Jyoti Tejpal, Author at TheFabWeb https://thefabweb.com/author/jyoti/ Love for Technology and Internet Sun, 31 May 2020 09:48:44 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://thefabweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/cropped-logo600-32x32.png Jyoti Tejpal, Author at TheFabWeb https://thefabweb.com/author/jyoti/ 32 32 Wireless Power Bank 10,000mAh: Gionee in India https://thefabweb.com/wireless-power-bank-10000mah-gionee-in-india/ Sun, 31 May 2020 09:40:36 +0000 https://thefabweb.com/?p=1646 Wireless Power Bank, 10,000mAh by Gionee, which is a Chinese smartphone company, has launched a new GBuddy in India. The device comes with an advertised MRP of Rs. 3,999, but is currently available on Amazon for Rs. 1,299 as part of an introductory offer. It carries a 6-month warranty and is being offered in a […]

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Wireless Power Bank, 10,000mAh by Gionee, which is a Chinese smartphone company, has launched a new GBuddy in India.

The device comes with an advertised MRP of Rs. 3,999, but is currently available on Amazon for Rs. 1,299 as part of an introductory offer. It carries a 6-month warranty and is being offered in a Black colour option.

Gionee claims that the Gbuddy power bank 10,000mAh can charge simultaneously with wirelessly and through the USB port. According to listing page on Amazon, the power bank can charge a 3,000mAh phone battery in around 90 minutes, and a 4,000mAh battery in about 2 hours. It takes approximately 5.5 hours to get sucked-up itself.

The gBuddy power bank, the wireless output is rated at 5W (5V x 1A), supports up to 12W (5V x 2.4A) wired charging. The device is made from metal and weighs 270 grams. It dimensions measure 13.8cm in length, 6.8cm in width and 1.5cm in thickness.

Gionee came up with a comeback mode into the smartphone market last year in November after earlier declaring bankruptcy several months. The company has launched a bunch of smartphones and accessories since, both in China and India.

Gionee has had a tough time of it in the Indian market in recent years, with much of its thunder stolen by its Chinese rivals Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and Realme. The accessories market is also getting reasonably crowded these days, so it will be interesting to see how consumers will accept the company’s latest offering in the country.

Gionee is a Chinese smartphone producer based in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. Founded in 2002, it was one of the largest smartphone manufacturers in China. It is market share in China was 4.7% in 2012, and it expanded into other markets, including India, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Vietnam, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, the Philippines and Algeria.
In August 2016, Gionee India introduced its plans to build a manufacturing plant in India. At the same time, Gionee launched its first Made in India smartphone with the introduction of the F103 model.

The model was produced in a Foxconn plant in Sricity, Andhra Pradesh. Gionee India was sold to Karbonn Mobiles with the license of its brand in September 2018 . In November 2018, it was reported that chairman Liu Lirong lost over US$144 million to gambling in a casino. The Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court accepted the bankruptcy liquidation application filed by Huaxing Bank against Gionee, on 10 December 2018.

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Face Masks : Electric Fields for Virus-Killing https://thefabweb.com/face-masks-electric-fields-for-virus-killing/ Sat, 30 May 2020 09:44:57 +0000 https://thefabweb.com/?p=1637 Face Masks for Electric-field generating fabric, already approved for wound care, appears to destabilize coronavirus particles, so they are unable to infect cells. Now, engineers at Indiana University demonstrate for the first time a new technique for masks. A fabric generating a weak electric field can inactivate coronaviruses. The electroceutical material, described in a ChemRxiv […]

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Face Masks for Electric-field generating fabric, already approved for wound care, appears to destabilize coronavirus particles, so they are unable to infect cells.

Now, engineers at Indiana University demonstrate for the first time a new technique for masks. A fabric generating a weak electric field can inactivate coronaviruses. The electroceutical material, described in a ChemRxiv preprint that has not yet been peer-reviewed, could be used to make face masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE), the authors say.

The fabric was tested against a pig respiratory coronavirus & human coronavirus. It has not yet been verified against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

“The work is of interest for the scientific community; it will open new search to provide smart solutions to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic,” says Mahmoud Al Ahmad, an associate professor of engineering at the University of United Arab Emirates. He was not involved in the research. While the concept will require more development before being applied to PPE, he says, “it is an excellent start in this direction.”

Beyond masks, the findings raise the possibility of using weak electrical fields to curb the spread of viruses in many ways, such as purifying the air in shared spaces or disinfecting operating room surfaces. Coronavirus is not the first or last virus that is going to disrupt our lives. Think about bigger and broader approaches to utilize weak electric fields against virus infectivity.

Sen’s lab has been codeveloping electroceutical fabric technology. It is under the proprietary name V.Dox Technology, with Arizona-based company Vomaris for the past six years. Sen retains a financial stake in the company.

The face masks fabric technology consists of a matrix pattern of silver and zinc dots that act as batteries when exposed to moisture, forming a weak electric field.

The technology consists of a matrix pattern of silver and zinc dots printed onto a material, such as polyester or cotton. The dots form a battery generating a weak electric field: When exposed to a conductive medium, like gel or sweat, electrons transfer from the zinc to the silver in a REDOX reaction, generating a potential difference of 0.5 volts. The technology is FDA-cleared and commercialized for wound care, where it has been shown to treat bacterial biofilm infections.

To be used in masks, moisture will need to be applied in some fashion. According to Sen, approaches could include embedding a hydrogel, so it activates the dots or inserting liquid-filled piping on the periphery of the mask. Moisture from exhaled air will continue to keep the fabric moist.

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, Sen and his team began to wonder if the technology might affect viruses as well as bacteria. Past work in the literature suggested coronaviruses rely on electrostatic forces for attachment and genome assembly, and Sen hoped an electric field would disrupt those forces and therefore kill the virus.

