Kozminski Techblog

Elon Musk said Tesla’s next “killer product” would be a solar roof for Solar Roof buildings.

“What do you want to see around in ten years? What products will make your life better? What future do you want? I think a future in which we will have good energy-generating roofs; they will be strong, elastic, and better than a normal roof in all respects, ”said the head of Tesla. Now Tesla is actively increasing the production and sales of solar roofs. According to statistics released by Musk, in the third quarter of 2020, the pace of implementation of Solar Roof has tripled compared to the same period last year. Tesla is also accelerating its recruitment to meet the demand for solar roofing and is preparing to enter the international market for the first time: sales of the Solar Roof will soon begin in Canada. It will be recalled that Tesla began work on this project in 2016. Solar Roof consists of a tile with built-in solar panels: they transfer the collected energy to the battery, which, in turn, supplies voltage to the inverter for conversion into alternating current. One of the main advantages of Solar Roof is the economy. A year ago, Elon Musk wrote in his Twitter that such technology will allow Americans to save up to $ 500 a year on utility bills. Besides, the solar roof is easy to install. The kit for the average house with  ​​approximately 185 square meters can be installed in just 8 hours, while the assembly of a conventional roof takes several days. Solar Roof also comes with a 25-year warranty.

To conclude, Tesla is continually expanding its range of environmentally friendly products that solve many people’s issues. This way, Tesla is also trying to occupy one of the leading markets in the world. Will they be able to do it? What do you think? It is not yet known when new technologies will come and will be available in Europe.

Resources:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk

https://electrek.co/2020/10/25/tesla-next-killer-product-solar-roof-elon-musk/

One of the main characteristics of modern electric multicopters is the autonomous flight time on a single battery charge. On average, such devices can fly no more than 30 minutes. However, for hybrid units, a petrol and electric drive system is used. One of these quadrocopters, created by the company Quaternium from Spain, recently broke the record and spent 10 hours 14 minutes in the air.

In the basic configuration, the HYBRiX 2.1 weighs 13 kg, lifts up to 10 kg of payload, accelerates to 80 km / h and stays in the air for up to 2 hours with such a load, which is more than the “electric trains” show. And most importantly, a drone with a hybrid installation can continue to work immediately after refueling.

The first model developed by Quaternium under the HYBRiX 2.0 brand flew in a hybrid engine for four hours and forty minutes in December 2017. This time became a new world record for autonomous quadcopters. To further improve the model, the company will release the HYBRiX 2.1 model, which in February 2020 set the next world record for autonomous flight time, which was already 8 hours 10 minutes.

Further improvement of the parameters of the HYBRiX 2.0 was carried out by changing the parameters of the drone’s fuel system. The developers have increased the volume of the fuel tank to 16 liters and installed a fuel injection system for the two-stroke quadcopter engine. The injection system is made by the Spanish company Löweheiser, is quite compact and affects the total weight of the device.

The quadrocopter can be used in many areas, for example Benidorm’s Police is using the HYBRiX to solve problems more efficiently, such as search and rescue missions or control of illegal dumping, and to improve the protection of Benidorm citizens.

“As a Police tool, this device has the advantage of endurance, enabling us to start and finish the job without needing to return to the takeoff point to change the batteries in order to extend the flight time,” Benidorm Local Police Agent Francisco Albero Clemente said. “This aircraft allows us to perform operations similar to those of a helicopter, at a reduced cost.”

Furthermore, today the world is suffering from recurrent catastrophes caused by climate change. From floods to forest fires, generating huge damages to critical infrastructures, communications systems access and basic services. For over 10 years, quadcopters have proven their value in evaluating the aftermath of earthquakes such as the case of the Sichuan earthquake or Hurricane Florence’s landfall. In both disasters, multirotors were used to search the land and identify as many people as possible. Although they were useful, they all had the same limitation, flight endurance. Being only able to cover small areas.

During these situations, every second counts. This is what motivated Quaternium to develop a drone that could have a much longer endurance. With HYBRiX, rescuers and firefighters will be able to identify hot spots and access property damage while searching for survivors. Thanks to the unique features of HYBRiX, these situations can be managed safely while achieving faster results.

