Myanmar's first satellite is being held on board the International Space Station following the Myanmar coup, while Japan's space agency and a Japanese university decide what to do with it, two Japanese university officials said. Reuters: The $15 million satellite was built by Japan's Hokkaido University in a joint project with Myanmar's government-funded Myanmar Aerospace Engineering University (MAEU). It is the first of a set of two 50 kg microsatellites equipped with cameras designed to monitor agriculture and fisheries. Human rights activists and some officials in Japan worry that those cameras could be used for military purposes by the junta that seized power in Myanmar on Feb. 1. That has put the deployment on hold, as Hokkaido University holds discussions with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the two Hokkaido University officials said.

Japan's Fugaku supercomputer, the world's fastest in terms of computing speed, went into full operation this week, earlier than initially scheduled, in the hope that it can be used for research related to the novel coronavirus. From a report: The supercomputer, named after an alternative word for Mount Fuji, became partially operational in April last year to visualize how droplets that could carry the virus spread from the mouth and to help explore possible treatments for COVID-19. "I hope Fugaku will be cherished by the people as it can do what its predecessor K couldn't, including artificial intelligence (applications) and big data analytics," said Hiroshi Matsumoto, president of the Riken research institute that developed the machine, in a ceremony held at the Riken Center for Computational Science in Kobe, where it is installed. Fugaku, which can perform over 442 quadrillion computations per second, was originally scheduled to start operating fully in the fiscal year from April. It will eventually be used in fields such as climate and artificial intelligence applications, and will be used in more than 100 projects, according to state-sponsored Riken.

In late November, an urgent email popped up in the inbox of Hindustan Syringes & Medical Devices, one of the world's largest syringe makers. It was from UNICEF, the United Nations agency for children, and it was desperately seeking syringes. Not just any would do. These syringes must be smaller than usual. They had to break if used a second time, to prevent spreading disease through accidental recycling. Most important, UNICEF needed them in vast quantities. Now. From a report: "I thought, 'No issues,'" said Rajiv Nath, the company's managing director, who has sunk millions of dollars into preparing his syringe factories for the vaccination onslaught. "We could deliver it possibly faster than anybody else." As countries jostle to secure enough vaccine doses to put an end to the Covid-19 outbreak, a second scramble is unfolding for syringes. Vaccines aren't all that useful if health care professionals lack a way to inject them into people.

Officials in the United States and the European Union have said they don't have enough vaccine syringes. In January, Brazil restricted exports of syringes and needles when its vaccination effort fell short. Further complicating the rush, the syringes have to be the right type. Japan revealed last month that it might have to discard millions of doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine if it couldn't secure enough special syringes that could draw out a sixth dose from its vials. In January, the Food and Drug Administration advised health care providers in the United States that they could extract more doses from the Pfizer vials after hospitals there discovered that some contained enough for a sixth -- or even a seventh -- person. "A lot of countries were caught flat-footed," said Ingrid Katz, the associate director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. "It seems like a fundamental irony that countries around the world have not been fully prepared to get these types of syringes." The world needs between eight billion and 10 billion syringes for Covid-19 vaccinations alone, experts say. In previous years, only 5 percent to 10 percent of the estimated 16 billion syringes used worldwide were meant for vaccination and immunization, said Prashant Yadav, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, a think tank in Washington, and an expert on health care supply chains.

The kingdom is building a $5 billion plant to make green fuel for export and lessen the country's dependence on petrodollars. From a report: Sun-scorched expanses and steady Red Sea breezes make the northwest tip of Saudi Arabia prime real estate for what the kingdom hopes will become a global hub for green hydrogen. As governments and industries seek less-polluting alternatives to hydrocarbons, the world's biggest crude exporter doesn't want to cede the burgeoning hydrogen business to China, Europe or Australia and lose a potentially massive source of income. So it's building a $5 billion plant powered entirely by sun and wind that will be among the world's biggest green hydrogen makers when it opens in the planned megacity of Neom in 2025. The task of turning a patch of desert the size of Belgium into a metropolis powered by renewable energy falls to Peter Terium, the former chief executive officer of RWE AG, Germany's biggest utility, and clean-energy spinoff Innogy SE. His performance will help determine whether a country dependent on petrodollars can transition into a supplier of non-polluting fuels.

