The future of flying is almost here. And it looks exactly as you’d imagine. TU Berlin student Justus Benad came up with the idea to revolutionize airplanes. In his work he wishes to reduce all costs and pollution produced by the airplanes industry. This way he created a project named „Flying V”.
His project interested the Dutch airline KLM and the TU of Delth. In 2019, KLM announced that they would finalize the construction of the prototype and then the entire aircraft. The designers’ goal is to create the most efficient machine to reduce the cost of travel. New aerodynamic shape reduce weight what give an opportunity to spend about 20% less fuel than the Airbus A350, today’s most advanced aircraft.
Things that distinguishes the Flying V from the A350 are small wings and no tail. Hence, the plane will not have horizontal and vertical stabilizer. However, this kind of technology we can already see in B2 Spirit, the bomber of US army. The passenger compartment is located inside the wing, and their places can be in each of them. Moreover, as you can see the seats will be angled towards the direction of flight and not along the windows. Next very interesting fact is that windows will be only on one side of the cabin and at first thought, it may seem strange. However, in this situation designers can use virtual windows, such as those used by Fly Emirates. The airplane performance as distance range or speed will be similar to A350, but due to its construction it will be shorter than its competitors.
Someone may ask when we will see Flying V in the air. TU Delft has up to 30 years to create ready-to-fly airplanes. However, in my opinion we will never see it. To revolutionize airplanes industry we need a lot of money and resources that only big companies like Airbus or Boeing can afford. In addition, we need remember that all elements need to be designed and created from scratch, that makes the construction of this plane much more difficult. Nevertheless, I believe that revolution of airplanes industry is right around the corner. Today’s most popular aircraft is Boeing 737, which first version was designed about 50 years ago and it hasn’t changed much.
Do you want to know how terrible your taste in music is to end an already terrible year? Look no further than the “How Bad Is Your Spotify” project on Pudding.cool, that will ridicule your taste in music, in a good way of course.
If you’re a Spotify user you probably got your Spotify Wrapped earlier this month which nicely summed up your music taste for this year. The Pudding’s new AI tool is nothing like that. Besides analyzing your listening history, it interacts with the user in a playful manner.
The app uses artificial intelligence which was trained by by Matt Daniels and Mike Lacher for The Pudding.
Once users visit the website they are asked to grant access to their Spotify to let the “sophisticated A.I” judge their “bad taste in music”.
The bot explains that it has “been trained on a corpus of over two million indicators of objectively good music, including Pitchfork reviews, record store recommendations, and subreddits you’ve never heard of,” when you click on “how do you know what’s good?”
The quiz takes users through a series of amusing questions making you feel like you’re chatting with a passive-aggressive snarky friend. It said things such as: “lol… omg… okay hold up… Do you really listen to [artist name]…?”
After the A.I is done mocking your musical taste with its questions, it analyses your answers and tells you how “bad” your Spotify is.
The AI bot gives a rundown of tracks the users listen to “too much,” artists they listen to “to an uncomfortable extent,” rates how “basic” your musical taste is and highlights the decade you’re “stuck” in.
Mike Lacher, one of the brains behind the witty bot says,”We wanted to make something similar to Spotify Wrapped, but instead of celebrating your music, it would insult it. For us personally, we knew that the stuff we stream privately is often embarrassing, so we thought it would be funny to make a bot that would look through all that stuff and judge you. We wanted it to feel like a judgemental friend, or a snobby record store clerk.”
Many, after using the app, went on social media to share their results. One twitter user commented “the accuracy of the how bad is your Spotify thing is terrifying.” Another user said “I tried the “how bad is your Spotify playlist” AI and I am too embarrassed to share the results…”
It’s all fun and games but it’s important to realize that artificial intelligence and the music industry are incredibly linked together. The fact that they can store an incredible amount of information for comparison and analyze human taste on a platform like Spotify can open a new era for the music industry.
Go check out “How bad is your Spotify?” on pudding.cool !
Although, according to Statista, the value of online retail sales is growing and its global share of retail sales is expected to reach 22% in 2023, we still cannot forget that the remaining 78% is for offline trade.
