Next-Gen Solar Panels Are Nearly Invisible to the Naked Eye

It’s hard to see the latest solar panel technology — which is kind of the point.

Researchers at Michigan State University developed a new type of solar panel that is almost completely transparent. It harnesses solar energy using organic molecules, which glow when exposed to sunlight.

The panels utilize infrared light with tiny photovoltaic strips around the edges of the pane. These are miniaturized versions of the more standard solar panel you might see on a solar farm or a rooftop.

But the infrared light being used is invisible to the unaided human eye, so the panels appear transparent. But the infrared light being used is invisible to the unaided human eye, so the panels appear transparent.

Previous translucent solar panels more closely resembled stained glass or tinted windows because of the embedded photovoltaic layers. Richard Lunt, a member of MSU's research group, says they are looking to improve the experience.

Currently, the new panels convert about 1% of the light that passes through them to energy. The world's most efficient panels convert 40%.

The MSU team is aiming for 5% efficiency in the near future.

Hackers Breach Hospital Network

A group of hackers, believed to be from China, has breached a large American hospital network, stealing 4.5 million patients' records.

The target of the attack, Community Health Systems, revealed the breach in a regulatory filing on Monday. The hackers obtained the "patient names, addresses, birthdates, telephone numbers and social security numbers," but no credit card numbers or "medical or clinical information," the company wrote in the filing.

Community Health Systems, as well as Mandiant, a forensic firm part of security company FireEye, believe that the attack stemmed from China.

"The attacker was an 'Advanced Persistent Threat' group originating from China who used highly sophisticated malware and technology to attack the company’s systems," the network, which operates 206 hospitals across the United States, wrote in the filing.

Unlike usual Chinese government-sponsored attacks, the hackers didn't target intellectual property or trade secrets, according to Community Health Systems.

Patients who got their data stolen will be notified by Community Health Systems, but it's unclear who will be notified, as there's no federal data breach law that mandates notifications, just a patchwork of different state regulations, as CNN explained in its report.

However, if a patient is notified or finds out, he or she could theoretically sue the company, since the data stolen is protected by the federal health records protection law, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

The FBI confirmed to Reuters that it's investigating the case. In May, the U.S. government brought charges against five members of the Chinese military for their alleged role in protracted cyberespionage operations against U.S. companies. China has long denied sponsoring any such activity, arguing that all U.S. accusations are unfounded.

iPhone 6 - Lightning Cable With Reversible USB Plug

Anyone who's ever plugged a USB cable into a computer port knows the struggle of forcing it in the wrong way up.

But now there's good news for Apple users: the company may be introducing a reversible Lightning cable for the iPhone 6 that allows you to plug it into USB ports from either end or orientation, with no "right" or "wrong" side.

According to Australian blogger Sonny Dickson, who has a reliable track record for getting ahold of Apple parts ahead of product launches, the Lightning cable has a reversible plug design on both ends. The existing Lightning connector can plug into an iPhone or iPad in any way, but the latest design will bring the orientation flexibility to both ends of the cable.According to Australian blogger Sonny Dickson, who has a reliable track record for getting ahold of Apple parts ahead of product launches, the Lightning cable has a reversible plug design on both ends. The existing Lightning connector can plug into an iPhone or iPad in any way, but the latest design will bring the orientation flexibility to both ends of the cable.



While some USB cables already offer a similar design, the next-generation USB connector (called the Type-C) will make it the new industry standard. The Type-C is expected to be thinner and sleeker than the current USB 3.0 cables.

The Lightning cable news comes just a few days after rumors surfaced from a Hong Kong-based website Apple Daily with photos of the next iPhones, as well as details about the name of the larger iPhone — the iPhone 6L.

New Minecraft Mod Teaches You Code as You Play

Like many nine-year-olds, Stanley Strum spends a lot of time building things inMinecraft, the immersive game that lets your create your own mini-universe. The game has many tools. But Stanley is one of many players taking the game a step further by building entirely new features into the game. And, more than that, he’s also learning how to code.

He’s doing this with a tweak to the Minecraft game, called LearnToMod. Modifications like this, called “mods,” are a big part of the game’s runaway success. But this particular mod helps kids learn to create their own mods. For example, Strum built a teleporter that whisks him to a random location within the game world. Another lesson teaches kids to write the code to create a special bow that shoots arrows that become “portals” between different locations in the game, allowing them to reach spaces that would otherwise be quite difficult to access. It’s like being able to create your own cheat codes.

Strum is one of 150 students who are now tinkering with LearnToMod, an educational add-on teaches you the basics of programming while creating tricks and tools that you can use within the Minecraft. The mod will be available to the general public in October, and its creators hope it will help turn Minecraft into a kind of gateway drug for computer programming.

