Category Archives: Technology

Red blood cells.

Rubius Therapeutics Inc. of Cambridge is set to announce Wednesday that it has raised $120 million one of the largest biotech financing rounds this year to develop a novel drug-making technology.

The funding, led by life sciences venture capital firm Flagship Pioneering in Cambridge, will let Rubius step up work on its drug discovery technique, which genetically engineers red blood cells so they can produce drugs for a range of diseases. The company had been operating in what is known as stealth mode, with plans under wraps.

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Rubius has already made and tested about 200 red cells, each producing different proteins, and plans to use them as catalysts for medicines to fight cancers, enzyme deficiencies, autoimmune and infectious diseases, and rare blood disorders such as hemophilia.

Were developing a new class of medicines that no one else is working on, Rubius president Torben Straight Nissen, a biopharma industry veteran, said. The ultimate goal is to bring as many red cell therapies to patients as possible.

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Rubius, which raised an initial $25 million in early 2015, started in Flagship VentureLabs, a Kendall Square incubator that has spawned dozens of companies. It now employs about 40 cell therapy scientists and researchers in larger space at 325 Vassar St., near Memorial Drive, and could grow to nearly 100 employees in the coming year, Nissen said.

Nissen said the company could be moving to even bigger quarters as it advances its experimental therapies into clinical trials. Were looking to expand our footprint over the next six to 12 months, and were looking to stay in Cambridge or Boston, he said.

The companys scientific approach is part of a broader Flagship strategy to focus not on individual drug candidates but on platform technologies capable of generating many medicines, said Flagship chief executive Noubar Afeyan, Rubius cofounder.

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Were looking for first-of-its-kind platforms, Afeyan said. The risk of doing anything new in our business is so high that theres more reward if youre developing new approaches that can create multiple drugs. Once you can show that one or two [drug candidates] can become drugs, then 10 or 20 of them can.

After the Rubius scientists genetically engineer the red cells, they can be grown in bioreactors, the stainless steel tanks used to produce biotech drugs. We are basically using a manufacturing process where the actual art of making the protein is done by the cells, Afeyan said.

The companys financing round includes co-investors, including large publicly traded institutional firms that werent identified by Flagship.

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Biotech startup Rubius raises $120m to develop red blood cell technology - The Boston Globe

This gives us a pretty good picture of who is moving across the border, said Frank Longoria, a Customs officer who is assistant director of field operations for border security. Ninety-nine percent of people who cross are doing so for good reason, but trying to catch that 1 percent that is doing something illegal is challenging.

In a small building not far from the entry and exit lanes, a Customs officer, Eugene Jimenez, looked at an X-ray scanning system, which allows him to see anomalies in the frame of a vehicle. He said he was looking for spaces where there should be solid material, or obvious signs of tampering in the gas tanks, batteries or other areas.

A few days before, after a currency detection dog reacted to a white 2008 Volkswagen Passat traveling into Mexico, Mr. Jimenez noticed a space in the bumper when the car was pulled aside for a scan, he said.

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On the Mexican Border, a Case for Technology Over Concrete - New York Times

James Hercher contributed to this article.

Comcast Advanced Advertising Group said Tuesday in Cannes that it will formally launch a blockchain-powered tool in 2018 to help companies share their data with each other.

The Blockchain Insights Platform is meant to ease the often clunky and nerve-wracking process of data sharing. Because of these challenges, companies that would benefit from sharing their data with each other often dont.

Today, when you try to create an addressable campaign, the only way to do it is to tap into different data pools, said Marcien Jenckes, advertising president at Comcast Cable.

There are two ways to do this: either handing data to Experian, Acxiom or another trusted third party to do a sometimes-slow blind match. The second process involves doing whatJenckes calls a data-for-insights trade with another company.

Why you would put the most valuable thing in someone elses hands is a hard argument to understand, he said.

The Blockchain Insights Program is meant to let data owners share their assets without ever handing them over to a third party.

Imagine segmenting the data youre willing to sell and locking each segment into different vaults. You decide which advertisers can access specific vaults, and you give them the keys to do so.

If a partner wants to act against your auto-intenders and has your permission, it can use its key to find that specific data segment and send its marketing or ad tech stack into the vault to execute the campaign. No data ever leaves, and the blockchain technology, acting as a ledger, records the transaction.

Its a data-sharing process thats meant to be faster and more secure.

