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Alien life exists and could be found within 20 years, with enough funding, astronomers tell Congress

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<span style="font-family: ProximaNovaRgRegular, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">  </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Two of the world’s preeminent extraterrestrial astronomers (as in,they <em>research</em> extraterrestrials, not that they’re aliens themselves) have told US Congress that there is alien life out there in the universe — and with adequate funding, we could find that alien life within 20 years. This statement was presented to the <span style="color: black;">House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, which is currently assessing our efforts in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), and whether it should receive more public funding.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Now, you could say that the two astronomers — which both have “SETI” in their job titles — have a slightly vested interest in convincing Congress that there’s life out there. But to be fair, all they really did was tell Congress about the sheer scale of the universe, and that “i<span style="color: black;">t would be bizarre if we are alone,” said Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the <a href="http://www.seti.org/" style="color: #b1700a; text-decoration: none;">SETI Institute</a>in California. The astronomers cite the nearly-two thousand planets already identified by NASA’s Kepler telescope, and how we estimate that 70% of all stars are accompanied by planets — meaning there’s around one trillion planets in the Milky Way alone. “It bears mentioning that the Milky Way is only one of 150 billion galaxies visible to our telescopes,” said Shostak, inviting Congress to think about the quintillion or sextillion habitable planets in the entire universe.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">With that many planets, there’s a “good” chance that there’s alien life somewhere in the universe — but, as Shostak and <span style="color: black;">Dan Wethimer, director of SETI research at the University of California Berkeley told Congress, we won’t find it unless we have the funding. So far, humanity’s efforts to probe deep space for signs of life have been lackluster to say the least. In recent years, it has been <a href="http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/" style="color: #b1700a; text-decoration: none;">SETI@Home</a>, and that’s about it. Because the universe is vast, and because our radio telescopes can only listen to a tiny fraction of the sky for signs of alien life, we simply haven’t looked in many places. With just a few million dollars in funding — for larger telescopes and more computer processing power — we could turn over many more interstellar rocks. With enough funding, Shostak and Wethimer think we could find alien life as soon as 20 years from now. (As a fun aside, both Shostak and Wethimer also told Congress that they don’t think Earth has ever been visited by aliens. “I don’t think that that would be something all the governments would have managed to keep a secret,” Shostak said.)</span><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/square-kilometer-array-rendering.jpg" style="color: #b1700a; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img alt="The Square Kilometer Array radio telescope (artist's rendering)" class="size-full wp-image-124569" height="353" src="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/square-kilometer-array-rendering-640x353.jpg" style="border-style: none;" width="640" /></span></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="color: #666666; line-height: 15px; padding: 10px 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">To find alien life, we’d need a big array of radio telescopes — like this Square Kilometer Array</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Personally, I’m a little more dubious. Shostak and Wethimer are obviously going to veer towards optimism when billions of delicious research dollars are on the line. Yes, we could cover the Earth in huge parabolic dish antennas and listen really closely for signs of life. [Read: IBM to build exascale supercomputer for the world’s largest, million-antennae telescope.] More realistically, though, increased funding might allow us to listen for faint signals emanating from <em>a few percent</em> of the night sky. In either case, listening for alien radio signals is one hell of a long shot. The odds of an alien civilization being advanced enough to produce strong radio signals, and sending them in our direction — remember, the universe is almost infinitely large — are tiny. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, our two civilizations would have to overlap. Human civilization is tens of thousands of years old, but we have only been able to transmit and measure radio signals for less than 100 of those. The universe has been around for almost 14 billion years — what if there was intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy a million years ago, or a billion years ago, or 10 billion years ago, but their radio signals washed over us long before we could hear them? [Read: Alien spotting: By 2020, we’ll finally have the ability to locate life-harboring, alien planets.]</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/dyson-sphere-artist-concept.jpg" style="color: #b1700a; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img alt="An artist's concept of a Dyson Sphere" class="wp-image-138045 size-medium" height="165" src="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/dyson-sphere-artist-concept-300x165.jpg" style="border-style: none;" width="300" /></span></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="color: #666666; line-height: 15px; padding: 10px 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">A really advanced alien civilization may have built a star-encompassing Dyson sphere</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And how long do you think <em>we</em> will be around? Another 100 years? Probably. Another 1,000 years? If we’re lucky. In the grand, utterly stupendous scale of the universe, humans are the tiniest of blips — and it stands to good reason that any other intelligent civilization would be exactly the same. The big exception, of course, is if there is an alien civlization out there that has survived for millions of years and has already populated multiple star systems or galaxies. In that case, there’s a pretty good chance that our civilizations (and thus SETI efforts) would overlap.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Now, whether we actually <em>want</em> to find a highly advanced empire that has colonized multiple galaxies is another question entirely. I don’t think humanity would cope very well with suddenly being number two on the food chain…</span></div>
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Alien life exists and could be found within 20 years, with enough funding, astronomers tell Congress

Two of the world’s preeminent extraterrestrial astronomers (as in,they research extraterrestrials, not that they’re aliens themselves...

