invention

Variations on a puzzle: French pastry chef creates colourful Rubik’s Cube cakes – PHOTOS

Rubik's Cube Rubik Ernő pastry chef

A French pastry chef has taken the well-know and well-loved Hungarian puzzle, the Rubik’s Cube, and turned it into a culinary curiosity in the form of tiny cakes.

According to mymodernmet.com, French pastry chef Cédric Grolet has found a fascinating source of inspiration for his latest project: the Rubik’s Cube. The culinary twist on the famous Hungarian puzzle features 27 individual pastries in a variety of flavour pairings, such as apricot and rosemary or cherry and tarragon. Vibrant colours and eye-catching textures, such as shiny glazes and gold foil, took the place of the traditional colour scheme of the Rubik’s Cube.

The Rubik’s Cube cakes are available at Le Dalí, a restaurant located inside the Le Meurice hotel in Paris.

The Rubik’s Cube is one of the most famous Hungarian inventions. The inventor, Ernő Rubik, who was a professor of architecture at the time, initially intended the cube to be a demonstration tool in the classroom. The 1974 prototype was made of wood and the sides were marked with different colours so the movement of the small cubes could be followed.

Ernő Rubik soon realised that the cube would make a great toy as well. It took the inventor himself a month to solve his own puzzle. Today, Rubik’s Cube world champions can do the same blindfolded in less than 30 seconds. (cnn.com)

Photos: Instagram

Ce: bm

Smart highway for testing self-driving cars to be built in Hungary

A smart controlled-access highway will connect the M7 motorway and the city of Zalaegerszeg, inforadio.hu reports. The highway complements the test track for self-driving cars which is to be built in Zalaegerszeg.

The highway reduces travel time between Budapest and Zalaegerszeg by almost an hour, says István Lepsényi, state secretary for the Ministry of National Economy. There are also plans to build a testing track in Zalaegerszeg, which can accommodate traditional as well as electric and self-driving vehicles.

“Our test track is unprecedented in Europe, similar testing centre has not been built yet. This increases its importance, since every developer who wants to test their self-driving cars will come to work in Hungary,” says the state secretary.

Thus the new highway, besides connecting Budapest and Zalaegerszeg, will provide a real-life setting for testing self-driving cars that have gone through testing in a controlled environment.

[button link=”https://dailynewshungary.com/eur-8-million-glass-bridge-built-hungary/” type=”big” color=”red” newwindow=”yes”] The world’s largest glass bridge to be built in Hungary[/button]

The smart highway can become more than a passive surface for vehicles. In the future, the highway will be able to provide information for the driver about the conditions of the road and possible accidents. Moreover, it will also be possible for the vehicles to communicate with each other.

It is not yet known how the development will affect the building costs of the highway, but the state secretary judges the extra costs to be a negligible few percent in comparison to the costs of the highway itself.

The building of the smart highway coincides with similar plans in other European countries, for instance Germany. In the long run, the German smart highway could be connected to the Hungarian one.

The highway is planned to be completed by the end of next year, depending on the speed of the procurement procedure.

ce: bm

Hungarian company to solve the problem of non-energy efficient air-conditioning

According to hvg.hu, an irrigation technical company would cover roof structures with vapour to prevent them from overheating. The torturous heat doesn’t only exhaust workers, but it is also the reason why establishments’ summer electricity use exceeds their winter expenses.

The workers of a Hungarian factory producing car safety gadgets started fainting in a row in the summer sultriness two years ago. 30 people felt dizzy on the first day, 28 the next day and 13 workers even had to be taken to the hospital. The case is not unique at all: the flat-roofed halls of factories working with electric appliances and heat-producing technologies overheat in the summer so much that workers can’t stand the heat anymore and they faint. The implementing of air-conditioning seems like an obvious solution, however, it uses a lot of energy, and the appliances placed on the rooftop simply stop working due to the extreme heat above the roof.

A Hungarian company marketing agricultural irrigation systems found a sustainable solution to the problem, with the help of which workers could be saved, and the drastic energy-use could be decreased. They don’t simply water the roof like lands, but worked out a so called evaporative system, which evaporates the needed amount of water with the help of a self-adjusting system. This way a “water film layer” is generated – this is how the technology, WaterFilm Technology, got its name – which doesn’t only abstract the Sun’s energy, but also helps the heat generated inside the factory exit.

The company made a video that demonstrates the process. Unfortunately, it is in Hungarian, but the drawings are quite self-explanatory.

They developed the technology for a competition focused on energy efficiency, although this technique has been used in Opel’s Szentgotthárd factory since 2008. According to István Weeber, the owner of the technology, in the beginning the system only operated in 80% of the hall, but they later expanded the system to all areas, even if there weren’t production processes. The reason behind this was that the non-cooled roofs can heat up to 65-70° Celsius in summer and cool down to 10° at night, which leads to such an expansion-shrinkage that causes flat-roofs to leak. Still, thanks to the irrigation system, this heat fluctuation decreases, which also betters the chances of deterioration.

The water used for the cooling is always “grey”, in other words industrial water, which is accessible in the case of most industrial establishments. “Naturally, drinking water would’ve been convenient as well, but we wanted to avoid this due to principled reasons, as the aim of the technology is the performance of sustainable operation” said the head of Öntözés.hu Kft.

Even though the technology doesn’t replace air-conditioning, the electricity uptake of appliances decreases by 60-80%, since they cool the temperature of the halls from 45-55° Celsius to 28-38° Celsius. So you need less appliances, and their lifespan and operational safety become greater. The plantation of the WaterFilm Technology in a 10 thousand m2 hall costs 50-60 million forints, which is much less than the cost of a system solely based on air-conditioning (400 million) even if the orderer chooses the evaporative system (200-250 million). WaterFilm’s energy necessity and maintenance costs are 5-10% of the air-conditioning system’s and one third of the another evaporative system’s (adiabatic system).

The company needs a few more model projects to get the necessary authority documentations. Still, they are full with hope: according to their knowledge, their technology is the only one that lives up to the EU goal concerning the energy efficiency of establishments. They also hope for a change of law. The Hungarian parliament has passed the bill for a tax discount for energy efficient investments. So, hopefully, the majority of flat-roofed halls will be covered in vapour in a few years’ time.

