LUXEON HL2X LED delivers more ‘field usable lumens’

Lumileds’ HL2X LED offers more usable light for streetlights and outdoor area fixtures, while simplifying the thermal design of fixtures. 

from Electronic Products Technology Center Articles https://ift.tt/2Zv4tQ2

Renesas expands energy-efficient RE MCU family

Renesas’s new RE01 embedded controller with ultra-low-power consumption and a small WLBGA package size targets compact IoT device designs.

from Electronic Products Technology Center Articles https://ift.tt/2VGGRac

LUXEON HL2X LED delivers more ‘field usable lumens’

Lumileds’ HL2X LED offers more usable light for streetlights and outdoor area fixtures, while simplifying the thermal design of fixtures. 

source http://www.electronicproducts.com/Optoelectronics/LEDs/LUXEON_HL2X_LED_delivers_more_field_usable_lumens.aspx

Renesas expands energy-efficient RE MCU family

Renesas’s new RE01 embedded controller with ultra-low-power consumption and a small WLBGA package size targets compact IoT device designs.

source http://www.electronicproducts.com/Digital_ICs/Microprocessors_Microcontrollers_DSPs/Renesas_expands_energy_efficient_RE_MCU_family.aspx

Friday CoronaBuzz, July 3, 2020: 32 pointers to new resources, useful stuff, research news, and more.

Friday CoronaBuzz, July 3, 2020: 32 pointers to new resources, useful stuff, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Wash your hands and stay at home as much as you can. When you go out, please wear a mask. Please be careful. I love you.

NEW RESOURCES – STATE-SPECIFIC

Idaho News 6: Gov. Little launches new Recreate Idaho website. “Governor Little announced a new website to help people recreate safely in Idaho during the COVID-19 pandemic. The website is part of the Recreate Responsibly Idaho campaign that was established to provide guidances and resources for recreating Idahoans to adapt their activities to the situation.”

Kansas State Library: COVID-19 Publications in KGI Online Library. “State Library of Kansas Cataloging/Kansas Documents employee, Vicky Wolf, has been busy for many weeks gathering, documenting, preserving and providing access to over 170 publications issued by Kansas libraries and state government agencies regarding COVID-19 prevention, detection, policies and procedures. We have these publications up in the [Kansas Government Information] Online Library and will be adding more.” This blog post notes that some of the information is outdated and has been updated with more recent government publications.

UPDATES

Alabama Political Reporter: Alabama’s COVID-19 surge is not slowing. “The number of patients in Alabama hospitals being treated for COVID-19 surged past 800 on Thursday, marking a fourth straight day of record-high hospitalizations as concerns grow over the possibility that hospitals could become stressed due to the influx of patients.”

FACT CHECKS

Poynter: Infrared thermometers won’t blind you, damage your neurons nor affect your meditation. “People who have recently tried to resume their lives by leaving home and going to shops and restaurants have probably stopped at some temperature check control system. Usually, someone with an infrared thermometer in hand points the machine-looking tool to the client’s forehead and finds out if the person is running a fever. This device, however, is the new victim of COVID-19 falsehoods.”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

Museums Association: Is online cultural content good for mental health and wellbeing?. “The University of Oxford has launched a project exploring whether online cultural content has been beneficial to mental health and wellbeing during the coronavirus lockdown. The project, which is being funded through the university’s Covid-19 Research Response Fund, is being run by an interdisciplinary team from its department of psychiatry and the Oxford Internet Institute, using the Ashmolean Museum’s digital collections and resources.”

Poynter: With schools closed and Americans heading back to work, a day care crisis is looming. “Dr. Anthony Fauci gave senators conflicting advice this week. On one hand, he said the number of COVID-19 deaths and infections are ‘going to be very disturbing.’ But he also said, “I feel very strongly we need to do whatever we can to get the children back to school.” As workplaces begin to open up in some places, the pandemic’s economic aftereffects are closing day care centers nationwide.”