You never make anything available that you cant, or that you dont want to, Jenckes said. Its always in your control, and thats the most important thing.

Jenckes also argues that Comcasts blockchain-based solution is even more secure than a blind match.

Someone could reverse-engineer your data if you do a blind match, he said.

If IP addresses accidentally slip through, then the data buyer can potentially associate them with other characteristics, thereby stealing the audience.

Another common solution for pooling data matching off a shared, unique identifier also has issues. For instance, if the data owner rotates its identifiers every three weeks and the advertiser has a six-week campaign, the match must be redone mid-campaign.

But despite the promise of Comcasts Blockchain Insights Platform, theres still more work to do before it reaches its projected 2018 release date.

The data owners assets must be queryable through blockchain technology, Jenckes said. Comcast is working with its initial participants NBCUniversal, Disney, Altice USA, Cox Communications, TF1 Group in France, Channel 4 in the UK and Mediaset Italia to figure out different use cases for their data and ways to apply those use cases. That process will likely take the next six months.

Although Comcast is initially working with its own network (NBCUniversal) and with those that it has an arms-length relationship, which is everyone else on the list, it hopes to eventually open the Blockchain Insights Platform to everyone.

The tool to make data available to blockchain technology will be open-sourced, Jenckes said, though Comcast will have professional services available for participants who need additional help.

Merely educating partners and industry stakeholders presents a high hurdle.

By and large, the awareness of blockchain is nonexistent, so its not surprising that this might seem out of left field, said Ken Brook, co-founder and CEO of blockchain ad tech startup metaXchain. However, this technology is a matter of when, not if.

That being said, its important to keep expectations measured. The Blockchain Insights Platform, after all, isnt generally available.

This is coming in 2018, and the things that are exciting about it are the names of the companies involved, said Will Luttrell, co-founder and former CTO of Integral Ad Science, whose latest startup Curren-C uses blockchain tech. Its difficult sometimes to get past the slogans and lingoism in these releases to figure out whats going on. And blockchain is a particularly complex technology, so its doubly an issue here.

Perhaps because of that complexity as well as its promise blockchain is an intriguing technology for the advertising community, with large enterpriseslike NASDAQ and IBM working to put their own spin on it.

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Coming In 2018: Comcast Hopes To Spur Data Sharing With Blockchain Technology - AdExchanger

New adopters of cloud computing services marvel about the cost efficiency theyre seeing compared to their traditional infrastructure, but Microsoft Azure chief Scott Guthrie thinks a new wave of super-efficient cloud products is going to make those gains seem quaint.

Guthrie kicked off the Cloud Tech Summit earlier this month, and touched on the advent of containers and serverless technologies during a wide-ranging discussion. Microsoft and other cloud vendors have been particularly bullish on serverless technologies during 2017 as a path toward an even-more efficient cloud computing environment where you only pay for what you use.

I certainly think the model of a very consumption driven pricing is the direction that everything is going. This has taken consumption to the next logical extreme, where there is no overhead, Guthrie said.

Serverless is yet another slightly misleading term for an enterprise computing tactic. Believe it or not, applications built with serverless technologies still use servers.

But the practice of breaking down applications into lots of small functions means that users dont have to maintain excess capacity in case of spikes in demand, and that has made a lot of companies experiment with these technologies this year. Functions can be written to respond with computing resources automatically when demand grows unexpectedly, and then scale down gracefully as demand ebbs.

And although cloud tends to be cheaper than traditional on-premises hardware, containers and serverless technologies can save users even more money, Guthrie said. And when customers realize how much they can save by writing their apps with serverless technologies, they tend to ramp up quickly, which is great for Microsoft and other cloud providers.

One Azure customer using serverless technologies as part of their Internet of Things manufacturing infrastructure was able to run 1.8 billion serverless invocations a day for something like four dollars, Guthrie said. They came to us and they were like, somethings wrong with your billing, because this cant be right.

And once they realized the bill was correct, they immediately started planning their next move into serverless tech, which will eventually generate real money for Microsoft.

Watch the full video of Scotts interview with GeekWires Todd Bishop above, and stay tuned for more highlights from the event in the days ahead.

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Microsoft Azure's Scott Guthrie: Serverless technology will drive further cost reductions in the cloud - GeekWire

MIT President L. Rafael Reif today attended a technology conference convened by the White House Office of American Innovation. The meeting included leading corporate CEOs and other technology leaders, brought together to advise the White House on how technology and data can be used to improve government operations and on how best to anticipate future technologies and their implications for the government and society.

