21st Century Innovative Technologies and Developments as also discoveries, curiosity ( insolite)...

Google promised three years of updates at launch but stopped updates after one year.

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New York (CNN Business)Leading Covid-19 vaccine developer AstraZeneca agreed on Saturday to buy Boston pharmaceutical firm Alexion (ALXN) for $39 billion.

The acquisition is one of the largest deals of the year for the drug industry and would expand AstraZeneca's (AZN) reach in rare diseases. Alexion has an immunology unit in Boston that serves patients with rare disorders.
AstraZeneca, a British-Swedish drugmaker headquartered in the United Kingdom, has partnered with the University of Oxford to produce a Covid-19 vaccine. It's in the final stages of development and is awaiting authorization from European and British governments. Last month, the company found its vaccine was 70% effective on average, but scientific experts raised concerns over a lack of transparency in reporting the vaccine trial data, potentially slowing down the timeline for approval.
AstraZeneca agreed to pay for the purchase with a mix of cash and stock, and said it took out a short-term loan of $17.5 billion from Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs to help pay for it.

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Scientists have discovered a way to store solar energy for several years without the need for electronic components.

After studying a type of crystalline material commonly used for desalinating or filtering water, researchers at the Lancaster University realised it was an extremely effective method of capturing and storing the sun’s energy.

The breakthrough paves the way for a whole new range of applications where batteries or other existing technologies are either impractical or too expensive. 

The material could be used as a coating on buildings to store summer energy that can then be released as heat in the winter, for example.

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Raspberry Pi designer shows off the custom PCB for the Raspberry Pi 4 inside the new $70 Pi 400 keyboard computer.

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If you're not happy with tech giants owning and controlling your data and online habits, Sir Tim Berners-Lee's startup, Inrupt, could provide the answer. 

Berners-Lee, who's credited with creating the web while working at CERN, has announced the first enterprise-ready version of Inrupt's Enterprise Solid Server, an open-source program that aims to embody the World Wide Web Consortium's (WC3) Ethical Web Principles. 

Inrupt wants to steer the web in a new direction, away from its control by a few tech and social-media giants. The company proposes to do this via 'pods' – comparable to a personal USB stick for the web – which aren't locked in to a single platform and give users the controls to access and use their data. 

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GOOGLE PLAY MUSIC died last week. We've known this was coming for some time, and nothing ever happens across the entire Google user base all at once, but many bereaved Google customers are reporting a total loss of life for Google Music. For me the store is gone, speakers no longer work, the app is dead, and the website is dead. It's all gone.

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Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered another large cache of unopened sarcophagi in Saqqara, adding to the trove of almost 60 coffins recently recovered from the ancient necropolis.

Although full details are yet to be announced, authorities said in a statement that "a huge number" of wooden sarcophagi had been unearthed. The country's Tourism and Antiquities Minister Khaled El-Enany said on Instagram that the find amounted to "dozens" of coffins, adding that they have been "sealed since ancient times."
How ancient Egyptian cosmetics influenced our beauty rituals
The collection of sarcophagi, stored in three newly discovered burial shafts, is believed to date back more than 2,500 years. Colored and gilded statues were also found in the tombs, a government press release said.

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Imagine a world in which youngsters across 6 continents connect virtually and solve one of the world's most pressing challenges: Climate Change. In October students aged 6-22 will collaborate on climate change topics over the course of six exciting weeks: they will study causes and effects, will try to solve issues and take action. Their and societies' mindsets will be changed.
This project is supported by Dr. Jane Goodall, UN Foundation, the Irish president and world leaders. During the past years it was featured by National Geographic, BBC and 40 more national media.

This year, as part of the project, we will do a global tree planting. Will you join PlantED? We planned 2 exciting opportunities for your students. Teachers will become part of a global community and receive badges and certificate.

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The background: Ceres, a dwarf planet located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, was studied intensely by the Dawn orbiter from March 2015 to November 2018. In its final weeks, the orbiter came as close as 22 miles from Ceres’s surface and collected a tremendous amount of data about the dwarf planet’s chemical composition. Dawn found many sodium chloride deposits on the surface, which scientists thought likely came from liquid that had seeped up onto the surface and evaporated, leaving behind a salty crust.

