Kredivo Announces Launch in Vietnam as a Step to Build the Leading Paylater Business in Southeast Asia

After saying plans to go public, Kredivo, Indonesia's foremost digital financial savings platform, nowadays brought its enlargement into Vietnam via a Joint Venture with Phoenix Holding, a pioneering household funding organisation based absolutely in Vietnam with a assorted portfolio in the consumer, economic services, retail and corporation sectors. technology.

The Vietnamese entity, Kredivo Vietnam Joint Stock Company, will be succesful to leverage Kredivo's perception and journey in working PayLater as well as Phoenix Holding's great neighborhood and local knowledge.

Kredivo's Chief Operating Officer, Valery Crottaz, said, “The launch of Kredivo in Vietnam as the first market share backyard Indonesia is some other success and milestone to be proud of this year. Vietnam is a logical desire given the country's low savings card penetration and unexpectedly growing center class; shortly developing e-commerce market; and related demographic and consumption patterns with Indonesia.”

Phoenix Holdings CEO Nguyen Lan Trung Anh said, “Kredivo and Phoenix share a conventional creative and prescient of monetary inclusion and access. Together we desire to make deposit and economic services more without problems handy to these who qualify and favor them.

In Vietnam, with a mobile and digital native golden generation, our offerings such as PayLater will meet the needs of customers the region present day savings choices have too big of a bottleneck. As in unique markets, we believe PayLater will free up and catalyze any different critical make bigger stage of the Vietnamese economy.”

In Vietnam, Kredivo will accomplice with VietCredit Joint Stock Company, a major finance company, to feature Kredivo's PayLater industrial business enterprise in Vietnam. Kredivo's core merchandise will be launched in stages, commencing with consignment repayments for every day necessities and non-public loans, observed by means of the PayLater characteristic in e-commerce in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Chief Executive Officer of VietCredit, Mr. Ho Minh Tam, said, “We are very excited to follow the Kredivo digital credit score platform to VietCredit's new products. We accept as true with that collaboration with Kredivo, in the spirit of open innovation, is a positive digital transformation driver and can provide customers higher merchandise and services, this can beautify purchaser day out and reap a aggressive phase in the industry.”

Recent statistics suggests that Vietnam is one of the international locations with the lowest deposit card penetration in Southeast Asia barring Indonesia and the Philippines, with entirely 4.1% of the populace proudly proudly owning a deposit card. In addition, the deposit score gap and lack of information about digital repayments is a mission in the united states of america and has resulted in the majority of transactions being carried out in cash. This growth signifies that Kredivo's mission is getting nearer to serving tens of tens of millions of consumers with fast, inexpensive and easy-to-access economic services.

About Kredivo

Kredivo is Indonesia's predominant digital savings platform that offers right away financial savings financing to purchasers for e-commerce and offline purchases, as exact as private loans, chiefly based totally on real-time desire making. Kredivo customers can buy now and pay later with one of the lowest pastime fees amongst digital credit score score businesses in Indonesia

Kredivo's buying and promoting companions advantage from immediately point-of-sale financing, backed via potential of exceptional 2-click payments. Kredivo is operated by using the usage of FinAccel, a economic science corporation headquartered in Singapore with a mission to grant fast, lower priced and reachable monetary services. FinAccel is supported by way of way of predominant merchants such as Mirae Asset, Naver, Square Peg Capital, Telkom Indonesia, and Jungle Ventures. Kredivo is supervised via way of the OJK's multi-finance division in Indonesia. To lookup greater about FinAccel and Kredivo, go to www.finaccel.co and www.kredivo.com.

About Phoenix Holdings

Phoenix Holdings is a pioneering household funding enterprise based totally definitely in Vietnam with a a number of portfolio in the consumer, monetary services, retail and technological expertise sectors. Its investments consist of "brick & mortar" licensed companies in the financial quarter (banking, client finance, asset administration and securities brokerage), as properly as fintech ventures such as Timo (digital bank), Moca (payments company, obtained by using way of Grab) and Interloan (loan platform). P2P).

About VietCredit

On August 3, 2018, VietCredit Finance Joint Stock Company formally considered in the client finance market. Previously mentioned as Cement Joint Stock Company with 10 years of ride jogging in regular economic services. VietCredit leverages technology, particularly AI, large records to decorate 

Free Microsoft 365: How to get Microsoft's Office suite without going through cash

You don't should be an understudy or teacher to get the Office suite for nothing. Here's the way anyone can use Microsoft Word, Excel and more without paying for it. 

We've all been putting fairly more energy in our PCs as of late and, whether or not it be expected for work or individual use, you may require some major gadgets like Microsoft 365. The help, in the past known as Office 365, offers a bigger number of arrangements than the ordinary office programming, yet it might be costly. If you would rather not spend your coin on Microsoft 365, don't pressure. There two or three ways to deal with get the help in vain. 

Microsoft's set-up of convenience programming - including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Microsoft Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint - normally costs $150 for a one-time frame outline foundation (as Office 365), or some place in the scope of $70 and $100 reliably for enrollment organization access across devices and family members (as Microsoft 365). Microsoft is in like manner needing to convey another autonomous type of Microsoft Office for the two Windows and Mac - at a level expense, no enrollment required - in the end soon. 

Here are the types of Office 365, Microsoft 365 and their applications that you can find online with the assumption for free as of now. 

In the event that you're an understudy or a teacher 

In the event that you're an understudy, teacher or representative with a school email address, you are conceivable qualified to acquire induction to Office 365 to no end through Microsoft - including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Microsoft Teams and additional examination corridor gadgets. 

