Books can teach your kids what animals look like, but they can’t do sound. Well, most of them any way. So, Google is helping you out with that. As more and more parent use the Internet to teach and distract their children, a quick search for ‘animal noises’ on Google, will now reveal a bunch of animal sounds for your kids to learn. You simply click on the card that you want to play.
The Search giant currently has 19 sounds added, according to a post on Google Austria. You can also also search for ‘What does a XXX say’, where XXX is the name of an animal. Google will return an audio response to this, telling you what the animal sounds like. It seems like a way to use voice search. Your child can literally ask Google (on your smartphone) for the call of a particular animal, and Google will tell them.
The animals currently included are, zebra, ape, car, lion, owl, pig, moose, duck, horse, elephant, raccoon, bowhead whale, wolf, sheep, rooster, humpback whale, turkey, tiger and cow.
Facebook is rolling out a feature that will use Artificial Intelligence to describe the content of a photograph to the visually impaired. The feature is called Automatic Alternative Text and generates a description of a photograph using object recognition technology. Before this, those who used screen readers like VoiceOver on iOS devices would only hear the name of the person who shared the photograph along with the term ‘photo’ when they came across a picture in their News Feed. This feature would now offer a richer description of the photograph, such as “Image may contain three people, smiling, outdoors.”
Automatic alternative text is currently only available for iOS users in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand in English. However, Facebook has stated that the feature will soon be expanded to include more platforms, markets, and languages.
The Internet is powerful, it offers advertising options that TV or newspapers never could, and that has been the bane of its existence. Hasn’t it? Aren’t there too many ads, on this website and others? Gmail has ads, as does Microsoft’s Outlook.com. The maker of Windows though is giving users a respite from ads, allowing them to pay $3.99 (approx. Rs. 270), to get rid of ads on Outlook.com. Paying up will also give you some extra features, like a personalised email address.
The information came from Microsoft’s website, through a page first spotted by thurrot.com, which detailed Outlook.com premium subscription. The program is currently in its beta stage and was first reported, by Zdnet, on February 16.
HTC has posted another teaser for its upcoming HTC 10 flagship phone and this time it touts the device’s audio prowess. A video was posted on its official Twitter account that promises “the best BoomSound yet”. However, leaked images have suggested that the upcoming smartphone will not come with dual front facing speakers, rather a single speaker located at the bottom. So it is not known if the new phone will have some sort of a stereo speaker configuration.
HTC has launched the HTC 10 on April 12 and has been teasing the device for quite a while. Earlier teasers have touted “World Class” cameras and the capacitive buttons. The device is tipped to come with a 5.1-inch QHD display and may be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC with 4GB of RAM. The phone is also expected be equipped with a 12MP rear camera and 5MP front facing camera. In addition, HTC is tipped to launch a cheaper variant of the smartphone that may be powered by a Snapdragon 652 SoC.
While India has experienced the likes of Linkedin, Naukri, Monster & Times when it comes to online job hunting, these fairly new websites are changing the game when it comes to working from home, internships, part-time & full-time jobs. So, if you are on the hunt for work and are sick of getting generic job suggestions from some of the older players in the market, try out these websites and take your job hunt to the next level.
Internshala.com
As the name suggests, Internshala is a haven for landing good internships with notable MNCs and other leading industry names. Internships are posted by the city of preference, with salaries ranging from Rs. 3,000 per month to Rs 30,000 per month (depending on employer). Internshala also offers online courses and workshops in various fields such as web development, digital marketing, Android, hacking, Internet of Things and more. A great portal for students and young graduates. You can also access the Internshala app on Android smartphones.
Hiree.com
Hiree.com takes your job hunt to the recruiters, rather than the other way around. With a simple one-step registration, you can state your work preferences upfront, post which the website connects you to potential recruiters. Hiree claims that their portal is used by 900+ companies and is growing to add more companies in the future. Hiree can also be accessed as an app by Android smartphone users.