What’s new: But there still remained a question of exactly how that liquid got there. In a new analysis of the high-resolution images Dawn collected during those last weeks, Italian researchers found that the liquid comes from an underground reservoir of briny water, 25 miles below the surface of the Occator Crater, that could measure hundreds of miles wide. The salts found on the surface are important in helping to maintain liquid water within an environment like Ceres. 

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Last Friday, it was reported that Canadian smart glasses startup North was on the verge of being snapped up by Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Today, it’s official.

North announced the acquisition on both Twitter and in an official blog. Details regarding the terms of the sale were scant, though a Globe and Mail scoop from Friday put the number at around $180 million. North’s remaining staff will, however, be staying in Kitchener-Waterloo, Canada and joining a Google team also based there.

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Microsoft is acquiring IoT security vendor CyberX for an undisclosed amount, the two companies announced on June 22. Microsoft plans to integrate CyberX's products and technologies with its existing set of IoT security products, officials said.

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LONDON, May 13 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A university professor has launched a computer game called "Can You Save the World?" to help children understand how social distancing can save lives during the coronavirus pandemic.

Richard Wiseman said he came up with the idea for what is thought to be the world's first COVID-19 computer game after going for a walk during lockdown in Britain and finding it "felt like a computer game" as he dodged pedestrians and cyclists.

Wiseman, a professor of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, said research showed that games which encourage positive social behaviour can influence people's actions in the real world.

"It's a fun way of getting quite a scary message across," said Wiseman, who created the game, which has already gone viral, with designer Martin Jacob.

"There's quite a lot of research showing that if you get people - kids in particular - to behave in certain ways in video games it really does transfer to real life."

The creators, who are now looking at developing an app, say governments, schools and health authorities could use the game to encourage social distancing - a key measure to keep the virus in check as countries emerge from lockdown.

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Globally, over 4,2 million premature deaths per year can be attributed to outdoor air pollution, with the majority occurring in lower- and middle-income countries. The World Bank estimates that air pollution exacts an annual toll of US$5 trillion in health and welfare costs and US$225 billion in lost income. That is about equal to the gross domestic product of Japan, the third richest country in the world.

The exposure to polluted air seems almost impossible to escape. According to the World Health Organization 9 out of 10 people—92 per cent—breathe air that exceed safe limits. The most affected by toxic air are those living in cities in low- to middle-income countries.

Indoor air pollution takes a particularly heavy toll on women and young children, as they are most likely to stay indoors for longer periods of time, where they are exposed to the fumes from cooking and heating. In less developed countries, 98 per cent of children under five breathe toxic air. As a result, air pollution is the main cause of death for children under the age of 15, killing 600,000 of them every year.

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Google quietly buys company that turns your old Windows 7 PC into Chrome OS machine
Google buys Neverware, a startup with Chrome OS variant that squeezes extra life out of old Windows PCs and Macs.

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Hey, remember those deeply unsettling robot dogs that have been creeping out the internet for years and recently went into production? The company that makes them is called Boston Dynamics, and according to a report published Wednesday by The Korea Economic Daily, it just got bought by Hyundai for around $921 million.

Yes, the very same Hyundai that's hammering out eye-catching and affordable automobiles for you to buy will now be getting deeper into the robot business with an eye on future mobility. Does this mean we'll get self-driving cars sooner, or will we get a robot to help us pedal our tandem bikes? Who knows?

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A new AI system can automatically decipher a lost language that’s no longer understood — without knowing its relationship to other languages.

Researchers at MIT CSAIL developed the algorithm in response to the rapid disappearance of human languages. Most of the languages that have existed are no longer spoken, and at least half of those remaining are predicted to vanish in the next 100 years.

The new system could help recover them. More importantly, it could preserve our understanding of the cultures and wisdom of their speakers.

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Adobe prévoit d'intégrer les fonctionnalités de Workfront à sa plateforme de marketing Experience Cloud.

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Boston Dynamics could be set to change hands once again, according to a new report from Bloomberg that cited “people familiar with the matter.”

The deal would make Korean automaker Hyundai the third company in seven years to own the robotics firm, following sales to Google and SoftBank Group. Boston Dynamics is well known inside and out the industry for making some of the most advanced robotics systems on the planet, including BigDog and the humanoid Atlas.

We’ve reached out to Hyundai, Softbank and Boston Dynamics for comment and will update if any respond.

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Victorian hologram keeps music in touch with lockdown audience

LONDON (Reuters) - Musicians are using an interactive hologram based on Victorian technology to reach fans in the locked down world of the coronavirus pandemic.

