Take a Virtual Tour of Hawk, the New HLRS Supercomputer – HPCwire

Hawk, the latest and greatest supercomputer at the High-Performance Computing Center of the University of Stuttgart (HLRS), was inaugurated just a few months ago. Now, HLRS is offering an inside look at the supercomputer through an immersive virtual tour that allows anyone to walk around the large installation.

The walkthrough (Hawk-through?) is available here. Users can click or use their arrow keys to move themselves around the virtual space in their browser (or even on a virtual reality headset). The space is peppered with digitally added information points, and hovering over any of those will offer information about various aspects of Hawks hardware, facilities and operations. The tool also includes a measurement mode, a top-down floor plan view and a dollhouse view that allows for a holistic of the entire 3D mapped structure and its 44 cabinets.

We provide our computational resources to scientists all over Europe, Germany, and other industry users from certain domains like automotive and aeronautics, said Bastian Koller, managing director of HLRS, in one of the informational videos provided by the walkthrough. In AMD we found a good partner [], which goes beyond just buying simple hardware bits from them, but [also] being able to address the challenges and the problems of our customers in the best possible way by providing us [with the] best technology at this point in time. Koller expects that the collaboration will continue well into the future, helping HLRS to address issues like energy efficiency in supercomputing.

Hawk is an HPE Apollo 9000 system with 5,632 nodes spread across its 44 cabinets, each node carrying dual AMD Epyc Rome 7742 CPUs. The system also boasts 1.44 total petabytes of memory, a Mellanox InfiniBand HDR200 interconnect and 25 petabytes of disk storage. Overall, Hawk delivers around 26 peak petaflops enough to make it 3.5 more powerful than its predecessor at HLRS (Hazel Hen) and place it 35th on the most recent Top500 list of the worlds most powerful publicly ranked supercomputers.

Hawk expands the University of Stuttgarts already excellent research infrastructure with an additional flagship system, said Wolfram Ressel, rector of the University of Stuttgart, when Hawk was inaugurated in February. It will enable cutting edge academic and industrial research in a wide range of contexts where simulation and big data play important roles. In this way the new high-performance computer also makes an important contribution to realizing the University of Stuttgarts vision, Intelligent systems for a sustainable society.

To visit the virtual tour of Hawk, click here.

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Premier League relegation battle: Who will survive? Aston Villa, Bournemouth, Brighton and West Ham among – talkSPORT.com

A festival of football beckons for fans when the Premier League season restarts in just a few days.

Players will no doubt be delighted to get back playing the game they love, but the pressure will be straight back on for them, especially for those fighting to keep their clubs in the division.

Its going to be a real fight for survival, with games coming thick and fast over the next six weeks.

Norwich, Aston Villa, Bournemouth, Watford, West Ham and Brighton are all in danger of relegation, with less than a quarter of the campaign left to go.

Southampton and Newcastle could also be dragged into the battle for survival but look to have just enough points on the board and probably need only one win or two to guarantee safety.

Here, talkSPORT.com takes an in-depth look at what each of the relegation-threatened sides must do to remain in the Premier League

What happened before football stopped

The Canaries have it all to do when the season restarts as theyre currently six points off safety.

Theyve never really hit form and had only won one of their last six league matches before the season was halted.

Remaining games

Norwich's remaining PL fixtures 19/20

Southampton (H) June 19

Everton (H) June 24

Arsenal (A) July 1

Brighton (H) TBC

Watford (A) TBC

West Ham (H) TBC

Chelsea (A) TBC

Burnley (H) TBC

Manchester City (A) TBC

Key player: Temmu Pukki

If Norwich are to stay up, theyll need Pukki to rediscover the form he had at the start of the season, which saw him score six goals in his first five league matches.

At that point, Norwich were twelfth on six points having even claimed a win against Manchester City.

Getty Images - Getty

Mission

The players will fight until its mathematically impossible but as well as needing to be near-perfect in their final nine matches, Norwich will need to rely on other results to stay up.

Thats why the club should perhaps start preparing for life in the Championship a few good results after the restart could restore some morale and set them up well for next season.

Whats being said

Not many are backing Norwich to stay up, while manager Daniel Farke has even admitted that the club will need a little miracle to survive.

talkSPORT Super Computer predicts

20th (Relegation)

getty

What happened before football stopped

Defence has been Villas main issue this season, conceding 56 goals in the league, which is more than any other club.

Dean Smiths side are in horrid form, losing their last four, including a dreadful 4-0 defeat at Leicester in March, which was the last Premier League match to have been played before the season stopped.

Remaining games

Aston Villa's remaining PL fixtures 19/20

Sheffield United (H) June 17

Chelsea (H) June 21

Newcastle (A) June 24

Wolves (H) June 27

Liverpool (A) TBC

Manchester United (H) TBC

Crystal Palace (H) TBC

Everton (A) TBC

Arsenal (H) TBC

West Ham (A) TBC

Key player: Jack Grealish

The captain has easily been Villas best player this season and the fans will be looking to him to steer the side away from danger.

A mention should also go to midfielder John McGinn. It looked like his season was over when he sustained an ankle injury in December but the stoppage has allowed him time to recover and hell surely play a part in the remaining ten matches Villa have left.

Getty Images

Mission

Beat Sheffield United in their first match of the restart and Villa are out of the relegation zone, thats how close it is.

They have some tough games later on though, including matches against Chelsea, Liverpool and Man United. Their final match at West Ham could be crucial.

Whats being said

Danny Murphy told talkSPORT.com: Villas a difficult one because theyve got some talented players. The clubs huge and has got a great fanbase. I dont know if theyve got enough firepower though.

talkSPORT Super Computer predicts

18th (Relegation)

Getty Images - Getty

What happened before football stopped

Theyve never been ones to challenge for the European spots but the amount theyve struggled this season will have surprised many.

Bournemouth are currently 18th and were in bad form before the seasons stoppage as they were without a win in their last four, losing three of them.

Remaining games

Bournemouth's remaining PL fixtures 19/20

Crystal Palace (H) June 20

Wolves (A) June 24

Newcastle (H) July 1

Manchester United (A) TBC

Tottenham (H) TBC

Leicester (H) TBC

Manchester City (A) TBC

Southampton (H) TBC

Everton (A) TBC

Key player: Aaron Ramsdale

Goals have been hard to come by for the Cherries this term theyve scored 29 goals in as many games. And with Ryan Fraser set to not play beyond the terms of his contract, their options going forward will be looking quite bare.

This is why it may be wise for Eddie Howe to build a team thats tough to break down during the final few matches and at the heart of this will be goalkeeper Ramsdale. He may only have four clean sheets this season but hes had a number of great games which has led to calls for him to be picked for England.

GETTY

Mission

Whats being said

Murphy told talkSPORT.com: Bournemouth have had a terrible season by their standards. I think they may stay in the relegation zone.

talkSPORT Super Computer predicts

17th

Getty Images - Getty

What happened before football stopped

Watford were languishing at the foot of the table with eight points from 15 matches when Nigel Pearson was put in charge.

The former Leicester boss has steadied the ship but the Hornets are by no means out of the woods yet and were in bad form before the season was halted, winning just one of their last seven league matches. Only goal difference is keeping them above the relegation zone.

Remaining games

Watford's remaining PL fixtures 19/20

Leicester (H) June 20

Burnley (A) June 25

Southampton (H) June 28

Chelsea (A) TBC

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Premier League relegation battle: Who will survive? Aston Villa, Bournemouth, Brighton and West Ham among - talkSPORT.com

The World Health Organization’s truth-cleansing pandemic | TheHill – The Hill

You thought the World Health Organizationsjobwas direct and coordinate authority on global pandemics? Forget it. Last month, the WHO produced its "Manifesto for a healthy recovery from COVID-19." Far from addressing its own lamentable failure to halt the spread of the virus, the document is little more than a demand for a global Green New Deal dolled up in the garb of public health.

