TechnoScience

Image credit - Facebook Well, it’s official. After 17 years of being called Facebook, the social networking parent company behind Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus has a new name. Facebook’s corporate entity is now Meta. Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg announced the change at the company’s AR/VR-focused Connect event, sharing that the new title captured more of the company’s core ambition: to build the metaverse. “To reflect who we are and what we hope to build, I am proud to announce that starting today, our company is now Meta. Our mission remains the same — it’s still about bringing people together. Our apps and our brands — they’re not changing either,” Zuckerberg said. “From now on, we’re going to be metaverse-first, not Facebook-first.” The name change comes at a… convenient time for Facebook, which has seen a sustained backlash to its brand, particularly in recent weeks after a former employee leaked a trove of documents to the media and government bodies detailing the m...

Image © Unsplash One of the smallest and most affordable devices from Apple, the AirTag is also interesting for a number of reasons. This tiny, disc-shaped tracking device is made to work within the Apple ecosystem, giving you an easy way to keep tabs on small objects such as keys, wallets, backpacks, handbags, and cameras. There are similar products, including the Tile range of trackers and Samsung's Galaxy SmartTag, but the AirTag is smaller, looks better, and is designed to work well if you're invested in Apple's products and services.  Priced at   Rs. 3,190   for one   Apple AirTag , or Rs. 10,900 for a pack of four, this product serves a very specific purpose – helping you keep track of your belongings. Is it good at what it does? Find out in this review. What is Apple AirTag? The Apple AirTag is a tracking device that can be attached to a small personal object such as a bunch of keys, or placed inside a backpack, handbag, or suitcase. The device uses Bluetooth ...

Image © Techcrunch The draft programmatic environmental assessment (PEA) for SpaceX’s Starship and Super Heavy launch vehicles, which Elon Musk hopes will soon be shooting into orbit and then on to Mars, was issued last month by the   FAA for public comment . The 142-page document covers construction and daily operations at SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility in Texas, which Musk is hoping to incorporate as a city called Starbase. These include pre-flight operations, rocket tests, launches and landings, as well as fuel, water and electricity supplies. A new pre-treatment system will purify and cool natural gas into liquid methane fuel for the Starship and Super Heavy rockets. Much more gas will be needed for a new 250-megawatt gas-fired power station. A power plant this big typically serves over 100,000 homes and can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. But while rocket launches get a lot of coverage in the PEA, the new power plant receives only a cursory mention. In particular, it ...

This 3D view of a rock mound called “Faillefeu” was created from data collected by NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during its 13th flight at Mars on Sept. 4, 2021. Image © NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter provided a 3D view of a rock-covered mound during its 13th flight on Sept. 4. The plan for this reconnaissance mission into the “South Seítah” region of Mars’ Jezero Crater was to capture images of this geologic target – nicknamed “Faillefeu” (after a medieval abbey in the French Alps) by the agency’s Perseverance rover team – and to obtain the color pictures from a lower altitude than ever before: 26 feet (8 meters). About 33 feet (10 meters) wide, the mound is visible just north of the center of the image, with some large rocks casting shadows. Stretching across the top of the image is a portion of “Artuby,” a ridgeline more than half a mile (900 meters) wide. At the bottom of the image, and running vertically up into the middle, are a few of the many sand ripp...

Image credit - Unsplash Facebook is in the hot seat again. The Wall Street Journal published a powerful multi-part series on the company this week, drawing from internal documents on everything from the company’s secretive practice of whitelisting celebrities to its knowledge that Instagram is taking a serious toll on the mental health of teen girls. The flurry of investigative pieces makes it clear that what Facebook says in public doesn’t always reflect the company’s knowledge on known issues behind the scenes. The revelations still managed to shock even though Facebook has been playing dumb about the various social ills it has sown for years. (Remember when Mark Zuckerberg dismissed the notion that Facebook influenced the 2016 election as “crazy?”) Facebook’s longstanding PR playbook is to hide its dangers, denying knowledge of its darker impacts on society publicly, even as research spells them out internally. That’s all well and good until someone gets ahold of the internal resear...

