DJI's latest drone can't fly... but is built like a tank!

Meet the DJI RoboMaster S1 - which has now available in Europe.



Best known for its camera drones, DJi is continuing to branch out into new product areas. It now already dominates the gimbal stablizer market, and is making a name for itself in the action camera market... and now it is making programmable robots.

The RoboMaster S1 has been on sale in North America for a little whitle, but now this strange device that looks like a bomb disposal unit will be available in Europe. It features lots of the same features as its best-selling drones - in that it allows remote-controlled movement, it can take pictures and video, and has a built-in gimbal. But it can't fly.

The RoboMaster S1 is primarily designed to give new users an easy introduction to AI, engineering, and robotics. The S1 is short for Step One... and it is exactly the sort of toy that we'd love to see in every child's classroom.



Building the RoboMaster and customizing it is part of the educational journey.

Bitcoin Is Poised For Sudden, Major Move

Bitcoin has been trading sideways for almost a month now, with the bitcoin price dropping sharply at the end of September from its previous plateau of around $10,000 per bitcoin.

The bitcoin price has been hovering around $8,000 since the hotly-anticipated Bakkt bitcoin trading platform went live with underwhelming volumes.



Now, it seems the bitcoin price, which has dropped by almost 50% from its year-to-date high of $14,000 per bitcoin, might be about to make a major move.


Earlier this week, a closely-watched bitcoin technical indicator showed the bitcoin and cryptocurrency market could be poised for a sudden price swing, though it’s not clear which way it will go.

The difference between bitcoin’s upper and lower band in the so-called Trading Envelope indicator is at its narrowest since mid-September, it was first reported by Bloomberg, a financial newswire.

A similar narrowing of bitcoin’s Trading Envelope last month preceded the late-September plummet, while in June the band narrowed before bitcoin leaped to its year-to-date highs.

Bitcoin’s recovery this year from its heavy sell-off in 2018 is thought to have been driven by Facebook’s plans for a bitcoin rival, dubbed libra.

Facebook’s cryptocurrency project has run into more regulatory scrutiny than the social media giant expected, however, with some of founding members of the Libra Association, meant to indepently government the digital token, suddenly pulling out.

“As it becomes more and more obvious that the libra thing is not going to take off–it’s going to be a long time before it becomes an important part of anything Facebook’s doing–as that becomes more obvious, the volatility will pick up again,” Miller Tabak + Co equity strategist Matt Maley told Bloomberg.

“This issue with what’s going on with libra and Facebook is a definite headwind and it’s not going to go away.”

Meanwhile, institutional investors are increasing their bets the bitcoin price is going to move higher soon, with financial institutions more than doubling the value of the long positions it holds in bitcoin futures contracts this month.

The value of institutional investors’ long positions went from below 500 bitcoin, worth around $4 million, at the beginning of October, to over 1,000 bitcoin by October 16, according to data from bitcoin and crypto analyst Skew Markets this week.

নাসার বিজ্ঞানীদের দাবি: ৪০ বছর পূর্বেই মঙ্গলে মিলেছিল প্রাণের প্রমাণ it

দি ঢাকা টাইমস্ ডেস্ক ॥ মঙ্গল গ্রহ নিয়ে আবার নতুন এক তথ্য উঠে এসেছে। নাসার বিজ্ঞানীদের দাবি করেছেন যে, ৪০ বছর পূর্বেই মঙ্গলে মিলেছিল প্রাণের প্রমাণ।
১৯৭৬ সালে মঙ্গলে একটি বাইকিং ল্যান্ডার পাঠিয়েছিল নাসা। সেইসময় প্রিন্সিপ্যাল ইনভেস্টিগেটর ছিলেন গিলবার্ট ভি লেভিন নামে জনৈক বিজ্ঞানী। তিনিই সম্প্রতি একটি মার্কিন জার্নালে ওই অভিযান সম্পর্কে একটি আর্টিকল লেখেন। সেখানে তিনি লিখেছেন যে, লাল গ্রহে প্রাণের প্রমাণ পাওয়া গিয়েছিল সেই সময়ই। ভারতীয় সংবাদমাধ্যমের প্রতিবেদনে বলা হয়, ওই পরীক্ষাটির নাম ছিল ‘লেবেলড রিলিজ।’ মূল মঙ্গলের মাটি পরীক্ষা করার জন্যই পাঠানো হয় ওই ল্যান্ডার। তখনই নাকি সব প্রশ্নের উত্তর মোটামুটিভাবে পাওয়া গিয়েছিল বলে দাবি করেছেন নাসার এই সাবেক বিজ্ঞানী।

Hãsîbùl Islam's Blõg: REVISITING THE BLACKHAT HACK: HOW A SECURITY CONFE...