Photos: www.facebook.com/WaterFilmTechnology

ce: bm

Hungarian invention for easing pain

(Szeretlek Magyarország.hu) – Unfortunately, many people suffer and had been suffering from fatal diseases, for example, cancer. These diseases cause unbearable pain for those being terminally ill and dying. A Hungarian chemist, János Kabay’s invention is still used today to ease the pain of those suffering.

János Kabay was born on 21 December 1896 in Bűdszentmihály (today called Tiszavasvári), in eastern Hungary. First, he enrolled into the Faculty of Chemical Engineering of Royal Joseph University Budapest (today called Budapest University of Technology and Economics), but the first world war broke out, and the young man had to join the army, as Szeretlek Magyarország.hu notes.

Following the war, he was an intern at his uncle’s pharmacy. There he became seriously interested in drugs and medicines, and that was the time when he decided to apply for Pharmaceutics at Pázmány Péter University (one of the predecessors of Eötvös Lóránd University). After obtaining his degree in 1923, he returned to his uncle’s pharmacy in Hajdúnánás, where he was working on issues of preparative chemistry.

The Kaba pharmacy in Hajdúnánás photo: http://kabayjanos.eu

At this university, he became interested in opium and morphine production, and, in 1924, he also started experimenting with poppy seeds and morphin. The brilliant scientist, gifted with practical skills and senses, came up with the solution of how to extract morphene from poppy seeds, and how to utilize the results in practice. He believed, that cleaning had to come first, because commercially available morphene was greyish. Among primitive pharmacy conditions, he developed the so-called „green process”: the green poppy plant was reaped after blooming, and after pressing the poppy-heads, the essence was extracted.

Machine for “green process” soure: http://kabayjanos.eu

According to Szeretlek Magyarország.hu, Kabay patented this method in 1925. After two years, he established the Alkaloida Chemical Company in Tiszavasvár. The company is still operating.

In 2016, Kabay’s oeuvre became a Hungaricum, kabayjanos.eu tells.

Photos: kabayjanos.eu

Copy editor: bm

Economy minister: Competitiveness expected to improve in Hungary

As in recent years every major economic indicator has improved in Hungary, it has become possible to lay down the foundations for the economic policy of coming years, Minister for National Economy Mihály Varga said, at the board meeting of Eurochambres, the Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry, held in Budapest.

Among the achievements of recent years the Minister highlighted the positive economic growth trend in place since 2013, the declining government debt-to-GDP ratio, sound public finances, low inflation and rising retail sales.

The fact that Hungary had been placed on a sustainable growth path has also been recognized by all three major credit rating agencies last year, as they restored the country’s investment grade status. As a result, the costs of debt-financing may be reduced by as much as HUF 10bn in the next one, one-and-a-half years.

Speaking of employment the Minister added that the number of people in employment has hit the highest figure in 26 years. The number of people with a job has increased by 700 thousand since 2010, to 4.4 million, while the number of jobless people has halved.

As another favourable development, the pick-up in hiring has been accompanied by rising wages: wages in real terms rose over the past 47 months by 15 percent. Thanks to the wage agreement concluded in November 2016, wages in real terms are expected to gain 40 percent in the next six years in Hungary, and the substantial reduction of payroll taxes in believed to create competitive advantages. These factors are seen to boost economic growth momentum, and result in an annual growth rate of more than the recent 2-3 percent.

Photo: Ministry for National Economy

One of the most talented Hungarian scientists died 60 years ago

Budapest (MTI) – John von Neumann was born on 28 December 1903. He was just six years old when he was able to divide two, six-digit numbers in his head, and he conversed with his father in Ancient Greek. He published his first study at the age of eighteen. In Zurich, he obtained his chemical engineer degree while he was studying Mathematics in Budapest and Berlin, and  received his PhD degree with his dissertation on set theory. After that, he researched operation theory and quantum physics in Göttingen, then he described the notion of pure quantum state.

In 1930, he was invited to teach at Princeton. He made his mark on every field of Mathematics. He was the one who described the Ergodic theory. In the late 30s, while researching bounded operators (also called Von Neumann algebra), he created the continuous geometry. He laid the mathematic foundations for Heisenberg’s matrix mechanics theory and Schrödinger’s wave mechanics theory, MTI reported.

source: youtube.com

Since 1940, his attention turned to applied researches. He introduced numerical meteorology. He was an advisor for the American army. He analysed the explosion wave sound and the firing tables in the nuclear weapon development programme.

His work of game theory is significant. He published his first study in relation to game theory in 1928, but he only summed up his researches in 1944 in a book which he wrote together with Oskar Morgenstern, titled The Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour, which is considered as a standard work today. By analysing the decision making and cooperation opportunities of two players, Neumann and Morgenstern proved that an optimal strategy for both parties does exist. This principle is used in economy, social and military science, pedagogy, and so on.

source: youtube.com

In 1944, he met Hermann Goldstine mathematician, who was working at a rifle range and counting firing tables. Once he mentioned to Neumann that the American army had been working on the development of an electronic general-purpose computer, the ENIAC. It raised Neumann’s interests, and one year later, he had become the director of the programme.

In 1952, Neumann and Goldstine created their first computer, which’s structural base was the same as that of the modern computers we are using today. It consisted of an arithmetic logic unit, a memory unit, a control unit and an input and output unit. They were the first to modify a program using another program. The use of binary numbers, the system of memories and instructions also originate from him. This is how today’s computers work, they just got smaller.

source: youtube.com

At the end of 1955, his health was rapidly sinking. Until his last breath, he was working on his book, discovering the parallels between the operation of the brain and the computer. The manuscript was left unfinished. The biggest mathematician of the previous century died on 8 February 1957 in Washington. His name is worn by John von Neumann Computer Society, schools, streets, and even a crater on Moon was named after the most outstanding Hungarian scientist ever lived, MTI told.