Image © Techcrunch Walmart has tapped Argo AI and Ford to launch an autonomous vehicle delivery service in Austin, Miami and Washington D.C., the companies said Wednesday. The service will allow customers to place online orders for groceries and other items using Walmart’s ordering platform. Argo’s cloud-based infrastructure will be integrated with Walmart’s online platform, routing the orders and scheduling package deliveries to customers homes. Initially, the commercial service will be limited to specific geogrpahic areas in each city and expand over time. The companies will begin testing later this year. Walmart and Ford have partnered before in a limited test with Postmates in fall 2018. In that pilot program, which focused on Miami-Dade County, they used simulated self-driving vehicles to study the user experience of delivering groceries. Argo was not involved in that study. This latest collaboration will use Ford vehicles integrated with Argo AI’s self-driving technology. The aim...

University of Florida team members performing thermal-vacuum testing of the TRL-5 CMD. From left to right: Ph.D. students Samantha Parry Kenyon and Benjamin Letson, and Postdoc, Dr. Taiwo Olatunde. Image © NASA Gravitational waves are minute ripples in space-time caused by the most energetic events in the universe—like the collision of two supermassive black holes. To detect gravitational waves, we will measure the tiny variations in the motion of purely free-falling test masses housed in three Sun-orbiting spacecraft. The CMD is vital for ensuring that electrostatic charge buildup on the test masses does not disturb their motion and obscure the gravitational wave signal. Gravitational waves enable an entirely new way of observing our universe and therefore provide enormous potential for scientific discovery. The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), a European Space Agency mission with a significant contribution from NASA, will be the first mission to detect and observe low-frequ...

Image credit - Pixabay Metrics are numbers that investors use to decide whether to buy, sell or hold a cryptocurrency. There are 6,317 cryptos being actively traded across 405 exchanges! This makes it hard to quickly decide whether a cryptocurrency is worth investing in, and so, If you are a serious investor, you must know about these 5 types of metrics: R = ROI and risk Let's talk about Return on investment (ROI), and risk metrics. Return on Investment (ROI) measures the amount of return on a crypto investment, relative to its cost. Cryptocurrency prices are notorious for large upward and downward swings. The 2 important crypto risk metrics are volatility and Sharpe ratios. Volatility Volatility measures the price fluctuations of a crypto. If a crypto has higher volatility, its value can be spread out over a larger range. The value of volatile cryptos can massively change in a short period. Conversely, a crypto with lower volatility is likely to be stable and subject to smaller sw...

Machine learning (ML) is great career opportunities in future. It is an application of Artificial Intelligence that allows software applications to become accurate in predicting outcomes. There are so many great Machine Learning books out there for beginners. Choosing the right book is important as it can guide your learning. In this article, we will cover the top 5 books on Machine Learning for beginners . Image credit - Unsplash 1. Machine Learning For Absolute Beginners If you want the complete introduction to machine learning for beginners, this might be a good place to start. When Theobald says “absolute beginners,” he absolutely means it. No mathematical background is needed, nor coding experience — this is the most basic introduction to the topic for anyone interested in machine learning. “Plain” language is highly valued here to prevent beginners from being overwhelmed by technical jargon. Clear, accessible explanations and visual examples accompany the various algorithms to ma...

A new way of controlling the expansion of matter in a freely-falling Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) has produced the coldest effective temperature ever measured: 38 pK (10-12 K) above absolute zero. The method, which allowed researchers in Germany and France to image the condensate’s evolution for more than two seconds, opens the door to enhanced measurements of the gravitational constant g and photon recoil, and could even offer an alternative means of detecting gravitational waves. Image credit - Pixabay At two billionths of a degree above absolute zero, however, this wasn’t quite cold enough. So the team ran an experiment at the Bremen Drop Tower research facility, dropping the BEC trap 120 m (393.7 ft). During the free fall, the team switched the magnetic field containing the gas off and on repeatedly. To do so, the researchers started with a cloud of 100,000 rubidium atoms trapped in a magnetic field in a vacuum chamber. They then cooled this down to form a quantum gas called a Bo...