IU geneticist Kenneth Cornetta is who has performed some of the initial virus experiments in his laboratory. The team exposed a pig respiratory coronavirus to the electroceutical fabric for 1 or 5 minutes. After one minute, they found evidence that the virus particles had begun to destabilize and aggregate, becoming more substantial than before exposure. That suggests the weak electric field was causing “damaging structural alterations to the virions,” the authors write.

The electroceutical surface technology, called V.Dox Technology, is a proprietary dot-matrix pattern of embedded microcell batteries that create an electric field and wirelessly generate a low level of electricity when moist.

The electroceutical fabric consists of a dot matrix of silver and zinc nanoparticles that act as batteries when exposed to moisture.
Next, the team tested the virus particles exposed to the fabric against cells in a dish. “The infectivity was gone,” says Sen.

The results indicate “promise for this strategy,” says Murugappan Muthukumar, a professor of polymer science and engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who was not involved in the study. “The authors’ hypothesis that the electrostatic forces within the virus particles and between the virus particles and the fabric are important is correct and is an excellent idea.”

Still, Muthukumar notes, it is difficult to extrapolate how the electric field affects the viral genome, and more work needs to be done to investigate the effects observed in the paper.

Since publishing the preprint, the team also tested the fabric against human coronavirus 229E, a cause of upper respiratory tract infections, and got similar results, adds Sen.

The team has submitted the data to the FDA in the hopes of receiving Emergency Use Authorization to use the fabric in face masks. The technology could even be incorporated into the manufacturing of N95 covers or as an insert, says Sen.

Vomaris currently sells its wound-dressing kits for between US $38 and $69 online. Sen says the technology is inexpensive to manufacture and could be used in PPE at a modest cost.

Independent of Vomaris, Sen’s laboratory is developing a tunable electroceutical called patterned electroceutical dressing. The field strength can be altered depending on need. The dressing has shown to be safe for patients with wounds, says Sen, and is currently in clinical testing.

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Drones deployed for controlling locusts in Rajasthan https://thefabweb.com/drones-deployed-for-controlling-locusts-in-rajasthan/ Sat, 30 May 2020 09:12:54 +0000 https://thefabweb.com/?p=1615 Drones deployed for controlling locusts in Rajasthan as Union Ministry of Civil Aviation has permitted the Rajasthan government’s Agriculture Department to use remotely piloted aircraft systems for anti-locust operations in the broad areas where the swarms of insect have landed. The locust attack has affected approximately 90,000 hectares in 20 districts of Rajasthan. In order, […]

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Drones deployed for controlling locusts in Rajasthan as Union Ministry of Civil Aviation has permitted the Rajasthan government’s Agriculture Department to use remotely piloted aircraft systems for anti-locust operations in the broad areas where the swarms of insect have landed. The locust attack has affected approximately 90,000 hectares in 20 districts of Rajasthan.

In order, the Ministry said that the conditional exemption to use drones would be limited to equipment deployed by the nodal agency for aerial surveillance, aerial photography, public announcements and an aerial spray of insecticide. Details of the drone flights spraying pesticide will be provided to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.

Selective Deployment of Drones

The drones will not be flown over for spraying eco-sensitive zones around Wildlife Sanctuaries and National Parks, according to the order. Moreover, the drone operations will be restricted only to the period between sunrise and sunset. They will also not be used in adverse weather conditions such as heavy winds, rain, dust storms and low visibility.

State Agriculture Commissioner Om Prakash told on Thursday that the deployment of a drone on a trial basis in Jaipur district’s Samod village had proved the utility of the equipment in reaching difficult and inaccessible terrains. “Drones can spray insecticide at the height and in places where regular sprayers cannot reach. They can kill locusts which are perched on high trees these days,” he said.

Dr Prakash said though the drones were not as effective as sprayers, which are usually mounted on tractors and fire tenders, they would be useful as an “additional support” for sprinkling the chemicals on the locust swarms at places like foothills and dunes. A drone can spray pesticide on a nearly 2.5-acre area during a flight of 15 minutes.

Tenders for Drones Facility

The Agriculture Department has been floating tenders for engaging 30 drones for locust control in Rajasthan. Dr Prakash said the insects were landing on trees and foraging on leaves primarily because of lack of vegetation in agricultural fields after the rabi crop harvesting. They are likely to come down when they find greener on the land.

Locust threat is more significant in 2020, warns Agriculture Ministry monitor.

The Agriculture Commissioner said the locust control operations had been carried out in an area measuring 67,000 acres across the State. There was no significant damage to agriculture because of the absence of standing crops, but the cotton crop in 4,000 hectares in Sriganganagar district and 100 hectares in Nagaur has been destroyed.

200 Teams to Survey

Over 800 sprayers-mounted tractors and 50 fire tenders have been pressed into service for locust control. Dr Prakash said that about 200 teams were involved in the daily survey of the affected areas and the farmers were being supplied with high-intensity insecticide-free of cost.

The Government of Delhi has also issued an advisory on preventive measures to control a probable locust attack.

The swarms of tropical grasshoppers, which have been crossing over to Rajasthan from the India-Pakistan border since April 11, have moved towards other areas in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh and even reached the Vidarbha region in Maharashtra.

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Acoustic Treatment : Get a Better Sounding Room https://thefabweb.com/acoustic-treatment-get-a-better-sounding-room/ Fri, 29 May 2020 12:36:05 +0000 https://thefabweb.com/?p=1607 Acoustic treatment is the most undermined and misunderstood parts of the building or a home or a studio. The special touch can turn an ordinary room into a recording environment. Getting started with acoustic treatment can be intimidating. It becomes, especially for the average producer. Pro studios spend more money on improving the acoustics of […]

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Acoustic treatment is the most undermined and misunderstood parts of the building or a home or a studio. The special touch can turn an ordinary room into a recording environment.

Getting started with acoustic treatment can be intimidating. It becomes, especially for the average producer. Pro studios spend more money on improving the acoustics of the workspaces where they record.

