My Science School

Sense by Hello is a simple system that tracks your sleep, monitors the environment of your bedroom, and reinvents the alarm. It keeps track of noise, light, temperature, humidity and particles in the air that can trigger allergies. The small glowing orb connects wirelessly to a tag (called the 'sleep pill') that clips to your pillow and monitors your sleep patterns, tracks movement like disturbed sleep or waking up, and listens for snoring and sleep talking. The iOS and Android app tells you how well you slept or didn't by giving you a Sleep Score each night, and analyzing the data to work out what temperatures and humidity you sleep best at. It also lets you set a Smart Alarm, waking you up in the morning at the right point in your sleep cycle so that you avoid that groggy feeling.

Your Sleep Timeline shows you a complete overview of our sleep cycle, punctuated by key events from your night. Together, you’ll see how external disturbances — like a car alarm going off outside your window, for example — can affect how well you sleep.

Unlike a normal alarm, Sense’s Smart Alarm analyzes your sleep cycle to know when you’re sleeping lightly, and wakes you up at the optimal time to start your day off right.
Simply set your alarm, choose from one of 15 beautiful wake tones, and Sense will gently wake you while you’re in the lightest phase of sleep, up to 30 minutes before your set time.”

Picture Credit : Google

 

Crowned the "keyless keyboard of the future", Airtype is an innovative device that lets you type on any surface. Simply slide each of the bands over your palms and type away. It learns your finger movements and adapts to the way you type, so you don't need to change your typing habits. Its text prediction technology ensures that you'll never have to hit the backspace again. Take it with you everywhere by just clipping it to your tablet or laptop.

Airtype is designed to be as portable as a cell phone and can easily clip into a tablet for easy transport. Air Type's website says that the system will learn to adjust to your typing habits. The app has dynamic text prediction and correction, the developers added. However, the team is not saying how exactly the prototype works, but it will most likely connect to devices via Bluetooth or NFC since it doesn't have any wires.

Since most of the people type erratically and never bother to learn the skill of typing, it’s difficult to guess how well Airtype will work. Check out the video below to see the proptype in action.

Picture Credit : Google

60.4% is the percentage of the top 10 million websites that use the English language. This is followed by Russian (8.5%) in second place and Spanish (4.0%) in third. Chinese comes in at tenth place with 1.4%, even though China has the highest number of internet users. English is the most commonly used language online, and is also the most spoken language worldwide with over 1.13 billion speakers. But it's interesting to note that the online use of a language doesn't always reflect how many people speak it. For example, Hindi is the third most spoken language worldwide, but it isn't one of the top languages used on the internet.

One reason for English being so dominant online is that it is considered a ‘universal language’, often chosen by people of different nationalities as a common way to communicate. Unlike Chinese, which until relatively recently was little spoken outside its homeland, English has long been a common international language in areas such as business and scientific research. This gives it a natural advantage online and helps account for its widespread use.

English accounts for 55% of all online content today yet less than 20 years ago it was more than 80%. During that time, we’ve gone from being passive consumers of content to active creators of it, while online retailers have increasingly offered personalised content to attract customers.

People are more likely to favour their native language online when discussing local issues or sharing with friends and they prefer to shop in their own language. As we continue to create our own content and look for even more tailored content from others, the amount of non-English pages online will only keep growing.

Picture Credit : Google

Mickey is the unit of measurement for the speed and movement direction of a computer mouse. One mickey is approximately 1/200th of an inch. The speed can be measured in "pixels per mickey", the ratio between how many pixels the cursor moves on the screen and how many centimetres you move the mouse on the mouse pad. The directional movement is called the horizontal mickey count and the vertical mickey count.

Clock speed is measured by how many ticks per second the clock makes. The unit of measurement called a hertz (Hz), which is technically one cycle per second, is used to measure clock speed. In the case of computer clock speed, one hertz equals one tick per second. The clock speed of computers is usually measured in megahertz (MHz) or gigahertz (GHz). One megahertz equals one million ticks per second, and one gigahertz equals one billion ticks per second.