Photos: youtube.com

Copy editor: bm

Great Hungarian inventions – QUIZ

Rubik's Cube Rubik Ernő

Something Hungarians have always been good at are inventions, innovations. Hungarian masterminds surprised the world throughout history with amazing inventions that form part of our everyday lives today. We put together a quiz with some of the most outstanding Hungarian inventions and we are curious to see the results 🙂

The Nobel Prize winning Italian physicist, Enrico Fermi, was once asked whether he believes in the existence of extra-terrestrial beings. He answered: “Of course, they are already here among us: they just call themselves Hungarians.” At that time Fermi worked with geniuses like Leó Szilárd, Tódor Kármán, János Neumann, Pál Halmos, Jenő Wigner, Ede Teller, György Pólya and Pál Erdős. This is the effect Hungarian inventors have on some people 🙂

 

What is the next Hungarian invention? Feather bricks?

construction

MTI.hu has recently told about a new patent: a Hungarian company would like to produce façade materials and internal insulation using poultry feather. In general, feather is declared as waste, and thousands of tonnes of feather are thrown out. However, feather could be used as an environmentally friendly material in the construction industry. With feather, the range of natural building materials containing straw, loam, cane, and recently, hemp, would widen.

Calling a building material „eco” has more criteria. For example, it has to reduce the energy use of the building; it has to be sustainable, it has to be environmentally friendly and it must not be dangerous for human health, also, its production should not require much energy, and no by-products and waste should occur, MTI wrote.

According to MTI, Hungary adopted the technology of building hemp houses from Italy, but it has French origins. Their thermal insulation is much better than that of the loam houses. Feather could be the next break-through. 90% of tens of thousands of tonnes of feather in Hungary are burnt. This is not only expensive but it also damages the environment. However, thanks to a Hungarian patent, the dangerous waste can turn into environmentally friendly thermal and sound insulating building material.

During the production process, the left-over of the feathers is used: it is cleared, sterilized and draught at high temperature. No feather allergy occurs either, because feathers are covered from all sides, MTI told.

Ádám Bihari architect also told MTI that it was a great idea to use feathers this way, because it uses the by-products of other industries to create a new building material.

Copy editor: bm

5 outstanding Hungarian women at the forefront of history

There are countless Hungarian women who, through hard work, talent, and outstanding accomplishments, became role models for men and women alike. Now, here are five incredible Hungarian women who became pioneers in the field of health care, education or science, szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu writes.

Blanka Teleki (1806-1862)

teleki_blankaA pioneer in women’s education, she founded the first school for girls in Hungary. She spent her childhood secluded in her family castle, but as a young woman, she visited her aunt in Pest, and this visit changed her life. She wanted to study, and her endeavour was supported by her father as well. She studied painting and sculpture from Hungarian and foreign masters. Learning from her own childhood, she realised that education should be available for women and she founded the first school for girls in 1846. The school was open only for two years, but her work paved the way for future institutions. In 1848, when the Hungarian Revolution broke out, the school was closed down. In the coming years, Blanka Teleki hid revolutionaries, for which she was imprisoned by the Austrian police for ten years. After being released, she moved to France, where she died in 1862.

Zsuzsanna Kossuth (1817-1854)

kossuth zsuzsannaOrganiser of the first military hospitals in Hungary. She was the youngest sister of freedom fighter Lajos Kossuth. At 14, she already felt like she had a responsibility to care for others. In 1831, during the cholera epidemic, she visited the sick together with her brother, and helped to organise the quarantine. Her organisational skills and devotion to the sick soon made her stand out. During the revolution and the ensuing war for independence in 1848-49, she was appointed by her brother as the lead organiser of the military hospitals. She gathered volunteers and doctors, and tended to the wounded soldiers as well. These included Austrian officers as well, which secured her her freedom after the revolution became defeated. However, her persecution did not cease completely and eventually she emigrated to New York, where she spent the remainder of her life.

 [button link=”https://dailynewshungary.com/outstanding-hungarian-inventions-an-unusual-video-on-hungarian-excellence/” color=”red” newwindow=”yes”] Outstanding Hungarian inventions – An unusual video on Hungarian excellence[/button]

Vilma Hugonnai (1847-1922)

hugonnai_vilmaThe first Hungarian female medical doctor to earn a degree in Zurich at a time when women weren’t allowed to pursue this profession in Hungary.

She was born in Nagytétény into a wealthy family. Her first marriage was an unhappy one, and she spent a lot of her time reading in her husband’s library, learning about the sciences. She felt her calling to become a doctor, but this was not possible for women in Hungary in the 1870s, so she moved to Zurich to study and received her degree at the age of 32. Her qualification was not recognised in Hungary until 1897. In the meantime, she worked as a midwife, taught nursing, childcare, wrote a book about infectious diseases. She campaigned for women’s rights and women’s education, and she helped establish the first girls’ secondary school. In 1914, she worked as a military surgeon. She died in Budapest at the age of 74.

Blanka Péchy (1894-1988)

péchy blankaEstablished the Kazinczy Prize, which is awarded each year for language protection efforts.

She studied acting. She was fluent in German and played in Hungarian and German theatres as well. She worked as a radio presenter, cultural attaché, and the head of the Collegium Hungaricum in Vienna. She described her private life: “My life was tragic enough to die of it many times.” Her husband was sentenced to death in the Soviet Union and her son died in WWII. She dedicated her efforts toward the protection and cultivation of the Hungarian language in her whole life. When she stopped acting, she turned to writing. She died in Budapest, aged 94.

Mária Telkes (1900-1995)

telkes máriaInventor of Hungarian origin. She worked in the field of solar energy research, and her many inventions earned her the nickname “sun queen”. She was born in Budapest into a well-off family. She graduated from Pázmány Péter University in 1924, and earned her PhD in physical chemistry here as well. In the same year, she moved to the USA, where she spent the rest of her life. She started researching solar energy in 1939. During WWII, she invented the solar still, a portable desalination unit which reclaims drinking water from seawater using solar energy. The device saved the lives of marines stranded in the ocean by creating 1 litre of drinking water per person per day. After the war, she designed the first solar heating system for the Dover Sun House, and invented many other practical thermal devices until her retirement in 1978, and she kept submitting her patents until she was 90. At 95, she came back to Budapest to see her city one last time, and she died here the same year.

