Pioneering Virtual Reality and New Video Technologies in Journalism

Marcelle Hopkins, deputy video editor at The Times, trying on virtual reality technology at a V.R. event this month.

How do New York Times journalists use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives? Marcelle Hopkins, deputy video editor and co-director of virtual reality at The Times, discussed the tech she is using.

Video has changed a lot in recent years. How have you and the video department incorporated new video technologies, and what technologies has the department helped pioneer for journalism?

Journalists and technologists from various parts of The Times started experimenting with virtual reality a few years ago. We launched NYT VR in November 2015 with the publication of the V.R. documentary “The Displaced” (about three children displaced by war) and the distribution of more than one million Google Cardboard headsets to our subscribers. Since then, we’ve produced more than 20 V.R. films, and we learn a lot with each one.

Last year, we launched The Daily 360, a series that produces a 360-degree video from somewhere in the world every day. The volume and cadence of daily publication accelerated our learnings in V.R. It allowed us to quickly iterate on a young storytelling form, train our journalists in a new reporting tool and introduce immersive journalism to a broad Times audience.

How do you pilot test new technologies for video? How do you determine if something makes the cut for broader use in the newsroom?

Ms. Hopkins said that V.R. helps create a sense of place, such as an interactive music installation inspired by myths of forest spirits.

Sometimes we practice with new cameras around the office or at home before using them on a story. Other times we send them out on a reporting trip for a trial by fire.
The first time we used the V.R. camera Z Cam S1, we took it to the hottest place on Earth: Danakil, Ethiopia, where temperatures can reach 125 degrees Fahrenheit. In the early days of our V.R. production, we’d had a lot of problems with cameras overheating and turning off. So we weren’t sure how the Z Cam would perform in such a difficult environment. To our delight, it never overheated as it captured stunning images for the resulting film, “The Land of Salt and Fire.”

What have been the strengths of using virtual reality for journalism? What unexpected stumbling blocks have you come across with it?

V.R. is great for creating a sense of place. We often use it for stories in which the place is important to the story and being there can create a visceral experience that is rare in other mediums. V.R. can transport our audience to places they otherwise couldn’t or wouldn’t go, as in “The Antarctica Series,” which takes people below and above the ice of Antarctica.Unexpected stumbling blocks arise frequently because we’re working on the edges of what we know how to do. There’s often a gap between how we want to tell a story and the tools that we have to do it. That’s when we hack available hardware or software to suit our needs.

Among the virtual reality headsets from Facebook’s Oculus, HTC, Google, Sony and Samsung, which do you think is most likely to become mainstream first, and why?

I don’t know who will make it, but the first immersive media wearable to be widely adopted will look and function more like a pair of reading glasses than like the V.R. headsets we have today. The first generation of modern V.R. and augmented reality headsets are too clunky to go mainstream. They’re heavy and awkward, sometimes connected to a computer by a cable. They’re good prototypes for getting us started in immersive platforms, but I hope someone builds something that’s more convenient for everyday use.

Ms. Hopkins, right, tried a V.R. demonstration that transports viewers back to John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s bed-in protests of 1969.

I’m ready for a pair of glasses that uses light field technology to integrate interactive digital information in the real world around me. I want Google Maps to draw directions on the street in front of me. I want Netflix to project a movie on my living room wall. I want AccuWeather to show me today’s highs and lows on my coat closet door. I want NYT Cooking to put recipe demos on my countertop.

When that’s possible, I think, glasses will eventually replace smartphones.

How are you thinking about augmented reality and its application toward journalism?

A.R. has huge potential for journalism. There are already a few applications that we’ve seen that could be useful in our reporting.

One is creating three-dimensional objects and putting them in the user’s environment. For example, if we build a 3-D model of how gravitational waves are generated from colliding black holes, you could walk around it to observe the mechanics of an invisible astronomical event.

Location-based A.R. has widespread applications for news, travel, culture and real estate. When visiting the vineyards of Sonoma County, you could access tips and highlights from our Travel section.

I’m also very interested in A.R. portals. Imagine a digital “door” in your living room that leads to a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh.

Of course, I’m most excited about the A.R. applications we haven’t thought of yet.

Outside of work, what tech product are you currently obsessed with using in your daily life and why?


I often joke that Spotify knows me better than anyone in my life. My favorite feature is Spotify’s Discover Weekly, which serves me a personalized playlist of music I’ve never heard. I save the songs I like, and occasionally make my own playlists out of the ones I love. As with any machine learning algorithm, the more you use it, the smarter it gets. At this point, Spotify is really good (probably better than me) at something I don’t have time for anymore — finding new music I like.

How much do you take video personally for friends and family and for social media? Or do you leave all of that at work?


I’ve gone through phases with documenting my personal life. Right now I’m in a social media lull and don’t take many photos or videos outside of work. It’s a real treat for me to abandon my phone when I’m spending time with friends and family.

