An anonymous reader writes: Thanks to ongoing efforts to reduce engine emissions, nowadays only 10% to 15% of particulate emissions from traffic are coming from vehicles' tailpipes. The remainder originates in tire, road surface and brake wear. A study by Victor Timmers and Peter Achten published in Atmospheric Environment has now found that the extra weight of electric vehicles causes non-tailpipe emissions to increase by about as much as the omission of the internal combustion engine saves. Atmospheric particulates have been shown to cause cancer, cardiovascular disease and respiratory diseases and are widely considered as the most harmful form of air pollution. Achten said, "We found that non-exhaust emissions, from brakes, tires and the road, are far larger than exhaust emissions in all modern cars. These are more toxic than emissions from modern engines so they are likely to be key factors in the extra heart attacks, strokes and asthma attacks seen when air pollution levels surge." The study shows that non-exhaust emissions a vehicle produces is directly related to its weight. Scientists found that electric and eco-friendly vehicles weighed around 24 percent more than conventional vehicles, which in turn contributes to more wear on the tires.

A small company called Viv on Monday unveiled a "frictionless", artificially intelligent software also called Viv, which understands complicated human queries and connects with other apps to get your work done more conveniently and efficiently. Viv was demonstrated live at TechCrunch's Disrupt NY conference on Monday. Dag Kittlaus, co-founder of Viv, and creator of Siri, said that the idea behind it is to open the app to all developers so that they could leverage their technology. (Interestingly, under the realm of Apple, Siri, five years since first launched, is still not open for developers.) Ben Popper, reports for The Verge: The major difference between Siri and Viv is that the latter is a far more open platform. One of the biggest frustrations with Siri is that it has only a small number of tasks it can complete. For the vast multitude of requests or queries, Siri will default to a generic web search. Viv's approach is much closer to Amazon's Alexa or Facebook's Messenger bots, offering the ability to connect with third party merchants and vendors so that it can execute on requests to purchase goods or book reservations. The company's tagline -- intelligence becomes a utility -- nicely sums up its goal of powering the conversational AI inside a multitude of gadgets and digital services.You can watch the demonstration here.

MojoKid shares a video showing the upcoming Doom game on NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card using the Vulkan API, quoting this report from HotHardware: At a private briefing with NVIDIA, representatives from id software came out on stage to show off the upcoming game...the first public demonstration of the game using both NVIDIA's new flagship and the next-gen API, which is a low-overhead, cross-platform graphics and compute API akin to DirectX 12 and AMD's Mantle. In the initial part of the demo, the game is running smoothly, but its frame rate is capped at 60 frames per second. A few minutes in, however, at about the :53 second mark...the rep from id says, "We're going to uncap the framerate and see what Vulkan and Pascal can do".

With the framerate cap removed, the framerate jumps into triple digit territory and bounces between 120 and 170 frames per second, give or take. Note that the game was running on a projector at a resolution of 1080p with all in-game image quality options set to their maximum values. The game is very reminiscent of previous Doom titles and the action is non-stop.

An anonymous reader writes: Lego Robots outfitted with a "finger" made from molded Play-Doh were able to bypass seven different gesture-based security systems at least 70% of the time, according to a new study funded by DARPA. Gestural ID systems "tend to take a rosy view of the security world in which hackers attempt to breach such defenses via crude impersonation," reports Vice, which notes that the systems now turn out to be far less reliable against automated attacks using a careful "forgery" of a user's gestures.

DARPA titled their report "Robotic Robbery on the Touch Screen," writing that it "demonstrates the threat that robots pose to touch-based authentication, and provides compelling evidence as to why the zero-effort attack should cease to be used as the benchmark for touch-based authentication systems."

MojoKid writes (edited and condensed): NVIDIA has unveiled its next-generation Pascal-based GeForce graphics cards -- known as the GeForce GTX 1080 and GeForce GTX 1070. NVIDIA's Pascal architecture is based on 16nm FinFET technology, similar to that of NVIDIA's high-end data center Tesla P100 processing engine though the GeForce cards are targeted at the consumer gaming market. NVIDIA's GP104 GPU at the heart of the new GeForce cards is comprised of some 8 billion transistors and features a 256-bit memory interface with 8GB of Micron GDDR5X graphics memory on the GeForce GTX 1080. The GTX 1070, however, employs standard GDDR5. The core clock speed of the GeForce GTX 1080 hit 2.1GHz at one point during the demonstration, though GTX 1070 clocks were not disclosed. NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang claimed the new GeForce GTX 1080 is faster than a pair of GeForce GTX 980 cards in SLI and faster than the company's very expensive Titan X graphics card but at half the price. The new GeForce GTX 1080 will be offered in two versions, a standard card with an MSRP of $599 or a highly-overclockable Founders Edition for $699. The standard GTX 1070 will arrive at $379, while a Founders Edition will be priced at $449. Availability for the GTX 1080 is slated for May 27th and the GTX 1070 for June 10. Anand Tech has more information.