Photos: wikipedia.org

Copy editor: bm

Hungarian sensation about the origin of life

Humanity has been interested in some questions from the beginning. Who are we? Where do we come from? How was life itself created? Gods and creation-myths were born, art of spirit and philosophy revived, based on different series of answers, reports 24.hu.

Since natural sciences lead the research on the origin of life and the answer is being searched for through exploring and modelling exact biochemical processes, we are getting much closer to a real solution.

Three requirements of life

Hungarian researchers also contribute to the successes; the newest result of a Hungarian research team on the origin of life has been published in Science journal. Dr Ádám Kun, biologist and senior research fellow of Department of Plant Systematics, Ecology and Theoretical Biology at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) was asked what it is exactly about.

Let’s start with how the notion of life could be defined. There is no way to do it briefly, and it is also difficult to use a longer explanation if one tries to make a defensible argument. Ádám Kun says that there are three factors that we require from life:

  • To distance itself from its environment, in other words, to be a separate thing. Cells are separated from their environment by a lipid membrane, the cell membrane.
  • To carry information about itself. In our case it is the genetic information stored in the DNA.
  • To be able to sustain itself. This is ensured by the enzymes doing different kinds of reactions.

How does a system become alive?

The basics of the origin of life are pretty well known. It is known how biologically important molecules are created, and what simple molecules are needed to create them. We are doing well with exploration of the biochemical processes in the background; the required molecules can be created and they work in a way that we want them to.

Now, the big question becomes how the living system is actually made up from these known substances: if we put the needed ingredients in a ball and stir them, it will not make a living cell. A not-yet known organizer principle is needed to the formation of a living organism.

The research today is examining what, for example, happens, if some important components are put together, what changes can happen, and how “alive” the final result can become. It is like a large puzzle, which is still full of empty places – the whole picture will be done by connecting all the small partial results of scientists sometime in the future.

The system is collapsed by parasites

Small mosaics, just like the years-long research of ELTE, in collaboration with a French experimental laboratory. The aim was to prove the theory of Eörs Szathmáry biology professor, according to which the enzymes have to be locked in a lipid membrane in order to keep the information sustaining the system. If it does not happen the so-called parasites invade the system and block its working, after a while.

It is called system, because this “mixture” of molecules cannot be mentioned differently. Although Ádám Kun would be able to define it accurately, but we do not want all our other readers click away from this article except our practicing biologist readers.

These organisations do not make the cut of a living being, but they can produce essential processes for life.

So we have a working enzyme, which can be copied by the system, in other words, it “reproduces”. But the mistakes are unavoidable during copying and mutant enzymes are created as a result –explains Ádám Kun. Let’s call the parasites “molecules”, that receive the products of the enzymes without themselves contributing to the metabolism.

They use the resources but do not add anything to the working of the system. The parasites are copied faster, they are present in the following generations in greater and greater content – as a final result the prevalence of the parasites displace the enzyme and the whole system collapses and “dies”.

Separation is the solution

To avoid these primitive, not yet living organisms, those should be locked in some kind of a membrane. In our case this meant water-drops of ten picoliters – one picoliter is thousand-billion times smaller than a litre. Let’s say syntactic cells as real cells are nothing less, but an enclosure watery solution.

Beside this the right RNS enzyme had to be chosen, and also the copying, its sensation, the sensation of the processes done by it, and other things had to be solved. This way the work of long years and the collaboration of École Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles  in Paris, one of the most modern laboratories were needed.

The experiment proved what the theory said: as soon as the systems were locked in a membrane only the ones reproduced that worked. Parasites appeared during the copying in this case, too, but only those “cells” moved on that contained enough enzymes needed for the functioning among the parasites.

To make it clearer: via the membrane the synthetic cells divided the large whole into smaller protected units creating several smaller systems instead of a large one. This way even if some of them were suppressed by the parasites, others “survived”, “reproduced” and natural selection did not let the whole thing collapse.

It works

Let’s imagine a boat competition: only those get to the finish where everyone rows in the same direction. All the others are scattered, just like evolution scatters the ones incapable of living – but closed systems are needed for the selection. The researchers have shown that the RNS enzymes locked in the membrane are able to sustain despite the parasites of their mutants.

The origin of life has not been solved with this, but, according to Ádám Kun, “we are more certain that it could happen in a way that we think it did”.

More can be read about the theory and the experiment with scientific details, but in a clear way on Ádám Kun’s blog. The authors of the research appeared in Science are the staff of the Department of Plant Systematics, Ecology and Theoretical Biology of ELTE, MTA-ELTE-MTM Ecology Research Gropup and MTA-ELTE – Theoretical Biology and Evolutionary Ecology Research Group: Eörs Szathmáry academic, Ádám Kun senior research fellow and András Szilágyi senior research fellow.

Photo: 24.hu

Copy editor: bm

Encrypted cloud to be the next Hungarian world-success

Tresorit, slowly approaching world-fame with ten-thousands of clients and a super-safe sharing software, can devastate the world-market, reports szeretlekmagyaroszag.hu.

Many say that the success of Tresorit resembles that of Prezi or Ustream.

The Hungarian company has an increasing client-base in Europe and in the North-American region, and they are already working on their new product, which would make their encryption technology available to further corporations.

Encrypted Dropbox

Tresorit is a service for sharing and storing files available for both companies and individual users. Today’s cloud services, like Dropbox, give storage space, where you, or even large companies, like MOL or McDonald’s, can store data. An average person may think that it is not so important to keep their data safe from professional hackers (or, at least, would not pay ten-thousands every month to achive such a safety), but it is the experience of Tresorit that, as soon as concrete questions are asked (would you like your private photos to be out on the internet?), the opinion of people suddenly change. Furthermore, it is important for companies to keep certain sensitive data safe for sure.

Dropbox, for example, is not like that. Tresorit found this market gap in the last few years, so they already have more than ten-thousand company and a hundred-thousand individual users today. Tresorit’s structure is based on end-to-end encryption, which means that even they cannot see the files of the users. These files get encrypted on the device of the user, therefore the system is so safe that they actually reward any hackers, who successfully break into the system, with USD 50,000.