Image credit - Pixabay Twitter is developing new feature to roll out labels for automated accounts (or bot accounts), the company announced Thursday. “Examples of automated accounts you might see on Twitter include bots that help you find vaccine appointments and disaster early warning systems,” Twitter said in an FAQ. “When these accounts let you know they’re automated, you get a better understanding of their purpose when you’re interacting with them.”  Last year, the company finally solidified those plans, saying it would later introduce new features that would allow users to be able to distinguish between human-run accounts and those that were automated. When Twitter launched its account verification system in May, it reminded users that it would soon offer other ways to identify different types of accounts beyond the long-coveted blue badge — such as labels for bots.  What's a bot and what's not? We're making it easier to identify #GoodBots and their automated Tweets ...

Image credit - Unsplash Apple just sent out invites for its September 14 event, titled "California Streaming". Although Apple hasn't stated what's coming in the invite, it typically announces new iPhones at this time of the year, and the odds are good that we'll see the iPhone 13 series unveiled from Apple Park. The event will take place on September 14 at 10am PDT, or 10.30pm IST. The last event from Apple was the "Spring Loaded" event in April where the company unveiled the new iPad Pro lineup, and with the California Streaming event, we can expect new iPhones, but also potentially the Apple Watch Series 7, and the AirPods 3. Apple usually holds in-person fall hardware events inviting the media from across the globe, but for the past year, it has switched to digital-only format due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Apple events are known for creating the pre-hype around its products, a format that has now become standard in the tech industry. As per Th...

Image © TechCrunch Cao Cao Mobility, the ride-hailing unit of Chinese automaker Geely Automobile Holdings, has announced a $589 million (RMB 3.8 billion) Series B raise that the company says will help it upgrade its technology and expand its fleet, according to a statement released by the company (in Chinese). The raise, which Cao Cao announced on Monday, brings the company’s total funding to around $773.2 million (RMB 5 billion). Suzhou Xiangcheng Financial Holding Group, an investment company backed by the Xiangcheng district government of Suzhou, led the round along with Suzhou High-Speed Rail New City Group and three other state-controlled enterprises. This raise comes amid troubles for Cao Cao’s biggest competitor, Didi Global, the Chinese ride-hailing app that’s currently under cybersecurity investigation by the Chinese government and has been temporarily removed from Chinese app stores causing stocks to plummet. Didi has been a ride-hailing staple in China, so any setbacks can c...

Image credit - Unsplash Technology-savvy aliens could be powering their society using a hypothetical megastructure called a Dyson sphere to harvest energy from a black hole. And the sphere might radiate in peculiar ways, allowing telescopes on Earth to discover the existence of intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe, a new study suggests. A Dyson sphere is a speculative structure that would encircle a star with a tight formation of orbiting platforms in order to capture starlight and produce power. First proposed by theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson in 1960, the idea might be realized by a spacefaring extraterrestrial species who had spread out across their star system and therefore required ever-increasing amounts of energy. Dyson's answer is the Dyson sphere, or "a hollow ball built around the sun would solve the space and energy problems," according to his paper. Therefore, it's a theoretical device that sits around an entire star and harvests its energy. I...

Image credit - Pixabay Recently there's was a rumor of Apple sattelite phone. It was that Apple phone let you connect your iPhone to satellites so you can contact emergency services in areas that don’t have cellular coverage, according to a new Bloomberg report. Bloomberg’s article was published after Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Sunday that the iPhone 13 may be able to make satellite calls. Kuo often reveals details about Apple’s plans before the company officially announces them, but Bloomberg’s sources indicate that Apple’s approach for iPhone satellite connectivity may be more limited to start.  Bloomberg reported on Sunday that Apple has no plans “now, next year or anytime in the near future” to create a satellite iPhone. According to the outlet, Apple’s hardware isn’t ready to support calling and texting without cell coverage yet. It would also be expensive and could make the mobile carriers the company works with very, very angry. Although there is no satellite iPhone in ...