The reality is that acoustic treatment is something anyone can take advantage of in a home studio. In the following article, we will go through everything you need to know about acoustic treatment.

What is the Acoustic Treatment

Acoustic treatment is a process of improving the acoustic properties of a room or recording or mixing music. Acoustic treatment aims to make your environment sound neutral and sonically pleasing with controlled ambience with predictable qualities for recording. Acoustic treatment is accomplished by mounting absorption or diffusion devices in workspaces where problematic reflections keep on occurring.

Diffusion and Absorption

There are two prominent ways to deal with problematic acoustics.

The first is to prevent undemanded frequencies from reflecting into the recording or mixing environment. This method is called absorption. The acoustic absorber is made from a material that stops sound energy from reflecting or bouncing off hard surfaces like walls and ceilings. The “trapped” reflections no longer interfere with the direct sound from the source. That makes a significant improvement to the quality of the sound of the space—and recordings.

Diffusion is another approach to acoustic treatment. Distribution works by scattering problematic reflections in different directions. This reduces the harmful effect. The acoustic diffuser is made of rigid materials arranged in patterns of varying size, height, or direction.

In all the cases, a combination of both approaches is necessary for effective acoustic treatment.

How to acoustically treat your room

There is no single fix size to fit all solution for acoustic treatment. Every room is unique and different problem areas. But if you are getting started with acoustic treatment, some basic recommendations can make a significant improvement.

To treat your work area or room for recording or mixing, you need to use the following types of acoustic treatment:

  • Bass traps— low frequencies
  • Acoustic panels— broadband absorption
  • Diffusers— late reflections.

We will go through every to explain how they make proper acoustic treatment.

What are Bass Traps?

These acoustic absorbers can prevent problematic reflections from low frequencies. This manner of acoustic treatment requires extra mass and absorptive properties to deal with low rates effectively.
They are shaped like triangular prisms. They are placed in the corners of the room, typically where bass frequencies build up.
Bass traps must be filled with absorptive material to be effective at low frequencies.

Controlling your room’s bass properly is crucial. Low-end energy can be extra problematic for recording and mixing environments, especially in small workspaces.

The longer a sound’s wavelength, the lower the frequency. Like, one cycle of a 60 Hz sine wave is approx. 19 feet!

  • Room reflections mix and blend with the direct signal and can cause destructive interference before a full cycle of the wave, even has been completed.
  • With the entire energy of the sound wave nearly fighting against itself, your bass will disappear in critical areas and build-up in others.
  • As we process our tracks, we will attempt to compensate by boosting the low end in our mix. When we listen anywhere outside of our wrong mix room, then the final product will be far too bassy.
  • Bass traps are an appropriate solution to such issues.
  • There are significant commercial companies that offer premium pre-built bass traps, but it’s also entirely possible to build your own.

All the various types of acoustic treatment in the article are surprisingly accessible if you’re willing to DIY.

What are the Acoustic Panels?

Acoustic panels are those absorbing devices that work for a broad frequency range of sound energy. Bass traps handle at the lowest frequencies, and acoustic panels take care of the rest.

  • The next most problematic areas are the first reflection points. This is a crucial area for the usage of acoustic absorption panels.
  • These are the places which are the initial reflections convergers where the listening area has the most intensity.
  • The first reflection points are generally located on walls to the immediate left and right of the listening position as every room is different.
  • Acoustic panels are made of a rectangular frame filled with absorbent material and hung on walls.

What are Diffusers?

  • Acoustic diffusers are a form of acoustic treatment that scatter reflections rather than absorbing them.
  • They’re an essential part of comprehensive acoustic treatment. If you only use absorption, you’ll end up with a space that sounds unnaturally “dead.”
  • Diffusion allows you to control room reflections without eliminating them.
  • There are different diffusor styles that each use a different strategy to reduce the harmful effects of acoustic reflections.
  • Diffusion works best for tackling late reflections at points further back from the primary listening position, but it’s still a crucial part of a complete acoustic treatment strategy.

Royal Treatment

  • This type of treatment is a commonly misunderstood component of excellent studio setup.
  • There’s a lot to learn, but the basics are surprisingly simple—control reflections and stop critical frequencies from cancelling each other out.
  • A combination of bass traps, broadband absorbers, and diffusers is a productive start to treating a room.
  • Use the information in this article to get started on your journey with treatment.

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Nvidia GeForce Now : Opt-in Streaming Service https://thefabweb.com/nvidia-geforce-now/ Thu, 28 May 2020 17:32:30 +0000 https://thefabweb.com/?p=1515 Nvidia GeForce Now is going to worsen before it gets better. Nvidia’s game streaming service, GeForce Now, is moving to a new library opt-in system, one who will hand videogame developers ultimate control over whether their videogames are supported on the platform or not. It appears as though Nvidia’s dream of an open gaming PC […]

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Nvidia GeForce Now is going to worsen before it gets better.

Nvidia’s game streaming service, GeForce Now, is moving to a new library opt-in system, one who will hand videogame developers ultimate control over whether their videogames are supported on the platform or not.

Nvidia Geforce Now

It appears as though Nvidia’s dream of an open gaming PC in the sky is well and truly over—big publishers have kicked up such a fuss that it is now relinquishing any control it once had over which games make it onto the GeForce Now service. From here on out, it’s up to publishers and developers to opt-in and allows their videogames to be beamed from one of Nvidia’s datacentres.

In turn, that means some videogames will leave the GeForce Now platform, at least for the time being. The reason for which, Nvidia cites in a blog post, is that “some publishers are still figuring out their cloud strategies.” These changes may take place from May 31.

Nvidia Geforce Now

It’s a troubling sign for cloud gaming services. You can call me naive, and perhaps I’m turning a blind eye to the specifics of EULAs. Still, I don’t see what difference there is between the gaming PC sat under your desk and one which you’re renting from Nvidia—either way you’re still buying the games through the same channels as before: Steam, Origin, Epic Games Store, GOG, etc.