Mykindofjob.com
Are you a housewife looking to make some extra cash? Maybe you’re on a break from your full-time job and still need a source of income? If you are one looking for a flexible job instead of a regular 9 to 5, check out Mykindofjob.com. A new player in India’s job portal industry, Mykindofjob promises to find you work-from-home jobs, part-time jobs, student internships and even jobs for retired professionals. The interface of the website is bright and user friendly, with an option to sign in through Facebook, Linkedin & Google Plus. It also caters to accomplished subject matter experts who have already opted for flexibility by either choosing to be a freelancer or by setting up their own small firm, but after a point find it difficult to take their services beyond their immediate circle of connections. The website is fairly new, so job listings are currently limited, but slated to grow soon.
Gomediajobs.com
Gomediajobs is dedicated to professionals in the media space. From production, anchoring and filmmaking jobs to media management jobs, Gomediajobs adds new listings every week. Registering with the website gets you on their weekly mailing list for new media jobs added to the platform. The good part about the portal is that it has an expiration date for every job and once the position is filled, the listing is taken off the platform, ensuring only current jobs remain.
Glassdoor.co.in
If you are looking for expert job advice, then Glassdoor is the place for you. Along with millions of job listings, Glassdoor also gives you company reviews based on their location. For example if you search for Infosys in Chandigarh, you can read reviews of the office and the work environment of that particular branch. You can also refine your search for the salary structure of your choice. While you are at it, visit the glassdoor blog for some well-advised career advice based on current industry trends. Alternatively, The Glassdoor app is also available on Android and iOS.
Indeed.co.in
Indeed enables you to search jobs posted on thousands of websites. Employers also post jobs directly on Indeed. No matter where a job is posted, it will be easy to find when you use Indeed. You can also receive daily emails from the portal as per your search criteria. You can also download the Indeed app on iOS and Android devices.
South Korean electronics giant, LG, is facing a lawsuit in Brooklyn. IT specialist Muhammad Sattar, has filed a case against the company, after his LG Optimus F6 reportedly exploded in his pants pocket, on January 13 this year. Further, the explosion apparently caused second and third degree burns on Sattar’s hand and right leg. As a result, Sattar had to get skin grafts done, because of which he missed work for a full month. Sattar works for the Manhattan Investment Bank.
Sattar’s lawyer, Lawrence Goldhirsch, said, “It was just in his pocket, sitting there, and it blew up.” Sattar was taken to the hospital immediately after the explosion, where he was admitted to the burn center.
Tech giant Apple will soon shift base to its new headquarters at Cupertino, CA. Construction for the giant UFO shaped building seems to be in full swing, atleast according to this 4K drone video released recently. The building that will house all future Apple events as well as become the new base for the company is estimated to cost nearly $5 Billion to complete. The behemoth structure can be seen with solar panels fitted on the roof, which indicates that construction may be completed ahead of its late 2016/early 2017 deadline.
The new spaceship Apple HQ has been under construction for nearly a decade and will have double sided glass windows so employees can look out from both sides of the circular structure. According to architect Peter Arbour, 6km worth of glass is being used to create the 4-storeyed circular building. Have a look at the drone video of the building below.
BSNL may be planning to launch 4G services in 14 telecom circles in India. A senior official told PTI that the company will be installing 4G base tower stations (BTS) in existing sites, which means that there will not be any additional expenditure on towers. He said, “By considering all the facts, it appears that launch of 4G services in 2,500Mhz band is feasible and commercially remunerative”. However, the company hasn’t yet finalised a timeline for the launch of the services.
The report adds that BSNL may be exploring two methods for the rollout of 4G services, a revenue sharing model and a capex model. In a revenue sharing model, BSNL will provide passive infrastructure and spectrum, while a third-party vendors will arrange the BTS. In a capex model, the company will procure essential long-term evolution (LTE) elements, which can be initiated in select cities on an experimental basis. However, this model will involve the cost of procurement and integration. It was noted in the report that BSNL would try out both models before finalising on one.