New Windows for the Fall Season

When Windows Update shows it is downloading “Feature update to Windows 10, version 1709,” Microsoft’s new Windows 10 Fall Creators Update has arrived on your computer or tablet.

Q. I see there’s yet another Windows 10 update out now. I get notifications about patches all the time, so how do I know when this notice is for a system upgrade? Can I tell if it already installed itself?

A. Microsoft began rolling out its Windows 10 Fall Creators Update last Tuesday using the Windows Update utility on compatible computers and devices. When you are checking the available updates, look for the one labeled “Feature update to Windows 10, version 1709” in the list of security patches and other listed software fixes in Windows Update.

You can manually check to see if the software is ready for you. Just click or tap the Start button on the Windows 10 desktop, and select Settings; as a keyboard shortcut to the Settings box, you can also press the Windows and I keys. In the Settings window, select the Update & Security icon, and on the next screen choose Windows Update on the left side of the window. Next, click or tap the “Check for updates” button on the right side of the window. You should see a list of available updates for your computer or tablet.
To see if the update has been installed already — especially if other people use the computer and may have taken care of it — open the Windows 10 Settings box and choose System and then About. Look to see if “Windows 10, version 1709” is listed there.
Microsoft has a list of new features included with the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update on its site. A blog post on the company site also has a 30-minute video tour and a highlighted list of changes to the system, like the ability to annotate PDF files and e-books in Microsoft Edge, use new voice commands with Cortana and protect your PC against ransomware.

The Quran on Seas and Rivers | The Scientific Miracles in the Holy Quran

Previous Post : D) The Quran on the Cerebrum

E) The Quran on Seas and Rivers:

Modern Science has discovered that in the places where two different seas meet, there is a barrier between them.  This barrier divides the two seas so that each sea has its own temperature, salinity, and density.1  For example, Mediterranean sea water is warm, saline, and less dense, compared to Atlantic ocean water.  When Mediterranean sea water enters the Atlantic over the Gibraltar sill, it moves several hundred kilometers into the Atlantic at a depth of about 1000 meters with its own warm, saline, and less dense characteristics.  The Mediterranean water stabilizes at this depth2 (see figure 13).

Figure 13: The Mediterranean sea water as it enters the Atlantic over the Gibraltar sill with its own warm, saline, and less dense characteristics, because of the barrier that distinguishes between them.  Temperatures are in degrees Celsius (C°). (Marine Geology, Kuenen, p. 43, with a slight enhancement.)  (Click on the image to enlarge it.)

Although there are large waves, strong currents, and tides in these seas, they do not mix or transgress this barrier.

The Holy Quran mentioned that there is a barrier between two seas that meet and that they do not transgress.  God has said:

 He has set free the two seas meeting together.  There is a barrier between them.  They do not transgress.  (Quran, 55:19-20)

But when the Quran speaks about the divider between fresh and salt water, it mentions the existence of “a forbidding partition” with the barrier.  God has said in the Quran:

 He is the one who has set free the two kinds of water, one sweet and palatable, and the other salty and bitter.  And He has made between them a barrier and a forbidding partition.  (Quran, 25:53)

One may ask, why did the Quran mention the partition when speaking about the divider between fresh and salt water, but did not mention it when speaking about the divider between the two seas?

Modern science has discovered that in estuaries, where fresh (sweet) and salt water meet, the situation is somewhat different from what is found in places where two seas meet.  It has been discovered that what distinguishes fresh water from salt water in estuaries is a “pycnocline zone with a marked density discontinuity separating the two layers.”3  This partition (zone of separation) has a different salinity from the fresh water and from the salt water4 (see figure 14).

Figure 14: Longitudinal section showing salinity (parts per thousand ‰) in an estuary.  We can see here the partition (zone of separation) between the fresh and the salt water. (Introductory Oceanography, Thurman, p. 301, with a slight enhancement.)  

This information has been discovered only recently, using advanced equipment to measure temperature, salinity, density, oxygen dissolubility, etc.  The human eye cannot see the difference between the two seas that meet, rather the two seas appear to us as one homogeneous sea.  Likewise, the human eye cannot see the division of water in estuaries into the three kinds: fresh water, salt water, and the partition (zone of separation).

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Footnotes:

(1) Principles of Oceanography, Davis, pp. 92-93. Back from footnote (1)

(2) Principles of Oceanography, Davis, p. 93. Back from footnote (2)

(3) Oceanography, Gross, p. 242.  Also see Introductory Oceanography, Thurman, pp. 300-301. Back from footnote (3)

(4) Oceanography, Gross, p. 244, and Introductory Oceanography, Thurman, pp. 300-301. Back from footnote (4)

The Quran on the Cerebrum | The Scientific Miracles in the Holy Quran

Previous Post : C) The Quran on the Origin of the Universe:

D) The Quran on the Cerebrum:

God has said in the Quran about one of the evil unbelievers who forbade the Prophet Muhammad  from praying at the Kaaba:

 No!  If he does not stop, We will take him by the naseyah (front of the head), a lying, sinful naseyah (front of the head)!  (Quran, 96:15-16)

Why did the Quran describe the front of the head as being lying and sinful?  Why didn’t the Quran say that the person was lying and sinful?  What is the relationship between the front of the head and lying and sinfulness?