“Kids are already spending ridiculous amounts of hours on Minecraft,” says Stephen Foster, the co-founder of ThoughtSTEM, the company that’s built the LearnToMod module. “So we thought this would be a good way to help them learn skills.”

‘KIDS ARE ALREADY SPENDING RIDICULOUS AMOUNTS OF HOURS ONMINECRAFT. WE THOUGHT THIS WOULD BE A GOOD WAY TO HELP THEM LEARN SKILLS.’

ThoughtSTEM started out offering in-person classes in San Diego, Granite Bay, and Oakhurst, CA based on a game called CodeSpells that Foster co-created as a PhD student at the University California. The idea was to hook students on CodeSpells so that they’d be motivated to learn the programming skills they needed to advance within the game. But Foster and his co-founders Sarah Esper and Lindsey Handley soon noticed that many of their students were already avid Minecraftplayers, and it would make more sense to create a class that would harness the passion their students already had for Minecraft. So they launched a class for kids between the age of eight and 15 that teaches kids to code their own modifications to Minecraft — and even earn college credit at the University of California in San Diego while doing it.

Stanley Strum signed up for the class earlier this year, enticed by the promise of college credit. He says the materials and presented “very well” and and that the ThoughtSTEM teachers made it easy to learn. “I just think they’re doing super,” he says. Strum now spends much of his time outside of school coding up new mods, and is also taking the company’s class on HTML and JavaScript.

Inspired by the success of students like Strum, the ThoughtSTEM team is now bringing the tools they developed for their own classes to the rest of the world through the LearnToMod. And, for an additional fee, the company will also offer an online course that, just like its in-person counterpart, will enable students to earn college credit at UC San Diego.

Stepping Outside of the Virtual Classroom

ThoughtSTEM is far from the first company to use Minecraft for educational purposes. For example, a company called TeacherGaming sells a version of the game called MinecraftEDU that is custom built to help educators create virtual classrooms that can be used to teach everything from history to microbiology. Google even worked with the MinecraftEDU to create an addon to teach the principles of quantum computing.

But LearnToMod is a little different from most other Minecraft-based educational programs. Instead of using the game as a virtual classroom, ThoughtSTEM built its own interface that exists outside of Minecraft. But the coding skills kids learn through the web application actually help them game special advantages in the game.

Minecraft Tetris.  Screenshot: LearnToMod

Minecraft is incredibly open-ended. It’s entirely up you whether you as a player whether spend your time building elaborate castles, fighting monsters, or exploring the the game world. What’s more, using mods, you can quickly create things that would otherwise take a long time to build in the game, such as mountains or massive dungeons, or create custom types of blocks. You can also create special rules that enable you to do things like build your own games withinMinecraft, such as capture the flag or Tetris.

Once the kids have crafted their code in LearnToMod, the application connects to their Minecraft account to make the mods available to the kids in the game. By teaching kids to build their own Minecraft mods, the ThoughSTEM team is hoping to keep students motivated to learn some of the trickier parts of coding.

TeacherGaming founder Joel Levin is fond of the idea. “Kids are passionate about the game and they quickly understand that they can extend and enhance theirMinecraft experience by learning some basic programming,” he says. “And that’s really what we want, isn’t it? To have kids realize that with code, they can improve their life in a way that’s relevant to them.”

THAT’S REALLY WHAT WE WANT, ISN’T IT? TO HAVE KIDS REALIZE THAT WITH CODE, THEY CAN IMPROVE THEIR LIFE IN A WAY THAT’S RELEVANT TO THEM.

In fact, Levin says TeacherGaming is working on its own mod building education program called ComputerCraftEdu, which will eventually be offered both online and in-person. And there are already a few other classes that teach students to create mods, such as MakersFactory’s class in Santa Cruz and YouthDigital’s online class. But most of these other classes require students to write code in a programming language called Java. And Java can be cumbersome.

To make things a bit more beginner-friendly, LearnToMod relies on another mod called ScriptCraft that enables players to run mods that were created with the programming language JavaScript. ThoughtSTEM has also integrated a kid-friendly programming interface created by Google called Blockly, which is based on MIT’s classic programming education system Scratch. Using Blockly, students can create programs by dragging and dropping virtual blocks, instead of typing out line after line of code. Foster says this should make the tutorials more accessible to younger programmers, while still offering more advanced options for older kids.

Of course, building Minecraft mods students learn won’t turn them into Mark Zuckerberg over night. The skills they develop will transfer to other types of programming, such as mobile app development, but that will require quite a bit of additional work. But it’s the first step towards realizing that programming is something that’s within their grasp.