It was day 301, in the year 2820. Everyone was hanging by a thin thread of hope with nowhere to go. The human race was on the brink of extinction. It was another normal day at the space ship, but they did not realize everything was going to come to an end in exactly 102 minutes 37 seconds. Not because they are going to die naturally, but the universe has other plans, a meteor shower of a 250-mile radius is approaching the spaceship at 4800 miles per hour. Usually, the spaceship can steer clear of this doom if they could see this. Of all the variables the scientists considered to survive in space they did not take into account the meteor shower was in the size of microns that is almost impossible to detect. Let us all agree space is filled with wonderful nightmares that even the brightest minds cannot anticipate.

There are already a wide variety of crop harvesting machines that are ideal for potential automation. Engineers are already at work to develop technologies for delicate harvest work and autonomous traverse across the fields using the right robotic components with a blend of sensors and IoT connectivity, freeing the farmers for other tasks. 

NASSCOM report states that India has around 40 startups dealing with smart farming. But majority of them are research organizations and only a marginal number of solutions provided by them have been actually implemented in the farms. In India, small and medium-sized farmers are the future of Indian agriculture as large farmers constitute 1.5 percent of the population and contribute only to 35 percent of the food grain production. Thus, it is necessary for these research and development organizations to understand the requirements of small and medium sized farms so that it is easier for them to adopt innovations and techniques and increase the agricultural yield. The small and medium farmers produce for their families and a small portion is left for the market, giving farmers a small value for their products. Thus, introducing smart farming technologies should primarily aim at promising lower costs of production and guide them to get better value for their products.

Microsoft is currently working on a new strategy to introduce Android apps to the Windows 10 ecosystem, eventually expanding the operating system to accommodate millions of apps available on the Play Store. As first disclosed by Windows Central, the so-called Project Latte will reportedly make it easy to port Android apps to Windows 10, requiring little or no coding effort on behalf of the app developer. According to the sources from Microsoft, told Windows Central that it could be rolled out as early as next year.

It cannot be understated that the Illinois Institute of Technology student body is not doing “okay” late into the fall 2020 semester. In response to academic and mental health concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic, administration approved an opt-in pass/fail grading policy for the fall 2020 semester. The policy was drafted by the Student Government Association (SGA) and passed by the University Faculty Council on Friday, November 6, 2020. This was met with widespread approval from the student body, along with questions as to why it took until November to pass such a policy for a semester that started three months prior in August.

We are at the end of the year 2020, probably one of the worst years the world has ever seen in history. But as we all know the time does not stop for anyone unless the world itself has come to an end. Amid these tough times, we have survived till Thanksgiving this year. Although this year has been a nightmare, let us all take a moment to thank for what we still have. I am going to list all the reasons that I am thankful for in 2020.

It was the day of. Everyone was anxious. Everyone was preparing. Kids were running around, their parents were running after them. A few people had gathered in the open space where everything had started. They had huge bundles of cloth in their hands. A man was tying one end of a jet black cloth to the top of a pole, while trying to balance himself on the ladder that he was standing on. Right next to him, an old woman was sitting on the ground. She had multiple beaded necklaces around her neck and her arms were filled with bangles, right up to her elbows. She had a needle in her hand with multi-coloured threads attached to it. She was stitching different patterns onto a deep maroon fabric. There were whorls and wavy lines, there were straight lines intersecting with squares and triangles. But the largest and most prominent were the circles with lines radiating from the center.

Creating an environment with education about entrepreneurship is beneficial for students from all backgrounds because it teaches them to think outside the box and enhance their unconventional talents and skills. As a young Hawk, I would like to talk more about how Illinois Tech is providing unconditional love towards students’ entrepreneurial journey.

In the evening of Friday, November 20, 2020, Illinois Tech Public Safety received a report of gunshots heard around 9:00 p.m. near 31st Street and Michigan. No activity was found at the scene, and no alerts were sent out at the time.

On November 17, 2020, at 12:45 p.m., the Student Government Association (SGA) held their semesterly President-Provost Forum event. The event was livestreamed on YouTube, and can be viewed at https://bit.ly/33w2he7.

Content warning: animal death

We all love pets, well at least we love playing with them, caressing them affectionately. There are diverse pet lovers such as dogs, cats, hamsters, guinea pigs, horses, chickens, etc. Two years ago back home, I got an unusual pet from a friend. It was a parrot. It was just four months old and it was brought up at home so it rarely flies, just like the macaw from the movie "Rio." The bird I had was a pale yellow parrot with red spots on her neck. She was a cute little girl who was very shy. I named her Rosy since she was very tender and beautiful like a rose. Since she was not a bird in a cage, it was a wonderful chance for me to actually become friends with her. Unlike dogs, there's no specific way to become friends with them. So I made additional efforts to take care of her to gain her trust. She always stayed at a corner of my desk and gazes through the window. Whenever I try to reach her she nibbles me with her cute harmless beak and stares at me. I kept a variety of bird food in front of her and made a small pool for her to chill. She hardly ate anything for the first two days. But she gradually got accustomed to the place and started eating. I learned online that the first step in becoming close is making her climb your hands. So I usually placed a handful of bird food in one hand and placed my other hand for her to hop on. After many failed attempts she finally climbed my hand after three days. It was a magical moment, I was actually holding a bird for the first time. I called my whole family to show I made a new friend. Gradually she became comfortable around me. She used to hop on to my hand with more ease and always stared at me with love. It was a new special bond we both shared. Love is even better when you don't communicate it through words. I had pet dogs and cats before but this was entirely a different experience. Rosy was a fragile girl, she was not born to be a pet. Yet she became my pet. I have done so many crazy things to play with her. I slowly started caressing her and she didn't bite me this time. She loved being caressed and she gently leaned to the side of my hand asking for more. Next was to make her climb my shoulder. After five to six attempts she finally climbed at my shoulder. I still remember the first time she stroked her chin against mine and kept nibbling my cheeks. I consider them as kisses. 

