Light Start: Finding Dragon Balls, No April Fools, Infowars ban and Wacs cable at it again
Marcé
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An app designer has created a real-life Dragon Ball sensing app
We’re all currently looking for something to keep us busy. And if that includes building an app that tracks magical anime balls, even better. A software developer is working on an app that imitates the Dragon Ball tracking app in the animated series. Dragon Ball is an anime series that follows the adventures of Son Goku, an alien that was raised on Earth and helps defeat evil. On his hero’s journey, he comes across a girl named Bulma, who is on a quest to find seven mystical orbs known as the Dragon Balls. With these balls, they’ll be able to summon Shenron, a dragon that can grant any wish a person desires. These balls are a giant part of the plot, and the characters routinely refer to an app to track their locations. Although it’s still in concept phase, the developer has worked out most of the technical aspects of building this app, including radar sensors and GPS tracking. The app will even have the ability to tell whether the Dragon Ball is below or above you at any given point. We’re hoping the production of this app will actually unearth real Dragon Balls so we can wish COVID-19 away.
Google cancels April Fools, because who has time for jokes right now
Does Google even have that kind of power?
In South Africa, we have a rich history of coping with catastrophes using humour. The memes that have come out of this worldwide pandemic are stellar, to say the least, and studies are being done on how humans use humour to cope with very stressful situations. But some people think it’s a good move to cancel April Fools. With ‘some people’, we mean Google. The search engine has decided to skip its annual April Fools segment this year, because of COVID-19. According to The Verge, Google will “take the year off from that tradition out of respect for all those fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. Our highest goal right now is to be helpful to people, so let’s save the jokes for next April, which will undoubtedly be a whole lot brighter than this one.” Although we understand the move to focus on more pressing issues, we believe finding the joke in a stressful situation like the coronavirus outbreak is important in people’s mental health. So keep on sharing the memes, friends.
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Google bans the Infowars app on the Play Store due to fake news
If there’s a time in recent history that definitely does not need fearmongering or the spread of fake news, it is right now. Humans are facing one of the scariest pandemics of the 21st century, and proper education on the risks is inherently important. This is why Google has decided to suspend the app of right-wing radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. According to Wired, Jones routinely “disputed the need for social distancing, shelter in place, and quarantine efforts meant to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.” Tech companies across the globe are working tirelessly to keep people informed on the latest news and accurate information on the virus. So it seems counterproductive to keep an app in the Play Store that is feeding people misinformation. Now, more than ever, it’s important to make sure you stay informed on the best practices of not getting sick. The main best practise right now is by implementing social distancing, because the smart people in labs don’t even know how to curb the spread using pharmaceuticals yet. It’s safe to say, stay home, kids. Don’t listen to that madman Alex Jones.
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Internet unusually slow? That darned cable has a break again
If you have noticed that your Netflix is buffering or you can’t access game servers right now., there’s a reason for that. The Wacs undersea cable (yeah, the one that left us with slow speeds early in 2020) has broken again. It’s Wacs’ third break this year — sounds like something is very wrong. The break also comes at the worst possible time for our country. A large part of the workforce has been pushed to work from home, which means we need the internet. Now more than ever. This is going to be one long three-week lockdown, if you ask us. Luckily, it looks like they caught on to the break just in time, and that repairs are already underway. “A cable ship has been sent to fix the break in the West African Cable System (Wacs) off the coast of England. The vessel, the Ile D’Aix, should arrive at the ‘cable grounds’ by Tuesday, 31 March. This is according to the latest updates from Tenet, the Tertiary Education & Research Network of South Africa, which is a major user of Wacs bandwidth,” TechCentral reports. This means that repairs may be done way before it accumulates into a problem. We don’t want South Africans taking to the streets to protest no internet at a time like this.