New York Times: For Maine Lobstermen, a Perfect Storm Threatens the Summer Season. “With the Fourth of July holiday around the corner, Mr. [Mike] Hutchings and his fellow lobstermen were supposed to be gearing up for a major payday as out-of-staters, cruise ships, warmer weather and bounties of lobsters, having just molted their shells and been lured into the thousands of traps anchored on the rocky bottom of Maine’s coastal waters, came together in a seasonal windfall. But like many businesses across the country, the Maine lobster industry, which makes up the bulk of the fishing revenue the state brings in every year, is being battered by the coronavirus, which has crushed the tourism trade that Mr. Hutchings and his fellow fishermen rely on for a living.”

Washington Post: ‘We feel absolutely abandoned’: How the pandemic in Russia tanked the economy and plunged families into crisis. “Across the globe, the pandemic has tanked economies as the world faces its worst collective downturn since the Great Depression. Russia has been particularly hard hit by the twin blows of the coronavirus and the collapse in oil prices. Russia relies on taxes from the oil and gas sector for 40 percent of its budget. Since March, Russian charities and nonprofit organizations experienced a surge in the kind of clients they have not had before: families that had never been in financial crisis, but are now desperate. Some of them were unable to buy even food. Some were left homeless.”

New York Times: Is the Five-Day Office Week Over?. “Most American office workers are in no hurry to return to the office full time, even after the coronavirus is under control. But that doesn’t mean they want to work from home forever. The future for them, a variety of new data shows, is likely to be workweeks split between office and home.”

INSTITUTIONS

CNN: USC says most undergraduate classes will be online for fall semester. “A surge in coronavirus cases in the Los Angeles region has prompted the University of Southern California to drop plans to have undergraduate students back in the classroom and instead offer most classes online.”

Route Fifty: Libraries Begin Partial Reopening as Covid-19 Cases Surge. “Some libraries, including the Wheaton Public Library outside of Chicago and eight branches in New York City, will soon begin offering ‘grab and go’ services, giving patrons access to a limited area to return or pick up materials. The Brown County Library in central Wisconsin is open for computer use by appointment only, while the Sitka Public Library in Alaska plans to welcome patrons but enforce a ‘no lingering’ rule as well as close three days per week for extended cleaning.”

BUSINESS / CORPORATIONS

Yahoo News: As coronavirus surges, Fox News shifts its message on masks. “The network’s coverage of the coronavirus had already been evolving, as the seriousness of the situation became apparent, but over the last several days something appears to have changed. The shift may have to do with the fact that the coronavirus has shown a ferocious resurgence in recent weeks, after a stretch during which it appeared to be in abeyance.”

USA Today: ‘A mask is not a symbol’: Restaurants take a stand amid coronavirus pandemic. “#NoMaskNoTaco. It’s a hashtag on social media that a Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles used to announce Sunday that it was temporarily closing its two taco stands because some customers had refused to wear face masks amid a surge in coronavirus cases in California. It’s not the only restaurant that has experienced similar incidents and decided to shut down at some capacity.”

GOVERNMENT

WCNC: CDHHS launches COVID-19 social media campaign to reach historically marginalized populations. “The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) is launching a new social media marketing campaign as part of a larger public outreach campaign designed to reach historically marginalized populations disproportionately affected by COVID-19.”

CNN: The Trump administration just lent $700 million to a trucking company sued for ripping off taxpayers. “The US Treasury is giving a $700 million loan to YRC Worldwide, a troubled trucking company that warned in May it was in danger of going out of business. That’s an enormous sum for a company whose stock had plunged 27% this year and was worth only $70 million as of Tuesday’s close. And here’s the kicker: The government sued YRC for ripping it off.”

Texas Tribune: Gov. Greg Abbott orders Texans in most counties to wear masks in public. “The order requires Texans living in counties more than 20 coronavirus cases to wear a face covering over the nose and mouth while in a business or other building open to the public, as well as outdoor public spaces, whenever social distancing is not possible. But it provides several exceptions, including for children who are younger than 10 years old, people who have a medical condition that prevents them from wearing a mask, people who are eating or drinking, and people who are exercising outdoors.”

