Our world never stands still, constantly evolving. New discoveries happen every time. One of the modern developments is cryptocurrencies. Nothing like this has never happened before in the history of human existence. The most popular cryptocurrency is Bitcoin. We would like to dwell on this topic in more detail, because it deserves special attention.

Now cryptocurrencies are quite a profitable investment. Many people are trying to make money on it. If you are interested, you can buy bitcoin with cash on a special exchange. Using this service, you get a guarantee of complete safety. In addition, here is the most profitable rate. So, everyone can make a profitable operation.

You can fill out a form to buy cryptocurrency right on the website. It will take you very few clicks. Despite the fact that cryptocurrencies are quite firmly in our lives, we are beginning to think about them more often, many people still do not fully understand what it is.

In more simple words, cryptocurrency is a digital currency, which has no material form. Its main difference from all other currencies is that absolutely no one can control it. All changes take place under the guidance of the algorithm, which was originally laid by the developers, it is impossible to change it.

It may seem to some that only a select few people can create their own currency. However, in fact, absolutely everyone can create his own cryptocurrency. Of course, this is one of the ways of making an income. Of course, many people, when they reach a certain level of wealth, find it necessary to make investments. Then the question arises as to what kind of investments they should make.

At the moment, cryptocurrencies have risen to the same level as world currencies, gold and real estate. However, many people still believe that investing in cryptocurrency is dangerous, unprofitable and generally stupid. In order to dispel this myth, you need to familiarize yourself with the benefits of investing in cryptocurrency. Then you will be able to draw certain conclusions for yourself.

Benefits of investing in cryptocurrencies:

– Decentralization. Cryptocurrencies are not controlled by any major company or government of any country. They are handled by independent developers.

– Cheap transfers around the world. In fiat assets, the amount of the fee is determined by the distance to which the transfer is made. The duration of the transfer is different for each company. In some it can take several days, and some organizations can do it in an hour.

– Uninterrupted operation of the network. Of course, there are occasional attacks, but they are not particularly devastating. It makes no sense for miners to destroy their source of income. The maximum that can expect is small failures.

– Deflationary nature. Cryptocurrencies are not subject to inflation.Even if demand for them increases, the price will rise. This is a major advantage of cryptocurrency against the dollar and other currencies.

– An easy way to invest. No special licenses or special knowledge is required to start investing and earning from it.

– Protective Asset. When there is an economic crisis in the world or in a particular country, cryptocurrencies are especially popular because people lose confidence in conventional currencies. They try to find an alternative.

Nowadays, cryptocurrencies can bring decent money. However, it is extremely important to study this field seriously. Then it will be possible to get a positive result for yourself.

Screen time is the feature we needed well before 2018. Unfortunately, Apple didn’t release it until then.

Since we have screen time now, let’s see exactly how to use it and get the most benefits it has to offer.

What Is Screen Time?

Screen time is an Apple product feature in settings. Each week, you receive an update on your daily average screen time. In your settings, you can see a chart that shows which days you spent the most time using your screen.

It even breaks down which apps you’re using the most, breaking them down into categories such as social, entertainment, productivity and finance, creativity, shopping and food, information and reading, and others.

These categories help you see which apps you are using the most and how productive you are with your time spent on your phone.

If you are a parent, you can even use the resource for setting up screen time with your family to break down and control your kids’ screen time.

Screen time enables you to limit your or your family’s time spent on your phone in general or on certain apps. It can be easy to waste time away from scrolling. Screen time makes you more self-aware of your time on your phone.

You can set up a daily or customized schedule for when you want ‘screen time’ and ‘downtime’ turned on. Keep reading to find out how to use the screen time iPhone feature.

 

How to Use Screen Time

Go to settings or search on your iPhone ‘screen time.’ Once opened, you will get an overview of your current weekly screen time. Click ‘see all activity’ to get an in-depth overview of which apps you are using the most.

If you scroll down, it even tells you how many times you’ve picked up your phone and when the first pickup of the day was. This is great to track when you first use your phone after waking up.

If you want to limit your phone time and begin a morning routine without reaching for your phone first thing, using this resource comes in handy.

