Topps Blog: April 2022

Friday, 29 April 2022

The Week in Space: Ingenuity Investigates Perseverance’s Parachute, NASA Extends Remote Missions, and the Crew-4 Mission Arrives Safely

Welcome back to This Week in Space! After a hiatus, we’re pleased to once again bring you our Friday morning digest of all things space-related. Let’s start with NASA news.

Mission: Unstoppable

NASA has extended the missions of eight of its planetary-science spacecraft, thanks to their outstanding scientific productivity. The list: NASA’s InSight lander, Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN, Mars Science Laboratory (the Curiosity rover), the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, New Horizons, and OSIRIS-REx.

Most of the listed missions are getting a three-year extension. However, NASA experts believe they can get nine more years out of OSIRIS-REx, assuming the stalwart spacecraft keeps doing as well as it’s done so far. In fact, OSIRIS is getting a new title with its promotion. The newly christened OSIRIS-APEX team will redirect the spacecraft toward a near-earth asteroid called Apophis.

This is probably the last extension for InSight, as mission scientists are finally drawing the spacecraft’s operations on Mars to a close. Hopefully we’ll get data until the end of 2022. The lander’s power reserves are waning, but the InSight team notes that next Martian summer, InSight may get a chance to charge itself back up.

“Extended missions provide us with the opportunity to leverage NASA’s large investments in exploration, allowing continued science operations at a cost far lower than developing a new mission,” said Lori Glaze, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA’s Washington HQ. “Maximizing taxpayer dollars in this way allows missions to obtain valuable new science data, and in some cases, allows NASA to explore new targets with totally new science goals.”

Ingenuity Spots Perseverance Rover’s Parachute

Ingenuity really is the little copter that could. After a year on Mars, it’s still going strong. In fact, on the one-year anniversary of its first flight, Ingenuity took off for a highly successful Flight 26. Its mission was to visit its own landing site. Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission engineers asked whether Ingenuity could get a decent photo of Perseverance’s protective backshell and landing chute. While Perseverance had only imaged the landing site from a distance, Ingenuity was happy to oblige with a close-up.

This image of the backshell and supersonic parachute of NASA’s Perseverance rover was captured by the agency’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during its 26th flight on Mars on April 19, 2022. Image and caption: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The backshell looks for all the world like a downed flying saucer, smashed up as it is by a highway-speed lithobraking event. And indeed, its purpose was to soak the impact, protecting Perseverance with its life. But the parachute and its rigging are apparently in great shape. The orange-and-white canopy “shows no signs of damage” from Mars atmospheric entry, despite braking from fifteen thousand miles an hour to a comfortable 78mph.

“NASA extended Ingenuity flight operations to perform pioneering flights such as this,” said Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity’s team lead. “Every time we’re airborne, Ingenuity covers new ground and offers a perspective no previous planetary mission could achieve.”

Mars Sample Return Mission May Benefit

Ingenuity mission scientists expect their investigation of of the backshell and parachute will take “several weeks.” Once it’s complete, Mars Sample Return mission scientists hope to use the results to ensure safer landings for future spacecraft. And that’s “spacecraft” in the plural sense. The MSR design team recently split the sample retrieval lander into two separate, smaller landers. At a meeting of the Space Studies Board, NASA associate administrator for science Thomas Zurbuchen explained the team’s reasoning. “The Phase A analysis demonstrated that, frankly, the single lander breaks entry, descent and landing heritage,” said Zurbuchen. “It is actually high risk.”

So, the MSR mission team is trying to make best use of the time between now and their slated launch date of 2028. Meanwhile, Perseverance continues to accumulate and cache samples for MSR to bring home. However, the imperiled ESA ExoMars rover mission may further complicate the MSR’s already delayed timeline.

Three Forks

Ingenuity and Perseverance are currently surveying an ancient Martian river delta, named Three Forks for the three routes to the top. Their arrival at the delta marks the beginning of the mission’s main objective phase, called the Delta Front Campaign.

Here we see the rim of Jezero as Perseverance saw it. The wisp of orange at middle left is Perseverance’s landing parachute, seen from a distance. In the background, the terrain of Three Forks rises. Image: NASA/JPL

Perseverance spent a whole year crossing the flat bottom of an ancient crater lake that filled up with sediment. (It’s just like driving across Ohio, but Ohio has more corn.) Now that there’s some terrain, it’s time to start picking out scientific targets. Mission scientists are spoiled for choice; Percy is there to study rocks, and the whole region is cliffs and boulders. The Three Forks river delta itself looms 130 feet (40 meters) above the crater floor.

But the geological bounty comes with a cost. Thanks to all that rubble, only two of the delta’s three eponymous forks look passable. More recon sorties by Ingenuity will help mission scientists figure out which route is best.

‘An absolutely magnificent ride’

Closer to home, SpaceX launched four astronauts to the ISS on Wednesday, aboard a Crew Dragon newly named Freedom. The astronauts’ mission is known as Crew-4, and they will replace the Crew-3 astronauts who have lived and worked in microgravity on the ISS since November. Cmdr. Kjell Lindgren and pilot Bob “Farmer” Hines are on the roster, alongside two female mission specialists. It’s the fifth such flight for NASA in the last two years, and the fourth launch for the Dragon’s reusable booster.

“We had an absolutely magnificent ride into low Earth orbit on an F9 booster and the Freedom capsule,” Lindgren said. “It was a really smooth ride. And the Gs were pretty amazing.”

“It was just incredible,” added Hines. “That ride, especially on the second stage, it was just really eye-watering, it was awesome.”

The launch came less than two days after SpaceX’s previous crewed mission — itself a first — safely splashed down off the coast of Georgia. “If we look tired, it’s maybe because we are a bit tired,” remarked Kathy Lueders, the leader of NASA’s space operations mission directorate. “What a busy week in NASA space operations. Less than 40 hours ago we [landed] our first private astronaut mission, and the team carefully went through that data and then set up for the Crew-4 launch.”

