Technowize Magazine Q1 2015

1 / Technowize Magazine / February 2015

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Editor’s Note February 2015

T

echnology is on the cusp of singularly reinventing our bodies. A good example of this is the way technology is changing our notions of disability. When Össur made the world’s first integrated bionic leg, disability ceased to exist. From prosthetics to bionic organs, advances in the increasingly significant field of prosthetics are unbounded and endless. That’s the beauty of it.

This issue, we decided to examine the advances in the field of bionics: some of these technologies are meant to help people regain normal bodily functions, while some are meant to help give people superhuman capabilities (p 62). At the moment, such advances may be considered as mere human augmentation tools, but in a posthuman future where transhumanism is an inevitable feat it will help us live a long, healthy, strong and smart life.

Biological defaunation, climate change and the spiraling population expansion

of the human race, calls for scenarios for human settlement and terraforming other planets Elon Musk argues that we must put a million people on Mars if we are to ensure that humanity has a future. Futurist unfolds Elon Musk’s ambition to colonize on Mars (p 82).

Plunge in.

The rest of the issue stories are just as carefully handcrafted. Flip the page to Technopolis (p 28) where we bring you our favorite picks from a slew of this year’s hottest ‘Health and Wellness Gadgets’. You don’t need pills and webMD. All you need are running shoes, a slew of some of these gadgets and apps and determination. Is changing what ‘see your doctor’ means.

For those keen to feel the chill of antiGoogle sentiment in Europe, I would recommend reading Button Masher (p 74) that finds out how a start-up French search engine is tapping into growing anger on Google. Diary of a Technopreneur (p 80) brings to you 3 / Technowize Magazine / February 2015

Jack Ma, where he talks about his plans for the future, vision for growth, China and more. Whether you’re a Starwars cognoscente, Polaroid aficionado, Typewriter fan, our nerdy list of classic retro gadgets that are

making a comeback (p 46) in today’s hi-tech generation will leave you with a hint of smiles.

Happy viewing, and reading!

Like always, we welcome your comments (facebook.com/Technowize, @ technowize on Twitter). You may reach us at editor@technowize.com or Editor - Technowize, The Fastest Media, 3651 Lindell Road, Suite 320D, Las Vegas, NV 89103.

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Content Features

82

ELON MUSK & THE RED PLANET

022

Young Techies realizing their social responsibilities

036

A smart cigarette lighter is just what you need to stop smoking

046

Classic Toys are back: Tech world is undergoing a RETRO Renaissance

050

The Pinball Immortal

094

Is Graphene more than just a thin layer of pure carbon?

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003

Editor’s Note

010

Haute Money

028

Technopolis

080

Diary of a Technopreneur

094

Pandora’s Box

104

Tech Ed

108

Tech Events & Conferences

74

CAN QWANT CHALLENGE GOOGLE?

62

ADVANCED

BIONICS 7 / Technowize Magazine / February 2015

THE TEAM Editorial Anna Domanska, Editor-in-Chief Christy Gren, Sub-Editor Riana Petanjek, Sub-Editor Priyansha Mistry, Sub-Editor Aubrey Change, Associate Editor

Design Kevin Paul Sr. Grahpic Designer

Project Management Tony Raval Project Director Jay Raol Project Director

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Marketing Jason Miller Sr. Project Director

Advertising Richard Dean, Advertising Manager

96

Technology John Hancock Head-Web Department Le Manh Coung, Sr Sofrware Coordinator Julia Hunt, Magazine Production

Finance Control R R Baratiya

114

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HAUTE MONEY Bringing you the latest cult coverage straight from the tech world- find out about people and companies defining the cutting edge of technology and shaping leaders of the future: entrepreneurs coming from situations set against the backdrop of humble environments.

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HAUTE MONEY

Facebook

bug bounty program gets better than ever

(A Facebook “White Hat� debit card, given to researchers who report security bugs) 12 / Technowize Magazine / February 2015

Every year Facebook’s security community pays out millions of dollars to people who report bugs. Last year Facebook paid $1.3 million to 321 hackers worldwide for pointing out security flaws in the social network’s software.

What started off as an award program in 2011, has become a rage amongst internet junkies and hackers worldwide. The idea is simple - Facebook pays out money to anyone and everyone who is capable of reporting certain security gaps in the giant web setup’s functioning.

The year of 2014 saw a whopping 17,011 bug reports being submitted to Facebook’s security board. Facebook even facilitated bug trackers by releasing guides that would help them write better reports and earn even more money.

Facebook has seen an increase in the number of users who willingly share their personal information on the giant social network. Cybersecurity experts claim that due to this, there will also be an increase in the number of hackers on the internet

due to this. Flaws that allow these hackers to upload data on Facebook, read user’s personal messages, and post on their timelines can be a huge threat to every user’s security.

Criminal hackers can use the personal information on the web to verify a person’s identity, send out unnecessary spams to everyone on the user’s contact list, or get access to information associated with other accounts.

There exists a huge black market in the operation of the likes of hacking and swindling.

According to the nonprofit, the amount of money tech companies pay out to bug hunters is only a fraction of what is offered in the black market, which is more profitable that the illegal drug trading business.

This year has been no exception to the submission of a high number of bug reports, with more than a 100 reports already submitted in the past two months.

Since the social network started its bug bounty program in 2011, it has paid more than $3 million.

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HAUTE MONEY

(In past one year, Google has acquired ar related companies)

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Google Announces Collaboration WITH Oxford University on AI Research

round 8 AI

In a blog entry by Google’s vice president of engineering, Demis Hassabis, Google announced a partnership with Oxford University to join forces on Artificial Intelligence (AI) research in areas where, it needs a broader understanding in natural language comprehension and image recognition.

Hassabis wrote that Google will be working with Dark Blue Labs and Vision Factory. Both the companies were founded by seven research specialists, a few of whom are based at the Oxford University.

Dark Blue Labs, which embodies “four world leading experts in the use of deep learning for natural language understanding,” will lead the research and upgrade voice recognition technology.

Vision Factory will proceed with their work creating visual recognition technology utilizing deep learning, which is basically about instructing machines to process and understand the data the way humans do.

Hassabis said that the partnership will include Google in making a sizeable commitment for the foundation of a research association with the Computer Science Department and the Engineering Department at Oxford University.

Both will include student internship programs as well as a series of joint lectures and workshops for knowledge sharing and expertise.

Before Google acquired DeepMind in January 2014, the London-based startup had received funding from a few prominent tech investors and entrepreneurs, empowering it to launch applications joined with simulations, e-commerce, and games.

Google has been tight lipped about any specific plans for its AI research program. It should be noted that in the past one year, Google has acquired around 8 Artificial Intelligence firms and four other Robotics or AI related companies – all under AI research at Google’s semi-secret Google[x] Lab.

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HAUTE MONEY

(Pictured: Leon Panetta)

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Ex CIA director to be named as Oracle’s Board of directors Former US Secretary of Defense and ex director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Leon Panetta has been appointed as Oracle Company’s board of directors.

In a statement released on 19th January, the tech giant, Oracle proclaimed that Panetta has been unanimously nominated to operate on the company’s board of directors.

Larry Ellison, chairman of the board of directors and chief technology officer said, “We are honored to welcome Secretary Panetta to our Board.”

Dr. Michael Boskin, chair of the nomination committee as well as a board of director at Oracle says that Secretary Panetta is a self-motivated leader with an imminent record of public service at the highest level of governance. He takes long strides towards adding profound great proficiency and bringing a new outlook to the board of Director’s panel.

The ex-White House Chief of Staff, is a pronounced career bureaucrat and politician, having served as the Secretary of Defense from 2011 to 2013, under the Obama Administered régime and as a CIA Director from 2009 to 2011. He has previously been a director at Monterey Bay Aquarium, Zenith National Insurance Corp., NYSE Euronext Inc., and numerous other private enterprises and nonprofits.

