Technology

When it comes to Doom Eternal id Software is going big, with glorious 4K visuals and, apparently, a frame rate that maxes out at 1000 frames-per-second. If you have the right hardware, of course. 

In a recent video with IGN, id Software’s lead engine programmer, Billy Kahn, explained that big improvements with the id Tech 7 engine have made Doom E

This week, we read a very short story, The Great Silence, as we start to head toward the end of Ted Chiang Exhalation collection. This story asks questions about how we connect with nature, and also how to think about innovation and where new ideas come from.

We will finish the remaining two stories in the collection in the coming week, and then it will be time (sadly!) to change books. I&ll announce the next book in the book club hopefully shortly.

Some further quick notes:

• Want to join the conversation? Feel free to email me your thoughts at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (we got a real email address!) or join some of the discussions on Reddit or Twitter (hashtag TCBookClub)
• Follow these informal book club articles here: https://techcrunch.com/book-review/. That page also has a built-in RSS feed for posts exclusively in the Book Review category, which is very low volume.
• Feel free to add your comments in our TechCrunch comments section below this post.

Reading The Great Silence

This is a quite short story with a simple message. The narrator is a parrot discussing humanityquest to seek out artificial life elsewhere in the universe. The parrot, observing these actions, reflects on why humanity spends so much time looking for intelligence elsewhere, when it itself is intelligent, and located right next to us. The devastating line Chiang delivers comes toward the end:

But parrots are more similar to humans than any extraterrestrial species ever will be, and humans can observe us up close; they can look us in the eye. How do they expect to recognize an alien intelligence if all they can do is eavesdrop from a hundred light-years away?

The author offers us some obvious points to think about around environmental destruction and species extinction, and those are obvious enough that I think any reader can sort of surmise how the story connects to those issues.

So I want to instead connect this discussion to a theme dear to the heart of TechCrunch readers, and that is the quest for science and innovation.

To me, Chiang isn&t just criticizing our disdain for the animal species around us, but is also critiquing an innovation community that constantly strives for the big and &shiny& discoveries when so many smaller and local discoveries have yet to be made.

We invest billions of dollars into satellites and telescopes and radar arrays hoping to capture some fleeting glimpse into an alien world somewhere in the galaxy. And yet, there are deeply alien worlds all around us. Itnot just parrots — Earth is filled with species that are incredibly different from us in physiology, behavior, and group dynamics. What if the species most alien to our own in the whole galaxy is located right under our noses?

Of course, there would be huge headlines in finding even a single-celled organism on another planet (assuming there was even some way to detect such life in the first place). But that is precisely the type of narrow-minded, novelty-seeking behavior that Chiang is pointing out here.

Nonetheless, innovation can be a weird beast. It isn&t hard to look around the Valley these days and be dismayed at just how adrift a huge part of the industry is. We are creating more &smart& products than ever, yet huge social challenges and scientific frontiers remain completely unfunded. Iteasier to raise funding to start up an upgraded handbag company with a new brand and marketing strategy than it is to build an engineering team to push quantum computing forward.

There are certainly many valid arguments for moving our money to more &worthwhile& pursuits. Yet, fresh ideas that change industries can sometimes come from the oddest places, with even frivolous products occasionally creating fundamental advances in technology. Facebook as a social network might be a time sink for its users, but its huge scale also triggered all kinds of new data center infrastructure technologies that have been widely adopted by the rest of the tech industry. Solving a frivolous problem became the means to solving a problem of more depth.

In the end, you need to seek answers. Don&t overlook the obvious around us or get inured to the quotidian challenges that may just be the fount of innovation. Maybe figuring out the communication of parrots does nothing for us. Or maybe, exploring that area will open up whole new ideas for how to communicate and understand the neural patterns of speech. We can&t know until we tread along the path.

Now, to take one aside before we close out: Exhalation is a collection of previously-published short stories, but Chiang manages to work in his arch-symbol of breath and air into this piece in a fairly tight way:

Itno coincidence that &aspiration& means both hope and the act of breathing.

When we speak, we use the breath in our lungs to give our thoughts a physical form. The sounds we make are simultaneously our intentions and our life force.

Ita symbol we saw most substantively in Exhalation (the short story itself, not this whole collection) which we talked about a few posts ago. Ita gorgeous little motif, and Chiang nicely embeds it to create an empathetic connection between humans and animals.

Some question about Omphalos

For the next and penultimate short story Omphalos, here are some questions to think about as you read the story.

• What is the meaning of belief? How does belief influence both our views on our place in the world and our approaches to science and the scientific method?
• Does existence and existentialism flow from external symbols or internal rationales?
• How do religion and science mix? How did Chiang frame this narrative to make this question easier to contend with?
• The story focuses on the dynamics of archaeology and astronomy — why these two disciplines and not some other field of science?
• Whatthe ultimate message of the story? Or is there more than one that can be read into the text?

A number of smaller workstation vendors are rushing to fill a very lucrative niche; the likes of Coreto, Scan, Velocity Micro and Boston have a tiny window of opportunity before the computer giants (Lenovo, HP and Dell) jump on AMD’s EPYC bandwagon.

The EPYC 7702 is currently the best option out there if you're looking for the pinnacle of desktop

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said today that it would allow new diagnostics technologies to be used to test for the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, at elite academic hospitals and healthcare facilities around the country.

The agencynew initiative comes as critics have assailed various U.S. government agencies for being woefully underprepared to effectively address the spread of the novel coronavirus in the country despite being aware of the potential risks the virus posed since the first cases were reported in Wuhan, China in early December.