"There's nothing I've ever seen or heard of this dimension or challenge," Terium said. "I've been spending the last two years wrapping my mind around 'from scratch,' and now we're very much in execution mode." Hydrogen is morphing from a niche power source -- used in zeppelins, rockets and nuclear weapons == into big business, with the European Union alone committing $500 billion to scale up its infrastructure. Huge obstacles remain to the gas becoming a major part of the energy transition, and skeptics point to Saudi Arabia's weak track record so far capitalizing on what should be a competitive edge in the renewables business, especially solar, where there are many plans but few operational projects. But countries are jostling for position in a future global market, and hydrogen experts list the kingdom as one to watch.

The U.K. is hosting 10 projects to heat buildings with the gas, China is deploying fuel-cell buses and commercial vehicles, and Japan is planning to use the gas in steelmaking. U.S. presidential climate envoy John Kerry urged the domestic oil and gas industry to embrace hydrogen's "huge opportunities." That should mean plenty of potential customers for the plant called Helios Green Fuels. Saudi Arabia is setting its sights on becoming the world's largest supplier of hydrogen -- a market that BloombergNEF estimates could be worth as much as $700 billion by 2050. "You're seeing a more diversified portfolio of energy exports that is more resilient," said Shihab Elborai, a Dubai-based partner at consultant Strategy&. "It's diversified against any uncertainties in the rate and timing of the energy transition." Blueprints are being drawn and strategies are being announced, but it's still early days for the industry. Hydrogen is expensive to make without expelling greenhouse gases, difficult to store and highly combustible. Green hydrogen is produced by using renewable energy rather than fossil fuels. The current cost of producing a kilogram is a little under $5, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.

Honda Motor will on Friday launch a new car equipped with the world's first certified level 3 autonomous driving technology. Nikkei Asia reports: Industry experts are cautiously watching to see if the Legend, a luxury sedan that operates without driver supervision under certain conditions but requires the driver to assume control of the vehicle within seconds when alerted, can capture enough demand to suggest a way forward for other manufacturers. Honda unveiled the Legend on Thursday at an online press event.

The new model's Traffic Jam Pilot system was approved by Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism in November. It can free drivers from driving in congested traffic on an expressway when traveling slower than 50 kilometers per hour. The system automatically accelerates, brakes and steers while monitoring the vehicle's surroundings, using data from high-definition mapping and external sensors. The driver, meanwhile, can enjoy the vehicle's infotainment using the navigation screen but must respond to the system's request for a handover when the vehicle speeds up after the traffic jam eases. The report says Honda is proceeding cautiously, only producing 100 units that will be available only for lease sales. The vehicle will also carry a steep price of $102,000.

One billion years from now, Earth's atmosphere will contain very little oxygen, making it uninhabitable for complex aerobic life. From a report: Today, oxygen makes up around 21 per cent of Earth's atmosphere. Its oxygen-rich nature is ideal for large and complex organisms, like humans, that require the gas to survive. But early in Earth's history, oxygen levels were much lower -- and they are likely to be low again in the distant future. Kazumi Ozaki at Toho University in Funabashi, Japan, and Chris Reinhard at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta modelled Earth's climatic, biological and geological systems to predict how atmospheric conditions on Earth will change. The researchers say that Earth's atmosphere will maintain high levels of oxygen for the next billion years before dramatically returning to low levels reminiscent of those that existed prior to what is known as the Great Oxidation Event of about 2.4 billion years ago. "We find that the Earth's oxygenated atmosphere will not be a permanent feature," says Ozaki. One central reason for the shift is that, as our sun ages, it will become hotter and release more energy.

The researchers calculate that this will lead to a decrease in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as CO2 absorbs heat and then breaks down. Ozaki and Reinhard estimate that in a billion years, carbon dioxide levels will become so low that photosynthesising organisms -- including plants -- will be unable to survive and produce oxygen. The mass extinction of these photosynthetic organisms will be the primary cause of the huge reduction in oxygen. "The drop in oxygen is very, very extreme -- we're talking around a million times less oxygen than there is today," says Reinhard.

