Category: Tech

5G rollout in the US throws airlines across the world into turmoil as the signals from the new 5G phone service are interfering with the airplane navigation system. Some commonly used jets like the Boring 777 are posing a risk to aircraft instruments. They will need to be under retrofitting to avoid the issue.

5G is considered as the new generation mobile internet connection with which one can download and upload data much faster. For this, the 5G services rely on greater use of radio signals.

The radiofrequency used in the US for 5G is a part of the spectrum known as C-Band. It is close to the one used by radio altimeters on airplanes. Some US 5G providers use the C-band spectrum at 3.7-3.98 GHz, close to the international aeronautical band’s 4.2-4.4 GHz.

The airline industries across the world are concerned that interference from the 5G transmission can stop the instruments from working properly and can cause safety problems while landing the aircraft.

A trade association representing major US airlines said this could lead to “catastrophic disruption”.

After last-minute conversations with government officials, AT&T and Verizon agreed to delay the switchover of hundreds of 5G cell towers near U.S. airports. The companies did not specify the length of the suspension or the area around airports.

On January 19, the chairman and chief executive of global pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc., Albert Bourla was awarded the most prestigious Genesis Prize for his efforts in leading the development of the COVID-19 vaccine.

According to the Genesis Prize Foundation, in an online campaign, Mr. Bourla had received the largest number of votes in which more than 2,00,000 people across 71 countries voted in favor of him. The foundation grants each year $1 million to a person for their professional achievements, contributions to humanity, and commitment to Jewish values.

The citation praised his “leadership, determination, and especially his willingness to assume great risks.” This was in relation to Pfizer’s decision to turn down U.S. government funding early in the pandemic, which was instrumental in reducing bureaucracy and expediting the vaccine’s development.

After Pfizer’s partner BioNTech received funding from the German government, the company signed a large supply contract with the United States. Pfizer was at the forefront of global efforts to combat the coronavirus, with its vaccine the first one to be approved for use in the U.S. and Europe.

Mr. Bourla said that he accepts the prize humbly and on behalf of all his Pfizer colleagues who answered the urgent call of history.

On Tuesday, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Florida witnessed a two-stage SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off topped with 49 Starlink satellites.

The landing marked the booster’s 10th successful landing after previously carrying out six Starlink missions, the GPS III-3 satellite for the U.S. military, the Turksat 5A satellite for Turkey, and the Transporter 2 rideshare mission, which launched 85 small satellites and three Starlink craft.

It took 15 minutes for Falcon 9’s second stage to deploy the 49 satellites into orbit after launch. As the second stage was out of range of ground stations when that happened, confirmation of deployment success did not arrive until an hour later.

A Shortfall of Gravitas, which was in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast, was a perfect landing spot for the rocket’s first stage about nine minutes after launch.

Among the 36 dedicated Starlink missions flown by SpaceX today, more than 2,000 Starlink satellites have been lofted. Except for two prototypes known as TinTin A and TinTin B, all the other spacecraft have been launched since May 2019.

Before the launch, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said, “1,469 Starlink satellites are active. 272 moving to operational orbits. Laser links activate soon”. According to reports, there are many more Starlink launches that are going to happen in the coming weeks and months.

On Monday, for the first time in medical history, doctors transplanted a pig’s heart into a patient. To save patience’s life, the last-ditch effort was made at Maryland hospital where he is said to be doing fine after three days of highly experimental surgery.

57-year-old Maryland handyman, David Bennett was aware of the fact that this experiment has no guarantee. However, he agreed as he had no option and he was dying, and ineligible for a human heart transplant. He said that it was a do-or-die situation for him and he wanted to live.

On Monday, he was able to breathe on his own while being connected to a heart-lung machine that supported his new heart. He is under the doctor’s careful observation.

However, it is too early to know if the operation will really work. It answered the long quest of using animal organs for saving human lives. The lack of human organs shortage for an organ transplant, driving scientists to try animal organs instead.

United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the nation’s transplant system, says there were just over 3,800 heart transplants last year, a record number.

In the face of an outbreak of the Omicron coronavirus that threatens Beijing’s zero-Covid policy, the race for a messenger RNA vaccine has become even more urgent in China. In China, the progress of domestic mRNA vaccine had been low as the nation’s pharmaceutical companies initially opted for traditional inactivated virus technology in vaccines.

In November, to test mRNA vaccine candidates in a booster trial, Chinese biotech company Suzhou Abogen Biosciences and its partner Walvax Biotechnology received a green signal from the higher authorities. These vaccines provide higher levels of protection against the new Omicron variant than the existing shots made by China. Suzhou’s vaccine contains the same technology that is used in the Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer vaccines.

China’s pandemic strategy, in which authorities impose strict lockdown measures on areas with local outbreaks, is believed to have prevented the deaths suffered by some western countries from a recent pandemic. However, it left China isolated and confined its own millions of citizens in their homes to prevent the outbreak. Director-general Jerome Kim of the International Vaccine Institute in South Korea said that the “old-fashioned [inactivated] vaccine” was used by the Chinese pharmaceutical industry as the existing one was easily available and was used by billions of people.