Microsoft Windows 8 Banned By Chinese Government

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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In a move that caught Microsoft offguard, the Chinese government has issued a notice that  agencies are to forego purchasing Windows 8 and installing the software on any new government devices. The notice that was officially sent out is titled “<a href="http://www.zycg.cn/article/show/242846" style="color: #0092dd;" target="_blank">Agreement to supply information about the class of energy-saving products complement the mandatory tender notice</a>“.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">If that reads a little awkward to you, ask Google Translate, as the original page is in Chinese. In any case, the announcement highlights energy-saving products, but Windows 8 is specifically mentioned as item #5: “<em>all computer products are not allowed to install Windows 8 operating system.</em>”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Chinese news outlet <a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-05/20/c_133347210.htm" style="color: #0092dd;" target="_blank">Xinhua</a> looks back to the termination of support for Windows XP as a reason for the ban on Windows 8.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img alt="Windows 8 ban" class="lazy alignnone wp-image-15600 size-full data-lazy-ready" data-lazy-src="http://technews.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/win8-china.jpg" data-lazy-type="image" height="635" src="http://technews.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/win8-china.jpg" style="background-color: #ecf0f4; display: inline; float: none; max-width: 708px; padding: 10px;" width="640" /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">In a news report, it says that the move was made to ensure computer security. Apparently, the Chinese government is not confident that Microsoft will continue support for Windows 8 in the future, hence the ban.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It is important to note that the ban is only in effect for government-owned devices. Private consumers are free to purchase whatever OS they want to.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">On another note, the ban on Windows 8 seems to be only a part of the government’s strategy. In the same report, Xinhua states that China is going to focus on developing its own operating system, based on Linux. Knowing just how China does not lack for talent in this niche, it is not surprising that they will want to work on their own operating system.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">On Microsoft’s part, the company says they were surprised by the announcement, but they also emphasized that they are doing what they can – and will continue to do so – to meet the requirements of the Chinese government in terms of procurement. They also mentioned their ongoing relationship with the government by providing Windows 7 and that they will work with the government to evaluate Windows 8.</span></div>
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Microsoft Windows 8 Banned By Chinese Government

In a move that caught Microsoft offguard, the Chinese government has issued a notice that agencies are to forego purchasing Windows 8 and...

The futuristic dream of wirelessly charging your smartphone while you stand in line at the coffee shop may soon come to pass