From the university to the secret service

The story of Tresorit started at Budapest University of Technology and Economics, in the research centre of the Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security, where two of the founders, István Lám and Szilveszter Szebeni, worked together. They started developing the encryption system, that gives the basis of Tresorit and the “shareable encryption”, during their BSc, which is already under patent today.

They wanted to share their university notes safely, but they did not trust the popular cloud systems, like Dropbox.

This is where the idea came from, to create their own solution, which is much safer than the well-known services, but still has the comforts offered by the cloud. During the research they found out how the cloud-based data storage can be safe through the use of an end-to-end encryption system. Completed with the third founder, György Szilágyi, who is responsible for product development, they decided that this level of novelty is worth to put on the market. They kept the good relationship with the university; the majority of their programmers studied or are still studying there, the average age at the company is 27.

The company brought up a brilliant idea in 2013. They wanted to prove that their system is unbreakable, so they offered USD 50,000 to the one who can reach a file that is stored in Tresorit.

The speciality of the competition was that the hackers and the experts of system-security were provided with the same administrator-rights that the Supreme System Administrators of Tresorit use.

In more than a year nobody could break the encryption and read the files – although there were attempts by acknowledged institutions, like MIT or Stanford. György  Szilágyi was proud to tell:

“We showed that not only hackers with evil intent, or system-security, but even we are unable to reach the files stored in the system. We cannot read them, so, even if we wanted to forward it to the national security in a readable format, we are not able to do so. The essence of Tresorit is, that only the user has the key to access the classified files. Only they can read them and, of course, people they share it with.”

They are mostly targeting Europe, but they are also heading to the States

The encrypted cloud service has a great market in Europe. As György Szilágyi stated,

“Two-thirds of the Tresorit users are European, mostly from German speaking areas (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), where people ad companies are more aware of the importance of data safety.”

He also told:

“Besides them we have an increasing client base in the North-American region. There are many different companies using our file-sharing service, from companies with 5-10 people to larger corporation with hundreds of people. We have more and more clients, big companies, such as IT Services in Hungary (affiliated company of T-Systems)”

There are many consultant companies, financial services, law firms, research centres, educational institutions and marketing groups of bigger companies, among their clients. The mentioned companies are the same, in the sense, because different documents and files, containing confidential data, are playing an important role during work, and they have a significantly large demand related to safety. Tresorit is available in five languages: English, German, Spanish, French and, since September, Hungarian.

“Non-profit organisations are our enhanced users of ours, because the protection of data is a priority for them. The protection of data can be a matter of life and death in the case of organisations helping war victims or protecting human rights. Therefore, we started our non-profit program, to support these groups doing valuable work, and to help them to use Tresorit for free.“

Further big company users and newer products are planned

The aim of Tresorit is to be a determinant part of the enterprise file sync & sharing (EFSS) market, in other words, to work with more enterprises and offer them services to handle company documents safely and comfortably, correspondingly to all the international data protection regulations.

On the other hand, they would like to make other applications dealing with digital data and working “safely”. So they created a new product this year: they started a software developing kit called 0_kit, which has already been successful in Tresorit file sharing; it makes encryption dealing with hundreds of gigabytes of data available for other developers.

tresorit3

“Application developers can easily build it into their own systems, for example, in a corporation-leading system, or in a healthcare mobile application. One of our colleagues, living in San Francisco, is responsible for developing 0_kit, who has been negotiating with several large American companies about collaboration. “ – as it was told by György Szilágyi.

Many compared the story of Tresorit to Prezi, LogMeIn, NNG and Ustream, and there are obvious similarities between Tresorit and these start-ups: all of them are Software-as-a-Service start-ups coming from Hungary, with high-risk investing backgrounds. (Tresorit has involved nearly EUR 5 million value stocks since its establishment.)

“There are more than 55 people working in our Budapest office to develop a cloud-based service appealing for the global market.” – said György Szilágyi, when speaking about their goals.

Photo: szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu

Copy editor: bm

Hungarian invention against infections on the subway

99 % of the germs and infections can be removed from the handrails of the escalators with the help of the unique Hungarian invention, writes szeretlekmagyaroszag.hu.

Our body gets less sunshine during the fall and the winter, and supplying vitamins is getting more difficult. It is not a surprise that there are more infectious illnesses at that time of the year. These are caused by some germs and several types of viruses, influenza being the most well-known among those. It is especially important around that time of the year to avoid germs and viruses settling down on surfaces which are touched by crowds.

The invention of a Hungarian company can bring a revolutionary change in keeping busy places and public transport clean. The covering system is based on international research, but is developed locally and exerts its effects in an nature-friendly way.

Its base is a natural metal oxide, which is registered also as a food additive and can be found in chewing gums, toothpastes and other everyday products.

The photocatalytic cover activates in light, does not wear off, and continuously disinfects the surface.

metro

“The surface can be touched by anyone right after each other, because when it becomes hit by light it works continuously, and it will not come off or disappear from the surface. Artificial lights, which give normal viewing conditions, are enough to achieve the results and ensure the disinfection for a year. “

– said Péter Lehoczky, manager of Resysten Hungary Kft.

Until now, it was impossible with even the highest attention to avoid passengers getting infected by the touching of a surface touched by another passenger. That is why BKK decided to use Resysten WhiteTitan™ protecting cover experimentally on the handrails of the escalators of the metro lines 2 and 4.

The results have been promising so far, so the system will be spread to the handrails of metro line 3 and have already been used on 160 busses and are expected on the suburban railway lines.

Photo: Resysten Hungary Kft.

Copy editor: bm

Adidas to pay the Hungarian inventor of the best football shoe ever

According to index.hu, László Oroszi invented the ultimate football shoe, but his patent was usurped by Adidas, who designed one of the world’s best and most successful football shoes theafter. The lawsuit between László Oroszi and Adidas was like the fight of David and Goliath. The story seems to have a happy end, but the Hungarian inventor lost much more than what he won, and the company barely lost anything compared to how much they have won.