If we look into the skull at the front of the head, we will find the prefrontal area of the cerebrum (see figure 12).  What does physiology tell us about the function of this area?  A book entitled Essentials of Anatomy & Physiology says about this area, “The motivation and the foresight to plan and initiate movements occur in the anterior portion of the frontal lobes, the prefrontal area. This is a region of association cortex...”1  Also the book says, “In relation to its involvement in motivation, the prefrontal area is also thought to be the functional center for aggression....”2

Figure 12: Functional regions of the left hemisphere of the cerebral cortex.  The prefrontal area is located at the front of the cerebral cortex. (Essentials of Anatomy & Physiology, Seeley and others, p. 210.)  (Click on the image to enlarge it.)

So, this area of the cerebrum is responsible for planning, motivating, and initiating good and sinful behavior and is responsible for the telling of lies and the speaking of truth.  Thus, it is proper to describe the front of the head as lying and sinful when someone lies or commits a sin, as the Quran has said, “...A lying, sinful naseyah (front of the head)!”

Scientists have only discovered these functions of the prefrontal area in the last sixty years, according to Professor Keith L. Moore.3

Next Post : E) The Quran on Seas and Rivers

__________

Footnotes:

(1) Essentials of Anatomy & Physiology, Seeley and others, p. 211.  Also see The Human Nervous System, Noback and others, pp. 410-411. Back from footnote (1)

(2) Essentials of Anatomy & Physiology, Seeley and others, p. 211. Back from footnote (2)

(3) Al-E’jaz al-Elmy fee al-Naseyah (The Scientific Miracles in the Front of the Head), Moore and others, p. 41. Back from footnote (3)

The Quran on the Origin of the Universe | The Scientific Miracles in the Holy Quran | Smart4Dev.com

Previous Post : B) The Quran on Mountains:

C) The Quran on the Origin of the Universe:

The science of modern cosmology, observational and theoretical, clearly indicates that, at one point in time, the whole universe was nothing but a cloud of ‘smoke’ (i.e. an opaque highly dense and hot gaseous composition).1 This is one of the undisputed principles of standard modern cosmology. Scientists now can observe new stars forming out of the remnants of that ‘smoke’ (see figures 10 and 11).

Figure 10: A new star forming out of a cloud of gas and dust (nebula), which is one of the remnants of the ‘smoke’ that was the origin of the whole universe. (The Space Atlas, Heather and Henbest, p. 50.)

Figure 11: The Lagoon nebula is a cloud of gas and dust, about 60 light years in diameter.  It is excited by the ultraviolet radiation of the hot stars that have recently formed within its bulk. (Horizons, Exploring the Universe, Seeds, plate 9, from Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc.)

The illuminating stars we see at night were, just as was the whole universe, in that ‘smoke’ material.  God has said in the Quran:

 Then He turned to the heaven when it was smoke...  (Quran, 41:11)

Because the earth and the heavens above (the sun, the moon, stars, planets, galaxies, etc.) have been formed from this same ‘smoke,’ we conclude that the earth and the heavens were one connected entity.  Then out of this homogeneous ‘smoke,’ they formed and separated from each other. God has said in the Quran:

 Have not those who disbelieved known that the heavens and the earth were one connected entity, then We separated them?...  (Quran, 21:30)

Dr. Alfred Kroner is one of the world’s renowned geologists.  He is Professor of Geology and the Chairman of the Department of Geology at the Institute of Geosciences, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany.  He said: “Thinking where Muhammad came from . . . I think it is almost impossible that he could have known about things like the common origin of the universe, because scientists have only found out within the last few years, with very complicated and advanced technological methods, that this is the case.”2 

Also he said: “Somebody who did not know something about nuclear physics fourteen hundred years ago could not, I think, be in a position to find out from his own mind, for instance, that the earth and the heavens had the same origin.”3

Next Post : D) The Quran on the Cerebrum:

_________________________

Footnotes:

(1) The First Three Minutes, a Modern View of the Origin of the Universe, Weinberg, pp. 94-105. Back from footnote (1)

(2) The reference for this saying is This is the Truth (videotape).  For a copy of this videotape, please visit this page. Back from footnote (2)

(3) This is the Truth (videotape). Back from footnote (3)

The Quran on Mountains | The Scientific Miracles in the Holy Quran | Smart4Dev.com

Previous Post : A) The Quran on Human Embryonic Development:

B) The Quran on Mountains:

A book entitled Earth is a basic reference textbook in many universities around the world.  One of its two authors is Professor Emeritus Frank Press.  He was the Science Advisor to former US President Jimmy Carter, and for 12 years was the President of the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC. His book says that mountains have underlying roots.1  These roots are deeply embedded in the ground, thus, mountains have a shape like a peg (see figures 7, 8, and 9).

