“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathersknowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”Isaac Asimov, writer 03SCI-TECH

that set the stage for theSMART CONCEPTS

FUTURE

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TELE

VIS

ION

V uzix has made aname for itselfdeveloping smart

glasses for enterprise use.Now, the company is takingits technology into thewater. Recently it debuteda waterproof head-up dis-play that can attach to anypair of underwater goggles.The display can show swim-ming activity stats, likespeed, time, and distance.Or you can use it to watcha video while you are inthe pool.

VUZIXSMART

GOGGLES

From an air taxi to a homesurveillance companion ‘robo-ball’,these innovative prototypes fromtech companies around the worldenvision interesting times ahead

D ell sees a future where laptop owners are comfortable typingon touch screens and recently

demonstrated this with two new prototypes.The first, Concept Ori, is a laptop with a foldable screen.The second, Concept Duet, has two screens attached witha hinge. Both are certainly eyecatching, but you have tosettle for a virtual keyboard.

DELL’S ALL-SCREENLAPTOPS

Y ou can buy aflat-screenTV or a

curved one. But whynot one that can doboth? LG Display hasyour number. This 4KTV has a neat trick: Itcan morph from a flatscreen to a curvedone, and back again,all with the press of abutton. In curvedmode, the TV providesa more immersiveviewing and audioexperience. Althoughit’s just a concept, LGsays the technology isready for production.To create the bendingeffect, the company isusing its flexible OLED panels.

LG’S FLAT-TO-CURVED TV

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The Korean carmaker

has showcased a pro-

totype concept plane

designed to power air taxis

over Uber’s flight-sharing

service. The S-A1 can take off

from the ground like a helicop-

ter and then fly off like a nor-

mal plane. Each S-A1 can carry

four passengers at a range of

around 96 km. By flying in the

air, it can avoid car traffic and

travel at a speed of 290 kmph.

Hyundai reckons that with

rapid charging, the aircraft will

only need about 5 to 7 min-

utes between trips for

recharging.

HYUNDAI S-A1AIR TAXI

W hen you think ofeight terabytesof storage, you

probably think of a thick andhefty hard drive. ButWestern Digital’s SanDiskhas managed to pack 8TBinto a portable drive with asuper-fast 20Gbps data

transfer rate. For now,the device is merely

a concept.

SANDISK 8TBSSD PORTABLESTORAGEDRIVE

threats comingour wayAs the dependence oncomputers and mobiledevices to manage ourday-to-day operationsincrease, cyberattacksare also becoming moreprevalent. Here are thefive biggest cyber-security threats thatthe world is likely toface in 2020:

Expect more deep-fakes and blackmail

Deepfake is a type of artifi-cial intelligence used to cre-ate convincing image, audio

and video hoaxes. For in-stance, deepfakes can be usedto impersonate high-leveltargets to carry out scamswhere employees are trickedinto transferring money intofraudulent accounts. Anoth-er way they can be misusedis by creating realistic videosof people in compromisingsituations to blackmail them.

Wetware — AI and MLgive birth to a newthreatArtificial intelligence (AI)and machine learning (ML)

make human processes moreefficient. It’s also how hack-ers can now carry about ‘wet-ware’ attacks — automatedcontent is generated to tar-get a particular set of victimsrather than individuals. Cy-bersecurity company SophosLabs notes that this is thefirst generation of offensiveML tools and is expected toget more sophisticated in thecoming year.

Passwords won’t be enough

More people access the in-ternet using smartphonesthan they do using comput-ers. Ideally, two-factor au-thentication and one-timepasswords would be enoughto thwart off any hack at-tempts — but that isn’t thecase. Several ‘SIMjacking’cases in 2019 show that hack-ers can now target the weaklink between users and theirphones. In addition, dirtytricks like malware, fleece-ware, bankcredential steal-ers and hidden adware will

continue to get more com-plex in 2020, according toSophos Labs.

5G will make stealingdata faster

Data transfer at ten timesspeed means people cantransfer gigabytes of datawithin minutes. It may workin favour of disgruntled em-ployees wishing to transferswathes of corporate data.