Downtime

The next feature is downtime. Downtime is great to use if you need to schedule in time where you aren’t on your phone, with the exception of important phone calls, for example.

Downtime works great for knowledge workers needing to get work done without the distraction of their phones by their side.

To use downtime, activate it and set your daily or customized schedule from when you want certain apps to be deactivated from your phone.

App Limits

App limits let you limit your amount of time on whatever apps you choose. If you spend too much time on Instagram, you can limit your daily time to twenty minutes.

You can search for the app you want or use the categories provided to limit social apps to a certain time, for example.

Communication Limits

Communication limits allow you to sort through who is allowed to call you when screen time is activated. You can choose all of your contacts, group calls, or everyone.

You can also customize allowed call lists for when downtime is enabled as well. This allows you to choose exactly which contacts you want to be able to reach you. Again, this is great to utilize when you are getting work done and only want emergency or certain work calls to come through during the allotted time.

Always Allowed

Always allowed are contacts and apps, which are always allowed during downtime. Specifying which apps and people you can use and communicate with during downtime will alleviate the pressure of downtime.

Sometimes, downtime can seem daunting. If we know we aren’t supposed to be on our phones, the desire to use our phones increases. Instead, with the always-allowed feature, our minds can be put to ease.

We can be assured that whoever needs to get ahold of us can, and vice versa. If there are work apps or other apps such as safari we need to use for various reasons during downtime, we have that freedom.

Screen time isn’t supposed to be a prison. Instead, it’s supposed to be a tool to use to be more productive, healthier, and well-rounded.

Using Screen Time for Kids

You can also limit your kids’ downtime, app limits, and privacy settings through family screen time.

Setting up a password makes it so that when your kids’ allotted screen time is up, they have to use a password to bypass it. Since you can choose which apps to set this up with, they can still use their phones for other purposes if they need or want to.

Tracking your children’s screen time is a great way to get them to spend their time creatively and productively.

What Happens If You Forget Your Password?

Forgetting an Apple I.D. password is the worst. If you forget your specific screen time passcode for whatever reason, don’t worry. Here is how to turn off screen time without password.

This is helpful for those forgetting their password because they never reach their screen time limit.

Take Advantage of Screen Time

Take advantage of screen time’s amazing features. It’s especially useful for monitoring your kids’ activity and keeping them from using their phones too much.

Take the initial time right now to set up all of your screen time’s features. This initial, small-time investment allows you to integrate more self-awareness into your daily phone use routine.

 

We all know solar energy has been around for a long time now. But in recent years, there has been an explosion of new technological advances in the solar industry, some of them completely new, some of them built over decades of advancements and figuring things out.

What this means is that right now we are on the cusp of changing how we collect, store, transmit, and use solar energy on a grand scale. While other forms of energy are also seeing growth, none of them are seeing quite the expansion that solar is, and with innovations all the time, there is no chance of that slowing down.

We’ll outline a few advancements that are noteworthy right now and how they are changing the renewable energy landscape.

Hetero-Junction Technology

What this is, is a technology that began being developed in the ’80s and has only just recently become a standout that is poised to replace the current solar energy collection method of choice. Hetero-Junction Technology is the combination of several membranes of solar energy-absorbing materials, in this case, various layers of silicon, that collect the solar energy, process it into electricity, and a final layer that improves efficiency by collecting leftover residual solar energy that can be used as well.

This is drastically improving the way that solar is being collected, the rate it is collected, and how much can be gained from each panel. This could make solar installations much more energy efficient.

Microinverters

With each product generation that passes, each new batch of microinverters is becoming more and more powerful and able to draw more and more electricity out of each solar panel.

Microinverters are tiny chips attached to each individual solar panel instead of one at the base of the array, that optimize the flow of energy from the solar panel. This means that even solar panels in cloudy or shaded areas can have optimized output. A microinverter is able to optimize the output of an individual panel without disturbing the output of the other panels in the same array. This is the opposite of old-style string inverters which attach to the base of the array and optimize the performance of the entire array based on the poorest performing panel. This method leads to diminishing returns.

