles per hour, per a company statement, reaching nearly 6,000 feet (1,800 meters) in altitude. That’s roughly twice as high as the world’s tallest skyscraper.

After performing a roll and loop in his wingsuit (because that’s just badass, I can only assume), Reffet opened his parachute at roughly 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) before safely landing back on the ground. Successfully executing the flight took roughly 50 preparatory runs as well as 100 takeoffs and landings using a cable and with the added safety of a fall arresting system.

“We are so happy we achieved this incredible flight. It’s the result of extremely thorough teamwork, where each small step generated huge results,” Reffet said in the statement. “Everything was planned to the split second, and I was overjoyed by the progress that was achieved. It is another step in a long-term project.”

The achievement even caught the attention of the crown prince of Dubai, who congratulated the pilots.

“A major milestone in the quest to achieve 100% autonomous human flight. Well done boys,” Sheik Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said in an Instagram post.

The Jetman team’s next objective? Do it all again, only without the parachute this time. Hey, if Tony Stark can do it, I’m sure they can too!

geeky,Tech

via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com

February 17, 2020 at 08:45PM

March 16, 2020

Researchers See Eagle Torturing Bat by Repeatedly Dropping It in the Ocean

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A sea eagle drops a flying fox into the water at Tioman Island, Malaysia.

Image: Marcus Chua

White-bellied sea eagles are majestic, keen-eyed predators that soar effortlessly above coastal forests and marshes. They can also be colossal jerks. These eagles were recently spotted tormenting an innocent fruit bat, repeatedly carrying it out to sea and dropping it into the waves.

In 2017, Sheema Abdul Aziz, a conservation ecologist with the Rimba research group in Malaysia, and her colleagues visited Tioman Island off the eastern coast of Peninsular Malaysia. They weren’t there to look for eagles; they were studying a small, insect-gobbling forest bat that flies around in the daytime. After they concluded their observations, the team decided to kill time waiting for their ferry by visiting a nearby dive resort where they could watch a group of island flying foxes (Pteropus hypomelanus), a type of fruit bat, that were roosting by the beach.

Aziz said the team was sitting down in the resort’s beachside cafe, chatting with the resort owner about the bats, when a sea eagle suddenly sailed in and plucked a flying fox out of the tree, causing the bat colony to erupt in shrieks. The eagle, clutching its prize in its talons, then took a seaward course.

“The three of us were completely stunned and also paralyzed for a few seconds, just watching the eagle fly out to sea carrying the struggling bat,” Aziz told Gizmodo in an email.

Luckily, their colleague Marcus Chua—a researcher at Singapore’s Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum—managed to quickly whip out his camera to record the drama.

The eagle got about a football field’s length out from shore before dropping its victim into the sea, while a second eagle circled nearby. Aziz and her colleagues watched in rapt attention as the bat slowly swam back to land. The pair of sea eagles waited patiently, closely tracking the bat’s pitiful floundering from a beachside perch.

After 20 minutes of heroic paddling, the bat made it into the surf, within inches of its goal. Then, with frankly human-like levels of dickishness, one of the eagles swooped down, grasped the bat again, carried it out over water, and plopped it into the waves a second time.

A flying fox having a truly bad day.

Photo: Marcus Chua

The soaked Sisyphus made a weary breaststroke back to the beach, this time reaching land. There, it languished on the sand, completely exhausted and with a hole in one wing. At this point, the team had to catch their ferry off the island, so they didn’t get to see if the bat was given a brine swirly a third time.

“I think we all knew at that point that we had a scientific paper on our hands,” says Aziz. And indeed they did; their observations were recently published in the Journal of Bat Research & Conservation.

“At first, we couldn’t understand why an eagle would be flying out to the open sea with its prey,” said Aziz, “and when it first dropped the bat, we initially thought it was just incompetence or inexperience, like the eagle had bitten off more than it could chew.”

But when the eagle retrieved the bat and dropped it again, and the resort owner remarked that this bird-on-bat brutality regularly happens near the resort, it didn’t seem like an accident anymore.

“That was when it dawned on us that the eagles might actually be doing it on purpose, and they might’ve been smarter than we’d given them credit for,” said Aziz.