Britain surely is separating itself from Europe, but it has initiated to connect with Norway through a widening web of undersea cables which will tap the nation’s important power source to the continent fulfilling its aspirations of clean energy.

Recently, the longest and the strongest of all the cables has been laid down across the North Sea. The cable stretches 450 miles from a Hydroelectric plant based in the Rugged mountains of Norway to an industrial port in Northeast England called Blyth. There are twin cables, each about 5 inches in diameter. Its massiveness can carry enough power for almost 1.5 million homes.

This initiative will balance the power systems of the two nations and be advantageous in terms of fulfilling the differences between their resources. Britain would be able to tap into Norway’s hydropower, while Norway would be able to take advantage of surges of electricity from the Britain wind farms that would be wasted otherwise.

With the rapidly increasing demand for renewable energy sources, this endeavour would help spread the use of clean energy sources by both nations and also connect Britain to the continent in a productive manner.

Last Sunday, Germany gave a nod to the plan of the European Union where they are going to label some of their natural gas energy projects as “green investments.” However, it is stuck on the fact that it would not support the same kind of projects concerning nuclear power in the country.

On Friday, Germany shut down three of its six nuclear power stations as it proceeds to completely withdraw from nuclear energy because of its increased risk, especially after the accident caused by the meltdown of the reactor in Japan in 2011. Although nuclear power plants emit the lowest amount of CO2 gas, it is still not a safe source of energy for the nation as it is prone to several hazards that could prove to be fatal for the nation. 

The German government believes that greenhouse gas can be a useful environment-friendly resource that can help in reducing CO2 emissions. One of their government spokespeople said that natural gas is a sustainable source of energy and therefore it is supporting the EU in its operations. But its government has confirmed that it would never support the nuclear power projects as they do not believe it is a sustainable source of energy and can be harmful to the nation.   

After becoming the first country in the world to shift to a 4.5-day working week, UAE is back in the news with another unique and impressive decision. Dubai has become the world’s first government to turn completely paperless, which will reportedly save 1.3 billion Dirham (USD 350 million) and 14-million-man hours.

All transactions in the Government of Dubai are now digital. Sheikh Hamdan said that the achievement of this target marks the beginning of a new stage in Dubai’s journey to digitise life in all its aspects – a journey rooted in innovation, creativity, and a focus on the future.

The US, UK, Europe and Canada have also expressed plans to digitalise government operations, but there have been arguments on its vulnerability to cyber-attacks.

The Dubai Paperless Strategy was implemented in five consecutive phases, each of which enlisted a different group of the Dubai Government’s entities. By the end of the fifth phase, the strategy was fully implemented across all 45 government entities.

The new phase of Dubai’s digital journey will enable and empower future governments to meet the expectations of the residents of a thriving smart city and provide them with renewed opportunities for prosperity and sustainable development, Mr. Hamdan further explained.

Google has moved to shut down a network of one million hijacked electronic devices used worldwide to commit online crimes, and also sued Russia-based hackers responsible for the same.  

Shane Huntley and Luca Nagy from Google’s threat analysis group explained that the operators of Glupteba are likely to attempt to regain control of the botnet using a backup command and control mechanism. The Glupteba botnet, which the tech giant has been tracking since 2020, had been growing  at a rate of thousands of new devices each day. The device is hijacked by tricking users into downloading malware via third-party “free download” sites

Tech giants like Microsoft and Google are actively taking initiatives against cybercrime, which is done via their products thus giving them a unique understanding of  the threats.

Google said the network includes about one million Windows devices worldwide for crimes like stealing users’ credentials. Mostly it is victims from the United States, India, Brazil and Southeast Asia that are targeted. 

A lawsuit has also been filed against the Russian hijackers in a New York federal court seeking an order to block them from doing illegal activities. Dmitry Starovikov and Alexander Filippov are the two hijackers Google claims as responsible.

Australia’s health authorities said on Wednesday that they have found an Omicron lineage in a person who arrived in Queensland from South Africa. The new lineage found in the traveller has about half the gene variations of the original Omicron variant and cannot be detected with regular screening. The traveller arrived in the country last Saturday and tested positive for Covid 19.

Queensland’s acting chief health officer Peter Aitken told reporters that the new lineage has enough characteristics for the authorities to be able to classify it as Omicron, but nothing about its severity can be told yet.

Mr Aitken further explained that the new lineage has about half, or 14, of the genome mutations of the original Omicron variant and does not have the S gene dropout feature, which makes it difficult to track through conventional testing.

As for the original variant, it has been rapidly spreading in several parts of the world, including India. Initial studies say that Omicron may pose higher infection risk but its severity is milder compared to the Delta variant. There are also reports that an extra dose of vaccine can help counter its threats.