Drought Forces Colorado River Water Cutback to the Southwest States

The scientists and researchers recently have declared the water shortage for the first time ever in the Colorado River which serves as an arterial waterway for over 40 million people in the west region of America. The water levels at the largest reservoir have fallen record low. Water basins that connect with the river primarily supply basic household water for agriculture purpose, for irrigation for farms, and also provide hydropower to regions like Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, and Mexico.

However the farmers have various other diversified water sources which has helped them to reduce the risk of upcoming water cuts. But still the acute water challenges for a region facing a growing population drought will definitely be a nightmare for farmers as there will drastic change in the temperature in the coming years. Scientists also identified that due to drastic changes in melting snow in the spring could be one of the many reasons for sudden drop in the amount of water flowing from the mountains, where the Colorado River originates before.

Keeping this in mind, United Nations has released a landmark climate report which shows the rising index of global temperatures which is rapidly increasing than ever before. Scientists have stated that they will be addressing these climate changes by utilizing the best available technology and science, and they will continue to work across the landscapes and communities that primarily rely on the Colorado River.

 

TNS Expands to 11 More Countries in Asia Pacific

Transaction Network Services (TNS) is widely known for providing a full suite of low latency services across the globe and has a strong presence in the Asia Pacific region. The company has now further expanded its presence by reaching 11 more countries in the region.

“The Asian financial markets include many of the world’s leading, as well as rapidly emerging, stock exchanges. Extending TNS’ presence and connectivity in Asia gives us the ability to offer traders access to these financial centers and exchanges simply, quickly and with a lower total cost of ownership,” said Tom Lazenga, TNS’ Vice President of Global Sales, in a statement.

Founded in 1990 in the U.S. and headquartered in Reston, Virginia, TNS provides an extensive portfolio of services to customers in more than 60 countries spanning the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific.

The latest expansion of TNS has delivered lowest latency in the region. The company is making use of the lowest latency commercially available network links in the APAC region. This network is designed to deliver streaming of market data globally. It can deliver APAC sourced market data to the U.S. and the U.S. sourced market data to APAC.

With this expansion, TNS now offers coverage across 11 countries and 23 exchanges in Asia that is hugely benefitting the trading industry.

 

Ketto Introduces its New Healthcare Community App Healthnest

The crowdfunding platform Ketto has launched its healthcare community app called Healthnest. The app has been introduced to help patients, caregivers, medical experts, and doctors. This platform will connect patients with similar medical conditions and help them share their stories and emotional support.

The launch of the Healthnest app marks Ketto’s nine year anniversary. “At Ketto our endeavor is to bridge the healthcare accessibility gap. We closely work with hospitals and patients to raise funds for their medical treatment. However, we have realised that a patient’s family not only struggles in terms of finances but they undergo enormous physical and mental stress,” said Zaheer Adenwala, CTO and Co-founder of Ketto.org.

The Healthnest app will act as a platform that connects with people who have overcome similar healthcare. This app will help users connect with medical experts and healthcare practioners for medical suggestions and second opinions.

The app was originally launched as a pilot project last quarter. It has recorded 10 thousand installations with over 10 live communities on the app.

Ketto.org was founded by Varun Sheth, Zaheer Adenwala and Actor Kunal Kapoor with an aim to bridge the affordability gap. Ketto.org enables people to raise funds for health and medical emergencies, natural calamities, education, travel, short-term emergency needs, sports, competitions, arts, animal welfare, women empowerment, and many more.

 

The EU regulators are striving hard to regulate crypto to prevent financial crimes

 

The anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) regulation in Europe and globally have gone through various structural changes in the last few years. The penetration of illicit funds and high-end money laundering schemes have now managed to get the attention of the public and regulators. The most notable example is the Wirecard scandal which revealed that several shell companies were involved in the illegal distribution of pornography and narcotics. As financial institutions and regulators tend to expand their knowledge on criminal practices, the AML requirements are also expected to be improved. In most cases, these trials have been reactive overwhelmingly, and it is mostly a trial-by-fire process.

