Could Apple Watch X be fitness enthusiasts

Could Apple Watch X be fitness enthusiasts

Technology SS   5:03 PM

A report by the tech giant stated that the Watch X will be the "slimmest smartwatch ever crafted by Apple."

The company plans to further reduce the watch dimensions by including a new magnetic band-swapping mechanism that will eliminate the space required to attach the strap, Arabian Business reported.

According to reports, the Apple Watch X will also feature a thinner microLED display and an integrated blood pressure sensor, boosting the functionality for tracking fitness and health.

Apple has maintained an annual release schedule for its smartwatches since they were first introduced in 2015, along with the occasional introduction of lower affordable models like the Watch SE and the second-generation Watch SE.

THE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO THE ASSISTED,

THE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO THE ASSISTED,

Technology SS   1:54 PM

This machine is the single best way to go from zero pull-ups to pull-up hero. Some people will point out that you lose a little range of motion and core engagement with the machine. However, it’s totally worth it if you want to work your way up to doing pull-ups without any assistance.

Choosing the correct amount of weight assistance can involve a little trial and error. You should be able to do a meaningful number of reps (5-10) per set, but you don’t want those reps to be too easy – you should feel the burn at the end of each set. You’re here to build strength, after all! A good spot to start is with around half of your body weight. Work up or down from there until you find the perfect resistance level.

Next, it’s time to choose your grip. Our personal trainers recommend starting with the two parallel handles closest to the midline of your body. Pull-up pros call this the hammer grip, and it will let you get a good assist from your biceps while you develop your other muscles

An often-overlooked benefit of machine-assisted bodyweight exercises is that they let you focus on practicing your form instead of struggling to execute the move. It’s important to build solid habits when you’re first starting out so that you keep the correct form as you work toward an unassisted pull-up. 

Throughout the exercise, you’ll want to keep your core muscles contracted. It can be tempting to relax your core since you’re supported by the knee pad, but you need to form a solid base for your arms and back to pull against. Plus, you’ll get way more out of the exercise if you consciously engage your core.

The motion of a pull-up starts at the bottom, with your arms fully extended. From this position, engage your back and arms to pull yourself up until your chin is just above your hands. Focus on keeping your torso straight and your shoulders back. Exhale while your body is in upward motion. 

The curious case of the Zhob meteorite and the stone

The curious case of the Zhob meteorite and the stone

Technology SS   3:08 PM

The series of events happened too quickly for the farmers to immediately understand what was happening. Within seconds, the earth stopped shaking, the bright light vanished, and the terrible sound died down. However, the strange occurrence left behind souvenirs. On inspecting the area after the incident, the farmers found several pieces of stone-like objects, considerably heavier than any ordinary stone, scattered over the hilly terrain.
There were giant holes in the ground where the stones had fallen, a house had been slightly damaged by one of these objects, and there was even damage on the paved roads connecting the village to the nearby city.Every year, an estimated 15,000 tonnes of meteoroids, micrometeoroids and different forms of space dust enter the atmosphere of earth, typically travelling at a speed of 20km/sec (for comparison's sake, rockets and space shuttles reach a speed of 11km/sec) but rarely cause any damage to the planet.
Most of the rocks end up burning without reaching the surface. Even if some pieces are able to survive, their sizes are greatly reduced. Once they hit the ground, they are called meteorites. Through the time for which the rocks travel through the atmosphere, they are called meteors.

Countdown as SpaceX, NASA

Countdown as SpaceX, NASA

Technology SS   8:25 PM

The new capsule will blast off on board a rocket
built by SpaceX -- the space company of billionaire Elon Musk -- at 0249 (0749 GMT) on Saturday from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. destination is the International Space Station, which it is scheduled to reach by Sunday, with a return to Earth next Friday.
The excitement was palpable Friday at Cape Canaveral, where a day earlier the rocket was wheeled out of its hangar and staged in a vertical position on the legendary launch pad where the Apollo Moon missions took off.
"It´s been a long eight years," said Bob Cabana, the Kennedy Space Center´s director and a former astronaut.
"It´s exciting to see a crewed vehicle, the SpaceX Dragon, up there on a Falcon 9 on pad 39A," said Cabana, who witnessed the last space shuttle flight return to Cape Canaveral on July 21, 2011.
After the shuttle program was shuttered in 2011 after a 30-year run, NASA began outsourcing the logistics of its space missions.
The sky over the launch site was clear Friday, with meteorologists saying there was an 80 percent chance of conditions being favorable overnight.
"When you´re here, right, there´s a pride in the country. It´s different," said Mark Geyer, director of the Johnson Space Center, where US astronauts are based. "There´s a pride in what the United States and its teams can accomplish."

