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Month: November 2021

Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson ready to fly to space

November 16, 2021November 15, 2021 Mitchell
Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson ready to fly to space

Two ships, two companies, but only one objective for billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson: to cross the space frontier themselves, finally. After having each founded their own space company in the early 2000s, the two men are now about to take off, just a few days apart.

Both a stunning coincidence in the development schedule, and an emblematic reflection of the fierce competition between them, these two flights also mark a turning point for the nascent space tourism industry.

If the two patrons are among the first passengers of Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, their goal is to allow hundreds of (rich) travellers to admire the curvature of the Earth with their own eyes, for a few minutes.

They will not be the first billionaires to go into space: Hungarian-born American Charles Simonyi and Canadian founder of Cirque du Soleil Guy Laliberté spent several days aboard the International Space Station in 2007 and 2009, but made the trip on a Russian Soyuz rocket.

Bezos and Branson will be the first to fly in spacecraft developed by companies they created.

“It’s just an incredible and wonderful coincidence that we’re going in the same month,” the Briton told the Washington Post, assuring that the last-minute announcement of his flight date, July 11, was “really not” timed to beat the Amazon founder, who is scheduled to board on the 20th.

“Become an astronaut”

The first flight will therefore be Virgin Galactic’s, on Sunday from New Mexico. The scheduled time of takeoff has not yet been communicated, but the company said that a live video broadcast would take place from 07:00 local time.

A carrier aircraft will take off from a conventional runway, then drop the spacecraft below it at altitude. The model is called SpaceShipTwo, and the particular one used on Sunday is called VSS Unity.

The two pilots aboard the vessel will then ignite its engine for a supersonic ascent, until exceeding the 80 km of altitude — the height fixed in the United States for the border of the space. The passengers, Richard Branson and three other Virgin Galactic employees, will then detach and float in zero gravity for a few minutes.

The ship will then glide back down to earth.

The role of the founder of the Virgin group? To test and evaluate the experience of future customers, a priori from 2022. About 600 people have already paid for their tickets — between $200,000 and $250,000.

“When I return, I will announce something very exciting to allow more people to become astronauts,” he promised.

Not without minimum training and conditioning

The second space trip will be made by Blue Origin on July 20, the anniversary of the first steps on the moon.

The rocket, named New Shepard after the first American to reach space, Alan Shepard, will blast off vertically from West Texas. The capsule will separate at about 75 km altitude, continuing its trajectory until it exceeds 100 km in altitude — the Karman Line, which marks the beginning of space according to international convention.

By comparison, airliners generally fly at about 10 km high.

After a few minutes, the capsule will begin a free fall back to Earth, braked by three large parachutes and then retrorockets.

On board, Jeff Bezos will be accompanied by his brother, Mark, an 82-year-old former pilot, Wally Funk, and the mysterious winner of an auction, whose name has not yet been revealed but who paid $28 million to participate.

This will be the first manned flight of this rocket (while VSS Unity has already embarked pilots, and even a passenger).

Unlike a major rival, SpaceX, which plans much more ambitious multi-day trips for its own space tourists, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin’s so-called suborbital flights require minimal training.

But after being heralded as imminent for years, the advent of space tourism remains on hold until these tests are fully successful.

In 2014, an accident with a Virgin Galactic ship resulted in the death of a pilot, significantly delaying the program. And another such dramatic event is not allowed.

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Google valued at US$2 trillion on Wall Street

November 15, 2021 Mitchell
Google stock performance

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, reached US$2 trillion in market capitalization on Wall Street on Monday, making a foray into the very exclusive club of valuations exceeding that mark, alongside Apple and Microsoft.

Alphabet’s stock rose for the first time to US$3,012 in early morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange before retreating to US$2,985 (+0.28%) by mid-session. At that peak, its valuation on Wall Street surpassed US$2 trillion for the first time.

One of the best performing stocks in the tech sector

Google’s stock has been one of the best performers in the technology sector this year, with a 70% growth.

It was only in January 2020 that the internet giant, which went public in 2004 at a price of US$85 per share, reached US$1 trillion in market capitalization.