While the researchers didn’t see if the flying fox was killed and eaten, they think that the eagles’ overt bullying may actually be an ingenious way of hunting. Flying foxes are a dangerous prey choice, as they’re comparatively large, strong animals with powerful jaws full of sharp teeth. A bat at full strength might be a risky meal, but one that’s been rendered bone-tired by multiple impromptu swimming sessions could be easier for an eagle to kill.

The Tioman Island roost of flying foxes.

Photo: Marcus Chua

“White-bellied sea eagles are extremely resourceful predators, so while I’m intrigued by these observations, I’m not surprised,” said Jennifer Coulson, a raptor biologist at Tulane University who was not involved with this study.

Coulson noted that these sea eagles—found in coastal habitats throughout Southeast Asia and Australia—are opportunistic predators. For example, they’re known to drop big crabs from great heights onto rocks to kill and crack them open, she said. They’ve also been seen following dolphins to snatch up fish that the dolphins inadvertently force to the surface.

James Bednarz, an avian ecologist at the University of North Texas who was also not involved with the new research, agreed that the eagles’ harassment could be a way to weaken the bat before trying to eat it.

“The usual prey of sea-eagles—fish and carrion—don’t really bite back, so it makes sense that the eagles might adopt a different strategy with this medium-sized, biting prey,” said Bednarz.

Bednarz does think the bat abuse is definitely part of a predation strategy, rather than some form of macabre entertainment. Play is not unheard of among raptors but is typically limited to young birds, not adults like in this case, he said.

“Making my way downtown, flying fast, dunking bats that I just found.”

Photo: James Niland

Aziz said more information is needed about this unexpected interaction, especially because flying foxes have declined substantially in Malaysia from hunting and habitat loss.

“It’s really important to know how their numbers might be affected by this kind of predation risk, especially if the number of sea eagles increases,” said Aziz.

At the same time, there are plenty of unanswered questions about why sea eagles would target such difficult prey in the first place. Are they struggling to find smaller prey, for example?

“There’s a tantalizing mystery here that’s waiting to be unraveled!” Aziz said.

geeky,Tech

via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com

February 19, 2020 at 04:42PM

March 16, 2020

Hearing on HB 425 Duty to Notify Bill Scheduled for Wednesday, Feb 19, 2020

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It is very important to have strong turnout at a hearing scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2020 at 9:30 a.m. in room 114 at the Statehouse, 1 Capitol Square, Columbus, OH 43215.

The committee will hear testimony from those who support HB 425 (sponsored by Rep. Scott Wiggam). Buckeye Firearms Association will give testimony in support of this bill.

If you are able to attend the hearing and testify in favor of this bill, you are encouraged to do so. (Details below.) However, you may also simply sit in on the hearing to show your support.

Current law states that if you have a Concealed Handgun License and are carrying a handgun, you must "promptly" notify a law enforcement officer who stops you for any official purpose. But when is "promptly"? This is confusing and can lead to misunderstandings during encounters with law enforcement.

As introduced, HB 425 would modify this rule to clarify when and how to notify to avoid confusion. However, an amendment will be introduced during the hearing to remove the duty to notify unless law enforcement specifically asks if you are carrying a firearm. Currently, 41 states have laws with no duty to notify unless specifically asked, something officers are already trained to do.

If 41 of 50 states have no duty to notify, there is obviously no safety issue for law enforcement. They are trained to assume citizens may be in possession of firearms. States with no duty to notify unless specifically asked by law enforcement include California, Hawaii, New Jersey, and New York, which have some of the strictest firearm laws in the country.

We expect Bloomberg’s Moms Demand Action and other anti-gun groups to oppose this bill. Your attendance or testimony in support will help convince committee members to move this bill as amended. All you need to do is express your opinion on the bill or share personal experience.

If you wish to testify, click here to download a Witness Information Form. Fill it out and email the form, along with your written testimony, to Committee Chairman John Becker’s Aide before the hearing: Joe.Michalowski@ohiohouse.gov.

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February 17, 2020 at 05:17PM

March 16, 2020

What are the Top 7 PHP IDEs and Code Editors a Web Developer Uses?