Tesla Motors has always been about making cars that are not only viable for our future. Over time, it has crafted engineering luxuries out of metal, glass and wires, leading to vehicles that are clean, efficient, beautiful and fast. The recently-announced Tesla Model 3 is everything that Elon Musk’s brainchild stands for, and much more. Here’s why.
Focus on the consumer The Tesla Model 3 has been a decade in the making - years of on-ground research and fine tunings down in R&D laboratories to produce a car that is expected to bring electric cars to the masses. The Tesla Model 3 has been touted to run for nearly 350 kilometres on full charge, reach from 0 to 100 kmph in about 6 seconds, and house myriad safety features, including autopilot safety. Speed, increased range and enhanced safety are crucial aspects for cars to succeed across various nations.
Tesla has spent a lot of time around the Model 3, immaculately planning out details. The new design does away with the front grille, and how! Additionally, the 17-inch portrait-oriented touchscreen interface on Model S and Model X is being altered into a 15-inch landscape-oriented touchscreen on the Model 3. The Tesla Model 3’s consumer focus is further heightened by the fact that five adults can sit comfortably in the car, making it a viable option for many families. In Musk’s words, “comfortably is the most important part here”.
Tesla, in other words, might no longer be just a future enthusiast’s toy. It is one for the wider market of buyers.
Viability of range and price Tesla is targeting newer markets with the Model 3, including India, Brazil, South Africa, South Korea and New Zealand. With focus on these new markets, Tesla is doubling the number of Superchargers from 3,600 to 7,200. The range of the car has been enhanced, and with more Superchargers, the span of distance being covered by the car will hopefully be even better by the time Model 3 cars hit the road.
Adding to this, support for comfortably housing five adult passengers and a host of security features make the Tesla Model 3 suited for commercial city usage. The highlight, however, is the price. At $35,000, or about Rs. 24,00,000, the Tesla Model 3 will find its place among executive class D-segment standard sedan buyers, or even challenge the SUV-frenzy car buyers of India. In countries where the proposition of highest value for money rules buying decisions, the Tesla Model 3 has the potential to present itself as a future-proof vehicle that is easy on long term maintenances. The front and rear boot spaces on the Tesla Model 3 also mean that you get massive storage spaces, yet another perfect optimisation for value-oriented buyers.
The one that changes the game? Elon Musk has stated that the Tesla Model 3 will possibly ship from end-2017. It has already received over 130,000 pre-orders, that one can reserve by paying $1,000. Even though the delivery and shipment date seems quite far away (furthermore fuelled by the proposition of Tesla not getting to live up to its own target), this might not essentially be a bad aspect. It may actually confirm Tesla more buyers, as giving customers time to stock up cash to splurge on a superlative electric vehicle can turn out to drive higher sales for Tesla, and lesser cancellations of pre-orders.
The Tesla Model 3 is all set to be the car for our future. With stunning, future-oriented looks, a fast, safe drive, and focus of comfort heightened by technology, the Tesla Model 3 ticks all the required checkboxes of a car that has every potential to go down as an icon in the history of automobiles.
Did we just witness history? See Elon Musk’s unveiling of the Tesla Model 3, and judge for yourself.
“Robots, are you ready? On your marks, get set, go!” And with this, a fleet of Robot Race-cars zoom past you, as you cheer for your favourite one. Quite similar to us cheering for Bumblebee or Optimus Prime in a battle!
‘Roborace’ is the name of the new motoring championship created by the Formula E team who created the all-electric racing series. Roborace combines alternative energy racing with robots and will be hosted in the 2016-2017 season. This will give a technoboost to autonomous tech algorithms and accelerate artificial intelligence (AI).
On Wednesday, Roborace released the first design renderings. The car was conceptualised and computerized by Chief Design Officer, Daniel Simon, who is famous for his work in Hollywood movies, namely Tron: Legacy and Oblivion.