Crew-4 Mission Arrives Safely at ISS

The Crew-4 mission is also a milestone for representation. This is the first NASA crew to boast equal numbers of men and women. Flying with Crew-4 colleagues Lindgren and Hines, Samantha Cristoforetti, 44, is a veteran ESA astronaut and a decorated Italian fighter pilot. Cristoforetti previously spent 199 days aboard the ISS, during a research mission from 2014-2015. The ISS will also welcome Crew-4 planetary geologist Jessica Watkins for a four-month mission. Watkins, 33, will become the first Black woman to stay on the ISS for such a long-term mission, during which she’ll make the ISS her second home in the skies. As a planetary geologist, Watkins is also on NASA’s shortlist for a future lunar mission.

Crew-4 astronauts, from left: Jessica Watkins, mission specialist; Bob Hines, pilot; Kjell Lindgren, commander; and Samantha Cristoforetti, mission specialist. The astronauts are positioned inside SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Freedom. Crew-4 launched to the International Space Station from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 3:52 a.m. EDT on April 27, 2022. Photo: SpaceX

“I think, for me, the part that was the most awesome of the whole ride was definitely the view,” said Watkins, shortly after the Dragon made berth at the ISS. “Right as we were coming in for docking, we were starting to get suits on and starting to prepare and just had time to take a last-minute look out the window, and we could see the space station kind of off in the distance.”

Skywatch: With Venus and Jupiter in Conjunction, Saturn and Mars Align

Finally, speaking of a beautiful view, let’s take a look up at what’s going on in the night skies.

Solar weather has been quiet this week; NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center expects a minor (G1) geomagnetic storm this afternoon, and then calm skies through the weekend.

Saturday, April 30 will be a great opportunity for skywatchers. And you don’t even need a telescope! A striking conjunction of Venus and Jupiter will reach its peak at about 19 UTC (3pm ET). The planets have been sailing slowly toward one another for weeks; tonight, they’ll only be a little more than a degree apart. But Saturday afternoon, Venus and Jupiter will be separated by just 0.2 degrees. Despite being hundreds of millions of miles apart, the two planets will appear to touch. While Venus and Jupiter conduct their stately dance, Mars and Saturn will also be visible, aligned roughly to the north of the conjunction.

The celestial show will go on all night and into daybreak. Observers in the Northern Hemisphere should look to the southeastern horizon about an hour before dawn. According to EarthSky, stargazers in the Southern Hemisphere will also be able to see the conjunction, but Venus and Jupiter will appear in the direction of sunrise, above the eastern horizon. Keep watching over the next few nights, and enjoy a moment’s kinship with the ancients. As the two planets begin to drift apart, you’ll see why ancient astronomers called them “wanderers.”

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Large ‘Fireball’ Startles Residents of Several Southern States

Residents of several southern states both saw and heard a visitor from outer space this week. NASA is reporting over 30 people caught a glimpse of a fireball hurtling towards Earth. Many more residents of Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi didn’t see the object, but heard it just fine. There were myriad reports of loud booms as the object rocketed through our atmosphere, and eventually fell to earth.

NASA says the fireball was likely a chunk of an asteroid that measured a foot across and weighed around 90lbs. It was plummeting towards earth at a speed of 55,000 miles per hour as it began to break apart in the lower atmosphere. The fragmentation caused an energy equivalent of three tons of TNT exploding, which caused shockwaves felt on the ground below. It was also the source of numerous loud booms reported by residents. The object was first spotted 54 miles above Mississippi, and disintegrated in an area 34 miles north of Minorca in Louisiana.

The fireball was spotted by NOAA’s Geostationary Lightning Mappers (GLM). (Image: NOAA)

The streaking “fireball” was first picked up by NOAA satellites positioned 22,00 miles away. The agency’s Geostationary Lightning Mappers (GLM) onboard Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) 16 and 17 identified numerous bright flashes in the sky. The flashes were caused by the disintegration of the bolide, which is an exceptionally bright meteor. NASA says at its peak, it was more than ten times brighter than a full moon.

Events like this are exceedingly rare. Bill Cooke, who runs NASA’s Meteoroid Environments office, said Mississippi residents won’t see another meteor like this for “decades.” Cooke offered his comments to a local news station, which also played footage of the meteor falling to earth. Unfortunately, the footage was caught on dash cam, so it’s low-resolution and grainy. Cooke also said in a statement he was surprised more people didn’t see the meteor. “What struck me as unusual was how few eyewitness reports we had given the skies were so clear,” said Cooke. “More people heard it than saw it.” Cooke also described the meteor as “one of the nicer events I’ve seen in the GLM data.” It’s unclear what he means by “nice” in this context, other than referencing the fact that nobody on the ground was hurt. It probably looked pretty cool too.

Feature image by Alex Alishevskikh.

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Two-inch Diamond Wafer Could Redefine Future Storage

(Photo: Adamant Namiki Precision Jewel Co., Ltd) A company in Japan that specializes in jewelry has teamed up with researchers to create a mind-blowing storage breakthrough. The team was able to manufacture a two-inch diamond disk intended for quantum computing. It’s the largest diamond storage device ever created, capable of holding up to 25 exabytes of information at room temperature. Adamant Namiki Precision Jewel Company teamed up with researchers from Saga University for the project.

The challenge was to create a diamond wafer that was both “pure” and bigger than the current standard of 4mm, which is too small to be practical. This is not an easy task, however. Making diamonds for quantum computing involves using nitrogen, and to be useful as storage for qubits a diamond has to be very pure, with no contaminant rising above three parts per billion. Previous attempts to make larger diamonds always introduced too much nitrogen. To achieve its goal, the team devised a new method to grow diamonds called Step-flow. According to Gizmodo, this approach has the diamonds grow on top of a stair-shaped sapphire substrate. As the diamonds expand, they grow laterally, reducing cracking and anomalies. Nitrogen gas is used to accelerate the growth process. This new method reduces the amount of nitrogen required, which is the key to its success. The result is called a Kenzan diamond.

