Category Archives: Technology

Samsungs new-generation processors and memory solutions set to power innovation across mobile, home, data center, and automotive markets

Samsung Electronics, a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, showcased advanced memory and system logic devices at its Tech Day 2019 event. Fueling the future of tech for 5G, AI, cloud, edge, IoT, and autonomous vehicles, Samsung highlighted new processor and memory device capabilities. The company unveiled the Exynos 990 premium mobile processor, the 5G-enabled Exynos Modem 5123 and announced mass production of its third generation 10nm-class 1z-nm DRAM.

Samsung is focused on harnessing the most advanced semiconductor technologies to power innovation across key markets, said JS Choi, president, Samsung Semiconductor. From System LSI devices that are perfectly adapted for real-world 5G and AI, to advanced solid-state drives (SSDs) that handle mission-critical tasks and offload CPU workload, we are determined to deliver infrastructure capabilities that are built to enable every wave of innovation.

New technology announcements include:

Samsung also proposed new business possibilities for next-generation memory technologies, including the companys 7th-generation V-NAND with nearly 200 (1yy) cell layers for mobile and other premium memory solutions, and next-generation PCIe Gen5 SSDs for future server and storage applications.

Samsungs third annual Tech Day hosted Silicon Valleys leading companies, featured customer collaborations on GPU, PCIe Gen4 and HBM2e technologies, an industry-leading customer panel, and a demo pavilion showcasing the future of home automation, data centers, mobile/5G, and automotive technology.

The proliferation of technological advances in 5G, edge computing and AI is changing the world at an exponential pace. The impact of AI will be everywhere, from new avenues for communication and unprecedented connections. AIs impact will be seen everywhere. Self-driving cars will take to our roads and homes and businesses will become truly connected, said Choi. To enable such innovations, technology infrastructure must lead the way. Samsung is committed to being at the heart of all this innovation and it will be fascinating to see what the world can do.

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Samsung Showcases Its Latest Silicon Technologies for the Next Wave of Innovation at Annual Tech Day - Samsung Newsroom

We could go to Venus tomorrow with the technology we have today, urged a NASA scientific advisory group, and the group's members would like to get a mission off the ground as soon as possible.

Representatives from the Venus Exploration Analysis Group (VEXAG) made a presentation to NASA's planetary science advisory committee on Sept. 24, recommending that the agency prioritize a mission to Venus, the second-closest planet to the sun.

Mars is a popular destination for NASA missions, both due to the possibility of life on the planet and because the agency may send astronauts there as soon as the 2030s. That said, NASA does have separate calls for proposals to send missions to other solar system locations. Excluding flybys, Venus hasn't been visited by a dedicated NASA spacecraft in 25 years, even though scientists subsequently sent several mission proposals to the agency.

Related: The Strange Case of Missing Lightning at Venus

"The Mars program has 'followed the water' and continued to look for evidence of life, but Mars only had liquid water present on its surface for a few hundred million years, [about] three billion years ago," said Darby Dyar, who made the VEXAG presentation and who is chair of astronomy at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, in an email to Space.com.

"Moreover, the Mars program has long united around a single goal," Dyar added, "which is to bring samples back from Mars. NASA Headquarters is supporting that goal with planning now. So my feeling is that although many outstanding science questions about Mars remain, they are second order compared to the dire state of knowledge about Venus."

So VEXAG hopes that NASA's current call for smaller Discovery missions will bear some fruit. The announcement of opportunity, which closed July 1, includes at least three Venus proposals. The Step-1 selections should be announced around January 2020.

The Venus proposals include DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) to measure the chemical composition of Venus during a descent; the VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy) orbiter to examine the surface of Venus in high resolution; and Hyperspectral Observer for Venus Reconnaissance (HOVER) to examine Venus' clouds, chemistry, dynamics and surface to better understand its climate.

A pressing question for the Venus community involves finding out how similar the planet may have been to Earth in the planets' early histories. Venus' size is similar to Earth's and its distance to the sun would have put the planet in the "habitable zone" the location where liquid water could exist on the surface when the sun was younger and dimmer. Although Venus is now a raging inferno, the story for life billions of years ago could be more optimistic.

Venus scientists want to know whether (as some suspect) the planet had liquid water for 3 billion years, what kind of surface geology and rock types it has, the nature of its dormant plate tectonics (which might be key to sustaining life) and how similar Venus might be to rocky exoplanets very close to their parent stars.