Hãsîbùl Islam's Blõg: REVISITING THE BLACKHAT HACK: HOW A SECURITY CONFE...: Does anyone remember the Black Hat BCard hack in 2018? This hack has been documented extensively, most notoriously by [NinjaStyle] in hi...

REVISITING THE BLACKHAT HACK: HOW A SECURITY CONFERENCE WAS PWNED

Does anyone remember the Black Hat BCard hack in 2018? This hack has been documented extensively, most notoriously by [NinjaStyle] in his original blog post revealing the circumstances around discovering the vulnerability. The breach ended up revealing the names, email addresses, phone numbers, and personal details of every single conference attendee – an embarrassing leak from one of the world’s largest cybersecurity conferences. The Black Hat conference badges included an embedded NFC tag storing the participant’s contact details presumably for vendors to scan for marketing purposes. After scanning the tag, [NinjaStyle] realized that his name was readily available, but not his email address and other information. Instead, the NFC reader pointed to the BCard app – an application created for reading business cards. [NinjaStyle] decompiled the APK for the app to search for API endpoints and found that the participants each had a custom URL made using event identification values. After finding data that appeared to correspond to an eventID and badgeID, he sent a request over a web browser and found that his attendee data was returned completely unauthenticated. With this knowledge, it was possible to brute-force the contact details for every Black Hat attendee (the range of valid IDs was between 100000-999999, and there were about 18,000 attendees). Using Burp Suite, the task would take about six hours. He was able to get ahold of BCard to reveal the vulnerability, which was fixed in less than a day by disabling the leaky API from their legacy system. Even so, legacy APIs in conference apps aren’t an uncommon occurrence – the 2018 RSA Conference (another cybersecurity conference) also suffered from an unprotected app that allowed 114 attendee records to be accessed without permission. With the widespread publicity of leaked attendee data, event organizers are hopefully getting smarter about the apps that they use, especially if they come from a third-party vendor. [Yashvier Kosaraju] gave a talk at TROOPERS19 about pen testing several large vendors and discovering that Kitapps (Attendify) and Eventmobi both built apps with unauthenticated access to attendee data. It’s hard to say how many apps from previous years are still around, or whether or not the next event app you use will come with authentication – just remember to stay vigilant and to not give too much of your personal data away.

রাজশাহী-ঢাকা রুটে বিমানের ফ্লাইট বৃদ্ধির নির্দেশ

রাজশাহী সিটি কর্পোরেশনের মেয়র এ.এইচ.এম খায়রুজ্জামান লিটনের ডিও প্রদানের পরিপ্রেক্ষিতে রাজশাহী-ঢাকা রুটে বাংলাদেশ বিমান এয়ারলাইন্সের ফ্লাইট বৃদ্ধির নির্দেশ প্রদান করা হয়েছে। বৃহস্পতিবার (১৭ অক্টোবর) বেসামরিক বিমান ও পর্যটন মন্ত্রণালয়ের (বিমান অধিশাখা) উপ-সচিব সাবেরা আক্তার স্বাক্ষরিত এ সংক্রান্ত চিঠি বাংলাদেশ বিমান এয়ারলাইন্সের ব্যবস্থাপনা পরিচালক ও সিইওকে প্রেরণ করা হয়েছে। চিঠিতে রাসিক মেয়রের ডিও সংযুক্ত করে বলা হয়, 'ঢাকা-রাজশাহী রুটে বাংলাদেশ বিমান এয়ারলাইন্স লিমিটেডের ফ্লাইট সংক্রান্ত পত্রটির বিষয়ে প্রয়োজনীয় ব্যবস্থা গ্রহণের জন্য নির্দেশক্রমে এতদ্বসংগে প্রেরণ করা হলো।' এ ব্যাপারে রাসিক মেয়র খায়রুজ্জামান লিটন বলেন, নগরবাসীর যাতায়াতের সুবিধার কথা বিবেচনায় রাজশাহী-ঢাকা রুটে সকাল-বিকেল ফ্লাইট চালু করতে বিমান প্রতিমন্ত্রীকে অনুরোধ জানিয়েছিলাম। এরই পরিপ্রেক্ষিতে বাংলাদেশ বিমানের ফ্লাইট বৃদ্ধির নির্দেশ প্রদান করা হয়েছে। এছাড়া আগামী ২৭ অক্টোবর থেকে ইউএস বাংলা কর্তৃপক্ষ সকালে একটি ফ্লাইট চালু করার সিদ্ধান্ত নিয়েছে। এজন্য বেসামরিক বিমান পরিবহন ও পর্যটন মন্ত্রণালয়ের প্রতিমন্ত্রীসহ সংশ্লিষ্টদের ধন্যবাদ জানাচ্ছি। উল্লেখ্য, গত ২৬ সেপ্টেম্বর ঢাকায় বেসামরিক বিমান পরিবহন ও পর্যটন মন্ত্রণালয়ের প্রতিমন্ত্রী মো. মাহবুব আলীর সাথে সক্ষাৎকালে মেয়র খায়রুজ্জামান লিটন সকাল ও বিকেলে ফ্লাইট চালু করতে প্রতিমন্ত্রীকে ডিও প্রদান করেন।

