Month: July 2017

Categories
GeekWire

Cyrus Biotech raises $8M for protein toolkit

Cyrus Bench on laptop
Cyrus Bench is a software platform for protein engineering. (Cyrus Biotech Photo)

Cyrus Biotechnology is getting an $8 million infusion for its cloud-based protein modeling and design toolkit, thanks to a Series A financing round.

The investment round was led by Trinity Ventures, with participation from OrbiMed Advisors, SpringRock Ventures, the W Fund and individual investors, the Seattle-based venture said today in a news release.

Cyrus Biotech’s primary product, Cyrus Bench, is a software package based on Rosetta, a protein-modeling platform that was created at the University of Washington. Rosetta lets researchers twist and turn virtual models of protein molecules to create novel configurations. (It’s even spawned a video game for citizen scientists called Foldit and a screensaver called Rosetta@Home.)

Protein-folding has been compared to solving puzzles, or building molecular-scale keys for cellular locks. A protein molecule with the right shape could block a virus from invading a cell, or unlock a therapy for disease.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Tiny probes get tested for interstellar mission

Yuri Milner and Sprite
Russian billionaire Yuri Milner holds a “Sprite” mini-probe like the ones that are being tested in low Earth orbit. (Breakthrough Starshot via YouTube / SciNews)

Breakthrough Starshot says it’s been testing prototype interstellar spacecraft no bigger than postage stamps in orbit for the past month, and they seem to be working just fine.

Six of the 1.4-inch-square circuit boards, dubbed “Sprites,” were launched into low Earth orbit on June 23 as tiny piggyback payloads on two nanosatellites. Those educational satellites, Max Valier Sat and Venta 1, were developed with the aid of German-based OHB System and launched by an Indian PSLV rocket. (Seattle-based Spaceflight played a role in launch logistics.)

In a statement issued today, Breakthrough Starshot said the Sprites are still attached to the nanosatellites and are “performing as designed.” The Sprite radio communication system is in contact with ground stations in California and New York, as well as with amateur radio enthusiasts around the world.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Scientists find recipe to regenerate retinas

Retinal cells
A microscopic view documents how glial cells in the retina can be transformed into functioning neurons. (UW Photo / Tom Reh Lab)

University of Washington researchers have found a way to activate cells in the retinas of adult mice to turn into new neurons – a recipe that eventually could lead to new treatments for human eyes damaged by trauma and disease.

UW biologist Tom Reh, one of the authors of a research paper on the experiments published by the journal Nature, said it’s too early to talk about cures – but not too early to talk about hope.

He told GeekWire that the newly published work on cell conversion complements different approaches that rely on cell transplants.

“I hope that one or the other approach starts to deliver results to patients in the near term,” he said. “We’re working really hard every day to make this work for people.”

Making it work for mice was hard enough.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Elon Musk shows off his tunnel’s car elevator

Billionaire Elon Musk’s grand scheme for underground car tunnels will require elevators to get the cars in those tunnels – and tonight he shared a video of a prototype elevator being tested next to SpaceX’s California HQ:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BW_-mlYAMrs/

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

AI2 challenge puts computer vision to the test

Charades Challenge
For AI2’s Charades Challenge, visual systems had to recognize and classify a wide variety of daily activities in realistic videos. This is just a sampling of the videos. (AI2 Photos)

Some of the world’s top researchers in AI have proved their mettle by taking top honors in three challenges posed by the Seattle-based Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

The institute, also known as AI2, was created by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in 2014 to blaze new trails in the field of artificial intelligence. One of AI2’s previous challenges tested the ability of AI platforms to answer eighth-grade-level science questions.

The three latest challenges focused on visual understanding – that is, the ability of a computer program to navigate real-world environments and situations using synthetic vision and machine learning.

These aren’t merely academic exercises: Visual understanding is a must-have for AI applications ranging from self-driving cars to automated security monitoring to sociable robots.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Augmented-reality shopping on your phone?