Resources:

https://24gadget.ru/1161071304-gibridnyj-kvadrokopter-hybrix-21-postavil-rekord-avtonomnosti-

https://www.commercialuavnews.com/forestry/quaternium-s-hybrix-20-multicopter-enables-companies-to-stay-in-the-air-longer

http://robotrends.ru/pub/2045/hybrix-2.1-gibridnyy-rekordsmen-ot-quaternium

https://www.techcult.ru/technics/8943-dron-hybrix-ustanovil-mirovoj-rekord

Reading Time: 3 minutesDue to some issues we all know about, the daily usage of cellphones has increased. According to the survey conducted by Twirgby people spend now 37% more time texting and 32% having video calls in comparison with the previous year. On the one hand, we have already adapted to such a dramatic increase in screen time spend. On the other, people (students especially) suffer from spine ache, headache, vision loss, depressions, and insomnia. 

Luckily, many companies have implemented an adaptive color temperature feature called “night shift’ or “blue filter” in their gadgets. It is aimed at adjusting the temperature of the color displayed due to the time of day it is. The goal was to help people get ready for sleep. How does it work? The blue light is an extremely tricky thing. It may make your brain think that it is daytime, however, it might be a deep night. There are even some scientific evidence proving that blue light can affect your sleep-wake cycles. 

Since the Covid-19 pandemic and a significant increase in device usage are strongly correlated we may assume that “night shift” could be a vital feature, even more valuable than ever before. The principle of this tool is simple. It transforms all blue colors into softer ones (blue to yellow) and prevents your eyes from seeing it as well as your brain from being tricked. Apple devices use your location in order to determine when the sun is supposed to raise and when the sunset is supposed to be. Some other phones/tablets also use their light sensors for such purposes. Presummerly, users are to turn on this button while working with a laptop/tablet/cellphone before sleeping so that our brain can understand that it is time to go to bed. 

However, the study conducted recently reveals that blue color has the same impact on the mouse body as a yellow color. So scientists assumed that “night shift’ is a placebo that generates no effect. Although, we can not judge because there were no experiments carried out on humans. 

What is more, a startup called Loona has created an app allowing you to watch some relaxing animations and even participate in them in order to “get in the right mood to sleep”. This app helps users to cope with stress, pressure, and difficulty initiating and maintaining sleep at night. The app uses three science-based components: art activity, music, and storytelling. It is a kind of lullaby slowly swaying you in your bed. The secure atmosphere creates a situation where the user is no more able to counteract sleep. 

To sum up, I would like to say that I have always had a lot of interest around the fact that simple technology merged with human health can benefit to our body. And it is worth highlighting that the technology is really SIMPLE but extremely useful simultaneously. 

Sources:

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Reading Time: 2 minutesWe live in an age when it is impossible not to have a PC. It is needless to say that people who are connected to digital drawing, graphics or gaming have faced the problem of quite a difficult choice: to buy a tablet for sketching and graphics? to buy a gaming laptop? or just to buy a computer in order to use it for coding, working and studying? And how not to go bankrupt on the one hand but fulfil your ambitions on the other one?

This year Asus has come up with the solution and presented Asus ZenBook Flip 14.

Firstly, the sleek four-sided NanoEdge design makes ZenBook extra slim and compact, with an amazing 90% screen-to-body ratio. Its Core™i7 processor (10th Gen Intel® CPU), up to 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD, Windows 10 Pro and gaming-grade graphics (discrete graphics chip supercharges your laptop for work or play) give you effortless performance for on-the-go productivity and visual creativity.

Secondly, the 360° ErgoLift hinge. This innovation also lifts and tilts the keyboard into a comfortable typing position when the display is opened beyond 135°. Otherwise, you turn the display on 360° and, in a moment, you have a tablet in your arms. Now, all you need for sketching or graphics is taking a stylus and a couple of free hours. For this reason, the laptop has the touch display and a perfect fixation of the display thanks to well-made hinges.

Thirdly, the new ScreenPad 2.0 upgrades the traditional laptop experience, adding an interactive secondary touchscreen. Its intuitive smartphone-like interface lets you easily manage tasks and create your own seamless multitasking workflow. There are useful quick controls that improve the interactions between the main display and ScreenPad: for instance, you can now launch a video or chat box — or many other apps — onto ScreenPad to take advantage of the extra space wherever you are, and without interrupting your work on the main display.

Taking everything into account, Asus has not presented an outstanding nor unusual design of their laptop. They have not added a fantastic camera, have not invented something new instead of facial log in. Nevertheless, this laptop charms customers and it is almost impossible to find something more universal than ZenBook Flip 14 nowadays.