The European Union has now started to introduce more rigid regulations to meet the ever-evolving challenges in blockchain, and it is also striving hard to improve the licensing model. Most of the countries are now trying to regulate the use of cryptocurrencies, and Germany is way ahead of others and is leading from the front. The regulatory bodies must also evolve along with the cryptos and financial crimes to address, monitor, and enforce regulations. FATF is the most popular monitoring body, which is well-known for outlining the general guidance for cryptocurrencies.

 

2 Trillion Dollar Bill: Afghan War Burdens Every US Citizen with $20K Debt

The United States has spent over two trillion dollars in the Afghanistan war, combating the Taliban. But to no avail. Things have gone haywire, clearly. After two decades of confronting the Taliban, the US army along with NATO forces has decided to leave the country. Needless to say, the amount spent in Afghanistan is going to pinch every American. The mammoth interest rates will continue to climb given how the modern debt structure functions.

The two trillion dollar bill includes the direct funding cost of $800 billion and $83 billion to train the Afghan army. The rest of the amount was spent on development projects, such as building bases, roads, etc.

America spent more than the combined net worth of Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and the 30 other American richest billionaires.

According to the estimates of the Costs of War Project at Brown University, the interest rate will climb up to $6.5 trillion by 2050, which translates to $20,000 for each and every US citizen. These numbers are frightening, clearly.

Besides, the US army lost its 2448 service members, according to the university report. As many as 4000 civilian contractors lost their lives. Around 66,000 Afghan army personnel were killed. The number of civilians killed is 47,245. The Taliban fighters killed stand at 51,191.

In addition to what was spent in the war, the United States invested in infra sectors too including healthcare. 

There’s no denying that the protective umbrella of the US presence played a vital role in favor of its allies, but the country ended up troubling its own citizens. It’s estimated that every US citizen is burdened with $20K war debt.

 

Microsoft to Use the Ethereum Blockchain to Prevent Piracy

Tech giant Microsoft in a recent announcement has stated that it is planning to use the Ethereum blockchain to combat digital piracy by relying on the network's transparent and decentralized nature. The Redmond-based company is now concentrating on new concrete system named Argus, which Microsoft dubbed as the "first public anti-piracy system."

Microsoft along with other researchers from Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba and Carnegie Mellon University has recently laid out the design, implementation, and evaluation of the new system. Microsoft has said that Argus will be running on a public blockchain to allow digital piracy informers to remain anonymous while maintaining a great level of transparency for the wider public at the same time.

Argus will be protecting the identity of the informers and it will also allow the firm to backtrack the source of the pirated content. Furthermore, by optimizing various cryptographic operations, the cost for piracy reporting will be "reduced to an equivalent cost of sending about 14 ETH-transfer transactions," the company added, contrary to the typically transaction fees for which Ethereum is known for.

 

OPPO Opens a Camera Innovation Lab in India

The global smartphone brand OPPO has announced the establishment of a Camera Innovation Lab at its Hyderabad, India R&D center. This center will develop new solutions in imaging technology.

The establishment of this lab in India will further improve its presence in the country. The lab will be developing localized features, camera solutions using AI and imaging software to improve the user experience in its products.

“Imaging technology has always been a focal point of OPPO India R&D. With this lab set-up, while we work towards elevating the overall camera experience for our users, our focus is on localization of global solutions and developing new solutions which can be globalized. What we will be developing in India Camera lab will end up in the hands of millions of OPPO users across the globe,” said Mr. Tasleem Arif, Vice President and Head of R&D OPPO India.

The addition of AI capabilities in smartphones has greatly improved their imaging technology. The Camera Innovation Lab in Hyderabad will help OPPO generate a realistic dataset and provide advance quality imaging and video shooting experience.

The company intends to use the lab to test its smartphone camera in a variety of artificially set scenes and analyze data produced from them. The lab will also have specialized machines to test various light sources, with different photography/videography scenarios.