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Gadgets and Video Games: Their Impact on Students

Gadgets and Video Games

Video games are becoming an indispensable part of students’ lives. They find respite from the daily routine of studies and work in games. There are several games for students and most of them are multiplayer. Pandemic has brought people even closer to games and gadgets. People are stuck at home and look desperately for an activity or socialization. More so for students who have no schools or universities to attend. 

The impact of gadgets and games has far-reaching effects on students. Technology has altered lifestyle and habits drastically. While there are certain bad impacts, there could also be good ones. You can read free essay examples of video games like argumentative essays about video games for college to broaden your horizon regarding the matter. While an excessive inclination towards games and other apps can lead to severe consequences, a moderate dose of entertainment is not harmful. In fact, qualities that make a good gamer can help students get better jobs in the future. 

Helps in Studying 

Accessing any text these days has become extremely easy, and thanks to technology. You can use your mobile, laptop, or tablet to download any book and begin learning. Now you need not spend dollars on expensive textbooks for writing your research paper. Almost all are accessible on the internet. It gives an equal opportunity to students all over the world and from all economic backgrounds to pursue their careers and interests. 

Besides that, one can also watch lectures and take part in seminars from any part of the world. Students from all over the planet send their papers and present them at international academic conferences and educational institutions. Gadgets have led to broadening the scope of studies and research opening up a neutral portal where all students can take part equally. 

Video Games Develop Certain Skills

According to the American Psychological Association, almost 90% of American teens play video games. And we do not need to elaborate on the concerns that it raises among teachers and parents. However, there can be certain good effects of playing games and it is time that elders try to accept that and let students build on those skills. Some of the impacts that it has are: 

  1. Certain games help students develop their visual-spatial skills. Games like Minecraft and Pokemon Go involve players in navigation and over time, one acquires an aptitude for such activity in practical life. 
  2. Video games come with challenges and can enhance a kid’s problem-solving skills. Since there are levels in these games, it trains the mind systematically. 
  3. Students hardly have a social life these days and can lose touch with socialization. Games help them build bonds with other people and polish those skills. 
  4. Multiplayer games require kids to cooperate with other people and this can be beneficial in their everyday life as well as when they go out in search of a job. Video games create an environment where you must cooperate or you lose. It’s a fun way to understand the value of teamwork. 
  5. Video games can make a child extremely creative and imaginative. Geniuses like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and other developers have confessed to have derived their aspirations and ideas from video games. In fact, Zuckerberg still loves to play games. 
  6. They can also sharpen your memory and make you quick-witted because you cannot afford to be a slow thinker in games. 
  7. Video gaming is not entirely futile when it comes to a career. Although the chances are sparse as of now, a brilliant gamer may become a professional one and earn millions of dollars. He/she may also venture into the field of animation and game development. 

Thus, there are certain skills that gadgets and games can instill in students. However, they must strive to incorporate these skills in practical life, and only then can they make true use of their talents and bring out the best. Certain jobs are also considering gaming achievements to be a criterion of selection.

Final Words 

Nothing in moderation is bad, and therefore it is not a great idea to keep students entirely away from gadgets or video games. As long as one can make sure that gaming does not become an addiction, it can not only be a good leisure activity but also prepare you for practical situations ahead. 

Why an End of the Coronavirus Pandemic Won’t Mean an End to Remote Working and Communication Apps

Optimize a Mobile Workforce

The coronavirus pandemic appears to be lessening its impact in most parts of the world, and that is a welcome relief to areas of our lives that have been shaken by the devastation it has wrought for almost 18 months. The impact the virus had on our work lives can not be understated, and effects of this will be present for months, maybe even years, to come.

However, the idea that our offices and work lives will return to ‘normal’, whatever normal might mean, is something of a fantasy. So if you happen to be concerned that your intentions to alter your business model and approach to team management may have been for nothing, think again.

Yes, the COVID-19 situation led to many of us working remotely and in many ways far smarter than previously. Indeed many, perhaps even all, of us have perhaps been pleasantly surprised at just how much can be accomplished with the help of the technical resources that can aid our work-day, wherever we happen to be conducting and experiencing it.