No NASA spacecraft has studied Venus in detail since the Magellan mission mapped it 25 years ago.

(Image credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory-Caltech)

Temperatures at the surface of Venus can melt lead under normal circumstances and would cook a lander in moments. Highly shielded Soviet Venera spacecraft made it to the surface in the 1970s and 1980s, generally lasting anywhere from a few minutes to around an hour. But advancements in technology, the VEXAG group said, make it possible for a reasonably priced mission to survive longer today.

VEXAG's 15th meeting in 2017, for example, pointed to NASA's High Operating Temperature Technology (HOTTech) program, which aims to create components in environments that are roughly 900 degrees Fahrenheit (500 degrees Celsius) or higher. A call for proposals cited at that time (in 2017) funded research in technology for solar cells, power generation, electronics (which can be quite sensitive to temperature fluctuations) and batteries. The individual projects were expected to complete their current phase of funding between 2018 and 2020, so results are still being analyzed in some cases.

Some other technologies are close to maturity, such as NASA's Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) project, which is designed for environments including Venus. It includes a high-density, all-carbon layer for the entry interface and a lower-density insulating layer to protect delicate spacecraft components. HEEET was testedat NASA's Ames Research Center and is listed at technology readiness level (TRL) 6. (A component reaches TRL 7 when it is tested in space, and TRL 8 following tests on the ground and in space.)

Another team at NASA's Glenn Research Center is working on high-temperature electronics designed for Venusian temperatures. These are based on silicon-carbide semiconductors that could last up to 4,000 hours on the surface. In 2016, engineers tested some of the circuits in the Glenn Extreme Environments Rig (GEER), which simulates the conditions of Venus, for nearly 22 days. (The test was ended at that time only for scheduling reasons, according to NASA; similar oscillator circuits have worked for thousands of hours.)

VEXAG's recent technology road map (released along with a technology plan) indicates that the community could respond to a variety of different NASA opportunities today with viable missions, ranging from orbiters to small satellites to atmospheric entry probes and skimmers. Another possible option could be a short-lived surface platform or some sort of an aerial platform floating in a more temperate climate on Venus, which is to be found at an altitude of 34 miles (55 km). Longer-lived surface platforms could be ready in the medium term, before 2032, the community suggested.

But VEXAG must also be responsive to available funding, which happens when NASA makes calls for proposals for cheaper Discovery missions, more expensive New Frontiers missions, and ride-along or international opportunities. In its report, the community recommends responding to the predicted proposal cadence before 2022 with orbiters or an atmospheric entry probe. And between 2023 and 2032, VEXAG recommended adding surface platforms (long- and short-lived) and aerial platforms to the wish list.

NASA's last Discovery call for proposals was in 2014, which generated five finalists including two Venus missions: DAVINCI and VERITAS. According to Dyar, neither Venus mission was selected "for unclear reasons," although both were deemed selectable meaning that they could have flown immediately. The proposals lost out to Psyche and Lucy, two missions that will study asteroids.

The last New Frontiers opportunity was in 2016, and the community submitted a Venus mission called VOX (Venus Origins Explorer), which would focus on high-resolution topography or altitude maps of the surface. While VOX was deemed selectable, NASA did not choose it as a finalist; the winner of that opportunity is Dragonfly, which will fly on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan.

NASA's last dedicated mission to Venus was Magellan, which entered orbit in October 1990 and was deorbited four years later. The agency has flown by the planet since with Galileo, Cassini and MESSENGER en route to other planets. Meanwhile, the European Space Agency operated Venus Express at Venus between 2006 and 2014, and Japan's Akatsuki mission successfully entered orbit there in 2015 on its second attempt. Akatsuki is the only operational mission at Venus right now.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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We Could Go to Venus with Today's Technology, Scientists Say - Space.com

In 1930, a year into the Great Depression, John Maynard Keynes sat down to write about the economic possibilities of his grandchildren. Despite widespread gloom as the global economic order fell to its knees, the British economist remained upbeat, saying that the prevailing world depression blind[s] us to what is going on under the surface. In his essay, he predicted that in 100 years time, ie 2030, society would have advanced so far that we would barely need to work. The main problem confronting countries such as Britain and the United States would be boredom, and people might need to ration out work in three-hour shifts or a 15-hour week [to] put off the problem. At first glance, Keynes seems to have done a woeful job of predicting the future. In 1930, the average worker in the US, the UK, Australia and Japan spent 45 to 48 hours at work. Today, that is still up around 38 hours.