The pandemic, WHOs director-general, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus,tells us, is a reminder of the intimate and delicate relationship between people and planet. Efforts to make the world safer from another one are doomed unless they address "the critical interface between people and pathogens." Human pressure on the environment, the WHO claims, increases the risk of new infectious diseases. Recovery plans from the pandemic should therefore lessen our impact on the environment, so as to reduce the risk at source, as if new deadly viruses are randomly transmitted from wild animals to people wandering through forests, rather than in Chinese wet markets or, in some instances, even cultivated in research labs.

Arguing for a quick energy transition, the WHO says the costs of renewable energy are dropping. Exactly why, say, burning coal carries a higher risk of unleashing the next pandemic rather than cutting down forests from whence the COVID-19 virus supposedly came, in order to make way for wind farms, the WHO doesnt say. As Michael Moores movie"Planet of the Humans"vividly shows, wind and solar require enormous land-takes and have huge environmental impacts.

But the WHOs recovery manifesto isnt about science and rationality. Its the soul of Thomas Malthus entering public health. Restoring a pristine environment is the goal, humanity becomes the problem, and industrialization by harnessing nature for the purpose of human flourishing is the original sin. The WHOs message that environmental degradation caused the pandemic is exactly what influential audiences in the West want to hear.

Right now, our relationship with nature is broken, the World Economic Forumsays. The best way to avoid future pandemics? itasks, then answers: "Protect the natural world. Is this science or superstition? People in 14th century Europe lived far closer to nature than us. They also had much shorter lives and experienced the worlds worst-ever pandemic. It traveled at terrifying speed, so fast it would strike a village or a town almost as soon as news arrived that the pestilence was near, Ben Gummer, a former British government minister and author of The Scourging Angel: The Black Death in the British Isles,writes in arecent essayon why life after COVID-19 will be much the same as life before it.

Using a super-computer to explain the spread of the disease it covered 3,000 miles in 18 months Gummer concluded that the Black Death was transmitted between people and not by rats, most likely by touch and breath. Also similar to COVID-19 are the narratives used to explain the pestilence: "A dangerous imbalance in nature, a corruption that reflected the sinfulness of men and women, something that could only be put right by Gods divine justice, and the purgative means was this cleansing pandemic.

Sound familiar? Whether you are a member of the global metropolitan elite or a credulous boomer rube, Gummer writes, there is a meta-explanation to suit your taste. An age informed by science should be able to focus exclusively on scientific explanations. But science and reason are nothing compared to the enduring Malthusian substructure of sin, punishment and redemption that underpins the modern environmental movements belief in pestilence and catastrophe as natures just punishment for a sinful civilization.

Cui bono who benefits? Dr. Tedros is circling the wagons and doing his alleged allies in Beijing a favor. By blaming the pandemic on humanitys for that, read the Wests willful violation of nature, it lets Beijing off the hook for covering up the early spread of the virus and blanks out the much-debatedpossibilitythat the novel coronavirus had been cultured in a laboratory. Dr. Tedros knows what hes doing. The elites in the West are being played like a Stradivarius so the lessons from the pandemic go unexamined.

Either Dr. Tedros goes, or its time to defund the WHO.

RupertDarwallis a senior fellow atRealClearFoundation, a nonprofit organization in partnership with RealClear Media Group that reports and analyzes public policy and civic issues. He is the author of numerous books including"The Climate Noose"(2020) and Green Tyranny: Exposing the Totalitarian Roots of the Climate Industrial Complex (2017). A strategy consultant and policy analyst, he was a special adviser to the United Kingdoms chancellor of the exchequer under Prime Minister John Major.

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Supercomputer Research Redesigns Drugs Without the Side Effects – HPCwire

Weve all heard the commercials: a drug promises amazing results for treating a disease, and then the remainder of the commercial is filled with a mind-numbingly long list of potential side effects. Side effects plague prescription drugs, sometimes prompting drug approval agencies to reject the drug or making patients wonder if the cure can be worse than the disease. Now, researchers from Stanford University have leveraged the Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to work on redesigning those drugs without the side effects.

What if we could redesign drugs to keep their benefits while eliminating their unwanted side effects? said Ron Dror, the associate professor of computer science at Stanford University whose lab is leading the research, in an interview with Stanford Universitys Tom Abate. Drors lab targeted drugs that work with G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), proteins that are found in all human cells and which serve as the attachment points for a wide range of drugs everything from psychedelics like LSD to blood pressure medications.

Drugs that attach to GCPRs cause multiple simultaneous reactions in the protein, which is responsible for many side effects. ORNL is no stranger to GCPRs: just a few months ago, they highlighted research exploring applications of machine learning in drug design for GCPRs. Drors lab, on the other hand, set out to use supercomputing power to simulate a GCPR attached to a series of different molecules, aiming to pin down how each molecule changed the ordering of the GCPRs atoms.

To run these detailed simulations, the researchers turned to ORNLs Summit supercomputer, which is currently the most powerful publicly ranked supercomputing in the world according to the most recent Top500 list. Summits 4,608 nodes (each powered by two IBM Power9 CPUs and six Nvidia Volta GPUs) deliver 148 Linpack petaflops.

The results were promising, and based on what they found, the researchers designed a set of molecules that in the simulations, at least produced the desired atomic reordering without also inducing the atomic shifts that produce undesirable side effects. While there is a long road between this research and any drug that may be approved for human consumption, the results are a promising milestone in the path toward a new era of drug design.

In addition to revealing how a drug molecule could cause a GPCR to trigger only beneficial effects, weve used these findings to design molecules with desired physiological properties, which is something that many labs have been trying to do for a long time, Dror said. Armed with our results, researchers can begin to imagine new and better ways to design drugs that retain their effectiveness while posing fewer dangers.

The research discussed in this article was published as Molecular Mechanism of Biased Signaling in a Prototypical G proteinCoupled Receptor in the February 2020 issue of Science. The article, which is accessible here, was written by Carl-Mikael Suomivuori, Naomi R. Latorraca, Laura M. Wingler, Stephan Eismann, Matthew C. King, Alissa L. W. Kleinhenz, Meredith A. Skiba, Dean P. Staus, Andrew C. Kruse, Robert J. Lefkowitz and Ron O. Dror.

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Supercomputer Research Redesigns Drugs Without the Side Effects - HPCwire

‘Supercomputer’ predicts where Tottenham will finish in Premier League table – The Spurs Web

Tottenam Hotspur have been backed to finish in eighth place followingSportradar and The Sun teaming up to predict the remaining results of the Premier League season.

The sports data provider, Sportradar have revealed their take on the remaining 92 games of the Premier League season to give their final standings in the top flight.

After running the remaining fixtures through an artificial intelligence system, it is claimed that Spurs will finish in the same position in which they currently find themselves in.

However, the prediction sees North London rivals Arsenal finish below them in ninth on goal difference.

Occupying third and fourth place remains with Leicester City and Chelsea while Manchester United are tipped for fifth place which could earn them a Champions League spot if Manchester Citys European ban stands.

Sheffield United and Wolves would both take Europa League places if Citys ban does remain with Spurs possibly earning European football dependent on who wins the FA Cup later this season.

Spurs Web Opinion

It is very tight up towards the middle of the top half of the table. One bad result could prove disastrous in our aim to climb the table into a Champions League spot but one bad result for one of our rivals could prove huge. No computer can predict the future unfortunately.