A study from Australia reassures us that cellphones are reasonably safe, and do not cause brain cancer. Chris Mills writes from Gizmodo: "The study examines the incidence of brain cancer in the Australian population between 1982 to 2013. The study pitted the prevalence of mobile phones among the population -- starting at 0 percent -- against brain cancer rates, using data from national cancer registration data. The results showed a very slight increase in brain cancer rates among males, but a stable level among females. There were significant increases in over -70s, but began in 1982, before cellphones were even a thing." What makes the study in Australia so authentic compared to other studies conducted in other countries is the fact that all diagnosed cases of cancer have to be registered by law.

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft has officially announced today it will end the annoying "Get Windows 10" notifications in July, when they end the free Windows 10 upgrade offer. In a statement to WinBeta, Microsoft said in a comment: "Details are still being finalized, but on July 29th the Get Windows 10 app that facilitates the easy upgrade to Windows 10 will be disabled and eventually removed from PCs worldwide. Just as it took time to ramp up and roll out the Get Windows 10 app, it will take time to ramp it down." This is great news for users who have decided to not install Windows 10 for whatever reason. Earlier this week, it was reported that the Windows 10 update has been ruining pro-graming streams. In April, the Windows 10 upgrade screen interrupted a meteorologist's live forecast.

Year-over-year the 3D printing industry has grown by as much as 30%. Now, it's set to triple in revenue over the next four years, according to a new report. For comparison, this year the industry will reach nearly $7.3 billion, and by 2020, it is expected to reach nearly $21 billion. Published by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) and the United Parcel Service (UPS), the study, called "3D Printing: The Next Revolution in Industrial Manufacturing," revealed that the two biggest industries representing a combined 40% of the growth are consumer electronics and automotive. Medical devices will represent about 15% of the growth. North America and Europe will account for more than 68% of the 3D printing market revenue, while the Asia Pacific market will account for about 27% of sales. Here's an impressive stat: 3D printing represents only 0.04% of the global manufacturing market right now. However, if 3D printing captures 5% of global manufacturing capacity, which researcher firm Wohlers Associates believes it will, the industry would be worth a staggering $640 billion. "This is a market ripe for disruption," the report said. "Technology adopters that move beyond prototyping to use 3D printing in supporting and streamlining production can achieve new manufacturing efficiencies. Plus, there is an enormous opportunity for companies that get it right."

Microsoft has made a bizarre tweak to an update for Windows 7 that can prevent some systems from booting. The Windows 7 update KB3133977 was switched from 'Optional' to 'Recommended' and Microsoft knew ahead of time the update would cause problems for some users but decided to do nothing about it. The update fixes a problem that stops BitLocker encrypting drives because of service crashes in svhost.exe. The update only causes a problem with ASUS motherboards. Microsoft says, "After you install update 3133977 on a Windows 7 x64-based system that includes an ASUS-based main board, the system does not start, and it generates a Secure Boot error on the ASUS BIOS screen. This problem occurs because ASUS allowed the main board to enable the Secure Boot process even though Windows 7 does not support this feature." The update wasn't causing many issues while it was optional. But now that it's recommended, more users have downloaded the update, and more users have experienced problems with the update. ASUS has provided a solution to the problem. Microsoft has also provided a solution, but you might not like it. Their solution in a nutshell: update to Windows 10.

The city of San Diego has announced a bold new plan to run completely on renewable energy by 2035. While the city already produces the second largest electrical output from solar energy in the U.S., the new plan further details a way to cope with the changing climate. It plans to reduce 50% of the greenhouse gas emission by 2035, as well as create new jobs through the manufacturing and installation of solar panels. "San Diego is a leader in innovation and sustainability," the Climate Action Plan reads. "By striking a sensible balance between protecting our environment and growing our economy, San Diego can support clean technology, renewable energy, and economic growth." San Diego joins San Francisco, Sydney, and Vancouver in its effort to run entirely on renewable energy.

