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Flying cars

Boeing and Porsche Partners to Target the Urban Air Mobility Market

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We are moving forward towards the future that the sci-fi writers had always imagined. We are exploring the moon and walking on Mars. And on Earth, this is time to start riding the flying cars. From Uber to SeaBubble, many companies have shown their interest in flying cars-taxis and are already working on that. And after these companies, now it is Boeing’s turn to actually bring one, and for that, the company has partnered with the top luxury car brand, Porsche.

The two companies have signed an MoU, under which they together will be working to help reduce the traffic on the road and move it to the airspace, with their new concept for the “premium” eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) air cars.

“Porsche is looking to enhance its scope as a sports car manufacturer by becoming a leading brand for premium mobility. In the longer term, this could mean moving into the third dimension of travel. We are combining the strengths of two leading global companies to address a potential key market segment of the future,” said Detlev von Platen, member of the executive board for sales and marketing at Porsche AG, Germany.

Flying cars
Image source: TechCrunch

The two companies will be working on designing a new aircraft, that will also include its development and the testing. The companies will also be researching the urban air-mobility market for highly populated cities and metropolises.

Even Boeing has already started working on its flying cars and did conduct an inaugural test flight of an aerial car prototype early this year. For now, the companies are looking forward to bring flying cars that would be used for ride-sharing that would contribute to reducing the traffic as well as pollution for the big cities.

The companies will be assembling an international team with the experience and skills in the same field. The team will be analysing the scope and the viability of the electric flying cars in the coming future. Porsche has already been working and researching in the same field for quite some time now, and according to its researches, we can expect the eVTOL market to be active as soon as 2025. The companies like Uber are already up to building flying taxis, so by 2025, we may also see the Porsche air-taxis flying over us.

virgin orbit

Virgin Orbit Plans to Be the First Company to Send Commercial CubeSats to Mars

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There are none of the companies which is not interested in exploring the Red Planet. Now the spin-off company of Richard Branson‘s space tourism company Virgin Galactic, the Virgin Orbit has also got new plans to explore the Earth’s neighbouring planet.

Today the company announced that it has partnered with a Polish satellite company, SatRevolution, such that together these will be working on building smallsat CubeSats and send them to Mars. The company has also got around a dozen Polish universities, including AGH University of Science and Technology, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, having a vast experience in the space technology, onboard to work on the same project. Virgin Orbit also revealed that the company is trying to get its first satellite ready and send it as soon as 2022.

The company’s new mission is said to be inspired by NASA’s recent InSight mission. NASA under its InSight mission successfully sent two CubeSats (small spacecraft of the size of a cereal box) to Mars in November 2018, And now, Virgin Orbit wants to send a series of CubeSats to the Red Planet under its three robotic missions.

virgin orbit
Image Source: ukdefencejournal.org.uk

The company will carry out the three missions in the next decade starting from 2022. These missions will make Virgin Orbit the first private company to complete a purely commercial trip to Mars, as there are only four organisation that has successfully completed their Mars missions and that too, the government-owned ones. Even the Major player in the private space industry, SpaceX has not been able to do a similar mission till now.

So the mission might not only be to send the CubeSats to Mars, but to make Virgin Orbit the first company for bringing commercial CubeSats to the “Red Planet”.

According to the company, despite being small satellites, the CubeSats will help to dig deeper into Mars’ atmospheric conditions, its orbit as well as surface and help in researching on the planet by providing key information. The smallsats will be able to click and send in images, analyse the Mars’ atmosphere, and even look for water on and under the martian surface. The company has not given any other information but has revealed that the spacecraft can weigh around 50 KG.

The company will be operating from multiple spaceports including the Mojave Air, Space Port in California as well as Cornwall Spaceport in the U.K. The company will be making use of its LauncherOne rocket to launch the CubeSats from in between the air.