In the third quarter, Alphabet’s revenue jumped 41% to US$65 billion. The group posted a net profit of 18.9 billion, well above market expectations.

The world’s number one online advertising company continues to reap more revenue from both YouTube and its search engine and has expanded its cloud business.

Alphabet stock performance is not even affected by recent lawsuits

The numerous investigations and lawsuits for suspected anti-competitive practices are not weighing on its accounts at this stage.

Founded in the dorms of Stanford University in 1998, after co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin met, the search engine launched its Gmail email service in 2004.

The following years saw rapid growth with the acquisition of Android and YouTube, and the development of Maps, Chrome and Google Cloud, a range of business services.

Google became a subsidiary of its parent company Alphabet in 2015 with the arrival of CEO Sundar Pichai in office that year.

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Technological innovations- the way to sustainability

November 10, 2021February 28, 2022 Mitchell

Climate change is real, and this is our chance to make a change. People all over the world have come up with new and improved ways that will help make a difference to this global phenomena. Here are some incredible technological innovations that can pave the road to sustainability.

1) PLANTALAMPARAS

The plantalamparas are lamps that run on the power produced by plants. This innovation is being used in the tiny village of Nuevo Saposoa, Peru. This device was inspired by Peru’s need to reach electricity to all of its rural communities like Nuevo Saposoa. The lamp uses batteries that are powered by plant wastes in the soil that are captured as electrons. This is done during photosynthesis and can power LED bulbs for about two hours.

2) A NANOSHEET FOR BIG SPILLS

Researchers from universities like the Deakin University in Australia, Drexel University in Philadelphia and Missouri University have collaborated to develop a sheet that is capable of absorbing large oil spills. The sheet is filled with tiny pores that can be filled up by oil and other organic material. It can expand to the size of about five tennis courts.

3) ENERGY PROBE

Energy Probe

In 2015, a 15-year-old, Hannah Herbst from Florida created an energy probe that uses a 3D Printed propeller. The propeller can tap the unused energy produced by waves and ocean currents that works with a pulley system. This innovation can help a lot of countries get a means to have a stable source of power.

4) ECO BRICKS

Eco Bricks

Bricks are construction materials that are used everywhere. The production of these bricks, however, requires a lot of energy and results in pollution. The production of bricks in India alone mount up to 200 billion bricks per year. The students of MIT have developed an alternative kind of brick that they call the Eco BLAC Brick. It is a much more sustainable option because it uses boiler ash and low energy alkali activation, which much better for the environment.

5) PLASTIC RECYCLING

Yes, people have been using this method for years, and it is still the best way to promote sustainable development in a country. Plastic recycling is compelling not because newer technology failed to take its place, but because plastic is still generated in about 260 million tons per year. They get produced so quickly, but it is tough to eliminate. Pyrolysis is a new process that can help with plastic recycling. Only 16 percent of the plastic that is generated is recycled. This process, however, can convert plastic into liquid feedstock, which is as profitable as it is sustainable.

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Technological innovations that improved healthcare

November 10, 2021February 28, 2022 Mitchell

1) MALNUTRITION, BE GONE

The international rescue committee or the IRC have started using wristbands that can diagnose malnutrition. The newest version enables the local health care providers to monitor the nutrition and weight gain of the children, without having to ask for any external help from the humanitarian workers or the big hospitals that these children cannot afford. This technological innovation has been used in South Sudan, where more children were treated effectively with the help of the wristband locally than in a far off health facility.

2) REINVENTED TOILET EXPO

In November 2018, the bill gates and Melinda gates foundation launched an expo for sanitation technology in Beijing, China. This expo had sanitation products that would provide safe drinking water and access to hygiene and sanitation. This innovation can help over 8 lakh children below the age of 5 who die from diarrhea every year. They even showcased a product that could convert fecal waste into clean water and fertilizer. This exhibition proved to have the potential to be a great resource to nations with poor sanitation and sewage systems.