Keynes has a legendary stature as one of the fathers of modern economics, responsible for much of how we think about monetary and fiscal policy. He is also famous for his quip at economists who deal only in long-term predictions: In the long run, we are all dead. And his 15-hour working week prediction might have been more on the mark than it first appears.

If we wanted to produce as much as Keyness countrymen did in the 1930s, we wouldnt need everyone to work even 15 hours per week. If you adjust for increases in labor productivity, it could be done in seven or eight hours, ten in Japan. These increases in productivity come from a century of automation and technological advances: allowing us to produce more stuff with less labor. In this sense, modern developed countries have way overshot Keynes predictionwe need to work only half the hours he predicted to match his lifestyle.

The progress over the past 90 years is not only apparent when considering workplace efficiency, but also when taking into account how much leisure time we enjoy. First consider retirement: a deal with yourself to work hard while youre young and enjoy leisure time when youre older. In 1930, most people never reached retirement age, simply laboring until they died. Today, people live well past retirement, living a third of their life work-free.

If you take the work we do while were young and spread it across a total adult lifetime, it works out to less than 25 hours per week. Theres a second factor that boosts the amount of leisure time we enjoy: a reduction in housework. The ubiquity of washing machines, vacuum cleaners and microwave ovens means that the average US household does almost 30 hours less housework per week than in the 1930s. This 30 hours isnt all converted into pure leisure. Indeed, some of it has been converted into regular work, as more womenwho shoulder the major share of unpaid domestic laborhave moved into the paid labour force. The important thing is that, thanks to progress in productivity and efficiency, we all have more control over how we spend our time.

So if todays advanced economies have reached (or even exceeded) the point of productivity that Keynes predicted, why are 30- to 40-hour weeks still standard in the workplace? And why doesnt it feel like much has changed? This is a question about both human natureour ever-increasing expectations of a good lifeas well as how work is structured across societies.

Part of the answer is way-of-life inflation: humans have an insatiable appetite for more. Keynes spoke of solving the economic problem, the struggle for subsistence, but few people would choose to settle for mere subsistence. Humans live on a hedonic treadmill: we always want more. Rich Westerners could easily work 15 hours a week if we forgo the trappings of modern life: new clothes and Netflix and overseas holidays. This might seem trite when talking about consumer goods, but our lives are better across many other important dimensions, too. The same logic that applies to Netflix also applies to vaccines, refrigerators, renewable energy and affordable toothbrushes. Globally, people enjoy a standard of living much higher than in 1930 (and nowhere is this more true than in the Western countries that Keynes wrote about). We would not be content with a good life by our grandparents standards.

We also have more people working in jobs that are several steps removed from subsistence production. As economies become more productive, employment shifts from agriculture and manufacturing to service industries. Thanks to technological and productivity progress, we can deal with all of our subsistence needs with very little labor, freeing us for other things. Many people today work as mental health counselors, visual effects artists, accountants, vloggersand all of them do work that is not required for subsistence. Keyness essay argues that more people will be able to pursue the arts of life as well as the activities of purpose in the future, implicitly framing these activities as separate from the menial world of subsistence work. In actual fact, the world of work has simply expanded to include more activitiessuch as care work, the arts and customer servicethat did not feature significantly in Keyness estimation of solving the problem of economic subsistence.

Finally, persistent social inequality also helps the 40-hour week persist. Many people have to work 30- to 40-hour weeks simply to get by. As a society, on aggregate, we are able to produce enough for everyone. But unless the distribution of wealth becomes more equal, very few people can afford to cut back to a 15-hour working week. In some countries, such as the US, the link between productivity and pay has broken: recent increases in productivity benefit only the top tier of society. In his essay, Keynes predicted the opposite: a leveling and equalization, where people would work to ensure other peoples needs were met. In one sense, you can see this in the social safety nets that didnt exist back in 1930. Programs such as social security and public housing help people get over the low bar of the economic problem of base subsistence, but they are insufficient to properly lift people out of poverty, and insufficient to meet Keyness ideal of giving everyone a good life.

In his essay, Keynes disdained some of the core tendencies of capitalism, calling the money motive a somewhat disgusting morbidity and bemoaning that we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities. Of course, these human qualitiesavarice and usury and precautiondrive progress forward. And striving for progress is no bad thing: even Keynes acknowledged that these tendencies are necessary to lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity. But at some point we should look back to see how far we have come. Keynes was right about the amazing advancements his grandchildren would enjoy, but wrong about how this would change overall patterns of work and distribution, which remain stubbornly fixed. It doesnt need to be so.