The good news is that the lawyer representing the inventor of the ultimate football boots and the patent agent managed to prove Oroszi’s right with endless determination. What happened was that László Oroszi invented a football shoe, which caught the eye of Adidas. The inventor was shocked to see that his idea was carried out without him. He sued Adidas, who fought hard. The final judgement was pronounced after 14 years: Adidas has to pay.

The person who invented the best football shoe ever

The Adidas Predator Mania produced from 2000 to 2003 was probably one of the best football shoes ever. It debuted at the European Championships in 2000, where Trezeguet scored the golden goal for the French national team wearing the shoes. Then, almost all of the football stars wore this shoe at the 2002 World Cup, from Zidane, Del Piero to Beckham.

The cult of the Mania shoe is so big that a used pair still cost 80-100 thousand forints online. And the limited retro series launched this year cost a similar amount of money, but they ran out of stock in just a few days’ time.

Oroszi László-adidas

What was special about the Predator Precision and the following Predator Mania shoes was the softly corded performance of the spiral surface. This solution was worked out by László Oroszi in 1995-96 and then patented in Hungary and whole Europe, but something went wrong during the latter process, so the invention’s international protection misfired.

In 2005, patent agent Mihály Lantos took up the case when László Oroszi’s faith was already shattered. “If I hadn’t met Mihály Lantos then, I wouldn’t be anywhere today” said the inventor referring to the fact that during the lawsuit even him being the actual inventor was questioned.

It all started out great

The inventor and his team made it to the point of producing the shoes in 1998, when the product attracted Adidas’s attention. The team was stunned by the German interest as they wouldn’t have guessed that the company would simply market the shoes without a business contract. The inventors didn’t suspect anything, they trusted the company and gave them a few pairs of the shoe without signing any type of non-disclosure agreement.

From dream to nightmare

Nothing happened for a while, but Oroszi realised in 2000 that the newest football shoe of the German brand featured the solution invented by him. So he started a piracy lawsuit against Adidas Budapest, because he couldn’t sue the parent company due to the foozled European patent.

It was obvious from the first moment that Adidas took the lawsuit seriously and did everything to prolongate the procedure, hoping that Oroszi would give up sooner or later. The inventor spent all of his fortune on the lawsuit, he didn’t have enough money left to extend the patent in 2007, so he can’t partake of the price of the current retro models.

 

He looked up Mihány Lantos, the then leader of the Danubia Patent and Law Office Kft., in this hopeless situation, in 2005. The patent agent took on the representation for the greatness of the challenge and for moral reasons. “I could tell that he was right” said Lantos, who first saved the Hungarian patent and then collaborated with Sár és Társai Law Firm for a more effective representation.

You might win, but it will never be over

Index.hu writes that, after seven years of fighting, the Hungarian court pronounced the validity of László Oroszi’s patent in 2012. After the legally binding judgement, it was time to start the legal trial concerning the financial profit the piracy returned to Adidas Budapest Kft.

But Adidas Budapest didn’t deliver the requested data quoting saying that they didn’t have them anymore as the law only obliges keeping them for 5 years. They finally handed in the requested marketing data one and a half months after the deadline. But what kind of data was that if they allegedly hadn’t kept them?

A full field attack

The lawyers of the German company started a sudden attack adverting that Oroszi’s financial claims became forfeited during the long process. This meant two more years of litigation in practice. The case was finally brought to the Curia of Hungary, where they also decided in favour of Oroszi.

Then, they handed in the financial demands in 2014. According to Oroszi’s legal representatives, Adidas Budapest profited from Oroszi’s patent in two ways: they had a direct profit, and the outstandingly successful shoes also added to the company’s significant brand value growth (at the time Adidas put its technological development into the focus of its marketing communication).

The calculation of the share from the income should’ve been easy based on the data delivered by Adidas, but those weren’t completely right. For instance, they estimated a lot less pairs of shoes than the witnesses of the demander. Moreover, they claimed that Oroszi only invented the operator lane in itself which he put on a football shoe, not the operator laned football shoe.

adidas-predators

No, no and no

In the April of 2016, the court of first instance stood on the side of Adidas in three aspects: they accepted Adidas’s data delivery, they didn’t accept the brand value growth argument and they made place for Adidas’s reference to “overlapping proportion” as a decreasing aspect, which decreased Oroszi’s share to 25%.

The judgement was like three heart attacks for Oroszi, but they didn’t give, they lodged an appeal juts like Adidas Budapest Kft., who wanted to further decrease Oroszi’s share, even though it should’ve been increased, as it turned out that Adidas Budapest also supplied the Romanian market.

The end game

The final judgement was announced on the 8th of November, 2016. Regarding the overlapping proportion, the previous decision was reversed so the share was increased back to 100%. For the rest, the court of appeal accepted the calculation and justification of the court of first instance.

Furthermore, they announced that Oroszi has to take on 70% of the lawsuit cost, which he could include in the sum paid to him by Adidas, but no matter what, the remaining will be spent on old loans from his friends, acquaintances whose help he had asked for during the realization of his big dream of producing the world’s best football shoe in Hungary.

Photos: MTI, prodirectsoccer.com, facebook.com/adidas

Copy editor: bm

New Hungarian invention warns of the risk of stroke or infarction

According to szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu, WIWE is a new medical tool developed by Hungarians, which can foretell the risks of stroke and sudden cardiac arrest. The small device and the application connected to it can save the lives of thousands. The invention was presented to the public last Wednesday.

The device measures the electrocardiogram curve, thus, it is able to warn about the risk of sudden cardiac arrest. Moreover, it can measure the oxygen level of blood and pulse, and can also function as a pedometer or calorie counter.

The device has two parts: a portable meter and an application which can be connected to smartphones or tablets. The invention was developed by Prof György Kozmann, the president of Pannon University’s Medical-I.T. Research & Development centre, and his colleagues.