While Robocars lack in human persona i.e. the coolness factor of drivers in Grand Prix, these cars are a visual treat since they are uber sophisticated and futuristic. Let’s wait and watch how the renderings turn out when we get to see the cars race this season!
Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have developed a system that will locate the position of a user via a single Wi-Fi access point to within “tens of centimeters.” The system is called Chronos and according to researchers, it could lead to safer drones, smarter homes, and password-free WiFi.
According to the researchers, current localisation systems require four to five WiFi access points, as they do not have a wide enough bandwidth to measure the time of flight. Chronos adds the ability to calculate the angle to an access point and also the actual distance, which is determined by calculating the time of flight. In an experiment conducted in a two-bedroom apartment with four occupants, Chronos was able to correctly identify the room a person was in 94% of the time. In a cafe demo, the system was able to distinguish in-store customers out-of-store people 97% of the time. This could lead to businesses only offering WiFi to its customers and not to anyone else. In addition, researchers also showed how the system could be used to get drones to maintain a safe distance from its user with a margin or error of about four centimeters.
Come March 31, and an exclusive rumour from an industry insider has given us wind of a France-based startup developing a smartphone concept that fuses the power of two full-fledged smartphones into one. Too good to be true? That’s what we thought at first. As it turns out, the Vota Dual Superfone is not a far-fetched rumour or any random prank that we often come across. The company’s initial round of spreading word will be a slow rollout across social media, and while word remains slim regarding its exact launch date, a teaser poster has been given out by Vota, which reveals much about the device (or two-devices-in-one, to be accurate). Vota says that its initial target will be on Indian shores, backed by the rampant promise of the Indian smartphone market of today.
The Vota Dual Superfone is reportedly powered by two 64-bit quad-core processors, the exact details of which have not been released yet. It presents two, 5.5-inch AMOLED display panels, one on each side, and a staggering 8GB of RAM for each processor adding up to a combined 16GB of RAM! Both the cameras are powered by 21-megapixel sensors. We have not received any information on the make of the sensors, but Vota says that both are present-generation image sensors from a leading camera sensor maker. To top it all, the Vota Dual Superfone will house a Graphene-based battery, which would allow the battery pack to remain ultrathin and flexible.
So, how does all of this work? Vota has remained tight-lipped so far, but stated that each screen on each end will function as independent devices. The power between the two separate hardware modules will be optimised to make one end performance-focussed, while the other will be optimised to maximise battery stamina. This way, you can game and stream video content endlessly on one panel, and once it dies out, the other end will serve as your decent, flawless daily driver. The entire notion may seem a little far-fetched as of now, but Vota claims that this is indeed the reality. The Vota Dual Superfone is not just a concept, but is apparently real. To support its claim, Vota has even shared sample photographs, apparently clicked by this device itself.
It all seems too fantastic for now, but with Vota’s strong claims of this being real, we asked them to give us a further glimpse to it. The company has agreed to comply with our request and will give us more details on the Superfone, some time today. Stay tuned to our website, because this might just change the game in the smartphone industry.
Indian banks are reportedly on alert after India’s national security establishment cited the possibility of the involvement of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, in the theft of $81 million from Bangladesh’s Central Bank. According to a report by the Economic Times, a high level government official communicated the concerns of India’s security establishment to the Reserve bank of India, urging it to be cautious.
In February 2016, the world saw its latest and one of the largest bank heists till date. The robbers hacked into U.S. account of Bangladesh’s Central bank and were able get away with $81 million. The bank robberies which are done by men dressed in black with shotguns have been replaced by a person typing codes on his computer.
In the Bangladesh heist, the hackers used malware to access the bank’s computers and spoof messages to the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank. According to the testimony at a senate hearing in Philippines, $81 million was transferred from New York Fed to Philippine banks and then, the funds were distributed to casinos and then cashed at Manila.
The ongoing senate hearing regarding the heist is still in a tussle to determine exactly how the money was stolen, and so another hearing has been scheduled next week. Cases like these mostly go unpunished because the perpetrators remain a mystery.
