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Annasha

Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more

neuralink

Elon Musk’s Neuralink puts computer chips in a Pig’s brain to treat disease.

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On 29th August 2020, Elon Musk’s startup, Neuralink revealed a big experiment they are carrying out. The main source of the news is Reuters. Neuralink has put a coin-sized computer chip inside a pig’s brain for the past two months. The name of the pig is Gertrude and it is in the early stage of the experiment to analyze if the same concept can be applicable for human brains. According to Elon Musk, this can be a way to cure many diseases in the human body.

Neuralink is a neuroscience-based startup founded in 2016 by Tesla Inc and Elon Musk. Current experimentation of the company involves treating major human diseases by implanting wireless brain-computer interfaces. Musk delivered this news on a webcast last Friday. The timeline for human trials has not been mentioned yet.

Three little pigs

Musk has given a presentation virtually and it is called “three little pigs” demo. The demo showed Gertrude, the pig whose brain has been implanted with the computer chip in a position that controls the snout. After some coaxing by Elon Musk, it began performing some activities like eating off a stool and sniffing the straws which led to show striking changes in the graphs monitoring the neural activity.

Musk also revealed that the experimentation has been carried out in three such pigs having two brain implants each. The implanted pigs are physically indistinguishable from any regular pigs and there are no abnormalities in them. Moreover, the pigs with implantation have shown greater accuracy in limb movement during a treadmill run. The conclusion has been reached using the implant data. These pigs are now often described as “Cypork”.

Human trial

Previously, Musk has mentioned about the human trials beginning at the end of this year. But, on Friday, Elon Musk has not mentioned any specific timeline for the beginning of the human trail. Dr. Matthew MacDougall, the head surgeon of Neuralink said that the first clinical trial on humans will focus on a small group of patients suffering from paraplegia or paralysis. The company also confirmed that it has made many great innovations for the past four years and the long studies have come to an end. This might mean that the trails will begin shortly since the implantation in animals has shown positive results.

Elon Musk
Image Source: teslarati.com

Treating several diseases 

Elon Musk has said the implantation device can solve many actual diseases in the human body like memory loss, hearing aid, depression, and insomnia. There are thousands of electrodes present in the computer chip which interacts with the human brain to cure complex neurological problems. Severe conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, spinal cord, injuries, etc can be cured as well. The size of the Neuralink’s chip is approximately 23 mm in diameter. Musk described it as “a Fitbit in your skull with tiny wires.” So, it is impossible to distinguish a person with implantation from a normal person. In 2020, around 5.8 million Americans are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s dementia. So, an invention like this will be a big scientific and medical breakthrough. But, once it becomes a success, viability will be the main concern.

Expert’s feedback

In response to the high success rate of this experimentation, Graeme Moffat, a neuroscience research fellow from the University of Toronto said that Neuralink’s advancements are ahead of its time. The superior design of the computer chip with efficient power management, wireless technology, and smaller size makes it very innovative and impactful. One of the neuroscientists from Stanford University said that the company has made huge progress since last year’s demonstration about the chip.

But, some of them have contradicted the statement regarding the end of longer studies. A few fellow researchers around the world said longer studies might be required to determine the longevity of the device. Since the experts can read the brain waves after the chip has been implanted it will lead to a better understanding of the brain activity while suffering a disease.

Similar advancements

Musk’s neuroscience start-up, Neuralink has received $158 million in funding. But, he said that the main reason for Friday’s event was recruiting and not fundraising. Musk also spoke about AI and its role in this new Neuralink’s chip. He also said other companies like Kernel and Paradromics are carrying out similar experiments.

tiktok

Kevin Mayer TikTok CEO resigns as Trump administration plans to ban.

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Media has been flooding with the news regarding Chinese apps and its role in privacy breaches since the outburst of the novel coronavirus. Once the pandemic took a toll on all our lives, from vivid facts to conspiracy theories have come up regarding China being responsible for this havoc. Though the other nations suspect COVID-19 as a biological weapon, there is no strong evidence supporting it. But, seeing China as a threat to the world especially the U.S., Trump administration decided to ban the Chinese apps mainly TikTok and WeChat.

The Big news 

The relationship between China and the U.S has gotten stale with Trump announcing the ban on Chinese apps. To expand the Clean Network, Trump gave a deadline until mid-September to sell the assets of TikTok to any other company. With Trump accusing such Chinese apps of information theft, political battles have increased since the last month. Amongst this grave tension, Kevin Mayer, the new CEO of TikTok decided to step down yesterday. In the meantime, Vanessa Papas, the current general manager of TikTok will take his position as the interim head.

Why Kevin Mayer stepped down?