In developed countries, at least, we have the technology and tools for everyone to work less and still live highly prosperous lives, if only we structure our work and society towards that goal. Todays discussions about the future of work quickly end up in fanciful predictions of total automation. More likely, there will continue to be new and varied jobs to fill a five-day work week. And so todays discussions need to move beyond the old point about the marvels of technology, and truly ask: what is it all for? Without a conception of a good life, without a way to distinguish progress thats important from that which keeps us on the hedonic treadmill, our collective inertia will mean that we never reach Keyness 15-hour working week.

This article is republished from Aeon under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here.

Image Credit: Library of Congress

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We Have the Tools and Technology to Work Less and Live Better - Singularity Hub

HBOs Watchmen companion website, Peteypedia, includes a memo sent by FBI Director James Doyan to the Anti-Vigilante Task Force on August 29, 2019, eleven days before the start of the series. Titled The Computer and You, it encourages his employees to embrace their new legally mandated crime-fighting equipment: a computer model first released in our own world in 2000. The document is an inside look at why Ozymandiass squid made the world turn its back on tech, and how it is finally making a comeback.

The FBIs new cutting edge device is the IBM NetVista X41, a computer line first sold in our timeline back at the turn of the century. It houses the agencys new electronic database, replacing agents hard copy blue books (which were completely taken away). Doyans memo also encourages his employees to start communicating with electronic mail (called El-mail), and to use their word processors to produce inter-office memos. Any questions or issues can be directed to the special agent responsible for Peteypedia, Agent Dale Petey, who is eager to help.

Doyan writes hes not worried about his agents shar[ing] the old technophobia that still persists in some sectors of society, but its unclear from his memo just how much he actually believes that versus how much he is telling them technophobia is not an option. (Later in the memo he does explicitly say the law prevents agents from publicly denouncing the computers or sharing any worries about their safety.) Either way, federal policy requires the director to present the following assurances, disclaimers, and orders to his agents, and they help explain why this worlds technology is 20 years behind our own.

After the giant squid appeared, the regulation of technology became equivalent to ensuring the safety of food and drugs, with tech formally becoming the domain of the FD(T)A. The same agency responsible for making sure chicken and Tylenol doesnt poison you also makes sure the pager Regina Kings Anegla Abar uses wont either.

D.I.E. stands for Dimensional Incursion Event, the official name for the giant squid. Surgeon General Oz appears to be TVs Dr. Oz, proving there are always worse timelines.

Most important is the guarantee the computer was not built with Manhattan-made components. In the early 60s, Dr. Manhattan used his superpowers to synthesize mass quantities of lithium, giving birth to electric cars thanks to his now-outlawed batteries we saw the Seventh Kavalry collecting in the Watchmen premiere. However, after Ozymandias made the world believe that Manhattan gave his former associates cancer via radiation, people became wary of using any technology Manhattan created or was the basis for.

Also, after D.I.E., the world worried that the transdimensional passage the alien squid had seemingly traveled through was created by technology that had tore a previously unknown (hypothetical) dimensional membrane, which we know does not exist. When baby squids started raining down not long after D.I.E. (an occurrence that still takes place in 2019), the world shunned most of the technology that had been developed during the previous 25 years, explaining why they are just getting 2000 computers now.

The world became so fearful of any technology after 1985 that reintroducing it into society has been equivalent to fighting a war. In response, a 1993 a law allowed the president to literally draft federal employees like soldiers into a 30-year plan that would slowly convince the public that tech previously feared unsafe was totally fine.

Did Adrian Veidt have anything to do with this law, or did he possibly oppose it for being too slow? He viewed science as a pathway forward for mankind, and he was the leading Democratic political donor and friends with President Redford until 1993. The last thing Veidt wanted was for his squid to set technology back decades.

Later in the memo, Doyan discusses his own hesitance to use computers in the 70s even though they proved highly efficient and effective in fighting crime. In a country beset by domestic terrorists, its understandable computers are considered among the highest priorities of to bring back. (Good luck to any society just getting the internet for the first time. Youre going to need it.)

This device has been deemed ESSENTIAL to the performance of your job duties. Failure to use this electronic device in the performance of your duties may result in demotion, reassignment, or termination.