When conducting online retail sales, there are many effective tools to promote your store and thereby attract customers. You can use sponsored links, SEO or take advantage of the benefits of social media and for example create a competition for customers, thanks to which they will engage more and probably also promote the store on their own. You can also offer small discounts for first-time purchases and use a very powerful tool which are subscriptions. According to AdWeek’s analysis subscription model is perceived among clients as budget-friendly and convenient and at the same time, it makes it easier for businesses to scale and predict revenue.
It follows from the above that the possibilities to attract customers online are practically endless. The reality is quite different in offline world. Therefore, all solutions that attract customers are in high demand even more concerning offline retail. This is where a Cosmose AI decided to step in and make a revolution.
Cosmose AI is a Polish behavioural targeting technology startup which was founded in 2014 by Miron Mironiuk and it holds that its current valuation is more than $ 100 million. It has offices in Shanghai, Hongkong, New York and Warsaw. Huge and innovative companies such as Walmart, LVMH, L’Oréal, IWC, Este Lauder,FENDI, Samsung and many more use their solutions.
What this company basically does it tracks foot traffic in traditional offline stores in order to help to predict how customers will behave. The company is able to indicate the customer’s location with 2-meter accuracy, i.e. indicate in which aisle the customer spent a certain amount of time. This 2 meter accuracy is possible due to proprietary solution based on neural networks. Thanks to this, then, a few hours or a day after the visit, an advertisement for this store with, for example, the product or subject from/of the aisle/shop will display itself on this persons social media. Cosmose works with online media platforms like Facebook, Google, Line, Weibo,WeChat. Regarding the prediction, a very high 73% accuracy was achieved for when where and who will go shopping (concerning beauty category). The startup also claims that it can determine whether a customer will or will not like a certain product. Of course, the possibilities for this solution do not end with the displayed ads .Through the application dedicated to interested stores, also the impact of the advertisement on the recipients can be checked, i.e. how many people who clicked or saw the add visited the physical store again. This application also allows you to track changes in the traffic of competing stores, which is very interesting feature because it provides a valuable insight and companies can mutually inspire themselves and improve. And what is even more useful- the app enables us to connect also with customers from competitor stores.
To conclude, the company offers the mentioned above location tracker- Cosmose Analytics, a prediction and analytics platform which is aimed at helping sellers with marketing and stimulating sales- Cosmose AI and also Cosmose Media which is used for targeting online advertisments. Regarding the very targeting, the company analyzes shopping patterns, what allows them later to chose customers who will with the highest probability be interested in your product. According to Acxiom, this results in Cosmose delivering 135% higher offline conversion in comparison with leading advertising platforms.
So what is the technology behind all these wonders? These unique marketing services are possible thanks to the company’s proprietary technology, which is OMNIcookie. OMNIicookies allow you to locate customers using GPS and a network of WIFI transmitters, but what’s important-without the need to connect with it. So no visitor action is needed- they don’t have to open any apps nor connect with anything. The company uses agentless component (a tool which collects performance metrics without the need to install any agent software on the devices that are monitored) which works somewhat like this; the company access the data they need but they don’t know who they belong to because they use anonymous mobile user IDs. They access the data from weather apps, social media platforms and also fitness, radio, gaming and news apps. So the above explains how the company’s activities are in compliance with data protection.
As the numbers best describe the scale of operations, the company’s ecosystem consists of; 1 + billion tracked devices (this equals to 1 billion understood and influenced shopping habits), 360,000+ stores scanned (they aim to grow that to 10 million by 2022) and data from 400,000 applications.
800 million, so the vast majority, of those tracked devices are from China. Now, why China and not Europe or U.S? According to the founder and CEO, Miron Mironiuk, he first was set on chasing American dream, but in the U.S smartphone penetration was not very high. The opposite was true in China, where this penetration was 90% high. To present you with some numbers; China has over 1 billion operating smartphones. Also, Mironiuk mentioned that due to a very high competitiveness in the extremely fast growing China market, you always have to improve your product. This is both very challenging and rewarding.