This won’t end overnight and many companies are still very much looking to shift operations away from standard ‘in-office’ protocols to a more fluid dynamic technique that is in keeping with the world we live in now.

Team Communication Will Always Be Key

The concept of a traditional office is definitely an idea rooted in the past, and while the coronavirus fades to nothing but a memory, the resulting period of working from home will not. 

Clearly, working remotely DOES have its drawbacks and there are issues that must be avoided but luckily this can be achieved with any of the best team communication apps, which are designed to make the process as smooth and resistant to issues (man-made or otherwise) as well as being fit for purpose in 2021.

Communication apps are there to help manage your team and the processes that are the backbone of your company’s day to day operations. 

This means anything from an effective email system for both internal and external communication to organizational tools that manage your work processes and daily calendars as well as relevant measurement tools and data analysis apparatus.

In short, a communication app is almost like the office within the office. The best in the business will be compatible with all relevant services and security-conscious as well as adaptable to scaling up needs.

When it comes to the best providers of these services chief among the big players are Spike, whose modern approach to email, which pitches the communication somewhere closer to that of a messaging service and edging towards social media approaches towards a ‘feed’ style operation. 

Their outside of the box approach is fresh and helps you rethink the direction you might have previously geared yourself towards in a positive way.

You then have the warhorses of Gmail and Microsoft Teams, somewhat old-school but solid in their respective approaches, but nonetheless dependable. Reliable without being spectacular, and that may well be why so many of us opt for their services.

Slack is another player in the space that’s grown significantly from its origins as a more gaming-based system to one that many offices have adopted.  

The Future Office

There were some, even before the coronavirus took hold, who were convinced that most of us would be working away from our HQ offices by 2021, and others who felt that kind of model wasn’t sustainable, not least from a work/life balance standpoint.

The truth lies probably somewhere between the two. In the coming years, it’s likely that a large percentage of the work market will remote work for portions of the week, and capsule working could still be a clever way for companies to manage the conundrum of office space costs.

Indeed that’s why a great deal of the digital communication we rely upon must be backed up by the quality, security and speed of the conversations we have. Be that via chat, calls or video conferencing (something we all got to spend a lot of time getting used to over the past year and a half). In other words, if we can’t have productive in-person interactions, or they are reduced greatly, then we sure as hell need to be able to have them in other ways.

What won’t go out of fashion is the need to be able to manage work operations in as smooth and free-flowing a way as possible. So while employees may float in and out of communal office areas, the work they do and the communication they have both up and down the food chain, will be entirely app and digital-based.

It’s not so much that the individuals who make up your company will have to all be in one place, it’s the resource and output that must be better centralized, a hub where all points lead, like veins pumping in and out of a healthy business-based heart. 

Tesla Has Fifth Most Powerful Supercomputer In The World For The Future Of Autonomy On The Road

Tesla supercomputer

Tesla is working tirelessly to increase its computing power to process the massive amounts of data needed to improve the Autopilot that is offered today, as well as developing the completely autonomous driving proposals that will arrive in the future. In this sense, the company has recently presented its new supercomputer, the fifth most powerful in the world.

Typically, companies don’t talk about the supercomputers that are used internally to process data. Andrej Karpathy, Director of Artificial Intelligence at Tesla, made an exception. At the Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), he has provided details of the company’s latest supercomputer — the system should achieve 1.8 exaflops at half accuracy (FP16) for artificial intelligence.

While Tesla CEO Elon Musk has already been cackling about the existence of the Dojo project — in the form of an insanely powerful supercomputer — that should be ready by the end of the year. And according to Karpathy, the latest supercomputer is only a pre-Dojo project, and a much more powerful team will be joining soon.

Karpathy mentioned that in terms of FLOPS (floating point operations per second) — a unit that measures the calculations per second that a CPU and GPU can perform — Tesla’s new supercomputer is the fifth most powerful in the world.