Budapest, 2016. november 23. A WIWE elnevezésû orvostechnológiai (diagnosztikai) eszközhöz tartozó applikáció felhasználói felülete egy tableten a Sanatmetal Kft. bemutatóján, a Magyar Tudományos Akadémián tartott sajtótájékoztatón 2016. november 23-án. A magyar találmány az EKG görbét mérve figyelmeztet a pitvari fibrilláció következtében kialakuló stroke és a hirtelen szívmegállás kockázatára. MTI Fotó: Szigetváry Zsolt

The sudden cardiac arrest is a leading cause of death all over the world and has a survival rate of 10%. Stroke is the second most common death cause – according to WHO’s data, more than 5 million people die from stroke every year. In Hungary, 51% of deaths are caused by cardiovascular diseases and traumas.

[button link=”https://dailynewshungary.com/you-wouldnt-even-think-how-many-inventions-the-world-owes-to-hungary/” type=”big” color=”teal” newwindow=”yes”] Read more about Hungarian inventions[/button]

According to the estimated data, about 40-50 thousand Hungarians suffer an apoplectic seizure every year, and almost 12 thousand people die from stroke. In one third of the cases the direct cause of stroke is the so called atrial fibrillation, which can be identified and treated by electrocardiogram.

As Dávid Becker, the secretary general of the Cardiologist Society said, “the most serious sequela of acute cardiac muscle infarction which mostly occurs in the first hours is the sudden death causer ventricular fibrillation in 30% of the cases”.

Budapest, 2016. november 23. Becker Dávid egyetemi docens, a Kardiológus Társaság fõtitkára, a Városmajori Szív- és Érgyógyászati Klinika igazgatóhelyettese a WIWE elnevezésû orvostechnológiai (diagnosztikai) eszköz bemutatóján, a gyártó és forgalmazó Sanatmetal Kft. sajtótájékoztatóján a Magyar Tudományos Akadémián 2016. november 23-án. A magyar találmány az EKG görbét mérve figyelmeztet a pitvari fibrilláció következtében kialakuló stroke és a hirtelen szívmegállás kockázatára. MTI Fotó: Szigetváry Zsolt

How does WIWE work?

The diagnostic device is able to signal the risk of ventricular fibrillation and helps to diagnose the many time symptom-free, seizure-like atrial fibrillation through a uniquely smart algorithm that evaluates the characteristics of the electrocardiogram curve.

The invention was developed further by the Eger centred Sanatmetal Kft, which also obtained the essential permissions. The 100% Hungarians owned enterprise produces and markets traumatologic, orthopaedic, spine surgical and dental implants.

Photos: MTI, www.facebook.com/WIWE

Copy editor: bm

10 Hungarian innovators among the best of Eastern Europe

business innovation

According to szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu, the Hungarian inventors of the smart surgical knife, the wheelchair navigation application, and the hand hygienic tool are all listed on the illustrious New Europe 100 list.

The list includes application developers, the starters of social initiations and the inventors of projects, technologies which effectively support the consumers of Europe and the whole world. The list is both about people and their big ideas, about those who, with their courage for innovation, new-tech expertise, unique skills, and social outreach, are having a global impact.

The list was put together for the third time this year, when ten Hungarians made it onto it, which is more than last year’s eight, but still only the fifth best result after the other Visegrád countries and Romania.

neweurope

The list, which presents 100 figures who play a leading role in the development of the region, was put together by Res Publica in cooperation with the Visegrád Fund, Google, Financial Times and several outstanding institutions of the region.

Hungarians on the list:

  • Tamás Haidegger for designing an effective control and education tool for hand hygiene (CEO, HandInScan)
  • Péter Bodó for creating a community-based accessibility map for wheelchair users (CEO, Route4U)
  • Zsolt Robotka for pioneering the first automated sign language translation solution (Founder & CEO, SignAll)
  • András Pethő for defending democratic institutions and press freedom (Founder & Editor, Direkt36)
  • Zoltán Takáts for inventing a smart knife to fight cancer (Professor of Analytical Chemistry, Imperial College London)
  • Attila Bustya and András Lénárd for holding the world record for drone flight duration (Founders, Spider Drone Security)
  • Anikó Grad-Gyenge for supporting open science (Head of Department of Civil and Roman Law, Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church)
  • László Kishonti for making the future smart cars safer (CEO, AdasWorks)
  • Péter Lábody for defending intellectual property (Head of the Copyright Department, Hungarian Intellectual Property Office)
  • Alíz Pocsuvalszki for standing up for those who don’t have a voice (Teacher, Organizer, Activist)
  • Prem Kumar Rajaram for providing free online education on refugees (Academic Director, CEU’s Roma Graduate Preparation Program)

The awarded innovators were chosen according the applications sent in by the partners and the audience. Out of the 300 challengers 49% are in the business category, 30% in society & politics, 11% in science and 10% in media & culture.

The aim of New Europe 100 list is to acknowledge and present creative, innovative ideas which have a positive effect on economy, science, culture and local communities. These ideas are the motors of initiation that can have a global effect and inspire others.

Photo: www.ne100.org

Copy editor: bm

CSB – Unique bicycles for women

Would you ever thought that the unique bicycle for girls was invented by two guys? CSB (Csajbringa – Girlcycle) turned out so well that women simply adore the stylish, harmonic and good quality bikes. Szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu talked with Viktor Kádár and Zsolt Erdő, the creative, cycling-fanatic inventors of CSB. They certainly know what women need.

And what they needed hasn’t been manufactured for decades: an elegant, minimalistic bike with harmonising colours, avoiding black and unattractive Chinese plastic. Viktor believes that the technical development of the 90s and the spreading of mountain bikes took a bad direction (from women’s point of view) in the development of bicycles: they became more and more futuristic. Not to mention that most women don’t desire extras, only an elegant, feminine and comfortable bicycle.

The idea arose when one if the inventors couldn’t find any nice bicycle for his girlfriend’s birthday – so why couldn’t they design bicycles for women? They were lucky because this realisation fell in the same time as the start the renaissance of cycling in Budapest.

csb7

In the beginning they didn’t think that it could turn into a serious business, they only knew that they were both crazy about bikes and that no one had done anything like this before. So they ran to the second-hand market and bought four ancient bicycles, which they disassembled, sand-sprayed, polished, assembled and bought some accessories.

The concept was the creation of sophisticated, minimalistic bicycles in harmonising colours made with of good quality components, avoiding the ugly, black Chinese plastic. They then shared the bikes on Facebook, because they didn’t know what else they could do with them. They only wanted to make them, not use them.