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Confused to use PHP or any other web development languages? Are you looking for PHP website development?

And not being able to select between best IDEs and code editors to build your PHP web design? PHP is preferred over other programming languages based on the project requirements. Here in this blog, we are going to briefly describe top 7 PHP IDEs and Code Editors, PHP developers can use for web development.

Surely, this post will help you find the best IDEs for your project. Still, you find any confusion and don’t want to take a risk. You can hire PHP web developer from the best PHP web development company, who is skilled and has worked on the latest trends. He will not only help you select the best IDE tools considering your project requirements but also will give the physical form to your project.

PHP is the acronym of Hypertext Preprocessor which is a general-purpose programming language and written at the server-side. It is widely used for developing dynamic and interactive web pages. It is free and easy to use programming language. If you are a newbie and want to learn PHP, there are several tutorials available online which will ease up learning PHP for you.

For experienced, when it comes to the exact definition of an IDE and a code editor, they still get confused. So firstly we will find out the difference between IDE and Code Editor and then move ahead to discuss the top 7 PHP IDEs and Code Editors a web developer uses.

Let’s start with!

IDE vs Code Editor: Learn PHP Programming Language

Writing code is one of the common skills among developers. However, they do find it difficult to differentiate between the definition of an IDE and a code editor. The crossover of features between the two could be considered as the reason behind such confusion.

To understand IDE, it is an Integrated Development Environment that comes with a self-contained package that allows developers to write, compile, execute and debug code in the same place. Whereas, a code editor is a text editor enriched with features enabling writing code using native capabilities or via optional plugins.

IDE allows writing code in a specific language. You can even compile/interpret and perform debugging as well. Whereas code editors are more general in purpose, they can work on different programming languages. Also, there is a limitation of just writing code with the code editors.

However, Code completion, highlighting a section of code, hints and custom folding of sections of code are a number of common features between the IDE and code editors. Which one do you choose out of IDE and Code editors? It totally depends on your personal choice, the programming language you are working on and workflows as well.

Here is the list of web development tools that hold high priority among the developers. I hope this blog will help you choose an appropriate one for your projects in 2020.

1. PHPStorm

PHPStorm is one of the most popular IDE tools, developers used for PHP web development. It is updated with all the latest features to enable you with rapid web development. JetBrains is the authority behind its development and release in 2009. PHPStorm is written in Java since its launch and has been among the first choices of developers for writing code in PHP.

PHPStorm is compatible with working with all the key frameworks such as Symfony, Yii, CakePHP, Zend Framework and Laravel. Also, it allows working on Content Management Systems (CMS) including WordPress, Drupal, and Magento.

PHPStorm not only manages backend tasks but also gives you the liberty to work on the front end. It includes working on CSS, HTML5, Sass, Typescript, JS, CoffeeScript, Less, Stylus, etc. using Unit testing, code refactoring and debugging.

If you are using this platform with Zend Debugger, you can easily integrate it with databases like SQL and composers, vagrant, rest client, remote deployment and command tools.

2. Eclipse

Eclipse is another name that comes to the mind of the developers when asked for the most widely used IDE in the field of web development. It was launched in Nov 2001 and is a cross-platform tool that can be utilized for any operating system whether for Windows, Linux or Mac. Most of the developers used this IDE for Java and Android development, however, the efforts of Eclipse community developers made it possible to use for other development languages using plugins.

If you want to develop a PHP web application using Eclipse, you have to download it and install the Eclipse package for PHP developers. It is an open-source and free to use tool which comes packed with all the capacity to support PHP languages like Git client, XML Editor, and Mylyn.

Some of the important features of Eclipse comprises code formatting, syntax highlighting, code assist, code navigation, refactoring, PHP debugging, code templates, syntax validation, and eclipse ecosystem.

3. NetBeans

NetBeans also makes its way to the list of world’s most popular IDEs for PHP web development. It is feature-rich, free, and supports multiple languages like English, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Brazilian, and basic Chinese. A wide range of developers uses this open-source IDE for PHP website development.

NetBeans was released in 1996 which initially supported only Java and was pretty slow, but now it becomes much faster than others and supports multiple languages like PHP, C/C++, and HTML5. Not even this, you can use it for a range of PHP frameworks and WordPress CMS.

