GoanTimes November 3rd, 2017 Edition

04 Friday,
|tech
November 03, 2017 | www.goantimes.titosgoa.com | 12 pages
Powerful New Gene-Editing
Tools May Eradicate
Hundreds Of Diseases
CHICAGO: Scientists are altering a
powerful gene-editing technology in
hopes of one-day fighting diseases
without making permanent changes
to people’s DNA. The trick: Edit RNA
instead, the messenger that carries a
gene’s instructions.
“If you edit RNA, you can have a
reversible therapy,” important in case
of side effects, said Feng Zhang of the
Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard,
a gene-editing pioneer whose team
reported the new twist Wednesday in
the journal Science.
A genome-editing technique called
CRISPR has revolutionized scientific
research. It’s a biological cut-andpaste
tool that lets researchers spot a
gene defect inside living cells and use
molecular “scissors” to snip that spot,
Computex 2017:
Samsung Launches
Notebook 9 Pro
Convertible Laptop
With S Pen
Samsung has just announced its newest
convertible laptop 'Notebook 9 Pro'
at the ongoing Computex 2017 show
in Taipei. The laptop is touted to be
the upgraded variant of Notebook 9
series, with a 360-degree hinge and an
integrated S-Pen stylus.
The Notebook 9 Pro can be
interchangeably used as a laptop or
tablet. The main USP of the Pro laptop
is undoubtedly its S Pen device which is
capable of performing precision oriented
tasks like creative drawing and shading.
The S Pen can also support tilt function
akin to Microsoft's Surface Pen and it
works just fine with Windows Ink.
The smaller 13.3in model will come
with 8GB RAM while the larger 15.5in
model features 16GB RAM and AMD
Radeon 450 GPU onboard. Apart
from the varying RAM sizes, both the
Notebook 9 Pro models feature a bunch
of common specifications including a
256GB SSD, a microSD slot, a HDMI
port, a USB Type-C port, a backlit
keyboard and two standard USB ports.
Samsung is yet to divulge details on
the pricing or availability for the new
convertible laptop.
either deleting, repairing or replacing
the affected gene.
Researchers are using CRISPR
to try to improve crops, develop
malaria-resistant mosquitoes, grow
transplantable organs inside animals,
and develop treatments that one day
may help genetic diseases such as
sickle cell or muscular dystrophy.
There are challenges for medical
use. Because a change to DNA is
permanent, accidentally cutting the
wrong spot could lead to lasting side
effects. And DNA repair is harder to
achieve in certain cells, such as brain
and muscle cells, than in others, such
as blood cells — so targeting RNA
may offer an important alternative,
said University of California, San
Diego, professor Gene Yeo, who wasn’t
involved in Wednesday’s study. His
team is creating its own RNA-targeting
version of CRISPR.
The research is in its earliest stages,
requiring more work before it even
could be tested in animals. But San
Diego’s Yeo, who is using a different
Cas approach to target RNA, praised
the competing work. “It really tells us
that many Cas proteins can truly bind
RNA,” he said. “The smart thing to do
is to test a lot of them.”
WhatsApp ‘Delete for Everyone’ is easy
to use. Just keep in mind the you can
recall messages within seven minutes,
and no longer than that. Both recipient
and sender will get a notification when
messages get successfully deleted.
However, people won’t be notified if
deleting message for everyone was
unsuccessful. In this case, the receiver
might see or read your message.
To get started, just tap and hold the
message that you want to delete, in
chat window. Next, choose Delete from
the menu. You can select multiple
messages to delete for everyone as well.
Finally tap ‘Delete for Everyone’ and
you’re done. Once message is deleted
for everyone, you will get a message
that reads, “You deleted this message.”
The recipient, on the other hand,
will get a notification saying, “This
message was deleted.”
“Messages you successfully delete
for everyone will be replaced with
“This message was deleted” in your
recipients’ chats (*). Similarly, if you
see “This message was deleted” in a
chat, it means that the sender deleted
their message for everyone,” read
WhatsApp blog post.
Creepy! Your Phone Is Telling Google What
You Are Doing In Real Life
Google is reportedly getting all the
information regarding what you do
offline. According to The Independent,
your smartphone sends data on your
physical activities to the tech giant.
The report says that sensors inside
your mobile helps Google monitor and
understand your real word actions
based on the movement of your device.
This basically means that the company
will know when you stand up or sit
down or sleep based on the times you
lift up or put down your smartphone. A
Reddit discussion reveals the process
based on an Android permission
Jio To Launch
Broadband, Tv
Services In Early 2018
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani owned
Reliance Jio Infocomm is set to launch
high-speed fibre to the home (FTTH)
broadband services by early next
year. The broadband services includes
television services as well as internet
in more than 30 cities, the Business
Standard reported.
Just like how Reliance Jio was
launched last year, Jio broadband will
also see similar lauch with premium
offers to woo customers.
The company will offer ultra-high
speed of up to 1 gigabit per second, settop
box as part of the package, which
will be a home entertainment hub –
offering TV channels, high-end gaming,
video on demand, sources said.
WhatsApp ‘Delete
For Everyone’
Feature Rolls Out
Globally: Here’s
How To Use
called “Activity Recognition”. This
report was posted by DuckDuckGo,
which suggested that the permission
helps developers to understand your
movements.
The Google Activity Recognition
feature is able to tell the programmers
when a user is walking, driving, or
riding based on ‘relative gravity
changes’. Also, the feature is so good
that even if you are walking inside a
train, Google will know. The API also
gives a feedback based out of 100 on the
accuracy of its findings. The higher the
number, the surer the developers are
on your activity.
Once you have granted the
permission to an app, Google sends the
collected data to them. Google says: “A
common use case is that an application
wants to monitor activities in the
background and perform an action
when a specific activity is detected.”
In order to check which apps have
got the permission for the Activity
Recognition feature, you need to revisit
all of them from the Settings Menu
in the mobile. It can be a time taking
process, but if you are concerned about
your privacy it is worth it.