An anonymous reader writes: By any standard, the Solar Impulse 2 is a marvel of engineering. This solar-powered plane didn't use a drop of kerosene on its epic trip across the Pacific Ocean. It's a real testament to how far solar technology has advanced. Unfortunately, for anyone hoping that we'll all be puttering around in solar planes soon -- well, that's pretty unlikely. From a Vox report, "Consider: The Solar Impulse 2 features 17,000 solar cells crammed onto its jumbo jet "size wings, along with four lithium-polymer batteries to store electricity for nighttime. Yet that's still only enough power to carry 2 tons of weight, including a single passenger, at a top speed of just 43 miles per hour. By contrast, a Boeing 747-400 running on jet fuel can transport some 400 people at a time, at top speeds of 570 miles per hour. Unless we see some truly shocking advances in module efficiency, it'll be impossible to cram enough solar panels onto a 747's wings to lift that much weight -- some 370 tons in all. Nor is it enough to load up on batteries charged by solar on the ground, since that would add even more weight to the plane, vastly increasing the energy needed for takeoff. A gallon of jet fuel packs about 15 to 30 times as much energy as a lithium-ion battery of similar weight. That fundamental difference in energy density is a big reason we're unlikely to see large commercial airliners powered by batteries fill the skies."

An anonymous reader writes: Tesla's chief executive Elon Musk has accused politicians of bowing to the "unrelenting and enormous" lobbying power of the fossil fuel industry, warning that a global "revolt" may be needed to accelerate the transition to more sustainable energy and transport systems. Speaking at the World Energy Innovation Forum at the Tesla Factory in California, Musk claimed that traditional vehicles and energy sources will continue to hold a competitive edge against greener alternatives due to the vast amounts of subsidies they receive. The solution to this energy dilemma, Musk says, is to introduce a price on carbon by defining a tax rate on greenhouse gas emissions or the carbon content of fossil fuels. "The fundamental issue with fossil fuels is that every use comes with a subsidy," Musk said. "Every gasoline car on the road has a subsidy, and the right way to address that is with a carbon tax. Politicians take the easy path of providing subsidies to electric vehicles, which aren't equal to the applied subsidies of gasoline vehicles. It weakens the economic forcing function to transition to sustainable transport and energy."

mdsolar quotes a report from The Journal News: Federal safety regulators used the wrong data to analyze the potential economic impacts of a severe accident at the Indian Point nuclear power plant, a panel of commissioners for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruled Wednesday. The ruling, which reversed an earlier finding, will force the NRC to conduct a fresh analysis of the costs of a devastating accident and cleanup at the nuclear power plant in Buchanan, 24 miles north of New York City. The decision was hailed by New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, whose office is spearheading the state's challenge to Indian Point's efforts to renew federal licenses for its two reactors. Schneiderman estimates that some 1.5 million workers would be needed in to take part in decontamination efforts in the event of a nuclear mishap, with cleanup costs surging as high as $1 trillion.

New submitter Keys of Cars quotes a report from Gizmag: Smartwatches may be handy, but their tiny touchscreens can easily be obscured by your fingers as you're using them on the device. As a result, we've seen various attempts to move the control surface. One of the latest, Carnegie Mellon University's SkinTrack system, moves it onto your hand and lower arm. The strap of the smartwatch features multiple electrodes, which detects a ring that is worn on your "control finger" (on your non smartwatch-wearing arm) that emits a high-frequency electrical signal. When your finger, specifically the ring, approaches and/or touches the arm with the watch, the high-frequency electrical signal is propagated through the skin. It will work even if your skin is covered with clothing! The system is reportedly 99% accurate, and can locate touches with a mean error of 7.6mm. SkinTrack was used to control games, scroll through lists, zoom in and out of maps, draw pictures, and operate an onscreen number pad.

"Tesla Motors Inc said it was stepping up production plans for its upcoming Model 3 mass-market sedan and would build a total of 500,000 all-electric vehicles in 2018, two years ahead of schedule, but warned that spending will ramp up in tandem," reports Reuters. Tesla said capital spending would rise about 50% more than originally planned this year, to around $2.25 billion. Producing 500,000 vehicles in 2018 will be no easy task, especially considering the company is only on track to deliver between 80,000 and 90,000 electric vehicles this year. In addition to producing 500,000 electric vehicles in 2018, Elon Musk also said the company expects to produce nearly 1 million vehicles in 2020. These are certainly ambitious goals, even for a company that had the 'biggest one-week launch of any product ever.'