You ought to just enter your school email address on this page on Microsoft's site: Get started with Office 365 for nothing. A significant part of the time, you'll be promptly yielded induction due to a motorized affirmation measure. If you go to an establishment that ought to be checked, it might take up to a month to insist your capability. 

Late graduated class who need to remain with Office 365 can moreover get Office 365 Personal for $12 for a year, with a real school email address. 

On the off chance that you're some other individual 

Anyone can get a one-month free fundamental of Microsoft 365 to try it out. Regardless, it anticipates that you should enter a Visa, and if you don't drop before the month is done, you'll be charged $100 for a one-year enrollment to Microsoft 365 Family (recently called Office 365 Home). 

The elevating news is, if you needn't waste time with the full set-up of Microsoft 365 devices, you can get to a portion of its applications online for nothing - including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, Outlook, Calendar and Skype. Here's the best approach to get them: 

Go to Office.com. 

Sign in to your Microsoft record (or make one in vain). In case you as of now have a Windows, Skype or Xbox Live login, you have a working Microsoft account. 

Select the application you need to use, and save your work in the cloud with OneDrive. 

Is there a catch for the free structure? 

You may be saying, remain by a second - if I can get those applications to no end, why pay for Microsoft 365 regardless? The clarification is that the convenience of these applications is confined: They simply go through your web program, and you can't use them in the event that you're not on the web. There are in like manner less components than the full Microsoft 365 structures. 

There are at this point different benefits, nevertheless, including the ability to share associates with your work and group up persistently, similar to G Suite gadgets. In the event that you're looking for fundamental interpretations of every one of these applications, the free structure should work honorably for you.

Facebook benefits top $10B as its CEO lifts up the 'metaverse

Worries about an income development lull pushed Facebook's offers lower in night-time exchanging Wednesday, not long get-togethers organization announced that its second-quarter benefits multiplied on account of a huge expansion in publicizing income. 

Yet, CEO Mark Zuckerberg set his sights a long ways past the second 50% of 2021, commending what he sees as the following period of how individuals experience the web. What the remainder of the world may know as expanded and augmented reality with a scramble of sci-fi, Zuckerberg and others are calling "the metaverse," an advanced and fairly dubious thought that includes AR, VR and new, yet-to-be-envisioned methods of interfacing with each other by means of innovation. 

Zuckerberg expects the metaverse to be the following huge thing after the versatile web, in spite of the fact that he's had a patchy history with regards to foreseeing significant patterns of the not so distant future. At Facebook's f8 gathering four years prior, for example, Zuckerberg anticipated a future where you will sit in your room wearing a headset and take a virtual excursion with distant loved ones, or utilize your cell phone's camera to practically tidy up your small condo. 

Up until now, this has not appeared. Then, at that point there's Libra — presently known as Diem — a digital money project Facebook dispatched in 2019 in the midst of incredible show. At that point, Facebook imagined Libra as an arising worldwide computerized money; its desires have since been downsized impressively in the midst of administrative and business backfire. 

In a telephone call with experts, Zuckerberg called the metaverse the "up and coming age of the web and next part for us as an organization," one that he said will make "totally new encounters and financial freedoms." 

Until further notice, however, Facebook actually needs to battle with more ordinary matters like antitrust crackdowns in the U.S. furthermore, somewhere else just as worries about how it handles antibody related and political falsehood on its foundation. The organization said, as it has previously, that it anticipates that challenges in its ability should target promotions this year — including administrative pressing factor and Apple's protection changes that make it harder for organizations like Facebook to follow individuals who can quit that type of observation. 

Albeit the informal organization multiplied its benefit in the subsequent quarter, to some degree in light of higher normal costs it charged for the advertisements it conveys to its almost 3 billion clients. Be that as it may, the organization said it doesn't anticipate that revenue should keep on developing at a particularly very quick speed in the second 50% of the year. 

"This current quarter's outcomes are amazingly impressive and give little indication of effect from Apple's iOS update at this point," said eMarketer investigator Debra Aho Williamson, taking note of that in the year-prior quarter Facebook saw its slowest income development since opening up to the world, so it was a simple correlation. "But at the same time it's because of the way that there is tremendous interest for Facebook and Instagram promoting, and more rivalry prompts higher advertisement costs." 

Independently, Facebook said on Wednesday that it will make immunizations compulsory for workers in the U.S. who work in workplaces. Special cases will be made for clinical and different reasons. Google reported a comparative approach before in the day. 

The Menlo Park, California-based organization acquired $10.39 billion, or $3.61 per share, in the April-June period. That is up from $5.18 billion, or $1.80 per share, a year sooner. Income hopped 56% to $28.58 billion from $18.32 billion. By and large, were expecting profit of $3.04 per offer and income of $24.85 billion, as indicated by a survey by FactSet. 

Publicizing income development was driven by a 47% year-over-year expansion in the normal cost per promotion and a 6% increment in the quantity of advertisements displayed to individuals. Facebook said it expects advertisement costs, not the measure of promotions it conveys, to keep on driving development. 

The organization anticipated vulnerability for 2021 back in January, saying its income in the last 50% of the year could confront huge pressing factor. Since income filled so rapidly in the second 50% of 2020, Facebook said at the time that it could experience difficulty keeping up that speed. 

Williamson said the second from last quarter will be a significant one for the organization, "as the full impacts of the Apple update grab hold." 

"We will have a greatly improved feeling of how well Facebook has had the option to change its center promotion focusing on items to deal with the decreased measure of data it can take advantage of," she said. 