US wants 2 defence deals with Bangladesh

The forerunner of the present-day Bangladesh Army is the Bangladesh Forces of 1971. Photo: Wikimedia Commons Diplomatic Correspondent The US wants to sign two defence agreements with Bangladesh as the latter is seeking to buy advanced equipment from the US as part of its goal to modernise the military by 2030. The agreements are General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) and the Acquisition Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA). US officials termed them “foundational agreements” meant to strengthen defence relationship between two countries. The move comes as Bangladesh last year sought to buy advanced military equipment, said US officials during a media briefing in the city yesterday. “We are currently working with the government of Bangladesh to conclude certain foundational defence agreements … these are essential to enabling a close relationship, expanding opportunities for defence trade, information sharing, and military-to-military cooperation between our two countries,” said a US official wishing not to be named. According to the official, GSOMIA is a foundational government-to-government agreement that permits greater collaboration. “It’s a reciprocal legally-binding agreement that ensures governments understand and commit to protecting classified military information,” said an official. The GSOMIA does not obligate governments to share classified information or material. It ensures protection of the information shared by partner governments, the official said. The US has GSOMIA agreements with 76 countries, including some countries in South Asia. “As our relationship continues to grow with Bangladesh, GSOMIA is essential to enabling the cooperation we both seek,” the official added. For foreign military sales or GSOMIA, US security authorities will work closely with Bangladesh’s security authorities to develop a plan and standard operating procedure to implement required measures for making sure classified information will be protected in Bangladesh. “It’s two way. We also commit the same kind of protection of Bangladesh’s military information.” Explaining the ACSA agreement, a US official said its purpose was to allow US and partner nations’ forces procure and pay for common types of supplies and services. It could cover everything from food, water, clothing, transportation, training, petroleum, ammunition, maintenance to medical services. For example, the US official said, if a US ship arrived at Chattogram and needed fuel, it could buy it from Bangladesh government and pay in cash. The US ship could also pay through similar amount in fuel to a Bangladeshi ship in other parts of the world. “Its purpose is to make it easy for our militaries to have better cooperation. ... It’s to make things easy,” the official said. It could facilitate transfer of fuel from Bangladesh military to visiting US ship participating in annual exercise. It could also improve US’s ability to respond to any potential humanitarian or natural disaster and facilitate the transfer of fuel from US military to Bangladeshi naval ships outside normal geographical area, an official added. “The agreement does not in anyway commit a partner nation to military action nor does it authorise stationing of ships, aircraft or military personnel in foreign countries. It only serves to simplify procurement agreement, logistic support, supplies, and services between partner forces,” the official added. For practical purposes, the US has ACSA agreement with over a hundred countries throughout the globe, including India and Sri Lanka. Asked if the defence agreements were meant to promote Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) or counter China, the US official said it was not about IPS or countering China and that they were trying to respond to the requests from Bangladesh. US and Bangladesh have military cooperation, including that for training of Bangladeshi peacekeepers, counter-terrorism exercises, disaster response, and exchange of trainings. Last year, the US provided $5.3 million to cover the total cost of procurement and delivery of five Metal Shark boats to support the maritime security objectives of Bangladesh Navy. The US also provided $3.3 million last year to send 233 members of the Bangladesh military to attend various military professionalisation courses within the US and the wider Indo-Pacific region, another US official said. “We desire to support the Bangladesh Military Forces Goal 2030, as Bangladesh seeks to modernise its military equipment.”

