Fitbit has been around for a few years now and is aiding people in living a healthier lifestyle. It is a bracelet that attaches to a person’s wrist and detects numerous sets of data such as tracking steps, when you are sleeping, heart rate, etc. It is designed to be wearable and help people become healthier in the easiest way possible. 

Google is known for expanding their business by buying out other large businesses. Some businesses you might not even know Google owns can include Calico, Andriod, etc. Recently, Google has been wanting to join in on the Wear OS platform, in other words, wearable technology. Google took a leap in doing this by buying Fitbit for $2.1 billion. All the data that Fitbit has collected about people for several years now is transferred and owned by Google. This shouldn’t be an issue for Fitbit owners but it does add to all the data this large corporation has on millions of people and the rate it is growing at.  

https://www.popsci.com/google-bought-fitbit-tech-news-roundup/ 

https://www.fitbit.com/about

Electric cars are revolutionary to the carbon footprint cars have been leaving for the past few decades. The positives of electric cars outweigh the negatives, however, the negatives are not being improved upon. Electric cars take several hours to charge, for example, the Tesla Model X takes about ten hours to charge. Thankfully, experts from Penn State has created a new battery that can make an electric car charge in only ten minutes compared to several hours.

This is done by a lithium-ion battery that is heated up quickly to extreme temperatures then brought back down to room temperature during the charging time. Typically, electric cars are charged at the same temperature throughout because lithium-ion cannot handle extreme temperatures. These researchers found a way to have it withstand high temperature because of the short amount of time it is withstanding it along with tinfoil. The tinfoil allows for an evenly distributed heat across the entire battery. The next problem at hand to turn the negatives into positives of electric cars is longer charge lifespan. Hopefully, Penn Staters can figure out this issue as well.  

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2019/10/30/new-battery-could-charge-an-electric-car-in-10-minutes/#.Xb9vL5NKjOQ

Electric cars have revolutionized driving in recent years. Pollution is a growing concern across the globe and electric cars have helped in reducing the amount of carbon left into the atmosphere. NASA is taking this a step further. NASA is currently working on the first electric airplane, the X-57 Maxwell. The X-57 Maxwell is similar to the twin-engine Italian aircraft such as the Tecnam P2006T.

The first model, the MOD I, had the usual combustion engines switched with electric motors. NASA underwent four rounds of modifications since then to get to a fully functioning electric aircraft, the X-57 Maxwell. The MOD I, II, III, and IV all had different modifications to bring them to where they are now. In MOD III and IV, engineers are still working to perfect the models to put it in full effect. 

Jet fuel accounts for a major amount of greenhouse gases being eliminated. If accomplished, this can revolutionize air transportation and eliminate a lot of the carbon being released into the atmosphere. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2019/10/09/nasa-is-building-its-first-electric-airplane/#.XbY4R5NKjOQ

Artificial Intelligence is used in computer science and does tasks that usually require human intelligence. This can include various fields such as decision-making. These machines are becoming more advanced with time and one of its latest accomplishments is being able to tell how many people there are in large crowds much faster and more accurate than ever before. 

Prior, experts would have to estimate the amount of people in incredibly large crowds. However machines can now do the work for us. Machines were able to do this before but it was not very accurate and took just the same amount of time as if a human were to do it. But now, this new system has proven to be 15% more accurate over any other crowd estimator. Furthermore, it is extremely fast and takes almost no time at all to calculate, especially compared to when humans try to. Having this machine can be very useful, especially in situations deemed dangerous once a certain capacity is reached. An example can be a mosh pit at a concert. Moreover, in history, years from now having this type of accurate data can be very useful. 

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2220546-ai-could-help-work-out-how-many-people-are-in-large-crowds/

https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence

The article, “UK Scraps Plan to Enforce Age Checks on Pornography Websites,” is about the UK government’s idea to have an age verification restriction on pornography sites. However, this plan was not followed through and thrown to the wolves. The government’s idea was for people to prove their age by showing their government issued IDs, credit cards, passports, etc; there would be a need to verify legitimate proof of age. Furthermore, if a website did not follow these guidelines, they would have been blocked by the UK internet service providers. However, the UK government is not enforcing these restrictions and dropped all of these plans. People criticized all of these ideas. These people claimed that this can create a massive hacking target for blackmailers. They will continue to allow people of any age be able to watch pornography. It will never be known whether this could have been helpful for children under the age of 18 or detrimental. 

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2220220-uk-scraps-plan-to-enforce-age-checks-on-pornography-websites/

Emojis have been around for years and allows people to express themselves using something other than words. It all started with emoticons and progressed from there. The first emoji was created in Japan in 1999 and became extremely popular. Since then, their popularity has exploded and became its own language to communicate with people. 

In the article, “One of The New 2019 Emojis Might Make You Physically Yawn,” Stan Horaczek discusses the new emojis being released this upcoming year. Furthermore, some of these new emojis include options for same-sex couples and gender neutreal cartoons. The goal of these were so that more people could be represented and express themselves more than ever through texts, blog posts, etc. The article continues into discusses the most popular emoji that came out which is the yawning emoji. It jokes about how the emoji is contagious and can actually make people in real life yawn! 

https://www.popsci.com/new-2019-emojis-yawn/

https://www.wired.com/story/guide-emoji/

The Metropolitan Police is the police service for 32 boroughs of London and is the UK’s largest police force. Back in July, there was an unexpected hack in their Twitter account along with their email. There were strange and outlandish remarks being posted from their account. One tweet included a plea to realize rapper Digga D. Their twitter account is fairly popular and has over 1.2 million followers so these tweets were getting attention extremely fast. Furthermore, ridiculous emails were being sent out. As a police force, someone would expect all of their cyber services to be exceedingly hard to hack. 