YouTube, Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook

YouTube, Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook

Technology SS   6:14 PM

Firms like YouTube, Microsoft, Twitter, and Facebook are now assessing 89 percent of flagged content within 24 hours and removing 72 percent of content deemed illegal, the officials said.
The figures compare to 40 percent and 28 percent respectively when the firms signed up to a code of conduct in 2016, according to officials with the European Commission, the EU´s executive arm.
The EU joined forces with US-based internet firms nearly three years ago amid growing alarm in Europe over the use of social media as an extremist recruiting tool, especially by the Islamic State group.
The founding participants were YouTube, Microsoft, Twitter and Facebook. Last year Instagram, the Google+ social network, Snapchat and Dailymotion joined the effort.
But the Czech commissioner warned: "Good results don´t mean companies are off the hook."
Jourova urged the internet companies to improve feedback to users as well as providing more transparency on notices and removals.

Smell and stress sensors a smash

Smell and stress sensors a smash

Technology SS   12:56 PM

The big-screen TVs and entertainment systems that were all the rage 10 years ago at the CEATEC fair have gradually been replaced by tiny sensors that accurately measure the minutest facet of the human body — a Japanese speciality.This could be useful for an airline pilot or long-distance truck driver for example but could also one day find its way into the workplace.

"You could imagine such a chair in the office and by combining the results with air conditioning and lighting levels, you could adjust the ambiance of the office to enable people to relax if necessary," a Panasonic demonstrator said,Staff equipped with sensors could be under permanent surveillance to "improve their posture and productivity," according to Japanese electronics firm TDK.

This also extends to the field of play, with Fujitsu demonstrating a 3D analytical system based on sensors to improve the performance of gymnasts.Using a device created by hygiene firm Lion, patients worried about their teeth can flash a smile at a smartphone and send it to a specialised server that returns data on oral hygiene.

Housing equipment firm Lixil has developed a sensor for the bathtub that measures water temperature and key vital signs like pulse and body temperature in an attempt to reduce sudden bath deaths, which afflict more than 5,000 people annually in the country, 90 percent of them over 65.

Google pushes artificial intelligence

Google pushes artificial intelligence

Technology SS   9:30 PM

Google chief Sundar Pichai, who unveiled the updated Google News earlier this month, 
said the app now "surfaces the news you care about from trusted sources while still giving you a full range of perspectives on events.According to product chief Trystan Upstill, the news app "uses the best of artificial intelligence to find the best of human intelligence -- the great reporting done by journalists around the globe."

While the app will enable users to get "personalized" news, it will also include top stories for all readers, aiming to break the so-called filter bubble of information designed to reinforce people´s biases.

"Having a productive conversation or debate requires everyone to have access to the same information," Upstill said.There´s been a fantasy of (algorithmic) personalized news for a log time," said New York University journalism professor Meredith Broussard.Nobody has ever gotten it right. I think that news designers and home page editors do a good job of curating already."

Google and Facebook have also been criticized for scooping up most online ad revenues and for enabling false information to spread.Recently, News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson called for an "algorithm review board" that would "oversee these historically influential digital platforms and ensure that there is no algorithmic abuse or censorship.

Zuckerberg apologizes Facebook mistakes in Cambridge

Zuckerberg apologizes Facebook mistakes in Cambridge

Technology SS   4:05 PM

The world’s largest social media network is facing growing government scrutiny in Europe and the United States about a whistleblower’s allegations that London-based political consultancy Cambridge Analytica improperly accessed user information to build profiles on American voters that were later used to help elect U.S. President Donald Trump in 2016.This was a major breach of trust. I’m really sorry this happened. We have a basic responsibility to protect people’s data,” Zuckerberg said in an interview with CNN, breaking a public silence since the scandal erupted at the weekend.