Between 1977 and 1993, Leon Panetta functioned as a member of the US House of Representatives. Panetta is presently a director at Inc. and IDT Telecom.

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HAUTE MONEY

(Image Source: Uber Blog) 18 / Technowize Magazine / February 2015

HAS GOOGLE

BACKSTABBED UBER? Remember the time when Google was experimenting with robot cars? It was certainly not for fun. Looks like Google has now graduated from just investing into Uber to developing its own driverless cars. In 2013, Google invested a whopping $258 million in Uber. That same year Google’s chief counsel, David Drummond procured a position in Uber as a Board of Director.

This has now proved to be a disadvantage for Uber since Drummond knows about Uber from its core. Uber, under a constant pressure of being outflanked, is now working towards having Drummond to resign from the board of Directors since Google’s ridehailing services could be in direct competition with Uber’s existing taxi services.

Google’s idea of developing driver-less taxis would mean more safety for passengers in terms of being assaulted or mugged. It would also make the service cheaper for consumers by getting rid of the drivers. This, however, has chances of completely wiping out Uber’s presence from the taxi-service market.

Despite all the advantages, passengers are sure to be inundated with a lot of ads inside Google’s taxi.

Google has been working on its own car-pooling app, of which screenshots have already been shared by an Uber executive. A source has also claimed that ‘Googlers’ have already started using the driver-less cabs which is why Uber is now trying to partner with the robotics department at Carnegie Mellon University to develop its own driverless taxi service.

However, Uber could again be at a disadvantage since it depends heavily on Google maps and divorcing with Google would mean finding a new maps partner.

Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt was once a part of Apple’s Board of Directors.

He was asked to resign in 2009 after Steve Jobs discovered Google’s involvement in the development of Android, iOS software’s direct competitor.

Could Google be on a verge of having its reputation as a backstabber again? Only time will tell.

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HAUTE MONEY

Unleash the 21st century beverage revolution with the LifeAID drinks The 3-year-old Santa Cruz company, LifeAID has established a huge international presence, ramped up its production to shipping 1 million cans a month and is now in need of a bigger working space in Wrigley building on the Westside.

The major reason why LifeAID has been extensively competing with so many beverage companies is because it produces naturally sweetened, wholesome synergy drinks that are not anywhere close to being energy drinks, containing all the essential supplements needed by the body at different times.

The co-founders of LifeAID, who are golfers themselves, came up with the idea of combining all the supplements they had been taking naturally into a drink that is gluten-free, healthy and strengthening. They realized the growing needs of consumers for healthy, fat-free drinks.

An interesting fun fact is that they came up with this idea on the golf course itself, while in a need of a natural drink. They presented these drinks at seven golf courses and were startled when it came under Golf Digest’s notice.

Each formulation is customized in a way to cater the needs of whatever activity it is targeted for and includes a unique mixture of vitamins, herbs and proteins. The drinks are natural, contain only 45 calories per can, and are sweetened using organic blue agave. There is absolutely no addition of preservatives, no high fructose corn syrup, or artificial colors and sweeteners. The drinks are as pure as holy water.

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HAUTE MONEY

(Pictured: Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Image Source: Brian Solis)

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Young techies realizing their social responsibilities The reputation of young techies as extravagant spenders has changed ever since the Chronicle of Philanthropy‘s list of top 50 donors in 2014 came out. Twelve new names of young entrepreneurs who made success in the tech businesses have appeared in the list.

America’s 50 most liberal benefactors expanded their giving by 27.5 percent a year ago controlled in large amounts by a $1.5-billion blessing from Bill and Melinda Gates. This charity was addressed to their family foundation, which looks after poverty and health care of people worldwide.

Two of the young technology innovators, Jan Koum and Sean Parker are now changing the face of generous philanthropies by their enormous donations. The former, Jan Koum, who is the 38-year-old founder of the messaging company WhatsApp, donated $556-million to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, securing number 4 position on The Chronicle’s Philanthropy 50, while Parker, the 35-year-old former Facebook president who is also the founder of Napster, ranked No. 5 by contributing $550-million to the Sean N. Parker Foundation along with his donor-advised fund.

The number 6 position was held by Nicholas and Jill Woodman cofounders of the high-tech camera company GoPro, who donated at about $500 million and are also starting to open a donor-advised fund called the Jill + Nicholas Woodman Foundation.

Among the list’s top 50 donors, young techies represented almost 50% of the sum donated. The list also features 8 other entrepreneurs who come from the world of technology, making it a total of 12 such kind of personalities.

In 2013 Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, became the first donors under 30 on the list, by donating nearly $1-billion to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, which is today the richest Community foundation in the country.

It clearly conveys that the tech giants are becoming aware of their social responsibilities by donating whopping amounts to organizations that would hopefully use it for the promotion of other resources instead of paying for leading into paying for huge budget deficits.

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HAUTE MONEY

Will Apple be able to compete with Xiaomi in China?

Xiaomi, the Chinese electronics company from Beijing, sells cheaper phones compared to the iPhone, making this fact its biggest unique selling point. With the Xiaomi Mi4 selling for half the price of the iPhone 5s, iPhone’s market share is sure to reduce down a great deal.

In the past few years, Apple has benefitted enormously by selling its products in the world’s second largest economy, China. However its time when Apple should start worrying about new emerging smartphone developers in China, the top one being Xiaomi.

Although Apple has appealed majorly to the brand conscious segment of the market, after Xiaomi’s success, Apple could lose customers who are not premium shoppers. However, after releasing the iPhone 6 and 6 plus in China, Apple was able to overcome the shortcomings of a small screen smartphone, as most of the Chinese market is obsessed with big screen phones.

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(Pictured: iPhone 5S)

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HAUTE MONEY Slack, a Group Chat on Steroids Valued at $1.2 Billion How can one irksome idea for an enterprise company turn into a buzzing hive of a startup in Silicon Valley? Ask Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Flicker and the instant classic cult Glitch, and now chief executive of Slack, a communication startup valued at more than $1.2 billion.

Reaching such massive numbers in valuation in less than 8 months is something quite unheard of. Slack is basically a chat room like an internal communication tool for businesses with advanced search and file-sharing functionalities. The enterprise company aims to make selling products to businesses, opposed to individual consumers.

In October 2012, it nabbed another $120 million in a financing round, where several venture capitalists believed that Butterfield is building an enterprise company that will reign the world of online collaboration for the next 100 years.

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Today, Slack had nabbed more than 250,000 individuals using the product on a daily basis, with 70,000 of them being paid users. There are more than 30,000 teams using the collaboration tool, sending more than 200 million messages in a month. It is expected to eclipse $10 million in the annual recurring revenue in 2014 – a figure much difficult to reach for most early-stage enterprise software companies.

However, this isn’t what makes Slack so special. It can work with a dozen other online services that are essential in today’s competitive business world. It integrates with many other software services like Dropbox, Github, ZenDesk, Google Drive, Hersoku, MailChimp and many others. Everything is archived and made easily searchable by employees – including chats, Twitter messages, and customer service tickets.

So instead of letting the I.T. department administrator decide what specific set of tools the entire company will utilize, workers can choose what programs work best for them and integrate them with Slack.

Today’s enterprise model of software purchasing is constantly evolving. In the past, several years businesses have become much more open to such lucrative options.

Managers want to identify what works best for their workers and try to support their decisions. There has been a substantial shift from I.T. purchase decisions being made by chief information officers and I.T. staff to heads of different departments and marketing directors. Businesses today are more fascinated towards the very idea of empowering their teams.

(Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Flicker and instant classic cult Glitch, is the executive of Slack)

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TECHNOPOLIS Health & Wellness Gadgets that could save you a Trip to the Doctor Does the thought of getting fitter and better by the day jangle through the very bones of your skull? Health junkies can now enhance their wellbeing with the help of these gadgets that are revolutionizing traditional fitness methods.

For, though an athlete is born every minute because there is no dearth of fitness junkies in the world, normal people now have a far greater scope of boosting their healths.

Find out what gadgets are essential in making your mind feel relaxed, or your body feeling rejuvenated. Technopolis brings to you a list of health gadgets that can save you from the usual tedious ordeal of using traditional gadgets to manually record health statistics.

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TECHNOPOLIS

(Pictured: Smart Mat)

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Because Yoga classes are not possible everywhere you go Between busy work programs and hectic schedules, life throws a series of physical and mental struggles. Finding time to relax and chill is not always easy.

The new SmartMat is built with responsive sensors that link to your smartphone or tablet, guiding you through a series of audio and visual indicators that give you a more detailed and insightful yoga practice.

It is layered with micro sensors, embedded into the soft surface of the mat to provide instantaneous tutoring and personalized information.

SmartMat works like a personalized yoga instructor, the likes of which are difficult to find these days. It connects easily with the app on your phone to give you deeper insights on how to do an asana the way it is done.

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TECHNOPOLIS Don’t worry about bad breath and oral health now Your oral health can tell you a lot about your overall health. In fact, a disease in the mouth can affect your entire body.

Introducing Breathometer’s Mint- the world’s first handy Breath Quality detecting and Hydration level recognizing product.

Place Mint in your mouth and allow it to automatically examine a sample of the air in your mouth. It will then transfer all the information regarding your mouth’s oral health to the Breathometer app on your smartphone which will display the quality of your breath and tell you how hydrated you are.

This $100 Bluetooth powered breath analyzer will analyze your entire day’s food consumption, alcohol intake, bacteria and other disease manifestations.

Mint Developers believe that by making the general public aware of their oral healths, which in turn is related to their overall healths, they can better their lives.

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(Pictured: Breathometer Mint)

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TECHNOPOLIS

(Pictured: ResMed’s S+ Sleep Sensor)

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Here’s a device that will tell you how much you need to sleep and exercise According to the data collected by the National Sleep Foundation, 60% of the people have sleeping problems almost every night.

The stylish new S+ sleep sensor from ResMed renews your sleeping patterns by efficiently monitoring everything that has got to do with a sound sleep.

ResMed’s S+ sleep sensor promises to track sleep as well as steps, calories and all the other basic activities of the user’s system by providing tailored sleeping counselling. It also monitors temperature, light and noise in your bedroom, as well as your movement and breathing while you are sleeping.

All the factors that impact your sleep are analyzed thoroughly in ResMed’s cloud and further presented into the form of various graphs and charts in the app.

The device helps rekindle healthy sleeping patterns by analyzing everything from your physical make-up to your alcohol and caffeine consumption to the prescribed medications you take.

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TECHNOPOLIS QuitBit-kick that cigarette’s butt out of your life Ever thought that a cigarette lighter could make you quit smoking? Don’t be shocked because that thought is now reality.

The $99 cigarette lighter was first launched at the CES 2015 and tracks how much the consumer has smoked and blocks them from lighting up after a point of time.

The QuitBit works in a similar fashion as a car lighter, with a lustrous black surface design and an LED screen that shows all the information related to a person’s smoking habits.

It is a smart and an easy device to get information about the amount of time since a person’s last cigarette, the device’s battery life, and messages concerning the person’s smoking routine.

Imagine how easily you will be able to cut down on smoking, by waiting the amount of time left before you can light up your next one. With the newest app, you can not only calculate the amount of money saved but also calculate the years of your life that you saved by not smoking those extra cigarettes.

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(Pictured: QuitBit Smart Lighter)

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TECHNOPOLIS

(Pictured: MyBrain Melomind)

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Mellow yourself down by the MyBrain Melomind Stress is a growing problem these days and amidst our in the midst of our busy lives, we hardly ever find sufficient time to relax and fight all that stress dwelling on us.

Here’s presenting you the MyBrain Melomind- a consumer friendly electroencephalography (EEG) device that monitors our brain’s activities to give us new ways to deal with stress.

It uses music as a tool to deliver its users a mellowing down experience to help them relax.

The device comes in the form of a portable headset and uses the app for Android and iOS via Bluetooth to determine the electrical activity of the brain. The inbuilt sensors instantly deduce the user’s state of mind, after they simply don the headset and connect it to the app on their smartphones.

MyBrain developers claim that with repeated usage of this device, the brain can become accustomed to automatically evoke those certain states of mind to better manage stress in the long run.

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TECHNOPOLIS Don’t simply wear a watch.

Track yourself…

This stylish Withings Activite pop watch does not just tell you the time. There’s a lot more than what meets the eye. The Withings Activite pop watch gives you statistics about your steps, sleep and weight.

It also tracks your steps, swim strokes and laps. The silent alarm is another added feature which gives us a clear idea of how the developers of this unique watch have given remarkable attention to its design and special features to make it stand out from the rest of the watches in store.

Albeit the smoothly curved face and traditional dial, it doesn’t actually look like an activity tracker, it can deceive you into believing its nothing but fancy looks. This old fashioned approach to display useful data to the users is what makes the new Activite pop watch a most interesting buy for every consumer out there.

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(Pictured: Withings Activite Pop Watch)

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TECHNOPOLIS

(Pictured: eSkin Thermometer )

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This cute bear sticker is actually an eSkin Thermometer This interesting skin patch by VivaLnk comes in the form of a bear shaped sticker that users can use to find out their body temperature. The eSkin thermometer uses NFC technology and all the wearer has to do is bring their phones close to the patch and scan it to get the temperature data on their phones.

It can be used easily around children, who are normally hard to please. According to VivaLnk, the sticker lasts about 15 days, can be rinsed and cleansed, so it stays fresh for its next usage.

You could basically stick it on yourself or your child’s forehead for the duration of their sickness without having to regularly change it.

It truly seems like VivaLnk astonished everyone at the CES 2015 after taking the wraps off this smart technology meant for kids.

Research In Motion Limited (RIM) 43 / Technowize Magazine / February 2015

TECHNOPOLIS BLOOM- helping couples conceive Apart from all those useful and interesting gadgets that were featured at the CES 2015, BLOOM developed by Prima-Temp, a company that hails from Boulder, Colorado, secured its place as an essential product for couples who want to have a baby.

The brand new BLOOM body temperature fertility device measures core body temperatures of the woman after being inserted into the vagina, from where all the readings are wirelessly sent to a paired smartphone. This smart way of precisely tracking a female’s body temperature is used to notify her as to when she is at her most fertile period.

Now there’s no need to manually take readings to find out when to get your man under the sheets. Having this device can save you from that kind of a job. What’s best? It even provides inside temperature data during the woman’s sleep, reporting that kind of data would be difficult to obtain otherwise.

If there’s anything that can make life easy as a pie, it is these gadgets that can doddle up your otherwise unhealthy lifestyle.

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(Pictured: Bloom Ring)

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Classic Toys are back:

Tech world is undergoing a RETRO Renaissance 46 / Technowize Magazine / February 2015

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Old School to High End Cool Classic toys have proven the test of time, and are once again basking in the spotlight. Visit a store aimed at teens and 20-something, like Urban Outfitters and Topshop, and you’ll find a roster of lovely, wacky and offbeat retro gadgets, accessories and toys, that will canoodle you into reigniting the old flame into your life.

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A little while ago we looked at the Atari Arcade Duo for iPad and now we’re turning our attention to the realm of vintage technologies plus-minus the dinosaur sized ancestry to explore the continuing appeal of retro gadgets with cutting-edge hardwares. It leaves us wondering if we’ve suddenly entered this post-modern anti-consumerism era, where retro inspired gadgets are making nostalgia easily accessible than ever.