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<img alt="Energous wireless power transfer demo, to an iPhone" height="353" src="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/energous-wireless-power-transfer-640x353.jpg" width="640" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">A new company called Energous has devised a method of wirelessly transmitting power over long distances. Its prototype system can beam 10 watts, more than enough to charge your smartphone or tablet, over a distance of 15 feet — and, rather importantly, it will track your device if you move around. The company hopes to commercialize its technology soon, with partner companies showing off the tech at CES in January 2015. It seems that the first generation of wireless charging — those awful, short-range charging plates — may finally be drawing to a close. The dream of having your smartphone and other mobile devices constantly topped up — while you sit on the sofa, while you stand in line at the coffee shop — may soon come to pass.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Usually when we write about wireless charging on ExtremeTech we’re referring to magnetic resonance, where you have two coils of wire (antennas, basically) that are both tuned to a certain frequency. When you pass electricity through one coil, it induces a resonant electromagnetic field in the other coil, (fairly) efficiently transferring energy through the air. This is the method that almost every upcoming wireless charging technology uses, including WiTricity (an MIT spin-off that has been trying to bring magnetic resonance wireless charging to market for a good 5+ years). Not Energous, though.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">According to Technology Review, Energous appears to use a very different technique, consisting of “lots of small antennas.” This antenna array sends radio waves to nearby mobile devices that have announced their presence via Bluetooth. Beyond that, there are sadly few few details. In the demo video above, you can see that Energous’ Energy Router can send power to two devices. The Router can also “track” devices as they move around (though there’s no word on how big an area it can track). From these details, we can infer that some kind of beam forming is used, to transmit a tight beam of electromagnetic radiation at the target device. The max range is apparently 15 feet (4.7 meters), with fairly modest efficiency of 20% (not a huge deal, when you’re talking about mobile devices with tiny power consumption).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">To receive the wireless power, Energous uses special case that you slip your smartphone into. Again, no word what’s inside the special case, but presumably it’s a bunch of antennas/coils. It is these cases that will first come to market, says Energous, with partners showing off cases and Energy Routers at CES 2015. Eventually, though, of course, Energous wants to get its technology built directly into devices — and the company says it’s having receiver and transmitter chips made at the moment. This is a good sign that, despite the cases and Energy Router being rather large at the moment, the technology can be scaled down.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/wireless-power-transfer-energous.jpg" style="color: #b1700a; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img alt="Energous wireless power transfer setup. The Energy Router is the big white box on the right." class="size-large wp-image-183044" height="353" src="http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/wireless-power-transfer-energous-640x353.jpg" style="border-style: none;" width="640" /></span></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="color: #666666; line-height: 15px; padding: 10px 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Energous wireless power transfer setup. The Energy Router is the big white box on the right.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">While Energous might not have the industry support that WiTricity has (its “Rezence” tech is backed by Intel and Qualcomm among others), it’s exciting to see another technique for wireless power transfer that doesn’t use magnetic resonance. With magnetic resonance there are some fairly strict rules (as governed by the laws of classical physics) that limit its potential for wireless power transfer. An array of beamforming antennas makes a lot of sense, for wirelessly charging multiple devices as they move through a 3D space. (If that’s how Energous actually works, anyway; I could have it completely wrong.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Who knows. With Energous (or WiTricity/Rezence if it actually comes to market in mobile devices) we may soon be living in a world where your mobile devices can be constantly topped up, whether you’re sitting on the couch, at your office desk, or standing in line at the coffee shop. Wireless power transmission could also be the key to powering large sensor networks (smart homes, smart cities), without having to attach each device to the grid or provide them with a bulky battery.</span></div>
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The futuristic dream of wirelessly charging your smartphone while you stand in line at the coffee shop may soon come to pass

A new company called Energous has devised a method of wirelessly transmitting power over long distances. Its prototype system can beam 1...

Wireless energy powers pacemaker in live rabbit

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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There's electricity in the air. A rabbit's beating heart has been regulated using a tiny pacemaker that beams in energy from outside its body. It is the first time this kind of wireless energy transfer has been demonstrated in a living animal. If such wirelessly powered medical implants can work in people too, it would reduce the seriousness of the procedures required to get them fitted.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Our device is small, so it will be much easier to deliver into the body," says<a href="http://www.stanford.edu/group/poongroup/cgi-bin/wordpress/people/" style="border: 0px; color: #34a3d1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Ada Poon</a> of Stanford University in California, who led the team that implanted the tiny pacemaker.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Being fitted with a pacemaker currently requires surgery plus another operation when the battery eventually runs down. So Poon and her colleagues outfitted a rabbit with a pacemaker that has no battery and is just 3 millimetres long (see picture, above right). A metal plate, powered only by a cellphone battery, was then held a couple of centimetres above the rabbit's chest.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Body boost</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The plate transmitted 2000 microwatts to the pacemaker via electromagnetic waves. The pacemaker was then able to regulate the rabbit's heartbeat, and delivered safe levels of energy to the surrounding tissue.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Such "near-field energy transmission" was previously considered too weak to power devices that are small or placed deeply in the body. To get around this problem, Poon's team designed the plate to emit electromagnetic radiation in a directed beam towards the implant. They also used the rabbit's own body tissue to help deliver the signal: the radiation is of a high frequency that propagates particularly well in animal tissue, allowing it to pass further into the body without losing much energy into the tissue or causing damage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"I think that amongst the solutions that are proposed to power an implant, this is going to be the most reliable," says Patrick Mercier at the University of California, San Diego, who works on wireless power for implants. He says that when the Stanford team first shared their unusual power scheme, many in the field were surprised. Because of the high frequencies involved, no one had thought to try this method.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Skin patch</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Poon's team also found that their device worked in tests with pig tissue, delivering energy to implants placed in samples of pig hearts and brains. The team is now launching a company, Vivonda Medical, to adapt the technology for use in humans. That will include more practical alternatives to the metal plate, perhaps delivering energy via a patch on the skin.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Robert Puers at the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL), Belgium, isn't convinced that the technique makes sense for crucial medical devices like pacemakers. "These devices, being life-supporting, should not depend on the presence of an external powering device," he says.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Poon's team also plans to adapt their technology for other types of implants, such as neurostimulators which are implanted in the brain to treat conditions such as Parkinson's disease.</span></div>
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Wireless energy powers pacemaker in live rabbit

There's electricity in the air. A rabbit's beating heart has been regulated using a tiny pacemaker that beams in energy from ou...