Hundreds of millions of dollars have been stolen in recent years from banks and financial services. Last year, Kaspersky, the software security maker publicised the activities of the Carbanak gang which hacked money from almost a 100 banks. They had hacked into banks and ordered fraudulent money transfers and were able to steal about $2.5 million to $10 million per heist. They had also forced ATMs to cough out cash. In March, in a U.S. court, a Turkish hacker was found guilty, having stolen about $40 million from ATMs in 24 countries within 10 hours!
Owing to the digital revolution and the alliance between digital and traditional criminals, many victims do not report the thefts for fear of damage of reputation.
When the artificial intelligence, AlphaGo, beat Go champion Lee Seedol at his own game, it created history. AlphaGo didn't just beat Lee at Go, it won four games out of five, an unprecedented victory that many hadn't expected. AlphaGo's neural networks took thousands of Go matches, played by human players, and added its own learning on top of that, to come out with moves that even a legend like Lee Seedol didn't expect. But is AlphaGo the breakthrough in machine learning that the world has been waiting for? We talked to David Silver, Research Scientist, Google Deep Mind, to learn the same.
Silver is the main programmer on the AlphaGo algorithm, which makes him perhaps the best person to answer questions about its victory and the future. AlphaGo's victory is an important step in the field of machine learning, opening avenues for more advancements in future. It is still the first step to achieving true artificial intelligence though, and Deep Mind's work continues in that direction. The ancient Chinese game of Go, has long been considered the game to beat for AI, thanks to the fact that it is enormously complex, as Silver explains below.
Firstly, could you explain the significance of AlphaGo's victory over Lee Seedol? Why does a victory in Go matter so much?
Go represents a major milestone in AI research. Go is enormously complex, and such an intuitive game that so-called “brute force” search techniques are not sufficient. Until recently, computers have only played Go as well as amateurs.
Go’s simple rules and profound complexity resemble the real-world in many ways. Therefore we think Go is an important stepping stone towards a more general AI.
How does AlphaGo's victory in Go differ from Deep Blue's victory earlier. How do Chess and Go differ when it comes to being played by an AI?
The number of possible moves in chess is much lower. The search space in Go is vast — more than a googol times larger than chess (a number greater than there are atoms in the universe!) So traditional “brute force” AI methods, which construct a search tree over all possible sequences of moves, don’t have a chance in Go. In addition, it’s much easier to evaluate who is ahead in chess - for example, by adding up piece values.
Human grandmasters handcrafted the chess knowledge used by Deep Blue to evaluate chess positions. For AlphaGo, we did not tell AlphaGo what strategy to use — instead it learnt for itself from hundreds of thousands of human expert games, and from millions more games of self-play.
Finally, Deep Blue used a search algorithm that was based more on brute force - it evaluated thousands of times more positions than AlphaGo. Instead, AlphaGo searches much more smartly and selectively.
I understand AlphaGo actually has two neural networks working inside it. Could you explain these and how they work?
One neural network, the “policy network,” selects the next move to play. The other neural network, the “value network,” predicts the winner of the game. Each neural network takes the board position and passes it through many computational layers with millions of tunable weights, to come up with its answer.
AlphaGo's gameplay in this tournament has been described as aggressive. How does it do that? Why is that significant? Is there no rule-based programming at play here?
AlphaGo always selects the move that maximises its chances of winning the game. This can sometimes results in aggressive moves, but can also sometimes result in seemingly quiet and defensive moves, especially once AlphaGo already has a lead.
How easy or difficult will it be to adapt AlphaGo to other activities?
The methods we’ve used for AlphaGo are general-purpose, so our hope is that one day they could be extended to help us address other challenges from making smartphone assistants more useful to helping scientists with some of society’s toughest and most pressing problems, from climate modelling to complex disease analysis. That being said, it’s very early days. We are decades away from human level AGI.
Is it true that games like Go can only serve for testing such algorithms?