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The Pinball Immortal Pinball machine, the descendant of the 250 year old Bagatelle, stole the show flamboyantly at the Consumer Electronics Show 2015. Retailing in between $5,000 to $6,000, collecting a pinball table is not a cheap hobby.

It’s mostly arcade owners, cinemas, collectors and record buyers making up to be the biggest customers. Gary Stern, president of Stern Pinball confirms the trend. In 2014, sales rose by 30 %, and the pinball is in the midst of a full-blown resurgence. Stern Pinball, the oldest and the largest designer and manufacturer of pinball machines showcased Wrestlemania pinball machine packed with nostalgia and craftsmanship to compete with the flashy Jersey Jack.

This new Wrestlemania pinball machine is a mushy love letter to WWE and classic vintage, which has undergone an overdue optimization. Under its hood, you’ll find an entirely new and efficient

electronic software and hardware, a huge improvement from the outdated boxy systems and switches. The Wrestlemania pinball machine runs on Linux, its parts are pinned to the wooden blank using CAT5 cabling and LED lights. Thanks to 3-channel sound, its audio has become notably better. It’s not just that, Stern also doubled the size of its amplifier and included a headphone jack. A USB port allows faster system updates, including short circuit protection that has been refined across the table’s components. According to Paul Mandeltort, Stern’s director of parts and accessories, Wrestlemania is the most efficient electric pinball table ever made.

We’ve seen Simpsons, The Walking Dead, AC/DC and Star Trek before, but the Wrestlemania pinball machine brings a whole new meaning to pinning the opponent.

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Calling for all Vinyl lovers to unite!

For music purists and nostalgists, vinyl is the only way to listen to music. It gives a more involved and intimate listening experience than popping in a cassette tape or playing a melody on a laptop or MP3 player. The 19th century analog technology long presumed to be dead, is now making a speedy resurrection in the hall of inception of its reign.

2010-20 was going to be the decade of feminism conquering pop culture, but five years into it and it’s almost axiomatic that it could slowly turn into the decade of vinyl records. In 2014, Vinylism bolstered sales, with a record 9.2 million LPs sold in the U.S. alone, etching a 52% increase over the year before. In the U.K, the number reached one million. The numbers are also the highest recorded in past two decades. Vinyl is clearer,

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richer and warmer. Most industry experts agree that it remains popular amongst audiophiles because of the high-quality sound it delivers, rather than the music snobbery doing all the talking.

Audiophiles and disc jockeys are nowadays plunging their money on classic retro vinyl LP players complete with brown wooden cabinet and fabric cover for its speakers that can play vinyl records, LPs and even MP3 files via a USB slot or stream music via Bluetooth from devices. The only thing missing is the good’ol slot for cassette and the eight-track tapes. Electrohome Signature Music System and Pyle Vintage PVTTBT8 Vinyl Player to name a few can be easily available with innovative technologies at $200 and $110 respectively.

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Polaroid, the out-of-touch cousin of Digital Cameras Polaroid cameras were once an inestimable blessing for couples interested in erotic photography. It saved the embarrassing trip to the pharmacy to get those pictures developed. The Great 2014 Celebrity Nude Photos leak made it clear, that privacy isn’t what it used to be. Polaroids are making a scrupulous comeback, with an explosive cult following as people look to protect their privacy in the age of Instagram and Snapchat.

Privacy isn’t the only reason behind Polaroid’s nostalgia-fuelled revival.

Creed O’Hanlon, CEO of The Impossible Project, which snatched manufacturing Polaroid products from the jaws of death in 2007. The company is growing and spreading its wings more widely than even the most passionate Polaroid aficionados could have imagined. In 2014, The Impossible Project saw a 75% rise in sales amongst the 18-25 demographic. The volume of films sold doubled, and more than 30,000 classic

Polaroid cameras were refurbished. The numbers are expected to double in 2015.

American travel photographer Mike Brodie and British photographer Mark Borthwick have also been credited with helping the Polaroid resurrection.

Singers such as Lana Del Rey, Taylor Swift, and Miley Cyrus have also been credited to bringing the iconic symbol of democratization of photography back in the age of photo-neurosis. Young people embrace it, since they’re tangible, oneoff and distinctive. Today, Polaroids available on the market are a result of cataclysmal dovetailing of retro and contemporary technologies.

Devices such as Impossible Instant Lab, a portable camera that instantly develops and prints photos of digital images taken directly from the iPhone, or the Prynt Case that attaches to smartphones to let user’s print physical photos are available in the market for $299 and $99 respectively.

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Trendsp otting

USB Typewriter? Check.

Typewriters are no more a dying breed.

Last year, the NSA pushed the masses towards this vieux jeu writing machine rather than a laptop. Typewriters are now turning into the ultimate hipsterdom weapon, reinforcing their social dominance.

The revived interest in typewriters has led to splice between the antediluvian writing tools and modern tech standbys.

Tom Hanks, an outspoken fan of typewriters created a free typewrite app, the Hanx Writer in 2014, which can turn your iPad screen into an approximation

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of a keyboard, and brim the old timey fonts and keystroke sounds. Hemingway, a Kickstarter-funded writing device for those aspiring to write like Ernest Hemingway, which fuses a mechanical keyboard with an e-ink display along with cloud backup.

The USB typewriter, available at $699 is the best of all! It works exactly like those old-school typewriters, but instead of loading a paper, one can load their iPad into the machine. Looks like hipsterdom is promoting more than just an edenic culture!

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Trendsp otting

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One final hurrah for the Flip & Brick Phone!

The humble flip-phones known as Clamshells, and the brick phones from the bygone era of mobile devices with physical keyboards are making a comeback as people plug back into power that lasts. Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour was photographed using a $15 flip phone at the US Open tennis tournament in New York. More and more members of the public alike, and even politicos are turning to old clamshell models to keep their lives private, since these vintage handsets don’t connect to cloud and are more secure than smartphones. In Japan, for the first time in seven years, flip-phone shipments climbed to 5.7 percent to a 10.58 million units, while smartphones shipments fell by 5.3 percent to a 27.7 million units.

The demand for some of these handsets

like the Nokia 3310 or the Motorola StarTec 130 in Europe is growing, where some of these second-hand models are sold on eBay for as high as $1500 a piece. So basically, a cellphone with no video calls, or smiley faces or apps has convinced millennials to abstain from smartphones. This year alone, Mozilla announced a flip and slider phone at the Firefox OS press event. BlackBerry launched the BlackBerry Classic, for those who miss tapping on the physical keyboard. Nokia announced a cool school version of the good’ol brick phone, the Nokia 215 that costs just $29, pre-tax and can go for 29 days without a recharge on stand-by. The Binatone Brick phone, is another fun, silly and no-frills $69 retro-handset that is back in fashion.

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Trendsp otting

Retro Been There In There What other delightful throwbacks are going to flout their technologically obsolete status, and enjoy a revival in the future? The pre-wristwatch timepiece that goes back to at least four centuries is making a grand comeback. The $169 touchscreen equipped Kisai Rogue Touch Pocket Watch, with a liquidcrystal display, dual time and date and alarm. Retro game controllers, parroting brassbound models for Nintendo NES, Atari, and Sega Genesis, compatible with both Windows and Mac operating systems are making a comeback. For

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those who miss cradling the phone on their shoulders and whispering sweet nothings into the receiver, the $40 HYPE Retro Portable Bluetooth Handset is the perfect device that looks like a landline but works like a cordless receiver. The cult-like status of retro gadgets has spawned gadgets that soothe teens, entrepreneurs, audiophiles, fashionistas, writers and photographers. That said, all things vintage and retro continue to dominate the 2015 list of technology trends.