It has been only 100 days since Kevin Mayer, former Disney executive joined the most famous small video making Chinese app, TikTok owned by ByteDance. Kevin Mayer made a big decision resigning from Disney to become the CEO of TikTok, but unfortunately, everything went haywire. After Trump gave an order earlier this month to ban the Chinese apps like TikTok and WeChat, the disturbance created between Beijing and Washington.

Before the ban of TikTok in the U.S., India banned all the Chinese apps mainly because of the dispute regarding the LAC. With all these political tensions not stopping anytime sooner, Kevin’s scope in TikTok might not go as expected. So, his decision to step down from the company is completely understandable, said a TikTok’s spokesperson to TechCrunch. Moreover, only a few days back TikTok sued the U.S. government for false accusations against the company.

Kevin Mayer
Image Source: indianexpress.com

The fight that both the TikTok and the U.S. government have picked up will have harsh consequences in the future for both sides. Kevin Mayer didn’t expect political tension of this intensity to fall upon his reign and hence he decided to step down. Moreover, the timeline of becoming the newest CEO of the company and the political rivalry has clashed coincidentally. But, Kevin has all the right to get far away from this growing tension and seek a better career opportunity.

Why did Trump order a ban on Chinese apps?

On 6th August 2020, Trump signed an executive order thus banning TikTok and WeChat within a timeline of 45 days. Trump accused these Chinese apps of stealing data that might harm the privacy of the U.S. citizens and compromise the national security of the nation. He also supported India’s act of banning 59 Chinese apps and decided it is time the U.S. takes some strict action against this information theft. It banned all U.S. citizens to conduct any transaction through these platforms or any brand from the U.S. to advertise their products.

This was a big blow for TikTok as the U.S. served as one of the biggest markets for the platform. In 2020, TikTok gained revenue of $200 million for the U.S. alone. Getting banned from the U.S. brought a huge loss for the company. Moreover, with China being thrashed everywhere in social media for the COVID-19 pandemic, the company should keep fingers crossed until any other nation takes a bold step.

Bargaining over the U.S. assets of TikTok

After Trump administration imposed banned on the U.S. operations of TikTok, many companies have come forward for buying them. Microsoft being the first company to take interest in buying the U.S. operations of TikTok, Trump was interested to sell it. Meanwhile, Twitter showed interest in buying the company’s U.S. assets but this decision was questioned. The market capitalization of Twitter is almost equal to the TikTok’s value of U.S. operation while Microsoft’s valuation is in trillions. So, it becomes crystal clear who might win the bidding. Apart from Microsoft and Twitter, Oracle is the third bidder. But, till now Microsoft is winning the race.

Nasa

NASA spots a leak on the International Space Station but says the crew is out of danger

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Says the crew is out of danger

NASA announced yesterday about the leak in the International Space Station (ISS). Three crew members are on board for this mission to spot the leak and take necessary measures. NASA along with the Russian partner Roscosmos are jointly looking into the matter. The three crew members including astronauts and cosmonauts will be staying in the Russian segment of the ISS. Meanwhile, NASA is working to figure out the origin of the leak that is causing the air to release more rapidly than its usual rate.

The fact that there is a leak in the ISS has been reported for a while now, but due to the numerous experiments of spaceflights, it got suppressed. Moreover, the tanks on board took care of the proper balancing pressure whenever the air escaped at a faster rate. But, NASA is now considering it as a priority to repair the leakage to prevent any major damage in the future.

Spotting the leak

The current leakage on the ISS was first suspected in September 2019. In the beginning, when the leakage was confirmed the air leakage was taking place at a comparatively lower rate. But, gradually the leakage area might have broadened resulting in a higher rate of escaping rate. But, even after they noticed that leakage is taking place at a higher rate than usual, they didn’t have enough time to look into the matter. The recent SpaceX breakthrough and several spacewalks kept NASA immensely busy.

But, with the schedule running slow in NASA, they are finally sending crew members to spot the leakage and repair it at the earliest. NASA has now collected adequate data to isolate the origin of the leakage from other parts and repair it. Through the leakage has increased, NASA confirmed that the crew members or the ISS are not in danger.

Sending crew this weekend

The three Expedition 63 crew members scheduled for this mission are Chris Cassidy (Commander, NASA astronaut), Ivan Vagner (Russian cosmonaut), and Anatoly Ivanishin (Russian cosmonaut). They will stay in the Zvezda service module in the ISS from this Friday night to Monday morning. The Zvezda module system was designed for permanent human habitation twenty years ago. Since then many astronauts from many Expedition have stayed in those quarters. During the time of their stay, the three members will have access to the Poisk-mini-research module and Soyuz MS-16 crew ship.

Since they will closely monitor the air pressure of each module; all the hatches will remain closed this weekend. The following testing of the air pressure will examine which module is facing a higher rate of leakage than usual. Both the U.S. and the Russian experts expect the results to be ready by the end of next week.