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'Supercomputer' predicts where Tottenham will finish in Premier League table - The Spurs Web

11 Raspberry Pi projects for everyone: From beginners to pros – Android Authority

The Raspberry Pi has grown from being a curiosity, maybe even a novel idea, to be a key item for anyone wanting to learn programming, electronics, robotics, IoT, and more. The little board is accessible both in terms of price and learning curve, and has a sufficiently big enough fan base that there are thousands of ready-made projects, just waiting for you to try.

We take a look at the best Raspberry Pi Projects for beginners, advanced users, and even children so youll be sure to find a project that interests you!

The Raspberry Pi is a Single Board Computer (SBC) that allows makers, enthusiasts, and hobbyists to develop and tinker with software and hardware to create all kinds of projects from simple electronic circuits (like a flashing LED) to full-scale robots with computer vision and machine learning! The original Raspberry Pi was released in 2012. Since then there have been several models and variations. Today the main choice is between the Raspberry Pi Zero W and the Raspberry Pi 4.

The former is an inexpensive single-core 32-bit CPU based board, which costs just $10 and has 512MB of RAM. The latter is more performance driven by comparison, and more expensive. It has a 64-bit quad-core CPU and comes with at least 2GB of RAM, with options available for 4GB and 8GB.

Both models support Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB 2.0, and HDMI. The Raspberry Pi 4 is able to drive two 4K monitors, offers Gigabit wired Ethernet, and includes two USB 3.0 ports. The key to the success of the Pi is not only the price/features but the universal support for 40 General Purpose Input and Output pins (GPIO pins). These pins allow programs running on the Pi to read or write digital signals. This means it can read data from sensors (like a temperature sensor) or control other peripherals like an LCD display or a stepper motor. When this is coupled with the Pis camera support then you now have a board that can interact with its environment via sensors, displays, motors, cameras, and more.

The Raspberry Pi is a great way to start learning new software skills, as well as hardware skills. For the beginner it is important to start doing both, not to neglect one or the other. So here are some Raspberry Pi projects that are ideal for beginners combining software skills with hardware know-how.

1. About me In this project, you will learn how to write a Python program to tell people about yourself. You will learn the very basics of Python, as well as create some ASCII art!

2. Introduction to Physical Computing Learn how to use the GPIO pins on your Raspberry Pi to interface with electronic components, such as LEDs and switches. Learn how to wire a variety of electronic components to the Raspberry Pi, plus how to interact with them using Python. The project covers LEDs, Passive Infrared Motion Sensors, switches, buzzers, and more.

3. Time-lapse animations with a Raspberry Pi Learn how to write a small script to capture multiple images, using a Pi camera over a long period of time. You can then unlock the of power of time-lapse photography by combining them into an animated GIF. Along the way, you will learn how to use the Pi camera, advance your Python skills, and learn how to use ImageMagick to create animated GIFs.

4. Raspberry Pi Supercomputer Cluster Supercomputers are expensive, use lots of electricity and need heavy-duty cooling. However, using Raspberry Pi boards you can build a supercomputer cluster and program it just like the real deal, but without needing a direct connection to a power station! With this project, you will learn the fundamentals of distributed computing and gain an understanding of how supercomputers are built and programmed to solve some of the worlds most complex problems.

5. Use any Raspberry Pi to build a NAS A step by step guide Just about any Single Board Computer (SBC) like a Raspberry Pi, Orange Pi, ODROID or NVIDIA Jetson can be used to create Network Attached Storage (NAS). Really the only prerequisites are that the board can run Linux, has a USB port, and has networking. After that, it just comes down to performance. This project will take you step-by-step through all the stages of using a Raspberry Pi to share its attached storage over your local area network. If you are interested in the various performance levels that can be achieved using RAID and the Raspberry 4 then check out Build a Raspberry Pi NAS with 4 Hard Drives and RAID.

6. Raspberry Pi 4 as a Network Router The Raspberry Pi 4 is very versatile. Among its many talents is the ability to forward network traffic from one network interface to another. In this video, I will show you how to create a router between two wired Ethernet networks and how to make a Wi-Fi router.

7. Flight Tracking Using a Raspberry Pi Most commercial aircraft send out ADS-B messages with the planes location, velocity, altitude, and call sign. Using a Raspberry Pi and a DVB-T USB dongle you can receive these messages and track flights in your area. You can also upload this data to services like Flightradar24, which helps make real-time flight data available to millions of aviation enthusiasts, and also gets you a free Flightradar24 Business Plan subscription (a $499.99/year value).

Write a C# app on the Raspberry Pi and run it on a Windows PC .Net Core is a cross-platform version of .NET that is free and open source. It supports Windows on x86, x64 and ARM, as well as Linux on x64 and ARM. That means you can write and compile a C# program on the Raspberry Pi, copy it to a Windows PC and it will run!

MQTT with a Raspberry Pi and an Arduino MQTT allows data to be sent from IoT devices to smartphones or up to the cloud. MQTT (MQ Telemetry Transport) can be used on microcontrollers like the Arduino or on boards like the Raspberry Pi. Here is a full overview and demo using Android, Mosquitto on Raspberry Pi, and an Arduino.

8. Lost in Space Scratch is a block-based visual programming language aimed mainly at children. It teaches the principles of programming using its block interface. In this project, you will learn how to program your own animation using loops.

9. Getting Started with Minecraft Pi If you like Minecraft then the good news is that there is a free version of this popular sandbox open-world building game for the Raspberry Pi. Plus, it comes with a programming interface! As a result, you can write commands and scripts in Python to build things in the game automatically. A great way to combine programming with gaming fun!

10. Minecraft Selfies Learn how to use the Pi Camera to take selfies, and then using Python see how you can render the image using blocks in Minecraft. As part of the project, you will learn how to convert images to RGB values, and how to iterate over multiple lists and compare values.

11. GPIO soundboard Build a button-controlled soundboard that plays different noises when the buttons are pressed. You will learn how to play sounds in Python, and learn how to use the Python GPIO library to detect the button presses.

If you need some more general background information on the Raspberry Pi then check out these tutorial videos:

How to Use the Raspberry Pi Imager (Including Helpful Tip) Raspbian has been renamed as Raspberry Pi OS and there is a new way to make SD cards for the Pi The Raspberry Pi Imager. Here is a quick how-to tutorial including an important tip that saved me loads of time and stress.

Two Monitors on a Raspberry Pi 4 Demo and How To One of the great features of the Raspberry Pi 4 is its support for two screens. When I did my Raspberry Pi 4 review, I didnt have much of an opportunity to show how the dual-display support works. This video fixes that!

Intro to Docker using a Raspberry Pi 4 The Raspberry Pi 4 is an Arm-based Single Board Computer that comes with up to 4GB of RAM. That makes it a great platform for Docker. Here is an introduction to Docker containers using the Raspberry Pi 4.

If you need help withvi or with the Linux command-line then you will also find these videos useful:

Understanding Vi and Vim (Vi IMproved) in 10 Minutes If you ever need to edit a file from the Linux command line then the chances are you might need vi or vim. It is a quirky text editor, but powerful once you get to understand its ways! Here is a 10-minute tutorial.

Linux Directories Explained including /etc /home /var /proc /usr If you are new to Linux then the directory structure can be confusing, but within a few minutes you can understand the essentials.

10 Linux Terminal Commands for Beginners The Linux command line can be quite daunting. What do commands like ls, cd, pwd and less mean? When you see that blinking cursor, what is the first thing you should type? Find out more in my Linux terminal command and utilities tutorial.