Home Solar Systems

Homeowners are starting to take notice of the fact that home solar energy systems are starting to get a lot cheaper. Not only that, battery technology and conversion technology have advanced to the point where traditional homeowners can now offset large portions of their electric bills by installing a home solar system.

What’s particularly interesting is that highly efficient homes are actually able to generate enough power to cancel out their electric bill and return some energy to the power grid. Many folks are now simply waiting on power grid technology to catch up with the potential for solar.

We hope these innovations we’ve shown you have helped to change the way you think about solar and renewable energy as a whole.

A Wire is a cylindrical object with metallic properties and is flexible. Mechanical loads, electricity, and telecommunication signals are possible because of wires. A building wire is made by drawing the metal through a hole in draw plates. The wire is used as raw material by many industries such as wire netting industries and wire-cloth making industries.

Uses

Wires are used for many purposes and play a vital role in day-to-day lives. After building wire, it is used as a form of raw material by many industries.

● Wires like aluminum, steel, nickel, and copper are used for making telephonic and data cables.

● Wires are also used for fencing purposes.

● Suspension bridges and cages are also made by wires.

● Wires are also used in making critical industrial manufacturing components.

● Fishing rope and fishing nets are also made by wires.

● Musical instruments like guitar and violin also need wires as strings.

● Wires, which can be produced extremely thin, are used in making lightbulb and vacuum-tube filament.

Production

Building wire is manufactured by drawing the metal through a hole in draw plates. After a few numbers of passes, the wire is then annealed to go through more drawing processes or for finishing, jacketing, and insulating. Electrical wires are always covered with insulating materials such as plastic or polymers. Insulating and jacketing of wires are done through an extruder.

 

Forms of Wire

 

Solid Wire

Solid wire manufacturing is done with one-piece metal wire. It is used for breadboards and it is usually cheaper to manufacture solid wire. These are used where only a low amount of flexibility is required. Solid wires are generally more exposed to corrosion as their surface area is less.

 

Stranded Wire

Stranded wire manufacturing is a composition of small wires which are bundled together to form a conductor. The flexibility of stranded wire is much more than the flexibility of the solid wire. Stranded wires have high resistance and hence, they are used in circuit boards. Even the total surface area of a stranded wire is greater than the total surface area of a solid wire.

 

Number of Strands

The more individual wire strands in the bundle are considered as the best-stranded wire as the wire would be kink-resistant and more flexible. Although more individual wire strands are good, it is difficult to manufacture them as an increase in strands creates complexity and cost of production.

In the geometrical scenario, 7 is the lowest number of strands recorded, with 1 in the middle and 6 surrounding the 1 in the middle. 70 to 100 range is the highest number of stranded wires recorded which are found in large heavy cables.

 

Braided Wire

Small strands of wire which are braided together to form a conductor are known as braided wires. These wires have a large amount of flexibility. They are often used as an electromagnetic shield.

There are many varieties of braided wire. Let’s check them out.

Hook-up wires are small wires used in making internal connections in an electronic appliance. Wire bonding is the process of making electrical connections inside semiconductors.

Magnet wire is a copper wire used for making electromagnetic coils. Coaxial cables are used for making transmission lines for radio frequencies.

 

Conclusion

Building wire plays a crucial role in people’s lives as wires bring electricity and data. What this world would be right now if there were no wires? They help us receive the internet and data which everyone in the world has access to now. It provides us with electricity which is important to run the electronic appliances and now, almost everything in an individual’s household works on electricity. Wires are also used in making suspension bridges that allow people to travel into different cities.

 

 

 

 

There are more than 4.6 billion active internet users in the world. Nearly 60 percent of the global population is online. Cybersecurity and online privacy are major concerns for the vast majority of internet users.

Internet users are at constant risk of privacy and security breach, whether you use the internet for occasional web searches or you are an active internet user with multiple social media and other online accounts to your name.

However, online threats should not stop you from enjoying the benefits of the internet. As an active internet user, there are several steps you can take to make your online existence safer. You can start by choosing a secure, privacy-focused web browser.

A good browser can protect your privacy, keep your data secure, and help you stay safe online. To get you started, here are the best web browsers for protecting your privacy online.

