Japan's space agency robot ball takes us through life off-planet

JAXA

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has given us a snapshot of life in space with the release of a tiny spheric drone into the atmosphere of the International Space Station (ISS).

The JEM Internal Ball Camera, dubbed "Int-Ball," is able to record video and take images while floating around above our planet.

According to the space agency, the drone was delivered to the Japanese Experiment Module "Kibo" to the ISS by the US' Dragon spacecraft, launched on 4 June this year, and since then has been controlled from the ground to record a snapshot of the lives of astronauts.

While being manipulated through the JAXA Tsukuba Space Center, the drone's footage is checked in real-time before being fed back to the onboard crew.

Some of the released footage is below. While the text is in Japanese, the film itself is still fascinating:

watch vedios :

https://youtu.be/D_A-yb8rlac

https://youtu.be/PntNBeJuRFQ

The drone uses existing drone technologies, but the outer shell and inner structures were created through 3D printing. As Int-Ball is so small and lightweight, it is able to move anywhere throughout the ISS, and record footage from any angle.

At present, not only does the drone give space enthusiasts a glimpse at the inner workings of the space station, but JAXA says the drone also proves a link between flight controllers and researchers on the ground with flight crew in real-time -- allowing those of us still on Earth to see things from the astronaut's point of view and for the teams to cooperate more effectively despite the distance.

JAXA hopes that eventually Int-Ball could be improved to include additional features and functions for future space missions and will reduce the crew time spent on photography, which is roughly 10 percent, to zero.

Last week, the Australian government revealed plans to boost the country's space program, of which, forming a dedicated space agency could be a possibility within the next decade.

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How to Get a Free Fidget Spinners now !!

If you don't know what fidget spinners are, don't worry: Your kids will surely clue you in soon enough. Or perhaps you'll see your work colleagues flicking them relentlessly in the office, and it would be awkward to not ask what the heck they're doing.
A fidget spinner, as we explained in a primer last week, is a hot new breed of plaything with a bearing in the middle that allows it to spin, entrancingly, in your hand. They come in endless varieties—some look like throwing stars or the Batman symbol, made of materials such as plastic, bamboo, or titanium—and they're all sold under the premise that they help the user to focus and rein in one's fidgeting.
They are sold in a wide variety of price points as well. A "fidget spinner" search at Amazon now yields over 17,000 results, with prices ranging from about $2 all the way up to $460.
A much smaller specialty retailer, GoSpinner, went into business last December with just a single fidget spinner model but sales have been so hot lately it has been adding a few different new styles each week. Some of GoSpinner's success can be attributed to its best-selling spinner, which is listed for sale at $0.00.
"The free spinners are a promotion we started a few months back to spread the word and decided for the time being to extend that probably well into the summer," GoSpinner tells Money.
Is the free spinner actually free? Well, no. The catch is that you have to pay for shipping and handling—which goes for $5.99 per spinner. The site also limits sales to a maximum purchase of eight "free" spinners per household.
Still, that's quite a good deal compared to the typical fidget spinner, which sells in the $12-$20 range. There are much cheaper fidget spinners out there, mind you. Some are listed at eBay at the crazy cheap rate of two for $1, with free shipping included. Just be aware that the quality of such spinners may be lacking. The gadgets won't spin fast, and are prone to breaking if they're equipped with super cheap bearings. Also, take careful not of when potential orders would be shipped. For the two-for-$1 deal mentioned above, the estimated arrival time for orders (being sent from China) is listed as anytime between May 4 and May 24.
Another interesting option is to go the DIY route. The Make: 'zine published a roundup of videos demonstrating how to make various fidget spinner models from scratch, including some made with wood and aluminum. They typically feature a skateboard bearing at the center. Here's a neat video of DIY fidget spinners that are made almost entirely of skateboard bearings, which you might already have in the house:

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Now You Can Track Your Car Using Your Smartphon

kTiny Device Allows You To Track Your Car Using Your Smartphone

Have you ever lost your car on a parking lot? It happens. You park and go shopping. When you get back, you don't have a clue where your car is. Then you start roaming around clicking on the panic button on your car keys so the alarm goes off. It can be frustrating, especially on a hot, sunny day.

No, you don't need to install an expensive GPS system to keep track of your car. That's way too expensive. You would need to pay a monthly subscription fee just to use it. Don't we have enough bills to pay already?

The device "TrackR" has the size of a coin and can be placed everywhere

But is there a way to track your vehicle without spending a fortune? Yes, now there is!

A California-based startup company was able to make this a reality. They created a tiny device that works with your smartphone, and it could be exactly what you're looking for!