If you arent sure which Raspberry Pi board you should buy then we have reviewed many of the popular models, including the Raspberry Pi Zero, the Raspberry Pi 3, and the Raspberry Pi 4.

Raspberry Pi 4 Review Dual displays and up to 4GB of RAM The Raspberry Pi 4 Model B is here and it is a significant upgrade over the Raspberry Pi 3. This new board uses a quad-core Cortex-A72 based processor. It supports dual 4K monitors and has built-in USB 3.0, Gigabit Ethernet and Bluetooth 5.0 Here is my full review.

Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ Review The new Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ has a 1.4GHz quad-core Cortex-A53 based CPU plus 5GHz wireless networking, improved thermals and a small form factor. All this for $25. Here is my full review.

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ review The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ (also known as the Raspberry Pi 3+) costs the same as the previous model, but has a slightly faster CPU, dual-band 802.11ac wireless, Bluetooth 4.2 and faster Ethernet. Here is my full review and hands-on.

Raspberry Pi Zero W review The Raspberry Pi Foundation recently launched the Raspberry Pi Zero W, a new variant that adds built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Here is my video review and there is also a Raspberry Pi Zero W written review as well.

Raspberry Pi Zero review The new Raspberry Pi Zero is small, elegant and cheap. At just $5 this board brings you desktop Linux with 512MB of RAM and a VideoCore IV GPU. Dont forget to check out the Raspberry Pi Zero written review.

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11 Raspberry Pi projects for everyone: From beginners to pros - Android Authority

Where to Invest $5,000 Right Now – The Motley Fool

The stock market has been in manic-depressive mode as of late, surging early in June on the euphoria of the country's economic reopening, as well as a surprise jobs gain in the June 5 labor report. However, the market gave almost all of those gains back late last week, after some gloomy commentary from Federal Reserve officials, who now plan to keep interest rates at zero until at least 2022.

What does all of the volatility mean? That you can pick up shares of great companies to buy and hold for the long term. And while stocks relating to the reopening economy have shown a big rally lately, I think it may be time to refocus on stronger technology-related companies that help power the new, more digitized economy. And with lower interest rates here until at least 2022, these companies, which can grow even in a depressed economy, should fetch a premium down the road.

In that light, here are three rock-solid companies that play into these long-term trends. Got an extra $5,000? Then you should think about scooping up shares of these three top companies today.

Image source: Getty Images.

With businesses reeling from COVID-19 and many companies allowing work-from-home for the foreseeable future, securing enterprise communications among a distributed workforce is more important than ever. Thus, cybersecurity solutions are at a premium as never before.

Not only is the cybersecurity sector poised for long-term growth, but CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) also appears to have a novel solution poised to take market share within the industry. CrowdStrike combines its software-based Falcon agents, which can be deployed to any "end point" in an enterprise's IT stack over the cloud, with a centralized artificial intelligence-based Threat Graph that uses all agent data to continuously improve algorithms for the entire customer base. Thus, the more customers CrowdStrike gets, the better its threat detection algorithms, which helps attract more customers, and on and on.

As proof of CrowdStrike's effectiveness, look no further than its blockbuster recent results, reported on June 2. Total revenue was up a whopping 85%, with core subscription revenue up 89%. Annual recurring revenue was up 88%, and the company's subscription customer count more than doubled, up 105%.

Also unusual for a cloud-based software-as-a-service company, CrowdStrike is generating some serious cash flow, although GAAP net profits are still negative. Operating loss improved from $25.8 million in the year-ago quarter to $22.6 million in the first quarter, but operating cash flow surged to $98.6 million from just $1.6 million a year ago, and free cash flow increased to $87 million, up from a free cash flow loss of $16.1 million a year ago.

Even if COVID-19 cases surge in a second wave and the economy stagnates, enterprises are still going to need cutting-edge solutions to secure their infrastructure and avoid the costly breaches we've seen over the past few years. In addition, CrowdStrike's growth and margin expansion are some of the best you'll find in the entire market, making the stock a buy even after a strong recent run.

Another company poised to grow no matter what the economy is doing is European semiconductor equipment manufacturer ASML Holdings (NASDAQ:ASML). Unlike many other companies in the semiconductor and memory space, ASML has seen its stock rocket higher, to even exceed where it was to start the year.

That's because ASML has a differentiated offering, having cracked the code on Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography technology. EUV is a mission-critical technology needed to produce more advanced semiconductor chips and DRAM memory at scale over the next decade, and ASML has a monopoly on it.

While the chip sector, and therefore semicap equipment companies, have traditionally been cyclical, and thus wouldn't be a great place to invest in a recession, things may be different this time around. Leading-edge semiconductors are crucial to making the digital economy run, powering cloud computing, artificial intelligence, 5G communications, and the Internet of Things. While ASML's first quarter revenue was affected by COVID-19, that was entirely due to supply issues, not demand. Management noted on the earnings release, "The demand outlook is currently unchanged and we have not encountered any push-outs or cancellations this year."

Furthermore, leading-edge semiconductors are now seen as a strategically important to both companies and countries alike. In fact, the U.S. Congress just announced a bipartisan bill to subsidize the semiconductor industry to the tune of $22.8 billion, as it aims to build semiconductor manufacturing capacity within the United States.

The building of additional, and perhaps redundant, semiconductor manufacturing plants in the U.S. would only mean additional demand for companies like ASML, and maybe especially ASML, since EUV is so crucial to the production of leading-edge semiconductors. So despite its strong run, ASML still looks like a strong pick to play these future technologies today.

If we're all stuck at home, streaming shows on our phones, ordering items on e-commerce websites, and accessing our work on cloud data centers, what do all of those things need? Servers, and lots of them. Super Micro Computer (NASDAQ:SMCI) makes servers for enterprise, cloud, and consumer customers all across the world. In contrast to the more standardized server offerings from Dell Technologies (NYSE:DELL) or HP Enterprise (NYSE:HPE), Super Micro makes more customized server solutions for specific end-use cases.

As servers become more important for different types of workloads, among artificial intelligence applications, 5G base stations, on-premises or cloud data centers and more, Super Micro could benefit. Also important, Super Micro actually does a fair amount of manufacturing in the U.S., which is somewhat rare, along with significant operations in Taiwan. Finally, as ESG concerns take hold of the corporate world, Super Micro's emphasis on environmentally friendly "green" computing should also resonate with customers going forward as well.

Of these three stocks, Super micro is the value stock of the bunch. Currently, it only trades at 16.5 times earnings, but that's even overrating the company's multiple. Super Micro has $301 million in cash versus just $33 million in debt, yielding $268 million in net cash, or 18.4% of Super Micro's market cap. In addition, Super Micro is still undertaking some extra costs related to remediating an accounting snafu from a few years ago, which has since been remedied. Should those costs fall off going forward and the company begins returning that excess cash to shareholders, and Super Micro is actually trading at something more like a low-teens multiple.

With COVID-19 still out there accelerating all of these digital trends, investors should look to buy stocks of companies that play to the digital future on these big market pullbacks. As such, CrowdStrike, ASML, and Super Micro Computer all look like solid additions to your portfolio today.

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Where to Invest $5,000 Right Now - The Motley Fool

Man City 7-3 Arsenal, Liverpool collapse and more silliness – Football365.com

The sight of football at the end of this interminable tunnel means the triumphant return of the supercomputers. Poor Liverpool.

Sun downThere is something ironic about this opening paragraph appearing in The Sun:

Graham Potter has urged people to educate themselves more on the subject of racism.

And the nations best-selling newspaper continues to display wilful ignorance about the role it has played in embedding a lack of cultural education and understanding deep into society.

And how about this for a start to the third paragraph?