You can use clock speed as a rough measurement of how fast a computer is. A 2.0GHz computer will run faster than a 1.4GHz computer with the same processor and the same amount of memory. However, you cannot use clock speed to compare computers with different types of processors or computers with different amounts of memory.

Picture Credit : Google

The TimeChi sits on your desk and blocks digital and physical interruptions to keep you focused on your work and monitor your productivity. The productivity device comes with a colour-display and connects to any device via WiFi. Once you set the timer for your work, the accompanying app instantly puts your smartphone in the "Do Not Disturb" mode to block notifications. It even blocks "time wasting" websites; when you try to enter any, a motivational message pops up to keep your focus. A traffic light system lets others know when you're not to be disturbed and when you're available. TimeChi uses a combination of the

Pomodoro technique and 'timeboxing' - allotting a fixed time period in which your planned activity takes place. It offers gentle reminders to take regular breaks; after four focused time periods it reminds you to take a longer break so you can recharge. When the focus period ends and a break starts, the app unblocks the settings. Productivity Analytics on the app dashboard helps you analyze when you did the most work and when you were distracted.

Picture Credit : Google

Google Meet’s ‘Green Room’ feature lets you preview how you’ll appear and sound to others in a meeting. Before you join a meeting, click on the “Check your audio and video” button below the video. A pop-up window will not only show your video image, but allow you to see (and change) which microphone, speaker and camera is currently live. Click the “Next” button to record a 6-second video sample to see and hear you call quality. Your mic, speaker, camera and connection are checked and get green checkmarks if they are working. Select “Tips and Tricks” for help fixing an audio or video issue. When you’re done, click the ‘X’ in the upper-right of the window to close the Green Room, then click “Join now” to join the meeting.

This feature is available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter/ Standard/ Business Plus customers, Enterprise Essentials/ Standard/ Plus customers, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Non-profit customers.

Picture Credit : Google

Molecular gastronomy is a style of cooking in which chefs use scientific principles and technology to enhance the flavours and alter the textures of food. The term 'molecular gastronomy' was coined by Hungarian physicist Nicholas Kurti and French chemist Herve This in the 1980s. This genre of cooking involves specially trained chefs.

One of the well-known techniques is spherification. It is the process of shaping a liquid such as fruit juice into spheres. The liquid is first mixed with sodium alginate, a chemical. This mixture is then dripped, drop by drop, into a bowl of a cold solution of calcium chloride. Each drop turns into a small ball, called a ‘caviar’. When popped in the mouth, these fruit 'caviars' melt, delivering an intense taste.

Using liquid nitrogen to freeze dishes instantly is another technique. Liquid nitrogen has a temperature of -196°C (321°F). So when ice cream is made using this, it freezes very quickly. This reduces the formation of ice crystals, resulting in a creamier ice cream.

Special types of foams can also be created. Traditionally, foams are made with a whisk or an espresso machine (to make coffee froth). But in molecular gastronomy, the substance to be foamed is usually mixed with a stabiliser such as lecithin and then squeezed out through a whipped cream canister fitted with a nitrogen oxide capsule. With this technique, chefs can make truffle foam and top a meat dish with it or make pickle foam to top, well, even rice!

Bite size

Molecular gastronomy a scientific discipline that focusses on the physical and chemical transformations that occur during cooking.

Spotlight on egg

Molecular gastronomy kicked off renewed interest in eggs. It looked at how different cooking temperatures, altered viscosity or even introduction of air can enhance the taste and nutritive value of eggs.

Lab or a kitchen?

Here's a peek into what they use:

Carbon dioxide: For creating bubbles, foams.

Syringe: To fill food with unexpected flavours and fillings.

Maltodextrin: To convert high-fat liquids into a powder.

Liquid nitrogen: To freeze in a flash! Create a shattering effect on food.

Techniques used

Some of the common techniques used are emulsification, smoking, spherification, deconstruction, gelification, meat gluing, flash freezing and creating edible paper.

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Tap the search bar in Telegram and enter # followed by a keyword to find messages that use that particular hashtag across all your chats. Narrow down search results by username and date range. Also, when you use a hashtag before any word in a message, that word becomes clickable, allowing you to see all the messages relating to that topic.