Facebook had 2.9 billion month to month clients as of June, up 7% from a year sooner. 

Offers fell $11.77, or 3.2%, to $373.28 in night-time exchanging. Prior in the day, the stock hit a record-breaking high of $377. 55 fully expecting the outcomes, so the decay wasn't startling. 

'

12 Russians indicted for meddling in 2016 US election

 Twelve Russian military intelligence officers hacked into the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic Party and released tens of thousands of private communications in a sweeping conspiracy by the Kremlin to meddle in the 2016 U.S. election, according to an indictment announced days before President Donald Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The indictment represents special counsel Robert Mueller’s first charges against Russian government officials for interfering in American politics, an effort U.S. intelligence agencies say was aimed at helping the Trump campaign and harming his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. The case follows a separate indictment that accused Russians of using social media to sow discord among American voters.

The 29-page indictment lays out how, months before Americans went to the polls, Russians schemed to break into key Democratic email accounts, including those belonging to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Stolen emails, many politically damaging for Clinton, appeared on WikiLeaks in the campaign’s final stretch.

The charges say the Russian defendants, using a persona known as Guccifer 2.0, in August 2016 contacted a person in touch with the Trump campaign to offer help. And they say that on the same day Trump, in a speech, urged Russia to find Clinton’s missing emails, Russian hackers tried for the first time to break into email accounts used by her personal office.

Mueller did not allege that Trump campaign associates were involved in the hacking effort, that Americans were knowingly in touch with Russian intelligence officers or that any vote tallies were altered by hacking. The White House seized on those points in a statement that offered no condemnation of Russian election interference.

It was unclear whether the indictment might factor into Trump’s meeting with Putin on Monday.

Trump has repeatedly expressed skepticism about Russian involvement in the hacking while being accused by Democrats of cozying up to the Russian president. Trump complained about the Russia investigation hours before the indictment, saying the “stupidity” was making it “very hard to do something with Russia.”

The Kremlin, meanwhile, denied anew that it tried to sway the election. “The Russian state has never interfered and has no intention of interfering in the U.S. elections,” Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said Friday.

The indictment identifies the defendants as officers with Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff, also known as GRU. If that link is established, it would shatter the Kremlin denials of the Russian state’s involvement in the U.S. elections, given that the GRU is part of the state machine.

The Russian defendants are not in custody, and it is not clear they will ever appear in American court, though the Justice Department has recently seen value in indicting foreign hackers in absentia as public deterrence.

The indictment accuses the Russian hackers, starting in March 2016, of covertly monitoring the computers of dozens of Democratic officials and volunteers, implanting malicious computer code known as malware to explore the networks and steal data, and sending phishing emails to gain access to accounts.

One attempt at interference came hours after Trump, in a July 27, 2016, speech, suggested Russians look for emails that Clinton said she had deleted from her tenure as secretary of state.

“Russia, if you’re listening,” Trump said, “I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.”

That evening, the indictment says, the Russians attempted to break into email accounts used by Clinton’s personal office, along with 76 Clinton campaign email addresses.

By June 2016, the defendants, relying on fictional personas like DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0, began planning the release of tens of thousands of stolen emails, the indictment alleges.

The Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks displayed the campaign’s private communications, including deliberations about messaging that played into attacks that Clinton was calculating and a political flip-flopper. Private speeches she gave to financial industry firms were particularly damaging within the left wing of the Democratic party and among independents frustrated with the influence of Wall Street in politics.

The indictment alleges that Guccifer 2.0 was in touch with multiple Americans in the summer of 2016 about the pilfered material, including an unidentified congressional candidate who requested and then received stolen information.

On Aug. 15, 2016, the indictment says, Guccifer 2.0 reached out to someone in contact with the Trump campaign and asked the person if they had seen anything “interesting in the docs I posted?” Guccifer 2.0 said it would be a “great pleasure” to help.

Prosecutors say weeks later, Guccifer 2.0 referred to a stolen DCCC document posted online and asked the person, “what do u think of the info on the turnout model for the democrats entire presidential campaign.” The person responded, “(p)retty standard.”

The indictment doesn’t identify the person, though longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone acknowledged Friday, through his lawyer, a “24-word exchange with someone on Twitter claiming to be Guccifer 2.0.”

“This exchange is now entirely public and provides no evidence of collaboration or collusion with Guccifer 2.0 or anyone else in the alleged hacking of the DNC emails,” said lawyer Grant Smith.

In addition, someone at Wikileaks contacted Guccifer 2.0 before the Democratic National Convention asking for Clinton material, court papers show.

The charges come as Mueller continues to investigate potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. Before Friday, 20 people and three companies had been charged in the investigation.

Defendants include four former Trump campaign and White House aides, three of whom have pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate, and 13 Russians accused in a powerful social media campaign to sway U.S. public opinion in 2016.

Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said on Twitter that it was time to end the investigation since “no Americans are involved” in Friday’s indictment. But with Mueller still investigating, it’s not known whether further indictments are taking shape or will.

Meanwhile, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein called for a unified approach to countering foreign meddling.

“When we confront foreign interference in American elections, it is important for us to avoid thinking politically as Republicans or Democrats and instead to think patriotically as Americans,” he said. “Our response must not depend on who was victimized.”

___

Source: Associated Press

Google says Google Documents is secure despite Russian issue

GOOGLE on Thursday, 6th May, said the  Google Documents were safe, even if Russian Internet users found a number of files intended for personal use.

A Russian Internet company, Yandex, said in a statement that some users have said that the company public search engine looks like a personal Google Document file and that there is a possible data breach.

