From the field to the sky; Purdue University uses drone technology for farming

October 29, 2021 Audrey

FARMLAND, Ind. — Harvest time is here but the work doesn’t stop for farmers when the crops leave the field, in some ways it begins anew.

Hoosier farmers are busy this week dodging raindrops while planting cover crops like radishes, wheat and oats. This lineup of winter produce helps keep the soil, and the nutrients within, in place until next year.

Purdue University is using drones to do what tractors cannot, as they say the future of agriculture may be above the ground.

“I think this drone is absolutely amazing,” Purdue Extension Precision AG Educator Mark Carter said. “We use it for spreading seeds. Use it for spraying pesticides, herbicides. We can do it in a very precise manner. It’s very controlled.”

Remote controlled, Purdue University employs nearly 25 drones throughout Indiana at various AG Centers. Each drone can carry roughly 25 pounds of seed or liquid which is then programmed and spread throughout any given field.

“You think about the first tractor that pulled something without horses… that was technology,” Carter said. “This is just the next step. We have digital agriculture where we’re mapping everything, we’re tracking every acre and immediately we started seeing some different results.”

With the help of their eight-propellered implements, farmers can plot their fields, plant more precisely and get a real time view of what’s typically reserved for birds.

“Real time information can let you know if you have any issues emerging… whether it’s disease or insects, weeds or water issues,” Carter said. “You can see it from up high. and you don’t need a bunch of fancy software, you just fly up and take a look and see what’s there.”

While most newer tractors are equipped with satellite technology which allows them to be precise to the nearest inch, these often, self driving tractors, still come up short when the weather’s wet.

“The fields are so muddy that if we put a tractor in there right now it’s gonna sink. It’s gonna rut up the field. It’s gonna make a big mess,” Carter said. “The beautiful thing about this technology with the drones is I’m spreading cover crops today where as we couldn’t get the tractor and the drill in to plant the cover crop even if we waited a few days… and the weather today is favorable for planting – why waste time?”

If time is money then Carter says farmers should be all ears.

“Every dollar counts, our seasons aren’t always the longest and the weather is always a variable so every minute counts,” Carter said. “Our margins are thin that’s why it all really matters.”

At Purdue University’s Davis Purdue AG Center along County Road 900 West in Farmland, a few miles northeast of Muncie; educators like Carter and AG-Center Superintendent Jeff Boyer take the time to test new technology so hardworking producers don’t have to.

The latest technology in art restoration? Bacteria

October 28, 2021 Audrey

Written by Ben Wedeman, CNNJacqui Palumbo, CNNRome, Italy

Rome may be the eternal city, but its ancient artifacts are under unrelenting assault by the ravages of time, pollution, acid rain and the sweat and breath of millions of tourists. The Arch of Septimius Severus in the Roman Forum, for one, has the grime of 18 centuries caked onto its surface.

Now, conservator Alessandro Lugari and his colleagues are trying to salvage the city’s treasures using a new technology — one that employs one of the oldest forms of life: bacteria.

The Arch of Septimius Severus in Rome is being fortified with billions of bacteria that have been fed enzymes in order to calcify. Credit: John Harper/Moment RF/Getty Images

“This marble was almost disintegrating; it was turning to powder,” he says. “So we needed to intervene with consolidation.”

Standing beneath the arch, Lugari points to a marble block weighing several metric tons. “Inside, there are billions of bacteria,” he adds.

The block in question served as a test for the rest of the monument. Its exterior was covered with enzymes, drawing the bacteria — which naturally reside within the marble — to the surface. The resulting calcification strengthened the stone, with the enzymes applied multiple times a day over the course of two weeks.

Bacteria “have already been selected by nature to develop potential abilities which we can test and study and apply,” said microbiologist Chiara Alisi. Credit: CNN

“(The bacteria) doesn’t pass through the marble but rather through the cracks, and it solidifies,” Lugari explains. “It becomes covered with calcium carbonate, which is the same substance as marble and therefore binds, on a microscopic level, the various parts of the marble, creating more marble.

“We tried this, it worked, so the next step will be to try it on the entire monument,” he adds.

Restoring at the molecular level

Silvia Borghini, conservator at the National Roman Museum, said that bacteria have an unfair reputation because they are associated with infection, but their functions are much more complex. “Only a very small number of bacteria are pathogens,” she says. “More than 95 percent of bacteria are not harmful to humans… we live in the midst of bacteria and live thanks to bacteria.”

Increasingly, restoration work is being carried out on a molecular level. But in Italy, the challenge is huge because the country has archaeological sites on a monumental scale.

Michelangelo’s 16th-century tombs for the Medici family have recently been cleaned with bacteria. Credit: Alamy

Beginning in November 2019, bacterial microbes were used in Florence to clean the Medici Chapel, a mausoleum designed by Michelangelo in the 16th-century.

“They found that they had to remove both organic and inorganic materials,” says Chiara Alisi, a microbiologist with the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development. “But in this case using chemical substances would have been too aggressive, so (the restorers) asked for our help.”

