I. Technology
4 Fed up with traffic jams? Flying taxis to take to the sky in mid-2020s
Fed up with traffic jams? Imagine a world where your taxi takes to the skies and lands on top of your office building, recharges and sets off afresh.
That’s the vision of Stephen Fitzpatrick, founder and CEO of Britain’s Vertical Aerospace, which is set to raise $394 million in a merger with a blank-cheque New York-listed company, and who says his aircraft will be flying by the mid-2020s.
And he’s not alone. Some of the world’s most high-profile engineers and airlines believe that Vertical is on to something with its plan for zero-emission mini-aircraft to almost silently take four passengers through the skies for up to 120 miles (193 km.).
American Airlines, aircraft lessor Avolon, engineers Honeywell and Rolls-Royce, as well as Microsoft’s M12 unit are investing in the merger which is expected to complete by the end of the year.
Fitzpatrick, who also set up OVO Energy, Britain’s No. 3 energy retailer, said Vertical flights between London’s Heathrow airport and its Canary Wharf financial district will take 15 minutes and cost 50 pounds ($68) per passenger.
That potential is attracting airlines’ attention. More than 1,000 VA-X4 aircraft have been pre-ordered by customers.
Interest in the zero-emission aircraft comes at a time when aviation companies are under mounting pressure from investors to help decarbonise the sector and boost their environmental, social and governance scores.
‘We are going to sign deals. We’re finding the appetite and the demand from airlines to be really strong,’ Fitzpatrick told Reuters.
(Source : www.business-standard.com, dated 12th October, 2021)
5 Yes or no, Android phones keep tracking users even without permission
Owning an Android phone could mean that your data is being tracked even if you do not give permission to the device to do so. Researchers have found that some Android devices have system apps that come pre-installed with Android device or bloatware, that comes right out of the box, sends back user data to the OS’s developers and various third parties. These system apps could serve some functionality like the camera or messages app but would send data to their OS even if the user never opened them.
According to researchers at Trinity College in Dublin, there is no way to opt out of the data tracking from these system apps, unless users decide to root their devices as these apps are usually packaged into the read-only memory (ROM).
The researchers studied popular proprietary variants of the Android OS developed by Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei and Realme. They also reported on the data shared by the Lineage OS and /e/OS open-source variants of Android. The researchers noted that Samsung has the largest share of this market, followed by Xiaomi, Huawei and Oppo (which is the parent company of Realme).
‘System apps cannot be deleted (they are installed on a protected read-only disk partition) and can be granted enhanced rights / permissions not available to ordinary apps such as those that a user might install. It is common for Android to include pre-installed third-party system apps, i.e., apps not written by the OS developer,’ the research paper noted. ‘One example is the so-called GApps package of Google apps (which includes Google Play Services, Google Play Store, Google Maps, YouTube, etc.). Other examples include pre-installed system apps from Microsoft, LinkedIn, Facebook and so on,’ it adds.
Reported first by Gizmodo, the researchers noted that the system apps would send something called the ‘telemetry data,’ which includes details like the user device’s unique identifier and the number of apps from the company of a pre-installed app that you have installed on your phone. The data also gets shared by third-party apps or analytics providers that users might have plugged in.
Meanwhile, Apple has released a 31-page-long document titled ‘Building a Trusted Ecosystem for Millions of Apps (A threat analysis of sideloading)’, in which it has talked about various aspects of iOS and its closed ecosystem criticising EU’s draft proposal forcing Apple to allow users to download third-party apps. ‘Supporting sideloading through direct downloads and third-party app stores would cripple the privacy and security protections that have made iPhone so secure and expose users to serious security risks,’ Apple said to support its defensive stance against the argument that iOS should be made open like Android. Apple is citing reports from regulators from around the world to show the shortcomings of Android because of its open nature.
(Source: www.indiatoday.in, dated 15th October, 2021)
II. Economy
6 India-China trade on course to touch record USD 100 billion-mark
The India-China trade volume looks set to cross the record figure of USD 100 billion this year and has already touched USD 90 billion in the first nine months, despite a chill in bilateral relations due to the continuing military stand-off between the two countries in eastern Ladakh.