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COVE R S TO RY

ADVANCED BIONICS Building the next generation of exoskeletons, limbs and robotic prosthetics

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Bionics is a brilliant synthesis of poles apart branches of science that explores the interplay between electronics, human psychology and robotics.

Intrinsically, it is one of the latest branches of science. Modern editions of popular dictionaries explain the word ‘bionic’ as a fictional character with artificial body parts; beings that are capable of doing things that average humans cannot do. The science of bionics has been around since the 1990s and has evolved exceptionally over the last decade.

Bionics is said to be a futuristic mechanical wonder. Today, stories of how electromechanics attached and implanted into the human body are wiping the words like human disability and limitations off our dictionaries.

Image Credit: Ekso Bionics

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COVE R S TO RY

(Image Credit: Robohub.org)

he world’s first Cybathlon, an Olympics for bionic athletes will be hosted in Switzerland in October 2016 where there will be races for competitors wearing bionic prosthetic limbs and exoskeletons. Paralyzed participants will be able to take part in the various games with the help of brain-computer interface. Let’s take a look at some of these bionic technologies that would allow people who never had the opportunity before to run, dance, play and compete in games.

T

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BIONIC EXOSKELETONS

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n 2012, Tamara Mena was able to walk again with the help of an exoskeleton bionic suit after six years in a wheelchair. Paralyzed from midchest down as a result of a grievous car accident, Mena had very little hopes of being able to walk again. Exoskeletons monikered jeans of the future by Ekso Bionics CEO Eythor Bendor, are leveled enough to be worn in economy class.

Ekso Bionics is an odds-on favorite in robotic exoskeleton technology that will one day replace or augment human capabilities. Headed by Bender, the California-based company has licensed its hydraulicpowered anthropomorphic exoskeleton technology used in making the HULC or human universal load carrier to Lockheed Martin for military use. The HULC can help soldiers carry up to 200 pounds of heavy combat gear for extended periods of time. Ekso Bionics first medical product, the Ekso, was to rehabilitation centers in the U.S. and Europe and South Africa. The Ekso is a wearable bionic suit that helps survivors of stroke, spinal cord Image Credit: Ekso Bionics

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COVE R S TO RY injury and other forms of lower extremity weakness to walk again.

Ekso Bionics is currently developing an exoskeleton called “the REI Ekso”, a recreational outerwear that propels superhuman grit and strength. It may someday develop robotic suits for industrial workers such as miners, dockers and construction workers.

There is no therapy to bring recovery for people who have lost all control over their limbs as a result of motor-complete injuries. Furthermore, such patients have limited lower extremities’ exercising options. A wheelchair can be quite critical, averting potentially fatal urinary tract infections, cardiovascular diseases and skin ulcers, although facilitating bone density, strength and flexibility. The bionic exoskeleton integrated with a Segway-style balance and upgraded ankle joints bridges the gap for people with complete injuries. Exoskeleton will recalibrate the range of human possibilities – help stroke victims relearning to walk, soldiers humping body armor and builders hoisting sacks of concrete and hiking the wilderness.

Other notable exoskeletons includes the HAL series by Japanese company Cyberdyne, ReWalk invented by the Israeli entrepreneur, New Zealand’s Rex Bionics, which are approved for use in physical therapy and rehab. Quite similar to the HULC, the Sarco XOS 2 exoskeleton by Raytheon is a robotic suit developed for military and industrial uses and can help wearer’s carry up to 200 pounds with little or no effort.

Researchers are interested in military technology, in addition helping people to regain normal bodily functions. A few programs are developing strength suits for military purposes, including US Special Operations Command’s TALOS, an advanced infantry uniform which would help military personnel achieve superhuman strength with better ballistic protection. DARPA’s web warrior program seeks to develop soft, flexible supersuit for dismounted soldiers to prevent and reduce musculoskeletal injuries and improve their physical and cognitive abilities during mission-oriented tasks.

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Image Credit: Ekso Bionics

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COCHLEAR IMPLANTS

COCHLEAR IMPLANTS

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ed-El a company led by Ingeborg and Erwin Hochmair, is currently the world’s second largest producer of cochlear implants. One of its most elaborate devices is the ‘bionic ear’ that has been credited as the world’s first device to have replaced a sensory organ, and stands as a milestone in medical technology.

The bionic ear is handmade for personal application. Christofer Toumazou’s (chief scientist at Imperial College London’s Institute of Biomedical Engineering) the most recent invention of a USB stick that can decode a patient’s DNA was involved in the developing of cochlear implants.

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The cochlear implant also known as ‘bionic ear’ comprises of an external sound process that receives sound and processes it through a minicomputer. The sounds are then converted into digital information that is sent internally into the cochlear (inner part of the ear which processes sound). The digital signal is sent alongside the hearing nerve to the brain. The world’s first cochlear implant was performed by Professor Graeme Clark in 1978 on Rod Saunders at the Melbourne Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital. More than 219,000 people worldwide have benefitted from Clark’s cochlear implants through which they can understand only muffled sound.

Hochmair’s bionic ear boasts an array of highly sophisticated technology that is today helping those with auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder understand speech and not just muffled sound, ultimately bringing the full measure of their metamorphic potential.

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IMPLANTED PROSTHETIC ARM

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ost amputees are able to utilize modern prosthetics by attaching them in the morning and removing at night. Prosthetics available in the market are not a part of the body and do not offer any kind of sensory sensations.

An unnamed Swedish amputee, however, wears an entirely different kind of prosthetics that is in fact connected to his bone, muscles and sensory nerves. The result is a mind-controlled prosthetic arm that helps advanced movements, less discomfort and touch sensation.

The osseointegrated (bone-anchored) implant system is the most promising piece of prosthetic technology in the field of science. Through osseointegration, one can create a long-term stable fusion between man and machine, the ultimate definition of bionics.

The artificial arm, directly attached to the skeleton provides mechanical stability, while the nerves and muscles interfaced through neuromuscular electrodes control the system. The prosthetic arm can be worn continuously and helps to improve overall comfort and control as time passes by.

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A team of EU researchers recently published a study in the Science Transnational Medicine journal, describing how by implanting electrodes into a patient’s arm, they could successfully attach the prototype prosthetic arm (nicknamed the Deka or “Luke” arm) to his nerves.

The patient felt a pretty much close experience to have a normal hand with the Deka. The only setback with the osseointegration technology is that, it hasn’t unlocked the key to delivering sensory feedback from the arm to the brain. The method is yet to undergo commercializing. However, researchers are keen to find the missing link between sophisticated neural interfaces to control prosthetics and thus, treat more patients using the advanced technology.

Similarly, the i-Limp Pulse is a bionic arm that allows users to handle heavy or delicate objects and customize their grips accordingly. It looks similar to Darth Vader’s bionic hand and is much tougher in prospective – it can handle more than 200 pounds by applying additional force through a pulsing effect. Touch Bionics, the company behind the i-Limb Hand, the i-Limb software was named as one of the top 50 inventions of 2008 by Time magazine. It has changed the lives of more than 1,200 patients.

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COVE R S TO RY

Image Credit: Ekso Bionics

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WHAT COULD BE NEXT? n the early 1990s, the field of bionics wasn’t just nascent but a bit depressing too.

Prosthetics normally came in a shame inducing Barbie doll Cosmesis with a halfhuman and half- plastic look. Most devices were sheltered or thrown in the back room of hospitals.

Today, with the prosthetics business is beginning to boom, and designers giving their creations not just nerve integration and myoelectrics to offer sensory functions, but also an ebullient carbon-fiber sparkle, such products are seamlessly blending in everyday life. Once they were seen as purely medical devices, today they’re also turning into expensive fashion prosthetics.