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa on Wednesday launched a search for eight people to join him as the first private passenger on a trip around the moon with Elon Musk's SpaceX. He had originally planned to invite artists for the weeklong voyage slated for 2023. Reuters reports: The rejigged project will "give more people from around the globe the chance to join this journey. If you see yourself as an artist, then you are an artist," Maezawa said. The first stage of the application process runs to March 14. The entrepreneur, who sold his online fashion business Zozo Inc to SoftBank in 2019, is paying the entire cost of the voyage on SpaceX's next-generation reusable launch vehicle, dubbed the Starship.

Variety magazine reports that Netflix has ordered Terminator anime series: "'Terminator' is one of the most iconic sci-fi stories ever created -- and has only grown more relevant to our world over time," said John Derderian, Netflix's vice president of Japan and anime. "The new animated series will explore this universe in a way that has never been done before. We can't wait for fans to experience this amazing new chapter in the epic battle between machines and humans."

Mattson Tomlin will serve as showrunner and executive producer on the series. Tomlin most recently wrote the Netflix original film "Project Power" and worked on the screenplay for Matt Reeves' upcoming film "The Batman...."

"Anyone who knows my writing knows I believe in taking big swings and going for the heart," Tomlin said. "I'm honored that Netflix and Skydance have given me the opportunity to approach 'Terminator' in a way that breaks conventions, subverts expectations and has real guts."

Sony is winding down original game development at its oldest first-party developer, Japan Studio, game news outlet VGC reported, citing sources. From the report: The iconic developer behind Ape Escape, Gravity Rush and Knack has seen the vast majority of its development staff let go, the sources said, after their annual contracts were not renewed ahead of the company's next business year, which begins April 1. Localisation and business staff will remain in place and ASOBI Team -- the group responsible for the Astro Bot games -- will continue as a standalone studio within Sony Japan, it's claimed. Some Japan Studio staff will join ASOBI, we were told, while others have followed Silent Hill and Gravity Rush director Keiichiro Toyama -- who left Japan Studio last year -- to his new studio Bokeh. It's not entirely clear if the restructure has affected the studio's External Development Department, which collaborated on games such as last year's Demon's Souls, but one person VGC spoke to suggested it would continue.

After a twin-engine, wide-bodied Boeing 777 took off from a Denver airport — carrying 231 passengers and 10 crew members — its right engine failed. It began dropping debris on several neighborhoods below, CNBC reports.

America's Federal Aviation Administration issued a statement saying it was "aware of reports of debris in the vicinity of the airplane's flight path," CNBC adds, noting that less than 30 minutes later the plane had returned to the airport. No passengers were injured.

Today the FAA is issuing an emergency airworthiness directive, "requiring immediate or stepped-up inspections" of similar planes. In a statement FAA Administrator Steve Dickson said the move "will likely mean that some airplanes will be removed from service." Dickson's statement suggests the inspections will be directed at hollow fan blades that "are unique to this model of engine, used solely on Boeing 777 airplanes."

And more steps are being taken in Japan, reports Bloomberg: Meanwhile, Japan's transport ministry on Sunday ordered ANA Holdings and Japan Airlines to ground Boeing 777 planes they operate following the Denver engine failure. ANA operates 19 planes and JAL 13 with Pratt & Whitney's PW4000 engine that saw a failure with United Airlines plane.

This week in America, "continent-spanning winter storms triggered blackouts in Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and several other states," reports the New York Times. But that was just the beginning... One-third of oil production in the nation was halted. Drinking-water systems in Ohio were knocked offline. Road networks nationwide were paralyzed and vaccination efforts in 20 states were disrupted.

The crisis carries a profound warning. As climate change brings more frequent and intense storms, floods, heat waves, wildfires and other extreme events, it is placing growing stress on the foundations of the country's economy: Its network of roads and railways, drinking-water systems, power plants, electrical grids, industrial waste sites and even homes. Failures in just one sector can set off a domino effect of breakdowns in hard-to-predict ways....