Image © Quantum Machines Quantum Machines, an Israeli startup that is building the classical hardware and software infrastructure to help run quantum machines, announced a $50 million Series B investment today. Today’s round was led by Red Dot Capital Partners with help from Exor, Claridge Israel, Samsung NEXT, Valor Equity Partners, Atreides Management, LP, as well as TLV Partners, Battery Ventures, 2i Ventures and other existing investors. The company has now raised approximately $83 million, according to Crunchbase data. While quantum computing in general is in its early days, Quantum Machines has developed a nice niche by building a hardware and software system, what they call The Quantum Orchestration Platform, that helps run the burgeoning quantum machines, leaving it plenty of room to grow as the industry develops. Certainly Quantum Machines co-founder and CEO Itamar Sivan, who has been working in quantum his entire career, sees the vast potential of this technology. “Quantum co...

Google Drive new features The update will allow users to access files using the browser even when offline. Google back in 2019 had begun beta testing the Google Drive offline feature. In a significant boost to the dynamics of the application, Google Drive will now be offering assistance for offline mode. Google in a recent post has declared that users will now be able to access PDFs, images and Office files even while using the application, offline, following the latest update. The company also notified that to avail benefit, users need to first mark the files to be made available offline.  Google Drive is one of the most popular cloud storage platforms. Part of productivity apps offered by Google, it allows users to backup, sync, and access files on different devices. It is also a popular tool used to share files, photos, PDFs and other documents. Another added advantage is that multiple users can work on the same file at the same time. Google recently announced an important updat...

Vivo's upcoming X70 family has had no shortage of leaks, live photos, official teasers and certifications lately, leaving very little to the imagination for the September 9 unveiling event. Any remaining confusing regarding specs across the trio of X70 models should now be officially cleared-up thanks to an extensive specs sheet leak. vivo X70 Pro photographed in the wild Image © GSMArena Again, most of these specs were already known, but, we'll still recap everything that we know, starting with the flagship X70 Pro+. It is rocking a 6.78 QHD+ (3200 x 1440-pixel), 10-bit, 120Hz, HDR10+, AMOLED display, of the Samsung E5 variety, which has 25% better power consumption compared to E4, 8000000:1, and a local peak brightness of up to 1500 nits. There is a punch-hole 32MP selfie on the front as well as an in-display fingerprint reader. Providing power - a Snapdragon 888+ chipset, with 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage, as well as a 4,500 mAh battery, with 55W fast char...

The fake Banksy NFT was advertised on the artist's official website Image © BBC On Tuesday a piece of art was advertised on Banksy's official website as the world-renowned graffiti artist's first NFT (non-fungible token). A British collector won the auction to buy it, before realizing it was a fake. A cyber-security expert warned Banksy that the website could be hacked, but was ignored. Sam Curry, a professional ethical hacker from the US and founder of security consultancy Palisade, said he first heard that the site could have a weakness on the social network Discord, last month. "I was in a security forum and multiple people were posting links to the site. I'd clicked one and immediately saw it was vulnerable, so I reached out to Banksy's team via email as I wasn't sure if anyone else had. "They didn't respond over email, so I tried a few other ways to contact them including their Instagram, but never received a response." Mr Curry's dis...

Image © Redmi India Redmi 10 Prime is all set to launch in India today, alongside new Redmi branded true wireless stereo (TWS) earbuds. The Xiaomi launch event will be livestreamed on YouTube. Ahead of the launch, the Chinese electronics giant has revealed several details about the smartphone and earbuds. Most recently, the company announced the Redmi 10 Prime will pack a 6,000mAh battery and also support reverse charging. The Redmi earbuds in the meanwhile have been teased to offer 30 hours of total battery life, amongst other things. Read on for more details about the launch, as well as expected price and specifications of both devices.  Redmi 10 Prime, Redmi Earbuds livestream details The Redmi 10 Prime and Redmi truly wireless earbuds launch in India is scheduled for 12pm (noon) today. The virtual event will be livestreamed via the Redmi India YouTube channel, and we've embedded the video stream below, for your convenience. Check back into Gadgets 360 for the latest details fro...