Tech Nuggets with the Technology

Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Maruti, Hero unveil apps in sync with Aarogya Setu to monitor staff health

At Maruti Suzuki, more than 34,000 employees have started using the Wellness Mitra App, which helps maintain the health log sheet of personnel across all company locations in India. https://ift.tt/2WwVgoP https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

SpaceX has fired Starship’s Raptor engine and the vehicle still stands

A view into the maw of SN4, showing a single Raptor engine mounted inside.

For the first-time, a full-scale prototype of SpaceX's Starship vehicle lit its engine on Tuesday evening. After ignition, it appeared that the Raptor rocket engine burned for about 4 seconds. At the end of this test at the South Texas Launch Site, the vehicle still stood. About 90 minutes after the test, SpaceX founder and chief engineer Elon Musk confirmed the test firing was good, saying, "Starship SN4 passed static fire."

Tuesday night's test, which took place at 8:57pm CT local time in Texas (01:57 UTC Wednesday), occurred eight days after a successful pressurization test of this Starship prototype, known as SN4. Engineers will now review the data before possibly performing another static fire test, or a small hop. Ultimately, if this vehicle survives additional testing, it may make a 150-meter hop above the scrubby Texas lowlands.

This test also took place less than a week after NASA awarded SpaceX a $135 million contract to develop Starship as a Lunar Lander—a vehicle for carrying cargo and crew from lunar orbit down to the surface, and back. Although Starship is the most ambitious of three landers NASA is considering as part of its Artemis Program, it is also the only one actively testing full-scale prototypes.

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https://arstechnica.com

Activision Blizzard CEO says people may turn to free mobile games during the pandemic, after the company beat Q1 expectations with sales of $1.52B, up 21% YoY (Shannon Liao/CNN)

Shannon Liao / CNN:
Activision Blizzard CEO says people may turn to free mobile games during the pandemic, after the company beat Q1 expectations with sales of $1.52B, up 21% YoY — New York (CNN Business)While much of the economy is hurting during the pandemic, video games are thriving.

Spotify CEO expects Apple to "open up" its platform more to 3rd-party apps, after Spotify's antitrust complaint with the EU, but sees it as a long-term process (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Spotify CEO expects Apple to “open up” its platform more to 3rd-party apps, after Spotify's antitrust complaint with the EU, but sees it as a long-term process — - Apple plans to let other music services integrate with HomePod — Ek says ‘steps to go before’ Apple is open and fair platform

Airbnb cuts 1,900 jobs as Covid-19 hits home rentals

The laid off employees in the United States will get 14 weeks of base pay plus one additional week for every year at Airbnb https://ift.tt/2ywo8FN https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Aarogya Setu app: Data safe, for limited period, says Ravi Shankar Prasad

The Aarogya Setu app has given rise to fears of surveillance by the state as well as the security of the personal data that a user needs to fill in after downloading it. https://ift.tt/2yn7cSg https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Aarogya Setu app has no vulnerability; no data, security breach has happened: App developers

The government has mandated public and private sector employees to download the app, as well as people who are in the containment zone https://ift.tt/3b79ySk https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Peanut, a social network originally for moms but now for all women, raises $12M Series A led by EQT Ventures, bringing the total raised to $21.8M (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Peanut, a social network originally for moms but now for all women, raises $12M Series A led by EQT Ventures, bringing the total raised to $21.8M — Peanut, an app that began as a tool for finding new mom friends, has evolved into a social network now used by 1.6 million women to discuss a range of topics …

Adult livestreaming website CAM4 exposes 10B+ records, including names, sexual orientations, payment logs, and email transcripts, on an unsecure database (Brian Barrett/Wired)

Brian Barrett / Wired:
Adult livestreaming website CAM4 exposes 10B+ records, including names, sexual orientations, payment logs, and email transcripts, on an unsecure database — CAM4 has taken the server offline, but not before it leaked 7TB of user data. — It's all too common for companies to leave databases chock full …

Love during lockdown: How Covid-19 is changing online dating

Some have attempted socially distanced outings, others have turned to steamy video chats, while still others have tried international online dating https://ift.tt/2yoVTZM https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Sources: Magic Leap is in talks to raise $100M in funding from a major health company after laying off around half of its workforce (Hugh Langley/Business Insider)

Hugh Langley / Business Insider:
Sources: Magic Leap is in talks to raise $100M in funding from a major health company after laying off around half of its workforce — - Magic Leap is turning to a “major” health care company to raise money, according to an internal memo obtained by The Information.

After tests on twttr prototype app, Twitter is rolling out a new layout for replies that will use lines and indentations to make conversations easier to follow (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
After tests on twttr prototype app, Twitter is rolling out a new layout for replies that will use lines and indentations to make conversations easier to follow — Twitter announced today it's introducing a new layout for replies that will use lines and indentations to make it easier …