Like many researchers before us, we've been developing and testing our algorithms through games, but we have much bigger goals than games. In the case of AlphaGo, we gave the AI a goal — to win at Go — and then it learns for itself the best way to achieve that goal. That’s a much more general way of learning, and a way that’s similar to the way you and I, as humans, learn.
AI programmers have been known to not recognise their own algorithms after a while. That said, doesn't it make it difficult to tweak algorithms when needed? (Not suggesting lack of control over AI here, simply the ways to tweak algos)
When training neural networks from scratch, the most important factor is designing the goals and objectives that you set the algorithm, and the mechanism for learning those goals, so it can learn for itself to achieve the desired behaviour.
If yes, does that make it difficult to scale or adapt AlphaGo to other applications?
This is the beginning, and there is a lot more work to be done before we can begin to apply these techniques to real world problems.
Do you plan things like AlphaGo to be used for consumer applications, like in smartphone voice assistants?
Not necessarily AlphaGo, but the machine learning techniques will be a tool that helps us do what we already do, but better — whether that’s instant translation, a smarter assistant on our phone that can plan a trip for us just by knowing what we like or by helping doctors to diagnose a disease much earlier.
Google, on Tuesday, announced the Fiber Phone via its official blog. To use Google’s Fiber phone service, you’ll need to attach the ‘Fiber phone box’ to an existing landline handset to make calls from it. The interesting bit is, you’ll also be able to take and dial phone calls using the same landline number but on-the-go, using wireless devices like smartphones or tablets. The Fiber Phone is based on cloud services, which enables users to keep the phone number on the cloud.
Google’s Fiber phone service will be sold in the U.S. for now, alongside its broadband and video services. Initially, it will be offered in select cities where the company has set-up its all-fiber network. The service costs $10 a month, which allows unlimited local and national calls. For international calls, it charges the same rates as its Voice service.
Interestingly, on the same day, the inter-ministerial telecom commission of the Indian government removed a major policy hurdle by issuing clearance for inter-connect agreements between telecom operators and Internet Service Providers (ISPs). We will soon be able to dial landline and mobile numbers from apps like WhatsApp, Skype and Viber. Although a declaration might not be heard any time soon, we might see internet-friendly landline phones like Fiber phone in the Indian market too, some day.
Landline connections have been a dying channel for a while, with many families not having a registered landline in today’s wireless world. With connected services adding wireless capabilities to the perks of a landline connection, will we see a revival of landline services, any time soon?
It’s Saturday and you go to your favourite cafe to chill as usual. You open up Tinder and look for people close to you. But this time you have a specific person in mind, that dancer who was really cute and also were lucky to receive a quick smile back. So you just type in “the dancer” or “the person I met last week (well, you tried!).”
Popular dating app Tinder has acquired Humin, a company that works on figuring out the context of social connections. Notably, Sir Richard Branson and Will.i.am had previously given financial support to it.
Tinder’s long term goals seem to be about managing social interactions and organise collated information. Humin’s CEO, Ankur Jain, who will henceforth be Tinder’s VP of Product and Head of Special Projects, views Tinder as ‘augmented reality’ because it is all about meeting and connecting.
It uses the hardware that you own, in this case your phone, to augment the special information about people around you, and put that into context. Called ‘actionable information’, the social context here means information such as meeting places, mutual friends and trips.
With this acquisition, Tinder will look to consolidate upon becoming an important social media platform, completing its evolution from a dating app.
Microsoft has announced a number of new features for Cortana that would be included in the next major update to Windows 10 called the Anniversary Update. The new update will be available this summer and will see the incorporation of the personal assistant into Outlook. This will allow it to check emails and calendars in order to help the user keep track of their emails. It will be able to take information from emails and automatically create events. Cortana will also become more proactive and will suggest restaurants or arrange transportation. In addition, developers will have complete access to Cortana’s proactive intelligence and this will allow them to make their apps perform tasks based on user context.