You can be cloud-smart, as well ascloud-dumbAs more data pours in, itmakes sense to use a publiccloud server rather than setup servers in-house. Accord-ing to Cybersecurity compa-ny Forcepoint, public cloudsystems are going to be thenew bullseye for attackers in2020. “We expect to see morebreaches both from externaland internal parties as cloudapplications become moreubiquitous,” it says.

5 BIGGESTcybersecurity

The National Aero-nautics and SpaceAgency’s (Nasa) LucyMission was already

going to set a new record by vis-iting seven asteroids in a sin-gle mission when the re-searchers found a new target— an asteroid moon. Set tolaunch in 2021, Lucy is goingto travel over four billion milesto reach Jupiter’s orbit and findthe Trojan asteroids — an an-cient body of 60 rocks thatshare an orbit with the gas gi-ant. While conducting recon-naissance on their first target— Eurybates — the team wassurprised to discover that thespace rock had a companion.Data from the Hubble SpaceTelescope showed that therewas another celestial body or-biting Eurybates.

Asteroid’s satelliteThe asteroid’s little moonwasn’t easy to spot since Eu-rybates is 6,000 times

brighter than its satellite. Infact, it took Lucy’s teamthree attempts to confirm itsexistence. The team deter-mined that the satellite isonly one kilometre across.If their estimate is correct,not only will Lucy be thefirst to visit eight celestial

objects in one mission — itwill also be the first to vis-it one of the smallest objectsin the universe.

Trojan asteroidsThe Trojan asteroids arethought to be the cousins ofthe asteroid in the KuiperBelt — home of the formerplanet, Pluto. Since its de-motion, scientists have found

that there are over 1,00,000space rocks in the belt thatare larger than 100 kilome-tres in diameter. Eurybates,on the other hand, is a littlesmaller measuring between63 to 72 kilometres.

After Lucy is launchedin 2021, it will take thespacecraft six years to reachEurybates. Currently, thefly-by is scheduled for Au-gust 12, 2027.

Space mission to probe anasteroid and its hidden moon

S omeone at Samsung has been watch-ing ‘Star Wars’ films. The SouthKorean tech giant unveiled a robot in

the shape of a ball that can roll across thefloor. Ballie is a bot that can help you around

the house and manage your home while you are away. It cando this by connecting with your other smart home products,like robot vacuums and TVs, to activate and adjust them.

SAMSUNG BALLIE

Nasa’s Lucy probe isgoing to travel fourbillion miles toexplore seven Trojanasteroids and anasteroid moon

order to customers’ cars in theparking lot. Retailers call theprocess micro-fulfilment, andsome analysts say it’s the mostpromising technology to hit foodretail in years. The 30 bots in thecompany’s Salem warehouse, eachabout two feet wide, quietly whizproduct-filled totes around verti-cally and horizontally without theneed for lifts or conveyors. Theypick items ten times faster than ahuman shopper could. — BLOOMBERG

T he US’s biggest grocer Wal-mart Inc recently unveiledthe Alphabot, an automat-

ed, 20,000-square-foot warehousethat could make its grocery pick-up service faster and more effi-cient. Alphabot’s robotic cartsquickly retrieve items and deliverthem to employees at a picking sta-tion, who then pack and deliver the

Now, ROBOTS will do yourSHOPPING

Photo: AFP

Photo: Getty images

Photo: Getty images

Photo: Getty images

FACT: It takes Uranus84 Earth days to orbitthe Sun. While it has ahydrogen and heliumupper layer like theother gas giants, Uranus also has anicy mantle which surrounds its rockand iron core. The upper atmosphereof water, ammonia and methane icecrystals gives Uranus its distinctivepale blue color.

FACT: Chester Greenwood inventedthe earmuffs when he was 15. There

are two kinds of ear-muffs: thermal earmuffs,which keep a person'sears warm, and acousticearmuffs, or ear defend-ers, which block out a lot

of sound and noise and can be used inconstruction sites, for example, whenjackhammering.

1781: Sir William Herschel saw what he thoughtwas a “comet” but was actually the discoveryof the planet Uranus.

1877: Chester Greenwood patented earmuff.

1940: F reedom fighter Udham Singh shot andkilled Michael O’Dwyer in Britain.

2012: After 244 years of publication,Encyclopædia Britannica announced it woulddiscontinue its print edition.

THIS DAY THAT YEAR