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India Successfully Launches GSLV-Mk III; Green Signal to Chandrayaan-2 & Manned Mission

India, News, Tech News / By

On Wednesday, the launch of India’s heaviest rocket, the GSLV-Mk III, carrying 3,423 kg communication satellite GSAT-29, from the ISRO’s Sriharikota centre (Satish Dhawan Space Centre), in Andhra Pradesh. The launch took place at 5.08 pm, carrying the GSAT-29 satellite, that has been set into the Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO). With the help of the thrusters, the satellite will be placed in Earth’s Geostationary Orbit (GEO). The rocket has proven its ability by putting the satellite into the GTO just within sixteen minutes.

GSAT-29-lifts-off
Image Source: freepressjournal.in

The ISRO chairman K Sivan said, “Today India has achieved a significant milestone. The GSLV Mk III, India’s heaviest launcher, has launched GSAT 29. The launch completed the developmental flights of the rocket.”

The launch of GSLV Mk III is the second developmental flight of the rocket. It carried its first development flight on June 5, 2017, in which it successfully launched a 3,136 kg GSAT-19 satellite (the first heaviest satellite launched from India). ISRO has plans of sending the astronauts to space in the 2022 Gaganyaan mission with the help of the same rocket.

The rocket is 43.4 meters tall and weighs around 640 tonnes, having a capacity of carrying up to four tonnes of weight to space. It is a heavy-lift three-stage rocket. The first stage consists of two solid fuel strap-on engines, at the second stage it has a liquid propellant core, and the third stage is for a cryogenic engine. India is one of the six countries, including the US, Russia, France, Japan and China, to own the cryogenic engine technology.

The GSAT 29 satellite contains the communication transponders to provide communication in remote regions of India, specifically in Jammu Kashmir and the northeast, under the Digital India programme.

A spokesperson from ISRO said. “The GSAT 29 carries Ka/Ku-band high throughput communication transponders intended to meet the communication requirements of users including those in remote areas. In addition, several new technologies such as Q/V-band payload, data transmission through optical communication link will be demonstrated. This will help in realising future advanced satellites.’’

ISRO has been doing amazingly well in its space missions for the past few years, and now it intends to have ten more launches before the new year. And the successful launch of the GSLV Mk III rocket has confirmed the moon mission Chandrayaan 2, that will be carried out in January next year and India’s first human spaceflight programme scheduled for 2022.

Google’s G Suite & Target Joins the List of the Victims of Ongoing Bitcoin Scam

Google, News, Tech News / By

After the breach into the twitter accounts of the US and Israeli politicians, as well as the official account of the Indian Consulate in Frankfurt, on Monday, a group of hackers hacked the official Twitter account of the retail giant Target on the very next day.

In the brief time of half an hour, the hackers posted a fake tweet on the account to promote a malicious cryptocurrency giveaway. The fake giveaway’s worth was 5000 BTC (approx. $31 million), that was put on to the tweet with a QR code, Bitcoin address, and line of text that claims it will return deposits tenfold, to lure the naive investors. The tweet addressed the 1.92 million followers of Target’s twitter account and had asked them to send BTC on the given address, to become a part of the giveaway.

google-twitter
Image source: hot97svg.com

The hackers were smart enough, to put some replies on the tweet from some high-profile accounts, to make the tweet look more legit and convincing. The hacking lasted for a small time, and according to the Bitcoin insiders, the hackers were able to arrange not more than a handful of BTC from the followers.

In such a small time, the media and other parties got notice of the incident, and Target took control over its account back, just after thirty minutes of hacking and posted another tweet, that confirmed the hack. The tweet read, “Early this morning, Target’s Twitter account was inappropriately accessed. The access lasted for approximately half an hour and one fake tweet was posted during that time about a Bitcoin scam.”

After taking the control over its Twitter account, Target is still in active discussions with the social media platform, regarding the matter. Not more than a few hours passed for the Target’s twitter hack, another hack came into light when another major account i.e., the official Twitter account for Google’s G Suite, a group of software/products that includes Drive, Docs, Gmail, Hangouts, and others, was hacked by the hackers. The hackers posted a similar fake tweet on the account that mentioned a giveaway of 10000 BTC to the winners of the giveaway. The tweet included a similar link along with an image of a QR code and Bitcoin address. Google was quick to take down the tweet, and it still has to confirm the breach.

