General Awareness

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY - October 2018

Oct 2018

Nov 11, 2019

Apple Watch Set to Soon Get Touch ID

Apple will soon introduce Touch ID feature in the Apple Watch, according to a patent application published by the US Patent and Trademark Office. Titled 'Antenna Assemblies for Watch Bands', the application discusses tech that would allow antennas to be embedded inside a watch band. Also, it would be able to bend, stretch and flex.

Online Tools to Gauge post-Ayodhya Mood

Intelligence agencies are using technology called "sentiment analysis programme" to monitor the world wide web and social media platforms for any online propaganda and radicalisation attempts related to the Ayodhya verdict.
The programme is helping police scan for provocative messages and keep tabs on impressionable youths through their online behaviour. By tapping into open source platforms, this programme filters comments and posts on sites and chat rooms to identify hate messages and users.
This tool can study unfiltered information on what people are really saying about a topic and, in the process, manage threats. For example, it generates an alert if somebody writes words like Ayodhya and revenge in the same post.
Another related tech, lexical analysis, is being used to identify frequently searched terms on social media or keywords common within a timeframe. This also helps police interpret information about the accountholder through publicly available data on the internet. Lexical helps police monitor social media and identify threats during sensitive events.
A separate unit named Counter Intelligence Cell (CIC) was created early this year to snoop on open source platforms.

Nov 09, 2019

NASA Unveils Its First Electric Airplane

NASA, most prominent for its many Florida-launched exploits into space, showcased an early version of its first all-electric experimental aircraft, the X-57 "Maxwell," at its lesser-known aeronautics lab in the California desert.
Adapted from a Italian-made Tecnam P2006T twin-engine propeller plane, the X-57 has been under development since 2015 and remains at least a year away from its first test flight in the skies over Edward Air Force Base.

Nov 08, 2019

Whatsapp Unveils 'Catalogs'

Messaging giant rolled out the 'Catalogs' feature for WhatsApp Business app that will allow enterprises to showcase photographs of various products that potential customers can browse through.
The new feature -- which is rolled out in countries like India, the US and Indonesia -- is intended to make it easier to learn about the products and services businesses offer.
Catalogs are a mobile storefront for businesses to showcase and share their goods so that people can easily browse and discover something they would like to buy.

Nov 07, 2019

Solar Project Developers Free To Build Additional Capacity If Supply Commitments Are Met: MNRE

Solar project developers will be free to take a call on setting up of additional power generation facilities if the energy supply commitments are met. A clarification to this effect was issued by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.
This decision is expected to give relief to solar power project developers.
As long as the solar PV power plant is in accordance with the contracted AC (alternating current) capacity and meets the range of energy supply based on capacity utilisation factor requirements, the design and installation of solar capacity on the DC (direct current) side should be left to the generator or developer.

Climate Crisis: 11,000 Scientists Warn Of 'Untold Suffering'

The world's people face "untold suffering due to the climate crisis" unless there are major transformations to global society, according to a stark warning from more than 11,000 scientists.
The climate crisis has arrived and is accelerating faster than most scientists expected. It is more severe than anticipated, threatening natural ecosystems and the fate of humanity.
The statement is published in the journal BioScience on the 40th anniversary of the first world climate conference, which was held in Geneva in 1979. The statement was a collaboration of dozens of scientists and endorsed by further 11,000 from 153 nations.

Nov 06, 2019

Smart Tech Hacked Using Laser

Researchers at the University of Michigan and Japan's University of Electro-Communications have discovered they can use lasers to silently "speak" to any computer that receives voice commands, which included smartphones, smart speakers like Amazon Echo, and Google Home, and Facebook's Portal video chat devices.
The attack can easily pass through a window, when the device's owner isn't home to notice a telltale flashing speck of light or the device's responses.

Voyager Finds Extra Layers in Solar System

Nasa's Voyager 2 probe exited our solar system nearly a year ago, becoming the second spacecraft to ever enter interstellar space. Voyager 2 completed the set of data. Scientists shared their findings via five papers published in 'Nature Astronomy'.
The analyses indicate that there are mysterious extra layers between our solar system's bubble and interstellar space.
Voyager 2 detected winds — flows of charged gas particles that come from the sun — leaking from the solar system.
Just beyond the solar system's edge, these solar winds interact with interstellar winds: gas, dust, and charged particles flowing through space from supernova explosions millions of years ago.
The new boundary layers suggest there are stages in the transition from our solar bubble to the space beyond that scientists did not previously understand.
On November 5, 2018, Voyager 2 left what's known as the "heliosphere", a giant bubble of charged particles flowing out from the sun that sheathes our solar system.
In doing so, the probe crossed a boundary area called the "heliopause". In that area, the edge of our solar system's bubble, solar winds meet a flow of interstellar wind and fold back on themselves.
Both Voyager probes measured changes in the intensity of cosmic rays as they crossed the heliopause, along with the transition between magnetic fields inside and outside the bubble.
But because so much of the transition from our solar system to the space beyond is marked by changes in plasma (a hot ionized gas that's the most abundant state of matter in the universe), Voyager 1's damaged instrument had difficulty measuring it.
Now, the new measurements from Voyager 2 indicate that the boundaries between our solar system and interstellar space may not be as simple as once thought.

Artificial Leaf to Suck Carbon Dioxide

Scientists have created an "artificial leaf " that could turn carbon dioxide into fuel. The new technology was inspired by the way plants use photosynthesis to turn carbon dioxide into glucose and oxygen.
The artificial leaf mimics this process — with the help of a cheap red powder called cuprous oxide — and produces methanol and oxygen.
The methanol can be collected and used as fuel by heating the solution so the water evaporates, according to the paper published in Nature Energy.
This technology has achieved the solar to fuel efficiency about 10%. This is already larger than the natural photosynthesis (about one per cent). The next step is to partner with industry companies to scale it up with a system engineering of flow cell for the production of liquid fuels. More efficient artificial leaves can be developed along the lines with industry partners.

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