Russian social media users began posting a number of such documents on Wednesday night, including internal notes from the bank of Russia, press briefs, and company business plans. I can not verify the authenticity of this document directly.

Google said in a statement that the search engine published only Google documents that the author intentionally disclosed, or that allowed the user to open a link to the document and use it for public access and search.

“Saving and protecting users’ personal data is our main priority,” the company said. “Google Documents is a highly protected tool for joint work and it is working correctly.”

It's detailed.

Yandex spokesman Ilya Grabovsky said the search only retrieves files that do not require a login and password. He added that the files are also open to other search engines.

Does Microsoft have a dual sailing folding tool?

Since the past two years, Microsoft is rumored to develop a mysterious surface device with collapsible double screen design.

Recently, it has not been confirmed which series was developed, but the name code of the device has leaked recently from Microsoft's internal source by e-mail.

The folded dual screen device cited from the Ubergizmo page was said to be the codename "Andromeda".

@zacbowden @h0x0d @windowscentral #Surface Andromeda Render according to the latest patents pic.twitter.com/CmbvlfETtU

— David Breyer (@D_Breyer) 18 Desember 2017

Not only that, Andromeda's form contains innovative new hardware and software experience.

Of course, truly create a personal and variegated computing experience on collapsible devices.

As planned, Microsoft Andromeda will be launched in late 2018.
In addition, Andromeda is reported to use the Snapdragon 1000 chipset with excellent performance.

Several parties said that as the Apple broke the smartphone industry during the iPhone release on January 9, 2007, Andromeda's formal launch has a tremendous impact.

I am more interested. We are looking forward to it!

Barbs for Bezos but Bill Gates largely admired in Seattle

THE SEATTLE region is home to America’s two richest men, but their local legacies to date represent two very different eras for the city.

While Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is blamed by some for rising rents and clogged city streets, Bill Gates is largely admired for helping lead the computing revolution and donating billions through his philanthropy.

The Microsoft co-founder’s legacy here includes opening the world’s largest private charity across the street from the Space Needle, creating housing for homeless families and supporting charter schools.

Microsoft was the first tech company to dramatically change the region’s economy as it grew quickly in the 1980s and 1990s. Today, Seattle is booming again with housing prices skyrocketing thanks to online retail giant Amazon’s explosive growth that has added tens of thousands of well-paid workers to the area.

Bezos has been a flashpoint in the tension that has come with success. The City Council recently passed — then quickly rescinded — a tax on large employers to combat homelessness, which Amazon opposed and successfully worked to strike down. A city councilwoman organized protests in front of Amazon buildings featuring people carrying “Tax Bezos” signs.

Meanwhile, Gates has largely escaped the criticism directed at Bezos and other tech leaders as Seattle loudly debates how to respond to the advantages and downsides of being the United States’ fastest-growing big city.

Observers say Gates benefits from being a local and the world’s leading philanthropist.

Margaret O’Mara, a historian and University of Washington professor, said Gates came from a prominent Seattle family, arising in the public eye at a time when there was less anxiety about online privacy.

“It’s a really, really different public persona,” O’Mara said. “He recognized the importance of this responsibility, this broader civic responsibility, that he had great power to be incredibly influential, to deploy his intellect and persuasive powers for good.”

Early on, there was some criticism that Gates and his company could be better corporate citizens as Microsoft blossomed. But thanks to the billions he now gives away each year, Gates has managed to shed his reputation as a laser-focused, sharp-elbowed tech billionaire, though his controversial philanthropic work focused on changing America’s school systems hasn’t gone unnoticed at home.


Microsoft has been headquartered in Seattle’s once-sleepy eastern suburbs since 1979. The company is seen as the game-changer that allowed the region to shed its infamous “Boeing Bust” 1970s-era recession when the aircraft manufacturer laid off tens of thousands of workers during an economic slump.

Amazon is far more visible near downtown since starting as an online book-seller in 1994. It emerged as one of the success stories from the 1990s dot-com boom and is now the city’s largest private employer with more than 45,000 workers. Bezos, who grew up in Houston, moved to Seattle to launch his startup in part because of Washington state’s favorable tax structure.

Amazon declined to comment on Bezos’ behalf.

Bezos — who in the past year surpassed Gates as the world’s richest person — recently hinted he too would take on philanthropy in a big way. He said on Twitter that he would announce his plans later this year. Locally, Bezos has been on the board of the Bezos Family Foundation that is run by his parents, which focuses on education nationally.

In January, Bezos also personally gave $33 million in college scholarships for young immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. He hasn’t signed The Giving Pledge, an initiative launched by Gates encouraging billionaires to commit to giving away most of their wealth.

Where Bezos has been criticized for not being present enough, Gates’ nonprofit since 2000 has dedicated resources to helping local community issues. Food banks and domestic violence victims’ assistance are among the modestly funded and lesser-known work of the powerful, globally focused Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Bill Gates is also credited with delivering a Washington state charter school law through campaign contributions and his foundation’s support of the movement.

David Bley, who leads the Gates Foundation’s Pacific Northwest unit, said his team is the only one that functions in a more typical family foundation fashion by giving to local causes.

Officially, just 1.5 percent — or almost $70 million — of the $4.6 billion the foundation gave away in 2016 benefited the needy in the Puget Sound region and Washington state, according to the foundation’s annual report.