What is it?

It's called TrackR. It is a state-of-the-art tracking device the size of a quarter. It's changing the way we keep track of the important things in our lives.

With TrackR you'll gain peace of mind, knowing you can find your car quickly.

How Does it Work?

It's easy! Install the free TrackR app on your smartphone, connect the app to your device and you're ready to go! Simply attach TrackR to whatever you want to keep tabs on. The entire process of setting it up only takes 5 minutes or less.

You can attach it to your keys, briefcase, wallet, your latest tech gadgets and anything else you don't want to lose. Then use the TrackR app to locate your missing item in seconds.

Forget expensive GPS systems or tracking services. Nobody wants to pay expensive monthly subscription fees. We understand how stressful these things can be, and this is the reason why TrackR was created. This device is your VIP when you need to take care of more important things in life.

Remember the car scenario above? If you have the TrackR, you can just hide it under your car's floor mat, in the trunk or in the glove compartment. Somewhere it won't be found if your car gets stolen.

If you forget where you parked your car, whip out your smartphone and open the TrackR app. Tap on the "lost item" icon on the screen and the app will tell you the exact coordinates of the last known location of the TrackR.

How Much is it Going To Cost Me?

You're probably thinking that this device is very expensive... False! TrackR only costs $29! That's a small price to pay for peace of mind, isn't it?

Where can I buy TrackR?

You can buy it directly from the company's website. They ship worldwide and you'll receive your TrackR within a ~week.

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Is Microsoft cheating on Intel with ARM?

The Wintel marriage has been a successful one for over 30 years. So, why does Microsoft suddenly want to see other CPUs? Think of the children.

We've seen it happen with all married couples, time and time again. It tends to happen in milestone decades -- 10 years, frequently 20. The two begin to grow apart. They no longer have shared interests, and often what keeps them together -- the children -- have left the nest.

Like "Brangelina," there is a celebrity couple whose marriage is on the rocks, and that couple is Microsoft and Intel.

Now going on for 30-plus years, "Wintel" is the power couple that solidified our technology industry.

There has never been a partnership more pervasive, more important, and more influential than any other between two technology companies. Perhaps even between two companies in any industry.

Intel x86 chip architecture and advancements drove the development of Windows. Advancements in Windows drove developments in Intel chips. In that relationship, it's very hard to say who is the heavy. In many ways, Wintel is a partnership of equals.

But now, Microsoft wants to make PCs that use Qualcomm chips based on the ARM architecture.

Naturally, Intel is very concerned. While not so much saying that it's ready to hire an expensive divorce lawyer and wants to file for custody, it has indicated that it exercised its legal muscle in the past when its children are threatened -- and will do so again.

But seeing other CPUs is not a new thing for Microsoft, and Intel has often looked the other way when Redmond had its occasional dalliances, because they weren't real threats to the marriage.

In the 1990s, Windows NT was developed to be an architecturally agnostic OS. It ran on MIPS, PowerPC, DEC Alpha, and of course, Intel's Itanium chips.

When the smartphone revolution occurred, Microsoft ported Windows CE and eventually Windows 10 Mobile running on the NT kernel to ARM.

But, in both of these cases, Intel was an active participant. Intel had a vested interest in making Windows architecturally agnostic, because, with StrongARM/XScale and Itanium, it was investing in its own future and additional lines of business.

It was adding spice to the marriage, so to speak.

None of these other players were a particular threat to Intel, because you had to recompile all your applications to make them run on those platforms. The PC industry then, like today, was dominated by software that was optimized for x86 systems.

Desktop-style Windows was ported to ARM for the original Surface RT that used NVIDIA Tegra chips several years ago. It was memory constrained, sluggish, and could only run modern apps from the Windows Store and built-in desktop versions of Office recompiled from Win32.

Intel had no reason to worry. The market rejected Windows RT and Surface RT. Microsoft shelved it, continued its development of x86-based Surface devices, and moved on to other things, including making Windows more touch-friendly and improving developer tools.

Flash forward four years. Microsoft is again looking to make Windows platform-agnostic. It has been courting Qualcomm not just for the possibility of making ARM-based Windows systems but also in its Azure cloud.

What gives?

Well, ARM SoCs are now that much more powerful, being able to run 64-bit apps and address larger amounts of memory and use more processor cores. They are finally approaching desktop-chip levels of performance.

Just take a look Apple's latest-generation iPad Pros that are shipping this week, that use the 64-bit, hex-core A10X SoC.