The reintroduction of technology into society is so daunting its equivalent to a publicity war, one that requires the drafting of combatants who might otherwise not enlist. Taken together these two passages are troubling, making federal employees de facto propagandists by enforcing them to be compliant with the wishes and message of its government. But they do reveal that the governmentfor reasons we dont know yethave properly learned the truth: technology was not to blame for the squid and scientific advancements were possible without Dr. Manhattans help.

Doyan ends his memo by saying, The computers, the phones, the towers that would have provided communications without wireswe destroyed it all, hoping it would save us. And yet, baby cephalopods still rain from the sky. Our fear of technology was for naught. Dont be like me. Dont be stupid. The future is here again. Dont fear it. Embrace it.

Hes right; technology is safe. But it isnt just a mere PR battle to make the world believe that, its a war, and when has one side being right ever stopped a war from happening?

And when you have a war you have casualties.

Featured Image: HBO

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Why the World of WATCHMEN Rejected Technology - Nerdist

COLLEGE STATION, Tex. (KBTX) - Texas A&M AgriLife Research just announced a grant to their National Center for Electron Beam Research from the EPA to look into practical uses of eBeam technology to address environmental issues. It turns out that this technology can be used to solve a variety of problems. Suresh Pillai is Director of the National Center for Electron Beam Research at Texas A&M.

The cool part of the technology here is that we use equipment like a linear accelerator. We take the electrons out of electricity, we accelerate it to the speed of light. So fast that if you sat on one of those electrons you can go in between New York and Los Angeles thirty-seven times in a second. And it packs a lot of energy. And those electrons, once they come out of the linear accelerator can be used for a variety of applications, food safety, food security, environmental remediation, water purification, the applications are endless.

Pillai explained that an eBeam isnt what most people imagine it is.

The electrons when theyre energized can go in and destroy the microbial pathogens in the food without necessarily destroying the flavor or the texture of the food. Thats the unique part. Its not a heat based process. Its non-thermal, so you could really sterilize a block of ice if you wanted to. Its the most effective technology compared to any chemicals or any other technology out there. There are no chemicals involved. It is the most organic of all processes because you are using electrons that we are all made up of.

Pillai says this technology can also be used to sterilize medical devices used in joint replacements, sutures, and wound dressings, remediation of soil, and for controlling microbial pathogens in animal feeds.

In terms of technology I see a tremendous improvement in availability of the technology, the price points coming down and also the ease of access to the technology is going to improve. In terms of consumer acceptance, Im confident that youre going to see more and more products out there, not only just food, but a variety of consumer products treated with this technology out in the marketplace.

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Electron Beam Technology researched at Texas A&M - KBTX

TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) Alex Lopez is a junior at Toledo Technology Academy. Her life has been impacted by domestic violence.

"Growing up I lived in domestic violence shelters. I didn't piece it all together until I was older and I realized most of my life I've been surrounded by violence. I am grateful to be here today."

This is why Alex organized a 5k run and fun walk this Saturday. All the proceeds will go to Bethany House, a long-term shelter for victims and their children.

Locally, there have been 56 murder victims in the last 10 years because of domestic violence. Just this Monday, a mother of two lost her life in Maumee.

"It's a tragedy that we have had another loss in our community. It's a sobering reminder how dangerous domestic violence is."

You can support Bethany House by participating in the 5k run/fun walk this Saturday.

You can make a donation on their website as well.

Registration begins at 8:00 AM, and the run starts at 10:00. Cost is $15 per person in advance or $30 on the day of the run, and all proceeds benefit Bethany House - a shelter for battered women. Entry forms are available at Dave's Running Shop, TTA,

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Toledo Technology 5k to support battered women - 13abc Action News

JavaScript and Java are the most in-demand languages for software developers, while Linux and Ubuntu are the top technologies for IT operations professionals.

IT professionals face an array of technologies, languages, and other skills that they need to know to stay current for their existing jobs and potential new jobs. But of course, there's only so much time and energy that an IT pro can devote to learning and mastering different skills. Knowing which technologes are most in-demand is half the battle to keeping your career on the right track. To help IT pros determine where to focus, Pluralsight has expanded its Technology Index to include in-demand technologies for IT operations professionals, information security pros, and data professionals.

To rank the demand and growth for more than 850 languages, tools, and frameworks, Pluralsight's Technology Index grabs information from more than 23 billion data points across eight different sources. The goal is to help technology leaders, experts, and other professionals keep pace with the ever-changing and fast-paced landscape of technology.

