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NASA to host Google+ Hangout
MUMBAI: NASA will host a Google+ Hangout from several NASA centers at 2 p.m. EDT (Eastern Daylight Time) on 23 July as the agency prepares to fly two unmanned aircraft over Atlantic Ocean hurricanes this summer.
NASA‘s Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel or HS3‘s mission is a five-year project that first took to the field in 2012 from NASA‘s Wallops flight facility at Wallops Island. HS3 is investigating the roles of the large-scale environment and storm-scale internal processes in hurricane formation and intensity change in the Atlantic basin. HS3 scientists will use two NASA Global Hawk aircraft during the campaign, one with instruments measuring the environment around a tropical cyclone and the other with instruments looking into the storms.
Participants in the Hangout will hear about the 2012 mission and preparations underway at Wallops for the upcoming flights. The HS3 lead scientist will explain how NASA will peer into hurricanes and a Global Hawk pilot will discuss remote flying over tropical cyclones.
Panelists for the Google+ Hangout are NASA‘s Goddard Space Flight Center HS3 principal investigator Scott Braun, NASA‘s Dryden Flight Research Center Global Hawk pilot Tom Miller, NASA‘s Ames Research Center HS3 project manager Marilyn Vasques and rosenstiel school of marine and atmospheric science senior research associate Brian McNoldy .
Google+ Hangouts allow as many as 10 people or group chat, while thousands more can watch the conversation live on Google+ or YouTube. The Hangout will also be carried live on NASA Television and the agency‘s website.
NASA‘s social media followers can submit questions on Google+ or Twitter in advance and during the event using #askNASAHS3. Before the Hangout begins, NASA will open a thread on its Facebook page where questions may be posted.
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Canva acquires animation and AI startups Cavalry and MangoAI
The deals strengthen Canva’s push into enterprise and AI-led design workflows
AUSTRALIA: Global visual communication platform Canva has stepped up its acquisition drive, buying UK-based 2D animation platform Cavalry and US-based AI startup MangoAI to deepen its AI-powered creative stack.
Cavalry, whose tools are used by brands including Amazon, Meta, Google and Netflix, will strengthen Canva’s motion design capabilities. The deal builds on Canva’s 2024 acquisition of Affinity, which has crossed four million downloads since launch. With Cavalry, Canva now counts seven Europe-based acquisitions, underscoring its global expansion strategy.
MangoAI, an early-stage startup focused on video advertising optimisation, will integrate its reinforcement learning systems into Canva AI. The move aims to enable brands to generate personalised marketing content in real time, cutting production cycles while improving campaign performance. MangoAI co-founder Vinith Misra will join Canva as reinforcement learning lead in its research lab.
Canva co-founder and chief operating officer Cliff Obrecht said the acquisitions reflect the company’s ambition to make professional-grade creative tools more accessible without sidelining human creativity. The goal, he said, is to bring everything from vector to motion design into a single, integrated suite.
The company now reports 265 million active users, including 31 million paid subscribers, and $4 billion in annualised revenue, up 36 per cent year on year. The latest buys further position Canva against rivals such as Adobe and Apple’s Creator Studio as it pushes deeper into enterprise workflows.
Canva head of pro design marketing Liam Fisher, said AI is intended to act as a creative assistant rather than a replacement, reinforcing the primacy of craft and individual design judgement.