The Step-flow growth technique. (Image: Adamant Namiki Precision Jewel Co., Ltd.)

Diamonds are seen as the ideal medium for quantum computing storage. This is due to a defect in their design called the nitrogen-vacancy center (NV Center). This defect occurs when one carbon atom in the diamond’s crystal lattice is replaced by a nitrogen atom, with the adjacent lattice site left empty. This defect traps electrons, and this is how the defects are used for storage. It’s a binary system where if an electron is detected, it’s a 1, if it’s empty (neutral), it’s a zero. Additionally, different types of lasers can alter the states of the defects’ electrons. This allows diamonds to be written to, erased, and rewritten to seemingly forever. Additionally if it’s kept in the dark, it could theoretically hold the data for eternity.

This marks a major breakthrough for quantum computing. The company says the wafers can be mass produced, and it expects to introduce them commercially in 2023. The company’s PR describes the discovery as something that “is expected to lead to the realization of quantum computers in the future.” Before you get your hopes up about your next quantum computer upgrade, it’ll be awhile before anything is commercially available. We’ll remind you Google is hoping to have a “viable” quantum computer by the year 2029.

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Internal Facebook Documents Reveal It’s Not Sure What Happens to Your Data

Over the years Facebook and its parent company Meta have been embroiled in numerous privacy-related incidents. The company been accused of bring reckless with user data many times, and according to internal documents we now know why: its systems were designed that way.

The folks over at Vice have gotten their hands on an internal Facebook document written by privacy engineers. The document was prepared to advise the company’s leadership on “inbound regulations” regarding how it uses its customers’ data. Overall, It doesn’t paint a pretty picture. The engineers note Facebook was “surprised” by new regulations coming from the EU and India that restricted its use of first party data. They go on to explain these new regulations are “setting the stage for a global regulatory push toward consent for 1P [first person] data use in Ads.” Gee, imagine that.

The document notes that previously Facebook’s policy enforcement was insufficient, on any timeframe, for “second party concerns.” That translates to other entities inquiring about its sale of customer data, such as an enforcement agency. This sets up a problem for Facebook; with stricter rules likely coming down the pike, how will it respond? The short answer is it can’t, because it’s not set up that way. Quoting from the document:

“We do not have an adequate level of control and explainability over how our systems use data, and thus we can’t confidently make controlled policy changes or external commitments such as “we will not use X data for Y purpose.” And yet, this is exactly what regulators expect us to do, increasing our risk of mistakes and misrepresentation.”

The leaked document plots anticipated regulatory action from countries around the world. The legend describes much work it will require. (Image: Vice)

The engineers then offer a damning analogy of how it all works. You know, just in case they needed to spell it out for the C-suite. The document states:

“We’ve built systems with open borders. The result of these open systems and open culture is well described with an analogy: Imagine you hold a bottle of ink in your hand. This bottle of ink is a mixture of all kinds of user data (3PD, 1PD, SCD, Europe, etc.) You pour that ink into a lake of water (our open data systems; our open culture) … and it flows … everywhere. How do you put that ink back in the bottle? How do you organize it again, such that it only flows to the allowed places in the lake?” For context, 3PD is third party data, 1PD is first party data, and SCD is sensitive categories data.

A spokesperson for Facebook refuted the claim that the document showed Facebook might not be in compliance with some laws. “New privacy regulations across the globe introduce different requirements and this document reflects the technical solutions we are building to scale the current measures we have in place to manage data and meet our obligations,” the spokesperson told Vice. The Facebook rep also said the document is being taken out of context. This is because it doesn’t “describe our extensive processes and controls to comply with privacy regulations.”

An example of the scale of the problem is the engineers say Facebook uses 15 thousand features in its ad models. In order to produce one single feature, which is “user_home_city_moved,” it requires six thousand reference points. Multiply this scenario by the almost three billion daily Facebook users, and you can see the scale of the problem.

Regardless of the size of the task, Facebook will need to figure out a way to keep a closer eye on its users’ data. This is somewhat adjacent to the warning the EU sent to Elon Musk this week. Upon his acquisition of Twitter, he was reminded of the recently passed Digital Services Act. This places much stricter controls over how big tech companies handle content moderation. The world of regulation is changing for these companies outside the US currently, and in a big way. It’s a situation the authors of the document described clearly, “We face a tsunami of inbound regulations that all carry massive uncertainty.”

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Meta Says Its Project Cambria Headset Will Be For Work, Not Fun

In late 2021 Meta began to tease a high-end Virtual Reality (VR) headset it was developing called Project Cambria. Back then it was rumored to be something akin to a Quest Pro device. It was touted as an upgraded and refined Quest, with more advanced capabilities. In this week’s earnings call, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared new details on the still-in-progress headset. As Zuck pitched it, the device is more for work than gaming.

On the call, the Meta CEO discussed the multiple headwinds the company was facing and how it plans to overcome them. One of its strategies is creating its version of the Metaverse, which has been discussed ad nauseam. However, this time Zuckerberg delved a bit into the hardware that will take people there. “Later this year, we’ll release a higher-end headset, codenamed Project Cambria, which will be more focused on work use cases and eventually replacing your laptop or work setup,” he said. How in the heck Zuck expects someone like me to write an article like this with just a headset remains to be seen.