The Gates Foundation estimates it contributed $1.5 billion into the Seattle economy in 2015. It reports supporting 9,100 local jobs, including 1,200 people at the foundation itself and many more at Seattle-based organizations doing global work. For example, it gave about $270 million to six local organizations in one four-year span as part of its goal to eradicate malaria worldwide, which in turn fuels Seattle’s biotech and health research sector.

Still, Gates is not without local critics. One thing the hometown hero can’t escape is his national reputation as the leading funder of U.S. education reform. Some of the controversial ideas he’s prioritized have floundered in the state over the years.

Washington state defied federal authority when it refused in 2014 to use test scores in teacher evaluations. The concept of tying teacher performance to student test scores was part of a signature Gates initiative but was vehemently opposed by teacher unions.

Gates also gave millions to pass a state charter school law after it failed three times at the ballot. He’s had a hand in supporting each of the state’s 12 privately run, publicly funded schools even though the law is still being challenged in the courts after its narrow 2012 approval.

“Teaching in the shadow of Bill Gates is, I think, a very ominous experience because we know that his foundation is organized around the principal of privatizing our schools, of getting rid of the very institutions that we’re working in,” said Jesse Hagopian, a Seattle high school teacher and Gates critic.

Teachers have also protested at the foundation’s Seattle headquarters over his national schools agenda. The Gates Foundation has said it has an “up-and-down” relationship with Seattle Public Schools. The district wouldn’t comment on the matter.

The foundation said it’s unapologetic about the urgency it feels is needed to transform school systems that consistently leave behind poor and minority kids.

“We’re a funder. We’re not government. They have way more money. They have authority,” Bley said. “We only have influence and catalytic amounts of money to help people try out new things.”


Source: AP

Robot with artificial intelligence about to invade space

A robot with true artificial intelligence is about to invade space.

The large, round, plastic robot head is part of SpaceX’s latest supply delivery to the International Space Station.

Friday’s pre-dawn liftoff also includes two sets of genetically identical female mice, 20 mousestronauts that will pick up where NASA’s identical twin brother astronauts left off a few years ago. Super-caffeinated coffee is also flying up for the space station’s java-craving crew.
As intriguing as identical space siblings and turbo-charged space coffee may be, it’s the German robot — named Cimon, pronounced Simon, after a genius doctor in science fiction’s “Captain Future” — that’s stealing the show.

Don’t worry about AI running amok on the space station. Cimon’s human handlers promise the first AI space bot will behave. No mutinous takeovers like HAL from the 1968 film classic “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

“He’s a friendly guy and he has this hard power-off button,” German Space Agency physicist Christian Karrasch, the project manager, told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Like HAL, the autonomous Cimon is an acronym: it stands for Crew Interactive Mobile Companion. Its AI brain is courtesy of IBM.

German astronaut Alexander Gerst, who arrived at the orbiting lab a month ago, will introduce Cimon to space life during three one-hour sessions. Already savvy about Gerst’s science experiments, the self-propelling Cimon will float at the astronaut’s side and help, when asked, with research procedures.

Cimon has Gerst’s face and voice imprinted in its memory. So while the robot could assist the five other station astronauts, it is best suited for Gerst, according to Karrasch.

To get Cimon’s attention, Gerst will need only to call its name. Their common language will be English, the official language of the space station.

Next year, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano will be Cimon’s orbital master. That’s when the AI researchers will delve more into mood.

As it is, Cimon smiles when it senses the conversation is upbeat and frowns when it’s sad. A small screen on the sphere serves as its face.

During its open-ended stay on the space station, Cimon should grow ever smarter and more knowledgeable, its system updated via IBM’s Cloud.

Researchers chose a ball rather than a humanoid face for Cimon because they thought it would be less potentially disturbing or creepy. Because it’s perfectly round — a little bigger than a basketball — it’s also safer, with no sharp edges that could damage space station equipment or poke astronauts.

The entire project, barely two years in the making, came in under 5 million Euros, or $5.8 million.

The real AI payoff will be when astronauts travel to the moon, Mars or other distant destinations. In a medical emergency, no one will want to wait 20 minutes for a call for help to reach Earth and then another 20 minutes for advice to get back to the stricken crew, said NASA’s space station program manager Kirk Shireman. An AI companion could provide instant assistance.

Cimon is meant for additional brainpower, so it doesn’t have legs or arms. NASA’s humanoid Robonaut, on the other hand, lacked AI but was envisioned as a Spiderman of sorts, its hands and feet designed for grabbing and climbing. Its creators saw Robonaut as a potential spacewalker, off in the future, that could venture outside for mundane tasks, saving astronauts considerable time and risk.

Robonaut is back on Earth. It returned aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule in May after long bouts of inactivity and wiring trouble. Once fixed, an improved Robonaut may fly back to the space station.

Source: AP

Google Maps now shows when there's road work on your way home

GOOGLE bought Waze five years ago but most features like interactions such as drivers, incident reports, traffic cameras, speed cameras, police patrols are not implemented in Google Maps. However, in current Google Maps, the number of users with limited road conditions.

Currently Google Maps sees only road work, but accident reports like collisions will be executed soon. "Yes", "No", "I do not know" will display a message confirming that road construction is taking place.

New features are provided only to a limited number of users, so there are good reasons for reputation that the remaining functions can be used for various drivers immediately.

Now you can add USB-C connections to your Surface Pro and Surface Laptop.

Image source: Microsoft

ACCORDING to The Verge, Microsoft will begin selling its USB-C Surface Key for $ 79.99 to enterprise customers earlier this week. It is unclear how consumers will get it, but the adapter will be sold later through the Microsoft Store or an authorized reseller.