3) XSTAT 30

XSTAT 30

XSTAT 30 is a new device that was used in 2014, which has recently received approval for civilian use. It is a syringe by RevMedX filled with tiny sponge-like material that expands when it is exposed to blood. It can, therefore, be injected into a deep wound and will provide pressure from within and block the flow. The incredible part is, the injury can be sealed in under a minute. The device can hence be used to replace the traditional methods used by medics to pack a wound.

4) A TOOL TO REUSE SANITARY NAPKINS

http://web.archive.org/web/20210625191230if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/oe4beuIkNhE A team of students developed a toolkit called Flo. It was designed to end the stigma of menstruation in developing countries. It helps women to wash used pads and reuse them. It was created to prevent infections and help these women get the confidence to go to schools and work even when they are menstruating. The tool has separate compartments to carry the used and unused pads as well.

5) CAR MAT

It’s not just an ordinary car mat, but a dual purpose car mat. It is attached to the bottom of a wheelchair, enabling the wheelchair to move quickly into a sidewalk. It can be folded into the car and a wheelchair. It also comes with an inbuilt sensor that collects data about all the areas of the city that needs better access for people who use a wheelchair and the like. This innovation was designed in Brazil by the Ford Eco Sport cars.

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These new technologies that change the lives of people with disabilities

November 10, 2021February 28, 2022 Mitchell

The improvement of the living conditions of people with disabilities has become a significant concern of society in recent years. The establishment of specialized infrastructures and the development of new technologies opened up science-fiction opportunities some 20 years ago. And today, these initiatives are making a significant difference to the daily lives of those affected, both personally and professionally.

LEKA

Developed and created by Ladislas de Toldi and Marine Couteau, two biology engineers, Leka was acquired by the APF France handicap association in April 2019. The robot, which is round and bright in shape, is edutainment and interactive tool for children with developmental disorders such as autism and trisomy 21. In particular, he acts as a mediator in relations with adults and helps children in specific basic learning processes. For example, it allows you to learn colors and recognize objects.

BE MY EYES

Developed and marketed by the Danish Hans Jørgen Wiberg, Be My Eyes is a mobile application that allows blind and partially sighted people to use their smartphones to access their vision. In other words, it connects volunteers with blind or partially sighted people who need guidance. Visually impaired person needs help can ask for help with the application. The available volunteer then guides his interlocutor with the camera and microphone of his smartphone.

GYROLIFT

doctor using a 3D printer

Designed by Lambert Trénoras, the Gyrolift is a wheelchair based on the gyropod, a system that allows people to move on two wheels parallel to their body movements. The device weighs 35 kilograms, can travel up to 10 kilometers per hour and can climb slopes up to 20%. It was mainly designed to improve accessibility for people with reduced mobility in the workplace. Besides, the ability to stand upright is the most significant advantage of this chair. In this way, people with limited mobility can put themselves at the same height as their interlocutor during discussions.

SIGNALOUD

SignAloud is a pair of gloves created by Navid Azodi and Thomas Pryor, two students at the University of Washington. The invention allows people who do not know sign language to communicate with people who are mute and hard of hearing. In particular, it will enable its user to translate sign language into the spoken language in real-time. The gloves are equipped with sensors that record the position and movements of the hands. Then, the information is sent by Bluetooth to a computer that analyzes the changes using sequential regression algorithms. If the machine recognizes the gesture, the corresponding word is automatically spoken via a loudspeaker.

SEEING IA

Developed by Microsoft, Seeing IA is an application with artificial intelligence that allows blind people to see photos. Available since 2015 on iOS devices, this technology is capable of providing an audio description of a picture. It is based on the recognition of objects and landscapes and is characterized by six main features: reading texts, reading printed documents, identifying barcodes, identifying a person and expressing emotions, describing the surrounding environment and recognizing banknotes.

Another good example is smart homes:

http://web.archive.org/web/20210625191230if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/4s9vCFkmabs
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How to choose a french web hosting adapted to your needs?