He continued, “This premium device will have improved ergonomics and full color passthrough mixed reality to seamlessly blend virtual reality with the physical world.” As mentioned by PCMag, full color passthrough will mark a huge upgrade over its current hardware. The Quest 2 only allows grainy, black-and-white passthrough, so a move to full-color will be significant. He finished his remarks stating Cambria will also have eye-and-face tracking too. “We’re also building in eye tracking and face tracking so that your avatar can make eye contact and [make]facial expressions, which dramatically improves your sense of presence.” His mention of eye tracking is a hint that Cambria might use foveated rendering like the PSVR2. This technology increases performance by only rendering areas where a person is looking in high detail. The areas outside a person’s gaze are rendered at reduced detail levels.

He concluded the metaverse discussion by saying the company is focusing on its current outlet, Horizon Worlds. You may recall it was featured in a very strange Super Bowl ad this year. Zuckerberg said Cambria’s ability to translate facial expressions will “provide the best metaverse experience — whether you’re playing a game or meeting with co-workers in Horizon Workrooms.” Despite Zuckerberg’s claims that a Meta headset provides the best experience, it’s looking at ways to decouple Horizon Worlds from its headset requirement.

He said the company plans on bringing the experience to many platforms, including a web-version that’ll come later this year. Ideally, anyone will be able to join Horizon Worlds from any device or platform, even without a headset. Zuck also stated one of the company’s priorities in Horizon Worlds is “helping creators make a living working in the metaverse.” This is despite previous reports of Meta taking an almost 50 percent commission on user-generated sales in Horizon Worlds. This sparked an online backlash, and in a rare public statement Apple called the company’s policy “hypocrisy.” That’s because Meta has previously complained about the App Store’s 30 percent commissions.

Mark’s comments suggest the company is prioritizing the metaverse with Project Cambria. This could mean it sees that venue as more beneficial to its future than gaming. It also sounds a bit like Meta expects to do battle with Apple in the future. No other company has been rumored to be developing a high-end headset other than Apple so far. Sure, Sony’s PSVR2 won’t be cheap but that’s for console gaming. Plus, it’s been reported that Apple hates the metaverse, so it might also be aiming its headset at work scenarios. Either that or Apple wants some of those juicy government contracts currently being fulfilled haphazardly by Microsoft.

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Thursday, 28 April 2022

‘E-nose’ Can Detect Fine Whiskey, Counterfeit Perfume

(Photo: Adam Jaime/Unsplash) Some high-end whiskeys and perfumes are able to command astronomical prices, which creates a perfect “business opportunity” for scam artists. Shoppers, whether individual or wholesale, have to be careful not to purchase fakes of either product. But how do you tell them apart?

Enter the electronic nose, or “e-nose,” developed by the researchers at the University of Technology Sydney. Associate professor of engineering Dr. Steven Su worked with a small group of PhD students and chemists to create a prototype (internally called NOS.E) that imitates the human olfactory system. It contains eight gas sensors which pick up the odor molecules from a vial of liquid. Depending on the molecules detected, the e-nose’s sensor array develops a unique signal matrix and sends the resulting data to a computer, where a machine learning algorithm calculates the liquid’s characteristics.

Dr. Su and his team trained their algorithm to identify different whiskey brands, geographical origins, and styles. They had the e-nose “sniff” vials of three blended malts and three single malt whiskeys. The team’s study, published this month in the journal IEEE Sensors, says the e-nose was able to reach accuracy levels of 96.15 percent for the whiskey’s brand name, 100 percent for origin, and 92.31 percent for style classification.

Unfortunately the e-nose does not look like a human nose. (Photo: UTS)

“An expert can identify the differences between whiskies, but it is difficult for the majority of consumers to differentiate fraudulent beverages,” the study reads. “Complex chemical and analytical analyses have been able to detect the differences between whiskies; however, this type of analysis is time-consuming, complex, requires trained professionals, and can only be conducted in the laboratory.” Conversely, the researchers’ e-nose is said to be capable of detecting six whiskeys’ characteristics in under four minutes—a potential game-changer when it comes to quality control and fraud prevention.

So far the e-nose has been used to differentiate between various types of whiskey, cognac, wine, perfume, and even illegal animal parts, which are frequently sold on the black market. Dr. Su’s team hopes it will eventually find its way to the medical field, where it may assist with disease detection.

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Dell Offers Additional Insight on Its New CAMM Memory Modules

We’ve spilled a bit of digital ink lately about Dell’s all-new CAMM memory solution, and yet questions persist. Initially we reported on a leaked photo of the module. Next Dell officially announced it, and provided plenty of info. Yet, despite having the official word from Dell we were still unclear on a few important points. For instance, are CAMM upgrades only available from Dell? How difficult, or easy, is it to upgrade? We sent Dell our lingering questions and the company has responded with some new details.

As a brief refresher, CAMM stands for Compression Attached Memory Module. It’s Dell’s forward-looking replacement for the 25 year old SO-DIMM design. Dell claims its new design has three main benefits: easier repairs, it allows for faster memory speeds, and it’s much thinner.

How Do You Upgrade a CAMM Module?

Our first question was simple: how do you upgrade the modules? With SO-DIMM you can just swap the RAM sticks out by moving a latch. According to Dell, the process is similar with CAMM but you have to use a screwdriver. The memory dies are on a PCB that is called the CAMM Module, and it attaches to a container. Once you’ve freed it you just screw it back into the module and bracket. Since Dell is making the CAMM module accessible via a door under the laptop, this should be a trivial exercise.

Does the SO-DIMM Adapter Negate CAMM’s Benefits?

Even though CAMM is a replacement for SO-DIMM, Dell offers a SO-DIMM interposer. This allows for backwards compatibility and a wider range of memory upgrade options. However, CAMM is supposed to be an improvement over SO-DIMM. As one would expect, using the SO-DIMM + interposer solution precludes using CAMM.

The SO-DIMM attachment for CAMM. (Image: Dell)

If CAMM is Not Proprietary, Can Other Companies Make Modules?