Alisi and her team search for potentially useful strains of bacteria in

Can new DNA technology help solve the 2015 murder of a Jacksonville grandmother?

October 28, 2021 Audrey

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Years after a grandmother was found beaten to death in her Jacksonville home detectives are hoping for new leads.

The woman’s daughter wants answers, too.

“She was a great mother, she was a phenomenal grandmother, she was my best friend,” said daughter Kara Trimmer.

Thursday will mark six years since Bradla Cook, 61, was murdered and her car was found torched nearby.

Trimmer said what’s concerning about the case is that there was no sign of forced entry at her mom’s home, meaning whoever did this was somebody she trusted.

A cold case detective said they hope advancements in DNA technology will help them find her killer.

A car on fire behind a Winn-Dixie on Blanding Blvd led investigators to Cook’s home about a mile away. Inside, they found Cook’s body.

“Mrs. Cook was 61 years old. She’s your neighbor, she’s your mom, she’s your grandmother. She wasn’t involved in any nefarious activities. She wasn’t doing anything wrong,” Det. Ray Reeves said.

Reeves said the cause of death was blunt force trauma but she’d been stabbed, too.

“This case in particular, we need the community’s help with,” Reeves said. “There were no signs of forced entry, so it was obviously someone who she had some kind of relationship with, that she knew, or she was trying to help.”

He said some electronics were missing, but money was left so they don’t think it was just a robbery.

“It was confusing. Like who would hate my mother so much to be as selfish and jealous to take her from so many people that loved her unconditionally?” Trimmer said.

Trimmer said her mom, known affectionately as “B,” was a loving grandmother who was active in the community.

She said the mourning process has been overshadowed by questions.

Investigators believe someone killed Cook, left her in her car, and dumped it, setting it on fire in an attempt to burn evidence. But Det. Reeves said they didn’t succeed and investigators have troves of evidence from both scenes.

“And through the years, there has been great advancements in technology,” Reeves said. “We have so many items of evidence collected from both scenes, DNA swabs and things like that that we have been able to re-submit over the last few months to our partners at the FDLE and they’re rechecking that evidence for us.”

He said detectives are already following up on the results.

In the meatime, Trimmer has a message for whoever did this.

“Just be an honest human and do the right thing,” Trimmer said.

She is hopeful that fresh eyes from the Cold Case unit will soon get justice for her mom.

Anyone who knows what happened to Cook, or saw anything that October night in 2015, is asked to call JSO.

https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2021/10/27/can-new-dna-technology-help-solve-the-2015-murder-of-a-jacksonville-grandmother/…

PAX Technology Raided by FBI, Suspected Ties to Cybercrime

October 28, 2021 Audrey

Image for article titled Large Chinese Tech Firm Raided by the FBI After Accusations of Aiding Cyberattacks — Photo: Robyn Beck / AFP (Getty Images)

A prominent Chinese tech firm that sells hardware to companies throughout the world is currently under investigation after being accused of facilitating cyberattacks on various American and European targets.

On Tuesday, a swarm of FBI agents raided the Florida offices of Pax Technology, a large, Chinese-owned point-of-sale manufacturer that sells millions of payment terminals (POS) to companies all over the globe. POS terminals are essentially payment kiosks. While you may not recognize the term, you’ve definitely used one before. They can be found pretty much everywhere—from supermarkets to gas stations to your local dive bar (wherever you need to swipe a credit card, a POS terminal will be there).

News of the raid on PAX was originally broken by WOKV, a local Florida news outlet, which reported Tuesday that the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and other agency officials were conducting “an investigation” at the business’s warehouse in Jacksonville. When queried by reporters, the FBI put out the following statement about their activities:

“The FBI Jacksonville Division, in partnership with Homeland Security Investigations, Customs and Border Protection, Department of Commerce, and Naval Criminal Investigative Services, and with the support of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, is executing a court-authorized search at this location in furtherance of a federal investigation. We are not aware of any physical threat to the surrounding community related to this search. The investigation remains active and ongoing and no additional information can be confirmed at this time.”

While that doesn’t give us a whole lot of clarity on the situation, security journalist Brian Krebs has reported that the company is being investigated for its potential role in facilitating cyberattacks on various American and European targets. A trusted source told Krebs that the company’s point-of-sale devices were supposedly being used as a storage space for malware as well as a “command and control” center, whereby attacks could be deployed and data stolen.

“FBI and MI5 are conducting an intensive investigation into PAX,” the source told Krebs. “A major US payment processor began asking questions about network packets originating from PAX terminals and were not given any good answers.”

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That payment processor would appear to be Worldpay from FIS. On Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported that the company had recently begun replacing PAX-manufactured point-of-sale devices with those made by two competitor firms. The replacements, which started prior to news of the federal investigation, were spurred by concerns over odd network activity emanating from PAX’s POS terminals. When asked about the activity by Worldpay, PAX reportedly did not give “satisfactory answers,” a spokesperson told the outlet.