In regards to this supercomputer, the Karpathy has shared a few specs:

  • 720 8x A100 80GB nodes. (5,760 GPUs in total).
  • 1.8 EFLOPS (720 nodes 312 TFLOPS-FP16-A100 8 gpu / nodes).
  • 10 PB of “hot tier” NVME storage.
  • 640 Tbps of total switching capacity.
Tesla supercomputer 1

According to Karpathy, Tesla has 1.5 petabyte data set consisting of one million 36 fps videos recorded by eight cameras on a Tesla vehicle. This information ends up in the supercomputer on an NVMe SSD array with a capacity of 10 petabytes and a speed of 1.6 TB/s. The Nvidia accelerators are used to train neural networks based on this data, which is why the fabric should also fail very quickly.

Andrej Karpathy has noted that — “For us, computer vision is the bread and butter of what we do and what enables Autopilot. And for that to work really well, we need to master the data from the fleet, and train massive neural nets and experiment a lot. So we invested a lot into the compute. In this case, we have a cluster that we built with 720 nodes of 8x A100 of the 80GB version. So this is a massive supercomputer.”

Best Emulator To Play Free Fire

FreeFire 1

Free Fire is a long-term survival combat simulator game for mobile devices.The game has been designed and developed by 111 Dots Studio. The game was published by Gerena. The Gerena is a Singapore-based online game growing company. The company provides game titles on Garena+ in several Southeast and East Asian countries, including multiplayer games like League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth. Garena Free Fire, which was released in 2017, has over 80 million daily active users worldwide as of May 2020. Free Fire maintains an overall rating of 4.0 out of 5.0. Free Fire also enables in app purchases.

In each 10-minute game, you are placed against 49 other players on a secluded island, all of whom are fighting for survival. Players can freely choose their baseline with their parachutes, and the goal is to stay in the safer place for as long as it takes them to be safe.

Explore the vast map by driving vehicles, hiding in the wild, or becoming hidden by proning under grass or rifts. Ambush, snipe, or survive; there is only one goal: to live and respond to the call of duty. Find weapons, stay in the game zone, loot your opponents, and become the last man standing. Along the way, seek out legendary airdrops while trying to dodge airstrikes to gain an advantage over other players.

FreeFire

Fast and light gameplay – A new survivor will emerge within 10 minutes. Will you go over and above the limits to be the one in the spotlight? Create teams of up to four players and communicate with your squad from the start. Respond to the call of duty by leading your friends to victory and being the last ones left at the summit.

Why chose LDPlayer Emulator?

The pc gaming experience cannot be neglected as the smartphone gameplay journey has advanced. Mobile phones and devices have small screens and are not designed to be used for prolonged times of gaming. To play a mobile game on a computer, you must first install an emulator. If you’re looking for an easy emulator with superior characteristics, here’s a one-of-a-kind emulator solution LDPlayer. LDPlayer gives you advanced and enhanced graphics as well as gives you some extra functionalities that ease your gameplay features, and you get the most out of the game.

Is LDPlayer the Best Emulator for You to play Free Fire?

  • LDPlayer was the first android emulator to make the incredibly popular PUBG: Mobile game available for PC play. This feat was accomplished by LDPlayer less than a week after the version was released on the Google Play Store. Serious gamers flocked to LDPlayer in droves to enjoy the gaming performance while benefiting from an Android emulator.
  •  LDPlayer has three app stores, each containing a massive range of games, social media, entertainment, education, and many other apps. You can now be self-assured that you will be able to use any app of your choice on your PC for free. Furthermore, with hundreds of apps to choose from, discovering new apps will be a breeze.                                        

Plus, Points of LDPlayer

An android emulator is a program that lets you run mobile apps on your computer. Among Android emulator users, LDPlayer is popular among gaming players. Because of its superior features, visually attractive design, and a company that is always seeking to provide security patches; it is one of the longest sustaining and most lauded Android emulators.

  • LDPlayer is compatible with any high-performance game.
  • Because LDPlayer surpasses most mobile devices, you won’t have to deal with a hot device, slowness, or delays.
  • It has an easy-to-use keymapping feature with alternative art, as well as a larger screen with a variety of customizable provisions.
  • If your PC supports it, LDPlayer can run at up to 120 frames per second, giving you an excellent user experience.
  • LDPlayer includes
  • screen capture and screenshot capabilities, allowing you to capture your
  • gameplay or capture unforgettable screenshots while fighting enemies.
  • LDPlayer can run at up to 120 FPS if your PC supports it, providing an excellent user experience.
  • LDPlayer has screen capture and screenshot abilities, allowing you to record your gameplay or take memorable screenshots while fighting enemies.
  • LDPlayer significantly improves the performance of some games. The significant boost benefits you in a plethora of ways that cannot be expressed in words. It would be best if you used the LDPlayer emulator to get a noticeable boost.
LD Player

How to download Free Fire on PC?