Although we first reported that Dell’s design looked proprietary, the company says that’s not the case. It envisions CAMM as an “industry standard” that other companies will adopt. The Dell rep said it will be presenting its design to JEDEC soon with the hopes of it becoming “standardized for broad use.” The rep said it’s working with memory suppliers, OEMs, and others to accelerate this process. As for whether we’ll see HP or Lenovo laptops with CAMM in them, nobody knows just yet.

This rendering shows the size difference between CAMM and SO-DIMM. (Image: Dell)

Do Customers Have to Purchase CAMM Upgrades From Dell?

Yes. Since Dell is the only one making this technology, the only replacements/upgrades are Dell products. The rep stated, “Dell recommends customers only use memory purchased through Dell. This ensures that all memory has been properly tested and qualified for use with our systems.” The rep did note that if a customer has the SO-DIMM attachment they can buy memory from a variety of companies. The rep also stated that as soon as other companies adopt CAMM, upgrade options should flourish.

The CAMM Module access hatch. (Image: Dell)

For now, Dell’s attempt to rethink the mobile memory interface is intriguing. It remains to be seen what prices Dell will charge for upgrades though. It also seems to be something we’ll see filter down to its consumer laptops at some point. Given its supposed benefits over SO-DIMM, that seems like a no-brainer. The really interesting question is whether its competitors will adopt the form factor, or come up with their own version.

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Apple’s iPhone Self Service Repair Program is Finally Available

Back in November of 2021 Apple announced a Self Service Repair program for the iPhone 12, 13, and SE (3rd gen). Since then, we’ve all been hitting F5 on an imaginary URL waiting for something to appear. Today, the page resolved and voila; Apple’s program is finally live. It allows you to buy the necessary parts and tools for the most common repairs. Apple even includes detailed repair manuals as well. Once you figure out which parts you need, you can order whatever you like and perform DIY repairs with your fingers crossed. It’s a step towards the right-to-repair the user community deserves.

Apple announced the official start of the program in a blog post. You can now peruse and purchase more than 200 parts and tools for late model iPhones. Apple is focusing on the most requested repairs with the program, but its parts list should cover most peoples’ needs. You can now purchase a battery, display, speaker, camera, SIM tray, and taptic engine. Apple even lets you purchase just the part you want, or a “bundle” that has all the ancillary parts.

The prices seem reasonable too. For example, an iPhone 13 camera bundle is $117, but if you return the parts you replaced it’s only $64. There doesn’t seem to be an Apple tax here for little things either. Two security screws cost just $0.20, and the camera cowling is $0.50. Apple says these are the same prices it charges its network of certified repair technicians. Also, if you’re upset at the prospect of buying tools for a one-time job, Apple will rent them to you. The tool rental program costs $49 and gives you seven days to use them. After that time, they are returned to Apple.

The iPhone 13 camera bundle includes the camera, a universal screw kit, display adhesive, and security screws. (Image: Apple)

There’s not much information on what the parts in the bundles are for, unfortunately. To figure all that out you’ll have to head over to the manual section and dig through it. Apple also includes a warning that this program is for those “who are experienced with the complexities of repairing electronic devices.” Also, in some cases it’s not as simple as just swapping parts out and being done. For example, if you replace your phone’s camera you’ll need to run a “system configuration” software tool also. You’ll need to contact Apple by phone or chat to get the software.

Although Motorola is technically the first company to offer DIY phone repair, Apple is the first major player to make it official. It seems like the dam has officially broken on this movement too. Recently, both Samsung and Google announced their own self repair programs. Both companies will be using iFixit to offer tools and parts to customers. Both companies have stated their repair programs will be available later this year. Apple’s program is only for iPhones currently but the company says it will be expanding the program soon. Later this year it’ll offer the same support for M1-based Macs and it’ll offer the program in Europe too.

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GPU-based NVMe RAID Melts Your Face at 110 Gigabytes Per Second

Graid Technology has released the latest version of its NVMe RAID solution, and it’s a scorcher. Instead of using a typical hardware RAID controller it uses a GPU to do the heavy lifting. The goal is to squeeze the absolute maximum level of performance from NVMe drives. Apparently, that’s exactly what it can do.

The product is called the SupremeRAID SR-1010, and it is a hardware RAID controller for NVMe and NVMeof (NVMe over fiber) storage. It’s billed as a solution that’s “designed to deliver the full potential of PCIe Gen4 systems.” It does that by using an Nvidia RTX A2000 GPU instead of a standard RAID controller. This affords it vastly more computational power than software RAID or other hardware solutions. Graid claims it can hit speeds as high as 110GB/s for a 512K sequential read, with 22GB/s writes. For comparison, it says “high-end hardware RAID” can only muster read speeds of 13.5GB/s with 4GB/s writes. It can also achieve 19 million 4K random read IOPS, compared to 3.5 million from other devices. The card runs on a PCIe Gen 4 X16 interface and supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10 on up to 32 NVMe SSDs. It supports Linux and Windows, but only Windows Server 2019 and 2022. You can see Storage Review take it out of the its anti-static bag below.

This is an upgraded version of the previous drive, the SR-1000. The previous model was equipped with a a PCIe Gen 3 interface and Turing GPU. Both of those have now been upgraded, with PCIe Gen 4 and an Ampere-based A2000 GPU. This is a 70W professional card with 6GB or 12GB of GDDR6 with ECC. The main benefits of a GPU-based design is it is much faster than a traditional hardware RAID controller. It offloads all I/O to the RAID card instead of the CPU. Graid says a typical software RAID setup using the CPU can only tap between ten to 20 percent of SSD performance, while using all of the CPU’s power to do so.

Graid’s solution is certainly a unique piece of hardware. The site notes that NVMe SSDs are simply too fast for traditional RAID adapters, and that two PCIe Gen 4 SSDs can saturate a modern RAID controller. Start adding more drives to the array and you hit a bottleneck immediately. Software RAID works, but again, eats up all of a CPU’s cycles and offers lackluster performance. This makes fitting 20-plus SSDs into a server rack an expensive endeavor. Not to mention you’d have performance that’s less than optimal. The SR-1010 will be available on May 1 but pricing wasn’t released. Based on the specs, it’s probably one of those “if you have to ask” scenarios.