November 10, 2021February 28, 2022 Mitchell

Choosing a good web host can seem like a battle course. When you start a web project, you want to do it right from the start. Generally, a beginner webmaster will want to:

  1. cheap web hosting
  2. a fast web host (with unlimited bandwidth)
  3. quality servers, based in France or in Europe at least
  4. responsive customer support

In the end, these are relatively easy to find parameters. The world of hosting providers (in France as elsewhere in Europe) is indeed very competitive and tends to drive prices down, for the happiness of the local consumer. Web site hosts have understood this and are offering increasingly aggressive rates.

In general, we will always recommend choosing a shared hosting solution. This type of hosting offer the best quality/price ratio. Cloud or VPS and even dedicated hosting are generally more expensive and will be of interest to professionals or startups with significant needs.

O2SWITCH: 1 UNLIMITED AFFORDABLE OFFER
PRICE: 5€/MONTH (SINGLE OFFER)

The specificity of o2switch lies in the originality of its concept. The web host is looking to simplify its offer as much as possible, with a simple idea. A single offer, unlimited, at a low cost! No starter/medium/premiums offer with ever-increasing functionalities.

Thus, for only 5€, you benefit from a premium hosting (without the price that goes with it). It includes:

  • disk space: unlimited
  • number of visitors (bandwidth): unlimited
  • a free domain name
  • sub-domains (for example: sub-domain.tools-webmarketing.com) : unlimited
  • WP multi-site (possibility to install several sites with one hosting): unlimited
  • Technical support: 7 days a week (as seen above, a very good point)

Enough to sleep on your two ears for a long time. Unless your site exceeds one million unique monthly visitors, there will be no need to go elsewhere. The website opportunites digitales offers an in-depth web hosting review of the O2 Switch service!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/AKtRMteoAcs

PLANETHOSTER: A HOSTING PROVIDER WITH A QUALITY ALL-IN-ONE OFFER
PRICE: 7€/MONTH

Just like o2switch (its main competitor), Planethoster offers a unique web hosting offer, all-inclusive. Except that it costs 7€/month at Planethoster! An argument that could tip the balance in favor of o2switch.

However, Planethoster offers a strong argument to attract new webmasters. Planethoster provides a free service called “Word Lite” that allows neophytes to create websites for free. Click here to test Planethoster hosting.

LWS:EXCELLENT QUALITY FRENCH BASED HOST WITH AFFORDABLE SERVICES
PRICE: STARTING AT €1.95/MONTH

LWS is a historical French player (since 1999!) in the web hosting sector. Known for its quality servers based in France, the brand offers four web hosting offers, to provide both small webmasters and large companies an exceptional range of offers. Many hosting packages optimized for the leading CMS on the market are also part of their offer.

BLUEHOST: AN EXCELLENT HOST WITH AN ATTRACTIVE PRICE/QUALITY RATIO
PRICE: STARTING AT $2.95/MONTH

Bluehost is a classic web hosting provider offering shared, dedicated, cloud, and VPS hosting solutions. Compared to its competitors, it does everything right, for a low price. The main drawback for us was the impossibility of installing several sites on the primary offer proposed by the host — an exciting option when you plan to create several sites without spending a fortune on web hosting. PCMAG offers an great review of Bluehost!

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How google is gradually moving away from android

November 10, 2021February 28, 2022 Mitchell

Android has been adopted by a plethora of different manufacturers to become the best iOS opponent running Apple’s iPhone. Google’s system has the advantage of being open-source, allowing each actor to shape it to its liking. Financially, it is also very profitable for the American giant. Indeed, the latter takes advantage of Android to massively push its home-made applications whose respective business models make him money.

Based on this premise, it would seem illogical to say that Google is gradually separating from Android. Indeed, the verb “separate” might sound too strong for the idea that interests us today. Let’s instead say that the Mountain View firm is still detaching its image a little more from that of Android. Explanations.

A NEW ECOSYSTEM

To build a complete ecosystem, you also need physical products, hardware. For a few years now, Google has been marketing its Pixel smartphones. They rely heavily on photography, of course, but also on their software experience specially designed by Google.

Of course, the smartphones run on Android, but it is always the name of Google that is highlighted. The conferences where these products are announced have a name that doesn’t lie: Made by Google.