BBC: Coronavirus in North Korea: Kim Jong-un claims ‘shining success’. “North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has hailed his country’s “shining success” in dealing with Covid-19, according to state news agency KCNA. Speaking at a politburo meeting, Mr Kim said the country had ‘prevented the inroad of the malignant virus and maintained a stable situation’.”

Route Fifty: Know a Teen who Needs a Summer Job? Covid-19 Response is Hiring.. “State and local officials are attracting new recruits in the fight against Covid-19: teenagers and young adults. A handful of counties, cities and states across the country have announced plans to expand or revamp existing youth employment programs to include opportunities to assist in government-led coronavirus response initiatives.”

EDUCATION

The Blade: Ohio schools will be required to implement mask policy for reopening. “Masks are required for all Ohio school staff and ‘strongly recommended’ for most children in third grade and up, the governor announced Thursday as coronavirus cases surge across the state.”

Politico: From anti-vax to anti-mask: School districts brace for parent resistance. “California’s anti-vaccine movement has a new target: masks. The same parents who loudly opposed school vaccine requirements in Sacramento last year are turning their attention to mask recommendations that districts are considering as they figure out how to send kids back to the classroom in the middle of a pandemic.”

HEALTH

Washington Post: Heart conditions drove spike in deaths beyond those attributed to covid-19, analysis shows. “The coronavirus killed tens of thousands in the United States during the pandemic’s first months, but it also left a lesser-known toll: thousands more deaths than would have been expected from heart disease and a handful of other medical conditions, according to an analysis of federal data by The Washington Post.”

BBC: Coronavirus in South Africa: Deciding who lives and dies in a Cape Town township. “While the surfers are back out in large numbers on the waves in False Bay, taking advantage of an easing of some lockdown rules in South Africa, just inland on the sandy, windswept plains of Khayelitsha, coronavirus is spreading fast through the impoverished, crime-ridden township and, in the process, highlighting some of the challenges this whole country is likely to face in the coming weeks.”

Washington Post: ‘Cries for help’: Drug overdoses are soaring during the coronavirus pandemic. “Nationwide, federal and local officials are reporting alarming spikes in drug overdoses — a hidden epidemic within the coronavirus pandemic. Emerging evidence suggests that the continued isolation, economic devastation and disruptions to the drug trade in recent months are fueling the surge.”

NPR: As Coronavirus Surges, How Much Testing Does Your State Need To Subdue The Virus?. “The coronavirus keeps spreading around the United States. New hot spots are emerging and heating up by the day. The death toll keeps mounting. So how can the U.S. beat back the relentless onslaught of this deadly virus? Public health experts agree on one powerful weapon that’s gotten a lot of attention but apparently still needs a lot more: testing.”

Good Morning America: Gay men speak out after being turned away from donating blood during coronavirus pandemic: ‘We are turning away perfectly healthy donors’. “According to the Food and Drug Administration, not all blood is equal. Even in a time of crisis, amid a global pandemic, gay and bisexual men in America cannot immediately donate blood in the same way their heterosexual counterparts can.”

OUTBREAKS

CNN: Hundreds of teens at ‘pong fest’ party exposed to coronavirus, officials say. I read this and was like, “The hell is a Pong Fest?” After poking around it appears that this party is a regular affair and it specifically is called Pong Fest.. “At the time of the party, several teens were waiting for their Covid-19 test results, and have since tested positive, according to Shelly Parks, a spokesperson with Austin Homeland Security & Emergency Management.
City and health officials are now urging all attendees to get tested and self-isolate.”

Outlook India: Wedding Causes Biggest COVID-19 Infection Chain In Bihar; Groom Dies, Over 100 Test Positive. “A wedding ceremony in rural Patna a fortnight ago where the groom was running high fever, two days before he died and his body cremated without being tested for COVID-19, appears to have set off the biggest infection chain in Bihar so far, health department officials said on Tuesday. More than 100 people have tested positive in Paliganj sub-division of Patna district, about 55 km from the state capital, in the last few days, out of over 350 who have been tested upon contact tracing, they said.”