Sewer systems are overflowing more often as powerful rainstorms exceed their design capacity. Coastal homes and highways are collapsing as intensified runoff erodes cliffs. Coal ash, the toxic residue produced by coal-burning plants, is spilling into rivers as floods overwhelm barriers meant to hold it back. Homes once beyond the reach of wildfires are burning in blazes they were never designed to withstand... The vulnerabilities show up in power lines, natural-gas plants, nuclear reactors and myriad other systems. Higher storm surges can knock out coastal power infrastructure. Deeper droughts can reduce water supplies for hydroelectric dams. Severe heat waves can reduce the efficiency of fossil-fuel generators, transmission lines and even solar panels at precisely the moment that demand soars because everyone cranks up their air-conditioners...

As freezing temperatures struck Texas, a glitch at one of two reactors at a South Texas nuclear plant, which serves 2 million homes, triggered a shutdown. The cause: Sensing lines connected to the plant's water pumps had frozen, said Victor Dricks, a spokesman for the federal Nuclear Regulatory Agency. It's also common for extreme heat to disrupt nuclear power. The issue is that the water used to cool reactors can become too warm to use, forcing shutdowns. Flooding is another risk. After a tsunami led to several meltdowns at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi power plant in 2011, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission told the 60 or so working nuclear plants in the United States, many decades old, to evaluate their flood risk to account for climate change. Ninety percent showed at least one type of flood risk that exceeded what the plant was designed to handle. The greatest risk came from heavy rain and snowfall exceeding the design parameters at 53 plants.
"All these issues are converging," said Robert D. Bullard, a professor at Texas Southern University who studies wealth and racial disparities related to the environment.

"And there's simply no place in this country that's not going to have to deal with climate change."

Content from abroad is boosting its share of the American entertainment diet, thanks in large part to streaming, the pandemic and the creator economy. From a report: "As 'American exceptionalism' has become less of a truth geopolitically, the same goes for entertainment," says Brad Grossman, founder and CEO of ZEITGUIDE. The U.S. demand share for non-U.S. content was higher each quarter in 2020 than in the previous two years, according to data provided to Axios from Parrot Analytics, which measures demand for entertainment content "This trend started in mid 2019, so it pre-dates COVID-19, but the strong upward trend has continued into 2020," says Wade Payson-Denney, an insights analyst at Parrot. In Q3 2020, non-U.S. shows accounted for nearly 30% of demand in the U.S. The data shows that U.S. audiences are discovering content from previously unfamiliar markets, like India, Spain and Turkey. The top 5 international markets in the U.S. by Q4 2020 were the U.K. (8.3%), Japan (5.7%), Canada (3.2%), Korea (1.9%), and India (1.5%), per Parrot.

Researchers have discovered new "highly malleable, highly sophisticated" malware from a state-backed Chinese hacker group, according to Palo Alto Network's Unit 42 threat intelligence team. From a report: The malware "stands in a class of its own in terms of being one of the most sophisticated, well-engineered and difficult-to-detect samples of shellcode employed by an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT)," according to Unit 42. The malware, which Unit 42 has dubbed "BendyBear," bears some resemblance to the "WaterBear malware family" (hence the bear in the name), which has been associated with BlackTech, a state-linked Chinese cyber spy group, writes Unit 42. Background: BlackTech has been active since at least 2013, according to Symantec researchers. BlackTech has historically focused chiefly on intelligence targets in Taiwan, as well as some in Japan and Hong Kong. The group has targeted both foreign government and private-sector entities, including in "consumer electronics, computer, healthcare, and financial industries," said researchers with Trend Micro. Trend Micro also previously assessed that BlackTech's "campaigns are likely designed to steal their target's technology."

Nissan has unveiled a concept vehicle that features a retractable office for remote workers and digital nomads. CNN reports: Dubbed Office Pod Concept, the mobile workspace comes with a modified Cosm chair by US furniture-maker Herman Miller, and desk space big enough for a large computer monitor. Those seeking privacy can set up inside the pod with the doors closed. Ambient lighting gives the office a futuristic feel, while electric shades help deter prying eyes.