Racism has come back under the spotlight

How good of you to make legitimate concerns over systemic and extensive discrimination sound like the latest fad that will soon go out of fashion.

Campbell soupMediawatch tends to wince a little when the Daily Mail afford Martin Samuel calling someone a f***ing black c*** is ultimately meaningless as the words may be offensive but they do not go anywhere a platform to discuss race.

But here we are:

Clearly, when just six of 91 League managers are black, there are issues. Yet, individual cases have individual complexities. Raheem Sterling cited Sol Campbell and Ashley Cole this week, juxtaposing their stunted progress with that of Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard.

Cole, however, made his last appearance for Derby County in the play-off final on May 27, 2019. Last October, he went to work as a coach with Chelseas Under 15 academy.

Gerrard played his final game for Los Angeles Galaxy on November 6, 2016, and turned down a job at Milton Keynes Dons that month. He then began as a youth coach at Liverpool in February 2017 and was given the Under 18 team the following season. He didnt take the Rangers job until June 2018 meaning he was exactly where Cole is now at the same stage of his coaching career. There was no fast track, no golden ticket.

Aside from the job interview with a literal League One club before he had actually retired. That sounds an awful lot like a fast track and a golden ticket. Mediawatch must have missed the part where Ashley Cole turned Shrewsbury Town down while he was still an active player.

As for Campbell, he has battled to shrug off a reputation as a loner, difficult to know and a mystery to many of his teammates.

Are you genuinely suggesting someone with all the necessary coaching qualifications and a storied playing career was ignored by Football League clubs until seven years after his retirement because he is a loner? That is theonlyreason you can think of as to why he has managed a League Two and League One club while Gerrard and Lampard strolled into much bigger jobs at a younger age?

But dont worry, Sol, because while you might not land Tottenham after Jose Mourinho, you should get a better opportunity soon.

And if you dont, its because youre a loner who is difficult to know. Coming from Martin Samuel, that is very much a case of the pot calling the kettle, erm

OK, computerThe sight of football at the end of this interminable tunnel means the actual return of the only thing anyone is really interested in: supercomputers.

Thursday brought a lazy effort from theDaily Star, featuring Sheffield United overtaking Manchester United and Norwich picking up 16 points from a possible 27.

The Sun do it properly. They have teamed with Sportradar and their Simulated Reality technology to predict absolutely everything.

How does this all work? Well, Simulated Reality football matches reflect team form and normal match conditions, which is a neat trick when Premier League games behind closed doors after a solid three-month break is unprecedented.

But credit to them: they have listed every single predicted result. Like Tottenham drawing 3-3 with Everton, or Aston Villa hammering Wolves 3-0.

The supercomputer also comes up with such entirely believable conclusions as:

1) Villa randomly thrashing Wolves in between eight defeats and a draw with West Ham on the final day.

2) Liverpool earning 14 more points from their final nine games; Norwich get 12.

3) Liverpool losing as many games (three) in their final nine fixtures as they have in their previous 75. They both falter just a little and well and truly limp over the line.

4) It being a disaster for Arsenal that they finish level on points with Tottenham, for whom finishing eighth would presumably be a boost.

5) The suggestion that West Ham stay in good form by following up their win against Tottenham with a 1-0 defeat of Chelsea.

6) Manchester City beating Arsenal 7-3. Mind you

But which three teams were relegated?

The current bottom three because supercomputers rarely change positions of actual importance.

Who got into next seasons Champions League?

The only teams to change places in the top half are Sheffield United and Wolves, who just go from seventh to sixth and vice versa. So yeah.

Who ended up in the Europa League spots?

As above. Its almost as if supercomputers base their predictions on recent precedent, extrapolating previous results over the entire season, thus not actually changing anything of consequence.

Well, we have got all the answers and we are sure our results will be the biggest talking point for action-starved football supporters since the coronavirus lockdown began.

Finally, something to agree on. This is literally the biggest talking point for action-starved football supporters since March 11. Nothing has happened in the 93 days since; certainly nothing as important as a predicted Premier League table that alters the positions of four mid-table clubs and shuffles the current bottom three around while keeping them in the relegation places.

Simulated Reality can even tell you how many shots on and off target each team had in every game and how many corners.

It truly is crazy how far playing FIFA can get you. And how much sh*t can be hid behind the guise of those meddling supercomputers.

Rash decisionMarcus Rashford: Manchester United striker helps 20m childrens meal fund Sky News.

Ill keep fighting Marcus Rashford on meals campaign BBC Sport.

Marcus Rashford confirms he will supply 3MILLION meals to vulnerable people as Man Utd star promises to keep fighting The Sun.

Marcus Rashford helps raise 20m for kids meal fund as Manchester United star knows the problems for real talkSPORT.

And still nothing from Simon the players didnt want to help in the first place Jordan. Weird.

No way, Jose

Football365s shithouse headline of the dayMan Utd can sign Sancho on two conditions German football expert

Because only a German football expert could possibly know that this transfer will only happen this summer if Sancho absolutely wants to leave and brings a club who pays the transfer fee.

Recommended reading of the daySachin Nakrani chats with Gabriel Clarke.

Miguel Delaney talks to Dimitar Berbatov.

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Man City 7-3 Arsenal, Liverpool collapse and more silliness - Football365.com

Bad News: Another Deadly Virus Is Spreading in the US – Futurism

Theres another deadly virus brewing in the Northeastern United States.

Those words may be hard to hear, but theres some good news as well: youre extremely unlikely to catch it.

The eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) virus can cause a severe brain infection, and it can be transmitted through a mosquito bite, as OneZero reports.

As the virus name suggests, horses are particularly susceptible to infection. Theres a vaccine for horses but no specific treatment plan or approved human vaccine.

Luckily, transmission and infection are both extremely rare. Since it was first discovered in humans in 1938, there have been less than 100 cases in the US, according to OneZero.

In 2019, for instance, there were only 38 human cases recorded and 15 deaths in the US, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 95 percent of those bitten by EEE-carrying mosquitoes never end up developing an infection.

Those numbers couldnt be more different from the current coronavirus pandemic. The United States alone crossed the two million cases threshold this week, with over 1,000 people dying from COVID-19 related deaths every 24 hours.

But once infected, the EEE virus is deadly. Mortality rate is about 33 percent, according to the National Environmental Health Association. Those who survive will have to battle with sometimes crippling neurological impairments.

Scientists are also worried that with rising temperatures caused by global warming, the number of outbreaks of the virus appear to be on the rise in large part due to growing mosquito populations during prolonged summer periods, according to OneZero.

At the end of the day, despite the risks, its important not to take the EEE virus too far out of context.

We try our best to make people aware of the risks without sensationalizing, Catherine Brown, state epidemiologist at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, told OneZero. But there are still people who are so fearful of EEE that they kind of forget that there are other things going on in the world.

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Bad News: Another Deadly Virus Is Spreading in the US - Futurism

This Flying Car Looks Like the DeLorean From "Back to the Future" – Futurism

June 12th 20__Jon Christian__Filed Under: Advanced Transport

Israel startup Urban Aeronautics announced this week that its partnering with hydrogen fuel cell maker HyPoint to devise a hydrogen-powered flying car.

And the sleek, retro design will look familiar to fans of the DeLorean Motor Company or anyone whos seen the 1985 time travel blockbuster Back to the Future, featuring one of the companys vehicles. Also, you know, it flies.

The view of the futuristic vehicle changes substantially depending on your angle.

From the side, the electrical vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicle looks like a smoothed-down version of a DMC DeLorean but from above or below, its clear that the cars front and rear are taken up by two enormous fans that provide lift. Another apparent DeLorean allusion: though its unclear whether this version will include it, a previous design even included that vehicles iconic gull-wing doors.