Other breaches like the hacking of the official account of Elon Musk and the major European film company, Pathé, which took place earlier this month, and TV Chef, Tyler Florence had also occurred around last month, and now Target as well as Google has also joined the list. For now, there has been no other news of any other hacking of any account, and we can expect that Twitter will now be more focused on the security of the accounts of its users.

Alibaba Smashes its own Last Year’s Single’s Day Sales Record

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Amazon and Flipkart broke their own previous records of sales in the past festive season sales held before Diwali. But, with the 10th annual Chinese shopping bonanza Singles’ Day, the Chinese internet business giant Alibaba group has made e-commerce history, after it generated a record $30.7 billion in only 24 hours.

Alibaba
Image Source: foshansourcing.com

The biggest sales day of China celebrated on 11/11, recorded a 1 billion sale in the first 1 minute and 25 seconds. Alibaba’s Single’s day sale aka the double 11, is the biggest e-commerce sale in the world. On the 11th of November, as soon as the sale started, at midnight, people were buying things from milk powder to iPhones on the website.

Alibaba.com is the biggest dominating e-commerce marketplace, in China, and it is also planning to expand to other countries as well. The Single’s sale is a month-long event that peaks on November 11, and this year it has surpassed its own record of last year’s sale. Last year, it had earned $24 billion in just short of 16 hours. Despite the highest sale this year, the growth rate fell from 39 per cent to 27 per cent, by the end of the day.

Almost ten years ago, the Alibaba group started the Single’s Day sale as a novelty student holiday to celebrate being single and treat themselves through retail therapy. But, in the past ten years, it has become China’s biggest shopping festive season sale. Although most of the Chinese public did not show much interest in the 2018’s Single’s Day sale, Alibaba was still able to surpass the total earnings of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales (2017) combined.

In 2015, Jack Ma the founder of Alibaba Group had shown an interest in making the Single’s Day sale open at a global level, and also, organised the first non-Chinese Single’s Day in Russia, tiny Hong Kong and the US, last year. The sale mostly included the purchase of mobile phones, wool coats and knitted sweaters. This year, the sale was also organised in South Korea, U.S. and Japan, where the purchase of the same items has been recorded.

General Motors Stepping into E-Bike Business; Unveils the Models of First Two

News, Product, Tech News / By
ebike
Image Source: mashable.com

Every business tends to walk forward and try to achieve new big things. But, as Elon Musk has already expressed his intention to bring new Tesla electric bike, the General Motors, has also released the prototype of their upcoming electric bikes, hence, moving from building big cars to developing smaller and convenient smart e-bikes.

The company has unveiled the prototype of two of their e-bike, one of which is the compact one, and the other is the foldable bike. The bikes are said to be smart e-bikes that are inspired by the company’s subscription-based communications, in-vehicle security and emergency services feature, seen in the OnStar cars. The bikes are designed keeping the security in mind and has the USB device charging points at the front. The bike is also equipped with the LED lights.

On the release, Hannah Parish, the Director of General Motors Urban Mobility Solutions, said, “As an avid cyclist and urban commuter, I know how great it feels to get where I’m going easily and to show up sweat-free. We blended electrification engineering know-how, design talents and automotive-grade testing with great minds from the bike industry to create our e-bikes.”

The GM’s electric vehicle team, including the engineers behind the Chevy Bolt, will be responsible for the development of the bikes. The bikes consist of a mid-drive electric motor and have got its battery mounted above it. The battery is a bit smaller and hence, needs to be re-activated by peddling the bike after the battery drains out.

The company has not revealed much about the e-bikes, and we have to wait to find out the full specifications of the bikes. But, the company has given a chance to the public to have an impression of their creativity on the bikes, as it has organised a campaign, in which people are welcomed to participate with their suggestions, for the name of the bikes, and the selected suggestion will win a prize worth $10000. And, that is not all, the nine runner-ups will also win $1000 as the prize money for their suggestions. The candidates can apply through www.eBikeBrandChallenge.com.

