Online health care and medtech AI have risen in prominence in the country as the government seeks more equal access to medicines and treatment for its citizens, spread across a vast land mass. The urgency has been heightened by the impact from Covid-19 – with Indonesia recently overtaking the Philippines as the hardest-hit country in Southeast Asia.
Indonesia’s fast-growing manufacturing sector also presents opportunities for medtech innovation as well as research and development.
U.S. company can keep hosting vast coronavirus-related project but must protect French citizens’ health data from American government, court rules.
A French court has ruled that Microsoft Corp. can continue hosting a government-run project aggregating citizens’ anonymous health data to use for AI-based research, but must guarantee no data will be sent to the U.S. or be shared with American intelligence authorities.
The ruling, handed down last week, contradicts the stance of France’s data protection authority, which told the court this month that any U.S. cloud provider could be forced to comply with U.S. surveillance laws and should therefore not be allowed to host sensitive health data. The regulator’s opinion could provide clues for other companies handling such data, legal experts say.
Companies are wrestling with tricky decisions about moving their data from the European Union to the U.S., following a court decision this summer that required personal data transferred there to include special guarantees against surveillance by the American government.
SpaceX is a leader in aerospace innovation. The company was founded by Elon Musk in 2002 with the ultimate mission to make life multiplanetary. For over a decade, SpaceX teams have worked to develop technologically advanced rockets and spacecraft. Developing rockets comes with many challenges. SpaceX had a couple of failed missions in the early days. The company went from almost not making it to orbit to returning human spaceflight capabilities to the United States in 2020.
The company’s first rocket, Falcon 1, failed to attain Earth orbit three times: in March 2007 and August 2008, but in September 2008 SpaceX became the first American private company to send a liquid-fueled rocket into orbit. Despite the challenges, SpaceX pushed through until the fourth rocket launch reached orbit. A fourth failure “would have been absolutely game over,” Musk said at the International Astronautical Congress conference in 2017. “Fortunately, the fourth launch, which was … the last money that we had for Falcon 1 –that fourth launch worked. Or it would have been… that would have been it for SpaceX,” he said. The company was able to land a government contract from NASA when it reached orbit.
SpaceX then worked to develop an improved version of the rocket. In 2010, the company launched the Falcon 9, powered by nine Merlin 1D engines. Falcon 9 was designed so that its first-stage could be reused. Other companies use expendable rockets. SpaceX engineers accomplished developing the world’s first orbital-class rocket capable of returning from space to perform a controlled landing powered by its engines. Falcon 9 is capable of launching payload to orbit and landing soon after liftoff. In 2015 a Falcon 9 first-stage booster returned to Earth near its launch site for the first time, after several explosive landings (video below).
Australia seems to be leading the way in terms of wind power as well. 😃
It was a big week for South Australia last week. First, as we wrote at the time, the state reached 100 per cent solar power (of state demand) for the first time on Sunday, October 11.
Then, just a few days later, the state reached 100 per cent wind power (of state demand), on Thursday, October 15.
This was not the first time for wind, as it occurs reasonably often and for sometimes lengthy periods, but the fact that the two events occurred within days of the other are nevertheless important milestones. And although the transition to clean energy is far from complete, it does give some insight into what the state Liberal government’s target of “net 100 per cent renewables” by 2030 might look like.
Commercial rocket ventures including Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin should get a clearer path to space under new regulations that oversee non-government launches.
In 2016, I proposed LEO HTS Mega Constellation a viable solution for Australia’s broadband national coverage. I have been doing research on these constellations right from the beginning and they are inevitable!
Introduction
Utilizing the announced Lower Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites constellations of OneWeb, SpaceX, LeoSat & Samsung to provide high speed connectivity to entire Australian continent with performance better than fiber networks. This project can eliminate high cost NBN roll out to scattered populations and will considerably improve disaster management. Providing high speed connectivity for mobile communication, internet, high resolution TV broadcast as well as utilizing technologies like IoT & Cloud for improvement in security, education, health, agriculture, livestock farming, mineral resources, wildlife, and environment without any coverage black-spots. This network will not require any infrastructure installations and will help the Government to generate revenues by issuing spectrum licenses to local as well as foreign investors for providing services directly to the end user.