Brave

Out of the box, Brave offers a pretty decent level of privacy and security. The chromium-based web browser performs well with its default settings, just download and install. The browser also comes with other interesting features such as automatic HTTPS upgrades, built-in script blocker, protection against browser fingerprinting, and it blocks ads and trackers by default. Brave is particularly a great option for users who don’t want to mess with the configuration settings to improve privacy.

Ungoogled Chromium Browser

Are you a big fan of Google Chrome looking for a more privacy-focused alternative? Try the Ungoogled Chromium browser. Ungoogled Chromium browser is basically Google Chrome minus the support of Google Web Services. This browser comes with a higher level of transparency, control, and the ability to customize your privacy. Ungoogled Chromium browser offers all the benefits of the popular web browser without privacy issues.

Tor Browser

Tor is a secure browser that provides protection against browser fingerprinting by default. The Tor browser also offers protection that includes three layers of encryption, blocks third-party trackers, and automatically deletes your browser history and cookies when you are done surfing the internet.

The Tor browser takes care of your privacy and security details down to the minute details. For instance, Tor warns you about the risk of exposing your computer screen to tracking when you minimize the browser window.

Firefox

Fast and lightweight, Firefox is a great all-around web browser that offers a pretty solid performance when it comes to privacy and security. The Firefox browser comes with a long list of security and privacy-enhancing features that you can customize to achieve the level of privacy that you want. These include the ability to block third-party trackers and browser cookies as well as a wide range of browser extensions that you can use to enhance your privacy.

Pale Moon Browser

Pale Moon is an efficient and highly customizable open source web browser. Pale Moon is forked from Mozilla Firefox, with additional security features and security-aware development. Pale Moon browser features regular updates of the latest security patches. It’s fast and lightweight, just like Firefox, and offers great customization options when it comes to privacy and security.

Enhance Your Online Privacy Further

These browsers perform well for both privacy and security and they are relatively safe. They provide unique features that allow users to tweak browser settings for more privacy and they are more upfront about the data they collect.

However, using these browsers doesn’t guarantee full protection from online threats. Keep in mind that turning ‘incognito’ or ‘private’ mode on your browser doesn’t stop websites, ads, and trackers from accessing your real IP address and location.

Using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) is an effective way to achieve anonymity when surfing the web. You can download a VPN to enhance your privacy online. A VPN will encrypt your connection and hide your IP address. Websites, ads, and trackers use your unique IP address to track your browsing activity. Concealing your IP address can help you maintain anonymity and online privacy when browsing the internet.

 

Developing an app involves a lot of work because one has to use his skills to find ways of making programs run effectively and accomplish their purpose. Most developers will agree that programming needs more than knowledge and skills. Perseverance and critical skills in creating programs to run effectively are also essential, and these can be achieved after several tries and fails.

Sudoku is almost similar to app development because it has problems that require solutions. Just like app creation will require you to use logical thinking and not guesswork, Sudoku requires concentration and determination to find answers.

Here are some reasons why you’ll love playing Sudoku if you’re a software developer:

• To Boost Your Coding Skills

Every software developer must have coding skills to create a program successfully. That requires a lot of concentration, learning syntax, programming languages, and coding. However, to have a sharp mind to grasp these things, you need to sharpen your skills. Sudoku can offer you a fine-tuning platform for your programming skills and help you find solutions to complex coding tasks.

Developing programs also entails writing codes and identifying and fixing those that don’t work. This isn’t a simple task but has to be done because even the smallest of errors may make the program not to operate.

As you play Sudoku, you’ll learn practical ways of solving challenging puzzles and gain strategies for combating programming difficulties. Sudoku will also teach you the perseverance and patience that you require when creating a program. If you’re using algorithms to solve the puzzle, you’ll learn how to follow various rules to make programs run.

• For Motivation

To complete any task successfully, it’s essential to be motivated. It’s this drive that’ll help you to create solutions to a difficult task and help you to meet various deadlines. Every software developer knows the importance of keeping deadlines because they can either make or break a business.

If an organization hires you to create a program, they’ll require you to work on the project independently without supervision. You’ll not find the necessary motivation that you need every day. However, playing Sudoku can give you this kind of motivation.