Researchers are making technological breakthroughs by taking advantage of newer sensors, motors and batteries as well as manufacturing methods to develop cheaper and lighter bionics that can be snapped apart and fitted into a knapsack. By receiving rave reviews from therapists and patients, the most of these bionic products have positioned themselves as a trailblazer in the field of prosthetics.

Imagine a future world where biomechatronic and regenerative repair of humans would make a profound difference in people’s lives. The science of bionics is not just to end disabilities and make humans stronger, capable and faster. Bionics is indeed bringing us closer to the full potential of our metamorphic potential by embedding our humanity into electromechanics.

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Button Masher

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Can Qwant Challenge Google?

An emerging search engine that is defying the traditional search engine model In a small, dark office in the quiet streets of Paris is a start-up, chipping away to take on Google. Its first product was launched 18 months ago and has since attracted a growing crowd of Europeans who are angry with Google’s control over how people surf over the web.

Local lawmakers have already proposed to the breakup of the American tech goliath, on the other hand the European Commission is amidst an anti-trust investigation into Google’s massive 85 percent share of the European search engine market.

Jean Manuel Rozan, co-founder of Qwant believes that there is a need for choice. In fact, Europe is the only continent on the planet where for the people, Google is the internet.

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Button Masher

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Transforming Europe’s anti-Google slant into an effective business is much simpler than it seems. Google and its various services, including maps and online shopping has a tight grasp over how Europeans search for information online. In spite of Europe’s apparent animosity to American tech companies, tech goliaths keep on having solid followings over it.

In order to emerge as a solid company, Qwant sold a 20 percent stake to Axel Springer, a German publisher for $6 million in 2014 to buy European servers. Mathias Döpfner, the publisher’s CEO, has transparently scrutinized Google’s online predominance. Rozan says Qwant raked $1.8 million profit in 2014 yet, will post a loss as the search engine start-up is expanding into new markets like Germany. Currently, the company has less than 50 employees between its offices in Paris and Nice, in France.

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Button Masher

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The French start-up has additionally attempted to take advantage of Europeans’ growing mistrust about how they are being tracked on the web, as Google and Facebook and other American companies use information accumulated from individuals’ online histories to tailor advertising targeted to individuals. Europeans have other alternatives when it comes to search engines, like the Ixquick and DuckDuckGo. Qwant says, it is not interested in tracking users’ webprints and sells advertising that is built using user’s search queries.

Rozan believes that the company can deliver search results without having to track users online. In 2014, Qwant registered 1.6 billion search queries, which comparatively is half of what Google handles in a day.

Qwant will next roll out a child-friendly search engine, called Qwant Junior in this year. Google too has announced similar plans, although, it seems that the French government is letting the search giant discover an option.

Qwant Junior will be used in some French schools from 2016.

As per Éric Leandri, the other co-founder from Qwant, if 3 million children used Qwant, there’s going to be 6 million parents who will want to know more about the search engine. There’s another feature, this search engine includes social media posts from various sites like Twitter in its search results.

Qwant’s co-founders are hoping that with its streamlined focus on debated issues like privacy and combining social media posts in search results will help set it apart from competition.

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DIARY OF A TECHNOPRENEUR The lessons I learned from the dark days at Alibaba are that you’ve got to make your team have value, innovation, and vision. If you don’t give up, you still have a chance. And, when you are small, you have to be much focused and rely on your brain, not your strength.

Going public was an important milestone for Alibaba. The reception proved a mainland Chinese company can list in Hong Kong, New York and still get a very strong valuation and global investor interest.

I’ve been thinking how we can make Alibaba a global platform for small businesses around the world. My vision is, if we can help a small business in Norway sell things to Argentina, and Argentina consumers can buy things online from Switzerland, we can build up an e-WTO. WTO is great but last century. Today, the internet can help small business sell things across the oceans. I hope we can serve 2bn consumers and help 10m small businesses outside China. My vision is to build an e-commerce ecosystem that allows consumers and businesses to do all aspects of business online. We are going into search with Yahoo and have launched online auction and payment businesses. Currently, the environment for small business in China is very unfair and unsophisticated. Using internet, we want to build up the infrastructure

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for small business. I want to create one million jobs, change China’s social and economic environment, and make it the largest Internet market in the world.

We want to be bigger than Wal-Mart. We want to be bigger, it’s not the size. We want to learn from Wal-Mart. I will regret if we cannot do better than Walmart.

We have been given the opportunity to change the world. It’s time to prove it.

If we grow our business without caring for the environment, we are killing our kids, killing our own future. This is more important today than just giving money away to somebody. It’s not (just 50% we should be giving), why not 90%?

How we can use Alibaba’s technology, Alibaba’s data accumulated in the coming ten years solve that problem?

Using big data, Alibaba can help prevent environmental disasters and consequential losses from happening.

This is something that we want to start in the coming ten years.

I think I wanna spend the rest of my life is spent more time encouraging entrepreneurship. I want to help more SME’s and entrepreneurs and go back to school. It’s going to be a lot of business schools.

I’m just a purist. What is important in my life is that I can do something that can influence many people and influence China’s development.

Jack Ma

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F uturist

Elon Musk & The Red Planet A Martian colony of over 80,000 people is our insurance policy to fend off extinction

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F uturist

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Earth, our home planet has been through five mass extinctions before.

The dinosaur extinction nicknamed the ‘Great Dying’ was the most recent one that wiped out 95 percent of all species on the planet.

Irrespective of whether humans are responsible, Earth is in the early days of the sixth mass extinction. While the previous extinctions may have been driven by natural planetary transformations or catastrophic asteroid strikes, the current biological die-offs are associated with human activity. It’s frighteningly true. The planet is heating up. Mankind is being swept by a snowball of grim challenges including climate change, unbridled consumption against population explosion and biological defaunation. Attempts to tackle the most exacerbating of all challenges climate change - is not going to help us solve the problem, but only buy us time.

The least we can do is to prepare a long-term goal for Earthlings, using all of technological know-how, to survive from lethal discoveries and nuclear power before it naturally transforms into an arid wasteland. All in all, we have to find ways to escape the extinction and build our future on the moon and other planets.

After all, our future is among the stars.

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F uturist

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The mythic business of space exploration At a recent Reddit AMA, SpaceX founder Elon Musk, discussed about his plans to build a city on Mars. In a fascinating interview in early 2014, Musk hypothesized that space exploration is as urgent as easing poverty or disease. It’s mankind’s insurance policy against extinction.

Elon Musk wants to send humans to Mars by 2026 – a fairly optimistic estimate. “This obviously requires a very big spaceship and booster system,” he wrote during the Reddit AMA. Elon Musk is a Canadian-American entrepreneur and inventor, shaking up two industries at once. The traditional automakers with his electric car company Tesla Motors and the spaceflight industry with SpaceX. SpaceX is a private spaceflight company that specializes in small satellite launches, cargo runs on the space station and now the space exploration business. In September 2014, NASA selected SpaceX and Boeing to become the first private company to launch astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).

SpaceX is working on developing a massive spaceship Mars Colonial Transporter (MCT) which could transport colonists and cargo (up to 100 metric tons) to Mars and back to Earth.

“The Mars transport system will be a completely new architecture” he wrote.

The blueprints for the transit system along with a glib 21st century looking astronaut space suit will be showcased towards the end of 2015.

The team is hoping to use the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle and the Dragon V2. Falcon Heavy launch vehicle is a spaceflight launch system powered by two huge booster rockets. The Dragon V2 is a spacecraft designed to deliver both cargo and people to orbiting destinations and capable of making a terrestrial soft landing.

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F uturist

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Living off the land Space expedition is becoming easier and even more affordable, as technology gets better each day. Developing technologies for colonization and terraforming is completely feasible and requires straightforward engineering and a modest budget for its costs. With the help of advanced manufacturing, computer stimulation of physics, computer aided design, and an even deeper and broader industrial base to offer advanced materials, it’s becoming feasible than it was 50 years ago. It’s pretty safe to assume that it requires no new physics or inventions.

