How coronavirus made 2020 the year of the electric bike

Walking and cycling gained a higher profile than ever in 2020 as a result of the pandemic. Governments around the world encouraged individuals to go on foot or take their bikes where possible instead of using crowded public transport, and invested in widescale cycling infrastructure to help them do so.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-coronavirus-year-electric-bike.html

Japanese pairing looking into using wood to build satellites

Japanese company Sumitomo Forestry has announced a joint development project with Kyoto University to test the idea of using wood as a component in satellite construction. As part of the announcement, officials with Sumitomo Forestry told reporters that work on the project will begin with experiments designed to test different types of wood in extreme environments.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-japanese-pairing-wood-satellites.html

New AI tool can predict in seconds what a movie will be rated

Movie ratings can determine a movie's appeal to consumers and the size of its potential audience. Thus, they have an impact on a film's bottom line. Typically, humans do the tedious task of manually rating a movie based on viewing the movie and making decisions on the presence of violence, drug abuse and sexual content.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-ai-tool-seconds-movie.html

Football: 'The wall' can make it harder to save free kicks – new research

In football, free kicks occur when the referee believes a rule has been broken. If central enough and within 30 metres from the goal, the attacking team typically attempts a direct shot on goal. However, the goalkeeper routinely places a "wall" of defensive players in between the ball and the goal to complicate the kicker's task of shooting on target.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-football-wall-harder-free.html

What's the best way to boost the economy? Invest in high-voltage transmission lines

When, in the midst of the pandemic, the Economic Society of Australia invited 150 of Australia's keenest young thinkers to come up with "brief, specific and actionable" proposals to improve the economy, amid scores of ideas about improving job matching, changing the tax system, providing non-repayable loans to businesses and accelerating telehealth, two proposals stood out.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-boost-economy-invest-high-voltage-transmission.html

Extremely energy efficient microprocessor developed using superconductors

Researchers from Yokohama National University in Japan have developed a prototype microprocessor using superconductor devices that are about 80 times more energy efficient than the state-of-the-art semiconductor devices found in the microprocessors of today's high-performance computing systems.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-extremely-energy-efficient-microprocessor-superconductors.html

iPhone again best tech seller of the year, thanks to work-from-home trend

Once again, the best-selling tech product of 2020 was Apple's iPhone—topping the phone's sales in 2019—despite being a pandemic year when so many people were thrown out of work and money was harder to come by.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-iphone-tech-seller-year-work-from-home.html

Hedge fund Alden offers to buy Tribune, valuing it at $521M

Hedge fund Alden, Tribune's largest shareholder, has offered to buy the rest of the newspaper publisher at a price that values it at $520.6 million.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-01-hedge-fund-alden-tribune-valuing.html

Microsoft says hackers viewed source code, didn't change it

Microsoft hackers tied to a massive intrusion of dozens of U.S. government agencies and private companies sneaked further into its systems than previously thought, although the intrusion doesn't appear to have caused any additional harm.

source https://techxplore.com/news/2021-01-microsoft-hackers-viewed-source-code.html