NetBeans is one of the most preferred IDE tools due to its features like code templates, smart code completion, quick fixes, getter setter generation, hints, and refactoring. Other than this, it avails developers with functionalities like formatting, rectangular selection, code folding and try/catch code completion.

4. Zend Studio

Zend Studio is among the top commercial PHP IDE for PHP website development. It targets professional web developers and currently enjoys a clientele of over 40,000 developers for the development of PHP websites.

Some of the key features which make Zendio Studio more preferable among others is its fastest performance, validation while coding and searching the PHP Code.

Not even this, Zend Studio allows mobile app development based on existing PHP apps and server backend. This way, you can easily coordinate between current websites and web applications with mobile-based apps.

5. Komodo

ActiveState developed Komodo IDE in the year 2000. Now it has become a highly preferred PHP MySQL development and functional tool. Komodo inherits most of its functionalities from the Python interpreter. It is compatible with Mozilla and Scintilla because the number of features and functionalities among them are similar and utilizes common languages as well.

Komodo uses numerous extensions and pipe features which turned it down as a huge success.

With Komodo, you can start CGI Environment Simulation and build a holodeck web server. It replicates all the activities on a real web server. The CGI Environment Simulation enables its fast installation.

6. Sublime Text 3

It is another PHP development that is very useful to perform like a pro text editor, i.e. for prose, markup, and code. Sublime Text 3 comes with an amazing feature- a custom UI toolkit that allows users to play across words, symbols or lines using particular key shortcuts for the activity.

In addition to this, the user can make changes to any section of code at any time. Such facilities of Sublime Text 3 make it the most customizable and flexible text editor that exists.

Being a lightweight, cross-platform development tool, Sublime Text 3 works on different operating systems like Linux, Windows, and OSX.

You can easily convert this text editor into a graceful Sublime PHP IDE with the help of different plugins and packages that are available in the market. Some of the popular names which are most helpful in doing so are package control, xDebug client?—?CodeBug, Sublime PHP companion, Simple PHPUnit, PHPCS, CodIntel, and PHPDoc.

Converting a text editor into a PHP IDE using add-on packages, avails developers with the ease of PHP development. They can enjoy the classiness of sublime text and the sturdiness of PHP at the same time.

7. Atom

Atom is a free, open-source text and source code editor from GitHub. It is one of the best cross-platform development tools that support working on various OS like Windows, OS X, Red Hat Linux, Fedora 22+ and Debian Linux. Atom consists of a dedicated ecosystem that is supported by a vast community. The availability of numerous plugins and packages in the market improves its functionality to the next level.

When it comes to PHP, the Atom editor can easily be converted into a fully-featured PHP IDE using packages available free of cost. These packages turn atom editor more effective than any other commercial PHP IDEs in the market. It includes hyperclick-php, php-cs-fixer, atom-autocomplete-php, linter-php and php-integrator-base.

Conclusion

PHP is one of the most preferred programming languages for web development. There are a number of PHP IDEs available in the market which are getting better day by day. Here in this post, we covered most of the PHP development tools which come with different functionalities. However, the universal objective behind is transforming web development into a convenient platform to write scalable code swiftly.

Still, confused? Not being able to select the best PHP web development tool for your PHP web application. You can contact a dedicated team of experienced PHP programmers. You can hire a PHP developer to help you choose the right tool for your web development considering your project requirements.

via Noupe https://www.noupe.com

February 17, 2020 at 11:00AM

March 16, 2020

Tranquilizer Dart Slow-Mo

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Link

“How do you stop a rhino from charging?” The Slow Mo Guys take on one of their more unusual subjects – the kind of dart used to tranquilize animals. To demonstrate how these unique medicine delivery vessels work, they filled samples with food coloring, then watched the pressurized fluid release as it met its subject.

fun

via The Awesomer https://theawesomer.com

February 17, 2020 at 01:15PM

March 16, 2020

How to Watch the Daytona 500 Without Cable

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Image: Getty ( Rusty Jarrett / Stringer)

The Daytona 500, one of the most significant Nascar races of the year, is happening today. Today’s race officially kicks off at 1pm ET/10am PT and will be broadcast on FOX.