The SpaceX team has collaborated with NASA Science Lab to develop technology for living off the land on Mars, Moon or Asteroids. It includes developing tech for mining and processes of local resources such as water ice or oxygen from soil minerals.

In fact in last few months, SpaceX has shown efficiency, creativity and a sustained drive for the human endeavored space exploration project. It has a brilliant team, doing all the right things. There’s a lot of designing and planning already underway.

In 2012, Musk articulated that sending an average person on a roundtrip to Mars would cost $500,000. The MCT has been described as a massive interplanetary spacecraft and is the first one of its kind that exists on the planet today. It will be capable of using large water store to shield occupants from space radiations.

The initial trips will carry less than ten people. It could grow into something large that will be capable of carrying 80,000 people at once.

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F uturist

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The journey to mars is a long journey – roundabout 200 days. Yet, there are several problems when it comes to getting humans to Mars. There’s the landing problem, surviving on the Red Planet and getting back to our home planet, Earth.

The private spaceflight company is inching closer to developing and testing exceedingly complex systems required in order to make successful Martian landings and takeoffs. However, 2025 timeline seems to be a pretty tight on.

SpaceX could go public one the MCT is ready and flown a few times for testing purposes. In January 2014, it raised around $1 billion in a new financing round, winning two new investors, Google Inc. and Fidelity.

The additional funding will help the private spaceflight company with its research on reusability or space transport and satellite manufacturing.

It’s not just that. SpaceX is tinkering away to build an armada of small satellites that will play a crucial role in the colonization of Mars. The satellites promise faster connectivity and live communication without the crippling lag. The satellites will help generate revenue that will go towards the grand colonization of Mars project and help SpaceX learn more about space communication.

Now it wouldn’t be right if the first set of humans on the Red Planet is without an internet connection. So, in order to fund this idea, Musk is hoping to channel the revenue that is generated from his satellites internet system to invest in the grandiose of the Marsnet System – Internet on Mars.

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F uturist

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Colonization & terraforming In a flamboyant interview with Aeon, Musk dwelled on the strong humanitarian argument that exists in order to make Homo sapiens a multi-planetary species. It will help us safeguard our existence in a catastrophic event.

Musk has basically been pushing the ‘Mars colonization is our insurance policy’ idea for a decade now. He believes that humans are yet to undertake an exhaustive search for extraterrestrial life. So, what happens after we leave for Mars?

Mars is nowhere near as nice as mighty Earth. The best-case scenarios of colonization on Mars entail centuries of renovating, using our technology to recreate or induce an electromagnetic field protection.

We’re going to need a robust plan to induce greenhouse effect on Mars using mirrors, asteroid impacts or atmosphere factories. In the meantime, we could theoretically start making plans to reach out to other planets and stars by creating similar atmosphere factories that will make the surface a habitable one for us.

Stellar evolution is a complex science and we probably know 0.1 percent of it, or even less. Colonization and terraforming of other planets could be our final frontier. Space exploration brings us closer to a universe filled with infinite supply of opportunities and knowledge. ‘Why not space exploration’ is a more morbid question. Humans have a natural desire for learning more. In the next 100 years, there’s going to be a massive migration into a neonatal space colony somewhere on Mars, or the Moon or even as Asteroid.

If you look at it, the SpaceX’s endeavor could be a hopeless money-pit in the sky or probably a fixer-upper. In either case, it’s going to be an exciting new chapter in the evolution of terrestrial life.

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P

andora’s

B

ox

What is Graphene?

(Pictured : Andrei Geim)

It is more than just a thin layer of pure carbon?

When two Russian émigré scientists, Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov won their joint Nobel Prize in physics in 2010, they were applauded by the Nobel committee for their spirit of fleeting playfulness. It was one of the idiosyncrasies of the way the duo worked together.

Playing with Scotch tape on a Friday afternoon might sound like a foolish thing to do, but that’s how the scientistdyad at the University of Manchester chose to explore the electrical properties of tiny flakes of carbon graphite. It was not long before, the nutty act turned into a serious game of splicing the thinnest possible layer of carbon on the sticky tape. Felicitously, it was a brilliant moment of serendipity that gilded science with a substance more valuable from an accidental moment of discovery. It was the creation of Graphene, a remarkable material that is today considered as something of a scientific legend.

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Early experiments with graphene revealed some fascinating properties that compelled scientists into researching more, to fuse it into the promising field of molecular electronics.

Graphene was isolated around a decade ago, and may take a while before it is available to general public. The scientific interest has even lead to a patent rush by some of the biggest tech giants like IBM, Apple and Lockheed Martin.

If you look at it, the extraordinary features and properties of Graphene makes it sound like something straight out of a comic book.

Graphene is a two-dimensional crystal of pure carbon with quite a lot of superlative properties. It is about 100 times stronger than steel by weight, making it the thinnest and strongest substance known to science. It is almost transparent, stretchable and a good conductor of electricity.

It conducts heat better than any other substance known to science. It can act as a barrier to the smallest atom of gas and still allow water vapor to pass through it.

Geim and Novoselov hope to cultivate an industrial revivification to rival the one that began in North-West England around 200 years ago. This time, it’s going to be using carbon in the form of graphene rather than coal.

Let’s take a look at the so-called wonder material and its possible uses that has made it legend in the scientific community.

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W hat is G raphene?

Nuclear grime Get a hold of this. Researchers at Rice University and Lomonosov Moscow State University discovered that tiny bits of graphene oxide bond with radioactive contaminants, turning them into huge extractable clusters. Graphene oxide can help absorb radioactive waste from nuclear accidents like the one at Fukushima disaster.

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Drinking water Scientists believe that by passing seawater through wee bits of graphene’s pores, the crystal lattice could block out the atoms, while letting water molecules pass through it. With the help of a graphene filter, sea water can be desalinated, making it drinkable.

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W hat is G raphene?

Military equipment Australian researchers found that by adding an equal amount of graphene and carbon nanotubes to a polymer, a super-strong fiber was produced. The fiber can be spun into fabric creating bulletproof vests.

Additionally, graphene foam has shown to pick up tiny concentrations of nitrates and ammonia that is found in explosives. A coin-sized sensor developed in the US might soon be mandatory for bomb squads.

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New age smartphones Graphene is both, conductive and transparent. It will prove to be perfect for futurist smartphones. In fact, Samsung is amongst the myriad of electronics companies that are developing touchscreen interfaces.

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W hat is G raphene?

Rust-free cars Graphene is highly conductive and repels water. Such a robust combination can keep steel from coming into contact with water and delay the electrochemical reactions that oxidize iron. New York scientists have designed a polymer coating that contains graphene, which is found to protect steel from rusting for more than a month.

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Next generation of computers Graphene will one day replace silicon chips. A lot of electronics companies are testing graphene in innumerable electrical devices. In fact, IBM has already created computers that use graphene to reach the recordsetting speed of 100GHz.

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W hat is G raphene?

Cars, planes and satellites Graphene has all the properties that will provide light yet sturdy composite materials to create the next generation of cars, planes and satellites. Graphene could help reduce aircraft weight, cut down the burning of fuel as well as jettison of carbon into the atmosphere.

The plausible uses for graphene are just about aybsmal.

They extend from new types of adaptable hardware that could be worn on garments or clipped up into a pocket,

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to gen-next mini-computers, hyper-effective solar panels and super-fast smartphones. But if you look at it, graphene is a honeycomb structure of carbon molecules – depicted as “atomic chickenwire”. Carbon is the essential component of life, which implies that graphene could be the center of another mechanical transformation focused around electronics that are biodegradable and manageable. If there was ever a building material for another, green economy, graphene could be it.