Krebs points out—and it’s a well-known fact—that point-of-sale terminals are common targets for cybercriminals and that the devices are frequently hijacked by hacker groups for the purposes of credential theft and malware distribution. It wouldn’t

‘We’re clearly a technology company’

October 28, 2021 Audrey

Bank of America (BAC) CEO Brian Moynihan sees his firm not only as a legacy bank, but as a financial technology company on the cutting edge of digital innovation.

“We’re clearly a technology company,” Moynihan said at Yahoo Finance’s All Markets Summit on Monday. “We spend about $3.5 billion a year on new code implementation. New products and services are driven by technology.”

Digital payments have been a key component of Bank of America’s business, and have comprised a sizable proportion of overall transactions for the firm.

In total, BofA’s consumer customers have transacted about $2.8 trillion for the year-to-date through October, with this sum up 20% over the same period in 2020, Moynihan said.

“Of that $2.8 trillion I talked about, consumers at Bank of America moving money around, well over half of that is digital,” Moynihan said.

In its third-quarter earnings release last week, Bank of America noted that it had 40.9 million active digital banking users, with this total up by 4% over last year. About 32 million of these were mobile users.

Digital sales were up 27% to reach 1.4 million, the company added in its third-quarter print. And Zelle, a peer-to-peer payments network used by a host of big banks including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC) and Capital One (COF), saw transactions jump 48% over last year.

UKRAINE – 2020/03/21: In this photo illustration a Bank of America Investment banking company logo seen displayed on a smartphone. (Photo Illustration by Igor Golovniov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The push to build out new technologies at the major banks has been a rising trend for years, as these institutions compete with newer, pure-play financial technology companies like PayPal (PYPL), Square (SQ), Robinhood (HOOD) and Affirm (AFRM).

Investors have also been increasingly turning toward companies leaning into digital services. The ETFMG Prime Mobile Payments exchange-traded fund (IPAY) has jumped by more than 81% over the past three years, outperforming the S&P 500 with a rise of nearly 72%, and the Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund with a gain of nearly 61% over that period. Bank of America’s stock, for its part, has risen by 80% in the past three years, before reinvested dividends.

And the number of digitally enabled services offered at the bank has also increased substantially over the past several years, Moynihan noted. In the years since Bank of America rolled out its voice activated virtual assistant Erica in 2018, the technology has grown to now engage in “hundreds of millions” of transactions per quarter, Moynihan said.

“Over the last few years, we’ve been able to digitally enable the mortgage transaction end-to-end, and the opening of a checking account end-to-end, and all these things,” he said. “We have Merrill Edge … it’s effectively a $300 billion-plus, growing rapidly, company that is in the online trading business, self-directed trading business for customers.”

“These are just huge numbers. But at the end of the day, you also have to remember what

Exploring Quantum Technology: Qiskit and RasQberry

October 28, 2021 Audrey

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Proponents of quantum technology believe its will change the world. Others remain skeptical, as they do of technologies like fusion energy.

Speaking at a quantum developers’ forum, IBM Distinguished Engineer Jan-Rainer Lahmann retraced the history of quantum computing, reviewing IBM’s hardware and development roadmaps and describing the ingredients of “Raspberry Pi quantum”.

The history of quantum computing goes back four decades to a conference where the Nobel laureate Richard Feynman introduced the idea of simulating quantum mechanical systems on a traditional computer. At the time, this required a significant computational resources. Even with Moore’s Law scaling, it was clear to Feynman and many others that the road to quantum computing needed to be pursued. “What if we built completely different kinds of computers that made quantum mechanics’ effects such as superposition, interference, entanglement, directly accessible and controllable?” Lahmann recalled Feynman as asking.

Lahmann continued: “With such a different kind of computer, it should be much easier to simulate quantum mechanical systems. I think this idea is very clear, and it makes perfect sense.”

Since then, many scientists and engineers have pursued various approaches to building actual quantum computers. Feynman’s basic idea was that a quantum mechanical system, with several subsystems, for each qubit, provides as many traditional bits as would be needed on a traditional computer to express that state of a quantum mechanical system. For example, 2 qubits are equivalent to 512 bits, 10 qubits are equivalent to 16 kB and so on with exponential growth. Also understood at the time was how difficult it was to build large computers that could handle qubit demands.

“If you have a quantum mechanical system, you need a huge traditional computer to simulate the same things; if you have a traditional computer, then you can express this amount of information on a quantum computer under certain conditions,” said Lahmann.

Increasing the speed of a quantum computer only makes sense for very specific problems. In an example, Lahmann described how long a quantum computer and a traditional computer would take to multiply two numbers. P and Q are integers with 2,048 bits. On a traditional computer, it takes a few milliseconds. And on a fairly small and noisy quantum computer, it would take an estimated 75 seconds.

But as Lahmann noted, a similar but much more complicated problem illustrates the potential and speed of quantum computers. “We don’t want to multiply two numbers, we want to factor a large number. So we have a number of 2,048 bits and we want to derive the prime factors of that number. This is the core of our two big asymmetric encryption schemes. This takes a long time on the traditional computer, on the order of years – this takes a couple of billion CPU cores on a traditional computer.”

Citing Peter Shor’s quantum algorithm, if “we have a large enough quantum computer, this could be reduced to a few hours. That vividly