2011 Census
Source: Regional Statistics by ASGS, 2010–2014.
Partnership will use diagnostic imaging tools to explore health issues associated with microgravity, and apply this knowledge to patients on Earth.
The French Society of Radiology (SFR) and the country’s national centre for space exploration (CNES) have signed a partnership, details of which were streamed live at the Journées Francophones de Radiologie (JFR) congress on 4 October. The aim is to develop imaging solutions to be sent on space flights and to collaborate on image collection and optimization, teleradiology and training of astronauts.
France has the largest space program in Europe and the third oldest institutional space programme in history, along with Russia and the US. CNES, which has a long track record in space exploration, recognizes the great potential of diagnostic imaging for monitoring astronauts’ health while on missions, according to general director Lionel Suchet.
The plan is to create a “two-way street” in which radiologists and space experts will collaborate on innovative projects to make further progress, JFR delegates heard online at the plenary Antoine Béclère lecture. A SFR–CNES working group will now define the research themes and establish a schedule of tasks ahead by December.
Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) reportedly paused a clinical trial testing its COVID-19 antibody treatment candidate because of a “potential safety concern.”
The New York Times reported that Eli Lilly’s testing site researchers were notified of the pause by emails sent by government officials (it is a government-sponsored trial) and the company later confirmed it. A spokesperson from the company told The Hill that “Safety is of the utmost importance to Lilly. We are aware that, out of an abundance of caution, the ACTIV-3 independent data safety monitoring board (DSMB) has recommended a pause in enrollment.”
Eli Lilly’s trial was comparing its therapy to a placebo, while all study participants also received the experimental drug remdesivir, which has been used in treating COVID-19 throughout the pandemic. The company’s therapeutic uses monoclonal antibodies in an effort to block the virus from infecting cells.
Satellite communication has been serving the terrestrial network as a complementor rather than a competitor for a considerable time. The best use-case scenario is the cellular backhaul over VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) to connect remotely installed BTS (Base Transceiver Station) of a cellular network through a geostationary satellite to the respective BSC (Base Station Controller) and ultimately the core network. This technology enabled MNOs (Mobile Network Operators) to increase their subscribers base in remote communities which could not be connected to their network grid through Microwave or Fibre transmission. Similar network architecture, commonly known as bent-pipe and FSS (Fixed Satellite Service), has been used by other networks requirements of ISP (Internet Service Providers), Government, Corporate, Oil & Gas, Mining sectors, where the DCE (Data Communication Equipment) and DTE (Data Terminal Equipment) are replaced from BTS and BSC to networking switches and routers.
However, all these communications are struggling to keep at par with development at terrestrial networks, and the main reason is staggering latency of around 530 milliseconds for a roundtrip of a message through the satellites at an altitude of around 37,000 kilometres, which is a big challenge for Industry 4.0 technologies. The arrival of the planned NGSO mega constellation appears to address the problem through claimed significantly lower latency of around 4 milliseconds, which is at par with fibre optics.
The integration of the networks of mega constellations with those on the ground is a complicated situation with multiple dynamics to analyse. Let us have a brief look at 4G LTE and 5G NR technology and analyse the integration for both backhaul and fronthaul interfaces through NGSO satellites with the core networks.
Despite how much I like GAN, the technology starts to give us some real troubles…
Facebook removed two networks of fake accounts spreading government propaganda on the platform Tuesday, one originating in China and one in the Philippines.
In its latest report on this kind of coordinated campaign, the company says it took down 155 Facebook accounts, 11 pages, nine groups and seven Instagram accounts connected to the Chinese activity and 57 accounts, 31 Pages and 20 Instagram accounts for the activity in the Philippines. Both operations broke Facebook’s rules against “coordinated inauthentic behavior on behalf of a foreign or government entity.”
The company released the report Thursday in coordination with Graphika, a social analytics company that specializes in disinformation. Graphika regularly analyzes this kind of activity in coordination with Facebook and its reports dive into more depth about techniques.