The participants broke into small groups to discuss issues and then met with U.S. President Trump at the end of the day.

Reif attended two of the small group discussions one titled Analytics/Dashboard, focused on how to use data and metrics to improve government services, personnel and technology; and one titled Future Trends, on how government can anticipate, integrate, and facilitate the development of emerging technologies, especially in fields such as machine learning and the internet of things (IoT).

As U.S. government leaders seek to use innovative technology to better serve the American people, its vital to make sure that they receive expert advice, both about the best ways to use these technologies to serve the public, and about how to anticipate and address the complex implications of their use, Reif says. As an institution with a mission of national service, and as a pioneer in many of the technologies under discussion at the White House from machine learning and AI to robotics and IoT MIT has an important role to play at the center of this conversation.

In support of MIT's mission, President Reif has spoken in recent months, through letters to the MIT community and published opinion pieces, on the importance of continuing to attract global talent to the United States, sustaining federal financial support for advanced scientific research, and continuing global cooperation on climate change.

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MIT President Reif attends White House technology meeting - MIT News

XAutoplay: On | Off The stock market traded strongly higher early Monday as technology stocks led the advance. The Nasdaq jumped 1.1%, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.5% and 0.4%, respectively.

Among the Dow industrials,Apple (AAPL) looked to put an end to its recent declines. The iPhone maker has declined six of the past seven trading sessions. Shares rose over 2%.

Other leaders in early trading includeBoeing (BA), JPMorgan (JPM), DuPont (DD)and Goldman Sachs (GS).All four rose over1%. Airplane maker Boeing added to its recent advance after announcing it had more than 240 orders worth about $30 billion for its new 737 Max 10 jet.

The main laggard in early trading was Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), falling nearly 1%. Shares of the discount retailer plummeted almost 5% on Friday, sinking below the 50-day moving average, after Amazon.com (AMZN) announced it was purchasing Whole Foods Market (WFM).

Within the S&P 500, Micron Technology (MU) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) set the pace, advancing about 4% each. Leading chip stocks Broadcom (AVGO) and Applied Materials (AMAT) rose about 2.5% apiece.

On the downside, EQT (EQT) fell 8% after the oil and gas exploration company announced it was acquiring Rice Energy (RICE) for $6.7 billion. Meanwhile, Costco (COST)fell 1.5% after being downgraded to hold by Deutsche Bank.

Clovis Oncology (CLVS) surged 43% after reporting positive trial results for its ovarian cancer drug Rubraca.

Leading stocks surged higher in thestock market today.Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com (JD) advanced over 5%, while rival Alibaba (BABA) rose 3.5%.Meanwhile, all four FANG members rose between1.5% and 2%.

Action in the IBD 50was extremely positive as only one component traded in the red early Monday: Control4 (CTRL)declined 0.1%. On the upside, TAL Education (TAL) jumped 5%, Grubhub (GRUB) rose 4.4%, and YY (YY) traded up 3.5%.

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June 19, 2017 The LiDAR system for the MERLIN mission incorporates all components from the pump laser to the frequency conversion in a particularly compact design suitable for space operation. Credit: Fraunhofer ILT, Aachen

Heatwaves in the Arctic, longer periods of vegetation in Europe, severe floods in West Africa starting in 2021, scientists want to explore the emissions of the greenhouse gas methane with the German-French satellite MERLIN. This is made possible by a new robust laser system of the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT in Aachen, which achieves unprecedented measurement accuracy.

Methane is primarily the result of the decomposition of organic matter. The gas has a 25 times greater warming potential than carbon dioxide, but is not as common in the earth's atmosphere so far. For some years now, the methane concentration has been increasing. In order to get to the root causes, it is important to measure where and how much methane is released into the earth's atmosphere.

However, it is not possible to measure the emission values at high resolution using conventional measurement technology. Currently, satellite-based systems use sunlight to detect methane. Therefore, it is only possible to measure greenhouse gases on the side of the earth facing the sun and when the skies are free of clouds. The absorption of light enables an assessment to be made on the molecules present in the air.