An apt comparison to Intel would be a V6 Chevy Camaro versus the turbo-aspirated, 4-cylinder 2.0L version -- which I have had a lot of fun driving lately.

Yes, the V6 is perhaps more satisfyingly louder (to those that like loud as opposed to a sleeper) and has a faster top-end speed, but the 4-cylinder turbo is torquier, has almost as much horsepower, and has much better gas mileage.

And if you tune the thing, with upgraded pipes? Well

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Google's Gboard: New AI helps save you typing on your Android screen

Google's machine intelligence is powering new suggestion features that cut the friction of typing on tiny screens.

Google's latest round of machine-learning enhancements for its Gboard smart keyboard offer two new features that reduce the need to type and improve its ability to make suggestions.

The app's emoji search box now supports drawing an emoji to find the right expression. The app will recognize what emoji you're drawing and will suggest several likely candidates. This feature should help when you don't remember what a specific emoji is called.

The feature looks similar to Google's recent AI app, AutoDraw, which turns your sketches into professional-looking clip art.

The example it offers shows a simple drawing of a cat which returns a dynamic selection of emojis that tend toward the apparent right emoji as more of the cat's features are filled in.

Initial suggestions when the cat is just a circle include things like a ghost, pineapple, and various circles, which become a selection of mostly cats by the time the doodle is more recognizable as a feline.

Google recently overhauled the machine-intelligence models it uses in Gboard to improve typing predictions and help people navigate soft keyboards faster and reduce manual corrections.

Google enhanced its keyboard predictions after adding speech-recognition learning to its models, having realized that mobile keyboard touch inputs, such as typing and swiping, work in a similar way to the speech-recognition systems that translate voice inputs into text.

Its quick-typing improvements to Gboard now support phrase suggestions that predict the next word, in addition to suggestions for completing individual words. This feature will initially be available in English but is coming to more languages soon.

Gboard search has also been updated to display multiple results that can be browsed through or shared in other apps. There are also cards that display links to Maps, or calling a business, and YouTube.

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Is your company facing an innovation gap?

A lot of companies are neglecting to invest in innovative technologies such as advanced and cognitive analytics, the Internet of Things (IoT), and process robotics, while they continue to spend on areas such as cyber security, according to a recent survey of CFOs by advisory firm Grant Thornton LLP.

"Cyber security is one area that represents a clear and present threat and requires direct action," said Kevin Baril, a principal in Grant Thornton's Business Technology and Consulting practice. "It is easy to see the defensive nature of the investment. The investment need is clear, as is its benefit."

Meanwhile, most companies do not have the people, processes and appropriate technology infrastructure to capitalize on digital innovation and transformation, Baril said. "These same companies have not made the initial investment to create the platform for innovation, and [don't] have the necessary human capital capabilities within the organization to assess, realize and deploy solutions in a digital framework," he said. "Therefore there is not a clear investment thesis and no compelling case for action."

Grant Thornton surveyed 404 CFOs and senior financial executives in the US between November 2016 and January 2017, and found that 49 percent of them consider cyber risk an area of greatest need for risk management. More than half (57 percent) report that investment in cyber security/data privacy is underway, while 16 percent said it will be in six months and 21 percent within 12 months.

But at many organizations innovative technologies are not getting as much focus, despite the emphasis on digital transformation.

"Companies should be investing in innovative technologies" including advanced data analytics, IoT and robotics, and understanding the role of data strategically, Baril said. "Applying these innovative technologies utilizing agile, design thinking on cloud and [as-a-service] platforms, in an iterative, rapid manner is critical," he said. "Companies can realize time-to-market and early mover advantages with a properly considered and architected information technology framework."

About half of the CFOs surveyed (49 percent) see business intelligence and analytics as a top area of IT investment, and 42 percent see database systems and management as a top area. Only 4 percent and 17 percent of CFOs consider IoT and cloud computing, respectively, as top areas for IT investment.

What can be done, from a technology and business leadership standpoint, so that companies can invest in and deploy more innovative technologies?

"Companies must develop an overarching digital transformation model for the enterprise," Baril said. "An investment in people, partnerships and organizational change and the willingness to embrace new governance models is critical. Digital innovation requires engagement inside and outside the organization and is much broader than information technology and the IT department."

Much is at stake for those organizations that fail to change their spending strategy when it comes to more innovative technologies.

"Technology strategy and its effective, timely implementation [affect] corporate financial results and competitive position now more than ever," Baril said. Innovative technologies and their insightful application "within the context of a particular business strategy -- enriched with carefully structured data sets -- will play a much more significant role in overall firm results and positioning in the future," he said.

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