It is very simple to download Free Fire on PC using LDPlayer. All you have to do is follow the instructions step by step:

  • Download LDPlayer from its official website it on your computer.
  • Install LDPlayer on your computer by visiting its official website.
  • Sign in using your Google Account. Sign up if you don’t already have an account.
  • Search for Free Fire in any of LDPlayer’s three built-in stores.
  • If your game is not available on any of the store of the LDPlayer emulator. You can find an apk file and simply drag and drop there to download the file and then install the game to play.
  • Using LDPlayer, you can simply download the game on your PC in a matter of seconds.
  • The game is now ready for use with your LDPlayer emulator.
LD Player 1
Conclusion:

LDPlayer appears to be the best Android emulator available. When mobile gaming was introduced, PC games were seeming to be neglected. After the introduction on emulators, the revival of PC games started. The emulator provides you a better experience overall gameplay advantages are much more as compared to the smartphones. 

The mobile gaming and emulator gaming has their importance at their place, but emulator offers a wide range of elements to its customers in order to provide a better outcome. Playing Free Fire on PC is preferable to mobile devices even though LDPlayer provides a larger screen on which to view things. Both an increased game and a limited game have an effect on your phone. LDPlayer allows you to save your smartphones and money by playing mobile games or using social media platforms.

iOS Bug Disables Wi-Fi On iPhones When You Join Hotspot With A Specific Network Name

Get More Space on iPhone

A new iOS bug has been discovered that completely blocks the Wi-Fi on iPhones if it joins a network with a very specific network name. The problem will force the user to have to reset the network settings of their phone. The flaw can be ‘exploited’ in a very simple way.

If an iPhone connects to a Wi-Fi network with SSID — “%p%s%s%s%s%n“, the Wi-Fi functionality of the iPhone is permanently disabled. Even a reboot or a subsequent renaming did not help. The bug was discovered by Carl Schou, a security expert, who has chosen to make it public on his social networks.

According to the researcher, the problem affects iOS 14.4.2, with Bleeping Computer indicating that devices with the current iOS 14.6 are also affected.

In the C programming language, this character string has a very specific meaning. The character strings %p,%s or %n actually serve as parameters for the basic function printf(). This may cause it to be interpreted as a command or variable by the operating system and not as a name of a Wi-Fi network — thus creating the vulnerability in the iPhone. That’s why resetting the device’s network settings fixes it, as this removes all the names of all the wireless networks saved on the iPhone.

Presumably, Apple will fix the problem in an update. Until then, the connection to SSIDs with the above character string should be avoided if possible.

50,000+ Units A Day: Samsung Started Mass Production Of Its Two Upcoming Foldable Smartphones

Galaxy Z Fold 2

Samsung is said to have started mass production of the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3.

FPT reports this, citing sources within the company. Accordingly, the two new models should go on sale on August 27, 2021, and the presentation should take place on August 3.

According to rumours, Samsung is expected to produce 50,000 to 70,000 units of each model per day. These quantities are said to be far higher than those of the previous models, Galaxy Z Fold 2 and Galaxy Z Flip.

Allegedly, Samsung should want to produce a total of 7 million units of the two new models. Of the two predecessors, only 1 to 2 million devices are said to have been manufactured.

Samsung apparently expects that the new generation of its folding smartphones will sell better. The fold models are as big as a small tablet when opened, while the flip devices have the form factor of a flip phone.

5 tips to improve your CNC workflow

CNC related content

Nowadays you can use many different techniques in order to produce your designs. Custom 3D printing is a well-known manufacturing method for example that is still gaining in popularity. Besides that, you could also use one of the many different CNC manufacturing processes. If this is your manufacturing technique of choice, you should get a CNC quote. Furthermore, it is also important to improve your CNC workflow with the help of the five tips that are mentioned below. 

