Tech
‘My 25-year-old husband died alone’: Wife of late Oiler Colby Cave makes emotional COVID-19 plea – Global News
Emily Cave didn’t expect her Instagram post about taking COVID-19 regulations seriously to go viral.
The wife of Edmonton Oilers’ centre Colby Cave, who died in April after suffering a brain bleed, simply wanted people to know how the pandemic is impacting people like her — people who can’t say a final goodbye to their loved ones.
“My 25-year-old husband died alone,” Emily Cave wrote in a story on Thursday.
“I have no clue what his last breath was like. I have yet to be able to have yet to have a funeral because of this global pandemic.”
“So for goodness sake, wear a mask. Wash your freaking hands and it’s not the end of the world if you can’t go to house parties or do things that are essentially a ‘luxury’ in your blessed world.”
Cave said she’d been seeing and hearing a lot of complaints about restrictions aimed at curbing the virus not just in Alberta, where measures were increased Thursday, but around the globe.
Read more:
New restrictions announced for Alberta as 860 COVID-19 cases, 10 deaths reported Thursday
“I try to be super respectful and mindful,” she said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
“But I kind of just hit my breaking point a little bit yesterday.”
“COVID is impacting people in so many different ways. It’s impacting small business owners, it’s impacting health care workers, it’s impacting politics. But I can’t speak on behalf of those people.
“I can speak on behalf of losing a loved one during the global pandemic and what that looked like.”
It wasn’t the first time Cave has gone online to express herself. She posted heart-wrenching updates on Instagram after Colby was placed in a medically-induced coma at a Toronto hospital in April, detailing how she and his parents could only see him through a window and speak to him with a walkie talkie because of COVID-19 restrictions.
Doctors preformed emergency surgery to remove a colloid cyst that was causing pressure on Colby’s brain, but the forward from North Battleford, Sask., died on April 11.
When the pandemic began taking hold in North America in March, Cave and her husband were concerned about staying healthy and protecting others, but never would have imagined how they were about to be impacted by the virus.
Her latest Instagram story has shown, however, that she isn’t alone in finding ways to grieve through the health crisis.
Immediately, people began sharing her post. By the time she woke up on Friday, her phone had “blown up,” and her words had caught the attention of outlets like TMZ and the New York Post.
Several people also got in touch with Cave to share their own stories.
“I’ve had people reach out saying, ‘I haven’t had a funeral for my loved one’ or ‘I was on FaceTime saying goodbye to my loved one’ and all of that.
“It’s probably the worst experience you could ever go through,” she said. “And if (my post) can open a few eyes, that’s great.”
People have been reaching out in various ways since Colby’s death, Cave said. At first it was odd but now she finds solace in the messages.
“The more and more I get and the more and more time goes on, it’s really actually comforting just to know I’m not the only one, I’m not alone,” she said. “And if me sharing things can help people realize that they’re not alone, I’m more than willing to continue to share stories.”
Some of the comments have brought tears to her eyes, including the one where someone wrote: “Colby chose his wife well.”
“It made me cry but I just felt like I was doing him proud,” Cave said.
She hopes the story she shared this week opens eyes and reminds people that they may not be aware what impact COVID-19 is having on the lives of others.
“Just be careful, be kind, look out for each other,” she said. “Don’t take things for granted — all those cliché things that, until a trauma happens to you, you can’t really grasp or really appreciate.”
© 2020 The Canadian Press
Tech
Nothing Ear And Nothing Ear (a) Earbuds Are 1st With ChatGPT Integration – Forbes
London-based Nothing Tech has just launched new earbuds, two pairs, in fact. The Nothing Ear and more affordable Nothing Ear (a) have just gone on sale—you can read Forbes contributor Mark Sparrow’s review of both pairs here. And now, the company has announced a cool new feature: and industry-first integration with ChatGPT. It comes with strings, though.
The new earbuds have just been announced and are available to pre-order from nothing.tech now and go on sale from Monday, April 22. If you’re in London, and you want to be among the very first to get the earbuds, you can snap them up in the Nothing Store Soho a little bit sooner, from Saturday, April 20 (click-and-collect is available).
From launch, the company said, “it will enhance its overall user experience with industry-first ChatGPT integrations in its audio and smartphone products.”