But, with the tap of an app, the pod extends out the back in a matter of seconds (as shown in a promotional video), and the trunk door becomes a cover for your al-fresco office. The vehicle's rooftop also doubles up as a space to relax under a parasol. The concept vehicle is a modified version of Nissan's NV350 Caravan, which hit the market in 2012 and currently retails in Japan from 2.3 million to 4 million yen ($22,000 to $38,000). While Nissan has no plans to sell the design on the mass market, the carmaker said it is considering making some of the individual modified parts available to customers.

Sony shipped more than 4.5 million PlayStation 5s from the console's Nov. 12 launch to the end of the year, but it took a loss on those sales because the PS5's "strategic price point" is lower than what it cost to manufacture it. From a report: The disclosure was part of Sony's quarterly report to investors, delivered in Japan earlier today. The losses on PS5 sales were not specifically broken out -- and they were part of an overall Game & Network Services Segment that saw a 26.7 billion yen ($2.5 billion) increase in operating income over the same quarter in 2019. Sony's PlayStation revenue from game sales (both PS4 and PS5, add-on content included) plus larger profit margins on the outgoing PlayStation 4 more than made up any shortfall, the company said. By comparison, the PlayStation 4 sold more than 4.2 million units from its November 2013 launch to the end of that year. The company in November said the new PlayStation 5 is facing "unprecedented" demand, making its availability scarce, even though more PS5s have been available, in whole numbers, than their predecessor. Microsoft's Xbox Series X has faced the same issue, with the company's chief financial officer telling investors back in November that a console shortage could last until April.

Android users in the U.S. will soon gain access to betting and gambling apps through the Play Store, Google announced Thursday. CNET reports: As of March 1, online casino games, sports betting, lotteries and daily fantasy sports apps will be allowed in certain states. You can see a complete list of what types of gambling apps are allowed in each state on Google's support website.

To be eligible, app makers must complete a gambling application form, comply with state and country laws where the app is being used and have a valid gambling license for each state or country it wants to operate in. These apps must be rated adult only and display information about responsible gambling. Apps must also ensure they prevent minors from being able to use the app, and the app cannot be a paid app on Google Play or use Google Play in-app billing. Other countries gaining access to betting and gambling apps include: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Romania, Spain, Sweden and the UK.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: When the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami ravaged Japan in 2011, ocean water flooded factories owned byRenesas Electronics Corp.Production at the swamped facilities ground to a halt -- a major hit for Renesas, of course, but also a devastating blow to the Japanese car industry, which depended on Renesas for semiconductors. Lacking chips for everything from transmissions to touchscreens, Honda, Nissan, and Toyota were forced to shut down or slow output for months. As the perils of just-in-time manufacturing and the dangers of relying on a single supplier for key components became obvious, automakers vowed to steer clear of similar snafus in the future.

Yet a decade later, the global auto industry finds itself in an almost identical predicament. The catalyst for the breakdown this time is a slower-moving natural disaster: the coronavirus pandemic, which has disrupted the supply chain for makers of the electronics that are the brains of modern cars. That left automakers -- which have long eschewed maintaining costly inventories of parts -- scrambling to secure those components when sales rebounded. The shortage could lead to more than $14 billion in lost revenue in the first quarter and some $61 billion for the year, advisory firm AlixPartners predicts. The industry is "wedded to 'lean manufacturing,'" says Tor Hough, founder of Elm Analytics, an industry consultant near Detroit. "They have gotten in this mode of just managing for next week or next month."

An American real estate investor, a Canadian investor, and a former Israeli Air Force pilot are paying $55 million each to be part of the first fully private astronaut crew to journey to the International Space Station. The Verge reports: The trio will hitch a ride on SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule early next year, with a veteran NASA astronaut as the commander. The Ax-1 mission, arranged by Houston, Texas-based space tourism company Axiom Space, is a watershed moment for the space industry as companies race to make space travel more accessible to private customers instead of governments. Private citizens have trekked to the space station in the past, but the Ax-1 mission marks the first to use a commercially built astronaut capsule: SpaceX's Crew Dragon, which flew its first two crews to the ISS last year.