The challenges and the fulfillment that you get from solving one level and moving to the next is enough to spark interest in any duty you have to do during the day. However, it’s advisable to set a time limit because it’s addictive and may consume much of your time. That’ll help you find time to complete your project on time.

• To Boost Your Memory

Software creation involves a lot of rules and programming instructions that may be difficult to understand and implement. It’s not surprising to find yourself staring at the programming sequences from morning till evening without doing anything. This type of block can slow down projects and significantly hurt your programming career.

To boost your memory, you may need to focus on something less stressful, like playing a Sudoku puzzle. These puzzles stimulate the brain to develop solutions for complex problems; as you continue solving the puzzles and tracking your progress, the motivation to handle more difficult levels increases. However, this may require you to concentrate and avoid multitasking altogether.

Multitasking, though loved by most software creators, is one of the enemies to a sharp memory. According to Stanford University research, people who multitask perform poorly on memory tasks. The researchers recommend reducing multitasking by changing your working behavior and embracing memory-enhancing strategies.

Puzzle-solving is one way of learning how to concentrate on fewer tasks at a time. The more you play Sudoku, the more you’ll gain vital concentration skills that’ll help you to focus on difficult programming tasks. It’s advisable to get enough sleep, eat healthy meals, and exercise to maintain a sharp memory.

• To Learn Determination Skills

Creating a program may not happen on its first try. You may have to try many times before it runs effectively. You may also have to use various approaches to unblock problems that you may encounter along the way. Furthermore, you need to know how to handle failure if you want success. All these require fine determination skills.

Playing Sudoku can help you to gain such skills because they have all the necessary learning tools. When you begin to play the puzzle, you’ll be prone to making errors, and reducing them may be overwhelming and tedious. However, if you overcome some of them, you may gain more strength to complete the rest of the levels.

Solving Sudoku may also require several attempts before coming up with the correct answer. At times, a break may be necessary to refresh your mind and revitalize your energy. If you’re not determined enough, you’ll end up without a solution, and worst of all, waste valuable time that you could have used to do other useful things. On the contrary, if you hold on and persevere, you’ll learn determination skills to help you solve the puzzle and create effective programs.

• To Focus On Your Goal

For you to be successful in anything, you must have a goal in mind. A software developer’s goal may be to create a program that solves most people’s problems. Goals instill a drive that can help you to stretch your skills significantly. The more you concentrate on it, the stronger it grows.

Every Sudoku puzzle has a goal at the end – to match the numbers in the squares. Software developers who play this game may find it easier to set goals and accomplish them. That’s because it’ll give them methods of goal-setting and train them to achieve them successfully.

Apart from them enabling you to complete your goals, playing Sudoku will help you rate your skills. Every puzzle contains various difficulty levels that can help you identify how far you can go depending on your handle levels.

Programming is similar to this because it requires understanding codes and languages which have varying difficulty levels. Fortunately, as you keep trying, you’ll enhance your skills and ability to develop one of the most sophisticated software.

Bottom Line

If you’re a software developer, you don’t want to avoid playing Sudoku. The king of logic puzzles carries many vital lessons that every developer can benefit from. Keep on playing Sudoku.

 

Wearable technology has become one of the most popular technology industries at the moment with many of us looking to invest in some wearable tech to go about their everyday life. Due to this, big tech companies have invested heavily in this market and so it has become incredibly competitive, so we have created a list of the best wearable tech in 2021.

Wearable technology has become so popular in recent times due to the fact that we have seen a rapid rise in the quality of technology in recent times and other industries have been able to benefit from this too, including these online casinos where TBC list sites not blocked by gamstop. These have become particularly popular as they promise that your gambling fun won’t be limited by the gamstop scheme.

The first bit of wearable tech that we would recommend would be the latest Apple Watch Series 6, especially if you are an iPhone user. The Apple Watch is by far the industry leader when it comes to smartwatches due to its effortless connectivity between iPhone and Watch. Not only that, but they have the most accurate fitness readings that you will be able to track your active life so is the perfect watch for anyone who is a fitness freak or looking to improve their general health through activity.