That’s what separates Nvidia GeForce Now from a service such as Google Stadia. Whereas Stadia has a store and requires studios to develop their games specially for the service, GeForce Now is more or less a promise of compatible and capable hardware. The machine you receive (either for free or for a small fee) is conceptually the same as any gaming PC and maintains the equal access to the full range of digital libraries. For example, it’s just made up of a sliver of a server rack instead of individual components.

Whether you play the videogames that you’ve already purchased via a rented server or a home-built PC shouldn’t matter. And it’s not like anyone seems to care about the eleventy other streaming services that offer the same thing as GeForce Now….

What is GeForce?

Nvidia Geforce Now

GeForce is a brand of GPUs or graphics processing units designed by Nvidia. As of the GeForce 20 Superseries, there have been sixteen iterations of the design. Later diversification of the product line covered every tier of the PC graphics market, ranging from cost-sensitive. GPUs integrated on motherboards to mainstream add-in local boards.

Most recently, GeForce technology has been introduced into Nvidia’s line of embedded application processors, designed for electronic handhelds and mobile handsets.
The first GeForce products were discrete GPUs designed for add-on graphics boards, intended for the high-margin PC gaming market.

Concerning discrete GPUs, found in add-in graphics-boards, Nvidia’s GeForce and AMD’s Radeon GPUs are the only remaining competitors in the high-end market. Along with its nearest competitor, the AMD Radeon, the GeForce architecture is moving toward general-purpose graphics processor unit (GPGPU).

GPGPU is expected to expand GPU functionality beyond the traditional rasterization of 3D graphics, to turn it into a high-performance computing device able to execute arbitrary programming code. It is in the same way a CPU does, but with different strengths (highly parallel execution of straightforward calculations) and weaknesses (worse performance for complex branching code).

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NASA Astronauts’ COVID Training : In-person or Remotely ? https://thefabweb.com/nasa-astronauts-training-sessions/ Wed, 27 May 2020 11:44:57 +0000 https://thefabweb.com/?p=1500 NASA established strict rules to keep astronauts from getting sick before they launched to space and potentially infected others in their close living quarters, decades before the COVID-19 pandemic. NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley have trained for years for this moment. They spent, at minimum, hundreds of hours learning the intricacies of the […]

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NASA established strict rules to keep astronauts from getting sick before they launched to space and potentially infected others in their close living quarters, decades before the COVID-19 pandemic. NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley have trained for years for this moment. They spent, at minimum, hundreds of hours learning the intricacies of the SpaceX capsule they’ll ride to the International Space Station. And they got used to the craft’s touch-screen flight system, a major change from the 2,000 switches and circuit breakers used to fly the space shuttle. On Wednesday, all of that preparation will be put to the test.

Behnken and Hurley will be the first people ever to launch in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. During that test flight, slated for liftoff from Florida at 4:33 p.m. EDT, the astronauts will make sure all the systems work before NASA certifies the spacecraft to regularly transport its astronauts to the space station.

Even astronauts’ jobs have changed because of coronavirus, Just two months before the mission, during a time when they were learning crucial skills for everyday space-station living, the coronavirus outbreak hit. Without close, interpersonal training, it can be hard to learn those routine tasks, like using — and fixing — the complex piece of machinery that is the station’s toilet.

“You want to be able to do the things you’re going to have to do every day without having to think too much about them,” said Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut who retired in 2018. “Those are the things that are going to waste time if you aren’t pretty familiar going in.” There’s already a lot riding on this mission.

Wednesday’s launch is the first time NASA astronauts will launch to orbit from U.S. soil since the space shuttle was retired in 2011 If the mission is successful, NASA will no longer have to rely solely on Russia to transport U.S. astronauts to space, which has cost the U.S. billions of dollars.

It would also bolster NASA’s bet that relying on commercial companies for “routine” services, like transporting cargo and crew to the space station, will free up the agency to focus on more ambitious endeavors, such as missions to the moon or Mars. “The expectation after Apollo was that we’d be on Mars by 1980,” said Lori Garver, who was NASA’s deputy administrator from 2009 to 2013. “Finally, I think, we’re going to be able to accelerate our progress by opening it up, reducing the cost.”

For SpaceX, a successful launch would achieve the company’s long-standing goal of flying humans to space. It also signifies how much the company has evolved over its 18 years. When SpaceX and Boeing Co. were awarded multibillion contracts in 2014 to develop separate spacecraft to ferry astronauts to the space station, the Elon Musk-led SpaceX was seen as a scrappy upstart. Today, the company has an extensive list of customers ranging from commercial satellite operators to the U.S. military and, of course, NASA.

“They build and operate what I consider to be safe spacecraft,” said former NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Jr., who was initially unimpressed with SpaceX after a visit early in the company’s history. “They have grown in my estimation and my personal esteem, in no small part due to their leadership in the form of Gwynne Shotwell.”
Shotwell, the company’s president and chief operating officer, said earlier this month that there are thousands of SpaceX employees focused on this mission.

“We spent years working on this vehicle,” she told reporters. “There will be a little sense of relief once [Behnken and Hurley are] in orbit. I’ll feel more relief when they get to the station and then, obviously, I will start sleeping again when they’re back safely on the planet.”

In March, as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to spread, NASA had to evaluate the astronauts’ remaining training sessions and decide which had to be done in-person, with as few people as possible, and which could be held remotely.

Learning how to use the space station’s kitchen equipment? Virtual.
Instructors used photos and videos to show Behnken and Hurley how to warm up food or figure out how much water they’d need to rehydrate their food packages.

Practicing space walks? In person.
Behnken suited up in a replica of the spacesuit he’d wear during an actual spacewalk and scaled a life-size space station mock-up that sits in a 40-foot-deep pool at Houston’s Johnson Space Center. The 20 or so experts who usually congregate in a nearby conference room to answer questions or give tips watched from home and relied on video communications, said Megan Levins, chief training officer at Johnson Space Center.