Figure 7: Mountains have deep roots under the surface of the ground. (Earth, Press and Siever, p. 413.)

Figure 8: Schematic section.  The mountains, like pegs, have deep roots embedded in the ground. (Anatomy of the Earth, Cailleux, p. 220.)  (Click on the image to enlarge it.)

Figure 9: Another illustration shows how the mountains are peg-like in shape, due to their deep roots. (Earth Science, Tarbuck and Lutgens, p. 158.)

This is how the Quran has described mountains.  God has said in the Quran:

 Have We not made the earth as a bed, and the mountains as pegs?  (Quran, 78:6-7)

Modern earth sciences have proven that mountains have deep roots under the surface of the ground (see figure 9) and that these roots can reach several times their elevations above the surface of the ground.2  So the most suitable word to describe mountains on the basis of this information is the word ‘peg,’ since most of a properly set peg is hidden under the surface of the ground.  The history of science tells us that the theory of mountains having deep roots was introduced only in the latter half of the nineteenth century.3

Mountains also play an important role in stabilizing the crust of the earth.4  They hinder the shaking of the earth.  God has said in the Quran:

 And He has set firm mountains in the earth so that it would not shake with you... (Quran, 16:15)

Likewise, the modern theory of plate tectonics holds that mountains work as stabilizers for the earth.  This knowledge about the role of mountains as stabilizers for the earth has just begun to be understood in the framework of plate tectonics since the late 1960’s.5

Could anyone during the time of the Prophet Muhammad  have known of the true shape of mountains?  Could anyone imagine that the solid massive mountain which he sees before him actually extends deep into the earth and has a root, as scientists assert?  A large number of books of geology, when discussing mountains, only describe that part which is above the surface of the earth.  This is because these books were not written by specialists in geology.  However, modern geology has confirmed the truth of the Quranic verses.

Next Post : C) The Quran on the Origin of the Universe:

_____________________________

Footnotes:

(1) Earth, Press and Siever, p. 435.  Also see Earth Science, Tarbuck and Lutgens, p. 157. Back from footnote (1)

(2) The Geological Concept of Mountains in the Quran, El-Naggar, p. 5. Back from footnote (2)

(3) The Geological Concept of Mountains in the Quran, p. 5. Back from footnote (3)

(4) The Geological Concept of Mountains in the Quran, pp. 44-45. Back from footnote (4)

(5) The Geological Concept of Mountains in the Quran, p. 5. Back from footnote (5)

The Quran on Human Embryonic Development | The Scientific Miracles in the Holy Quran | Smart4Dev.com

The Scientific Miracles in the Holy Quran

A) The Quran on Human Embryonic Development:

In the Holy Quran, God speaks about the stages of man’s embryonic development:

 We created man from an extract of clay.  Then We made him as a drop in a place of settlement, firmly fixed.  Then We made the drop into an alaqah (leech, suspended thing, and blood clot), then We made the alaqah into a mudghah (chewed substance)... 1 (Quran, 23:12-14)

Literally, the Arabic word alaqah has three meanings: (1) leech, (2) suspended thing, and (3) blood clot.

In comparing a leech to an embryo in the alaqah stage, we find similarity between the two2 as we can see in figure 1.  Also, the embryo at this stage obtains nourishment from the blood of the mother, similar to the leech, which feeds on the blood of others.3

Figure 1: Drawings illustrating the similarities in appearance between a leech and a human embryo at the alaqah stage. (Leech drawing from Human Development as Described in the Quran and Sunnah, Moore and others, p. 37, modified from Integrated Principles of Zoology, Hickman and others.  Embryo drawing from The Developing Human, Moore and Persaud, 5th ed., p. 73.)

The second meaning of the word alaqah is “suspended thing.”  This is what we can see in figures 2 and 3, the suspension of the embryo, during the alaqah stage, in the womb of the mother.

Figure 2: We can see in this diagram the suspension of an embryo during the alaqah stage in the womb (uterus) of the mother. (The Developing Human, Moore and Persaud, 5th ed., p. 66.)  (Click on the image to enlarge it.)

Figure 3: In this photomicrograph, we can see the suspension of an embryo (marked B) during the alaqah stage (about 15 days old) in the womb of the mother.  The actual size of the embryo is about 0.6 mm. (The Developing Human, Moore, 3rd ed., p. 66, from Histology, Leeson and Leeson.)

The third meaning of the word alaqah is “blood clot.”  We find that the external appearance of the embryo and its sacs during the alaqah stage is similar to that of a blood clot.  This is due to the presence of relatively large amounts of blood present in the embryo during this stage4 (see figure 4).  Also during this stage, the blood in the embryo does not circulate until the end of the third week.5  Thus, the embryo at this stage is like a clot of blood.

Figure 4: Diagram of the primitive cardiovascular system in an embryo during the alaqah stage.  The external appearance of the embryo and its sacs is similar to that of a blood clot, due to the presence of relatively large amounts of blood present in the embryo. (The Developing Human, Moore, 5th ed., p. 65.)  (Click on the image to enlarge it.)

