SpaceX's Rival OneWeb Bankruptcy: Outbreak Caused Directly; Many Top U.S. Universities Form Alliance with Microsoft: Supercomputer and AI Overcome New Crown

[Titanium Media Comprehensive] News on March 29. Recently, OneWeb, a satellite broadband company invested by Japan's SoftBank Group, reported bankruptcy application. According to the latest news from foreign media, the company explained in detail the reasons for applying for bankruptcy protection in an official statement.

OneWeb was founded in 2012 by technology entrepreneur Gregory Thane Wyler. OneWeb wants to provide people around the world with affordable high-speed Internet access by deploying hundreds of low-orbit satellites, which are also needed for data growth from 5G, the Internet of Things, autonomous driving, and other new technologies.

Foreign media said that the company's bankruptcy was unexpected because they were competing with Musk's SpaceX company to provide online services for people in remote areas. A week ago, the company sent nearly 34 satellites into orbit, bringing the total number of satellites to 74.

However, launching satellites is a costly endeavor, and OneWeb's own hematopoietic capacity is insufficient, relying heavily on external financing. OneWeb has raised funds many times since its establishment: In 2015, it received US $ 500 million in financing from investors such as Qualcomm, Virgin Group, and Airbus; in 2016, OneWeb raised US $ 1.2 billion, of which SoftBank Group invested US $ 1 billion. But at present, SoftBank is unable to continue to invest in OneWeb due to various debts, and the company is still facing a huge funding gap.

A few days ago, OneWeb CEO Adrian Stocker took the ongoing New Crown Virus pneumonia as a "Chapter 11 bankruptcy application" (not a liquidation company, but to provide bankruptcy debt protection) to the US Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District ofNew York. reason.

OneWeb introduced that the company has been seeking new funding since the beginning of 2020, but has failed to finalize the transaction. "Although the company is close to obtaining financing, the process has not progressed due to the financial impactand market turmoil associated with the spread of the new crown virus . "

Titanium media sound:

We know from studies of other coronaviruses that viruses can acquire this mutation and then they become more pathogenic. This explains why the virus spread so easily and caused the current pandemic. Surface protein mutations may have triggered the pandemic,but the weaker version of the virus has been circulating in the population for years, even decades, before accumulating to the present.

Our analysis, and others, point to an earlier origin than that (Wuhan). There must be some cases in Wuhan, but by no means the source of the virus.

-Robert Gary, Professor, Tulane University School of Medicine

It is extremely painful to implement high social isolation. I call it "closed." There is no middle choice. It is difficult to say that you will not infect others or be infected. Until we determine that the number of people infected is at a minimum, even if you tell everyone you can buy a house, a car, a restaurant, etc., I still very much doubt that people will really do it. People want to protect the elderly and their parents.

In short, the sooner we "take medicine", the sooner the highest-level medicine, the sooner we will get out of trouble and never return to it again.

--Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft

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ALI's next move: online education APP, Banban Answer

Editor's note: This article is from the micro-channel public number "Tech Planet" (ID: tech618), Author: Chen Qiaohui

Under the epidemic, online education has always been a hot industry today. Answering and counseling products such as homework help, little ape search questions, and Xue Bajun are all popular, and major Internet companies are stepping up their efforts in this area.

Tech Planet (WeChat ID: tech618) was exclusively informed that Ali recently launched a product called "Help Answer", a paid question and answer platform for primary and secondary school students' academic problems. This is the first independent product launched by Ali in addition to the online education features launched by Ali.

According to the sky eye inspection, the developer of "Bang Bang Da" is Zhuoyi Changyou (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd., and the suspected actual controlling shareholder is Alibaba Culture and Entertainment Co., Ltd.

Tech Planet (WeChat ID: tech618) found that "Help and Answer" can get course tuition through online payment. Supports quick explanations on topics that you do not understand by taking pictures, voices, videos, etc. If you don't have a problem, you canpublish a reward through the app to let more professional teachers teach online.

Open "Help and Answer", and you can find that the login methods are mobile phone number, Alipay, and WeChat. Remove the QQ, a third-party login method that is more popular with students, which is quite surprising.

After registration, there will be two options, one is the questioner and the other is the answerer. The user selects the identity and fills in the basic information to officially enter the app. At present, the scope of the questioner's identity is limited to primary school to high school students, and the scope of the answerer's identity ranges from undergraduate to postdoctoral, which means that the answerer is not limited to whether or not he is a teacher, but to answer the question with the undergraduate as the starting point.

Taking the questioner as an example, you can choose to take a picture or write a picture with a narrative to write down the question, and then select the grade corresponding to the question, write a commission, and post it. Questions posted need to be reviewed. If no one takes orders within 10 minutes after passing the review, you can get answers for free.

As the answerer, the homepage will display the questions to be answered, for the answerer to choose. After entering the answer interface, the answerer can discuss in words or record a video to answer. It is worth noting that the knowledge points involved in the related questions need to be evaluated before solving the questions, and the answers can be obtained after the assessment is completed.

The questioner checks the answer. After passing, the system will give the responder a certain percentage of commission and evaluation. In order to regulate the answering attitude of the respondents, the platform has established a credit score system for the respondents, and the quality of the answers is linked to it. If the credit score is 0, it cannot be restored and the account will be blocked.

At present, the "help and answer" is still in the testing stage, so the entire product is very simple in terms of design and function. Compared with the online education brand "job help", which is also a competitive product, there is less parent-level supervision, live answering and Community functions, it is not ruled out that such functional requirements will be increased in the later stage.

According to AiMedia Consulting's analysis of domestic online education users, the number of online education users in China will reach 305 million in 2020, and the new education model of "Internet + Education" is continuously expanding. As various onlineeducation platforms continue to develop and sink the market, the basic market of the online education market is directly expanded, and the number of online education users will further expand in the future.

Under the guise, Ali's introduction of "help and answer" also took advantage of the trend. This time, online education is in the second spring of the industry, and changes in the industry pattern after the epidemic are inevitable. In the end, who will come out on top still needs users to choose.