BBC: Coronavirus: Why has Melbourne’s outbreak worsened?. “For months Australia has felt optimistic about containing Covid-19, but a resurgence of the virus in Melbourne has put those efforts at a critical stage. About 300,000 people were ordered back into lockdown this week amid a military-assisted operation to ‘ring fence’ 10 postcodes at the centre of the outbreak.”

TECHNOLOGY

CNET: Facebook, Instagram push masks for COVID-19. “Facebook on Thursday said it’ll start pushing information on face coverings and other preventive measures for COVID-19 on its platform, as well as on Instagram, which it owns. This comes as the US sees an increase in cases across the country.”

RESEARCH

CNBC: Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech shows positive results. “An experimental Covid-19 vaccine being developed by the drug giant Pfizer and the biotech firm BioNTech spurred immune responses in healthy patients, but also caused fever and other side effects, especially at higher doses. The first clinical data on the vaccine were disclosed Wednesday in a paper released on MedRXiv, a preprint server, meaning it has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a journal.”

POLITICS

Yahoo News: After months of being silenced, CDC is easing back into public view. “On June 12, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did something it had not done for months: It held a press briefing. Widely touted as the finest public health agency in the world, the CDC had been dormant since March 9, when one of its top officials held a teleconference with journalists.”

Washington Post: Secret Service agents preparing for Pence Arizona trip contracted coronavirus. “Vice President Pence’s trip to Arizona this week had to be postponed by a day after several Secret Service agents who helped organize the visit either tested positive for the coronavirus or were showing symptoms of being infected. Pence was scheduled to go to Phoenix on Tuesday but went on Wednesday instead so that healthy agents could be deployed for his visit, according to two senior administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private details of the trip.”

CoronaBuzz is brought to you by ResearchBuzz. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment, send resource suggestions, or tag @buzz_corona on Twitter. Thanks!

July 3, 2020 at 06:19PM
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Appalachia Films, Wisconsin Law Enforcement, Turkish Jewish Gravestones, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, July 3, 2020

Appalachia Films, Wisconsin Law Enforcement, Turkish Jewish Gravestones, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, July 3, 2020
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

DigitalNC: Over 200 films from Appalachian State University now on DigitalNC. “The films come from two collections at Appalachian: William R. and John W. Turner Concert and Dance Videos and the C. Howard Dorgan Papers. The Turner collection consists of films and audio recordings taken at bluegrass and old time music festivals, fish park gigs, and concerts in primarily the North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia mountains. The Dorgan collection contains films and audio taken at churches, mostly of Baptist affiliation, in Appalachia. Sermons, singing, and revivals are all documented in the films.”

WisBusiness: Wisconsin Budget Project: New online database shows law enforcement spending in individual communities (PRESS RELEASE). “Local governments in Wisconsin — including cities, villages, towns, and counties — spend more than $2 billion a year on law enforcement and related costs like jails. Black community leaders have called on policymakers to put that money to better use, shifting resources away from law enforcement and towards mental health services, housing, job assistance, and other services that strengthen communities. Now, a new online database from the Wisconsin Budget Project allows residents to look up spending on law enforcement and related costs for Wisconsin’s largest 100 cities and all 72 counties, and see how that amount compares to public spending for other other purposes.”