Nowadays, it is impossible not to mention the COVID-19 pandemic. It would seem that since the company provides services to physical stores, its activity is currently much more difficult. Well, this is not entirely true. During these difficult times Cosmose aims to help their clients by providing useful insights on which basis clients can make decisions about when to reopen their stores, how to enlarge revenue and what kind of inventory will attract customers. They also enable their customers to connect with those who used to shop in their physical shops in order to inform about the opportunity to buy online.
Couple months ago the startup announced that it has raised $15 million in Series A. This, according to the company is used to improve the product and expand globally. Considering the opportunities offered by the company, its valuation and the amount of investments that are made in it are not shocking. Cosmose very effectively combines the analysis of customers in-store behaviors and habits, so offline activities with the power of online marketing.It is a very interesting and innovative startup that definitely changes the situation of many entrepreneurs and creates a huge change in marketing.
It has never been easier for companies who produce food to reach their customers. Restaurant delivery has grown 20% in the last five years. Although projections vary, it is projected that online food delivery revenue will rise as high as $220 billion by 2023 – 40% of total restaurant sales. With regard to online grocery, Deutsche Bank forecasts that by 2025, the online grocery market of $24 billion will rise to $120 billion.
The global impact of the Covid-19 pandemic may have intensified this hypergrowth, but what made its success was the recent proliferation of the delivery models and types such as:
Third-Party Delivery
In-House Restaurant Delivery Fleets
Tracking Delivery Data
Online Grocery Delivery is Growing Rapidly
Let’s talk about the latest news. Nuro set to be California’s first driverless delivery service.
A California robotic taxi company has secured the state’s first-ever permit to ship in an autonomous vehicle. For the first time, California has provided the go ahead for a commercial driverless delivery service. As early as next year, the robotics start up Nuro plans to start its driverless delivery operations.
It previously tested its R2 vehicles in the state in April, but the permit would allow it to charge individuals for its operation. The vehicles of the company will be limited to 56km/h and will be restricted to “fair weather” service.
“Issuing the first deployment permit is a significant milestone in the evolution of autonomous vehicles in California,” said California Department of Motor Vehicles director Steve Gordon.
“We will continue to keep the safety of the motoring public in mind as this technology develops.”
Nuro was founded in 2016 by two former engineers from Google and has funding from Softbank, a Japanese corporation. It’s raised $1.5 billion in funding, according to Crunchbase, including $940 million from SoftBank’s 9984, +0.18% Vision Fund.
To direct its travel, the R2 utilizes radar, thermal imaging and 360-degree cameras. And a steering wheel, pedals or side-view mirrors are missing. There is an egg-shaped frame in the vehicle that is smaller than most US vehicles. For shipments, it also has two temperature-controlled compartments. Doors rise up to show the objects after the receiver has entered a code.
The R2 supplied pizza for Domino’s Pizza, food from the Kroger supermarket chain and supplies for Walmart during a previous trial in Houston, Texas, in February. Still, one transport specialist said that safety concerns will continue to be a concern.
“It will be very limited to begin with while the technology is thoroughly evaluated,” said Prof David Bailey from the University of Birmingham.
“So, for example, the vehicles will only be allowed on ‘surface streets’ with their speed limited to 35mph, and the smaller Nuro delivery bots will be limited to just 25mph.
“It’s essentially a limited trial, but still a significant step towards a driverless future.”
In October, as part of Google’s Waymo operation, driverless taxis began operating in Phoenix, Arizona.
Everyone of us has a desire to create, but we don’t always have the idea how to do certain things.
Recently, David Li from Google created an online experiment which enabled everybody to create their own musical masterpiece at the same time putting a smile on many faces of Internet users, including mine.
This simple game enables you to compose beautiful harmonies without any knowledge or experience in the music field. You don’t have to play and instrument or know any theory, it’s built for everyone to enjoy.
The website is effortless to use. You basically drag the colorful blobs upwards or downwards to change the pitch of their voice and you drag to the sides to change the vowels which they are singing. You control one blob at the time and the others are following you and harmonizing with your melody.