Learning how to use the space station’s toilet? Definitely an in-person lesson.
“It’s hardware you want to make sure you know how to use,” Levins said. The station’s waste management system is high-tech and involves buttons, switches and a number of parts. There are pumps and compressors. There’s a suction function that pulls urine into a funnel and runs it through an air/water separator. Suction is also needed to perform the vital task of pulling solid waste into the toilet. (“In zero gravity, everything floats,” Whitson said.)
That’s why it’s so important to know exactly how to set up the toilet, use it and figure out if there’s a problem.

Usually, astronauts will train side-by-side with an instructor, who uses a mock-up of the toilet to show them how to manipulate its valves. This time, the instructor stood more than six feet away, wore a mask and gave verbal instructions to the astronauts at the mock-up toilet. It’s less efficient to explain everything verbally, Levin said. “It is more difficult but doable.”

NASA has plenty of experience isolating staff to stave off illness. And in the early days of the space program, astronauts were sequestered once they returned home. Famously, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were quarantined for three weeks after their moon mission in 1969 for fear of lunar contagions.

Nowadays, astronauts typically enter quarantine two weeks before launch and get their temperatures checked every day, said Whitson, who is also a former chief of NASA’s astronaut office. During this period, only a few people like spouses or those critical to the mission are allowed to visit the crew. “We’ve never used the term ‘social distance’ … but that’s exactly what we were doing,” she said. “We have one integrated ventilation system onboard. If one person gets sick, everybody’s going to get sick.”

For Behnken, the additional measures put in place were just an extension of what he was already used to as a veteran astronaut and former chief of NASA’s astronaut office. “We assume pandemic for all crews that are headed toward the space station,” he said. “We just have been doing that longer.” On Earth, particles from a sneeze might travel six feet. But in space, those particles can stay in the air for much longer, though they will eventually get filtered out through the station’s ventilation system, Whitson said. “Everything is going to be in your face,” she said.

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Virgin Orbit Fails to Launch Rocket from Jumbo Jet https://thefabweb.com/virgin-orbit-fails/ Tue, 26 May 2020 10:47:54 +0000 https://thefabweb.com/?p=1472 Virgin Orbit has failed in its maiden attempt to launch a rocket carried by a Boeing 747 off the coast of Southern California. The LauncherOne rocket brilliantly lighted its booster engine on cue after being released from the carrier aircraft — the first time the company had attempted an in-air ignition. An anomaly occurred early […]

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Virgin Orbit has failed in its maiden attempt to launch a rocket carried by a Boeing 747 off the coast of Southern California. The LauncherOne rocket brilliantly lighted its booster engine on cue after being released from the carrier aircraft — the first time the company had attempted an in-air ignition. An anomaly occurred early in first stage flight, and then the mission was safely terminated.

The attempt was a test for the company’s plan to launch satellites into space in the following years and followed five years of development on the 21.3-metre LauncherOne rocket. Flames shoot from a rocket which has just been dropped from beneath the wing of a jumbo jet. Virgin Orbit’s rocket fired briefly after being dropped from beneath the wing of a jumbo jet. There was no immediate info on what went wrong with the rocket, which carried a test satellite, or on whether it had broken up or fallen into the sea.

Virgin Orbit

The failed test provided a ”treasure trove” of data. The modified jumbo jet took off from Mojave Air and Space Port in the desert north of Los Angeles, and flew towards the Channel Islands, in the Pacific Ocean, where the drop occurred. After taking off from Mojave, Cosmic Girl will fly due southwest to our drop point just south of the Channel Islands. Once we reach the drop point, we’ll enter into a loop that we call the “racetrack” as we wait for final go/no-gos. The rocket was planned to fall for a few seconds before the first two stages ignited and propelled it down the coast toward Antarctica Landform before its demonstration payload gets an entry into a low Earth orbit.

Virgin Orbit now had a “treasure trove” of data, according to chief executive Dan Hart. He said, “We accomplished many of the goals we set for ourselves, though not as many as we would have liked. Nevertheless, we took a big step forward today. Our engineers are already pouring through the data. Our next rocket is waiting. We will learn, adjust, and begin preparing for our next test, which is coming up soon.”

Virgin Orbit’s vice-president for special projects Will Pomerantz said during a pre-flight briefing on Saturday that about half of first rocket launches fail. “History is not kind, necessarily, to maiden flights. There had been numerous tests to verify that the system was ready. In the end, the questions are always, has everything been thought about and are there any gaps or seams. Those are the questions you only learn when you commit to a flight.”

Richard Branson

A rocket with Launcher One written on the side is attached underneath the wing of a Virgin branded 747.
How long the setback will affect the finances is not now clear. It has six additional rockets still under construction in its factory. A successful launch by Virgin Orbit could have marked a dramatic step in getting back on track after the coronavirus pandemic sent most employees home earlier this year.

The time is just right for small satellite launch market that is why Virgin Orbit is targeting for launching satellites ranging in every size from small toasters to as big as household refrigerators. As told by Mr.Hart, the flight crew is preparing to board the aircraft. Cosmic Girl is piloted by Chief Test Pilot Kelly Latimer, who has been the wind beneath company wings throughout the entire flight test program. Technological advancements have enabled satellites much smaller than traditional payloads to do “real work” in space and for markets ranging from commercial to national security.

While other companies are developing rockets for the small satellite market, and builders of big rockets like SpaceX can carry them into orbit in a ride-share arrangement with large satellites, Virgin Orbit’sOrbit’s air-launch system, based on the aviation industry workhorse 747, is intended to put a satellite up when and where a customer needs it. Virgin can fly to space from any place that can host a 747, which is almost any place, Mr Hart said.

Space company has plenty of work lined up for Virgin Orbit as it has many missions on the books for customers which include US Space Force and Britain’sBritain’s RAF. It is working internationally on plans for launches from the UK & Japan.