So the three meanings of the word alaqah correspond accurately to the descriptions of the embryo at the alaqah stage.

The next stage mentioned in the verse is the mudghah stage.  The Arabic word mudghah means “chewed substance.”  If one were to take a piece of gum and chew it in his or her mouth and then compare it with an embryo at the mudghah stage, we would conclude that the embryo at the mudghah stage acquires the appearance of a chewed substance.  This is because of the somites at the back of the embryo that “somewhat resemble teethmarks in a chewed substance.”6 (see figures 5 and 6).

Figure 5: Photograph of an embryo at the mudghah stage (28 days old).  The embryo at this stage acquires the appearance of a chewed substance, because the somites at the back of the embryo somewhat resemble teeth marks in a chewed substance.  The actual size of the embryo is 4 mm. (The Developing Human, Moore and Persaud, 5th ed., p. 82, from Professor Hideo Nishimura, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.)

Figure 6: When comparing the appearance of an embryo at the mudghah stage with a piece of gum that has been chewed, we find similarity between the two.

A) Drawing of an embryo at the mudghah stage.  We can see here the somites at the back of the embryo that look like teeth marks. (The Developing Human, Moore and Persaud, 5th ed., p. 79.)

B) Photograph of a piece of gum that has been chewed.

(Click on the image to enlarge it.)

How could Muhammad  have possibly known all this 1400 years ago, when scientists have only recently discovered this using advanced equipment and powerful microscopes which did not exist at that time?  Hamm and Leeuwenhoek were the first scientists to observe human sperm cells (spermatozoa) using an improved microscope in 1677 (more than 1000 years after Muhammad ).  They mistakenly thought that the sperm cell contained a miniature preformed human being that grew when it was deposited in the female genital tract.7

Professor Emeritus Keith L. Moore8 is one of the world’s most prominent scientists in the fields of anatomy and embryology and is the author of the book entitled The Developing Human, which has been translated into eight languages.  This book is a scientific reference work and was chosen by a special committee in the United States as the best book authored by one person.  Dr. Keith Moore is Professor Emeritus of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.  There, he was Associate Dean of Basic Sciences at the Faculty of Medicine and for 8 years was the Chairman of the Department of Anatomy.  In 1984, he received the most distinguished award presented in the field of anatomy in Canada, the J.C.B. Grant Award from the Canadian Association of Anatomists.  He has directed many international associations, such as the Canadian and American Association of Anatomists and the Council of the Union of Biological Sciences.

In 1981, during the Seventh Medical Conference in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, Professor Moore said: “It has been a great pleasure for me to help clarify statements in the Quran about human development.  It is clear to me that these statements must have come to Muhammad from God, because almost all of this knowledge was not discovered until many centuries later.  This proves to me that Muhammad must have been a messenger of God.”9

Consequently, Professor Moore was asked the following question: “Does this mean that you believe that the Quran is the word of God?”  He replied: “I find no difficulty in accepting this.”10

During one conference, Professor Moore stated: “....Because the staging of human embryos is complex, owing to the continuous process of change during development, it is proposed that a new system of classification could be developed using the terms mentioned in the Quran and Sunnah (what Muhammad said, did, or approved of).  The proposed system is simple, comprehensive, and conforms with present embryological knowledge.  The intensive studies of the Quran and hadeeth (reliably transmitted reports by the Prophet Muhammad’s  companions of what he said, did, or approved of) in the last four years have revealed a system for classifying human embryos that is amazing since it was recorded in the seventh century A.D.  Although Aristotle, the founder of the science of embryology, realized that chick embryos developed in stages from his studies of hen’s eggs in the fourth century B.C., he did not give any details about these stages.  As far as it is known from the history of embryology, little was known about the staging and classification of human embryos until the twentieth century.  For this reason, the descriptions of the human embryo in the Quran cannot be based on scientific knowledge in the seventh century.  The only reasonable conclusion is: these descriptions were revealed to Muhammad from God.  He could not have known such details because he was an illiterate man with absolutely no scientific training.”11

Next Post : B) The Quran on Mountains:

___________________

Footnotes:

(1) Please note that what is between these special brackets  ... in this web site is only a translation of the meaning of the Quran.  It is not the Quran itself, which is in Arabic. Back from footnote (1)
(2) The Developing Human, Moore and Persaud, 5th ed., p. 8. Back from footnote (2)
(3) Human Development as Described in the Quran and Sunnah, Moore and others, p. 36. Back from footnote (3)
(4) Human Development as Described in the Quran and Sunnah, Moore and others, pp. 37-38. Back from footnote (4)
(5) The Developing Human, Moore and Persaud, 5th ed., p. 65. Back from footnote (5)
(6) The Developing Human, Moore and Persaud, 5th ed., p. 8. Back from footnote (6)
(7) The Developing Human, Moore and Persaud, 5th ed., p. 9. Back from footnote (7)
(8) Note: The occupations of all the scientists mentioned in this web site were last updated in 1997. Back from footnote (8)
(9) The reference for this saying is This is the Truth (videotape).  For a copy of this videotape, please visit this page. Back from footnote (9)
(10) This is the Truth (videotape). Back from footnote (10)
(11) This is the Truth (videotape).  For a copy, see footnote no. 9. Back from footnote (11) 