Zuckerberg said in a post on Facebook the company "made mistakes, there's more to do, and we need to step up and do it."He said the social network planned to conduct an investigation of thousands of apps that have used Facebook’s platform, restrict developer access to data, and give members a tool that lets them to disable access to their Facebook data more easily.His plans did not represent a big reduction of advertisers’ ability to use Facebook data, which is the company’s lifeblood.Zuckerberg said Facebook was committed to stopping interference in the U.S. midterm election in November and elections in India and Brazil.

The German government said Facebook must explain whether the personal data of the country’s 30 million users were protected from unlawful use by third parties, according to a report in the Funke group of German regional newspapers.

Afghanistan overturns WhatsApp

Afghanistan overturns WhatsApp

Technology SS   5:06 PM

November 1 to November 20 to "resolve technical problems", the communications ministry said last week.

But at a meeting on Monday Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah decided "there will be no ban on Whatsapp & Telegram", Abdullah tweeted.

A statement issued by the presidential palace said Afghanistan's constitution guaranteed the right to freedom of speech and "the National Unity government is committed to protecting those values".

Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Telegram are widely used by Afghans - including Taliban and Islamic State jihadists - and the attempt to ban them had sparked anger among users.

"Blocking WhatsApp and Telegram is the beginning of censorship by the Afghan government and bringing the virtual world under their control in Afghanistan. I think this is intolerable," one Facebook user wrote.

But the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology denied the suspension was an attempt to restrict freedom of speech and said it was considering introducing a "new technology".

Mouse song recorded

Mouse song recorded

Technology SS   3:34 PM

We are recording mice singing.... we're using special microphones because we cannot hear the mice when they're singing because they sing in ultrasonic vocalisations.Humans can't hear above a range of about 20 kHz, but wild mice can sing up to about 120 kHz.

"In order to hear them, you have to bring the frequency down. And then when you hear them then it sounds like a song, like a bird," Dr. Sarah said.

Working with specialists from the Acoustic Research Institute they've built the Automatic Mouse Ultrasound Detector, or A-MUD. It's helping them pinpoint and isolate mice vocalisations far more precisely than previous methods. Research published recently in PLoS ONE says it's revealing clues about their social behaviour. And presenting some confusing results, such as why some wild mice are reluctant to sing under lab conditions.

Dr. Sarah said: "Why do the wild mice males not sing? I want to know this. I really want to know this because it doesn't make any sense. If they attract mates, so you would expect them to sing to attract mates so it must have costs in the wild probably - we don't know."

Chinese scientists replacing WiFi

Chinese scientists replacing WiFi

Technology SS   1:52 PM

While most current research uses rare earth materials to provide the light for LiFi to transmit data, a team of Chinese scientists have created an alternative -- F-CDs, a fluorescent carbon nanomaterial that proves to be safer and faster.

"Many researchers around the world are still working on this. We were the first to successfully create it using cost-effective raw materials such as urea with simple processing," said Qu Songnan, an associate researcher at Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which leads the research.

Qu said rare earth has a long lifespan which reduces the speed of LiFi transmission. However, F-CDs enjoy the advantage of faster data transmission speeds.

In previous studies, carbon dots were limited to the emission of lights such as blue and green. The new nanomaterial that Qu's team has developed can emit all light visible to the human eye, which is a breakthrough in the field of fluorescent carbon nanomaterial.

Qu said this is significant for the development of LiFi, which he expects to enter the market in just six years.

Singapore to deploy driverless buses

Singapore to deploy driverless buses

Technology SS   12:31 PM

Singapore has so far avoided the massive traffic jams that choke other Asian cities like Manila and Jakarta by imposing road tolls, spending massively on public transport and becoming one of the world´s most expensive places to own a car.It now plans to embrace self-driving technology to further reduce reliance on cars and improve how people get around.

Driverless buses will be deployed during off-peak traffic hours in three new suburban towns designed to accommodate the vehicles in a pilot project, said Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan.The autonomous vehicles will greatly enhance the accessibility and connectivity of our public transport system, particularly for the elderly families with young children and the less mobile," he said at the launch of a test centre for self-driving vehicles.

"More importantly, we can gain further insights into how we can develop new towns or refurbish existing ones for the safe mass deployment of autonomous vehicles."

Singapore is asking for input from industry and research institutions on what is needed to implement the project, with industry proposals to be invited after May 2018, he said.