Like other messaging apps, Telegram's chat list is dynamically sorted by the date of last update, and they limit users to just 5 pinned chats.

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This is fine if you're just chatting with friends and family on Telegram. But if you're one of the many power users and professionals using Telegram for business, communities, and productivity, the 5 pinned chats limit isn't enough.

The chat list gets messy really quickly. We need more organization and sorting for our chats.

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With Telefuel, you can create Workspace and Chat Folders to keep your Telegram organized and in place - and then you can pin unlimited chats into each Workspace and Chat Folder. No arbitrary limits.

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Telegram's chat list is great for normal users, but power users need more. We felt the pain, and built Telefuel to help.

 

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A new supercomputer in Wyoming, U.S.A., will rank among the world’s 25 fastest and help study phenomena including climate change, severe weather, wildfires and solar flares. The Hewlett Packard Enterprise Cray EX supercomputer will theoretically be able to perform almost 20 quadrillion calculations per second – 3.5 times faster than the existing machine named Cheyenne. That power will enable some of the most sophisticated simulations yet of large-scale natural and human-influenced events.

It “will support basic research in ways that will lead to more detailed and useful predictions of the world around us, thereby helping to make our society more resilient to increasingly costly disasters and contributing to improved human health and well-being,” centre Director Everette Joseph said in a news release.

More than 4,000 people from hundreds of universities and other institutions worldwide have used the supercomputing centre since it opened in 2012.

The facility’s current supercomputer, named Cheyenne, is over three times faster than its predecessor, which was named Yellowstone.

A contest among Wyoming schoolchildren will decide the new supercomputer’s name.

 

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Wordsmyth offers you a relaxing escape while giving your brain a daily workout. Nine letters are yours to play with; turn them into as many words as you can think of. Every day brings new words to find. Wordsmyth’s simplicity allows your mind to focus on one task. Beautiful scenes dynamically interact with you as you play. Words found are stored in a list, with an indication of how many are left to find. A hint button helps you find missing words without revealing the answer. The last seven puzzles are stored so that you can come back to them at any time. Paid on iOS and Android.

To help you work through each puzzle, Wordsmyth also includes helpful hints. These are made available when you tap an on-screen question mark, and reveal a partially completed word (with some missing letters). You can then use this clue to craft up a missing word. An unlimited number of hints are available, meaning you can use them at your leisure.

While the app is available for iOS and iPadOS, it’s slightly disappointing to see that your progress doesn’t sync between devices. This means that if you start a word puzzle on your iPhone, you won’t be able to finish it on your iPad. A “shuffle” button for letter-tiles would also be a nice addition, and might help players see hidden words.

The overall feel of Wordsmyth is calming and relaxing. While some word-based games might leave you feeling stressed or disappointed, Wordsmyth is soothing and supportive, and offers a great space for you to unwind. There are no timers, levels, or distracting adverts – just a daily puzzle for you to work through either in one go, or over the course of the day.

 

Picture Credit : Google

NASA astronauts and employees will be using Fitbit devices as part of a pilot programme that aims to use Fitbit in-app daily check-in and symptom logging to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. The Google-owned company said there is evidence that resting heart rate data and other key health indicators from wearables have the potential to identify illnesses such as COVID-19 before symptoms emerge. One thousand NASA employees performing mission-critical work at six locations across the U.S. will receive Fitbit Charge 4 devices and access to Fitbit’s Ready for Work Daily Check-In experience’.

The COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. Johns Hopkins' coronavirus-tracking map has recorded over 107 million cases of the disease globally, leading to more than 2.3 million deaths. Today, many workplaces and other organizations have turned to tech to try to curb the spread of the virus.  

This partnership is born out of those efforts. In December, npj Digital Medicine published findings from Fitbit demonstrating the consumer wearables could be key to predicting the onset of illness like COVID-19 by using health metrics like breathing rate, resting heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV).