To create such a great game, the developer David Li recorded 4 opera singers for 16h and he trained machine learning models which got to know how every one of them sounds like. That’s why we can hear their synthesized voices by AI, which sound very lifelike.
The harmonies however are built by analyzing big datasets of already known melodies. When the note of the blob is being chosen by you, the algorithm picks another one that matches the first, to create a pleasurable sound.
The professionals recorded for this experiment were Cristian Joel (tenor), Frederick Tong (bass), Joanna Gamble (mezzo‑soprano), and Olivia Doutney (soprano), but imagine you could record a sample of your own voice and play around using it as a base for the algorithm.
Such feature isn’t yet available in the game but I think that it could be a good plan for improvement and development of the experiment. What about expanding the library of voices available for the blobs, or even better, an option of recording your friends as other singers and jamming around in the virtual reality?
Bibliography:
Ling, Thomas. “The Hidden Genius of Blob Opera – and How It Could Get Even Smarter.” BBC Science Focus Magazine, 18 Dec. 2020, www.sciencefocus.com/future-technology/blob-opera/.
Piper, Daniel. “Is Google’s Blob Opera the Best Thing on the Web?” Creative Bloq, Creative Bloq, 16 Dec. 2020, www.creativebloq.com/news/google-blob-opera.
Thier, Dave. “’Blob Opera’ Is Genuinely One Of The Best Games All Year.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 17 Dec. 2020, www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2020/12/17/blob-opera-is-genuinely-one-of-the-best-games-all-year/?sh=354f7e02793a.
The time of pandemic was a turning point in the life of every person, especially the ones living in a civilized society. It had a negative impact on the economy of each country, however, there are some sectors which have benefited from it. One of those is of course the industry of the online and digital world.
People were forced to change their habits. Not only the way they work, but also the approach to entertainment. The pandemic and lockdown caused by it made it impossible to participate in almost all outdoor events.
It was obvious that the internet would become the “go-to” place when talking about leisure activity and indeed that is exactly what has happened.
All platforms for streaming and organizing meetings have experienced a huge boom, which can be observed by simply looking at their skyrocketed stock prizes.
They have enabled remote work and became the place where most of us spend at least a few hours daily.
But the work-related platforms are not the only ones that gained massively from the pandemic.
The other group which gained even more popularity is oriented toward spare time. When talking about facebook, netflix or youtube. Since the “real-life activities” such as sports became almost inaccessible the attention has been attracted by game-streaming apps such as twitch or other entertainment purpose applications like tik tok and real life sports had to take a backseat.
All those graphs show that the companies that were already big before the coronavirus pandemic became even bigger = even more wealthy.
The question is: What about us? What about individual users, that used to lead a normal life?
As one can probably expect there isn’t one way to answer such questions. Some users found a way to benefit from all the chaos that’s been happening lately.
Saying “some” I am speaking mostly about younger internet surfers, who do not have a problem with adapting to virtual reality and whose every day stronger growing influencers motivate them to try becoming stars themselves, which has been quickly realized by the social media giants.
For example Tik-Tok algorithms work in such a way that even the least popular users have a chance to break through and even go viral. This way a user never knows when his or hers video will shoot up, which works as a motivational booster.
To conclude it can be stated, that nothing unexpected has really happened. People forced to stay at home started using online communicators and social media in order to make up for feelings of loneliness. When talking about the individual people, the ones, who seem to go through the pandemic leastly affected, are the ones well prepared. The ones for whom living online is nothing new – the youngest.
Games on mobile devices developed significantly through the years. From very simple and basic, but entertaining games like famous “Snake” present on Nokia phones or 2d racing games, to games that can compete even with modern games intended for consoles or PC’s, at least in terms of generated income. Over the years mobile games were always behind PC or console games in terms of graphics, but now as technology advenced and phones may be more powerful than some PCs or consoles this is subject to change.
Mobile gaming industry is becoming more and more profitable industry, especially this year – beacuse of the coronavirus pancemic more people resorted to playing games on their phones to spend their free time. In 2020 top 5 money-earning games earned over 1 billion dollars each. PUBG mobile emerged on the first place. Although it was banned in India, because of Tecent being the developer of the mobile version of PUBG and accusations of stealing personal data, it achieved insane success.