China’s total imports and exports expanded 22.7% year on year to 28.33 trillion yuan (about USD 4.38 trillion) in the first three quarters of 2021, official data has shown. The figure marked an increase of 23.4% from the pre-epidemic level in 2019, according to the General Administration of Customs.
The bilateral trade between India and China totalled USD 90.37 billion by the end of September, an increase of 49.3% year-on-year (YoY), according to the nine-month data released by the Chinese customs.
China’s exports to India went up to USD 68.46 billion, up 51.7% YoY, apparently aided by massive imports of urgent supplies like oxygen concentrators, when India was in the grip of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in April and May this year.
The Indian exports totalled USD 21.91 billion, registering a noteworthy increase of 42.5%. However, from India’s point of view, the trade deficit, which remained a concern over the years, reached USD 46.55 billion and is expected to climb further by the year-end.
Observers say that with three months still remaining, the target of USD 100 billion trade previously set by both the countries was expected to be reached this year despite the eastern Ladakh impasse.
(Source : www.financialexpress.com, dated 10th October, 2021)
III. Health
7 Life is Short. ‘Time Urgency’ is a Trap
In our attempt to optimise for speed, we sacrifice the most important things in life: good health, relationships, meaningful experiences and self-learning.
Whilst we are busy doing more work, checking things off our list, reacting to urgent but unimportant things, we miss out on life-changing experiences that can bring out the best in us and make us better humans.
‘The desire to focus on multiple things at once is often driven by anxiety – by the worry that we might not have enough time to do all the things we’re convinced we need to do in order to justify our existence on the planet,’ says Oliver Burkeman in his book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.
Work should not be the only thing that defines how we use time.
Busy is not always better.
When you are ahead of yourself, you lose a part of you that makes you human. You create a disconnect that leaves you empty.
The unfortunate reality is that many people have less choice to be more conscious of how they use time. But it doesn’t mean you are trapped. You can do something with that bit of time you control.
The real measure of any productivity tool is whether it saves us time to focus on the right things in life.
If you are in desperate need to control time, you will end up in a time trap where you quickly cross things off only to wake up the next morning with more things to do.
‘It’s an irony of our modern lives that while technology is continually invented that saves us time, we use that time to do more and more things, and so our lives are more fast-paced and hectic than ever,’ writes Leo Babauta.
Are you chronically short of time?
Plato once said, ‘Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.’
The universal truth in life is that how you spend time is how you are spending your life. There’s never enough time to do everything.
Time urgency (when you are chronically short of time) can impede meaningful relationships and cause stress, which can negatively impact your health.
Slowing down doesn’t necessarily mean you are being unproductive – it means being more aware of what you do and doing the essential things right without getting overwhelmed.
If you are caught in a busy-ness trap, it pays to measure how you spend your limited time or why you feel that you need to rush.
The trouble with modern life is that we spend a lot of time trying to keep up, only to miss out on the things we really need to enjoy life.
You can make progress and still enjoy life. It’s a balancing act that takes deliberate planning.
If you find yourself consistently rushing from one thing to another, learning to be more present and conscious of your activities may be exactly what you need to take back control.
Nothing is as pressing as your health. ‘Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them,’ Dion Boucicault said.
Life can quickly become an infinite chain of things to do every day.
Unless you actively break the chain and choose different experiences or a new way to spend your time, stepping outside the trap will be incredibly difficult.
To slow down, get real things done and still make time to enjoy life, disrupt your current routine, try something different today (even if it’s just for 30 minutes).
Accept a more present challenge, learn new timeless skills (empathy, active listening, resilience, making better connections, being more present and appreciating nature).
Learn to break the busy-ness chain — create a deliberate white space on your calendar and tune in to the silence.
Review your schedule and replace commitments that bring out the worst in you with activities that bring out the best in you.
Change your need to fill every hour of your day with work. You need an untouchable hour every day.
How would you spend today if you knew it was your last? Ponder over what means a lot to you and make time for it.
Life can be so much more if you learn to slow down and start every new day intentionally slower but better.
‘Time and health are two precious assets that we don’t recognise and appreciate until they have been depleted,’ Denis Waitley once said.
Turn off the noise of the modern world and make time for you.
Start paying more attention to where you are, what you do and what’s happening around you. In an insanely busy world, slowing down is the antidote to burnout.
(Source: www.medium.com, by Thomas Oppong, dated 6th October, 2021)