China has built a prototype for a train that's 3 times faster than a plane

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<span style="background-color: white; color: #171717; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19.600000381469727px;">Using a near-vacuum tunnel, scientists believe maglev trains can reach 2,900 km/h.</span></h3>
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he<a href="http://english.swjtu.edu.cn/public/viewNews.aspx?ID=154" style="color: #4c5398; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"> researchers from Southwest Jiaotong University in China have already built a prototype</a> testing platform (pictured above) for the near-vacuum maglev train.</div>
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Inside the tunnel the atmospheric pressure is 10 times lower than the atmospheric pressure at sea level, which drastically reduces the amount of energy needed to overcome air resistance,<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com.au/train-capable-of-reaching-1800-mph-2014-5" style="color: #4c5398; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Business Insider</em> explains</a>.</div>
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And it's this lack of air resistance that will help the train reach theoretical speeds of 2,900 km/h. Currently the fastest commercial maglev train can reach speeds of just 431 km/h.</div>
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At the moment the train is limited by its small testing platform, but if they're right about the speeds it could reach on long straights, you could travel from Paris to Moscow in about an hour. And if there was a direct route, Londoners could be in New York within two hours.</div>
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There are just no words for how awesome this would be if it works - the world will just get a whole lot smaller.</div>
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China has built a prototype for a train that's 3 times faster than a plane

Using a near-vacuum tunnel, scientists believe maglev trains can reach 2,900 km/h. he researchers from Southwest Jiaotong University i...

''Google" is the World’s Most Valuable Company

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<span lang="EN-US">This just in: Google has become the richest and most valuable company out of any company in the world!  </span><span lang="EN-US">Considering their competition, this has been no easy task! </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Milward Brown, Global Market Research agency, stated that the brand value of Google has shot up nearly 40% in just one year and is worth $158.84 billion.  Even Apple can</span><span lang="EN-US">’</span><span lang="EN-US">t compete.  They are only worth a measly $148 billion and are on a 20% decline.  After overtaking IBM last year, Google has been steadily climbing the ladder!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><img alt="Google" class="lazy alignnone size-full wp-image-15580 data-lazy-ready" data-lazy-src="http://technews.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/www.businessinsider.com_.jpg" data-lazy-type="image" height="472" src="http://technews.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/www.businessinsider.com_.jpg" style="background-color: #ecf0f4; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; display: inline; float: none; max-width: 708px; padding: 10px;" width="708" /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Head of Millward Brown France, Benoit Tranzer hinted that <a href="http://www.google.com/" style="color: #0092dd;" target="_blank" title="Google">Google</a> has become so popular because of their breakthrough in wearable devices.  Google Glass has become a phenomenon and continued investment within AI (Artifical Intelligence) has really helped Google grow exponentially.  This sends a reassuring signal to all lovers of Google, they are in it to win! </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">What is so amazing about this feat is that <a href="http://www.apple.com/" style="color: #0092dd;" target="_blank" title="Apple">Apple</a>, for the first time in over 4 years, has not been able to retain first place as most valuable company.  U.S. technology firm, <a href="http://www.ibm.com/" style="color: #0092dd;" target="_blank" title="IBM">IBM</a>, came in third with a brand value of $107 billion and<a href="http://www.microsoft.com/" style="color: #0092dd;" target="_blank" title="Microsoft">Microsoft</a> followed closely behind with a value of </span><span lang="EN-US">£</span><span lang="EN-US">90 billion.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Although Apple has taken second place, Samsung has really faired badly at twenty-ninth on the list with a brand value of only $25 billion.  What a shame! </span></div>
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<a href="http://technews.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/SearchIsLookingForLife.jpg" style="color: #0092dd;"><img alt="Google is Now World's Most Valuable Company" class="lazy alignnone size-full wp-image-15671 data-lazy-ready" data-lazy-src="http://technews.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/SearchIsLookingForLife.jpg" data-lazy-type="image" height="506" src="http://technews.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/SearchIsLookingForLife.jpg" style="background-color: #ecf0f4; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; display: inline; float: none; max-width: 708px; padding: 10px;" width="708" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">So will Google be able to continue this climb to victory?  It</span><span lang="EN-US">’</span><span lang="EN-US">s easier to climb the ladder then to remain at the top!  Google will have to continue to wow its customers and woo Apple lovers, if they want to remain at the summit for a long time! </span></div>
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''Google" is the World’s Most Valuable Company

This just in: Google has become the richest and most valuable company out of any company in the world! Considering their competition, th...