Nothing goes on that it wants “to advance consumer tech products’ transition to AI, as well as simplify and enhance the user experience.”
It means users will be able to pinch the earbud to directly speak to ChatGPT to ask questions and hear responses in the earbuds. Nothing is also introducing new elements to Nothing phones, such as widgets which make it easy to talk to ChatGPT on the handsets. Other features include being able to send screenshots directly to ChatGPT and a clipboard shortcut for sending text.
So, what are the catches?
Although the Bluetooth new earbuds will work with any iPhone or Android phone, and there are dedicated Nothing apps for each platform, the ChatGPT integration is more limited for now.
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The earbuds must be paired with a Nothing handset. From today, the feature works with the premium model, the Nothing Phone (2), providing it’s running the latest software. The earlier Nothing Phone (1) and more recent, more affordable model, Nothing Phone (2a) will need to wait for a software update, which Nothing says is “coming soon”.
Also coming in the future is compatibility with earlier Nothing earbuds, that is the Ear (1), Ear (2) and Ear (Stick).
The new earbuds are very keenly priced. Ear costs $149 (£129 in the U.K.), while Ear (a) is $99 (£99 in the U.K.). Both pairs have active noise-cancelling, which is not commonplace at this price point. The more expensive Ear has a wireless charging case and a feature to create a personal sound profile. Both pairs come in black and white finishes, with Nothing’s trademark transparent design in the earbuds and charging case. But the Nothing Ear (a) has an eye-catching extra: a tremendous yellow-finish option.
Tech
U of T Engineering PhD student is working to improve the sustainable treatment of Ontario's drinking water – U of T Engineering News – U of T Engineering News
Growing up in a small neighbourhood in Cameroon, Maeva Che (CivMin PhD student) was aware of challenges of accessing clean drinking water.
“Experiencing that exposure to water issues and challenges with sustainable access to safe drinking water ignited my interest in water treatment,” Che says.
Che’s drive to improve water quality around the globe brought her to the Drinking Water Research Group (DWRG) at University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, where she is researching innovative solutions to address local water issues.
Che is working under the supervision of Professor Ron Hofmann (CivMin), who is a member of the DWRG. Her research focuses on removing unpleasant taste and odour compounds in Ontario’s drinking water by promoting the biodegradation of these compounds through granular activated carbon (GAC) filtration.
The project is supported by a five-year Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Alliance grant called Advanced and Emerging Issues in Drinking Water Treatment.
GAC filtration is a water treatment process that uses granular activated carbon, which is made from organic materials that are high in carbon, such as wood, coal or coconut shells. These materials are heated in the absence of oxygen through a process known as pyrolysis and prompted chemically or physically to produce the activated carbon. The activation enhances the material’s adsorption properties, making it productive to remove contaminants from water.
While GAC filtration is an effective treatment process, its adsorptive capacity is limited. The adsorptive capacity of GAC is expected to become exhausted after about three years in service and drinking water treatment utilities must replace the GAC. Aside from the inconvenience, replacing GAC is costly.
Che is working on alternative ways to remove contaminants using GAC filtration, specifically through biodegradation. When the filtration has been in service for a while, there is the growth of micro-organisms on the GAC, which can be useful for removing contaminants.
“Think of biodegradation as the useful bacteria on the GAC feeding on the contaminants in the water, thereby removing them,” says Che.
“If the GAC has enough good bacteria that is biodegrading the compounds, the GAC may not need to be replaced when its adsorptive capacity becomes exhausted. This can extend the filter’s lifetime, resulting in cost benefits for treatment utilities.”
In other words, biodegradation can potentially enhance the performance of GAC filters.
Che and the DWRG will collaborate with water treatment plants to determine methods that can enhance the biodegradation of taste and odour compounds within their GAC filters.
Currently in its initial phase, the project is taking place alongside the Peterborough Utilities Group’s drinking water treatment plant, where Che is conducting pilot-scale filtration studies with support from the Peterborough Utilities Commission. They plan to extend this research to other partner treatment plants in the future.
Working with various water treatment plants across Ontario, Che will also assess the effectiveness of GAC filters in removing non-traditional taste and odour compounds, which are not commonly monitored.