More layoffs: Microsoft to cut 4,000 jobs outside US

More layoffs: Microsoft to cut 4,000 jobs outside US

Software giant Microsoft on Thursday confirmed speculations that had been doing rounds. Microsoft said that it would cut about 4,000 jobs in its sales and marketing department. Microsoft also said that the job cut would be likely outside the United States.
A Microsoft spokesperson said in an email on Thursday that the company is implementing changes to better serve its customers and partners.

"Today, we are taking steps to notify some employees that their jobs are under consideration or that their positions will be eliminated. Like all companies, we evaluate our business on a regular basis. This can result in increased investment in some places and, from time-to-time, re- deployment in others," the spokesperson told PTI in an emailed statement.
While, the Microsoft spokesperson denied to elaborate the information any further to confirm any specifics, a report in the New York Times said the overhauling of technology giant led by India-born Satya Nadella will cut 3,000 to 4,000 jobs, mostly outside the US.
The company has already communicated its decision to the affected employees.
"This is being done mainly to evolve the skill sets we need," Frank Shaw, a Microsoft spokesman, said in the NYT report.
Last week, Microsoft had described a realignment of its sales and marketing arm, which employs about 50,000 people worldwide.
In an internal email last week, Judson Althoff, a Microsoft executive vice president, described the reorganisation and its rationale.
He wrote that there was "an enormous USD 4.5 trillion market opportunity" for Microsoft in the coming years.
Microsoft has 71,000 employees in the US and 121,000 employees around the globe.

Nobel Prize in Chemistry Awarded for 3D Views of Life’s Biological Machinery

A presentation in Stockholm on Wednesday about the work of Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson, the winners of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Three European-born scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for developing a new way to assemble precise three-dimensional images of biological molecules like proteins, DNA and RNA.

Their work has helped scientists decipher processes within cells that were previously invisible, and has led to better understanding of viruses like Zika. In the future, their techniques could offer road maps in the development of drugs to treat diseases.

The winners are Jacques Dubochet, a retired biophysicist at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland; Joachim Frank, a professor at Columbia University in New York; and Richard Henderson, a scientist at the British Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England.

The Nobel committee said the technique, cryo-electron microscopy, produces “detailed images of life’s complex machineries in atomic resolution.”


“Soon there are no more secrets,” said Sara Snogerup Linse, a professor of physical chemistry at Lund University in Sweden who chaired the committee for the chemistry prize. “Now we can see the intricate details of the biomolecules in every corner of our cells, in every drop of our body fluids.”

Dr. Henderson said during a news briefing in Cambridge that he was delighted to share the prize.

He was at a conference listening to a talk when he was called by the Swedish Academy of Science, which administers the prizes.

“I rejected the phone call,” he said. “Then it rang again.”

He also recognized others who had contributed to the technique’s development.

“I think the feeling is that the three of us who have been awarded the prize are sort of acting on behalf of the whole field,” Dr. Henderson said. “It’s kind of a worldwide effort that’s just now come to fruition.”

Dr. Frank received his phone call at 5:18 a.m. New York time. He said recently his dog has been barking earlier and earlier in the morning, waking up him and his wife. “This time it was not the dog,” he said.

Why did they win?

Figuring out the shape of proteins and other biological molecules is crucial to understanding their functions. The structure of a virus, for instance, gives essential clues to how it invades a cell.

For decades, the main method for studying protein structure was stacking many copies of a protein into a crystal, bouncing X-rays off the crystal and then deducing the protein shape using the patterns of X-ray reflections.

But many proteins, especially those embedded in the outer membranes of cells, are too floppy or disordered to crystallize.

Dr. Henderson started his career as an X-ray crystallographer, but stymied by the limitations, he turned to a different instrument: the electron microscope.

Electron microscopes, invented in 1931, use a beam of electrons to produce images with a finer resolution than what is possible with a conventional microscope. But they operate in a vacuum where biological samples dry out. The bombardment of electrons also damaged the molecules.

The particular protein that Dr. Henderson and his colleagues wanted to study was embedded in the cell membranes of a photosynthesizing organism, and they used a coating of glucose solution to prevent it from drying out.

They also turned down the intensity of the electron beam and took advantage of the regular arrangement of the proteins in the membrane. That allowed Dr. Henderson, in 1975, to reconstruct the shape of the protein from the scattering of the electrons, almost the same mathematical analysis he had used for X-ray crystallography.

For most proteins, scientists could not rely on a protein being embedded in a regular pattern, all oriented in the same direction.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Dr. Frank came up with the next advance honored by the Nobel committee. He recorded images of thousands or millions of copies of a protein at one-time, scattered in random orientations.