Unlike Surface Book 2, "Surface Connections to USB-C Adapters" is designed for Microsoft's latest Surface Pro and Surface Laptop devices that do not have a USB-C port.

When a key is connected to a surface device through the surface connector charge port, the user can connect a USB-C peripheral or docking solution through the USB-C key port.

It also supports USB-C charging. Specifications require an external power supply of at least 27W and 12V for both surface devices and external displays.

Source: Microsoft (via Verge).

Do you imagine a space of about $ 55 million dollars? Axioms can do this for you.

There was no personal space station in the history of mankind. The International Space Station (ISS), China's Tienong, the Russian world was a state project. The American "axiomatic space" enters the space station for the first time under the name of "axiom" on earth orbit.

Axiom Space will gradually collect Axiom of the space station. In Axiom space, the module that can connect to ISS is started first. More modules will be added from 2020 to 2024. When the ISS was dissolved in 2024, the Axiom station will separate and go through a low trajectory.

This is a commercial space station, so axioms need to earn money. Axiom Space is planning to start production operations at Axiom including production of small satellites. They can be deployed to stations within the cost of firing from the earth.

Because this is done in a private way, Axiom's space can do quite different things. Recently, vacation package details were announced. Decorate with gold, you can pay to fly to the space and you can spend to let your days arrive at the ISS. The space space axiom (Space Space Axiom) module developed by Philippe Starck and the universe that has not brought happiness to Moncler are left. The first flight will start in 2022 and will be $ 55 million per passenger.

This is very similar to science fiction, and Axiom does not help to use the same name as Wall-E's animation feature. Nevertheless, Michael Suffredini, president and CEO of Axiom Space, has run the NASA ISS program for 10 years. Kam Ghaffarian was a contractor of NASA which operated the ISS. This gives credit to ambitious ambitious business.

NASA launches InSight spacecraft to Mars to dig down deep

CAPE CANAVERAL  — A robotic geologist armed with a hammer and quake monitor rocketed toward Mars on Saturday, aiming to land on the red planet and explore its mysterious insides.

In a twist, NASA launched the Mars InSight lander from California rather than Florida’s Cape Canaveral. It was the first interplanetary mission ever to depart from the West Coast, drawing pre-dawn crowds to fog-socked Vandenberg Air Force Base and rocket watchers down the California coast into Baja.

“This is a big day. We’re going back to Mars!” NASA’s new boss, Jim Bridenstine, said following liftoff. “This is an extraordinary mission with a whole host of firsts.”

The spacecraft will take more than six months to get to Mars and start its unprecedented geologic excavations, traveling 300 million miles (485 million kilometers) to get there.

InSight will dig deeper into Mars than ever before — nearly 16 feet, or 5 meters — to take the planet’s temperature. It will also attempt to make the first measurements of marsquakes, using a high-tech seismometer placed directly on the Martian surface.

“That’s the real payoff of this whole mission and that’s still lying ahead of us,” said the mission’s chief scientist, Bruce Banerdt of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Although fog prevented Banerdt from seeing the liftoff of the $1 billion U.S.-European mission, he heard the roar of the rocket and all the blaring car alarms it set off.

“It was just an incredible moment,” Banerdt told The Associated Press by phone. Despite the challenges still ahead, “I think I can bask in a little bit of satisfaction and just feeling like we really accomplished something today.”

Besides InSight, the United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket gave a lift to a pair of mini test satellites, or CubeSats, that are trailing InSight to Mars to serve as a potential communication link. Nicknamed WALL-E and EVE from the 2008 animated movie, the twin briefcase-size spacecraft popped off the rocket’s upper stage in hot pursuit of InSight, as elated launch controllers applauded and shook hands following the morning’s success.

NASA hasn’t put a spacecraft down on Mars since the Curiosity rover in 2012. The U.S., in fact, is the only country to successfully land and operate a spacecraft at Mars. It’s tough, complicated stuff. Only about 40 percent of all missions to Mars from all countries — orbiters and landers alike — have proven successful over the decades.

If all goes well, the three-legged InSight will descend by parachute and engine firings onto a flat equatorial region of Mars — believed to be free of big, potentially dangerous rocks — on Nov. 26. Once down, it will stay put, using a mechanical arm to place the science instruments on the surface.

Banerdt said Mars is ideal for learning how the rocky planets of our solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago. Unlike our active Earth, Mars hasn’t been transformed by plate tectonics and other processes, he noted. InSight might also help explain why some planets — like ours — went on to develop life, while others did not.

Over the course of two Earth years — or one Martian year — NASA expects InSight’s three main experiments to provide a true 3-D image of the interior of Mars. Scientists know Mars has an iron core and a crust, but beyond that, the inside is “basically, completely unknown,” said Banerdt.

The lander is equipped with a seismometer for measuring marsquakes, a self-hammering probe for burrowing beneath the surface, and a radio system for tracking the spacecraft’s position and planet’s wobbly rotation, thereby revealing the size and composition of Mars’ core.

“InSight, for seismologists, will really be a piece of history, a new page of history,” said the Paris Institute of Earth Physics’ Philippe Lognonne, lead scientist of the InSight seismometer.

Problems with the French-supplied seismometer kept InSight from launching two years ago. California was always part of the plan.

NASA normally launches from Cape Canaveral, but decided to switch to California for InSight to take advantage of a shorter flight backlog. This was the first U.S. interplanetary mission to launch from somewhere other than Cape Canaveral.

The fog ruined the view for those gathered at Vandenberg along the central California coast. But it was a marvelous sight farther south. The rocket’s bright orange flame was visible for some time as it arced upward across the dark sky west of greater Los Angeles.