Sources:

https://www.asus.com/Laptops/For-Home/ZenBook/ZenBook-Flip-14-UX463

Reading Time: 3 minutesWHAT IT IS
Created by NVIDIA Research GauGAN project is a program which allows you to turn simple paintings into photorealistic pictures using AI technology.

HOW IT WORKS
GauGAN gives you blank space to draw on, where each brush type is labeled with different type of environment like sand, grass, sky, ocean. Option of changing daytime is also available. Then AI converts the sketch filling into desired elements basing on online pictures database. Using GANs technology program creates credible outcome. In the process two neural networks are used where one is called generator and the latter one discriminator. Generator creates image that later is corrected by discriminator in terms of authenticity.

GANs SYSTEM
Gaugan is using GANs (Generative Adversarial Networks). These are neural networks that cooperate in the process of deep learning, by competing with eachother. E.g one is creating a fake cat picture, while the other one determines whether it is real or fake. This eliminates the need for human to correct the AI and automatizes the process. This way human effort in advancing neural networks is minimized.

USE IN WORLD
In the future the application can help proffesions which require creating world representations like architects, urban planners or game developers. It would allow them to preview the outcome of their work with minimal effort and prevent from committing to bad ideas.

INSIGHTS
Current state of the project may be impressive but its very restrictive. The fact that you are allowed to use only certain labels which resemble specific parts of environment is disappointing and prevents from exploiting maximum potential of creativity. The most obvious way of solving that problem would be adding more labels but connecting elements from various types of environments could corrupt the final landscape. E.g covering a desert with a snow or placing a star on the dirt background would distort the picture, because AI would have no data to refer to. Project’s advancement is dependent purely on describing parts of the world with new algorithms and putting them to the GANs test.

EXAMPLES – Here are some masterpieces I’ve created.

REALISTIC EXAMPLE – easy to make, low chance of corruption

ABSTRACT EXAMPLE – harder to make, high chance of corruption

CORRUPTED EXAMPLE – elements added to habitat in which they not occure will distort the picture. Here is a house in the middle of the ocean with a bridge connected to a pile of mud above.

Here are few breathtaking possible outcomes.

SOURCES

My sketch using NVIDIA’s GauGAN – using machine learning to turn doodles into realistic landscapes from MediaSynthesis

https://www.artstation.com/nicodemus/blog/O8Q4/nvidia-gaugan-fun

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2017/05/17/generative-adversarial-networks/

Reading Time: 2 minutesCorrectly diagnosing diseases takes years of medical training. Even then, diagnostics is often time and money consuming process. This puts doctors under strain and often delays life-saving patient diagnostics. In this worldwide health crisis, the medical industry is looking for new technologies to monitor and controls the spread of COVID-19. And on of technologies that can solve that issues finding the proper treatment, is Artificial Intelligence. For instance, tracking the spreading of disease, choosing the proper treatment .

Benefits of AI:

1. Early detection and diagnosis of the infection. AI can quickly analyze irregular symptom and other ‘red flags’ and thus alarm the patients and the healthcare authorities
2. Monitoring the treatment. AI can build an intelligent platform for automatic monitoring and prediction of the spread of this virus.
3. Projection of cases and mortality. This technology can track and forecast the nature of the virus from the available data. Further, it can predict the number of positive cases and death in any region.
4. Development of drugs and vaccines. Many of the analytical processes involved in drug development can be made more efficient with Machine Learning. This has the potential to shave off years of work and hundreds of millions in investments. What leads to faster and more efficient production of drugs.
5. Reducing the workload of healthcare workers. It helps in early diagnosis and providing treatment at an early stage using digital approaches and decision science, offers the best training to students and doctors regarding this new disease. Furthermore, when AI lowers monotone workload of medical workers, they can provide more efficient treatment, based on individual approach.

AI machine learning models and algorithms can identify potential drug leads currently unknown in medical science and far faster than humans. While such systems will never replace scientists and clinicians, they can save both time and money.

The ability of machines to solve complex biological puzzles more rapidly than human experts has prompted increased investment in AI drug discovery by a growing number of large pharmaceutical companies.

To sum it all up, AI can significantly improve treatment consistency and decision making by developing useful algorithms.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/08/ai-artificial-intelligence-emerging-disease-treatment-covid-19-therapeutics-benevolentai-cures/

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(20)30192-8/fulltext#seccestitle120

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871402120300771