Cortana is also getting integrated with Skype and will soon allow users to book trips, shop, plan schedules and more using the service. It is similar to what Facebook to trying to do with its ‘M’ personal assistant. In addition, Android phone users will now be able to receive and reply to text messages from their Windows 10 desktops. Furthermore, Cortana would be enabled on the lockscreen.
MediaTek has only announced the Helio X20 SoC last month, and rumours of Helio X30 have begun. Speculations suggest that the upcoming MediaTek chipset will feature a tri-cluster, deca-core setup similar to the Helio X20, manufactured by TSMC’s 10nm FinFET manufacturing process. The first phones powered by this SoC will probably be seen early next year.
According to rumours, MediaTek's Helio X30 might feature ARM’s latest Cortex-A35 and Artemis cores. Artemis is the new, rumoured core architecture from ARM which will be a direct competitor to Qualcomm’s Kryo cores. The A35 core has been stated to provide up to 40% better performance, and lower power consumption. This new setup should increase the overall performance, while decreasing the power consumption in comparison to the existing X20 SoC. The Helio X30 is also expected to get an upgraded GPU, probably a 4-core PowerVR 7XT series GPU. Rumours also suggest that the new SoC might bring support for upto to 26MP cameras, dual main camera support, VR, as well as a new CAT 13 LTE modem.
In the meantime, the company will be selling its Helio X20 and the upcoming X25 SoC (which also uses a deca-core setup) to manufacturers.The Helio X20 is manufactured using the 20nm manufacturing process. It features two Cortex-A72 cores @ 2.5GHz, four Cortex-A53 cores @ 2.0GHz, and four Cortex-A53 cores @ 1.4GHz. It can support 4GB of DDR3 RAM, and comes with a new Mali GPU. The recently-launched Zopo Speed 8 at MWC 2016 is powered by this SoC.
On the other hand, official specifications for the Helio X25 are yet to be announced, but it is expected that the new SoC might run on a slightly higher clock speed. It is also unclear whether MediaTek is making the SoC using the 20nm manufacturing process, or the newer 16nm FinFET manufacturing process.
The most creative people on the planet? Kids! At ‘Superhero Cyborgs’, kids create their own superhero gadgets using personal wearable devices but with a beautiful difference. For these kids, the superhero gadgets are a potential alternative to their upper limb prosthetic. These are kids between the age 10-15 who have upper-limb differences, either having been born without one or having lost one.
Superhero Cyborgs is a workshop where professional designers and engineers work along with kids in Autodesk’s state-of-the-art shops to prototype their own wearable devices. The kids are taught 3D modelling, digital fabrication and 3D printing. Version 2.0 of Superhero Cyborgs took place recently in January 2016, at Autodesk's Pier 9 shops in San Francisco, CA.
Ten-year-old Jordan Reeves designed and 3D printed a cannon that fits on her upper arm. She called it ‘Project Unicorn’, and when the trigger rope is pulled, it shoots out glitter ammunition!
Thirteen-year-old Kieran Blue Coffee designed his hand and called it ‘e-Nable’. It has LED lights, and an aluminium attachment that can carry heavy loads. By letting children create their own prosthetics, Autodesk enabled customisation of the parts to the core needs, and personalise it to their dreams.
Kate Ganim is the co-founder of KidMob, the non-profit group that organised this project in partnership with California-based 3D software firm, Autodesk. This project is designed to encouraged and re-think the missing limb as an opportunity, and not a disability.
Last year, a Non-profit group called Limbitless Solutions 3D printed a fully functioning bionic prosthetic for seven-year-old Alex. The arm looked exactly like Iron man’s gauntlet, and is a part of the Limbitless’ initiative called The Collective Project. While Superhero Cyborgs is about gifting superhero arms, it allows the kids to design their own superhero powers, thus adding a ray of sunshine to their lives.
When technology does marvellous things like these, it makes the world a happier place to live in, without any catch!
Watch Robert Downey Jr., Iron Man himself, present the specially-designed arm to a happy Alex.