Learn G-code

Nowadays it is no longer necessary to control your CNC machine manually by inserting lines of code, but it is still important to know the basics of G-code. This will allow you to master the machine in depth by controlling it straight from your control software. Furthermore, by knowing the basics of G-code you will be able to find yourself in a lot of lines of code of a milling machine as well. You could then even spot an error in the code and correct it for example to prevent further problems. It is also useful if the machine stops all of a sudden.

Do not hurry

90 percent of the machining errors made by specialists in a workshop are due to a lack of attention. Even the most experienced machinists forget last-minute checks every now and then due to the urgency of a deadline that is coming up for example. However, this issue can be solved rather easily. You should take your time and check your installation and file before starting the machining process. By doing this you will be able to save a lot of time and money too. So, do not hurry but instead take your time to make sure everything is right! 

Appropriate end mill

Furthermore, it is important to choose the appropriate end mill. Each operation and/or material of course requires a suitable end mill. This is the case when you want to perform tapping or engraving, but also when you are going to use cutting or surface milling. You should make sure that the end mill is dedicated to the operation and material you are planning on performing. Furthermore, you should try to minimize your working time. This can be done by employing just one single end mill for the entire job so you do not have to change tools. 

Master your software

Mastering the basics of a CAD/CAM software is generally not hard at all. You will be able to draw some simple designs in 3D in less than a week, even if you have no prior knowledge. Generating the milling files to manufacture these designs too. However, you should keep in mind that these software programs are very powerful. They allow you to optimize your milling time for example, while they can increase the capabilities of your CNC machine too. Because of that, you should not just master the basics, but actually master every single part of the CAD/CAM software.

Clean the CNC machine

Cleaning your machine is an obvious tip, but unfortunately, still a lot of people do not do it after a successful milling job. It is however important to clean the machine as good maintenance allows you to maintain the precision of the equipment for a longer period, while you can also spot problems in time. To properly clean and maintain your CNC machine, you should for example evacuate chips and dust from the ball screws and bearing blocks. You should also dust off the control box and blow out your screen and keyboard. Check that the inductive limits and motor couplers are tightened too! 

EVA: This Humanoid Head Can Copy Facial Expressions And Manifest Emotions

EVA Humanoid Head

Meet EVA, a humanoid developed by a team of engineering researchers from Columbia University in New York City. Specifically, it is a robotic head that has been designed with the aim of exploring the dynamics of interactions between humans and robots. In this way, it is intended to eliminate the static expressions of other intelligent machines and provide a better experience in dealing with people.

Non-verbal language is a very important component when communicating with another person since facial expressions provide extra information that helps build bonds and trust. The world of robotics has always bet on designing robots that are as similar as possible to the human being, but until now, it had not been possible that they were capable of identifying and copying facial expressions and even expressing emotions.

EVA consists of an adult-size synthetic human skull that is fully 3D printed and features a soft rubber face on the front. Inside it incorporates a series of motors that selectively pull and release the cables connected to various locations in the lower part of the face, allowing this robot to make facial expressions.

EVA Humanoid tests

But that’s not all that this robot can do, as it is also capable of expressing a series of basic emotions — from anger to fear, disgust, joy, sadness and surprise. In addition, its creators have also ensured that EVA can express a series of more nuanced emotions.

In order to develop these capabilities, scientists began by recording EVA as she moved her face at random. Subsequently, a computer that controls the robot analyzed all the recordings and, using an integrated neural network, managed to find out which facial expression corresponded to each of the combinations of the movements of the machine.

The next step in the testing of this research was to connect a camera that recorded the image of the face of a person interacting with the robot. A second neural network was then used to identify the expression that this individual made to match one of those that EVA was capable of. At this point, the robot itself managed to identify and copy that expression by moving its ‘facial muscles’.

Despite being still a laboratory experiment, the researchers of the robot assure that the imitation of human expressions may have limited applications but that, nevertheless, they can be a good way to help in the way in which the human being interacts with the technology, specifically with assistance robots.