Playstation 5

Playstation 5 is the New Console from Sony Coming in 2020 Holidays

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Keeping the legacy, Sony has followed the tradition and has announced that its “next-generation console” will be called the PlayStation 5. The company also accepted that it would be simple for the users to call it a PS5. Though in April Sony had revealed that it is looking forward to selecting a fancy name for the console, it seems that there is nothing that would better suit it than being called PlayStation 5.

Along with the new name, the company has also revealed some details about its new and upgraded controller, which possibly will be called Dualshock 5. The new controller has been incorporated with new haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. The haptic feedback is a replacement for Sony’s rumble technology, which has been there in every console from the fifth generation consoles of the PlayStation.

With the new haptic feedback, the upgraded console will offer a “broader range of feedback.” The new update will make you feel different things in different ways, like the company said in its blog, the crashing on the wall and making a tackle on the football field will feel much different from each other. The upgrade will also make you feel the various textures when running through in the game while playing.

Playstation 5
Image Source: express.co.uk

On the other hand, the adaptive triggers will be installed in the primary R2/L2 triggers on the PS5’s controller. The new adaptive triggers are programmable ones, such that the developers can “program the resistance of the triggers.” As the name suggests, the controller will adapt to the scenarios in the game, and the players will get to feel the resistance and the increased tension in their hands through the controller. The company has already sent the early versions of the new controller to the creators so that they can make use of its features for the development of new games.

Sony said in the blog post that when the two features will work together the player will get a beyond realistic experience. The company did not confirm the name of the controller, but as it has given the latest version of the console a similar name, i.e. PlayStation 5, there is a possibility that the new controller will be called the Dualshock 5 as well. Other than these updates, the company has revealed that it will be launching the new PlayStation in the holidays season of the next year. So there is almost a year in between the launch of the new console. And meanwhile, the company will be making frequent about the new features of the console before the launch.

Google Shopping

Google Shopping Gets Redesigned with New Price Tracking Features and More

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Online shopping has not only made the shopping experience the most convenient one for the buyers but also, it has opened new doors for the sellers. Google being one platform to connect buyers to different sellers, the company has now redesigned the whole shopping search experience for its users.

People often search directly on Google for a particular product, and through the results, they go to different websites to compare the prices. The company has added a new feature to its searches, such that now, the users can directly compare goods on Google Shopping. This very feature includes another new option for the users to see how a particular dress would look in different styles and on different people.

For instance, if the users want to see a particular piece of clothing, say a floral skirt, on different people, they need to get a picture of it and upload to Google Shopping. The picture can be from the internet, from a store where a mannequin wearing that piece of clothing, or from even their closet. They just need to click the picture and put it into the Google Lens in Google Photos. Then Google, through its Lens’ smart technology, will display the pictures of various people with similar clothing.

Google Shopping
Image Source: livemint.com

The redesign has been done for both desktop as well as the mobile website, but the feature, for now, is only available for the people in the US. Google shopping has got its own redesigned homepage, where the user will get to see personalised items, as soon Google identifies the preferences of a user. Also, the user can not only search for things but can track and compare the prices. The tracking will send them a notification whenever the price of a product drops, so that, they can buy it on affordable prices.

Google-owned delivery service the Google Express will also be playing a part in the new redesign, as the users can order things they found online, and now, they don’t have to worry about the deliveries.

Pinterest has been the biggest player when it comes to comparing various designs and styles online, whether for clothing or the decor. With the new feature, Google will be boarding the same boat as Pinterest. But in the case of Google, the users can also compare the prices of a product. And, when you are putting any random pictures on it, and it is providing you exactly what you want in the results, what can be smarter than that? Though Pinterest is also working on similar technology, so we need to wait, and see, if it is going to be as good as the one from Google or not.

Instagram Restrict

Instagram Rolls Out its Restrict Feature to Fight Cyberbullies

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Though the internet has brought so many positive changes to our daily life, there has been some of the hazardous effects of the same as well. Cyberbullying is one such bad situation that has been promoted on many on the social media platforms, and people are getting affected by this mentally. The owner of these social media platforms are well aware and have been thinking of new ways to put a restriction on the bullies.

