Lifeboat Foundation

It is now possible to use a cheap, lightweight and smartphone-powered DNA detector to identify DNA in blood, urine and other samples, on the spot.

At the moment, testing to identify DNA is done in laboratories using expensive, specialised equipment. To make this process faster and cheaper, Ming Chen at the Army Medical University in China and his colleagues developed a portable DNA detector made of 3D-printed parts that attach to a standard smartphone.

Who knew there were so many “smart” ways to unlock a lock? For years companies have been trying to get people to use their phones or keypads or fobs, and now a new startup called Yeeuu Tech has thrown a bunch of methods into one device. The S1 Smart Lock packs eight different unlocking methods, and it can be fitted into most existing locks.

The S1 takes the place of an existing door handle and lock barrel. To unlock it, users can scan their fingerprint, punch in a passcode, use the app via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, use a device with NFC, tap an included custom “badge”, give a voice command through an assistant, or use an old-fashioned mechanical key.

The fingerprint sensor is located on the top in easy thumb reach, and can apparently be read in under half a second. The system can store up to 50 different fingerprints.

Your phone’s GPS, the Wi-Fi in your house and communications on aircraft are all powered by radio-frequency, or RF, waves, which carry information from a transmitter at one point to a sensor at another. The sensors interpret this information in different ways. For example, a GPS sensor uses the angle at which it receives an RF wave to determine its own relative location. The more precisely it can measure the angle, the more accurately it can determine location.

In a new paper published in Physical Review Letters, University of Arizona engineering and optical sciences researchers, in collaboration with engineers from General Dynamics Mission Systems, demonstrate how a combination of two techniques—radio frequency photonics sensing and quantum metrology—can give sensor networks a previously unheard-of level of precision. The work involves transferring information from electrons to photons, then using quantum entanglement to increase the photons’ sensing capabilities.

“This quantum sensing paradigm could create opportunities to improve GPS systems, astronomy laboratories and biomedical imaging capabilities,” said Zheshen Zhang, assistant professor of materials science and engineering and optical sciences, and principal investigator of the university’s Quantum Information and Materials Group. “It could be used to improve the performance of any application that requires a network of sensors.”

Edward Snowden shows you how to make your phone go black in this full episode of VICE on HBO.

Scam alert.

THOMASTON, Me. (WSET) — Police are warning cell phone users of a new text message scam during the coronavirus pandemic. The Thomaston Police Department in Maine posted on Facebook a photo of the alert being sent to people in a text message. The message was sent to someone in Maine from an Indiana area code telling them they need to self-isolate because they came in contact with someone who tested positive or has shown symptoms for coronavirus. The alert also tells you to get tested.

Echolocation is like a smartphone for dolphins; they use it to navigate, and they can’t live without it. 🐬.

Crafty devs have pulled off some impressive feats in getting Windows 10 for ARM on various smartphones.

PsiQuantum is a little-known quantum computing startup, however it recently had no trouble raising almost a quarter of a billion dollars from Microsoft’s M12 venture fund and other investors. That is in addition to a whopping $230 million it received last year from a fund formed by Andy Rubin, developer of the Android operating system.

The company was founded in 2016 by British professor Jeremy O’Brien and three other academics, Terry Rudolph, Mark Thompson, and Pete Shadbolt. In just a few years, they have quietly grown the company from a few employees to a robust technical staff of more than 100.

Compared to today’s modest quantum computing capabilities, PsiQuantum’s elevator pitch for investors sounds like a line from a science fiction movie. O’Brien not only says he is going to build a fault-tolerant quantum computer with a staggering one million qubits, he also says he is going to do it within five years. O’Brien’s technology of choice for this claim is silicon photonics, which uses particles of light called photons to perform quantum calculations. Theoretically, photons behave as both waves and particles, but that’s a subject for another article. Quantum computing technologies in use today are primarily superconductors and trapped ion. However, there is plenty of research that shows photonics holds a lot of promise.

Trillion operations per second.

Apple today announced the second generation iPhone SE, a powerful new iPhone featuring a 4.7-inch Retina HD display.