Monthly Archives: July 2021

New Tech Investments in F1 Racing

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More recently, the competitive Formula One scene has received interest from technology companies looking to sponsor various teams and races. This interest has even come from some tech giants, such as Microsoft and Zoom. This was Zoom’s “first major global sports sponsorship”. A motivator behind the sponsorship is the fact that Zoom serves as a communication platform for F1.



Formula One is now even engaged with arguably the most impressive giants of all– Amazon. However, these are not associations for the sake of them; these companies are not only sponsoring F1 but participating in the process of the league and even the nitty-gritty of car mechanics.

The funds being provided by these giants are likely to make this year’s F1 races something to brace oneself for. Teams are backed with some of the most advantageous tech partnerships they could possibly have, opening up their access to world-famous engineering.

Sources:

https://www.netimperative.com/2021/03/31/zoom-sponsors-formula-one-with-multi-year-partnership/
https://techcrunch.com/2021/07/17/how-f1-got-the-data-crunched-for-its-new-race-car/

Budding Interests in Space Travel

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The news has recently seen a spike in interest in space travel, mostly by Billionaires bored by their regular vacations to the Maldives. Elon Musk is one of the older players in the game, with Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson being among the newer competition.

Bezos is about to set off on an excursion with his new aerospace company, Blue Origin. Questions have been raised about the ethics of Billionaire space travel, and what it aims towards, other than creating more waste outside of Earth’s atmosphere.



It has also deepened public resentment of Billionaires, pointing to the widening weath disparities in today’s economy, where the rich are exploring more vacation avenues while others are battling the climate crisis on Earth.

However, Kathy Leuders, who oversaw the development of Space X’s Crew Dragon, sees this as the initial phase of space travel. According to Kathy, the expenses occured in space travel will eventually be downsized to make it accessible to the larger public.

Sources:
https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/17/22573791/space-tourism-industry-bezos-branson-musk-billionaire-phase
https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/bezos-and-crewmates-prepare-for-inaugural-blue-origin-space-flight-7410742/

The Success of India’s First Unicorn IPO

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Zomato, a food delivery, restaurant finder and review app, has grown to be one of the largest food-tech companies in India. Shares were opened for sale to the public earlier this week, on July 14th, which each share priced between 72-76 Indian National Rupees. The IPO was fully subscribed within day one of the sale.

Upcoming companies and start-ups are now looking to Zomato’s fundraising journey and marketing tactics for a model to mimic. The company has brilliantly bounced back from a huge dip in business in 2015, and went on to become India’s first company with a valuation of over a Billion dollars.



With an IPO size of 90 Million, an over 10 Million growth since it registered preliminary documents with a market regulator, Zomato has become arguably the most ambitious food-tech giant in India.

However, it does face some competition, especially from Swiggy, another food delivery app with over 2.5 Million downloads.

Sources:

https://indianexpress.com/article/business/market/zomato-ipo-everything-you-need-to-know-7402280/
https://www.livemint.com/market/ipo/zomato-ipo-subscription-latest-gmp-share-allocation-and-listing-date-details-11626157342966.html

A $50 device for winning shooters has been released: AI analyses the image and takes aim at the player

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According to Arstechnica, cheating in video games has reached a new level. Hackers have developed a special device that helps the player accurately aim at the enemy. In fact, it is a hardware analogue of Aim Bot. The developers claim that this cheat is undetectable by any protection because it does not violate the integrity of the game files, which is typical for software cheats. The device can be used with both PCs and consoles.

For obvious reasons, Arstechnica did not mention the device’s real name, formally labelling it CVCheat, nor did they provide links to where it could be purchased. However, the hackers themselves were eager to share with the portal how it works. Actually, CVCheat is an advanced video capture card that connects to a PC or console via HDMI and monitors the frames sent by the GPU to the screen. Using built-in artificial intelligence and computer vision algorithms, CVCheat detects the location of enemies in the central area of the screen where the player is looking.

Next comes the algorithm, which calculates exactly how far and in which direction the mouse should be moved for the enemy to be in the crosshair. CVCheat can detect the enemy as a whole and its body parts, allowing, for example, to efficiently distribute headshots. The data collected by the capture card is sent to a dedicated pass-through device, such as Titan Two or Cronus Zen, which is used to emulate a mouse or gamepad movement to bring the aim to the target and fire a shot.

Individually, all the devices used to operate CVCheat are perfectly legal. For example, the same Titan Two or Cronus Zen cards are used to enable the use of computer mice and keyboards with game consoles and create game macros. However, all together they create an effective cheat that requires no modifications to the game files, so no anti-cheat can detect it.

CVCHeat has flexible settings, allowing you to determine the size of the reticle area, the speed of the aim, the body parts to be shot at, and so on. The current version of CVCheat operates on the Triggerbot principle, i.e. it allows for accurate shots to be fired at an enemy who has hit the reticle area. In addition, it has a recoil control function after each shot.

A more advanced version is already in development, which will offer fully automated aiming and shooting processes, and will be able to work with any PC game as well as Xbox and PlayStation game consoles. The Pro version of CVCheat has been priced at $50 by hackers. According to its developers, it works effectively in games displayed at up to 240 frames per second. And it only takes 10ms for it to detect an enemy on the screen and make a shot.   Game developers have already sounded the alarm. For example, publisher Activision is blocking any advertisements on YouTube that use CVCheat in their online shooter Call of Duty: Warzone, because people have already appeared in the game using it. According to the hackers themselves, around 200 people are already using their development.

Source: arstechnica.com