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SpaceX’s Crew Dragon launch test.

SpaceX successfully completes its key test of its human spacecraft Crew Dragon.

SpaceX has completed a key test of its new project, Crew Dragon which is a human spacecraft, today. The test was completed using the Falcon 9 rocket without any actual crew on board. The launch was delayed by around 2.5 hours. The Crew Dragon was attached to the Falcon 9.

Here’s how it looked:

The Crew Dragon freed itself from the Falcon 9 rocket after about 1 minute 30 seconds post the launch. The Falcon 9 immideatly exploded after the In-Flight Abort (IAF). As intended the Dragon quickly fired up its 8 Super Draco engines to move away from the Falcon 9 explosion, which in an actual scenario would ensure the saftey of the astronauts inside the shuttle. The Crew Dragons’s powerful engines can propel it half a mile in just 7.5 seconds exerting upto 4Gs i.e 4 times earth’s gravity, on the astronauts.

Post the movement away from the Falcon 9, the Crew Dragon sucessfully deployed its parachutes for a safe landing and decended on the Atlatic Ocean. The crew then recovered the capsuel for further examination post landing. In a real scenario, an elite airforce resuce team would be on stand-by and would quickly proceed to resuce once the actual shuttle with the astronauts, lands. The recovery took around an hour or so to retrive the shuttle.

The Falcon 9 used for this test had already done 3 previous missions and was the first booster produced as a part of SpaceX’s run of human-rated variants of the Falcon 9 design. All went to plan as the Falcon 9 broke away once the Crew Dragon ejected, with no onboard fuel generation which is quite impressive.

So, this would be the first time Space X has demonstrated that its Crew Dragon system is almost ready for human flight. It did perform a sucessful pad abort back in 2015, which show that it could cancel the launch before the actual liftoff, in a safe way. The Super Dracos have also impressed just like last year November when they were tested. That test saw Crew Dragon launch atop a Falcon 9, deploy to orbit, rendez-vous and dock with the International Space Station(ISS) all on its own and then return to earth, a major fete in itself. This means the Crew Dragon has sucessfully proved that it can take with it, humans into space and sucessfully return back, a means for commerical use. Manned missions should take place later on in this year. We are eagerly waiting!

The successful launch test of the Crew Dragon is a big milestone for SpaceX as now, they are closer to achieving their aim of commercially viable spacecrafts.

How will commercial spacecrafts change our lives? What do you reckon? Leave a reply!

CHANGE – The only constant.

How important is change in the Information Technology space?

Change is a word which all of us here from time to time; when it comes to our careers, technology and many other things. Most of us would have come across the phrase ‘The only thing in this world that is constant is change’. So why has change become such an integral part of our life? Can we live without changing ourselves? Is it possible?

Well, if you look at our history from the times of evolution to the dark-age to the digital age, we as humans have constantly evolved into a more efficient, intelligent and wise species. We have invented, discovered so many things that make our lives so much simple and efficient. One of the biggest examples being the computer in the modern times which has made us so advanced and has made our lives so much easier by solving so many problems. The list of such inventions is long and we can go on and on about them, be it the internet, telephones then mobile phones, smart phones etc.

The human mind is so adept to change that it has made us, in a way wanting for more and wanting to be and do better than what we have already accomplished. For instance, the first handheld mobile phone ever made(by Martin Cooper and John F. Mitchell of Motorola) weighed a staggering 2kgs/ 4.4 lbs. Nowadays, phones weigh just a fraction of that and can do so much apart from just calling. So if you see, we have come a long way in a very short period of time all thanks to the constant change in Technology.

First Cell Phone ever invented by Motorola.

Coming to a more dreadful topic for the people working in the IT sector all across the world– Lay Offs in large numbers by the IT Companies all around the world.

You must have come across a lot of news about a big number of IT majors as well as mid-size companies and startups laying off people in substantial numbers especially at Mid and Senior Levels, ever wondered why is that happening?

Many of you reading this may already be a part of an IT company or must have heard or seen people being told to leave the company. It would be quite a depressing moment for anyone if one fine day they are told that they are no longer needed. Now you may wonder what does this have to do with change.

Well, it has everything to do with change. As you read this, there are companies who are constantly trying to improve their efficiency in order to grow their business. They are becoming leaner so that things can get done faster, adopting new technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, DevOps etc. to reduce their cost and dependency on their workforce. So when companies are looking out to cut costs and maximized returns, they have to take steps which affects their employees, they have to let go of people who become redundant to change or who are just unable to cope with the velocity at which the companies are changing.