Google wants people to understand that its ecosystem is exploited to its full potential on its products, more than on other devices in the Android universe. The message is the same for the other devices of the American giant like the Google Home and Google Nest, where Google Assistant is always at the heart of the commercial discourse.

ANDROID IS MORE MATURE

There was a time when the new versions of the OS were prevalent, as they always provided essential features that made life easier for users. If the craze always seems to be present with each new version of Android, it must be admitted that, for the last two or three years, significant updates have been mainly used to refine an already complete recipe, without bringing significant changes in usage.

Android 10 thus brings an improved gestures navigation, a native dark mode, or a screen recorder. Three things already present on several manufacturers’ interfaces, even when they were not yet based on this version of the system. As for the Developer Preview of Android 11, it doesn’t contain critical new features. The future version will mainly improve existing options.

TOWARDS THE END OF ANDROID

Let’s not rush to Android’s bedside yet. The OS still seems to have a few good days ahead of it as it’s animated by a plethora of manufacturers. The idea of this article was rather to show that the green man was not necessarily the number 1 priority of the Californian giant who prefers to focus on his identity.

However, it should be remembered that Google is also working on a more or less mysterious OS: Fuchsia. This future system is supposed to run on any device, and some people consider it as the successor of Android.

The testing of Fuchsia has recently intensified. In this perspective, it’s worth remembering that Android, even if it’s not at all at the point of death, is not eternal.

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Surface Neo and Duo: the intriguing foldable devices of microsoft

November 10, 2021February 28, 2022 Mitchell

At first glance, innovation is not always obvious. To make its Surface Neo and Duo foldable, Microsoft has not opted for the revolutionary screen technology.

The company uses an old-fashioned hinge that connects the two tiles and allows them to rotate 360°. But in 2019, with ever thinner screen edges, Microsoft’s choice makes sense. And when you see the devices in action, you quickly realize that at least one of them, the Surface Neo, is radically changing the situation. Comprising two 9-inch displays, it comes with Windows 10X, a version of Windows 10 specially designed for dual display devices.

NEW HARDWARE

The Surface Neo also comes with a new type of keyboard that can be positioned in different places. Placed on the outer part of one of the screens (the furthest from the hinge), it triggers the appearance of a “Wonder Bar,” a kind of larger Touch Bar that can display useful tools (e.g., emojis when sending a message) but also windows (e.g., a YouTube video). And when the keyboard is placed closer to the hinge, the visible part of the screen can be used as a touchpad. During the short demo, it all seemed to work very well with windows that quickly adapted to the chosen configurations and an easy-to-move keyboard. And when it is folded down (on the back of the screen), it takes up very little space.

CHOICE OF SIZE (2 X 9 INCHES)

When placed in the computer position, the Neo Surface offers a correct working surface. It is even more than comfortable when the device is placed in the notebook position (open flat, with a document on the left screen and a window for pencil note-taking on the right) or the “book standing” position with the keyboard detached since in these cases a diagonal equivalent to 13 inches is obtained.

INCREASED PORTABILITY

When folded, however, the device seems unbeatable in terms of portability with its 9-inch diagonal and its lightweight of 655 grams. Of course, a host of parameters is likely to improve or spoil the experience offered by the Surface Neo. How developers grab these opportunities will be central to everything. A 9-inch screen itself remains a small surface area for production, even if it is sufficient for consultation. Making the most of the Wonder Bar by moving menus away from it will, therefore, be crucial if the user is to have a minimum of comfort when placing his device in the “laptop” position.

The small size of the camera makes us think that it will not be very suitable for office automation. However, it will not be possible to enjoy film-like multimedia content on the unfolded Surface since the hinge will spoil the viewing experience. Although Microsoft indicated at the conference that they were not interested in the folding screens used by Samsung or Huawei any more than that, this type of panel seems to us to have much more potential for smartphone format devices. However, it should be noted that Surface Duo, like Neo, are far from being finished products. It will probably be a little longer before we have more details about their possibilities.

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