Instagram, one of the top social media platforms, is no different and have been facing the same bullying stuff. The company has taken proper measures for stopping such activities on the platform. It has already set up a team of moderators as well to keep an eye on the daily comments. But still, with the everyday bullying, it has not been able to keep up with it and has been a part of major criticism. In July this year, the company took another step to handle cyberbullying and introduced the beta of a new feature, named Restrict, that would help the content creators to hide the hate comments on their posts.

Today, the company announced that the very feature will now be available to the general public, and people will be able to shadowban the users and their comments including the hate speech. Being shadowbanned means that the user making the hate comment will have no idea that his/her comment has been restricted, and no one else, other than them, can see the comment after it has been made hidden.

Instagram Restrict

To restrict a hate comment, the user needs to swipe left on that very comment. If the person continues to post such comments on other posts as well the user can directly go to the person’s profile and restrict all their comments. The feature will also keep the bullies from seeing if the user who has restricted them is ever active. The feature is similar to the Mute feature from Twitter, thus, won’t block the user entirely. This way, the bullies can still send the users direct messages, but these messages will go to the message request folder of the recipient. With the feature, even if the user has read the message, the bullies cannot see if the user has seen the message or not.

“Bullying is a complex issue, and we know that young people face a disproportionate amount of online bullying but are reluctant to report or block peers who bully them,” Instagram said, “Restrict is designed to empower you to quietly protect your account while still keeping an eye on the bully.”

Instagram has been the favourites of not only the teens, but the celebrities also like to post their daily pictures and events on it, as it has got the most active audience. But there is no one who has not faced hate speech on their account and is unable to fight it completely. Instagram has already got the blocking the user feature on it. And now, with new restrict feature, there may be some hope the users for fighting against the bullies.

Personal Vault

Microsoft Launches the Personal Vault for its Worldwide Users

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Having enough data storage is the biggest issue today. Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft’s OneDrive, being the biggest player in the field, try to provide better services to its users. Recently, Microsoft added extra security to its OneDrive with a new feature called OneDrive Personal Vault. The feature, on its release, was only available for some selective markets, but from today onwards, the company has made it available to its worldwide users.

The Personal Vault feature enhances the security of the user’s account by allowing them to enable various security functions to their accounts. These security functions include two-step authentication that can be through fingerprints, facial recognition, a pin sent to one’s email address, to mobile number through SMS, or even through Microsoft Authenticator.

Though the feature has been opened for the public worldwide, it will be first available in countries like Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. And, it is earlier than the date that was scheduled for its worldwide release. So the users from the other countries do not have to worry as the feature will reach them as soon as the year ends.

Personal Vault
Image Source: trustedreviews.com

The feature is available for every user, but won’t provide the full-fledged experience to all of them, as some of the users are not the paid ones. There are limitations for free users. The ones who have subscribed for the free version of Microsoft OneDrive, do have access to the Vault, but they can only put only three files in it. Whereas, the ones who are Office 365 users, they do not have to worry about the number of files, as they can put as many files in the Personal Vault as they want to, based on the storage limit they have paid for.

Other than the secure storage, the new Vault can also scan the documents which get extra security. The Vault also gets automatically locked if it remains inactive for some time. So, the user needs to login to it again to use it. The Vault also restricts the accidental sharing of the files. If you are using the Vault on a Windows 10 PC, the files in the Vault get automatically synced to the BitLocker encrypted drive on the PC.

Microsoft along with the Personal Vault also introduced the new storage options for One Drive. That means that the Office 365 users now can expand their 1TB storage in 200GB increments, starting at $1.99 a month per 200GB. The company also revealed features like the dark mode for OneDrive on iOS, and the PC Folder backup, which will make OneDrive to backup your Windows 10 PC’s folders to the cloud.