SEE: Python is eating the world: How one developer's side project became the hottest programming language on the planet (cover story PDF) (TechRepublic)

"The pace of technology change is faster than ever, and tech leaders are struggling to keep pace," Nate Walkingshaw, chief experience officer at Pluralsight, said in a press release. "We created the Technology Index to give organizations an effective and easy-to-use tool to better understand the direction and cadence of the latest enterprise tech innovations. Using the Index, tech leaders can leverage independent data points to help inform their next tech investments and develop the skills their teams need."

The index breaks down its results across four different professions: Software Developer, Data Professional, IT Operations Professional, and Information Security Professional.

The top ten software development languages are dominated by legacy languages such as Java, Javascript, C and HTML, according to Pluralsight. But four new technologies--Python, Android Development, PHP, and Git--have entered the top ten since last year, pushing out Blockchain, jQuery, CSS, and Arduino.

"Software engineering teams face the challenge of maintaining expertise in core legacy languages such as JavaScript or C, while staying open to new technologies that enable them to create new products and services for their customers," Travis Kimmel, head of developer productivity at Pluralsight, said in a press release. "As software development languages, tools, and frameworks continuously evolve, engineers must find ways to stay informed on what's new and keep pace with the speed of change."

Rising demand for data-intensive applications using machine learning and artificial intelligence has created a greater need for data technologies in the enterprise market.

"Data is playing an increasingly important role for businesses looking to gain a competitive edge and as such, enterprises are investing heavily in technologies that enable machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and analytics to get the insights and deliver the services they need to stay ahead," James Aylward, head of learning at Pluralsight, said in a press release.

SEE:How to choose between Windows, macOS, and Linux (free PDF)(TechRepublic)

Although platforms such as Linux, Ubuntu, macOS, and Microsoft Windows dominate the list, technologies such as Docker and Amazon S3 show the growing importance of cloud computing in the enterprise.

"The speed of technology innovation is faster than ever before, and technology leaders need to stay informed on the changing nature of enterprise tech in order to ensure they have sufficient resources to keep up with the pace of change," Walkingshaw said in the press release.

SEE:Microsoft Azure: An insider's guide (free PDF)(TechRepublic)

As security threats continue to grow, data breaches are getting more common and more expensive, forcing enterprises to stay abreast of the latest security tools to protect their data and assets.

"Security is a top of mind concern for all technology leaders, especially heads of security and CISOs," Walkingshaw said. "As cyber threats evolve and adapt, enterprises must stay on top of the most relevant, up-to-date technologies to ensure that sensitive company and user data is protected from attacks and breaches."

We deliver the top business tech news stories about the companies, the people, and the products revolutionizing the planet. Delivered Daily

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The most in-demand technologies for IT professionals - TechRepublic

What to Know

When James Corden kicked off the Tony Awards this year, his opening number was a full-throated endorsement of the live theatrical experience.

"It's live, we do it live, and every single moment's unrepeatable," the late-night TV host sang. "There is a visceral bliss you only get in a theater seeing people do this."

Turns out he wasn't correct.

These days, you can watch a Broadway musical from a subway train seat. You can get your stage fix at your local movie theater or hear a play while jogging.

Theater just isn't what it used to be.

Media companies armed with the latest in technology like Fathom Events, Audible Inc. and BroadwayHD are reshaping the experience, evolving it past the quaint notion of patrons filing into an arena, turning off their phones and sitting quietly in the dark.

Kicking yourself that you never saw the musical "Kinky Boots" or the play "Fleabag"? Relax. Cinema distributor Fathom has you covered. Can't wait for the live-action "Cats" movie? Then watch a stage version while cuddling your own cat on th couch, thanks to digital theater streaming network BroadwayHD. Or, if you're in a more serious mood, put on your headphones and listen to the play "True West," co-starring Kit Harrington, via Audible.

"We're really going into a place where I hope people look at what theater is differently," said Kate Navin, who leads the theater initiative at Audible, the world's largest producer of audiobooks and spoken-word entertainment.

The prices can't be beat: A Fathom screening will cost you $20, a monthly subscription to BroadwayHD runs $8.99 and an audio play costs $7.95 all a fraction of a Broadway ticket, which can run you hundreds of dollars.

Broadcasting Broadway shows on TV is nothing new, of course. PBS's "Great Performances" has been doing it for 40 years. But BroadwayHD argues they're using the latest technology to make their shows pop.