Startup Company Unveils World’s First Foldable Smartphone, Beats the major Tech Giants

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Quite unimaginable, but a start-up company has beaten the big giants by making the world’s first foldable smartphone named the Royole FlexPai. Although companies like Huawei and LG had expressed their intentions of developing bendable smartphones in 2019, now they won’t be the first ones to do so. The smartphone was unveiled by Royole Corporation, a California-based start-up company, at a conference, in Beijing, China on Wednesday.

The device is a tablet with a 7.8-inch display in a single panel that can be folded into halves, the screen remaining on the outer side, without breaking and making the size of the tablet fit into the pocket. The device is 7.8mm thick and can be bent up to 180 degrees, with the help of a hinge, that is placed at the spot of the fold. The device has the 1920×1440 pixels resolution screen. On the folded position, the screen on the edge shows the notifications and other settings options.

Royole FlexPai
Image Source: royole.com

The device is empowered by the Water OS 1.0, based on the Android 9.0 Pie OS and runs on the Qualcomm’s next-generation Snapdragon 8-series processor. Interestingly, the smartphone is using the latest processor, that still has to be launched officially in coming two months.

The smartphone is also providing better camera quality with a 16-megapixel widescreen lens and a 20-megapixel telephoto lens, dual camera, having an aperture of f / 1.8. The camera can be used when the screen is opened to the tablet format. The smartphone comes with a storage range starting from 6GB to 512GB, and a 3,800mAh Lithium Polymer battery.

The company has established a workshop in Beijing, China, for the manufacturing of the smartphones, and is currently available for the pre-orders in China only. The price for the three variant of the device is set as ¥ 8,999 (€ 1140) for 6GB RAM model, ¥ 9998 (€ 1265) for 8GB RAM model and ¥ 12999 (€ 1645) for 8GB RAM model. The company has proclaimed that it will spend 200 million yuan into global firms that would develop apps and software for the device. Also, the Royole FlexPai is said to be released in the global market in December 2018.

Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K is Cheaper & is Beating its Predecessors

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After shipping the Fire TV Cube ($120) and third-generation Fire TV ($70, now discontinued), last year, Amazon has now launched a much cheaper yet outperforming 4K HDR video streaming device, named Fire TV Stick 4K. The device claims to provide better performance and costs only $50.

This time the remote of the device has got more features than the device itself, as now this tiny Alexa voice remote can control the TV with the power, volume, and mute buttons. With the remote, the user can control the TV’s current HDMI input, the attached soundbar, as well as can tune the channels, on the satellite set-top boxes.

Fire TV Stick
Image Source: timeincuk.net

The previous Fire TV devices can also be paired with the remote and can be bought separately. Also, the new Fire TV Cube will now be available in the market, with this new Alexa remote. Alexa enabled device can help the user to check the weather, control the smart lights, pull up a feed from the doorbell cam, or access Alexa’s other functionalities with a simple voice request. To use Alexa in the handsfree mode, the user just needs to pair the Fire TV stick with an Echo device.

The predecessors of the Fire TV Stick were built on the 1.5 GHz quad-core processor, that too is improved in the newly launched device, as it is powered by the 1.7 GHz quad-core processor. The high-performance device, now includes the hardware-accelerated MPEG-2 video, enabling the user to plug-in the HDHomeRun Connect TV tuner into the Wi-Fi router, and enjoy over-the-air channels from an antenna. This enables the users to watch full broadcast quality channels on their home TVs.

The Fire TV Stick 4K has got the support for both Dolby Vision and HDR10+, that its predecessors, Fire TV pendant and Fire TV Cube, lacked and supported the basic HDR10 format. The device also converts the standard dynamic videos to HDR. The device is connected to the TV with a USB port, streaming excellent picture and sound. The Fire TV Stick has got various inbuilt apps, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, and also streams the live TV services such as PlayStation Vue and Hulu. Still, the device does not have an app for Walmart’s Vudu service.

The device is the cheapest to stream the Dolby Vision, and it has provided a lot of content to the users to scroll over, keeping the business strategy clear in mind. The faster software handling and more sensitive voice command functionality of the device, at such a price, is making a huge difference with the performance as compared to the Roku and even the Apple TV. The Fire TV Stick, currently, is only available for the Amazon Prime members.