PUBG Mobile, coupled with the Chinese relabeling, Game For Peace, emerged as the highest revenue-generating video game throughout the world this year, across both Google Play and the App Store. It garnered a jaw-dropping sum of $2.6 billion over the last 12 months, indicating a 64% year-over-year increase.
Developers of other games present on the graph above can also be proud of the income they generated. Overall, the industry generated huge profits this year having 19.5% increase from last year.
In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the mobile game sector witnessed a stellar boom. By generating around $75.4 billion this year and witnessing a 19.5% increase from last year, it’s safe to say that mobile games did a good job of entertaining the people while they were in quarantine.
Mobile gaming this year saw a surge in popularity as homebound consumers relied on their smartphones for entertainment during the pandemic. App installs for mobile games surged 45% in 2020, outpacing the 32% growth for the prior year.
Especially the simplest and most casual games are generating most profits, as they are literally for everyone. You don’t have to learn anything about the game, you just play and after a short while you are well acquainted with the rules. The game launches immediately, you can stop playing at any time and they don’t require great-performing smartphones. It is much easier to find a moment in your busy day to play a simple and casual game, instead of launching your PC or console and play a complex game that requires a lot of time.
Although the industry of mobile games is growing, smartphones specially designed for gaming are still not very popular. Not every smartphone is well suited for playing more complex games, and although the game may be lauched, it performance on your device may be upsetting. There aren’t many gaming smartphones on the market, and playing complex (in terms of graphics) games on your regular mobile phone may lead to it overheating easily. Not many companies are interested in making gaming smartphones, and prices of available ones are not satisfactory for everyone. In near future, more companies might get interesed in desiging phones made for gaming, especially if the mobile gaming industry will be expanding.
As we all know, Elon Musk often takes bold steps and he is not afraid of the consequences of the unusual actions that he undertakes so eagerly. Recently he showed that there is always something that can make us surprised. His company, Tesla – an American electric vehicle producer – announced their newest software update made especially as a Christmas gift for the Tesla cars users. Despite a bunch of new features like arcade games and enhanced driving visualization, it also involves an add-on that will surely give you a lot of entertainment. The driver will be able to broadcast music or short sound effects outside of the car! This option is called Boombox, and it works due to the external speakers, which Tesla is equipping their cars with since 2019 and call them ‘pedestrian speakers’. This is an obligation which has to be met in order to take advantage of this new toybox feature. But owners of older cars do not have a reason to be worried. Elon informed that they are working on new stuff that is coming soon.
Dave Vanderwerp / Car and Driver
Boombox option enables the user to replace normal, standard horn sound with the one that suits our preferences best. The same goes for driving and summon noises. It offers quite a wide variety of preinstalled sounds. The one that for sure has gained the greatest popularity is a fart imitation. There was no other option like adding a “Toss a coin” music from Witcher Netflix series, which was stuck in Elon Musk’s head for over a week after the premiere, according to his tweet. Pranks lovers will also find something special for them. By using the characteristic sound of the ice cream car, it is easy to harass all the neighbourhood and mislead people from your area. We cannot forget about hilarious goat sound that will surely scare passers-by. What is excellent, there is a possibility of uploading up to 5 custom music/sounds, so you are not limited only to stock options.
In the below video you may find all the effects that have been added.
There is nothing else for us but waiting for new Tesla updates. Stay tuned!
Cyberpunk 2077 was meant to be an insane, revolutionising game – at least it was seen like that by multiple fans. First announcement of the game was in early 2013, what gave plenty of time for people to over-hype it, what led to serious disappointments when the game was released, as some people imagined the game had insane elements in it and that literally everything would be possible to be done in that game. Reality was disappointing for them, although fans themselves were responsible for that as they were the people who hyped the game too much and had unreal expectations about it.