I was wrong about COVID-19. It's easy to tell yourself lies about COVID-19 instead of confronting how scary it truly is; it's daunting, but disinformation is dangerous.

It has been a dream for me to go on a road trip to the U.S. with friends. My friends who came here years before me post amazing photos and videos of the road trip in their cool cars. The most exciting factor of a road trip here is the opportunity to explore a foreign land with exciting cars that are not available back home in India. It has been a year now wishing for the right circumstances and finally, I received a surprising phone call from my friend who is working at Michigan. He called me in the evening and said he is coming to O'Hare airport to drop a friend and said he is staying the night at my place and he had to leave early morning. The call itself was a pleasant surprise since I'm meeting him after four years and wait it gets better. He invited me to come back with him to Michigan since there was Thanksgiving break coming up. Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, there was a final surprise that blew my mind away. He came in my dream car -- Jaguar XE, the car I spent years admiring from posters, wallpapers, and rarely on the roads. I thanked all the deities for making this happen. It was as though every single event has aligned perfectly just for me. The classes were online, Thanksgiving holidays, I didn't have many assignments, and finally, I didn't have to deliver newspapers since the last two issues were only online. Seriously, if I think about it, out of nowhere your best friend from college four years ago comes to your home picks you up in a luxury car, and tells me to stay with him in Michigan to celebrate Thanksgiving. Well, it may be common for other people, but as an Indian student who is living on a budget, the chances of this happening are very low.

When applying Internet of Things (IoT) to the agriculture domain, Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications are a central key, empowering ubiquitous and independent communications amongst numerous gadgets without any human interference. In this way, necessities such as productivity, versatility, low-cost equipment and low-power utilization are expected from this kind of communications. The demand for these necessities varies according to the various application scenarios, which has driven to the development of endless number of conventions, standards, communication stacks and models, each one addressing specific issues or applications.

What possibly be the better option, being an introvert or an extrovert? I always say that I am an ambivert but is there such a thing? I do not intend to question the meaning of the word ambivert here. This thought has struck me several times because one cannot be inclined on both sides in this case. It gives me feelings of indecisiveness. One can be either an introvert or an extrovert. Yes, they might switch between the extremes but in my belief, one cannot hang in between.

Celebrations are the occasion of fellowship in India. They assume a significant part to construct a superior society, where positive qualities thrive and the soul of co-activity wins. There are numerous promising days in India, which are celebrating by Indians with a ton of zing and soul. Rakhi Purnima or Rakha Bandhan is one of them. It is known by different names; Vish Trak - the destroyer of toxin, Punya Pradayak-the bestower of help and Pap Nashak-the destroyer of sins. 

An Electric Vehicle (EV) is referred to as a car that works on one or two motors that use the energy from the rechargeable batteries. Compared to the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) cars, EVs on the other hand, do not make much noise and have lower emissions overall. Nowadays, people are considering EVs instead of ICEs as it has lower maintenance costs and is environmentally friendly. So these are a few points which one should consider before buying an electric vehicle. 

Apple recently announced the latest Mac Mini, Macbook Pro, and Macbook Air which now runs on Apple’s in-house chip that they call the M1. Since 2006, Apple has been using Intel for its Mac lineup but has been developing their own System on a Chip (SOCs) after the soaring success of their A-series mobile processors used in iPhones and iPads.

I had a strange moment last week that helped me realize that Facebook — the social media platform I’ve used for more than a decade — is about to go extinct. The platform is losing market share, fast, among young users.

Acupuncture, a Chinese medical philosophy and mode of therapy, is recognized around the globe. It is a rational method of therapy, a kind of natural science based on an inherent mechanism present in the human body by nature. Treatment is given by acupressure, acupuncture, or moxibation at defined locations in the human body called acupoints or shu-xue-xue points.

Today, due to technological development and advancement there exists so many ways to deploy machine learning models to the Clouds like AWS, GCP, and Azure. Let's discuss how to deploy machine learning models to the Microsoft Azure Cloud as a WebApp.

You may have seen that there are a ton of newly created Instagram accounts that have got significantly popular even though the account does not contain sufficient posts or content. This is because Instagram is very sensitive towards monitoring new accounts and keeps a record of each and every little activity did by the user and using those insights, Instagram suggests such accounts to other users through suggestions. However, once you start acting like a normal user which includes following and unfollowing people randomly or the folks you know, liking and commenting on the posts, sharing content, and direct messaging, Instagram now understands that the account is a regular account and may not contain any strong content, that can be flagged as trending, thus such accounts are now less likely to get instant traffic and popularity. 

I have not burned my mouth on a cup of 7-Eleven coffee since March 2020, and I am very proud of myself.

An intermediary unit, typically known as an IoT gateway, is required to allow interaction between devices that rely on different communication technology or devices that use different application protocols. A number of standards have been developed that specify the deployment of IoT gateways to support M2M / IoT services. One of the most relevant ones is the OneM2M that provides a horizontal platform and supports secure, reliable and efficient operations of multiple IoT/M2M services, particularly those dependent on REST APIs. It also supports multiple existing application protocols like HTTP, CoAP and MQTT and communication technologies such as ZigBee, Bluetooth, WiFi and Cellular networks as well as the IMA-DM and BBF TR-069 protocols. There are other turnkey solutions differentiated by the application protocols that they support like the INTEL and the SmartM2M.