READ MORE: Urban Aeronautics moves to hydrogen for its CityHawk eVTOL air taxi [New Atlas]

More on early life: Watch This Flying Taxi Soar Over a German City

Up Next__Scientists Claim to Have Recreated Earths First Life >>>

<<< Scientists Hunting For Signs of the Dark Age Before Stars Formed__Previously

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This Flying Car Looks Like the DeLorean From "Back to the Future" - Futurism

Terrifying Argument Says Economy Will Collapse For Real in August – Futurism

Pending Catastrophe

Theres a chance that the worst of the damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic hasnt happened yet. According to a troubling BuzzFeed News op-ed, the real economic and societal collapse could arrive in August.

Part of the problem, according to BuzzFeeds argument, is that many of the measures put in place by the U.S. government to mitigate the coronaviruss impact will expire in August while the actual pandemic will likely continue to rage. The result is that unemployed Americans could once more be vulnerable to evictions, right when federal employment payments helping keep them afloat stop coming.

Back in April, when the limited federal aid offered by the U.S. government started to arrive, American households began to save, on average, 33 percent of their income out of fears of an impending economic crash, according to the op-ed.

That gave many households a grace period that BuzzFeed compared to a jumbo jet thats in a steady glide after both its engines flamed out.

In about six weeks, the op-ed continued, it will likely crash into the side of a mountain.

The end of the eviction freeze, coupled with the end of the special federal unemployment support, all while COVID-19 continues to spread throughout the U.S., indicates that were heading toward what computational social scientist Adam Elkus called the omni-crisis, according to BuzzFeed.

The omni-crisis has significantly enlarged the space of possible outcomes beyond that normally considered day-to-day by most Americans, Elkus wrote on his GitHub. And it is not clear how many people in positions of influence and authority recognize this.

READ MORE: The Real Economic Catastrophe Hasnt Hit Yet. Just Wait For August. [BuzzFeed News]

More on the pandemic: City Passes Measure To Cancel Rent During Pandemic

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Terrifying Argument Says Economy Will Collapse For Real in August - Futurism

Step into 2030: Join The Drum’s futurist session to hear what the next decade holds – The Drum

What is to happen to society over the next decade? The Drum aims to find out by gathering some of the industrys leading futurists and innovators to offer their take on how the world will progress.

As part of The Drums Can-Do Festival, a live session will be held where Daniel Hulm, chief executive of Satalia, Lucie Greene, founder of Light Years and Emma Chiu, global director of Wunderman Thompson Intelligence will each offer their views on how business and society will evolve by the year 2030. Meanwhile Amy Kean, brand and innovation director for AndUs will distill their viewpoints as the futures analyst for the session.

This will be a unique opportunity for the industry to hear what could potentially develop across several themes over the coming years and help them plan ahead as a result.

Commenting on the session, Amy Kean said: Why are we all so addicted to the future? Because futurology places a bizarre line between fact and fiction. That accurate predictions will likely affect us, combined with the blue-sky intangibility of any of it happening any time soon provides a realistic fairytale that every industry has become obsessed with!

But 2030 isnt that far away, and in this session, we want to hear about plausible futures, stuff we can get our teeth into, and not just for the white middle classes, either.

Register here to join the session, which will be available to join live, and will be available on The Drum afterwards for those who cannot make it.

Other sessions planned for Can-Do will see The Drum hear from major live events organisations about how they have been impacted in recent months and how they aim to proceed, including Jon Ola Sand, executive supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest and head of live events for EBU/Eurovision; Guinness Book of Records SVP global brand strategy, Samantha Fay; and Oliver Davies, head of marketing and development for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

More speakers for The Drums Can-Do Festival can be found on the official registration page.

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Step into 2030: Join The Drum's futurist session to hear what the next decade holds - The Drum

SpaceX Trying to Figure Out How to Land Starship on the Moon – Futurism

Wider Stance

In an exchange on Twitter this week, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk elaborated on the design tweaks his space company is considering to allow its massive Starship spacecraft to safely land on the Moon.

Were working on new legs, he wrote in a tweet. Wider stance & able to auto-level. Important for leaning into wind or landing on rocky & pitted surfaces.

Responding to YouTuber Tim Dodd, better known as Everyday Astronaut, Musk explained that the atmospheric Starship variant meant to one day make it back to Earth or perhaps land on other planets with an atmosphere such as Mars will have forward thrusters to stabilize ship when landing in high winds.

But the Lunar Starship will be different. If goal is max payload to moon per ship, no heatshield or flaps or big gas thruster packs are needed, he added.

Starship, in its final configuration, will have the ability to launch 100 tons of cargo into space or in a different configuration, 100 passengers at one time.

In fact, why make the long trip back when a pressurized vehicle could double as a place for astronauts to weather the harsh conditions on the Moon? No need to bring early ships back, Musk added in the tweet. They can serve as part of moon base alpha.

The news comes after SpaceXs fourth Starship prototype called SN4 blew up during a fuel test on May 29 though it had already been put through its paces.

SpaceX got a lot further with SN4 than previous vehicles, and SN5 seems about ready to go for testing, senior space editor at Ars Technica Eric Berger wrote in a tweet at the time. They also have begun working on a second launch stand in Boca Chica, [Texas].

READ MORE: SpaceX Starship: Elon Musk Details Tweaks to Support Moon Base Missions [Inverse]

More on Starship: Elon Musk in Leaked Email: Starship Now Top SpaceX Priority

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SpaceX Trying to Figure Out How to Land Starship on the Moon - Futurism

This Guy Accidentally Took a Photo That Crashes Android Smartphones – Futurism

Basilisk Stare

Amateur photographer Gaurav Agrawal had no idea his spectacular picture of St. Mary Lake in Glacier National Park, Montana could end up mercilessly crashing countless Android phones.

But if it was set as the wallpaper on smartphones running the Android 10 operating system, the phones started acting up, switching off and on repeatedly.

I didnt do anything intentionally, Agrawal told the BBC. Im sad that people ended up having issues.

The image, edited in Adobe Lightroom and uploaded to Flickr, didnt seem to cause any issues on iPhones. But thanks to a tiny snafu during the export of the image, Agrawal unintentionally turned his gorgeous landscape photo into an Android-killing threat.

So what the hell happened? Agrawal uploaded the image in RGB, a color model that Android 10 phones just couldnt cope with rather than the far more commonplace standard RGB (sRGB), as Twitter user Romain Guy explained. RGB is a color model, not a color space, Guy wrote.

A deep dive into the code on Twitter by Android developer Dylan Roussel revealed that the color space may just not be supported on certain devices.

I hoped my photograph would have gone viral for a good reason, but maybe thats for another time, Agrawal told the BBC.

READ MORE: How my photo ended up breaking Android phones [BBC]

More on Android: Google Just Admitted to Tracking Your Location Even When You Have the Settings Disabled

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This Guy Accidentally Took a Photo That Crashes Android Smartphones - Futurism

Scientists Claim to Have Recreated Earth’s First Life – Futurism

Playing God

A team of scientists believe that theyve recreated the biochemical processes that gave rise to the earliest forms of life on Earth.

Researchers from the University of Duisburg-Essen recreated the harsh conditions deep within the Earths crust as it existed some 3.8 billion years ago, which is where they suspect life began. Under those conditions, they say they managed to create and destroy 1,500 vesicles bubble-like biological structures similar to a cells membrane over a period of two weeks.

The work, described in a book the duo will publish next month, could shed vital new light into exactly how life began and developed if it holds up under scientific scrutiny.