Larry Connor, an entrepreneur and nonprofit activist investor; Mark Pathy, the Canadian investor and philanthropist; and Eytan Stibbe, the former Israeli fighter pilot and an impact investor, were revealed by Axiom on Tuesday morning as the company's inaugural crew. Connor, 71, is president of The Connor Group, a luxury real estate investment firm based in Ohio. He'd become the second-oldest person to fly to space after John Glenn, who flew the US space shuttle Discovery at 77 years old.

The crew's flight to the space station, an orbital laboratory some 250 miles above Earth, will take two days. They'll then spend about eight days aboard the station's US segment, where they'll take part "in research and philanthropic projects," Axiom said in a statement. Living alongside working astronauts from the US, Russia, and likely Germany, the private crew members will roll out sleeping bags somewhere on the station. [...] The Ax-1 mission will have to be approved by the Multilateral Crew Operations Panel, the space station's managing body of partner countries that includes the US, Russia, Canada, Japan, and others. That approval process kicked off today...

Can a pair of unique spectacles banish nearsightedness without surgical intervention? Japan's Kubota Pharmaceutical Holdings says its wearable device can do just that, and it plans to start releasing the product in Asia, where many people grapple with myopia. From a report: The device, which the company calls Kubota Glasses or smart glasses, is still being tested. It projects an image from the lens of the unit onto the wearer's retina to correct the refractive error that causes nearsightedness. Wearing the device 60 to 90 minutes a day corrects myopia according to the Japanese company.

Kubota Pharmaceutical has not disclosed additional details on how the device works. Through further clinical trials, it is trying to determine how long the effect lasts after the user wears the device, and how many days in total the user must wear the device to achieve a permanent correction for nearsightedness. Myopia is often results from the cornea and the retina in the eye being too far apart. This inhibits the proper focusing of light as it enters the eye and causes distant objects to look blurry. Asian are prone to nearsightedness. Of people aged 20 and under, 96% of South Koreans, 95% of Japanese, 87% of Hong Kongers, 85% of Taiwanese and 82% of Singaporeans are affected by the condition, according to Kubota.

"SpaceX's attempt to reduce the reflectivity of Starlink satellites is working, but not to the degree required by astronomers," reports Gizmodo: Starlink satellites with an anti-reflective coating are half as bright as the standard version, according to research published in The Astrophysical Journal. It's an improvement, but still not good enough, according to the team, led by astronomer Takashi Horiuchi from the National Astronomical Observatory in Japan. These "DarkSats," as they're called, also continue to cause problems at other wavelengths of light [and] were included in a batch of satellites launched by SpaceX on January 7, 2020. The new study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of that dark coating...

The scientists found that the "albedo of DarkSat is about a half of that of STARLINK-1113," as they wrote in their paper. That's a decent improvement in the visual spectrum, but still not great. What's more, problems persist at other wavelengths. "The darkening paint on DarkSat certainly halves reflection of sunlight compared to the ordinary Starlink satellites, but [the constellation's] negative impact on astronomical observations still remains," Horiuchi told Physics World. He said the mitigating effect is "good in the UV/optical region" of the spectrum, but "the black coating raises the surface temperature of DarkSat and affects intermediate infrared observations."

A third version of Starlink is supposed to be even dimmer. Called "VisorSats," they feature a sun visor that will "dim the satellites once they reach their operational altitude," according to Sky and Telescope. SpaceX launched some VisorSats last year, but the degree to which their albedo is lessened compared to the original version is still not known, or if these versions will exhibit elevated surface temperatures.

Horiuchi told Physics World that SpaceX should seriously consider lifting the altitude of the Starlink constellation to further reduce the brightness of these objects.
. The article ends with a quote from an astronomer at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and an expert on satellites. He'd told Gizmodo's reporter back in January of 2020 that "SpaceX is making a good-faith effort to fix the problem," and that he believes the company "can get the satellites fainter than what the naked eye can see."