Hasta La Gadget!

Apple uses a lot of aluminum in their products, such as the iPhone, iPad, Mac computers, Apple Watch, and so on. Unfortunately conventional methods of producing aluminum results in the emission of greenhouse gases. However it seems that Apple might have found a greener way to go about it where the end result releases oxygen versus greenhouse gases.

According to Apple’s press release, several years ago Apple engineers Brian Lynch, Jim Yurko and Katie Sassaman set out to find a greener way to produce aluminum and found that Alcoa Corporation had the means to do so. However while the company might have discovered a greener way, they needed a partner to make it commercially viable, which is where Apple’s business development team David Tom, Maziar Brumand and Sean Camacho brought Rio Tinto to the table.

Now all three companies are expected to work together to help develop the technology to the point where it is possible to mass produce aluminum in a greener fashion. Unfortunately progress does take time and Apple only expects a full-scale commercial operation to begin in 2024.

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook said, “Apple is committed to advancing technologies that are good for the planet and help protect it for generations to come. We are proud to be part of this ambitious new project, and look forward to one day being able to use aluminum produced without direct greenhouse gas emissions in the manufacturing of our products.”

Apple Might Have Found A Greener Way To Produce Aluminum , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Image credit – US Army

There are animals out there who can regenerate certain body parts, and to a certain extent humans also have regenerative features, but not to the extent of regenerating missing limbs. However it seems that doctors have come up with a different approach, which is to try and regrow a missing appendage by transplanting it onto a different part of our body.

Such is the case with Private Shamika Burrage who lost her ear in a 2016 car accident, and where she opted to regrow her ear instead of using a prosthetic. According to Burrage, “I didn’t feel comfortable with the way I looked so the provider referred me to plastic surgery. I didn’t want to do [the reconstruction] but gave it some thought and came to the conclusion that it could be a good thing. I was going to go with the prosthetic, to avoid more scarring but I wanted a real ear.”

What the surgeons did was they first removed cartilage from her rib to carve a new ear. They then transplanted the ear onto her forearm so that it would grow new blood vessels so that it would have feeling. This is actually not the first time that such surgery has been conducted, but it seems that it is the first of its kind in the US Army.

According to Lt. Col. Owen Johnson III, chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery, “The whole goal is by the time she’s done with all this, it looks good, it’s sensate, and in five years if somebody doesn’t know her they won’t notice.”

Doctors Grow Ear In Arm For Reconstructive Surgery , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

People weren’t smiling over this ad.

A while back Instagram introduced the ability for users to take polls via its Stories feature, where users could ask their followers/viewers a question followed by two options. This method of polling is rather binary as there are only two options available to users, but Instagram has since introduced a new feature called Emoji Sliders.

As you can see in the screenshots above, the emoji sliders are a new way of polling your followers. Basically instead of users having to choose between two options, they can then slide the emoji from left to right to indicate their interest. For example the screenshot polls users on their love for pizza, so instead of users choosing either between possible answers such as “a lot!” or “not so much”, the slider will let them choose something that might be more in between or possibly more accurate.

According to Instagram, “The emoji slider lets you ask more nuanced questions when you want to find out how your friends feel about something — like how 🔥 an artist’s new single is or how 🌶 they like their food. By choosing an emoji for your question, you also add a layer of emotional context that helps those answering understand your tone and answer accordingly.”

Users will be able to choose from a variety of emojis, such as Instagram suggestions of the most popular emojis, or from your library if you’re after something different.

Instagram’s Emoji Slider Is A New Way Of Taking Polls , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

The health industry is worth billions of dollars, if not more, which is why it is understandable that there are many tech companies out there who are starting to expand into creating health products, such as Apple, Google, and so on. Unsurprisingly Amazon is also interest, as we have heard in the past, but now it looks like they’re planning on leveraging Alexa as well.

In a report from CNBC, they have obtained a document which seems to suggest that Amazon is building a “health and wellness” team within their Alexa division. This seems to hint that Amazon could be interested in somehow leveraging Alexa for health features and functionality. It is unclear what specifically we might be talking about, but it seems that the team’s main job is to make Alexa more useful in the healthcare industry.

However we might have gotten a glimpse to Amazon’s plans because just in 2017, Amazon worked with Merck on developing Alexa skills to help people manage their diabetes. They even held a competition for developers to create appropriate skills, so it is pretty obvious that Amazon does seem potential for Alexa in the healthcare industry.

Maybe it could be that Alexa could be used to remind users to take their medications, or tie it in with health devices so that it can alert them to changes in their health, schedule doctor appointments, and so on. In any case Amazon isn’t commenting on their plans for now, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

Amazon Reportedly Planning To Use Alexa For ‘Health & Wellness’ , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.