Methane can be measured anywhere and anytime

"Our laser-based measurement system does not need sunlight, so you can use it to measure anytime and anywhere", says Dr. Jens Lhring, who has been co-developing the new laser technology at the Fraunhofer ILT in Aachen. "The aim of this mission is to provide climate scientists with accurate global data on methane distributions that can be used to feed their climate models. This makes it possible to better predict climate change".

Scientists at Fraunhofer ILT are therefore developing a laser that can send very precise single-frequency light pulses to the earth. This method also uses light absorption to measure if and in which concentration methane is present in comparison to methane measurements using sunlight, this is more precise. The laser pulse can be precisely adjusted to the absorption line of methane at a predetermined wavelength. "Each gas has its spectral fingerprint. Depending on its specific wavelength, it absorbs particularly well or bad. It is important that other gases do not have an absorption line at this wavelength so that the measurement is not falsified", Lhring explains. The new laser is an essential component of the LiDAR system (Light detection and ranging) on board of MERLIN.

Maintenance-free laser despite heavy use

In order for the laser to function smoothly and maintenance-free during its three-year long space mission, it must be able to withstand shocks and vibrations as well as extreme temperature variations between minus 30 and plus 50 degrees Celsius. "We have developed optomechanical components for the laser, such as mirror and lens holders and so on, that meet these requirements and maintain their very precise settings".

Another challenge is to keep the air clean in the housing around the laser. "Adhesives can contaminate the air, and tiny particles can break free and deposit themselves on the mirrors and destroy the optical components. For this reason the laser has been entirely soldered and screwed. This is a completely new technology that makes the system even more robust and, therefore, also interesting for numerous applications in industry and production engineering", says Lhring.

Explore further: NASA to create first-ever space-based sodium lidar to study poorly understood mesosphere

A team of NASA scientists and engineers now believes it can leverage recent advances in a greenhouse-detecting instrument to build the world's first space-based sodium lidar to study Earth's poorly understood mesosphere.

(Phys.org) University of Adelaide researchers are developing a new type of laser system that will monitor methane, the main component of natural gas, levels across large areas. This will provide a useful tool for monitoring ...

A NASA scientist who has played a key role developing and demonstrating a new technique for gathering around-the-clock global carbon-dioxide (CO2) measurements is applying the same general principles to develop a new laser ...

Servicing biogas plants is challenging. Leaks from which methane escapes are particularly problematic from a security, a technical, an economic as well as an environmentally friendly perspective. Researchers are working ...

Every chemical substance absorbs a very individual fraction of infrared light. Like a human fingerprint, this absorption can be used with optical methods for identifying substances. Such methods are used in the chemical industry, ...

A revolutionary new type of laser developed by the University of Adelaide is promising major advances in remote sensing of greenhouse gases.

Researchers at UC Santa Barbara professor Yasamin Mostofi's lab have given the first demonstration of three-dimensional imaging of objects through walls using ordinary wireless signal. The technique, which involves two drones ...

A data analytics firm that worked on the Republican campaign of Donald Trump exposed personal information belonging to some 198 million Americans, or nearly every eligible registered voter, security researchers said Monday.

Your next doctor could very well be a bot. And bots, or automated programs, are likely to play a key role in finding cures for some of the most difficult-to-treat diseases and conditions.

From "The Jetsons" to "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", flying cars have long captured the imagination.

In what could be a major step forward for a new generation of solar cells called "concentrator photovoltaics," University of Michigan researchers have developed a new semiconductor alloy that can capture the near-infrared ...

Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a breakthrough in electrolyte chemistry that enables lithium batteries to run at temperatures as low as -60 degrees Celsius with excellent performancein ...

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Tracking methane with robust laser technology - Phys.Org

Criminals and illegal immigrants who get booked into jail along the southwest border will soon have one less way to hide their identity. Their eyes will be photographed with the Inmate Recognition and Identification System (IRIS). The device takes a picture of their iris, which according to police, is more accurate than a fingerprint.

El Paso became the first jurisdiction both in Texas and along the southwest border to receive the technology Friday. Sean Mullin, CEO of BI2 Technologies, who creates IRIS said it will be in every jurisdiction in the Southwest Border Sheriffs Association by the end of the year. That makes up 31 jurisdictions between Brownsville, Texas and San Diego.

Cameron County on the southeast tip of Texas will receive IRIS in the next two weeks and Val Verde County will get on board soon after, according to Larry Guerra, Executive Director for the Texas and South West Border Sheriffs Coalition.