Recently, two teenagers were arrested for these cyber crimes. There are only 18 and 19 yet they were able to hack a police force’s online services. Because of these unexpected hacks, people such as Donald Trump has linked it to their loss of control of their country. 

It is undoubtedly fearful that anyone was able to hack into these secure police platforms. More security is clearly needed. Moreover, it is worrisome that it took several months to track down these teenagers. Ironically, the Metropolitan Police has a page on their website to avoid cyber hacks.  

https://www.met.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/fa/fraud/online-fraud2/cyber-crime-fraud/

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-50014090

Fortnite, an online video game, has been around since 2017 and has exploded in popularity since then. It’s a game for all ages and deemed as extremely addictive due to its battle royale game mode. It is the first time that any online, shooting video games used this battle royale tactic. This game mode adds suspense and thrill to its players because the player doesn’t respawn when they die. In the past, games would allow the player to respawn for an allotted amount of time such as Call of Duty and Halo. 

The video game has come out with ten season thus far. As seasons change, guns are updated and balanced for the best user experience, new challenges are released, the map is changed, etc. These new seasons are released to keep the player interested and not lose any appeal. 

Epic games, the creator of Fortnite, decided to “end” the game in the past day. When Fortnite is loading up, a black hole appears and players are unable to play the game they were expecting. Instead, there is a secret arcade game that can be played but that is all. Millions of players are unable to indulge in the battle royale game as of right now. This means that streamers, who sometimes make a living off of their Fornite streaming, have no material to upload. Furthermore, the Fortnite official Twitter, Instagram, etc only shows a black hole as well. As well as, when someone attempts to call the Fortnite helpline, there is no one that picks up the phone. Whether this will affect the popularity of the game is still unclear. All people must do now is wait until Fortnite is working again. 

https://www.cnet.com/news/fortnite-season-11-event-ends-with-a-cosmic-explosion-and-is-now-gone/

The name Elon Musk is known around the globe for his innovations and visions he has for humanity and space exploration. He is the founder and CEO of SpaceX and has started a revolutionary movement for space travel. SpaceX is private space transportation and manufacture business. Musk has spoken greatly on his wish for people to start civilizations on planets other than Earth, more specifically, Mars.  

In recent years, Musk revealed the idea of a prototype for his spaceship that can achieve this goal of his. However, this prototype has now become a reality. The prototype has been named Starship Mark 1 and is already standing tall at 50 meters. The Starship has been broadcasted to the world as many firsts for humanity. It is currently the largest and most powerful, reusable spaceship to date. It is planned to take its first suborbital trip soon followed by an orbital flight. 

One of the interesting parts about this spaceship is the material it is made of. Musk raves about the fact it is externally made of steel and the reasons behind it. He claims that there are two major reasons as to why steel is the best choice for this product. The first being that steel can withstand extremely high and low temperatures without being damaged. If they expect the spaceship to withhold multiple trips back and forth through space, it must have thick skin. Secondly, the cost of steel is substantially cheaper than the other materials previously used in spacecraft usage. Only time will tell if steel is the right choice for space travel. 

https://arstechnica.com/features/2019/09/after-starship-unveiling-mars-seems-a-little-closer/ 

https://jalopnik.com/all-about-spacexs-ambitious-new-starship-1838778920

Grubhub has been the go-to app for hundreds of thousands of people in recent years when it comes to ordering take out food. The convenience of ordering what you want and having it delivered directly to your door without having to make sure you have cash on you for a tip, leaving your house, etc. has allowed the app to thrive. Although there are other apps that do the same thing, such as DoorDash and Postmates, Grubhub has been growing at a faster rate over the others. This is similar to how Uber has thrived over Lyft, Via, and other ride sharing apps.

Unfortunately, small businesses are beginning to be hurt by these food delivery apps. In the beginning, it raised their profits because of how many people started buying more of their food through these convenient apps. However, their profits are starting to decrease. Grubhub charges high commissions even for phone calls that don’t even result in orders. Although most orders through Grubhub are done through the app, there is the availability to place orders by making a phone call through a Grubhub phone number. Small businesses are being hurt by not only these high commissions, but also by phone calls that don’t result in orders because Grubhub is still charging the restaurants commissions for them. These commissions can be as large as 30%. There is clearly a technical issue going on through Grubhub that needs to be fixed before the government takes matters into their own hands to help small businesses stay afloat. 

Grubhub has been growing faster than the other delivery apps and if it wants to stay this way, they need this issue fixed immediately. There are other food delivery apps that small businesses will turn to so they are no longer charged for orders that did not even take place along with a lower commission rate. This problem may be taken into the government’s hand in certain cities, such as New York City, so that these commission rates can be regulated. A cap on commission rates will hurt Grubhub’s growing profits so they should take matters into their own hands to figure out what works best for both parties before the governments do it themselves and possibly hurt Grubhub’s business. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/business/grubhub-seamless-restaurants-delivery-apps-fees.html