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Soon, astronauts on moon missions won't have any excuse for not answering their texts.

NASA has awarded Nokia of America $14.1 million to deploy a cellular network on the moon. The freaking moon. The grant is part of $370 million worth of contracts signed under NASA's "Tipping Point" selections, meant to advance research and development for space exploration. 

Nokia's plan is to build a 4G/LTE network, and eventually transition to 5G (just like the rest of us). It will be "the first LTE/4G communications system in space," according to NASA's announcement.

"The system could support lunar surface communications at greater distances, increased speeds, and provide more reliability than current standards," the announcement also reads.

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(CNN)A Japanese company has announced the successful test drive of a flying car.

Sky Drive Inc. conducted the public demonstration on August 25, the company said in a news release, at the Toyota Test Field, one of the largest in Japan and home to the car company's development base. It was the first public demonstration for a flying car in Japanese history.
The car, named SD-03, manned with a pilot, took off and circled the field for about four minutes.
"We are extremely excited to have achieved Japan's first-ever manned flight of a flying car in the two years since we founded SkyDrive... with the goal of commercializing such aircraft," CEO Tomohiro Fukuzawa said in a statement.

What's more fancy than a Porsche? A flying Porsche. Luxury automakers race to perfect the flying car
"We want to realize a society where flying cars are an accessible and convenient means of transportation in the skies and people are able to experience a safe, secure, and comfortable new way of life.

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Spider silk made by photosynthetic bacteria
(Nanowerk News) Spiders produce amazingly strong and lightweight threads called draglines that are made from silk proteins. Although they can be used to manufacture a number of useful materials, getting enough of the protein is difficult because only a small amount can be produced by each tiny spider.

In a new study published in Communications Biology ("A marine photosynthetic microbial cell factory as a platform for spider silk production"), a research team led by Keiji Numata at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) reported that they succeeded in producing the spider silk using photosynthetic bacteria. This study could open a new era in which photosynthetic bio-factories stably output the bulk of spider silk.

In addition to being tough and lightweight, silks derived from arthropod species are biodegradable and biocompatible. In particular, spider silk is ultra-lightweight and is as tough as steel.

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Apple has acquired Fleetsmith, makers of software that lets businesses automate device setup, patching, and security for company-owned Apple devices such as Macs, iPhones and iPads.

Looking at the bigger picture, the Fleetsmith deal gives Apple an in-house mobile device management solution to offer enterprise clients and supports its overall enterprise strategy. 

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Wer sich mit künstlicher Intelligenz in Form von Machine Learning oder der zurzeit fokussierten Ausprägung Deep Learning beschäftigt, stößt mit betagten Familienrechnern schnell an Grenzen. Selbst aktuelle Geräte mit acht oder mehr Kernen eignen sich nicht für die Ausführung hunderter paralleler Rechenoperationen, wie sie für künstliche neuronale Netze erforderlich sind.

Soll der KI-Rechner aber auch noch mobil und handlich wie ein Raspberry Pi sein - etwa, weil er autonomes Fahren eines Roboter-Autos oder die Hinderniserkennung für eine Drohne unterstützen soll -, hilft selbst der Rechner des Juniors nicht mehr weiter. Hier ist Spezial-Hardware gefragt.

Technische Daten zum Jetson Nano

Eine Möglichkeit für solche Fälle ist der Jetson Nano von Nvidia. Das Unternehmen, das für leistungsfähige Grafikkarten steht, bietet mit seinen Jetson-Systemen Nano, TX2 und Xavier KI-Systeme in verschiedenen Größenordnungen und Preisklassen an. Der Nano ist das Einsteigermodell und basiert auf Nvidias Maxwell-GPU mit 128 Nvidia-Cuda-Recheneinheiten.

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A new blood test that can detect more than 50 types of cancer has been revealed by researchers in the latest study to offer hope for early detection.

The test is based on DNA that is shed by tumours and found circulating in the blood. More specifically, it focuses on chemical changes to this DNA, known as methylation patterns.

Researchers say the test can not only tell whether someone has cancer, but can also shed light on the type of cancer they have.

Dr Geoffrey Oxnard of Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, part of Harvard Medical School, said the test was now being explored in clinical trials. “You need to use a test like this in an independent group at risk of cancer to actually show that you can find the cancers, and figure out what to do about it when you find them,” he said.

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