Versatility And Convenience Are What The E-commerce Industry Stands For; It Is Growing And Transforming

Google Triumph In First Quantum Simulation Of Chemical Reaction

Researchers at Google's AI Quantum Team have utilized quantum computing to mimic the response using 54 qubit quantum processor. Since particles and at

Researchers at Google's AI Quantum Team have utilized quantum computing to mimic the response using 54 qubit quantum processor. Since particles....

Anonymous. Fiske Reading Machine in the hand of its inventor, Rear Admiral Bradley Fiske. 1922

[::SemAp Twitter || SemAp::]

Small Businesses Help Us Explore Space!

Earlier this month, Congress introduced a resolution officially recognizing Nov. 24, 2018 as Small Business Saturday “to increase awareness of the value of locally owned small businesses and the impact of locally owned small businesses on the economy of the United States.”

This annual American Express campaign began on the Saturday after Thanksgiving in 2010 to support “local places that make our communities strong.”

For 60 years, we have supported and partnered with small businesses across the country to pioneer the future of space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.

Our Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program funds the research, development and demonstration of innovative technologies that help address space exploration challenges and have significant potential for commercialization. In 2018, our program awarded 555 contracts to small businesses for a total of $180.1 million.

NASA works with small business Nanocomp Technologies Inc. of Merrimack, New Hampshire, to advance manufacturing of carbon nanotube composite materials.

Our investments in small businesses help equip future missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond by advancing our science and technology capabilities. They also benefit the U.S. economy. The SBIR/STTR program’s 2017 Economic Impact Report indicated a $2.74 return for every dollar spent on awards—money well spent!

Small businesses also contribute to scientific advances for the International Space Station as well as here on Earth. Pancopia, Inc. in Hampton, Virginia, developed an innovative, high-performance water recycling system to remove high levels of organic carbon and nitrogen in wastewater. Recycling water in space saves money on resupply and enables more Earth-independence and self-reliance. With the help of an SBIR award, Pancopia is also working on a similar system for public wastewater that has the potential to cut treatment expenses to less than half the current costs.

Small businesses also contribute to scientific advances for the International Space Station as well as here on Earth. Pancopia, Inc. in Hampton, Virginia, developed an innovative, high-performance water recycling system to remove high levels of organic carbon and nitrogen in wastewater. Recycling water in space saves money on resupply and enables more Earth-independence and self-reliance. With the help of an SBIR award, Pancopia is also working on a similar system for public wastewater that has the potential to cut treatment expenses to less than half the current costs.

When NASA went to the private sector to develop deformable mirror technology—a key component of starlight-blocking instruments—a small business in Berkeley, California, applied for research and development funding through SBIR to design extra-precision, segmented mirrors. This innovative approach for a small deformable mirror made up of many tiny hexagonal segments enables advanced control when paired with other optics.

Data collected by a telescope using the Iris AO deformable mirror can be used to determine if the target investigated in space is an exoplanet based on its orbit, and if the exoplanet has atmosphere using color spectrum imaging analysis. The Iris AO technology is currently being refined and prepared for inclusion in a future exoplanet mission.

Does your small business have a big idea? Your next opportunity to join our SBIR/STTR program starts on Jan. 7, 2019, when our next solicitation opens. We’ll be seeking new innovative ideas from small businesses and research institutions for research, development and demonstration of innovative technologies. Go to https://www.nasa.sbir.gov/ to learn more.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Gamification and its Business Implications

In 2002, a British programmer and inventor, Nick Pelling coined the term gamification in which the advent gaming concepts are introduced in real life to achieve better user interface design amongst electronic transactions. Up to the year 2011, the gamification is not popular until Gartner realized the advantages of gamification and introduced the concept into his Hype Cycle list.

Gartner, a  leading IT research organization, has predicted that more than 50 percent of the organization will be replaced with gamification in the future and will be implemented in almost every part of the life cycle.

In recent years, design features captured through gamification has bought notable changes in the field of academia as well as industry. However, due to the dearth in comprehensive understanding and lack of resources has made gamification to fail. 

This limitation is overcome through the latest gaming design strategies comprising simple mechanics such as leaderboards, points, and badges

>Read the complete article: Gamification Tied to Business Needs

Story of cities #48: Cybercity, Mauritius – a vision of Africa's 'smart' future?

Ebène Cybercity was built 15 years ago to create a modern working environment for Mauritians and bring a hi-tech hub to this island nation. So does it offer a roadmap for Africa - or a warning of problems ahead?

With time passing, 5G and Internet of Things have become the latest iterations of wireless network connectivity. They have grown to be two of the most crucial technologies, with impending large-scale applications for consumers and businesses.

5G brings about the possibility to unlock the hidden capabilities of IoT, which was unachievable previously on the 4G networks. 5G introduces vital innovations such as higher connection speed, superior capacity, and lower latency. Sooner or later, these advantages will lead to technological milestones that will have a significant impact on different company strategies.

Innovations by 5G:

• High-Speed Connection: 5G operates at 10Gbps, which is almost a hundred times the speed of 4G networks existing in today’s world. The high-speed connectivity will help the users in downloading a complete...

The changing lifestyle of modern-age customers creates significant impacts on banking requirements and encourages banking service providers to optimize their offerings digitally. With the dynamic growth of customer finance and banking needs in various sectors, the digital-age CIOs opt for advanced mobile banking applications.

 Mobile banking applications have experienced rapid adoptions in recent years. Today, mobile banking applications and interfaces have become the primary focus of banking service and product providers, as the banking innovation proves to bring massive digital transformation in banking operations. Modern banking applications offer benefits, from simplifying end-to-end banking processes to embedding banking products and services, which attract CIOs of banking institutions to invest in mobile applications.

Consumers in the APAC region are shifting to mobile-based payments and services. Survey reports have pointed at further growth in the popularity of mobile banking. Providing ideally purposeful products can help banks tap the in-demand market segment.

A global provider of real-time, multi-asset financial market data and solutions, ACTIV Financial, has launched a software ticker plant and a content management platform, which capitalizes on advances in CPU technology and kernel-bypass networking.

Worth a read :)

Phew, reading this story was a trip.

TL;DR, this chinese hacker group (successfully) coerced chinese motherboard manufacturing plants into altering the designs for their motherboards to include a tiny chip- no larger than the tip of a pencil- so that they could have control over machines that were later assembled on top of these motherboards further down the supply chain.

Their targets appear to have been large tech corporations (Apple, Amazon were/are affected), as well as positions within the US government/military. Supposedly, no consumer data was stolen or affected.

This thing is so goddamn tiny, and yet it supposedly has the power to alter essentially any instructions that get passed from OS to CPU, as it acts as intermediary in between the RAM and CPU from what I understand. It has network access due to how it’s connected to the baseboard management controller, so it can call home for instructions on what code to run, since… it can do whatever it wants with the cpu, apparently? I’d love to see a more in-depth look into how this technology works, honestly.

Considering this doesn’t seem to affect end users at all, and mostly only has caused harm to large corporations and also the US government/military… my reaction to this is mostly a mixture of “lol” and “holy shit that sounds like something out of a goddamn action movie”.