As they continued to generate and destroy vesicles like vengeful gods, the scientists say some generations were able to better survive the harsh pressures and geochemical conditions they were subjected to. Thats because they had absorbed certain biomolecules into their membranes that gave them an advantage, they say, potentially illustrating how biological structures first managed to survive.

We concluded that this way, the vesicles were able to compensate for destructive pressure, Duisburg-Essen chemist Christian Meyer said in a press release. As a survival strategy, if you will.

The question, then, is how tiny biomolecular blobs forming inside the Earths crust led to a planet rich with life. For that, the scientists credit the activity of the planet itself.

We have simulated in time-lapse, billions of years ago, geologist Ulrich Schreiber said in the release, such vesicles might have become stable enough to come to the surface during geyser eruptions.

READ MORE: Potential beginning of life simulated in lab [Universitt Duisburg-Essen]

More on early life: We May Have Just Uncovered the Earliest Direct Evidence of Life on Earth

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Scientists Claim to Have Recreated Earth's First Life - Futurism

This Quasar Warps Itself Into a Ring by Distorting Spacetime – Futurism

Circling Back

While they were waiting out the pandemic lockdown, a team of astronomers revisited a pivotal discovery from the 1980s and walked away with new tools that could help them uncover the secrets of dark matter.

In 1987, scientists directly observed an Einstein ring a distant celestial object that appears to be a circle because of the way it warps spacetime and light around it for the first time. But critical information about the ring, formed by the quasar MG 1131+0456, was missing, according to Ars Technica. And by filling in the gaps, the unusual ring could be a powerful resource for studying the universe.

The team was able to dig back through public data collected over the years by NASA and various observatories in order to analyze the quasar, which has largely been neglected its discovery. In doing so, they were able to finally measure the rings distance from Earth 10 billion lightyears according to research published last week in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

As we dug deeper, we were surprised that such a famous and bright source never had a distance measured for it, NASA researcher Daniel Stern said in a press release. Having a distance is a necessary first step for all sorts of additional studies, such as using the lens as a tool to measure the expansion history of the universe and as a probe for dark matter.

READ MORE: Astronomers have finally measured the distance of first observed Einstein ring [Ars Technica]

More on Einstein rings: For the First Time, Physicists Accelerated Light Beams in Curved Space in the Lab

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This Quasar Warps Itself Into a Ring by Distorting Spacetime - Futurism

Elon Musk: Teslas Semi Truck is Officially Going Into Production – Futurism

Tesla Semi

According to a leaked email obtained by Reuters, Elon Musk has ordered the company to bring its commercial semi truck into volume production.

The news comes after the carmaker resumed production after a forced lockdown during the growing coronavirus outbreak.

Production of the battery and powertrain will take place at Giga Nevada, Musk wrote in the email, referring to the companys Gigafactory 1 in Nevada.

According to Teslas Q3 2019 earnings report, Teslas Semi was anticipated to be produced in limited volumes in 2020, as Electrek reported at the time.

The company first revealed its Semi during a flashy announcement event in November 2017. The truck will allegedly be able to rocket from 0 to 60 in 25 seconds,even with a load something that takes your average diesel truck a whole minute and carry 80,000 pounds for 500 miles.

The drivers seat inside the futuristic cockpit is centered, allowing for access to multiple touchscreens not unlike the controls in the Crew Dragon module built by Musks other venture, SpaceX.

Many companies have already placed orders for Teslas semi truck, including UPS, Walmart, Pepsi, and DHL.

Other carmakers like Volvo have already beaten Tesla to the punch by bringing fully electric trucks to the market.

READ MORE: Leaked email from Elon Musk reveals Tesla plans to start volume production of its electric semi truck [Reuters]

More on the truck: STARTUP TRANSFORMS TESLA SEMI INTO BEAUTIFUL MOTORHOME CONCEPT

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Elon Musk: Teslas Semi Truck is Officially Going Into Production - Futurism

Reimagining the Office by Carlo Ratti – Project Syndicate

The COVID-19 crisis seems to be accelerating a shift toward remote work. But, rather than welcoming the death of the office, companies should be engineering its rebirth, in a form that strengthens its greatest asset: the ability to foster weak social bonds.

BOSTON Last month, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced that the company would allow its employees, currently working from home in accordance with social-distancing protocols, to stay there for good. Several other big businesses from Facebook to the French automaker PSA have followed suit with plans to keep far more employees at home after the COVID-19 crisis ends. Will the office be yet another casualty of the pandemic?

In a sense, the death of the office has been a long time coming. In the 1960s, American futurist Melvin Webber predicted that the world would reach a post-city age, in which it might be possible to locate on a mountain top and to maintain intimate, real-time, and realistic contact with business or other associates.

During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, the rise of Internet-based companies made that future seem closer than ever. As the British journalist Frances Cairncross put it in 1997, the Internet meant the death of distance. Once distance doesnt matter, the logic goes, offices and, by extension, cities become irrelevant.

It may seem like we are reaching this point. From newscasters to office workers, jobs once thought to necessitate a shared workplace are being performed from home during the pandemic. And yet anyone who has been on a group Zoom call knows that, despite advances in communication technologies, engaging with colleagues remotely often remains far more difficult than meeting face to face.

The problem runs deeper than time lags or toddler interruptions. As the sociologist Mark Granovetter argued in 1973, functioning societies are underpinned not only by strong ties (close relationships), but also by weak ties (casual acquaintances). Whereas strong ties tend to form dense, overlapping networks our close friends are often close friends with one another weak ties connect us to a larger and more diverse group of people.

By bridging different social circles, weak ties are more likely to connect us with new ideas and perspectives, challenging our preconceptions and fostering innovation and its diffusion. And while video-chatting or social media may help us to maintain our strong ties, it is unlikely to produce new ones, let alone connect us with as many people from outside our social circles: baristas, fellow train passengers, colleagues with whom we dont work directly, and so on.

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An analysis of data from MIT students, professors, and administrators during the pandemic seems to bear this out. My colleagues and I built two models of the same communication network one showing interactions before the campus was closed, and the other showing interactions during the shutdown.

Initial results which will still need additional validation and peer review indicate that interactions are narrowing, with people exchanging more messages within a smaller pool of contacts. In short, existing strong ties are deepening, while weak ties falter.

Perhaps in the future, it will be possible to mimic physical serendipity and form weak ties online. But, for now, online platforms appear ill-equipped to do so. On the contrary, they often actively filter out unknown individuals or opposing ideas a function that was fueling political polarization even before the pandemic. As a result, our lockdown-enforced social bubbles are increasingly opaque.

Shared physical spaces seem to be the only antidote to this fragmentation. Offices, which facilitate deeper interactions among diverse acquaintances, can be a particularly powerful corrective.

And yet demand for shared spaces seems unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels. Companies like Twitter that do not see productivity fall will be eager to lower overhead costs. As for employees, it was never going to take long to get used to living without long commutes, strict corporate schedules, and uncomfortable office attire.

This will have far-reaching implications. Even a 10% reduction in demand for office space could cause property values to plummet. But while this would be bad news for developers, designers, and real-estate agents, it could also ease the economic pressures behind urban gentrification.

In any case, companies would be well-advised not to eschew offices entirely, both for their own sake new, innovative, and collaborative ideas are essential to success and for the wellbeing of the societies in which they operate. Instead, they can allow employees to stay home more often, while taking steps to ensure that the time people do spend in the office is conducive to establishing weak ties.

This could mean, for example, transforming traditional floor plans, designed to facilitate solitary task execution, into more open, dynamic spaces, which encourage the so-called cafeteria effect. (Nowhere is it easier to establish weak ties than while eating lunch in a cafeteria.) More radical redesigns may follow, with designers finding ways to generate serendipity, such as through choreographed, event-based spaces.