If you have cable or an antenna, then you should be able to tune into the race for free over the air. If you don’t, or will be away from your television this afternoon, you also have quite a few streaming options.

Almost every streaming service offers FOX as an option, so you can pretty much choose whichever option you’d like and be able to catch the game. Worth noting, FOX isn’t available in every market on every service, so you’ll want to double-check that FOX is offered in your area before you sign up.

Beyond that, most streaming services also offer free trials, So if you haven’t taken one out for a pin just yet, you can use that free trial to watch today’s race and then cancel your subscription before having to actually shell out any cash.

Here’s a rundown of your major options. The cheapest of the bunch of going to be SlingTV; however, if you want to use the service for watching more than today’s race, you’ll get a more robust channel lineup from some of the competition.

Hulu with Live TV $54.99 per monthYouTubeTV $49.99 per month

AT&T TV Now $50 per month

FuboTV $55 for the first month

Sling TV – $20 for the first month

geeky,Tech,Database

via Lifehacker https://lifehacker.com

February 16, 2020 at 01:21PM

March 16, 2020

Samsung details the 108MP camera sensor tech packed in the Galaxy S20 Ultra smartphone

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Samsung has published technical details on the 108MP ISOCELL Bright HM1 ‘Nonacell’ image sensor found in its newly launched Galaxy S20 Ultra smartphone. The image sensor features 108-million 0.8μm pixels and a 1/1.33in size, as well as Smart-ISO and Nonacell technologies to produce what Samsung claims are ‘crystal-clear’ and ‘vivid’ 8K videos and high-resolution images.

Nonacell builds upon the Tetracell technology Samsung unveiled in 2017; rather than featuring a 2×2 array like the older tech, the Nonacell features a 3×3 arrays of the same color filter. This allows chunks of nine 0.8μm pixels to be merged into what is essentially a single 2.4μm pixel. This results in more than double the light absorption offered by the Tetracell tech, according to the company.

The downside is that there is a larger gap between pixels recording different colors, meaning that the ‘re-mosaic’ algorithm, that tries to reconstruct what a conventional 1×1 Bayer sensor would have captured, faces a more difficult challenge. So you won’t ever get the lever of color resolution that a conventional 108MP sensor would give.

Other ‘advanced pixel technologies’ like Smart-ISO help produce what Samsung calls ‘ultimate results under any lighting condition,’ including particularly challenging mixed-light environments. The camera’s HDR tech involves assigning exposure lengths to each and every pixel for multiple simultaneous exposures, enabling real-time HDR previews.

Rather than using a mobile processor, Samsung says its sensor directly converts pixels via ‘an embedded hardware IP.’ Other features include electronic image stabilization that uses gyroscope hardware, Super-PD phase-detection tech and up to 3x lossless 12MP zoom that doesn’t require upscaling.

The use of ISOCELL Plus tech, meanwhile, deals with the color interference that would otherwise arise from the Nonacell system, according to Samsung:

As the number of adjoined cells increase, so does color interference, making pixel-binning technologies more challenging, While such difficulties had limited Nonacell to a theory, the HM1 was able to realize the method by adopting Samsung’s ISOCELL Plus technology, which dramatically reduces crosstalk and minimizes optical loss as well as light reflection.

In addition to the 108MP sensor, the Galaxy S20 Ultra model features a 12MP wide-angle camera and a 48MP telephoto camera, 10x Hybrid Optic Zoom and ‘Super Resolution Zoom’ that uses AI for up to 100x zoom. The model’s ‘selfie’ camera, meanwhile, features a 40MP sensor with the ability to ‘shift’ to 10MP with larger pixels for higher quality images captured in low-light settings.