Scientists optimism for graphene remains all peachesand-cream. All these years we were trying to create great substances and literally stripping off sheets of graphene as we used our pencils. It had been before our eyes all this time!

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tech tech ed ed Introduction to Big Data with Apache Spark Learn how to apply data science techniques using parallel programming in Apache Spark to explore big (and small) data.

About this Course Organizations use their data for decision support and to build data-intensive products and services, such as recommendation, prediction, and diagnostic systems. The collection of skills required by organizations to support these functions has been grouped under the term Data Science. This course will attempt to articulate the expected output of Data Scientists and then teach students how to use PySpark (part of Apache Spark) to deliver against these expectations. The course assignments include Log Mining, Textual Entity Recognition, Collaborative Filtering exercises that teach students how to manipulate data sets using parallel processing with PySpark.

This course covers advanced undergraduate-level material. It requires a programming background and experience with Python (or the ability to learn it quickly). All exercises will use PySpark (part of Apache Spark), but previous experience with Spark or distributed computing is NOT required. Students should take this Python mini-quiz before the course and take this Python mini-course if they need to learn Python or refresh their Python knowledge.

School: UC BerkeleyX

Course Length: 4 weeks

Course Code: CS100.1x

Estimated effort: 5 - 7 hours per week

Classes Start: April 2015

Video Transcripts: English

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Think.

Create. Code Empower yourself to create and control digital information, and gain the computational thinking skills to tackle our most complex problems.

About this Course This course is about learning to code through the creation of artistic images and animations, resulting in your own online gallery.

Our world is becoming increasingly digitised. For many of us, barely a day goes past without recording a video, taking and editing photos, and sharing digital content across multiple applications. But how well do we understand the technology we’re using, and how is digital information created and manipulated?

With many careers today involving some form of computation, there is a growing urgency for individuals to move beyond digital literacy, to understand how digital technologies work, and to develop literacy in code. This course will help you acquire it.

In this course, you will not only learn the inner workings of your digital world, but also create and manipulate images with code, creating new artworks and interactive animations. Your images and animations will be displayed in an online Art Gallery, forming part of a vibrant learning community.

You will also develop effective computational thinking skills and concepts transferable to other coding environments and programming languages.

School: AdelaideX

Course Length: 6 weeks

Course Code: Code101x

Estimated effort: 2 to 3 hours per week

Classes Start: 30 Apr 2015

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tech tech ed ed Cyberwar, Surveillance and Security Understand the competing tensions of laws related to privacy and national security, and the impending consequences of this battle for our networked world.

About this Course Once heralded as the ultimate vehicle for open communication and self-expression, the internet is rapidly becoming a globally networked surveillance device. Serious threats to national security, combined with the seemingly endless capacity of digital processing and storage, have led to levels of data capture and 24/7 monitoring of individuals’ activity that were unimaginable even a decade ago.

With resistance to such practices rising, this course will equip you to take an active part in the debate. You will gain a broad understanding of the competing tensions of the laws related to national security and personal and commercial privacy in the post-Snowden online environment, and grasp the looming consequences of this battle for peace, sovereignty, human rights and the internet itself.

School: AdelaideX

Course Length: 6 weeks

Course Code: Cyber101x

Estimated effort: 2 to 3 hours per week

Classes Start: May 2015

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Plasma Physics and Applications The first MOOC to teach the basics of plasma physics and its main applications: fusion energy, astrophysical and space plasmas, societal and industrial applications About this Course This course will provide you with a basic knowledge of plasma physics and of its applications, which will enable you to understand some of the most important phenomena in space and astrophysics, how plasmas can be used in industry, and how we can achieve fusion on earth to contribute solving the problem of energy in sustainable development. In the first part, we will introduce the plasma state and describe the models, from single particles to fluid, which can be applied to study its dynamics. In the second part, we will illustrate and discuss examples of plasmas in space and in astrophysics, and discuss plasma applications in industry and medicine. The third part will be dedicated to fusion energy, from the design and technology of a fusion reactor, to plasma confinement configurations for fusion, and, finally, to confining, heating, controlling and extracting energy from a burning plasma.

What you’ll learn: Basic knowledge of plasma physics and of the different models to describe plasmas Vision of different applications of plasmas Understanding of the fusion energy challenge, and acquisition of the basis for developing an overall vision of the different R&D elements Understanding of the main plasma societal applications and of the relevant tools Vision and appreciation of the importance of plasmas in space and astrophysics School: EPFLx

Course Length: 9 weeks

Course Code: PlasmaX

Estimated effort: 5 - 6 hours per week

Classes Start: 1 May 2015 107 / Technowize Magazine / February 2015

Tech Events & Conferences April 8 – 9 Intel Developer Forum Developers, Makers, Creators, you playground awaits. Join Intel and hundreds of technology experts April 8-9 in Shenzhen, China for two days of demos, insights and connections..

Venue: Shenzen, China

April – 22 Box Dev 2015 Join the Box Platform team and over 1,500 developers and entrepreneurs for its second annual developer conference on April 22, 2015 at Fort Mason in San Francisco.

The day will feature exciting platform product launches, deep-dive technical sessions, thought-leadership sessions focused on building for the enterprise, and technical sessions featuring everything you need to know to build, design and scale your enterprise app.

Venue: San Francisco

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April 28 – 29 Internet of Things Summit The Internet of Things Summit will bring together leaders discussing how they are looking to create a smarter, more inter-connected world. IoT is the hottest area for businesses to invest in 2015. Hear from leading technologists discussing only the most ground-breaking areas including: Creating an IoT ecosystem The need for an open IoT platform The role of Big Data in IoT Product design in smart devices The Industrial Internet

Venue: San Jose, CA

April 27 – 30 Cisco Partner Summit 2015 Cisco Marketing Velocity event is for senior level partners responsible for marketing with Cisco. Cisco understands that marketing is critical to your success and will continue to invest in your marketing efforts to increase sales, and position you as marketers of the future.

Venue: Montreal, Canada

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Tech Events & Conferences April 29 – May 1 Microsoft Build 2015 The Build is a Microsoft annual conference to present developers with the latest technology as well as its vision for the future. Microsoft Build 2015 will cover all Microsoft Platforms - expect rich new content and information on Windows, Azure, Office 365 and more. Developers will receive deep training, allowing them to take advantage of the incredible advances in our platforms, including Windows 10.

Venue: San Francisco

May 5 - 6 GamesBeat Summit Game publishers find that their customers are increasingly international and on the move. GamesBeat Summit is the only event that brings together 180 gaming executives from all segments of the gaming platform ecosystem to develop a blueprint for the industry’s expansion in 2015.

Venue: Sausalito, CA

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May 19 The Next Billion The expansion of the global internet population will continue to have a profound impact on infrastructure, education, finance, commerce, and healthcare, among other industries worldwide. The Next Billion: London convenes global industry leaders to explore the challenges and opportunities facing an increasingly connected world.

Venue: London

May 20 – 21 ad: tech San Francisco ad:tech is a conference and exhibition where the marketing, technology and media communities come together to share new ways of thinking, build strong partnerships, and define new strategies to address the key industry challenges and opportunities.

Venue: San Francisco

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Tech Events & Conferences May 26- 28 Code Conference Code Conference will be returning to the spectacular Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA, May 26-28, 2015. Code Conference is where top industry influencers in media and technology gather for in-depth conversations about the impact of digital technology on our lives and our businesses, today and in the future.

Venue: Rancho Palos, Verdes, CA

May 28- 29 Google I/O Google I/O is an annual software developer-focused conference held by Google in San Francisco, California. Google I/O features highly technical, indepth sessions focused on building web, mobile, and enterprise applications with Google and open web technologies such as Android, Chrome, Chrome OS, Google APIs, Google Web Toolkit, App Engine, and more.

Venue: San Francisco

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