Mr Hart provided no specific dollar value for the missions, just called it “hundreds of millions”. Air launch technology dates back decades to X-15 rocket planes in the 1950s and ’60s’60s. For satellites, the method currently in use is Northrop Grumman’sGrumman’s Pegasus rocket program, which had dozen of launches since 1990.

Virgin Galactic has been preparing to begin flights carrying passengers into the lower reaches of space from southern New Mexico. Headquartered in Long Beach, California, Virgin Orbit started as a sister company of Virgin Galactic but has since separated.

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Backlinks are Influencing Factor : What and How https://thefabweb.com/backlinks-influencing-factor/ Mon, 25 May 2020 13:45:23 +0000 https://thefabweb.com/?p=1458 Backlinks are outside links from domains that point to pages on your domain which essentially linking back from their domain to yours. The backlink profile is consists of backlinks from external sites also known as referring domains that contribute to the overall strength, relevance and diversity of your domain’s backlink profile. to a more significant […]

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Backlinks are outside links from domains that point to pages on your domain which essentially linking back from their domain to yours. The backlink profile is consists of backlinks from external sites also known as referring domains that contribute to the overall strength, relevance and diversity of your domain’s backlink profile. to a more significant degree.

The total number of backlinks may often include many links from the multiple referring domains or same referring domain or It’s common for referring domains to link back to your content if it is relevant, authoritative or useful in some way to their domain. In this ideal world, that’s how backlinks are accumulated. The unique content that websites want to be associated with.

Usually backlinks are considered to be a “vote” of confidence for the content that’s being linked to on your domain from outside sources.

Why are backlinks relevant?

Backlinks are essential for Search Engines and users alike. From a client’s perspective, backlinks provide a way for people to find sources of information on the related topics. Such as if the client is visiting a page about the “best smartphones”, he might find links out to other carriers, cell phone providers or user-generated review pages. Links create a substantial client experience because they transfer the user directly to more desirable information if needed.

For most Search Engines, backlinks provide to determine the page’s importance, value and authority.
The number of backlinks had been an indicator of a popularity of the page, historically. Due to the way, today backlinks are evaluated based on different industry-related ranking factors. This is less quantity focused and more focussed on the quality of sites from which the links are initiating. Alternatively, many backlinks from too many unreliable domains can hinder the authoritative signals of the domain.

Good Backlink Profile : Characteristics

A natural link profile has many varieties. The links come from different links and domains might have different strengths and powers. To best understand the backlink profile, it makes sense to look at a few top-level KPI’s such as the referring domains, the Top-Level-Domain and IP’s, the country from where the backlink is coming from.

There are domains which are better to accept links from than others. These are domains that are “trusted” resources and possess higher domain authority. Like, links from government entities (.gov) and educational institutions (.edu) tend to carry a lot of strength and authority to indicate “trusted” sites to search engines and content.

Backlink Ranking Factors

Ranking FactorsDescriptionSuite Area / Action
Backlink
There is still a correlation between high rankings and the number of backlinks, but this trend will continue to decrease moving forwards.To track the backlink profile for your project domain, see Links > Overview.
To track the backlink profile of any domain, see Research > Backlinks.
Anchor TextThe percentage of links with the keyword, continues to decline.To see the Top Ten anchor texts for your project domain, see Links > Overview. Click on the hyperlink to take you to the list of backlinks using those anchor texts.
To see all the anchor texts for any domain, see Research > Backlinks > Anchor Texts.
News DomainsPages in the middle of the first SERP have the most links from news domains. An indication that current content ranks highly.To see how many news domains (e.g., nytimes.com) are linking to your project domain, check Links > Overview.
New and Lost LinksURLs ranked with positions 1-4 have older links significantly on average than in the previous year. The differences across all rankings have become more significant.Check how many new and lost backlinks any site is getting on a daily basis by going to Research > Backlinks > Backlinks > New and Lost Links.

Backlinks : How do it influences SEO?

Make sure the backlinks appear to be natural. Don’t prefer webmasters to link back to your pages with a specific anchor text since this can hazardously result in a pattern that may get noticed by search engines and cause the client to get a linking penalty. Don’t do anything unnatural and shady to create backlink. For example, you were asking a site to put a link in the footer of every page on their website. NEVER prefer to pay someone for links! If you’re trying to build backlinks by accepting sponsored content, it has to say “Sponsored” on it explicitly. That’s an FCC regulation. Most publishers will mark these backlinks as “no follow”, but they still have link value, and they can drive traffic to your site.

At one time, directories like DMOZ were the right place to add listings and get backlinks. However, these large web directories aren’t relevant anymore. But, if you do find niche communities or industry-relevant directories online, it can be worth building a relationship with the webmasters to get a backlink from this type of site. .GOV domains are quite valuable since just no one can start them. Therefore, they inherently have more of the domain value.

How do I build backlinks?

Outreach to webmasters should be personalized. You can list reasons why you like the brand, think the brand would partner well with them or citing articles and other contents they published are excellent ways to make them more receptive. It is better to try and find an actual point-of-contact on professional sites something like LinkedIn. A generic blast with “Dear Webmaster” emails is just a spam campaign.

Who links back to my site?

It’s essential to monitor the backlinks the site is accumulating. First, you can verify that the outreach is working. Second, you can control if you pick up some of the shady backlinks. Domains from Brazil and Russia are notorious origins of spams and ill-will-sites. Therefore, it can be wise to disown links from sites originating from this part of the world through Google Search Console as soon as you find them – even if they haven’t impacted your site… yet.

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Domotics : Smart Home and Home Automation https://thefabweb.com/domotics/ Sun, 24 May 2020 09:30:34 +0000 https://thefabweb.com/?p=1442 Domotics which comes from the Latin “Domus” meaning home, has been optimised by Smart Home concept is a place of residence that uses internet-connected devices to enable the remote monitoring and management of appliances and systems, such as lighting and heating. New Trend in IoT Smart home technology referred to as home automation provides homeowners […]

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Domotics which comes from the Latin “Domus” meaning home, has been optimised by Smart Home concept is a place of residence that uses internet-connected devices to enable the remote monitoring and management of appliances and systems, such as lighting and heating.