Previous major leaks

This is not the first time that leakage has been detected on the ISS. In 2018, Russia detected a small hole in one of the country’s Soyuz spacecraft. At first, they thought the damage was caused by a meteor striking the surface but after further investigation, they anticipated a drill from inside the Soyuz. Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s Roscosmos state space corporation said that they are open to considering all kinds of theories. It might have been a technical fault by an expert but the question was if it was made intentionally.

While the Roscosmos convened a State Commission to investigate the Soyuz hole, NASA declined to go into the matters deeply. Russia also anticipated that the hole might have been made on Earth, but the question is if it is true, why they detected it after such a long period. The investigation continued for quite some time. But, this was not the first time that Russia blamed another nation for the failure of a Russian aircraft.

With another recent leakage coming into the scenario, history might repeat itself. But, let’s hope that the crew members will safely reach earth after repairing the hole.

Instagram

Instagram launches a new QR code to help users scan profile from anywhere

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QR codes are becoming a very common and crucial part of today’s smartphone applications. Previously, the QR codes were introduced in the payment platforms but gradually the social media platforms are also incorporating this new feature. Many apps like Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Spotify, etc have their QR-like system. But, among these only Twitter works with actual QR code. Yesterday, another app introduced working with actual QR-code and that is Instagram. This new feature of generating your QR-code and scan the same using any camera app has been introduced all over the world. A flexible way to check out the profile of any person or business or organization by scanning the QR through any camera app, Instagram made a great update.

qr code

Advantage of the new QR-code Scan

The new feature of generating QR-code by Instagram was introduced last year in Japan. Since Instagram is a platform that gives exposure to budding talents and business, it is of great advantage for the users. The businesses or any kind of service provider can now generate their QR which after scanning will allow the customers to get plenty of useful information. So, this new feature is beneficial for both the service provider and the customer. Using this QR-code people can also visit the interesting profile and follow if they like the page.

With actual QR code coming into play, people don’t have to open their Instagram every time they wanted to scan the internal QR (nametags). Amongst the pandemic, many restaurants also prefer to leave out QR codes instead of physical menus. Moreover, if you scan the QR code, every information about when the store is open, the list of buying items, etc appears.

How to generate your QR code?

Every Instagram profile will have a unique QR code generated from his or her account. The steps for how to generate your QR-code are given below:

  • After opening the Instagram application on your phone, go to your Profile. Remember that the Home page is different from the Profile page.
  • After going to the Profile page go to Settings.
  • From the given options tap on QR code.
  • Your QR code will be generated. You can either share or save the image or do both.

While tapping on the QR code, you might still find the Nametag option. But, eventually, it will get changed or you can update the app and see what happens.

Nametags and the new QR code are different

A couple of years back, Instagram launched a similar kind of feature called Nametags. Nametags showed your profile name in a way that can be easily scanned by other users who want to check your profile or follow you. All they needed to do is scan the name from the Instagram camera. This is the difference between Nametags and actual QR-code as the later can be scanned from any third-part camera applications. Moreover, when Nametags was released they came with a customizable option to make it look more attractive. But, now with the actual QR-code people will get hugely benefited by putting up their business accounts, generating and sharing the QR code.

android

Google to startle Android TV users with a series of new features

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With more users switching to the Android TV version, Google is about to roll out a bunch of new features for it. After the platform of Android TV was first launched in 2014, it has undergone several updates. But, the biggest redesign of the platform took place in 2017. This time Google is planning something bigger and probably the biggest updates of all time.

Android TV platform, in a nutshell, has brought a revolution in the world of both TV makers and daily users. These days, we hardly find any youngsters watching TV as they are always busy scrolling through the newsfeed in social media. But, with the new updates for smart TVs, gaming consoles, and set-top boxes, the production of smart TVs, as well as a new fan base for Google’s Android TV, will be created.

New Android applications and Gaming

Android TV is an operating system for the smart TV that has numerous available apps and can be used as a streaming device as well. So, more or less performs all the functions your tablet or phone can just on a bigger screen. With Google announcing to launch more new apps for Android TV, it is a good opportunity for the developers to build unique applications for the users.

There are currently more than 7000 apps and games in the play store for Android TV users. This is one of the most important reasons why the monthly users of Android TV are increasing at an impressive pace every year. With that in mind, Google is working towards owning a big share in the smart TV market by user engagement leading to the growth of Android TV.

Moreover, once these new applications and games are launched by Google, users can easily use them without installing them immediately on the smart TV. This takes place because of the feature, Google Play Instant Support which was rolled out by Google in 2017. So, now the Android TV users can also enjoy this feature which will save both time and data invested in installing before trying it out.

Google will also roll out a new low latency mode exclusively for the better gaming experience. This new feature will help the user minimize latency whenever he or she is playing games in full screen. Apart from this, to make app navigation simpler the up-gradation will take place in lean-back memory.