Also, if you notice, most of the people who get laid off are the mid to senior level employees as in some cases they become redundant to change or companies simply want to hire more entry level people who can learn new technologies faster and do not have to be paid as much. In some cases the companies want to off load employees so as to increase their revenue and reducing their expenses due to cut-throat competition. You also must have read about Chatbots, a piece of software that can have a human-like conversation, which companies are adopting in order to reduce their dependency on humans as humans ask for a raise, fall-sick, take leaves etc which for any company is expense. Machines do not fall sick or ask for a raise or go on leaves, they work 24/7 for you. So this has led to so many people from various industries left jobless.

It has become very important for any person in today’s world to constantly upgrade themselves or be left behind, to keep up with change. The world is constantly evolving and we get to see so many new advancements which is driven by technology, be it communication, travelling, finance. The possibilities have increased so much that we cannot even fathom how 20 or 30 years from now would look like. We may see commercial space traveling becoming a reality with Elon Musk’s SpaceX fully dedicated to it, we may have hovercraft or cars flying like Star Wars. The possibilities are just endless.

So let’s embrace change and make the best of it!

At last, ending this article with a Star Wars Meme 🙂

PubG Mobile vs Call of Duty Mobile

Has PubG FINALLY met its match?

This is one of the hottest debates doing the rounds right now. Has PubG finally met its match in Call of Duty Mobile?

Before we find that out, let’s have a quick look at both the games:

PlayerUnknown’s Battleground better known as PubG is an open world FPS game where a player lands on a map along with 99 other players, a Battle Royale. The main objective of the game is survival, player who survives till the end is the winner, quite simple. The players have to do this by killing the other players with weapons which can be found scattered throughout the map.

This game was released on mobile in the year 2017. Post release, the game quickly grew in popularity and became one of the most downloaded and played FPS games of that year and has been winning a lot of awards ever since. The game has a whopping 100 Million+ downloads on the Android Play Store. You must have also seen a lot of tournaments conducted with thousands of dollars been given as prize money. PubG is becoming the next big thing in e-sports.

Review aggregator Metacritic has rated PubG Mobile – 82%

Call of Duty is an iconic game which was released way back in 2003 on PC and then later on PlayStation and Xbox. When released in 2003 it was based on World War II, but over time the game adopted a more modern and futuristic warfare gameplay. Coming to the mobile version, CoD Mobile was launched in 2019 and has surpassed 50 million downloads, since. It also won the best mobile game of the year 2019 award.

The CoD mobile has a Battle Royale mode just like PubG but it also has a few other gaming modes like the multiplayer mode, warfare mode, the classic mode and Zombie mode.

Review aggregator Metacritic has rated CoD Mobile – 85%

Has PubG finally met its match? Um, lets see:

Graphics – Call of Duty outdoes PubG in the graphics department with much cleaner and crisper detail, smoothness and color. PubG looks a little dull when compared to CoD. The graphics in CoD are much livelier.

Gameplay – The gameplay in PubG is very good but is slow. Call of Duty’s gameplay is fast and very exciting; it just makes you want to play more. The gun recoil, shooting, driving and the other aspects are a little more realistic when compared to PubG.

Weaponry – There are some iconic weapons in PubG like the AK-47, AWM, Kar 98 Rifle and M4 and more. The weapons in CoD are more modern versions like DL Q33, PDW-57, S36, HS2126 and more, while retaining some of the cult weapons in AK-47, M4 and a few more. The range of weaponry in CoD is much more than PubG and the skins in CoD are better. CoD edges PubG in the weapons department.

Final Verdict – It is a tough decision to make when we talk about the popularity of these two games as PubG has become a cult in itself over the last few years since its launch. On the other hand CoD is already an iconic game on other platforms and aiming to make a mark in the mobile platform.

For me, CoD tops this contest as the gameplay is simply better with a better engine, crisper and detailed graphics, fast and immersive gameplay. CoD is just more fun to play! The gun skins are better in CoD but the character skins are better in PubG. But we will have to wait and see how the promoters of CoD take the game forward and howl they approach the eSports scene as PubG is already quite big.

About Me

Hello! Welcome to my blog- The Orange Bulb. I am Prasanna Arun and I live in Bangalore, India. I am passionate about technology, gadgets, gaming. I have been into computers and gaming from a very young age and like to spend my free time gaming, reading about what’s new in the Tech space and what are the cool and upcoming gadgets.

As we know the Tech Industry is one of the fastest-growing industries out there with innovations and inventions happening almost every day. It becomes really hard for one to keep up with this. So I thought of starting this blog to keep you up to date with the latest and the coolest technologies out there.

Here I will be writing about the latest in the tech world and about all the new and upcoming gadgets like mobile phones, PCs, Laptops, Gaming Consoles, etc. and I will also write about start-ups who are disrupting industries and are bringing path-breaking innovation and ideas.

I really hope you enjoy my blog and get great value out of it. My main purpose for starting this blog is to keep my readers updated with the latest tech and at the same time sharing whatever knowledge I have, with you.