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Business computing turns seventy-five this month, and there's a celebration worth noting. Cambridge's Centre for Computing History is marking the milestone with LEO@seventy-five, a full-day event on November twenty-eighth running from ten in the morning to five in the evening, featuring film screenings, historical displays, and hands-on activities for children. LEO, the machine that helped launch commercial computing, deserves the recognition.
From history to biomimicry — researchers at the Max Planck Institute and the University of Stuttgart have built a drone called Floaty that takes its cues from the kestrel. Rather than burning through batteries hovering like a quadcopter, Floaty uses moveable wing flaps to catch and ride updrafts, staying aloft with far less energy. It's a reminder that nature still has a lot to teach engineers about efficient flight.
And on a quieter note, the World Bank reports India has lifted five hundred million people out of poverty, a record achievement by any measure. But as Al Jazeera points out, millions of those same people remain on the edge of survival, which raises the harder question of what progress actually means when the margin is still so thin.
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