The COVID-19 crisis has shown that we have the tools to stay connected from a mountaintop or our kitchen table, for that matter. Our challenge today is to leverage physical space so that we may regularly descend from our isolated summits. That means pursuing the rebirth of the office in a form that enhances its greatest asset: the ability to nurture all the ties that bind.

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Reimagining the Office by Carlo Ratti - Project Syndicate

A look at how Jitsi became a ‘secure’ open-source alternative to Zoom – The Next Web

The coronavirus pandemic pushed people to stay in their homes, and in turn, forced them to use video conferencing products. In the past couple of months, Zoom became an almost indispensable app, Facebook had to step up and make a rival product, and Google made its enterprise conferencing product free for everyone.

Amid this video conferencing boom, Zooms security and privacy-relatedproblems made a lot of people skeptical about using its products. Plus, the company wasnt transparent about communicating its mishaps this forced a lot of people to look for free open source products, and Jitsi emerged as a perfect solution for them.

Apart from being open-sourced, Jitsi benefited from endorsements by a few highly-regarded names in the security community. In March, a privacy-focusedbrowser Tor tweeted about the product as an alternative to Zoom.

In 2017, in an interview with WIRED, Edward Snowden talked about using his own Jitsi server. Later, in a security conference, a lot of people saw Snowden using Jitsi to deliver a talk.

The product suddenly exploded during the pandemic. That meant Emil Ivov, Jitsis founder, and the rest of the team had to work even longer hours to keep the ship running.

Ivov originally built Jitsi as a project in 2003, when he was studying at the University of Strasbourg. Later, he spun off the project into an app and kept building it for desktop. In 2009, he started a company called BlueJimp (not to confused with BlueJeans, another video conferencing app) around it.

In 2011, Google open-sourced WebRTC communication standards to facilitate things like video-conferencing over browsers.The team took advantage of that and built abrowser-basedproduct, and so Meet Jitsi was born.

Apart from being open-sourced Jitsis ease of use helped it gain more users. To set up a call, you need to go to its website, and itll generate a meeting link with four words. That makes it difficult for Zoombombers uninvited people who join public video conferences and broadcast pornographic material to guess the link. Plus, you dont need to sign up to set up a meeting.

While the open-sourced version is free-to-usefor everyone. Its parent company, 88 offers a paid version with features such as transcription and meeting history.

In the past few months, the team had to scale up the infrastructure as users started to mount due to lockdowns all over the world.

The company learned that all kinds of people started to use video conferencing products. So they had to make things easier for users and educate them about the product as many of them were used to old-fashioned dial-in calls.

However, the pandemic has popularized the companys product. Ivov claims it pushed the apps growth by 10 years:

The pandemic provided an acceleration of 10 years in terms of growth. The last decade was an indicator of people moving towards remote work. This situation has just put us into the fast track mode.

After the pandemic hit the world, Jitsis open-sourced version and 88s paid version have managed to achieve 20 million unique monthly participants.

The next challenge for the company is to introduce end-to-end encryption for calls. The service already offers end-to-end encryption one-on-one calls and plenty of other security measures.

Ivov told me that hes never heard so many people talk about end-to-end encryption:

Ive never heard so many people talk about security and end-to-end encryption as I have in the past few months. We provide different levels of security for different needs. So primarily, we needed to educate people about the options they have.

He said that end-to-end encryption for a call with multiple people is challenging to develop. Ideally, when someone joins an encrypted call without a valid key, they would only see jumbled up video streams. When they have the legitimate key, the video stream would look normal. You can see that in a demo video below.

Now, this is easy to execute when there are two or three people on the call. When video services such as Jitsi meet use WebRTC, they create a connection with a central server that dishes out a single video stream to all participants.

If a service wants to use encryption, it has to create the same number of encrypted connection to the central server as the number of participants on a call.And the central server has to decrypt every stream, re-encrypt it, and send it to another participant.This works well for two or three-person calls. But puts a lot of load on the server for calls with multiple people.

To solve this problem, Jitsi is going to use Insertable Streams, a new feature released by the Chromium team that lets you add an additional layer of encryption. The idea is to encrypt frames rather than connections.

Ivov says the open-source nature of the app has helped people find bugs and report them and thats why we havent seen a major security scare on the app yet.Plus, this also helps anyone who wants to implement their own set of functions on top of Jitsis app.

For instance, the Italy-based classroom collaboration platform WeSchool has built some features on top of Jitsis open-sourced version. And according to WeSchools CEO, Marco De Rossi, nearly 30% of secondary schools in the country are using that tool. Rocket Chat, a free and open-source enterprise team chat solution also uses Jitsi for video conferencing.

The number of people using video conferencing simultaneously might decrease as countries are opening up, but Ivov believes a lot of people will still prefer this method of communication instead of a meeting packed with people.

He said that conferencing apps will need to try and make peoples lives easier by making meeting itemssuch as slideshows, documents, and transcripts available even after the session ends. However, the challenge for them would be to do all of this without compromising anyones privacy, and Ivov believes its possible.

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A look at how Jitsi became a 'secure' open-source alternative to Zoom - The Next Web

WW3 threat erupts on EU border: Greece readies for war as fears of Turkish ‘invasion’ grow – Express.co.uk

Greek military commanders have carried out a series of intense military drills amid an escalation of tensions with Turkey. On Friday, Greek Defence Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos accused Istanbul of aggressive behaviour, claiming Athens was ready to defend itself against Turkey by any means necessary. The EUs top diplomat Josep Borrell also intervened this week, as he urged Turkey to respect the sovereignty of Greece.

Tensions have sky-rocketed in recent days after Turkey announced that the country will begin drilling for oil and gas inside Greeces maritime borders in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Greece has hit back at this move and put its armed forces on alert for a military conflict with Turkey.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis sent a letter to the European Union, stating that this move would lead to a Turkish-European crisis.

Mr Panagiotopoulos told TV reporters on Friday: Of course Turkeys stance has recently been rather aggressive.

"I believe that the only way Greece can deal with it is, on one hand, to exhaust all its diplomatic weapons, and on the other, to cater for the increase of the deterrence power of the Armed Forces."

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Asked if these efforts include preparations for a military conflict, the defence minister said that Greece is preparing for all eventualities, including military engagement".

He added: We do not want this to happen. However, we are making it clear toward all directions that we will do what it takes to defend our sovereign rights to the greatest extent, if you catch my drift."

General Konstantinos Floros, who serves as the Chief of the Hellenic National Defence General Staff, echoed the Defence Minister's claims.

He said the military are ready to perform their duties in defending Greece at a time when Turkey "is threatening to invade the Eastern Aegean islands, Crete and Western Thrace".

The EU's Borrell said Brussels was monitoring developments while being in close contact with Athens.

Relations between the two NATO members have been poor for centuries following several major wars between the two sides.

There have also been tensions over Cyprus, military confrontations in the Aegean Sea, and recent concerns that Turkey was deliberately threatening Europe with an influx of refugees on its borders.

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a press conference in Ankara on Thursday where he announced his plans to proceed with oil exploration and drilling in maritime territories that are part of Greece.

Earlier this week, National Security Advisor Vice Admiral Alexandros Diakopoulos warned that Greece was ready to react militarily if Ankara violated its waters, but added that the government currently believes that such a thing will not be needed.

He added: "Of course, Turkey knows that it does not have international law on its side, and that is why it is trying to bring our country into a purely political debate."

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WW3 threat erupts on EU border: Greece readies for war as fears of Turkish 'invasion' grow - Express.co.uk

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