Sticking with Apple and coming onto wireless earbuds then the Apple Airpods Pod are the best wireless earbuds for you to listen to your music, videos or podcasts now that many technology companies have moved away from the 3.5mm headphone jack. Because of this, wireless headphones have been the way forward for consumers and the Airpods have been the catalyst in this market as not only were they the first to bring out these wireless AirPods, but they are certainly the best as well.

And finally, if you aren’t an Apple user and are still looking to invest in a smart watch, then the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 is the next best smartwatch on the market for us consumers. The Watch 3 comes with a more traditional watch looking smart watch that that fits more naturally on the wrist compared to the futuristic looking Apple Watch so if you are looking for something more subtle then this might be the watch for you. Not only that, but the Samsung can deliver on the same level of quality in terms of the trackers that it has for your fitness and is certainly worth the invest if you want a smartwatch and don’t have an iPhone.

 

Are you visiting the same old sites over and over again for the same things but not finding it? Then it’s time to stop wasting your time and simply switch to Google’s amazing custom search. People who might not know about the custom search feature, would not understand why it’s so amazing. But that’s exactly why we are here to help.

So what is the purpose of Google’s custom-search tool?

The custom search tool was first beginning to give all webmasters the power to put a search bar (of Google of course) in their webpages. However, that’s not the only thing which it’s used for now. Know that if you don’t have a website to search, serve ads for, or index, even then the custom search feature will be beneficial for any kind of workflow queries.

How does Google custom search work?

Know that it’s really easy to work with Google’s custom search tool. If you know about the search operators like “filetype:” and “site:” then note that the custom search feature is just that. It allows for a search that works best with the predefined search criteria.

So if you type in something in the search bar, then know that it will bring you the Google site search results based on those predefined criteria. Due to this feature, the box will get its unique URL and page. A major advantage of this tool is that you will be able to streamline your repetitive searches.

Can you give an example of it?

If you are new to Google’s custom search feature, then it can be a little difficult to grasp without an example. So we are here to give you one.

Let’s say that you are using Google to search through Reddit every day to find some books. After all, Reddit is a huge platform where there are subreddits for literally anything imaginable. From the published book to fanfiction, you will find anything there. So if you use a custom search API, then you can reduce your work. With Google’s custom search feature, you will be able to create a URL called searchinreddit.com. So searching will become easier for you.

Why should you use a custom search?

Note that using this feature instead of Google.com will allow you to streamline your search. Along with this, you will be able to personalize the search results. Due to this, you will be able to get just what you were looking for.

Not to mention the fact that this search tool allows you to gain more control. After all, we have all come across these SEO filled sites which don’t give much useful information. Know that by using custom search, you will be able to avoid this since the search will limit the search to the blogs and stores that you want to see.

So, a custom search tool will help you get the exact information that you are looking for, but can’t get. It will help you streamline your search and lessen your working load. As a result, you will be able to finish your work faster.

 

Imagine carrying around a tiny nuclear reactor in the form of a cell phone. Imagine driving a nuclear-powered car or doing your daily work on a nuclear-powered laptop computer. Although that is not what a California company known as NDB is proposing, what they are working on is not all that different in principle. NDB is developing batteries powered by nuclear waste.

Their goal is to eventually come up with a long-life battery that would mitigate the need for an endless supply of single-use alkaline batteries or rechargeable lithium-ion, NiCad, or NiHM alternatives. Their nuclear batteries would still be single use, but they would last for years.

Creating a Nuclear Reaction

NDB’s idea is to generate a small nuclear reaction inside a battery cell. Again, it is not at the same level as a nuclear power plant or nuclear submarine, but the principle is much the same. They propose to use nuclear waste recovered from decommissioned power plants to make radioactive diamonds. The diamonds would provide the foundation for long life batteries.

As the thinking goes, the carbon-14 in the man-made diamond would gradually decay inside the battery case. In doing so, electrons within the diamond would be released and knocked around, generating electrical current. Depending on the size and design of the battery, a typical cell could last anywhere from 12 to 5,000 years.

