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Accessory manufacturer Gomi is launching a limited edition Bluetooth speaker powered by batteries from old Lime e-bikes. In its announcement of the partnership , Lime says Gomi will use 50,000 battery cells from over 1,000 old e-bikes. The result is a Bluetooth speaker priced starting at £99 (around $138) that has 20 hours of battery life and will be available for 30 days as part of a Kickstarter launching later today . It’s an interesting initiative that Lime hopes will further decrease the environmental impact of its shareable e-bikes, which are touted as a way of reducing reliance on cars for short journeys. In the past, other shared micromobility options like e-scooters have been criticized for their short lifespans , with one 2019 report estimating their average lifespan at around four months. Although Lime says the speakers use “damaged” e-bike battery cells from its early-generation e-bikes, they’ve been cleaned and “rigorously tested” before being used in the … [Read more...] about Lime’s old e-bike batteries are now powering these Bluetooth speakers

We might live in an age of persistent and pervasive surveillance. The recent revelations about the secret National Security Agency programs aimed at collecting vast amounts of data on Americans and foreigners seemingly confirm what tinfoil-wearing netizens have feared for years: They're watching us; technology has turned against its users. Amidst prying eyes, a small but growing group of hackers and programmers is working on applications that use cryptography — the science of creating techniques to hide data and render it readable only to intended recipients — to fight surveillance and give regular citizens access to what was once only reserved to computer experts. It's a battle of geek-made encryption apps against their uniformed snooping foes. SEE ALSO: 10 Better Alternatives to Your iPhone’s Native Apps And the spying agencies of the world are getting more adversaries every day. In fact, there are so many apps it's almost impossible to list them all: Silent Circle … [Read more...] about Is It the Dawn of the Encryption App?

2020 created a seismic impact on how we live, work and do business. We have learnt that only those organizations that adapt quickly to the changing environment, forge better ways of working, and create resilient business models built around customer needs and expectations will be the ones that succeed in a post-COVID world. We have been thrust by necessity into a digital-first future in every aspect of business. Throughout this journey to the new normal working with major Global Fortune 500 companies across industries and geographies, we see five clear, undeniable trends emerge that are dramatically and rapidly reshaping businesses and industries around the world. Moving from offline to online : Many companies around the world moved simultaneously from online being just a channel to it being the primary engine of their businesses, creating one of the biggest collective business-model shifts in history. From virtual doctors becoming a norm for patients and educational institutions … [Read more...] about Learnings from the pandemic: How to navigate the new normal in 2021

Earth's most recent brush with asteroid danger was eight years ago, when a space rock the size of a six-story building came seemingly out of nowhere, injuring 1,200 people when it exploded over Chelyabinsk , Russia. Now, scientists are using this month's flyby of the infamous asteroid Apophis to test their responses to potentially hazardous space rocks, honing the fine art of planetary defense. Planetary defense focuses on identifying asteroids and comets that hang out around Earth, mapping their precise paths and seeing how their orbits compare with Earth's. If an orbital model shows that an asteroid and Earth are due to reach the same place at the same time, things get serious, particularly when the space rock is large. That's the sort of scenario that ended the dinosaurs' reign, after all. But planetary defense isn't hopeless: if humans identify a dangerous asteroid long enough before impact, we could theoretically do something to divert it. Related: … [Read more...] about Planetary defense experts use infamous asteroid Apophis to practice spotting dangerous space rocks

Shares of Zoom jumped in after-hours trading on Monday after the communications and collaboration firm posted better-than-expected fourth quarter results . The Q4 report capped off an unprecedented year of growth for Zoom, and the company said it expects the growth to continue into Q1. Zoom's Q4 non-GAAP net income was $365.4 million, or $1.22 per share. Fourth quarter total revenue of $882.5 million, up 369 percent year-over-year. Analysts were expecting earnings of 79 cents per share on revenue of $811.77 million. FY 2021 was a strikingly successful year for Zoom, as the Covid-19 pandemic made work-from-home arrangements the norm across the globe. One year ago, when Zoom reported its fourth-quarter earnings for fiscal year 2020, the company didn't even mention the COVID-19 pandemic in its press release. "The fourth quarter marked a strong finish to an unprecedented year for Zoom," Zoom founder and CEO Eric S. Yuan said in a statement. "In FY2021, we significantly scaled … [Read more...] about Zoom crushes Q4, gives strong Q1 outlook