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According to multiple law enforcement officials, IRIS could have an impact on the fight against illegal crossings. Illegal immigrants, like other criminals, often use aliases to disguise their true identity and prevent law enforcement from learning theyve already been captured.

The El Paso County Jail brings in a little over 30 thousand inmates a year, 16 percent of which are inmates held for the Border Patrol and ICE according to El Paso Sheriff Richard Wiles.

With this technology youll be able to identify the individual under whatever name he wants to use at the time. Whether its immigration or any type of violation, said Guerra. Its not uncommon for somebody to use a different name.

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Theyll try to avoid detection with different fraudulently obtained identification and different identities. This system stops that in its tracks, said Mullin.

He added in the last year, over 14,000 inmates who were scanned in one jurisdiction, were arrested again in another jurisdiction and identified using their iris.

The fingerprint process can take up to four hours to check local, state and federal databases. It takes less than 20 seconds for IRIS to get a match, according to Wiles. In addition, fingerprints can come back with multiple potential matches, IRIS comes back with one.

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The IRIS system was first built about ten years ago and scanned its one millionth eyeball last week.

The jail scanner is set up with a computer. The process starts as an inmate walks up to the camera, looks in a small mirror and the device takes a picture of the eyes. Then it searches the national database. If the inmate has been scanned before, it displays their information, if not, the information can be added.

In addition to the jail scanner, there is also a mobile application that can be connected to a smartphone. This allows officers to search for a suspect and their aliases while remotely connected to a database. The device can also take fingerprints, iris and facial pictures.

While the iris is more accurate than a fingerprint, it will not replace a fingerprint according to Mullin. Unlike fingerprints, criminals do not leave an iris print at the scene of a crime, so it has little forensic value.

Wiles said although the IRIS could be cheaper and quicker, there will likely always be a need for fingerprints.

We would still have to maintain the fingerprints, but I dont think we would have to go to those for an identification.

Ray Bogan is a Fox News multimedia reporter based in El Paso, Texas. Follow him on twitter: @RayBogan

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Southwest border cities to use IRIS scanning technology to identify inmates, illegal immigrants - Fox News

Klamath Community College is furthering its commitment to the community by sharing ideas with the Oregon Institute of Technology.

At Oregon Techs request, KCC recently led a small group of Oregon Tech staff members through two synchronous classrooms at the KCC Klamath Falls campus.

The synchronous system gives opportunities to community members who dont have access to higher education, said KCC Network and Systems Manager Mike Pearson, who led the tour. It puts college in front of them in the comfort of their own space.

KCC has five synchronous classrooms at the Klamath Falls campus, each costing several thousand dollars and funded by grant awards. The synchronous rooms include an audio/video control panel, a life-size video conference system, a 75-inch SMART TV, two 70-inch presentation TVs used to stream distance classes in real time, and an interactive podium for instructors to write on the screen without moving to a whiteboard or TV.

The synchronous KCC classes stream classes in real time to Bonanza, Lost River, Chiloquin, Lakeview, North Lake and Paisley high schools.

Tony Richey, OIT manager of IT operations and educational technology, said Oregon Tech would like to use synchronous technology to expand offerings at its Wilsonville campus, as well as at Chemeketa Community College and other colleges and high schools throughout the region.

According to Richey, Oregon Tech is in the process of creating a synchronous classroom design similar to KCCs, that will provide students with a full-blown classroom experience, allowing distance-education students to engage with faculty and other students and incorporating the social aspects of learning.

It will also offer them flexibility because there are a limited amount of times a class can be scheduled, Richey said.

Pearson pointed out that synchronous technology could also benefit Oregon Tech students pursuing a four-year degree who cannot travel due to finances or disabilities.

The courses OIT may initially offer via synchronous learning include engineering, mechanical and management, according to Richey.

I think synchronous delivery for distance education is part of the future, and Im glad other institutions are looking at the same technologies, Pearson said.

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KCC bolsters community partnerships with technology - Herald and News

Forbes

Emmanuel Macron's Call To Action: Viva Technology! Forbes If you're in the fashion business, you come to Paris for fashion week; if you're in the aerospace business, you attend the Paris Air Show at Le Bourget; if you're in the film business you head to the Cannes Film Festival. If the new French President ... and more »

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Emmanuel Macron's Call To Action: Viva Technology! - Forbes