“Then you have a chance of capturing all the projections that you need,” Dr. Frank said in an interview. “The only problem is to find out the orientation of the molecules. That’s the hard part.”

A computer grouped together similar images — the proteins that were in similar orientations — figured out how they were arranged and combined them to produce a sharper result. The many orientations essentially offered views of the same molecule from different angles. He was also able to put together three-dimensional shapes.

Dr. Dubochet, of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, invented the “cryo” part of cryo-electron microscopy. “He’s the real father of the field,” Dr. Henderson said.

Embedding the molecules in ice would also protect them from drying out. But in ice, water molecules usually stack into a crystal shape, and the bouncing of electrons off the ice crystals in a frozen sample yielded useless images.

To overcome this problem, Dr. Dubochet dipped the samples in liquid nitrogen-cooled ethane. At minus 321 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 196 Celsius), an ultrathin layer of water molecules froze so quickly that they had no time to line up in crystals, and they solidified into a glass-like structure. That enabled the electron microscope technique to view the embedded molecules instead of the ice.

Advances in the detectors of electron microscopes now provide enough clarity to pinpoint each and every atom in the molecules. The blobby protein that Dr. Henderson originally imaged in 1975 can now be studied precisely.

The technique is already driving some scientific advances. Last year, scientists were able to use cryo-electron microscopy to analyze the structure of the Zika virus, the mosquito-borne virus that causes birth defects.

“We could never have done that with crystallography on its own,” said Michael Rossmann, a professor of biological sciences at Purdue University in Indiana who led the research that produced the Zika structure.

From left, Dr. Dubochet, Dr. Frank and Dr. Henderson.CreditFrom left: University of Lausanne, Columbia University and Cambridge University, via European Pressphoto Agency

He said that he and his colleagues have identified sites on the virus where antibodies can attach and disable Zika. That could lead to the development of antiviral drugs.

The same technique was used to figure out the structure of proteins involved with circadian rhythms, advances that were recognized with this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Only a small number of institutions can perform cryo-electron microscopy. The microscope apparatus costs millions of dollars. Dr. Henderson likened the technique to DNA sequencing — once laborious and costly, now commonplace and affordable.

He imagined that the same will happen for biologists wanting to know the structure of a protein. “You send it off, teatime, and the next morning, you get the structure back by email,” he said.

Dr. Frank said he had yet to decide what to do with his one-third share of the $1.1 million prize money. “I haven’t discussed this with my wife,” he said. “One thing I told her is we don’t have to worry about dogsitting anymore.”

Who are the winners?

Dr. Dubochet, 75, is a Swiss citizen. He retired from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland in 2007. His web page at the university humorously notes that in October 1941, he was “conceived by optimistic parents” and in 1946 he was “no longer scared of the dark, because the sun comes back.” He noted of his dyslexia: “This permitted being bad at everything … and to understand those with difficulties.”

Dr. Frank, 77, was born in Germany and is now a citizen of the United States. He is a professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics Columbia University in New York. He was also an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2014, he received the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science from the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

Dr. Henderson, 72, was born in Scotland and is a British citizen. He has worked at the British Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge since 1973. He served as the laboratory’s director from 1996 to 2006.

Who else has won a Nobel this year?

■ Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for discoveries about the molecular mechanisms controlling the body’s circadian rhythm.

■ Rainer Weiss, Kip Thorne and Barry Barish received the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for the discovery of ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves.

Who won the 2016 Chemistry Nobel?

Jean-Pierre Sauvage, J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa were recognized for their development of nanomachines, made of moving molecules, which may eventually be used to create new materials, sensors and energy storage systems.

When will the other Nobels be announced?

Three more will be awarded in the days to come:

■ The Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced on Thursday in Sweden. Read about last year’s winner, Bob Dylan.

■ The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday in Norway. Read about last year’s winner, President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia.

■ The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science will be announced on Monday, Oct. 9, in Sweden. Read about last year’s winners, Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom.

A ‘Sonic Attack’ on Diplomats in Cuba? These Scientists Doubt It

The American Embassy in Havana. The State Department withdrew nonessential personnel after diplomats were found to have mysterious medical symptoms.

A scientific enigma lies at the heart of a strange confrontation between the United States and Cuba.

According to the State Department, nearly two dozen diplomats at the American Embassy in Havana have been stricken with a variety of mysterious medical symptoms, including hearing loss and cognitive difficulties.

After concluding that staffers were the victims of a stealth attack, the department withdrew nonessential personnel from Havana and issued an advisory urging Americans not to visit. On Tuesday, the Trump administration expelled 15 Cuban diplomats from the United States.

The State Department has not provided further details about the medical condition of the affected staffers. But government officials have suggested anonymously that the diplomats may have been assaulted with some sort of sonic weapon.

Experts in acoustics, however, say that’s a scenario more appropriate to a James Bond movie.

Sound can cause discomfort and even serious harm, and researchers have explored the idea of sonic weaponry for years. But scientists doubt a hidden ultrasound weapon can explain what happened in Cuba.