Peas, Quinoa And 7 Other Crops Grown Successfully in Soil Equivalent to Moon And Mars

If we're going to support ourselves on off-world bases then we're going to need to find a way to grow our own food, and now we've got more than a Matt Damon film to suggest it's possible – experiments run using lookalikes of Moon and Mars soil have successfully produced crops. Interestingly, the Mars-equivalent soil was better than the Moon soil simulant when it came to growing the plants - providing hope for future agriculture on the Red Planet. Although fans of spinach may miss out. Researchers used a NASA-developed reproduction of regolith, the loose mix of dirt, dust and other debris found on top of the hard surface of Mars and the Moon. This regolith simulant was mixed with organic material that astronauts would need to bring to an off-world base from Earth, or could be leftover compost from earlier harvests. In tests on 10 different crops – garden cress, rocket, tomato, radish, rye, quinoa, spinach, chives, pea and leek – the crops all grew well and produced edible parts, with the exception of the spinach. The crops did better in the Martian regolith than the Moon regolith, the researchers report – the Martian mix is based on observations taken from the Viking landers and the Pathfinder rover, and largely uses material from a volcanic area of Hawaii. As for Moon regolith, we actually have samples of it – just not enough to grow crops in. The NASA-approved simulant is based on material collected from the deserts around Flagstaff, Arizona, in the US. On top of the successful growing of nine of the crop species, the scientists were able to harvest enough seeds from the radish, garden cress, and rye plants to start a second crop. There's still plenty of work to do before we can open our farms on Mars and the Moon – this study only looked at the type of soil available on the Moon and on Mars, without taking into consideration the other harsh factors plants would be up against, such as solar radiation and extreme heat and cold (it's likely that we'd have to grow our crops indoors). Nevertheless, this is a positive step forward. Progress is always going to be slow when it comes to growing plants on other planets, but there are positive signs we are getting there. This latest paper follows previous research where 14 different plant species were grown in soil simulant. In that case, too, the Mars simulant proved more conducive to growth than the Moon simulant. Other possibilities for growing food away from Earth include hydroponics - where only water is needed for cultivation - and aeroponics, growing crops literally in mid-air, and spraying them with nutrients. Both present challenges of their own, so it's important to keep our options open. The researchers describe their work as "a small step towards the final goal, a sustainable agricultural ecosystem for a Moon and Mars colony". "More research is necessary to find the optimal organic matter content of the simulant regoliths and the water use efficiency," they conclude in their published paper. The research has been published in Open Agriculture.

Bangladesh Announce Squad For Three-Match T20I Series Against India

Bangladesh have gone with experience and recalled left-arm spinner Arafat Sunny and pace bowler Al-Amin Hossain in their 15-men squad for India tour. Bangladesh on Thursday recalled left-arm spinner Arafat Sunny and pace bowler Al-Amin Hossain to their 15-men squad for next month's three-match Twenty20 International (T20I) series against India. Sunny, 33, has not played for Bangladesh after he was suspended during the 2016 ICC World Twenty20 for an illegal bowling action. He was also arrested in January 2017 and spent two months in jail after posting intimate photos of his girlfriend on social media. Hossain, 29, last played for Bangladesh in India during the 2016 ICC World Twenty20. "We have recalled Sunny because we need someone experienced for India, which is a tough country," said chief selector Minhajul Abedin. "Al-Amin comes into the squad as some of our other fast bowlers are injured." Opening batsman Tamim Iqbal also returned to the team after he took a break during the recent tri-series at home involving Afghanistan and Zimbabwe. Batsmen Sabbir Rahman and Najmul Hossain, left-arm spinner Taijul Islam and pacer Rubel Hossain, who were in the tri-series team, have been axed. The series against India will start on November 3 with the first match at Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi. Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Rajkot and Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Nagpur will host the other two matches on November 7 and 10 respectively. Squad: Shakib Al Hasan (capt), Tamim Iqbal, Liton Das, Soumya Sarkar, Naim Sheikh, Mushfiqur Rahhim (wk), Mahmudullah Riyad, Afif Hossain, Musaddek Hossain, Aminul Islam Biplob, Arafat Sunny, Mohammad Saifuddin, Al-Amin Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman, Shafiul Islam.