Security 

No matter how many new updates are installed in any smart device, we want it to be faster and efficient. So, Google is introducing a 4-digit PIN facility for Android app users. This will help the customers to get access to all the content prioritized by him or her without entering the entire password every time. Moreover, every smart device since connected to the internet always has a risk of a security breach. In such cases, the security of the device can be compromised, and still, you can log in with the 4 digit PIN.

Gboard TV

Google is also planning to make typing easier on Android TV. So, the company will also launch a low-latency keyboard, Gboard TV keyboard for Android TV users. The customers who are a big fan of Android TV have given unsatisfactory feedbacks regarding the A-Z layout of the keyboard. Finally, Google has decided to change it to the conventional QWERTY keypad, thus lubricating the user experience. We have practiced typing using a QWERTY keypad since childhood and it is hard to type with a different layout. So, kudos to Google for finally changing it.

Moreover, speech-to-text and predictive typing is also included in the list of new features for Gboard. This modified virtual keyboard for Android TV users will be optimized for over 30 countries. It will be a breakthrough for Android TV as many features are rolling out together making the platform more flexible. New users will also increase rapidly as they won’t need to install every application or game they want to try out. The Android TV users are holding their breath as of when the features will roll out on the market.

TikTok

Twitter shows interest in buying TikTok’s US operations by outbidding Microsoft

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ByteDance, a Chinese company is the owner of the very famous video sharing platform, TikTok. With the advent of the global pandemic which emerged out from the Chinese city Wuhan, many nations have turned against China. Whether it’s a serious innocent breakout of an infectious disease or a plotted biological weapon is still in question. But, with almost every country around the globe suffering tremendously, many unpredictable decisions have been taking place.

Last week, Trump announced the ban of TikTok along with other Chinese apps from the U.S. Apart from all the other Chinese applications; TikTok has a very wide user base not only in the U.S. but also around the world. Trump has expressed the need of the hour to ban these Chinese apps as they might be responsible for serious data theft that can put the nation’s security in jeopardy. So, with a 45-days timeline to ban the usage of any Chinese apps by the U.S. citizens, Microsoft showed interest in buying the U.S. operations of TikTok. But, it is only yesterday that Twitter showed interest in buying the same by outdoing Microsoft in bidding.

TikTok by Pixabay

Can Twitter manage to Finance?

Yesterday, the news of Twitter being interested to buy ByteDance owned TikTok was delivered to Reuters from a trusted source. But, it is a big question if Twitter has the capital to buy the U.S. operations of TikTok. The market capitalization of Twitter is around $30 billion which is nearly equal to the assets of TikTok put on sale. On the other hand, Microsoft’s market capitalization is around $1.3 trillion which makes the scenario clear about the bidding.

So, if Twitter is having a serious plan to buy the U.S. operations of TikTok, it needs to raise additional capital. In a normal situation, it would have been easy to raise money, but with the pandemic creating havoc in the financial world and a time strain of 45-days it is a very difficult task.

Due to these two important factors, Microsoft is still on the run and occupy the first place for the bidding. Erik Gordon, a professor from the University of Michigan said that Twitter doesn’t have enough borrowing capacity making it even harder to acquire the U.S. operations of TikTok. Moreover, the current shareholders of Twitter might think that expanding business in this crisis might be a big risk and it will be better if the company (Twitter) focuses on its existing business.

Protecting the Nation

A couple of months back India decided to take strict action against China because of two main reasons, first the outbreak of COVID-19 from Wuhan which might be a strong conspiracy against the world, and second, the dispute regarding LAC. So, Indian banned all the Chinese apps hence taking a big step and protecting the nation’s security from compromising. Now, a similar action was taken by the American president, Donald Trump, thus banning Chinese apps like TikTok and WeChat.

Trump has also mentioned that this is one step forward towards protecting sensitive information and privacy of U.S. citizens from China. These apps are gaining access to information of every user and it can be used against the U.S. for many purposes. He also told that the ban of Chinese apps will also improve Clean Network thus adding five more lines of effort, namely, Clean Carrier, Clean Cable, Clean Apps, Clean Store, and Clean Cloud. And, lastly, he gave a deadline of 45 days and in mid-September, the ban will be imposed completely.

TikTok’s current reputation 

With the novel coronavirus pandemic, the reputation of China as well as its apps is degrading. But, TikTok is used by billions of users around the world, and especially in the U.S., it has millions of fans. Many citizens of the U.S. have expressed outrage towards Donald Trump after he declared the ban of TikTok. But, no matter what a nation’s security should always be the priority. Moreover, it will also become a golden opportunity for the country’s app developers to create something similar and make it a big hit.

The relationship between Twitter and Donald Trump has become sour as the president accused the platform of unfairly censoring him. So, apart from the capital of Microsoft being incredibly bigger than Twitter’s, it is likely Trump will support the acquisition by Microsoft.