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Partially Destroying Tumors With Sound Allows the Immune System to Finish the Job

The team’s 700kHz, 260-element histotripsy ultrasound array transducer. (Photo: Marcin Szczepanski, Michigan Engineering) New research reveals we may be able to assist organisms’ immune systems in clearing away tumors by first destroying part of the tumor with sound.

Researchers from the University of Michigan have developed a form of noninvasive sound technology that destroys a significant part of cancerous mass and keeps the destroyed portion of the tumor from coming back. The treatment, called histotripsy, uses a transducer to deliver microsecond-long ultrasound pulses to cancerous tissues. The pulses generate tiny bubbles that quickly expand and collapse, destroying cancer cells around them. It’s the first treatment of its kind, having paved the way to treat cancer without heat or ionizing radiation.

“It works by mechanically liquefying the target cancer tissue and demonstrates the potential to increase accuracy and reduce off-target damage for cancer treatment when compared to radiation or thermal-based approaches,” said lead researcher Dr. Zhen Xu, associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, as she accepted an award on behalf of her team. While the technology was developed to treat liver cancer, Dr. Xu mentioned she hopes it will someday expand to treat tumor metastases, or cancer that has spread to a secondary location in the body.

Dr. Xu (left) working on the transducer with a biomedical engineering PhD student. (Photo: Marcin Szczepanski, Michigan Engineering)

Dr. Xu’s team first tested histotripsy with rats. According to the study, which was published last week in the oncology journal Cancers, the researchers began by using histotripsy to destroy 50 to 75 percent of each rat’s liver tumor volume, then periodically checked the tumors using MRI. They found that the rats’ immune systems were then able to clear away the rest of the tumors, with no evidence of recurrence or metastases in 81 percent of those treated. All treated rats enjoyed longer lifespans than a control group left untreated.

Since then, histotripsy has been tested with a small group of humans. While information on that experimental treatment is limited, Dr. Xu’s team points out that all eight treated patients experienced complete tumor regression with no adverse side effects. Two of the eight also experienced the stabilization of non-targeted tumors elsewhere in the body. Clinical trials with human patients are expected to continue while Dr. Xu and her colleagues explore the combination of their technology with brain therapy and immunotherapy.

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The US Government May Have Wasted $22 Billion on HoloLens

A US government watchdog is warning that the Pentagon may have wasted more than $22 billion on Microsoft’s HoloLens by failing to ask if the soldiers who would be theoretically responsible for deploying the hardware actually wanted to use it or perceived any benefit from doing so. This is an observation so banal, one might wonder why the government needed to put it in an audit in the first place. This isn’t the first time, however, that we’ve heard rumors about soldiers not liking HoloLens — or IVAS, as the combat variant is known.

When Microsoft announced it would partner with the US military to develop HoloLens into a combat-capable system, the news was controversial both inside and outside Microsoft. Some company employees felt directly collaborating with the government to develop weapons of war was immoral, while some pundits more generally felt the technology was too immature to be useful on a battlefield. Earlier this year, news broke that Microsoft might not move forward with HoloLens 3. Back in March, a leaked memo also implied the US Army might not be happy with the IVAS hardware. A Microsoft employee stated:

“We are going into the event expecting negative feedback from the customer. We expect soldier sentiment to continue to be negative as reliability improvements have been minimal from previous events. Sounds like the Army is coming in with low expectations to which might be advantageous as the expectations/delivery delta might not be big.”

Image by Microsoft

This audit was prepared by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). The document states: “Army testing officials assessed user acceptance from Soldiers (sic) that used IVAS during various operational tests and used the results of those surveys to make changes to the system. However, IVAS program officials did not define minimum user acceptance levels to determine whether IVAS would meet user needs.” The report notes that this oversight occurred because Army policy did not require program officials to define user acceptance levels in the first place.

According to the full report, IVAS was supposed to be built using Soldier Centered Design. Soldier Centered Design, as the name implies, is intended to ensure that the needs of combat troops are top-of-mind when designing the relevant piece of equipment. During IVAS development and prototyping, the military consulted directly with soldiers who had tested the equipment and made changes based on their feedback. Unfortunately, the military apparently never defined the specific criteria IVAS would need to achieve in order to be considered capable of meeting user needs.

The report blacks out all soldier feedback on actual IVAS capabilities, making it difficult to tell what users actually thought. It seems highly unlikely that the unredacted portions of the report would so consistently emphasize the lack of appropriate user acceptance levels if that feedback had been complimentary. One can imagine a situation in which IVAS improved over several successive generations but never closed the critical gaps that were leaving soldiers’ dissatisfied. The Pentagon could still claim to have taken soldier feedback into account (which the OIG notes it did), but if troops don’t like the thing, they’re unlikely to want to use it. According to the leaked memo from last month, soldiers were unhappy with the device’s low-light performance and its thermal imaging. These aren’t small features — they’re key aspects of why the military wants this kind of hardware in the first place. It may be that current technology can’t yet provide the kind of features the military wants in the weight and power consumption footprint the military desires.

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Tuesday, 26 April 2022

New Dell Workstations Feature 128GB of DDR5 on a Single CAMM Module

Dell has pulled the wraps off its newest workstations, revealing the full skinny on its all-new CAMM memory module. Word of this new design leaked a few days ago, prompting people (including us) to speculate on what exactly Dell was up to. As it turns out, it’s not as sinister as it seemed at first. However, it’s unclear if any company other than Dell will adopt the form factor going forward.