Not even two weeks on the job, NASA’s new administrator, Bridenstine, observed the launch on monitors at space agency headquarters in Washington.

“I can’t think of a better way to start my day!” Bridenstine tweeted.

United Launch Alliance’s president, Tory Bruno, also took to Twitter to celebrate. “Next stop: Mars.”
(AP)

Switch controls light on a nanoscale for faster information processing

Researchers at Purdue University have helped to develop a compact switch that captures small chip components more securely to speed up information processing.

It is known that photons or light units are faster than electrons, so that information can be processed faster by smaller chip structures. University of Zurich and the ETH, researchers at Washington University and Virginia Commonwealth University, designed a switch to bypass the use of so-called surface plasmons or optically with the light absorption tendency of the free oscillations of the electron cloud did not want to limit light at nanoscale level.

"There is an important idea behind this is that from the electronic circuit to photonic circuits," Distinguished Professor of Bob and Anne Burnett Purdue Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering Vladimir Salad Aliyev said. "From electronics to photonics you need structures that confine the light to very small areas: plasmon seems to be the solution."

Although plasmons reduce light, photons are lost or absorbed rather than being transferred to other parts of the computer chip when they interact with the plasma.

In a study on April 26, researchers released this problem by developing a switch called a ring modulator, a resonance of the switch to check if the light is coupled to the plasma. At resonance or resonance, light passes through the silicon waveguide to other parts of the chip. When it is off or resonant, the light is coupled to the plasmons and absorbed.

Research Associate Institute of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at Purdue University Soham researchers, said: "If you have a pure plasma stimulation device, the light may be harmful, but in this case, which is an advantage for us, because it can reduce the signal, if needed. "The idea is to choose when you want to fail and when you do not want to."

This loss is contrasted between the on and off states to better control the direction of illumination, and is suitable for processing information bits. The mechanism supported by the plasma ring modulator would also result in a smaller "footprint," such as light confinement plasmon in a nano-chip configuration, Shalaev said.

Researchers from Purdue University want to perform such a modulator and a complementary metal oxide semiconductor transistor is compatible, paving the way for a true hybrid photonics and nano-electronic circuits of computer chips.

"Supercomputers already contain electronic and optical components that are capable of large-scale computing very quickly," according to Professor Purdue Electrical and Computer Engineering, whose laboratory specializes in plasmonics materials Alexandra Boltasseva said. "What we study is very well suited for this hybrid mode, so we do not have to wait for the computer chip to use everything visually."

plasma-assisted development of electro-optical modulator requires technical know-how not only in the plasma, but also Juerg Leuthold leadership team of ETH Zurich (including Christian Haffner and other members of the group) integrated circuits and nano-photonics, as well as material from the photoelectric Larry Dalton Group the Washington University. Hafner and Nathaniel Kinsey, a former student at Purdue, now a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Virginia Commonwealth University, and Leuthold, Shalaev, and Boltasseva, developed a low-loss type of subambient optical plasma based on the idea-assisted electro-optic modulator, incorporating a compact chip Recognition and communication technology.

Huawei predicts Artificial Intelligence Trends will Increase

Rotating Chairman of Huawei Eric Xu in Huawei Global Analyst Summit (HAS) 2018 in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. (Photo: Bisnis/ Herdiyan)

Chinese technology company Huawei Investment & Holding Co. Ltd., predicts the trend of using artificial intelligence or Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasing, making the world smarter by 2025.

Huawei Rotating Chairman Eric Xu said it estimates there are 8 billion smart phones in circulation in 2025 with a total of about 6.5 billion users. 80% of them are connected to mobile broadband with the need of traffic data service (mobile traffic) up to 1 GB per user per day.

"This year, we calculate 4 billion people are not connected to the internet, 5 billion people do not have smartphones, and 40% of mobile users do not have access to broadband," he explained to Huawei Global Analyst Summit (HAS) 2018 entitled Envision a Fully Connected, Intelligent World in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China, Tuesday (4/17/2018).

By 2025, Huawei also estimates the number of users of virtual reality or augmented reality (AR / VR) technology to reach 440 million users.

The use of the Internet is supported by the availability of smart or AI solutions that facilitate human life can be seen from the development of smart devices that become smart personal assistants, solutions for companies, smart home solutions, smart cities, and so forth.

According to Eric, in that year home broadband access will reach 75% compared to this year which is about 40%. This service will grow 12% on an annual basis.

For information, Huawei Global Analys Summit was first held in 2004 and continued until 15 years later. This year, the title of HAS 2018 takes place on April 17-19 with various parallel sessions attended by experts from various industries around the world.

Google overhauls Gmail to lure businesses away from Microsoft

Alphabet Inc's Google unveiled on Wednesday its first Gmail redesign since 2013, capping what the company says was an expensive overhaul two years in the making to adopt security and offline functionality and better resemble Microsoft Outlook.

It is Google's most extensive update to software in its G Suite workplace bundle since accelerating efforts to steal business from Microsoft Corp's dominant Office workplace software suite. Previously, G Suite added instant-messaging and spreadsheet features.

With Gmail, Google said it restructured email storage databases, unified three dueling systems for syncing messages across devices and upgraded computers underpinning the service. That shift to Google's self-developed Tensor processing chips enables smart-assistant features such as "suggested replies" to messages and "nudges" to respond to forgotten emails.

"This is an entire rewrite of our flagship, most-used product," said Jacob Bank, product manager lead for Gmail, which 1.4 billion people use each month.