As the first diagnosed cases of the new virus appeared in the country, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had conducted only 459 tests. Meanwhile, China had five commercial tests for the coronavirus on the market one month ago and can now conduct up to 1.6 million tests per week. South Korea has tested another 65,00 people so far, according to a report in Science Magazine. Initial tests in the U.S. were hampered by the distribution of test kits which contained a faulty reagent — rendering the kits useless.

The CDC isn&t the only U.S. agency criticized for its mishandling of the response to a potential outbreak. On Thursday a whistleblower complaint was filed against the Department of Health and Human Services alleging that the agency sent over a dozen employees to Wuhan to evacuate American citizens from the country without the proper training or protective gear, as first reported by The Washington Post.

Now, the Food and Drug Administration is opening the doors for research centers across the country to use new technologies that have yet to be approved for emergency use in order to dramatically increase the number of tests healthcare facilities can perform.

&We believe this policy strikes the right balance during this public health emergency,& said FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, in a statement. &We will continue to help to ensure sound science prior to clinical testing and follow-up with the critical independent review from the FDA, while quickly expanding testing capabilities in the U.S. We are not changing our standards for issuing Emergency Use Authorizations. This action today reflects our public health commitment to addressing critical public health needs and rapidly responding and adapting to this dynamic and evolving situation.&

The new policy allows laboratories to begin to use validated COVID-19 diagnostics before the FDA has completed review of the labs&Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) requests, the agency said in a statement.

In cases where the Department of Health and Human Services indicates that therea public health emergency or a significant potential for a public health emergency, the FDA can issue these EUAs to permit the use of medical products that can diagnose, treat, or prevent a disease. The HHS secretary determined that the outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus was just such an emergency on February 4.

So far, the FDA has authorized one EUA for COVID-19 thatalready being used by the CDC and some public health labs, the agency said.

&The global emergence of COVID-19 is concerning, and we appreciate the efforts of the FDA to help bring more testing capability to the U.S.,& said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDCNational Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD).

Development of new diagnostics tests are handled by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, part of the HHS Office responsible for preparedness and response to health issues.

&This step may reduce development costs, speed the process for availability at more testing sites, incentivize private development and, ultimately, help save lives,& said Rick Bright, the BARDAdirector.

Startups like the Redwood City, Calif.-based genome sequencing device manufacturer, Genapsys, and Co-Diagnostics, another molecular diagnostics startup out of Salt Lake City, have been approached by the Chinese government and European testing facilities, respectively.

In the U.S. a number of large, publicly traded companies and startups are pursuing new diagnostics tools that can be used to identify the novel strain of the coronavirus.

&At BARDA, we are identifying industry partners to develop rapid diagnostics that can be used in commercial and hospital labs or even doctors& offices so that medical professionals and their patients have the information they need to take action,& Bright said.

These days capitalism and democracy seem to mean that itnever too early to take advantage of the misery of others, and the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, is the latest proof point.

On Saturday the Washington Post reported that an agency within the State Department had compiled a report of 2 million tweets, which peddled conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.

Among the hoaxes compiled in the report and reported by the Post included the suggestion that the virus had been created by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation or was the result of a bioweapon developed by the Chinese government.

In all, these tweets represent about 7% of the total tweets surveyed by the government, according to the Postreporting.

Critically, the report indicated that some of the misinformation spread online appeared to be the result of &inauthentic and coordinated activity,& the Post reported the document saying.

The report mirrors warnings from cybersecurity firms like Check Point Software, which issued a report tracking the launch of new websites linked to themes around the coronavirus outbreak earlier this month.

According to the company&sGlobal Threat Index for January 2020, &cyber-criminals are exploiting interest in the global epidemic to spread malicious activity, with several spam campaigns relating to the outbreak of the virus.&

The company correlated Google search terms with what it deemed to be &malicious discussions& about the virus, and showed them to be tightly correlated.

In one instance, a hacking campaign targeting web users in Japan distributed malicious email attachments by pretending to be a Japanese disability welfare service provider. The email provided misinformation about the spread of the coronavirus in several Japanese cities, and when a user opened an attachment to the email, they downloaded a modular, self-propagating Trojan virus onto their computer.

Email campaigns represent one threat, but another one that the security firm tracked was new websites with domain names linked to the virus.

The company already spotted one fake website, &vaccinecovid-19.com&. It was first created on February 11, 2020 and registered in Russia. According to Check Point, &the website is insecure, and offers to sell ‘the best and fastest test for Coronavirus detection at the fantastic price of 19,000 Russian rubles (about US$300).'&

Facebook, Amazon and Twitter have all taken steps to remove misinformation about the novel coronavirus from their platforms including advertisements offering purported cures for the disease.

Earlier this month, the big tech companies met with representatives of the World Health Organization to come up with a plan and coordinate on ways to combat misinformation and scams online.

Earlier this week, Facebook issued the following statement about its continuing response to misinformation campaigns on the site:

As world health officials issue new guidance and warnings about coronavirus (COVID-19), we&re continuing our work to connect people to information from regional and local health organizations and limit the spread of misinformation and harmful content about the virus.

Connecting People to Accurate Information and Helpful Resources

Anyone who searches for information related to the virus on Facebook is shown educational pop-ups on top of search results connecting them to expert health organizations including the World Health Organization (WHO). We&ve launched these globallyover the last few weeksin all languages on Facebook, directing people to the WHO. In several countries we are directing people to their local ministry of health. For example, in the US we are directing people to information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and in Singapore, we&re directing people to the Singapore Ministry of Health. Moreover, in countries where the WHO has reported person-to-person transmission and deaths, we&ve shown additional messages to people toward the top of News Feed with more information.