“I’d say it’s fairly implausible,” said Jurgen Altmann, a physicist at the Technische Universitat Dortmund in Germany and an expert on acoustics.

For decades, military researchers tried to transform sound into a nonlethal weapon that could stop enemy soldiers in their tracks.

“Why go in there with batons and guns when you can go in with something simple, like a sound generator?” said Dr. Geoffrey S. F. Ling, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins University and the former director of the Biological Technologies Office of the federal Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The Pentagon funded development of loudspeakers to deliver long-range blasts of sound. The Navy uses them to ward off pirates, while the Army deploys them at checkpoints. In recent years, police have used so-called long range acoustic devices to break up crowds like those at the protests in Ferguson, Mo.

But these weapons work because they are insufferably loud, and if one were used against diplomats in Cuba, there would be no mystery about it. So speculation has swirled around another possibility: a device producing a sound outside the range of human hearing.

One possibility is infrasound — low-frequency sound that cannot be heard by humans. A report by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in 2002 noted that the military had tried to weaponize infrasound but had not succeeded because it was hard to focus the wavelengths.

The primary effect of infrasound on humans “appears to be annoyance,” the report concluded.

Ultrasound is the more likely possibility. At frequencies higher than 20,000 hertz, beyond human hearing, ultrasound can damage tissue if produced with enough power.

Doctors use focused blasts of ultrasound to smash kidney stones. Decades ago, researchers created intensely powerful ultrasound beams in laboratories that can kill a mouse at close range.

Less powerful ultrasound beams don’t cause injuries and have a variety of medical uses, including commonplace medical scans. But there’s anecdotal evidence at certain intensities, they can make people very uncomfortable.

Steven L. Garrett, who taught acoustics at Penn State University before retiring last year, used to demonstrate ultrasound beams to his students. Often he would get nauseous and develop a headache; eventually he took to wearing protective gear.

“We didn’t use them any more unless we not only had earplugs in our ears, but earmuffs over the earplugs,” he said.

The American embassy in Havana on Tuesday. In response to an “attack,” the Trump Administration expelled Cuban diplomats from the U.S.

Unfortunately, anecdotes like this make up most of what scientists know about the health effects of ultrasound. “The data is very slim,” said Timothy Leighton, a professor of ultrasonics and underwater acoustics at Southampton University.

It’s difficult to get people who report symptoms to volunteer for the studies, he said. And while the military, too, has investigated weapons based on sound beyond the audible spectrum, they dropped major research projects in the 1990s.

Even if another player has succeeded in developing an ultrasonic weapon, researchers said, the laws of physics make it unlikely that the device could harm diplomats from afar.

“Ultrasound cannot travel a long distance,” said Jun Qin, an acoustic engineer at Southern Illinois University. The further the sound goes, the weaker it gets. And, noted Dr. Garrett, humidity in a place like Havana would weaken it still more.

Moreover, a beam of ultrasound will mostly bounce off the exterior of a building. What little sound got through would be of a lower, less harmful frequency.

One way to overcome these hurdles would be to use a bigger weapon. But a massive vehicle topped with a giant sound cannon in front of diplomatic houses would probably not go unnoticed.

“If you’re talking about a ray-gun rifle knocking out someone with ultrasound they can’t hear at a hundred meters — that’s not going to happen,” said Dr. Leighton.

An ultrasound-emitting device planted inside a building, on the other hand, might be close and powerful enough to cause harm to occupants. But even an interior wall would block its waves.

A smaller emitter placed even more closely, perhaps in someone’s pillow, might do the trick, said Dr. Qin. But it’s hard to believe such a device could escape attention. In theory, a building could be packed with small emitters; however, experts called it unlikely.

And while ultrasound can cause many of the symptoms reported by the diplomats, there’s no evidence that it can cause mild brain injury.

“I know of no acoustic effect that can cause concussion symptoms,” Dr. Altmann said. “Sound going through the air cannot shake your head.”

For all of these reasons, experts said, ultrasound weapons should not top the list of possible explanations for the hearing loss and headaches and other symptoms said to have been observed in diplomats.

“I believe those people got something that hurt them,” said Dr. Qin. “But it could be something in the environment.” The possibilities include toxins, or bacterial or viral infections, that can damage hearing.

Dr. Leighton said that contagious anxiety or another psychogenic contributor couldn’t be ruled out. “If you make people anxious that they’re under attack from an ultrasonic weapon, those are the symptoms you’ll get,” he said.

Sorting through all those possibilities will be difficult now.

If a mysterious high-tech ultrasound weapon were used, it ought to have been easy to get the evidence while the attack was underway, Dr. Garrett said. Cellphone microphones are often sensitive to ultrasonic sound, he noted, and commonly available iPhone apps could have revealed it.

Investigators now are left to examine diplomats for telltale physical damage, like damaged eardrums.

“I think they missed their chance” to find the cause, he said. “It should be a piece of cake.”