If rivals rely on a few cameras capturing the stage from the same couple of angles, BroadwayHD promises the "best seat in the house" for each and every scene. For "42nd Street," it used eight different 4K cameras, shot three different performances and used extra footage to augment them.

These media companies are also changing what success means in the theater world, which usually means total tickets sold. Carey Mulligan's short run of "Girls & Boys" at the small Minetta Lane Theatre in 2018 was well-received but its subsequent reach was much wider than what was captured at the box office.

The Audible audio version of her play has sold the equivalent of 26 sold-out weeks at Broadway's Booth Theatre, which seats 770. "The traditional ways of evaluating whether or not a run was successful don't really apply anymore," said Navin.

Audible has made a strong push into theater, not only recording dozens of in-studio plays but also commissioning writers and staging works at its off-Broadway venue, the 400-seat Minetta Lane Theatre. It is perfecting a form of theater without visuals.

Not everything on stage can work as an audio download. Plays with big visual effects are hard. So are farces. "But really because theater is the art of language, a lot of it works," said Navin. "We're not trying to replace the live experience. What we really think this will do is expand the audience."

If Audible skips the optics in favor of a private sonic drama, Fathom embraces the visual and communal parts of theater. It distributes big Broadway musicals like "Bandstand" and "Newsies" and often partners with the United Kingdom's National Theater Live to put shows on 40-foot movie theater screens.

Fathom, which is owned by the cinema chains AMC, Cinemark and Regal, offers fans a place to gather and celebrate, whether it's coming dressed as zombies to watch a season ending episode of "The Walking Dead," getting romantic watching the latest British royal wedding live (with tea and crumpets served) or cheering diversity at a screening of "Kinky Boots."

"To see people sitting there applauding at the end of an act or at the end of a song as if they were there in that Broadway theater, that is just an awesome experience that you can't replicate at home," said Ray Nutt, CEO of Fathom.

BroadwayHD is hoping it that it can, in fact, replicate exactly that streaming full-length plays and musicals like "The Phantom of the Opera" and "Les Miserables" to your laptop, TV, phone or tablet. The company was the first to live broadcast a Broadway show "She Loves Me" with Laura Benanti and recently captured a big and bold production of "42nd Street" from London.

Stewart F. Lane and Bonnie Comley founded the company in 2015 with a focus on shows with limited runs often with a celebrity or two as well as shows that are closing imminently. They work carefully with theater producers to ensure cannibalization of tickets to the live show doesn't happen.

"We're not in any way trying to kill the goose that lays the golden egg," said Comley. "What we're trying to do is make this available, make it a marketing asset, make it another way for the audiences to have a touchpoint with these brands."

BroadwayHD, which has some 300 shows, is for subscribers who can't fly to New York, can't afford pricey tickets or simply don't want to navigate Times Square. It offers closed-captioning for the hearing impaired and a chance for theater lovers across the world to see a treasured title come to life.

"Once the shows close, people tend to forget what it looked like, tend to forget how big the cast was, what the set looked like," said Lane. "You actually have a reference now to actually use to see whether it would fit on their stage and whether they'd want to do the show."

Some Broadway producers love the idea and some are colder. Many are in the middle, like Mike Bosner, who has produced "Beautiful: The Carole King Musical" and the recent revival of "Sunset Boulevard" with Glenn Close.

"Honestly, I'm not trying to be coy about this. I really don't have an opinion on it. I go back and forth on it because one side of me says theater is meant to be live and it's meant to be experienced and it's meant to live on only in the archives," he said.

"But the plus side when they do that type of thing is you're bringing it to many people around the world that may not get the opportunity to go see that show in any other way."

Other media companies are taking note: Nickelodeon is reforming the Broadway cast of "The SpongeBob Musical" and will film it in front of a live theater audience for a December broadcast. On Netflix, you can catch Kerry Washington in the play "American Son" and Bruce Springsteen's Broadway show, both now closed.

All these companies are helping remake one of the most ancient of art forms, redefining it by playing with its elements visual, communal and live. The result is something more democratic and evolving.

"I think once you get outside the New York bubble, people think that theater is very elitist, inaccessible, for the highly educated. It doesn't mean that," Navin said. "It means something different. Just like TV doesn't mean one thing."

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Broadway in Bed: Technology Is Remaking How We See the Ancient Art of Theater - NBC New York

It was the sixth game of the American League Championship Series. Brett Gardner, the spunky Yankees outfielder, was batting in the second inning with runners on first and second base.