Unreliable offline access to email has long discouraged would-be customers, while recent high-profile corporate data breaches have increased their desire to lock down email. Analysts estimate G Suite generated about $2 billion in revenue last year, 10 times behind Office.

Google declined to specify costs associated with the redesign. But parent Alphabet reported Monday that first-quarter capital expenditures nearly tripled year-over-year to $7.3 billion.

Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat told analysts that half of the spending resulted from hardware purchases to support expanding use of machine learning, which describes automated programs that can, among other things, identify spam and predict which emails users would find most important.

SECURITY AND SMARTS

Google's Bank said the overhaul was required primarily to provide offline access to up to 90 days of emails for users who turn on the feature.

The changes also fulfil another top demand of business executives - message expiration.

Users who enable a "confidential" option when sending an email can time-limit its access to recipients and also require they enter a one-time passcode sent to their phones to read it.

The new setting does not override corporate email retention policies or present new obstacles to law enforcement.

"Nudges" and a higher bar for new-mail notifications round out Google's revised sales pitch. The company estimated that nudges will lead 8 per cent of business users each week to remember to follow-up on something important.

Cosmetic changes bring Gmail's website in line with Office by placing Google's calendar, tasks and note-taking services within the same page as emails.

Bank said testers have advanced from "neutral to positive to very positive" on the new look.


Source: Reuters

For many online Americans, Facebook is a habit

Social media is a daily way of life for many Americans. Nearly half of Americans who use the internet say they use Facebook at least several times a day, making it easily the most popular social media site. And Facebook-owned Instagram comes in No. 2.

So whether you’re reaching for your phone before getting out of bed in the morning, or logging on to procrastinate during work, chances are you see the little blue “F″ icon more often than you take a shower.

A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that 12 percent of Americans who are online use Facebook “almost constantly,” while 34 percent use it several times a day. About 15 percent use it once a day, and only 12 percent of Americans don’t have a Facebook account at all.

More women than men check Facebook more than once a day — 57 percent of women compared to 36 percent of men, according to the poll. Younger people are on Facebook more than older people. About 62 percent of adults under 30 check the site several times a day or more, while only 30 percent of adults 60 or over do. About 54 percent of adults 30 to 44 check multiple times a day, as do 43 percent of adults aged 45 to 59.

Jim Mazzarese, 73, a retired airline manager from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, is one senior who checks Facebook on his phone several times a day when he gets notifications. He has a bit of a love-hate relationship with the site.

“It gets me crazy when I see opinions other than mine, it gets my blood pressure going up — but it’s a lot of fun,” he said. He appreciates how Facebook has let him connect with people from when he was growing up “100 years ago.”

What about the other social media sites?

Seventeen percent of Americans say they check Instagram throughout the day, and 10 percent say that about Snapchat. For all of the attention that President Donald Trump gets for his tweets, only 7 percent of Americans say they use the micro-blogging site several times a day. Just 5 percent say they spend that much time on WhatsApp, and 4 percent say the same of Reddit.

Is it actually healthy to check in with Facebook so much?

In a blog post in December, Facebook acknowledged that users should be mindful of the issue. A study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology the same month found University of Michigan students randomly assigned to read Facebook for 10 minutes were in a worse mood at the end of the day than students assigned to post or talk to friends on the platform.

Meanwhile, a study that Facebook research director David Ginsberg conducted with a Carnegie Mellon professor showed that sending or receiving direct messages or posts and comments on one’s timeline tends to boost psychological well-being.

Worldwide, Facebook has 1.4 billion daily active users out of 2.2 billion total, so most active Facebook users check in at least once a day.

Source: AP

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,140 adults was conducted April 11-16 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.

Apple plans to replace Intel chips in Macs with its own: Bloomberg

PHOTO: Courtesy AFP 

Apple Inc is planning to use its own chips in Mac computers beginning as early as 2020, replacing processors from Intel Corp, Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The initiative, code-named Kalamata, is still in early developmental stages but is part of a bigger strategy to make Apple's family of devices work more similarly and seamlessly together, according to the report.

Apple, which has used Intel chips in its computers since 2005, and the computer chipmaker both declined to comment. Intel shares closed down 6.1 per cent at $48.92, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq .IXIC ended down 2.7 per cent.

Stifel analyst Kevin Cassidy said in a note he believed the market was "over reacting" to the report on Apple's plans and that Intel's prospects remained good. "We do not expect any other PC manufacturers will consider designing its own CPUs," he wrote in the note.

Other analysts said Apple would likely phase Intel's chips out over time.

"While it's possible that Apple may replace Intel in some of its lower-end product lines, we think it will be difficult for Apple to completely replace Intel by 2020, especially on its higher-end offerings," said Summit Insights group analyst Kinngai Chan.

The Mac plays a small part in Apple's overall financial picture, with sales of 19.2 million units last year and accounting for 11 per cent of Apple's $229.2 billion in revenue for fiscal 2017.

But while the laptop and desktop computer market has been in a years-long slump amid the rise of smartphones and tablet computers, Mac sales rose 4 per cent in 2017. The growth came even as PC sales declined slightly to 259.5 million units, the smallest drop since 2011, according to data from research firm IDC.

While Apple's reported move away from Intel would be a major shift for its Mac lineup, it follows years of increasing focus on designing its own chips for its devices. The company has been designing its own iPhone processors since the release of the iPhone 4 in 2010 and has steadily increased the amount of chip work it handles itself.

"We can push the envelope on innovation. We have better control over timing, over cost and over quality," Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said of Apple's chip efforts last year.