New Trend in IoT

Smart home technology referred to as home automation provides homeowners security, comfort, convenience and energy efficiency. It can be done by allowing them to control smart devices, often by a smart home app on their smartphone or another networked device.
The part of the internet of things (IoT), intelligent home systems and methods operate together, sharing consumer usage data among themselves with automating actions based on the home dwellers preferences.

The origins of the Intelligent Home

Release of X10, in 1975, a communication protocol for home automation, the smart home, once a pipe dream a la The Jetsons, came to life. X10 sends 120 kHz radio frequency (R.F.) bursts of digital information onto a home’s existing electrical wiring to programmable outlets or switches.

The signals convey commands to corresponding devices, controlling how and when the devices operate. A transmitter could send a message along with the house’s electric wiring, telling a device to turn on at a specific time.

However, as electrical wiring is not designed to be mainly free from radio-band “noise,” X10 was not always entirely reliable. Signals would be lost, and signals wouldn’t cross circuits that were wired on different polarities. It is created when 220-volt service is split into a pair of 100-volt feeds which is common in the U.S.

X10 was initially a one-way technology. Smart devices can take commands. They can not send data back to a central network. Later, two-way X10 devices became available, at a higher cost.

Home Sweet Home

Home automation company Insteon came in 2005 and introduced automation technology that combined electric wiring with wireless signals. Zigbee and Z-Wave have emerged to counter the problems prone to X10. Though X10 widely remains installed communications company to this day.

Nest Labs, founded in 2010, released its first smart product, the Nest Learning Thermostat, in 2011. The company created security cameras and smart smoke/carbon monoxide detectors. It became a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., after being acquired by Google in 2015.

SmartThings Inc. launched a Kickstarter campaign, in 2012, raising $1.2 million to fund smart home system. After additional funding, in August 2013, the company came on the market and was taken over by Samsung in 2014. Recently Amazon, Apple and Google have released their smart home products and domotics platforms, including Amazon Echo, Apple HomeKit and Google Home.

Smart Home Technologies Examples

  • Every sphere of life where technology has entered the domestic space from lightbulbs to dishwashers and so on, has seen the introduction of a smart home alternative:
  • Smart T.V.s connect to the internet to access content through applications, such as on-demand video and music. Smart T.V.s include gesture or voice recognition.
  • Smart lighting systems, like Hue from Philips Lighting Holding B.V., can detect when occupants are in the room and adjust lighting as needed, in addition to being able to be controlled remotely and customized. Intelligent lightbulbs can regulate based on daylight availability.
  • Smart thermostats, like Nest from Nest Labs Inc., come with integrated Wi-Fi, allowing users to monitor, schedule and control home temperatures remotely. Devices learn homeowners’ behaviours and modify settings automatically to provide residents with maximum efficiency and comfort. Smart thermostats can report energy use, and even, users are reminded to change filters.
  • Users can deny or grant access to visitors, using smart locks and garage door openers. Smart locks can detect when residents are near and automatically unlock the doors to receive them.
  • Residents can monitor their homes, with smart security cameras, when they are on vacations. Intelligent motion sensors can identify the difference between visitors, residents, pets and burglars. If suspicious behaviour is detected, they can notify authorities. Lawns and houseplants can be watered by way of connected timers. Pet care can be with connected feeders for automation.
  • Kitchen appliances are available, including smart coffee makers that can brew you a fresh cup as soon as your alarm goes off. Intelligent refrigerators can keep track of expiration dates make shopping lists and even create recipes based on ingredients currently on hand—slower toasters and cookers. In the laundry room, dryers and washing machines.
  • Household system monitors may sense an electric surge and turn off appliances. They can detect freezing pipes or water failures or turn off the water. It can prevent flood in your basement.

Pros and Cons Smart Home

  • Best and most touted benefits of home automation is providing peace of mind to homeowners, allowing them to monitor their homes remotely, countering dangers such as a forgotten coffee maker left on or a front door left unlocked.
  • Domotics is beneficial for the elderly. It provides monitoring that helps seniors to remain at home comfortably and safely. It assists in a nursing home or 24/7 home care.
  • Smart homes can accommodate preferences. As soon as you arrive home, the garage door will open, the lights will go on, the fireplace will roar, and your smart speakers will start playing on favourite tunes.
  • Smart automation helps consumers improve efficiency. A smart home system can remember your behaviours and make sure the house is cooled down by the time you arrive home from work instead of leaving the air conditioning on all day—the same applies on the appliances. Your lawn will be watered when needed and with the exact amount of water necessary with a smart irrigation system. With home automation, water energy, and resources are used efficiently, which helps save both natural resources and money for the consumer.
  • Home automation systems is still struggling to become mainstream due to technical nature. A drawback of smart homes is perceived complexity. People face difficulty with technology or will give up on it with the first annoyance. Smart home alliances and manufacturers are working on reducing complexity and improving the user experience to make it enjoyable and beneficial for users of all types and technical levels. There is still no world standard available for home automation as it is such a nascent market. However, standard technicians companies are partnering with manufacturers and companies to ensure interoperability and seamless user experience.
  • Hackers can infiltrate an intelligent device. They can potentially turn off the lights and alarms and unlock the doors, leaving home defenceless to a break-in. Hackers could access the homeowner’s behaviour and network, leading to worse attacks or data exfiltration.
  • Many intelligent home opponents worry about data privacy, in addition to security. The NTT Data reported that 73% of consumers are very much concerned about the privacy of the data shared by their smart home devices. The smart home device and platform manufacturers may collect consumer data to better tailor their products or offer new and improved services to customers. Transparency and trust are critical to manufacturers building trust with the users of their smart products.

