The British company Virgin Galactic, which deals with air and space travel, presented the design of a high-speed passenger plane.

It will be able to transport people at speeds three times higher the speed of sound (330 meters per second). This is about four times more than the average speed of passenger planes now (500-800 kilometers per hour). For example, a new Virgin Galactic plane will be able to fly from Kyiv to Kharkiv in less than 9 minutes.

The aircraft will have a delta-shaped wing and special engines developed by the British company Rolls-Royce. The Virgin Galactic aircraft will be able to accommodate 9-19 passengers and fly at an altitude of more than 18 kilometers. In the cabin, it is planned to equip places for the first and business class. The device will fly on environmentally friendly fuel.

Virgin Galactic developed the aircraft in collaboration with the US National Aerospace Agency (NASA).

Netflix streaming service has allowed Android users to choose how fast they want to watch videos.

You can slow down or speed up video playback. You can slow down video playback 0.5 and 0.75 times, and speed up – 1.25 and 1.5 times. Users must select the desired speed before each video. The Netflix update was launched on August 1, and in the coming weeks, it will be available to Android users worldwide.

The company began testing the feature in 2019. Then some film directors and film actors opposed such a function. Netflix claims that they listened to the warnings, so they limited the speed range.

Japanese startup Donut Robotics has created a smart mask C-Face Smart.

It should be worn over a regular mask. C-Face Smart can transcribe, amplify the user’s voice and translate from Japanese to Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indonesian, English, Spanish and French.

The mask is made of white plastic and silicone, has a built-in microphone that connects to the smartphone via Bluetooth, and air vents. Donut Robotics has raised enough funds on the Japanese crowdfunding platform and plans to start raising on Kickstarter.

The airport in Taiwan organized a campaign with fake flights for passengers who missed traveling.

StarLux Airlines from Taiwan has launched flights to nowhere. Passengers board a plane that takes off from the airport, whirls for three hours in the air, and sits at the same airport from which it took off.

The company promises “unexpected views”, food from a Michelin-starred restaurant, gifts and discounts on duty-free goods. The plane itself will fly lower than usual so that people can take pictures.

A total of 188 tickets were sold for the flight, which were sold out almost instantly. StarLux Airlines plans not to be limited to one flight. Other companies, such as China Airlines and EVA Air, also plan to organize such flights.

Ukrainian entrepreneurs Marta Borovets and Oleksandr Kuzmychov have launched the Odrey application.

Odrey is a mobile application for iOS that translates voice recordings into text. The application works with 30 languages, including English and Ukrainian.

Odrey can work both as an audio message decoder and as a dictaphone. The application can also decrypt the recording from both audio and video files.

The text is decrypted in notes, then it can be edited, saved and sent to social networks or messengers. If the interlocutors took long pauses during the conversation, the appendix will break the text into paragraphs in these places.

The chain of fast-food restaurants KFC has released a lipstick with the taste of its branded spicy chicken wings.

It is available in only one color “bucket red” – branded bright red, as a branded package of fast food. The lipstick is made using WingProof technology, so it is stable and will remain on the lips even after eating.

The series of lipsticks from KFC is limited – they released only 400 pieces. But one of them can be obtained for free if you leave an application on the official website of fast food and take part in the draw until August 11.

Italian fashion brand Gucci has released its own online game “Gucci Surf”.

This is a game about a surfer who collects plastic in the ocean and tries not to harm marine life. The more points the hero gets, the more clothes and accessories are available to him.

The application was developed in collaboration with Leonardo Fioravanti, a famous surfer from Italy. Leonardo is also the brand’s ambassador and was invited to the Gucci Fall / Winter 2020 collection.

Google has decided to invest $ 450 million in the American company ADT.

ADT offers solutions in the field of electronic security systems, such as security systems for “smart homes”.

“ADT and Google today announced that they are entering into a long-term partnership to create the next generation of smart home security proposals,” the company said.

As part of the partnership, Google will buy a 6.6% stake in ADT for $ 450 million. The companies will invest another $ 150 million in the development of their next products, as well as in technology development and staff training.

After 62 days on the ISS and about 1,024 flights around the Earth, as well as four walks in outer space, LaunchAmerica crew members went home.

On May 30, SpaceX and NASA launched the Crew Dragon spacecraft to the ISS. This was the first successful launch of astronauts into space on a private company ship.

Robert Benken and Douglas Hurley left the International Space Station today at 02:45 Kyiv time. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavor, which they are using to fly to Earth, is due to fall into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Pensacola, Florida.

The ship is scheduled to land at 9.48 pm Kyiv time.

Google has announced the international launch of a new feature for Google Maps, which adds even more “sociality” to the service.

Last year, the developers announced the launch of a pilot feature in Google Maps that allows you to subscribe to updates from selected local experts. Now it has been launched around the world.

Users can subscribe to other Google Maps users with an open profile if they have shared a photo or list of locations. Recommendations, tips, and news from them will appear on the “Updates” tab.

New topic filters will also appear in Google Maps profiles. With them, you can explore topics and places that users talk about most often, such as “pizza”, “brunch”, “camping” or “parks”.

The Chinese government has spent about $ 10 billion on the deployment of the Beidou-3 satellite group and related ground systems.

This system is a competitor to satellite navigation systems, including the most common in the world – American GPS. The total number of satellites in all three phases of the Beidou project is 55 spacecraft. The group’s last satellite was launched into orbit in June 2020.

Implementation of the Beidou satellite navigation project began in China in 2000. As part of the first phase of Beidou-1, a group of satellites was deployed to navigate in China. As part of the second phase of Beidou-2, a satellite geolocation system for the Asia-Pacific region was created by 2012. Beidou-3 covers the entire surface of the Earth.

The Chinese company Huawei became the world leader in smartphone sales for the first time.

Prior to that, for nine years in a row, Apple or Samsung took first place. In the second quarter of 2020, Huawei delivered 55.8 million devices, which is 5% lower than last year. Second place went to Samsung, which delivered 53.7 million smartphones, which is 30% less than in the second quarter of 2019.

Huawei is still subject to US sanctions, which is why the company’s supplies abroad are falling. Thus, in the second quarter they fell by 27%. Instead, the company grew in the domestic market, increasing Chinese supplies by 8% in the second quarter. Huawei currently sells 70% of its smartphones in mainland China.