As a refresher, Dell’s CAMM stands for Compression Attached Memory Module. It’s included in the company’s new Precision 7770 and 7670 mobile workstations. It’s a replacement for the ancient SO-DIMM module and is a new design made by Dell. The company claims it’s 57 percent thinner than SO-DIMM, allowing it to make its laptops thinner without sacrificing power. It also allows for higher density, with up to 128GB of DDR5 on one PCB. That PCB then goes into the CAMM.

To achieve that density with a SO-DIMM would require four 32GB modules, mounted on both front-and-back sides of the motherboard. According to Wccftech, Dell says the CAMM design allows for easier repairs and upgrades. Like a traditional memory module, it is user-accessible via a small panel on the bottom of the laptop. We’re guessing the big benefit here is all the memory is one one PCB, as opposed to having modules mounted under the motherboard. This would make swapping memory sticks a trivial matter since it’s easily accessible.

Dell’s rendering of the PCB that attaches to the CAMM. (Image: Dell)

The PCB with the memory on it is the CAMM module. It attaches to the mainboard via the CAMM Compression Connector. It’s held down with screws and top-and-bottom bolster plates. It’s a modular design and it can even accept a SO-DIMM connector as well. The memory modules will range in size from 16GB all the way up to 128GB. Although it is designed by Dell the company says it is not proprietary, and other companies are free to make CAMM modules. We will have to wait and see if that ever comes to fruition. One thing that concerns us is the CAMM is bolted in place. This is unlike a SO-DIMM stick, which is held in place by easily toggled latches. This would seemingly require you to unscrew the CAMM module to replace it, as opposed to just lifting the memory sticks out of the module. It’s also possible the entire CAMM mechanism can be removed with just a few screws though.

After we published our skepticism about Dell’s new memory modules, the company reached out to address our concerns. It explained it was pioneering this new design “as an industry standard” that was made “for the good of customers and the industry.” A Dell rep stated the main benefits of CAMM are threefold: a thinner chassis design, faster memory (DDR5), and more accessibility for repairs and upgrades. Those are certainly laudable goals, but the crux of our complaint was that users would have to buy memory upgrades from Dell. We suppose it’s possible third parties will begin making and selling CAMM modules, but it remains to be seen if that will occur. We’ve reached out to Dell to help answer some of our questions about CAMM, and will post an update on it soon.

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AMD to Push DDR5 Memory Overclocking With EXPO Technology

Back in January, we reported that AMD was ramping up its memory overclocking marketing. The new system is called RAMP, and stood for Ryzen Accelerated Memory Profiles. Though we’re not Professional Acronym Judges (PAJ), it seemed like a good effort at branding for AMD. It was concise, conveyed forward movement, and communicated the company’s goals; to “ramp up” its memory speeds. However, the company seems to have fallen out of favor with it, and has changed the name to EXPO. This new branding apparently stands for EXtended Profiles for Overclocking.

AMD filed for a trademark for the name EXPO back in February. Like any trademark filing there’s not much information other than it relates to memory and integrated circuits. However, more information has now come to light via Videocardz. According to the site’s sources, EXPO will allow DDR5 memory modules to store two overclocking profiles. One will offer high bandwidth, and the other will allow for lower latency. The site says the second profile will be optional. The technology will also work with all DDR5 modules, so it won’t be limited to just desktop users looking to overclock their RAM sticks. If it works like Intel’s version, you’ll be able to overclock your memory by enabling it in your computer’s UEFI/BIOS. The memory modules are pre-tested by the manufacturer and validated to run on AMD’s platforms at specific speeds. That data is stored in the EEPROM of the memory sticks, and enabled by the user if they wish.

The difference between DDR4 and DDR5 via Sky Hynix.

AMD is seemingly trying to offer something that sounds similar to Intel’s own memory overclocking branding. Intel’s is called Extended Memory Profiles, known as XMP, and for DDR5 it’s called XMP 3.0. Perhaps it’s trying to ease the transition for folks switching teams, but in our minds it just sounds confusing. Either way it seems AMD is serious about at least one type of overclocking for its upcoming architecture.

The company recently made headlines saying overclocking would be a big focus for Zen 4. As a reminder, Joseph Tao, Memory Enabling Manager at AMD, made the following remarks. “Our first DDR5 platform for gaming is our Raphael platform and one of the awesome things about Raphael is that we are really gonna try to make a big splash with overclocking and I’ll just kinda leave it there but speeds that you maybe thought couldn’t be possible, maybe possible with this overclocking spec.” We noted our skepticism at the time, as the company hasn’t offered a good overclocking CPU in many moons. Upon reflection, it’s entire possible the company was talking about overclocking memory, not the CPU. As you recall, its newest V-Cache CPU doesn’t allow overclocking, and it’s plausible Zen 4 CPUs will also feature additional L3 cache. If they can’t be overclocked, then it makes sense to focus on memory overclocking. We doubt that will be the case, but we’ll find out at the Zen 4 launch later this year.

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China Announces Plan for Kinetic Asteroid Redirect

In 2021, NASA announced that they were going to crash a spacecraft into an asteroid — on purpose. But this was no “hold my beer” moment; the reason pour faire le smashy-smash was a live-fire demo of “Earth’s first planetary defense system.” A big enough asteroid can wreck the day of every living human, on and off planet. So, twenty years after the 1998 box office sunburn Armageddon, NASA launched the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). Now, Chinese state media reports that China has a plan to step up with its own asteroid redirect mission.

Space Day is a pretty big deal in China. So, this year’s Space Day was an auspicious day to announce this mission of shared global guardianship. During an interview on China Central Television, China National Space Administration (CNSA) deputy head Wu Yanhua detailed a sweeping new asteroid defense initiative.

First, Wu said, China will build out a “near-Earth asteroid monitoring and defense system” to protect from asteroid impacts. Such a system would include an early warning array, along with other relevant defense tech, which is TBD. But Wu also floated an ambitious plan to have an asteroid-redirecting spacecraft in the sky no later than Space Day, 2025.