Jerusalem Post: Data of over 61,000 Turkish Jewish gravestones online in new database. “An ambitious project has been launched online, documenting Jewish gravestones in Turkey.
The project, entitled ‘A World Beyond: Jewish Cemeteries in Turkey 1583-1990’ contains the details of over 61,022 Jewish tombstones spread across Turkey, which makes it one of the largest tombstone databases in the world – covering over 400 years of Turkish Jewish life.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNN: Twitter is removing ‘master,’ ‘slave’ and ‘blacklist’ from its code. “The language of computing is changing in the wake of the death of George Floyd. Twitter is dropping the terms ‘master,’ ‘slave’ and ‘blacklist’ from its code after two engineers lobbied for the use of more inclusive programming language. America’s biggest bank, JPMorgan Chase (JPM), is taking similar steps, according to media reports.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

CNET: Zuckerberg reluctant to change Facebook policies over ad boycott, report says. “Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly reluctant to change the social network’s policies amid a growing ad boycott. During a video town hall meeting last Friday, Zuckerberg told employees that he expects ‘all these advertisers will be back on the platform soon enough,’ according to a transcript obtained by from The Information.”

Public Technology (UK): Government turns to Instagram to seek policy guidance from teenagers. “The government has unveiled a new Instagram page through which it wishes to garner policy guidance from teenagers and young adults. The ‘Involved’ account will use the photo-sharing site’s polling and stories functions to ask questions related to ‘decisions made at the heart of government’. The government wishes to hear the responses of young people aged between 13 and 25.”

Saudi Gazette: Certified Calligraphers Pedigree: New initiative for a comprehensive database. “Under the sponsorship of Sheikha Khawla Bint Ahmed Bin Khalifa Al-Suwaidi, wife of Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE national security advisor, Khawla Art & Cultural Foundation has recently launched an initiative that aims to build a reference database of all distinguished, licensed calligraphers worldwide. The initiative was named ‘The Certified Calligraphers Pedigree’.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

International Business Times: Hong Kong Residents Erase Social Media Posts As New Security Law Applied. “As Beijing enacted the new national security laws, Hong Kong people are rushing to significantly change their digital presence or entirely remove their social media presence. Residents were already imposing wide self-censorship before the law came into effect. Several users deactivated accounts that had content that could be considered ‘objectionable’ under the new law.”

CNBC: Twitter removes an image tweeted by Trump for violating its copyright policy. “Twitter has removed an image tweeted by President Donald Trump for violating the company’s copyright policy.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Sydney Morning Herald: Facebook and Google must move away from the zero-sum game. “The Facebook business model is to observe the behaviour of its users, reduce them to stereotypes and then package this data to commercial and political advertisers. Its algorithms feed off ‘engagement’, which is fuelled by outrage, fomenting a commercial incentive for bad behaviour. Moderation is woefully inadequate, outsourced and post facto. If Facebook were serious about keeping the network clean it would hire the tens of thousands of workers required to do it. This has left Facebook with a potent advertising machine which many advertisers don’t feel safe to use.”

New York Times: Bogus Ideas Have Superspreaders, Too. “…whether they intend it or not, celebrities, politicians and others with large online followings can be superspreaders — not of the coronavirus but of dangerous or false information. And I wonder whether these prominent people need to be held to stricter rules.”

Datamation: IBM Changes The Game On Supercomputing. “IBM just lost the number one spot on the top 500 supercomputer list to Japan and ARM. You’d think they’d be upset. But they aren’t because they have a technology called ‘IBM Bayesian Optimization Technology’ that potentially will supercharge any supercomputer. The performance increase is up to a 140x performance boost (I’ll bet you wish your car supercharger did that), and it could be used with any Supercomputer.” Good morning, Internet…

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July 3, 2020 at 04:57PM
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Chernobyl Photography, Georgia Broadband, Abstract Wikipedia, More: Thursday Evening ResearchBuzz, July 2, 2020

Chernobyl Photography, Georgia Broadband, Abstract Wikipedia, More: Thursday Evening ResearchBuzz, July 2, 2020
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

British Journal of Photography: Maxim Dondyuk rebuilds a lost archive of life in Chernobyl. “Wandering through one of the thousands of evacuated homes, the photographer discovered piles of postcards, letters, and photographs, hidden beneath 30 years of debris. The Ukranian government considers anything left behind as ‘radioactive trash’, and forbids visitors from removing them from the exclusion zone. But, [Maxim] Dondyuk couldn’t bear to leave the artefacts he found to decay, so over the next two years, he continued to return, disguising himself as a landscape photographer, smuggling the photographs out of the exclusion zone, and rebuilding the lost archives of the families and individuals who once called the region their home.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