How Smart Homes work and Home Implementation

Newly built homes are constructed with intelligent home infrastructure in place. Older homes can also be retrofitted with smart technologies. While smart home systems still run on X10 or Insteon, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi have grown in popularity.

Z-Wave and Zigbee are two of the most commonly used home automation communications protocols in use today. Both mesh network technologies. They use low-power, short-range radio signals to connect smart home systems. Though both target the same intelligent home applications, with Zigbee, often perceived as the more complex of the two. Zigbee has a range of 10 meters to Z-Wave’s 30 meters.

A smart home is not different intelligent devices and appliances, but ones that work together to create a remotely controllable network. A master home automation controller controls all home devices, often called a smart home hub. An intelligent home hub is a hardware device that acts as the central point of the intelligent home system and can sense, process data and communicate wirelessly. It combines all of the different apps into a single, smart home app that can be controlled remotely by homeowners. These include Amazon Echo, Google Home, Insteon Hub Pro, Samsung SmartThings and Wink Hub, among others.

Intelligent home systems can be created from scratch, like using a Raspberry Pi or prototyping board. Others can be purchased as a bundled quick home kit — also known as a smart home platform — that contains the pieces needed to start a home automation project.

Smart home scenarios, events can be timed and monitored. Timed events are based on a clock, like, lowering the blinds at 6:00 p.m., while triggered activities depend on actions in the automated system; for example, when the owner’s smartphone approaches the door, the smart lock unlocks, and the intelligent lights go on.

Machine learning and artificial intelligence (A.I.) is becoming increasingly popular in smart home systems, allowing home automation applications to adapt to their environments. Voice-activated systems, such as Google Home or Amazon Echo, contain virtual assistants which personalize the smart home to the residents’ preferences and patterns.

Smart Building Architecture

While every smart home is an intelligent building, not every intelligent building is a smart home. Enterprise, industrial, commercial and residential buildings of all shapes and sizes, including offices, skyscrapers, apartment buildings, and multi-tenant offices and residences are deploying IoT technologies to improve building efficiency, reduce energy costs and environmental impact, and ensure security, as well as improve occupant satisfaction. Many of the same intelligent technologies used in the smart home are deployed in smart buildings, including lighting, energy, heating and air conditioning, and security and building access systems.

A smart building can reduce power costs using sensors to detect how many occupants are in a room. The temperature can automatically adjust, putting fresh air on if sensors detect a full conference room, or turning the heat down if everyone in the office has gone home for the day. Smart buildings can connect to the intelligent grid. Here, intelligent building components and the electric grid can “talk” and “listen” to each other. With smart technology, energy distribution can be managed efficiently, maintenance can be handled proactively, and power outages can be responded to more quickly.

Beyond the above benefits, a smart building can provide building owners and managers the benefit of predictive maintenance. Janitors such as can refill restroom supplies when usage sensors monitor the soap or paper towel dispensers are low. Or support and failures can be predicted on building refrigeration, elevators and lighting systems.

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Xbox One : Open NAT by enabling UPnP https://thefabweb.com/xbox-one/ Fri, 22 May 2020 20:17:27 +0000 https://thefabweb.com/?p=1430 Xbox One is on, and during this period if you are encountering connectivity issues, Network Address Translation (NAT) type is the first place to look. NAT establishes how easily we connect to other players, potentially limiting who we can enjoy games with. While various solutions can alter NAT type, enabling Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) […]

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Xbox One is on, and during this period if you are encountering connectivity issues, Network Address Translation (NAT) type is the first place to look. NAT establishes how easily we connect to other players, potentially limiting who we can enjoy games with. While various solutions can alter NAT type, enabling Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) is usually accepted as the first step.

For Xbox One consoles, Xbox Live is down on May 22, 2020, which may cause NAT issues to be displayed.

The latest updates are as follows.

Why there is a need for Open NAT on Xbox One

We may have seen terms indicating the leniency of NAT types when connected to Xbox Live and playing online games. This somewhat represents compatibility with other players, with stricter NAT types often experiencing multiplayer connectivity issues.

Users with Open NAT will generally see the best experience on Xbox Live. While getting NAT open is ultimately the end goal for the best connectivity, this has proven to be difficult for many users. One of the standard solutions is port forwarding, helping to route gaming traffic directly to the console.

Understanding UPnP in gaming

  • Ports are digital channels for the router, used for sorting incoming and outgoing internet traffic.
  • UPnP essentially allows applications automatically to forward ports, to avoid the hassle of manual “port forwarding.”
  • Although they achieve the same output, UPnP enables the console to request a port seamlessly rather than requiring specific port numbers to be entered manually. And for many, it’s a simple flick of a switch.
  • We must note that UPnP has seen heavy criticism in the past, due to a long list of security flaws associated with the technology.
  • Malicious programs can leverage UPnP vulnerabilities, only as a result of its open nature. So there may be some related security risks here.
  • The technology is far from standardized, meaning implementations can vary between routers, especially on older or less reputable models.
  • It is a case of slightly relaxing security for convenience, though usually, the risk isn’t high for home consumers.

Port forwarding only creates specific port maps to maintain higher security levels, but it requires a bit of manual work.

How to enable UPnP for Xbox One

If we want to enable UPnP on our router, the setup process is simple. Steps may vary between router models, though we’ve provided a general guideline of what to expect. Do not use a combination of port forwarding, UPnP, or DMZ when configuring Xbox One’s connectivity. Make sure all are disabled before moving forward.

Follow the steps:

  • Navigate to the router login page.
  • Log in to the router using the required credentials.
  • Navigate to the UPnP menu on the router.
  • The given action once again varies between models, so please be specific on the router.
  • If UPnP is not available, we must recommend port forwarding.
  • Enable the UPnP.
  • Save changes.
  • Open the Settings app on Xbox One.
  • Select the Network tab.
  • Select Test NAT type tile. It would be best if you had Open NAT on Xbox One.

If the above steps didn’t work, we recommend trying port forwarding with Xbox One.

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