We don’t yet have specifics on launch, nor even a render of the design. This newly announced mission is still very much in the planning phase, said Wu, although Chinese media intimated that the project has already been greenlit by the Chinese National Space Agency. However, DART launched from Vandenburg on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Presumably, this newly announced Chinese spacecraft would launch on a rocket in the Long March family. Long March is a Chinese line of workhorse launch vehicles with various lift capacities. LM-8 is the closest comparator to the Falcon 9, while the LM-9 is a super-heavy not unlike the American SLS Block 1.

Momentum

Like DART, the planned Chinese kinetic redirect would single out an asteroid to crash into. Unlike DART, however, this new mission would choose an asteroid that poses some future threat to the planet. DART picked the moonlet of a benign asteroid, Dimorphos (aka “Didymoon“), for a proof of concept. In short, hoo boy you do not want to miss the one that matters, so practice on the ones that don’t.

Some space missions, like solar physics, study and have to account for spooky quantum phenomena. Others deal with relativistic effects, or do sophisticated science on lasers and electromagnetism. DART, however, is refreshingly direct. It’s pure kinematics.

You may have heard of f=ma, Newton’s second law of physics: force equals mass times acceleration. If you’re (un)lucky enough to have endured freshman physics, you may also have encountered the formula for momentum: p=mv. Momentum equals mass times velocity. And that’s how DART does its work. A small thing traveling very fast can apply the same amount of force in a collision as a big thing going slow — for example, the OMG particle, a single proton of cosmic origin we clocked at 99.99999999999999999999951% C, with the kinetic energy of a line drive. So we’re chucking half the equivalent mass of a VW Bug at this kilometer-size asteroid.

DART will use the NEXT-C ion engine as it approaches Dimorphos on its asteroid redirect mission.

DART is flying Deployable Space Systems Roll-Out Solar Arrays (ROSA) for the first time in deep space, featuring powerful APL-developed Transformational Solar Array concentrators. The arrays power NASA’s Evolutionary Xenon Thruster – Commercial (NEXT–C) ion engine, an electric propulsion system developed by Glenn Research Center in collaboration with Aerojet Rocketdyne. (Image Credit: NASA/Christopher J. Lynch)

NASA expects that DART will hit Dimorphos’ surface at fifteen thousand miles an hour. We don’t know how the new Chinese kinetic redirect spacecraft will build its momentum. But we do know that DART can attain its ludicrous speed because of its xenon-powered NEXT-C ion engine. Over more than ten thousand hours, the breath of force from that ion engine will bring DART up to speed.

Must Be Cool in That Shade

Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and space observer, told the Chinese state-run Global Times that “currently the US and Russia are also building asteroid monitoring systems, and China’s defense system could be an important supplement in addressing the threats of asteroids hitting Earth.”

“This is another practical solution that China proposes to build a community with a shared future for mankind, and it is the duty for a major space power to protect mankind from possible disasters that could end the entire human civilization,” Song said, during the Space Day interview.

China’s stated aims for the mission are straightforward. They frame the mission in terms of shouldering a global burden of defense against asteroid impact. And it is a global burden of defense. But nothing comes out of the Chinese propaganda machine by accident. It’s impossible to miss China’s delicate implication that while Russia’s nouveau-riche space mafioso wannabe Rogozin spends his time griefing civilians on Twitter and threatening the ISS — while Putin sacrifices the futures of millions of people on the altar of his ambition — China will nobly spread its sheltering arms, to the benefit of all. They didn’t mention the war in Ukraine. They didn’t have to.

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Elon Musk Buys Twitter, Will Take it Private

Mercurial business tycoon Elon Musk has reached a deal with Twitter’s board to take over the company. The agreement between Musk and the board ends weeks of drama between Musk and the social media platform. Previously Musk became Twitter’s largest shareholder, then accepted and rejected a seat on the board. Finally, the board agreed to the deal after Musk proved he had lined up financing. The deal is reportedly worth approximately $44 billion and will see Musk take the company private.

The terms of the deal involve Musk paying shareholders $54.20 in cash for each share they own. This represents a 38 percent premium over the price of the stock before Musk revealed he was the company’s biggest shareholder. The board unanimously approved the buyout after Musk announced he had acquired $46.5 billion in loans from Morgan Stanley and other banks. In a statement, Musk discussed his reasoning behind the purchase. “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.” He said he intends to make its algorithms open source and to move towards “authenticating all humans.”

The news is a bit awkward for Twitter’s management. In his previous effort to purchase the company he said he had no faith in the current team. Also, when Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal took over for Jack Dorsey, Musk tweeted a photoshop comparing the new CEO to Joseph Stalin. It seems like Agrawal’s days might be numbered, but no other layoffs have been announced yet. The company held an all-hands meeting after the news broke, with Agrawal answering the staff’s questions. It was announced that the board would dissolve in roughly six months, and control would rest firmly in Musk’s hands.

According to CNN, a big question the staff had at the all-hands was whether Musk would let former President Trump back onto the platform. Agrawal said that would be up to Elon. However, several hours after the news broke Trump stated he would not be going back to Twitter. He stated he has his own platform now, Truth Social. This is despite the fact that he has only posted one “truth” to it since it’s inception.

Across the Internet reactions were mixed about the news. This is mostly due to Musk’s unpredictable nature and his penchant for trolling people on the platform. As an example, recently he posted a comparison of Bill Gates and the “pregnant man” emoji with the caption, “in case u need to lose a boner fast.” It’s an odd way to act (and type) for someone with so many resources at his disposal, not to mention companies to run.

Still there’s no denying Musk’s success in his myriad ventures including Tesla and SpaceX. Musk himself seems to be aware of his ability to attract scorn, and he isn’t shying away from it. After the deal was announced he tweeted, “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.” The news also provided superior meme-fodder, with one Twitter user quipping, “finally, elon will now own something that won’t kill people if it crashes.”

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