They sold the first bikes way under their realistic price, but this didn’t discourage them. They got more and more positive feedback, newspapers started writing about them and they knew that they had to carry on.

Viktor had a vision about a nice girl bicycle, which proved to be right by the feedback. They don’t tell you how a nice bike looks like, they give you the option to design the appearance of the components by choosing from 30 colours.

But they soon realised that the renovation of old bicycles might not be the best, quickest and most effective option. “We had to admit that it wasn’t good that we overworked ourselves while the bikes still didn’t turn out perfect, so we started making completely new bicycles.”

They say that they did everything from sales to marketing with common sense, and the business started up by itself; satisfied buyers brought new buyers. “It was like moving a rock which started an avalanche. It wasn’t the result of conscious strategic decisions, the whole thing happened because it was meant to happen.”

Fortune and hard-working helped each other in the case of CSB. In 2014, László Szilvássy was looking for a unique female bicycle and stopped a CSB user on the street who led them to the inventors. He saw potential in the idea, so he and his partner, Balázs Lendvay, invested money and ideas in the project. This was exactly what the boys needed: two experienced businessmen.

They started a company together, made the enterprise more professional and transparent. A higher positioning was also part of the plan, which resulted in the rise of prices. Their field is a though one concerning that higher prices mean lower income, not to mention that the purchase of components is harder in smaller amounts. “We have to find a way to reach our target group. We have to grow up for this task.”

csb8

They believe in their next big plan: they are trying to bring the frame manufacturing to Hungary for a better quality and cost-efficiency. They hope to achieve this by 2017. They might also try selling CSB abroad, where the circle of potential buyers is wider. For instance, there are much more cyclists and higher incomes in Scandinavian countries. Since no one would understand Csajbringa (~Girlcycle) abroad, they have been consciously positioning the brand to CSB since the beginning.

Photos: www.facebook.com/CSBCsajbringa

Copy editor: bm

Bariksa: Going green with the coffee bean on the streets of Budapest

 

Bariksa are an infant start-up whose goals is to build and operate solar-powered eco-tricycles and serve the best coffee in town, thus fostering sustainable business models, the advancement of clean technologies and an eco-friendly, yet forward-thinking design integrated with smart solutions.

Bariksa have launched an Indiegogo campaign to crowdfund the realisation of the first four eco-tricycles because, as it often happens, all available funds have been invested in the study and planning of the eco-tricycles and, as all company at their early stage, money is tight. The team have taken care of every small details in order to come up with a minimal design that would allow to provide top quality coffee to drink on the go and provide a service in the utmost respect not just for the environment, but for everyone in town.

We want to be a business with a soul and a conscience; to us, it is of course important to be earning money, but we’re not willing to compromise on the environmental impact of our activities nor on the philosophy that has brought us together.

We want the Bariksas to mirror modern societies; they’re going to be mobile, connected, sustainable, light, and cutting-edge.

Social responsibility, quality and zero-impact are the tenets guiding our action; Gandhi said “Be the change you want to be in the world”, this is our take on it.

Further information on the campaign and updates about Bariksa can be found at https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bariksa-coffee#/.

Address any enquiry at pa****************@gm***.com.

A Hungarian electric aircraft might conquer the world

The Hungarian Magnus Aircraft Ltd. created the world’s first all-electric airplane and, after reaching China, started to expand its market to the US, reports mno.hu.

The company was established in Kecskemét in 2011 and gained fame for their Magnus Fusion aircraft, by which Zoltán Földi, pilot and Kálmán Hankusz, press photographer travelled around the Mediterranean Sea in the honour of Antal Bánhidy, pilot and mechanical engineer.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) issued that all commercial pilots have to attend emergency trainings and also take exams on a yearly basis, from January 2017. Hence, Magnus Aircraft started to develop an airplane which would be completely environmental-friendly and relatively cheap, thanks to its electric drive.

Domonkos Andréka, Communication Director of Magnus Aircraft told the site that the eFusion completely models commercial planes, as the seats are placed next to each other, oppositely to the planes being currently used for such training purposes and have their seats behind each other. Also, in the eFusion the instructor can help the students during the training, which is not an option in the other planes.

Besides, the plane may play an important part in the basic training of pilots as well. The developing process was carried on by the teams of Siemens and Magnus Aircraft: the former was responsible for creating the electric drive, the engine, and the complete electric monitoring system, while the latter was in charge of figuring out how to put all those things into the plane, and then, let it fly. According to mno, it cost 1.4 million EUR.

[button link=”https://dailynewshungary.com/hungarian-electric-aircraft-at-the-forefront-of-aviation/” newwindow=”yes”] Read more about the work of Magnus Aircraft[/button]

The company’s goal is to enable the eFusion to fly for about 1-1.5 hours. Currently it can fly for about 35 minutes. They still need to make some of the internal devices and equipment lighter in order to keep to the weight limitations. Moreover, the eFusion has to complete a test series of 40 hours to get permission for aviation all over the country.

The plane has spent already 20 hours in the air, but the 40 hours have great significance, because then the problems can be realized and fixed, after which the eFusion can become totally fool proof. At the moment, the interest in the plane is rather huge, but before it can be put to the market the eFusion has to pass all the tests and fulfill the compulsory flying hours.

Still, it is great to note that the feedback are already promising and Magnus Aircraft has been mainly contacted by foreigners, though, companies from Hungary have also expressed interest in the product. Also, leaders of the firm already started negotiations in Fredericksburg, TX.

According to Andréka, due to their effective demand and the history of aviation the American continent is regarded the most mature market and currently they issue most of the private pilot licenses. Which is why Magnus Aircraft finds it beneficial to enter the market there, and to construct the place of plane assembly and maintenance manufacture there.

Earlier, they also agreed with China on constructing such a manufacture there. Besides, they are planning to establish the Magnus Pilot Academy, which would happen in the second half of 2017, in China, and from March 2017 in the US. Further goals include the beginning of the series production and the development of other planes.

Photo: facebook.com/magnusaircraft & keol.hu

Copy editor: bm