Augmented-reality concept
An augmented-reality shopping app could provide a realistic-looking view of a virtual wristwatch on your smartphone, complete with bling. (GeekWire Photoillustration / Alan Boyle)

It’s no secret that Amazon is intrigued by the potential applications of augmented reality for e-commerce – and one of those applications is explored in a newly published patent.

Imagine that you’re shopping online for a classy watch or bracelet, and you want to get a sense for how it’ll look around your wrist. Just point your smartphone camera at your hand, and an augmented-reality app will show you the item superimposed on the camera video.

But what about the bling? The patent published today, based on an application filed back in 2013, focuses on how to add the sparkle to the virtual image of the bracelet.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Zuck and Musk trade zingers over AI fears

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg
Tech billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are feuding over AI. (SpaceX / Facebook Photos)

Techies, grab some popcorn: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and SpaceX/Tesla CEO Elon Musk are throwing shade at each other over what Musk considers the scariest issue facing humanity: the rapid rise of artificial intelligence.

It all started last week at the National Governors Association’s summer meeting in Rhode Island, where Musk complained that policymakers and tech leaders weren’t sufficiently worried about AI.

“I keep sounding the alarm bell, but until people see robots going down the street, killing people, they don’t know how to react because it seems so ethereal,” he said.

Over the weekend, Zuckerberg basically said Musk was being reckless.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

5 cool ideas from the visuals of ‘Valerian’

Valerian duo
Valerian and Laureline (Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne) make off with a treasure taken from a virtual marketplace in “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.” (STX Entertainment)

Does director Luc Besson’s latest movie, “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” live up to his sci-fi cult classic, “The Fifth Element”? Mmm, no. But the visuals and fictional tech concepts are literally out of this world, and well worth seeing.

“Valerian” has been getting decidedly mixed opening reviews – mostly due to the plodding plot and what some have called the anti-chemistry between the two lead actors, Dane DeHaan as Valerian and Cara Delevingne as Laureline. (To be fair, “The Fifth Element” got similarly mixed reviews when it premiered 20 years ago.)

The visuals are over-the-top, but the problem with “Valerian” may well be that it takes itself too seriously. The heroes and the villains are too earnest, in contrast to the cartoonish baddies in “The Fifth Element.” Ironically, a new movie based on a comic-book classic isn’t comic-bookish enough.

The best way to experience the movie is to set your expectations accordingly, and then let the computer-generated visual effects wash over you for two hours. Here are some of my favorite moments, based on the visuals as well as what they say about technologies to come.

Get the full list on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Scientists know what that ‘weird’ signal was

Weird Signal
The “Weird! Signal” from Ross 128, detected on May 12, is highlighted by the red box in this chart of frequency signal strength over time. (PHL @ UPR Arecibo)

A week ago, astronomers using the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico were intrigued about a radio signal they picked up in May, apparently from the vicinity of the red dwarf star Ross 128. Now they think they know what it was.

Spoiler alert: It’s not aliens.

To gather more evidence about the source of the quasi-periodic signal, astronomers took a closer look at the star on July 16 – not only with the 1,000-foot-wide Arecibo Observatory, but with the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and the SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array in California.

“We are now confident about the source of the ‘Weird! Signal,’” Abel Mendez, a planetary astrobiologist at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, said today in an update.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Cellphone carriers gear up for eclipse jam

Smartphone eclipse observing
If you use your smartphone to photograph a partial solar eclipse, you should cover the camera lens with a solar filter – even if it’s a makeshift one. (NASA Photo / Sten Odenwald / Lou Mayo)

One month from today, Americans could well be in on the most photographed, most widely shared total solar eclipse in history – but it’s up to telecom providers to make sure it doesn’t turn into a total bust.

From Oregon to South Carolina, millions of eclipse-chasers will be in what’s likely to be unfamiliar territory, outside the usual hot spots for cell service, scrambling to put photos online or stream live video.

Cellphone carriers will be using their tools of the trade – including mobile communication towers, portable power generators and beefed-up backhaul connections – to keep up with the flood of data and phone calls.

Get the full story on GeekWire.