Wired contributor Alex Lee explained in a September 2020 piece that the concept isn’t new. He cited both research dating back to the turn of the 20^th century and betavoltaic batteries first introduced in the 1970s. The batteries were once used in small electronic devices, like pacemakers, because of the long life. They were eventually phased out in favor of lithium-ion batteries.

The Power Output Question

Betavoltaic batteries proved workable in both principle and practice. However, they were severely limited by low voltage output. An expert interviewed by Lee explained that even the best betavoltaic battery only puts off tens of microwatts. That is not enough to power anything larger than an electronic nano sensor. Forget about batteries capable of powering cell phones and computers.

A betavoltaic battery capable of replacing a lithium-ion cell phone battery would be as large as a tub of margarine and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to make. So while it could be done, building such batteries is commercially impractical.

What does NDB propose to do differently? Take advantage of both the alpha and beta decay within the previously mentioned man-made diamonds. Betavoltaic batteries are limited to beta decay only.

Scaling up the Reaction

NDB officials say they can scale up the reaction inside a diamond battery by utilizing both states of decay. Though short on specifics, they say they are fully confident they will eventually be able to manufacture batteries for everything from hand-held electronics to electric vehicles. As for how long it will take to get there, no one is saying.

Let us assume that NDB does work it out. Does that mean the end of the batteries we all know and love? Not likely, says Salt Lake City’s Pale Blue Earth. The Utah maker of state-of-the-art USB rechargeable batteries says lithium-ion has too many practical applications to eliminate it with a single diamond battery.

Pale Blue Earth points to the fact that disposable alkaline batteries still sell by the billions despite lithium-ion offering better technology at a lower cost. If more recent technologies have been unsuccessful in bringing about the end of alkaline disposables, there doesn’t seem to be much chance that a diamond battery made from nuclear waste will kill lithium-ion.

 

Arguably the most consistent team in Europe this year, G2 have found themselves as one of the few teams seemingly unaffected by the transition from LAN to Online Counter-Strike. Having come into 2020 placed all the way down in 11th in the HLTV world rankings, a standout performance at the Intel Extreme Masters World Championships in Katowice earlier this year saw them finish the event as runners up and hoisted to third. They might not have any S-Tier tournaments to their name this year, however two more runners up finishes at the ESL Road to Rio and DreamHack Spring Masters has kept G2 in the top five longer than any other side at the time of writing.

And it’s this consistency on both LAN and Online servers that will be key to winning this tournament. They might slight dark horses in the CSGO odds for the tournament, but the reality is that the scene has fluctuated so wildly this year that consistency is one of the most important factors to deciding how far a team can go at a major event now.

The likes of Team Vitality, BIG and Natus Vincere, all ranked higher in the world rankings than G2 and with more tournament wins than the EU org, might be the more attractive prospect in Esports predictions and betting markets, but they’ve also been prone to some seriously drops in form and periods of noticeable losses in confidence.

NA

Prediction: Evil Geniuses 

2019’s ESL One Cologne was the tournament that crowned Team Liquid’s first ever Intel Grand Slam win last year, a feat that took only 63 days, but the former world number one come into this event as a very different animal. Their dismal drop in form following their failure at the last StarLadder Berlin Major led to them dropping out of the conversation as dynasty-building org, and they really began tanking during the first Online era playing against only NA sides.

Evil Geniuses, on the other hand, have had pretty much the opposite trajectory following the transition from LAN to Online. The conflict between star players such as Tarik and Stanislaw with their coach ImAPet saw a shuffling with the experienced figure of Zews coming in and taking the reigns of the side. Gradually the side rose from 7th-8th finishes, to 3rd-4th and then crowned off their season with wins at CS_Summit 6 and BLAST Summer Finals.

Gen.G and Furia will undoubtedly provide some tough challenges, but EG come into Cologne as the highest ranked side in the region, and the one with the most form behind them.

Asia / Oceania 

Prediction: TYLOO and Renegades

The ESL Cologne tournaments for the Asia and Oceania regions are only ranked as B-Tier and both only have four teams competing in it. TYLOO and Renegades are the only sides in their regions currently ranked in the top thirty-five (TYLOO are ranked 32nd and Renegades are 16th), and they really shouldn’t have too much competition from their three respective rivals here.