To achieve this, she’ll evaluate filter performance for two common taste and odour compounds — 2-methylisoborneal and geosmin — and eight additional non-traditional compounds that can cause taste and odour events. This involves collecting GAC and water samples from the plants and conducting lab-scale filtration tests, called minicolumn tests. This test, developed by the DWRG, allows to differentiate between adsorption and biodegradation in GAC filters.
Minicolumn tests provide crucial insights into the performance of the GAC filters in terms of the adsorption and biodegradation of contaminants. To distinguish between these mechanisms, researchers use parallel minicolumns. One minicolumn operates under conditions where the biological activity of micro-organisms is suppressed, which isolates the adsorption process. The second minicolumn operates without biological suppression, allowing both adsorption and biodegradation to occur.
“Many plants are unaware of their filters’ performance for other compounds, aside from the two common ones, that also contribute to taste and odour events in water. Our project, therefore, plays a crucial role in expanding the understanding of this,” Che says.
Project partners include the Ajax Water Supply Plant and the Barrie Surface Water Treatment Plant.
The DWRG is made of approximately 30 graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, research managers and associates who collaborate with local, national and international industry and government organizations to address a wide range of projects related to municipal drinking water.
Che credits her experience as a master’s student with the research group as a major factor in her decision to pursue a PhD at the University of Toronto.
“During my master’s degree with the DWRG, I worked on projects that improved drinking water quality, gaining hands-on experience at treatment plants. Seeing the results of my research reinforced my decision to pursue my PhD here,” Che says.
Ultimately, Che hopes to make a significant impact in the field — and the DWRG provides opportunities to achieve this, with a supportive community of researchers and supervisors.
“My goal is to continue researching and developing sustainable solutions for drinking water treatment that benefit communities in need,” she says.
Tech
Huawei's latest flagship smartphone contains no world-shaking silicon surprises – The Register
When Huawei debuted its Mate 60 smartphone in mid-2023, it turned heads around the world after teardown artists found it contained a system-on-chip manufactured by Chinese chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) using a 7nm process.
SMIC was thought not to be able to build that sort of thing. So while the Mate 60 didn’t differ markedly from every other modern smartphone, its very existence called into question the effectiveness of US-led efforts to prevent advanced chipmaking tech reach the Middle Kingdom.
Much speculation has therefore concerned what Huawei would deliver next, and this week the world got its answer – in the form of the Pura 70.
Chinese media report that early users of the device have posted details of its innards, naming the SoC as Kirin 9010 with four efficient cores running at 1.55GHz, half a dozen performance cores at 2.18GHz, and a couple of high-performance cores zipping along at 2.30GHz. All cores are Arm v8. A third-party spec sheet suggests it’s a 7nm chip – meaning Chinese chipmakers appear not to have made another unexpected advance.
Early tests suggest it outperforms the Kirin 9000 found in the Mate 60, but independent assessments are yet to emerge. The crowdsourced evaluations currently available are sometimes dubious.
What we can say with confidence is that the Pura 70 has a 6.6-inch OLED display with 120Hz refresh rate and resolution of 2,760 x 1,256. It has 12GB RAM aboard, and buyers can choose from 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of storage.
The three rear-facing cameras on the base models can capture 50, 12, and 13 megapixels apiece.
The Pura range derives from Huawei’s P-Series handsets that stretched from the midrange to the low-end of premium, but are now focussed – pardon the pun – on photography enthusiasts. The device comes on four variants, each priced to match the four editions of Apple’s iPhone 15.
The screen on the high-end “Ultra” model grows to 6.8 inches and 2,844 × 1,260 pixels, with two rear cameras that shoot at 50 megapixels and one at 40. One of the 50MP snappers is retractable, to enhance its zooming powers.
Importantly, all models of the Pura 70 run HarmonyOS 4.2 – Huawei’s not-Android operating system.
China is all-in on HarmonyOS as the nation pursues indigenous alternatives to Western tech. In recent weeks Chinese media and government agencies have noted the growing proliferation of native HarmonyOS apps, trumpeting that developer enthusiasm for the platform means local buyers now have a more patriotic alternative.
That alternative appears to be welcome: after the debut of the Mate 60, analyst firm IDC saw Huawei’s smartphone market share improve by 36.2 percent. ®
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