Even though it was still early, this was a crucial part of last weeks game since the Houston Astros were already up by three runs to one.

Gardner could have narrowed the gap with a single or tied the score with an extra base hit, as he has often done. A homer would have put the Yankees ahead.

But home plate umpire Marvin Hudson called two pitches strikes that werent. The one that struck Gardner out was clearly wide on the right side of the plate to the left-handed hitter.

Strike three, motioned Hudson. Inning over. Threat over.

Even the TV announcers made a point several times that the pitch wasnt close to being a strike.

Why am I mentioning baseball in a column like this? Because home plate umpire is the one job in America that shouldnt exist in this technological age.

We, the TV viewer, could tell that Hudson had made a mistake because the computer-generated box superimposed on home plate during every pitch told us so.

The home plate umpires job should be replaced by that box.

Let Hudson and other home plate umps just stand there, if you must, and call out what the computer tells them to. But dont let umps use their judgment anymore when calling balls and strikes.

To be clear, the Astros were the better team in the series. And they deserved to win, which they did. Game Six was fantastic to watch on TV no matter who you were rooting for.

As any sport fan knows, technology now allows all sports to review umpire and referee calls for accuracy. Even baseball plays are reviewed except when it comes to calls of balls and strikes.

In that case, anyone watching on TV knows when the ump calls a ball a strike and a strike a ball. Its right there on the computer box.

Mark Williams, a finance professor at Boston University and founder of UmpScores, has a team of data analysts looking into the performance of umpires. He has put together UmpScores, an app that tracks umpire performance.

According to Williams, his data show that umpire Hudson is the 51st- worst umpire during the 2019 season when he works home plate out of the 76 umps in Major League Baseball.

UmpScores simply uses the superimposed box to determine when umps get it right or wrong.

Hudsons bad-call ratio, says Williams, is about 10 percent. In other words, he is calling one in 10 pitches incorrectly.

And thisll make Yankees fans even more angry: When Hudson was working Yankees games behind the plate, his bad-call ratio increased to 12.07 percent. But his bad-call ratio when working Houston Astros games was only 6.25 percent, according to Williams.

So, Hudson was nearly twice as bad working Yankees games than Houston games.

As for that 6th game I just mentioned, Williams says: With two runners on base and two outs, this was a momentum-killing bad call by Hudson an umpire who has a mediocre record at best behind home plate.

Williams says Hudson is a two-and-a-half star ump out of five stars which is below average.

How can MLB put a below-average umpire behind home plate in such an important champion sixth game of a series? says Williams. The division championship was on the line.

The UmpScores group came up with these stats via publicly available Major League Baseball pitch-call data. The company uses the strike zone overlay that MLB employs during broadcasts to come up with its rankings.

The best umpire at home plate, Pat Hoberg, has a bad-call ratio of just 6.9 percent. The computer would have a zero bad-call ratio.

Kill the ump is a favorite saying of angry baseball fans. But that saying might have to be updated to kill the umps job now that computers are doing it better.

Excerpt from:

Technology may make umpires a job of the past - New York Post

FILE PHOTO: Bundles of pressed PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles made out of plastic are seen at the Transcycle Transport & Recycling AG company in Neuenhof, Switzerland November 22, 2018. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo

LONDON (Reuters) - BP (BP.L) plans to build a $25 million pilot plant to test new technology the energy company says will allow plastic bottles and food packaging to be recycled again and again.

Polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, is one of the most widely recycled plastics. About 27 million tonnes of PET is used annually in packaging, with bottles accounting for around 23 million tonnes of that, BP said in a statement, citing data from consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

However, only around 60% of PET used for bottles is recovered, with the vast majority recycled only once before being either buried in landfill or burnt as the current recycling process leaves a lot of impurities.

BP said that its new recycling technology, named Infinia, can transform used PET plastics into brand-new plastic feedstock, allowing them to be recycled repeatedly.

The company will build a $25 million plant in the United States in 2020 to test the technology before deciding on whether it can be fully commercialized.

BPs head of refining and petrochemicals Tufan Erginbilgic said the technology was a game-changer for the plastics recycling industry.

It is an important stepping stone in enabling a stronger circular economy in the polyester industry and helping to reduce unmanaged plastic waste, Erginbilgic said.

Reporting by Ron Bousso; Editing by Kirsten Donovan

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BP to test technology to recycle plastic bottles again and again - Reuters