“The pandemic has underscored the critical role that Fitbit can play in providing much-needed support to help people sleep better, eat better, move more and take control of their health and wellness, as well as the potential to identify illness from specific health metrics, which is especially important now during the COVID-19 crisis,” Amy McDonough, managing director and general manager of Fitbit Health Solutions at Google, said in a statement.

“We are proud to work with NASA to support its employees and give them access to Fitbit products and services to help them better understand and manage their health and well-being during the pandemic.”

 

Picture Credit : Google

The Abacus is an all-in-one PC incorporated into a keyboard. Underneath the keys is a complete computer, including USB ports, Ethernet port, HDMI and VGA output, built-in speaker, integrated trackpad, Intel Quadcore Processor, Wi-fi and Bluetooth connectivity, and upto 4GB memory and 512GB storage. It comes pre-installed with Windows 10. It can be carried anywhere and connected to a monitor, TV or projector. Designed in collaboration with the Royal College of Art Design students, the Abacus’ internal components are reusable, and its outer body is designed out of a biodegradable polymer derived from waste corn starch, tapioca roots or sugarcane. When the device is discarded, the tech can be recycled, leaving the outer body to degrade into the soil along with its packaging made out of mushrooms!

The PC is as energy-efficient as an LED lightbulb and 63 per cent smaller than the average desktop PC, thereby reducing the carbon footprint of shipping, as well as freeing up more desk surface space.

 

Picture Credit : Google

Chrome comes with a built-in tool to check for enhanced protection. Head over to Chrome Settings, and click on the Safety Check button on the left sidebar. Alternatively, you can go to chrome://settings/safetyCheck to access the safety check page directly. The Safety Check tool will then verify that Chrome is up-to-date, cross-check whether all your stored passwords are complex and not leaked in any data breaches, and confirm that Safe Browsing is set up properly. It will even check if you are protected from any potentially malicious extensions. Run it once in a while.

With this check Chrome will check all your stored passwords are complex and not leaked in the previous data breaches. In order to do this check, you have to login with your Google account. It helps Google to send the passwords in encrypted manner and check the database to match if the password is in the previous data breaches.

The result of the safe browsing section depends on the level of protection you have enabled on your browser. By default, Chrome will use the standard protection and hence you will see a message like “Standard protection is on. For even more security, use enhanced protection.”

 

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Deepfake generally refers to images on videos in which the face and/or voice of a person, usually a public figure has been manipulated using artificial intelligence software to generate visual and audio content with a high potential to deceive. Deepfakes are a source of concern because they are created to be intentionally misleading, such as by making it look like a politician said something they didn't, or making it appear like a celebrity was in a video they weren't in.

Everyone from academic and industrial researchers to amateur enthusiasts, visual effects studios and porn producers. Governments might be dabbling in the technology, too, as part of their online strategies to discredit and disrupt extremist groups, or make contact with targeted individuals, for example.

It is hard to make a good deepfake on a standard computer. Most are created on high-end desktops with powerful graphics cards or better still with computing power in the cloud. This reduces the processing time from days and weeks to hours. But it takes expertise, too, not least to touch up completed videos to reduce flicker and other visual defects. That said, plenty of tools are now available to help people make deepfakes. Several companies will make them for you and do all the processing in the cloud. There’s even a mobile phone app, Zao, that lets users add their faces to a list of TV and movie characters on which the system has trained.

 

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Orixo is a relaxing, minimalist brain game with over 320 hand-crafted levels to help sharpen your mind. A melodic soundtrack accompanies you on the levels, all of which are free to play and vary in difficulty. Fill the grid by dragging your finger over cells with a number inside of it. The number represents the number of cells it will fill in one of four directions. The direction you choose counts. Orixo saves your game progress automatically and hints are available in case you get stuck on any level. A simple game to play for a few minutes to take a breather from your busy life. Free for iOS and Android.

The organization of ideas and things are both important to this game. The player has to be able to think through and organize which number should be swiped first, second, etc. They also need to organize the placement, or direction, of the swipe. If they don't take the time to organize both aspects of this game, they will be unable to complete a level and unlock new ones.

 

Picture Credit : Google