The S20 and S20+ models feature lesser specs with 12MP wide-angle and telephoto cameras, as well as a 64MP telephoto camera. A full breakdown of the camera hardware found in these three smartphone models is available on Samsung’s website.

photography

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February 14, 2020 at 11:43AM

March 16, 2020

Research funding guidelines are likely to tighten procedures for technology transfer

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Research security panel — White House science adviser Kelvin Droegemeier speaks on a panel at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting in Seattle. Other panelists include moderator Margaret Hamburg, AAAS board chair (on Droegemeier’s left side); Jodi Black of the National Institutes of Health; Pradeep Khosla, chancellor at the University of California at San Diego; and Mary Lidstrom, vice provost for research at the University of Washington. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

Concerns about international intellectual property theft are feeding into the formulation of new guidelines for auditing federal research funding. And the White House’s science adviser, Kelvin Droegemeier, says he’s trying to make sure the guidelines don’t become too restrictive.

“For research security in particular, I can tell you that we’ve developed a policy for guidance to agencies that is really good,” Droegemeier said today during a town hall session at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting in Seattle. “Let me just tell you, a year ago, I was concerned about where it was going to land, because I thought it was pretty heavy-duty. It would increase burden and wouldn’t actually address the challenges.”

Since then, the guidelines have been adjusted to respond to input received from international partners and from the Joint Committee on the Research Environment, or JCORE, which includes representatives from academia and industry as well as government agencies.

“The one thing that we don’t want to do is build really tall fences around really big areas,” Droegemeier, a meteorologist who heads the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, told attendees. “That would hamstring our research enterprises, and that’s not the right approach.”

After the session, Droegemeier told GeekWire that the guidelines would be released soon but didn’t provide a precise time frame.

Research security and intellectual property theft have become huge concerns in recent years, feeding into larger U.S.-China trade disputes. The controversy over Huawei’s 5G plans and the potential for security breaches is one example. A case at the University of California at San Diego, involving an eye doctor who was accused of receiving support from Chinese backers as well as U.S. federal grants, is another.

Droegemeier noted that the FBI is devoting significant resources to tracking the research security issue.

“We’ve heard from Director [Chris] Wray at the FBI that there’s a little over 1,000 open cases that have a nexus to China in particular, which are a mixture of those involving private companies and academia. A lot of those are not criminal cases, they’re breaking rules on disclosure, or whatever,” he said.

Jodi Black, deputy director of the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Extramural Research, said her office alone is working with 80 institutions on cases involving about 180 individuals. “That’s a small number in the context of the entire scientific enterprise, but there are some really very egregious things, and it normalizes that bad behavior,” she said.

Black listed several categories of bad behavior, such as receiving funds from multiple sources — including foreign sources — for doing the same research. Black said Chinese funding in particular can be problematic because of the strings that are sometimes attached to the money, such as establishing a Chinese-based lab or giving preference to Chinese students for post-doctoral positions.

She said the lapses extend to the peer-review process: For example, she’s seen cases of reviewers forwarding pre-publication drafts to foreign colleagues, complete with annotations, as well as efforts to manipulate the scores for papers submitted by favored investigators.

“That’s not fair,” Black said. “That’s cheating.”

Although the details of the new guidelines haven’t been released, the comments made today suggest there’ll be more attention devoted to auditing the disclosure forms that are submitted by researchers.

Microbiologist Mary Lidstrom, the University of Washington’s vice provost for research, said UW is already adding extra layers of scrutiny, including a targeted monitoring program for collaborations involving high-risk countries.

“This is a very streamlined process,” she said. “It only delays an agreement a day or two … and it’s invisible to the researcher.”

Droegemeier talked up the value of spot-checking the veracity of disclosure forms. “There are 54 FBI field offices in the United States. Universities are not equipped to go out and do a kind of TSA ‘pull someone out the line’ and spot-check a disclosure. Those disclosures are all self-disclosures, so the accuracy depends on the degree to which people are being audited. Well, that’s not enough these days,” he said.

“People have to understand that those things are being audited and spot-checked, just like your taxes occasionally get looked at for a potential audit,” Droegemeier said. “Just simply knowing that, not only is it a risk-based approach, but it’s a behavior-based approach. That’s the approach that this policy we’re developing is taking.”

Black said that should feed into the development of a research culture that fully embraces security concerns, and heads off bad behavior before it happens.

“Erring on the side of disclosure, and using that as your training mantra, I think will help resolve a lot of problems,” she said.

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February 14, 2020 at 04:05PM