AllOnGeorgia: New Broadband Availability Map Shows 1 Million+ Georgians Without Reliable Internet Access. “Governor Brian Kemp announced Wednesday the publication of Georgia’s Broadband Availability Map, a new tool that will bring more transparency about the internet marketplace and clarify which Georgia households do not have access to high-speed internet. Currently, more than a million Georgians lack access to reliable high-speed internet service, defined by the Federal Communications Commission as twenty-five megabits per second download and three megabits per second upload (25/3 mpbs).”

Neowin: New wiki project – Abstract Wikipedia – will boost content across languages. “The project was first proposed in a 22-page paper by Denny Vrandečić, founder of Wikidata, earlier this year. He had floated a new idea that would allow contributors to create content using abstract notation which could then be translated to different natural languages, balancing out content more evenly, no matter the language you speak.” My head would absolutely not wrap around this until I saw a page of examples.

USEFUL STUFF

Mashable: The best apps for remembering that website you want to revisit. “Maybe you’re trying to remember that really funny video you saw online but can’t remember what the heck it was called. You can’t find it online. Your browser history doesn’t go that far back, and it’s not pulling anything up. Or maybe you’re just a bit of a digital hoarder, like me. Either way, not being able to find what you’re looking for is, well, annoying. I’m here to solve this problem. Here are a few of my favorite apps that will help you create your very own web history archive so you never forget about another website you once visited again.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Hyperallergic: An Instagram Account Is Amplifying Anonymous Testimonies of Racism in Museums. “Ranging from micro-aggressions to blatant instances of race- and gender-based discrimination and sexual harassment, cultural workers are speaking out against the culture inside modern museums.”

Poynter: As TikTok grapples with weightier topics, journalists are tuning in to deliver the news. “CNN’s Max Foster started using TikTok to understand what his kids were up to online. He saw straight TikTok, where teenagers do choreographed dances from their parents’ homes. And he saw elite or alt TikTok, where users impersonate vegetables, retail brands and frogs. Mostly, he saw an opportunity for journalists.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNN: Black Facebook employee and two job applicants file EEOC complaint alleging discrimination. “One current Facebook manager and two job applicants have filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that Facebook has ‘a general policy of discrimination against Black applicants and workers, including in hiring, evaluations, promotions, and pay.'”

EFF: California Agency Blocks Release of Police Use of Force and Surveillance Training, Claiming Copyright. “Under a California law that went into effect on January 1, 2020, all law enforcement training materials must be ‘conspicuously’ published on the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) website. However, if you visit POST’s Open Data hub and try to download the officer training materials relating to face recognition technology or automated license plate readers (ALPRs), or the California Peace Officers Association’s course on use of force, you will receive only a Word document with a single sentence.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Cornell Chronicle: Research reflects how AI sees through the looking glass. “Things are different on the other side of the mirror. Text is backward. Clocks run counterclockwise. Cars drive on the wrong side of the road. Right hands become left hands. Intrigued by how reflection changes images in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, a team of Cornell researchers used artificial intelligence to investigate what sets originals apart from their reflections. Their algorithms learned to pick up on unexpected clues such as hair parts, gaze direction and, surprisingly, beards – findings with implications for training machine learning models and detecting faked images.”

New York Times: Here Come the 4 Horsemen of the Techopolypse. “It’s clear that the chief executives wanted to appear together, not so much for support — frenemies is about as close as I would describe them, and there is intense dislike between some of the companies — but in the hopes that a group appearance will keep any one of them from being singled out for intense scrutiny. Some are suggesting that a multiday interrogation, with each chief executive facing a small number of experienced questioners, as well as real people they hurt, would be a better way to grill the tech moguls.” Good evening, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!

July 3, 2020 at 06:01AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/31EdOHX