But the main factor what led to game having terribly bad reviews (especially on PS4 and XBOX platorms) was the performance and optimalisation of the game. The storyline of the game is praised, but it can not help if the game runs terribly on your console. There were plenty of situations where bugs in the game prevented you from completing it, for example some enemies were invincible. Most of these bugs are not present anymore, as they were patched out in a few patches provided by game developer, and most of the bugs you can encounter now are minor and visual only. But the performance issue was not resolved, and overall not everyone is happy, and value of CD Projekt on the stock market dropped drastically. That is why on 24th of December a lawsuit was filed by an investor named Andrew Trampe, who “is looking to include other investors in the suit to turn it into a class action.”
“CD Projekt failed to disclose that Cyberpunk 2077 was “virtually unplayable on the current-generation Xbox or Playstation systems due to an enormous number of bugs,” according to the complaint.”
Although the game sold incredibly well, has an insane storyline and looks perfect on high-end PCs, beacuse of the overall performance GameStop and PS4 started accepting refunds, with the latter even removing it from online store. This had a huge impact on the stock prices and led to another price drop. Andrew Trampe, the person behind the lawsuit seeks to represent other investors who purchased CD Projekt stocks and lost their money, as in his opinion the comapny lied about the state of the game.
“…as a result, defendants’ statements about its business, operations, and prospects, were materially false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis at all relevant times. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages.”
A fragment of Rosen Law Firm’s press release. https://www.pcgamer.com/class-action-suit-filed-for-cd-projekt-investors-over-cyberpunk-2077/
If the lawsuit proceeds, it may have terrible consequences for CD Projekt. The company made a mistake, and even after a few month long crunch failed to deliver a full game. They should have released PC version only now, as it has only minor visual bugs and on a good computer it runs insanely good and looks stunning. The console version needs improvement, but developers promised to do it as soon as possible. On the other hand, CD Projekt is not fully responsible for this situation, as their game was overhyped by people with impossible expectations, especially after the success of their other game, The Witcher 3. In my opinion CD Projekt is a victim of it’s own success, and I hope that they will improve Cyberpunk’s performance and deliver many other great games in the future
Transhumanism has undergone a remarkable transformation, from having a few of intellectual pioneers to becoming an increasingly important part of understanding the prospects for a technological transformation of the human condition. The idea that technological progress will help us overcome many of our current human limitations is no longer confined to a handful of tech-savvy visionaries. Understanding these opportunities is crucial to understand the ethical choices we face and the potential consequences of this progress is a key component of what humanity will face in the decades ahead.
For centuries, there have been thinkers who argue that we can overcome illness and death. The need for eternity inspires human to create a new kind of man who is able to satisfy himself in all aspects of life, not only physically, but also mentally and emotionally. This small philosophical and cultural movement was one of the most influential movements in the history of science and technology. It represents a significant step in our understanding of human nature and the human condition. Transhumanism made a number of important contributions to the understanding and development of our still evolving bodies, which have highlighted complex issues that are with us from the day of birth.
Several organizations were created to “perfect” the race, such as the Transhumanist Society of America, the Transhumanists of the United States, and the Society for the Advancement of Science and Technology.
They are often isolated from each other, but they all share a common, coherent view of the world, sharing similar views and values. It is clear that transhumanist experiments with new technologies carry a high risk in humans. Some of these technologies already exist, but the nature of the transhumanist projects in which the technology is developing to fuse the human brain with software and AI is a mystery. There were made not enough studies to illustrate this problem at its full scale.
From my point of view, we already became transhuman. The constant use of smartphones, PC’s and other devices that are connected to the internet makes us not a self-living human being anymore. We often need to google something when telling a story, show a photo on our phone or even check some important information in our notes. The smartphones often influence our decisions or mood. They often play the role of a personal database. The method of uploading our questions to the computer is just very slow and primitive. We only use only our thumbs, which can transfer only 38 words per minute on average.
As our race progresses, those methods will upgrade and in the future we will be able to transfer data from our brain to our smartphone or PC within miliseconds. People always feared the unknown, but I think that upgrading the “connection” with our personal computers is the key for becoming fully transhuman. Hopefully companies such as Neuralink will successfully develop technologies, that all human will use in the future.
