Singularity by Vaonis
1 PREAMBLE
These general terms of use govern your use of our SINGULARITY application.
The use of the functionalities of our SINGULARITY application implies the prior and unreserved acceptance of the present terms. Otherwise, you will not be able to use it.
2 APPLICATION EDITOR
The SINGULARITY application is published by VAONIS, a French company with registered offices at 225 rue Didier Daurat, 34170, Castelnau-le-Lez, France, with share capital of €17133.80, registered with the Montpellier Trade and Companies Register under SIRET number 823 710 447.
3 APPLICATION DESCRIPTION
The SINGULARITY application allows you to control the telescopes developed by our company VAONIS, such as the STELLINA, VESPERA or HYPERIA model (hereinafter the "VAONIS Telescope").
More precisely, VAONIS telescopes are new-generation telescopes developed and marketed by our company VAONIS, enabling you to observe space. To operate, these telescopes must be connected to the SINGULARITY application and used in accordance with their instructions.
When you use the SINGULARITY application with your VAONIS Telescope, you can:
Observe space through your VAONIS telescope;
Take photographs of your observations of the sky;
Save and set observation points;
Consult the weather forecast to adapt your observations;
Store your photographs taken with your telescope on your terminal or on our Cloud;
Record skywatching events on your calendar.
If your VAONIS telescope is fitted with a solar filter produced by VAONIS, you can also observe the sun and take JPEG photographs of your observations.
Using artificial intelligence tools, you can:
- have texts read, such as teasers or image descriptions, using text-to-speech (Google Text to Speech),
- ask GPT questions, via text chat or by voice, your voice data being converted into text, which alone is then transmitted to Open AI.
Use of these features is optional, and you can deactivate voice recognition or text reading at any time via the application settings.
VAONIS does not communicate any personal data about you to Chat GPT. It is just a service that allows you to ask questions related to your observations with the telescopes. When using Chat GPT, we recommend that you do not provide any personal data. VAONIS cannot be held responsible if you communicate personal data to Chat GPT. In this case, please refer to the Open AI Privacy Policy.
The creation of a member account is required to access these features. You will be asked to register the first time you use the SINGULARITY application.
4 TECHNICAL PREREQUISITES
The SINGULARITY application can be downloaded to smartphones and tablets from the Apple Store or Google Play store, depending on your terminal's operating system. Our application is supported from version IOS 14 for Apple terminals, and from version Android 8-9 for other terminals.
An Internet connection (Wi-Fi) is required while the application is being downloaded and used. The cost of this connection to access and use the application is at your expense.
You don't need a VAONIS telescope to download and use our application. However, in this case you will only have access to limited functionalities of our SINGULARITY application, consisting solely of the creation of a member account and the consultation of certain informative contents of our application.
If you are equipped with a VAONIS telescope, you will be able to access all the features of our application. Simply follow the tutorial that appears in our application after registration, to connect your smartphone or tablet to your VAONIS Telescope.
Please note that only the "SOLAR POINTING" feature of our application allows you to observe the sun through your VAONIS telescope. Using this feature requires the purchase of an additional accessory sold by our company. This is a solar filter, available on our website www.vaonis.com.
5 UPDATE
We may update these terms and conditions from time to time. In this case, you will receive notification of the update and the new version of our general terms of use at the e-mail address associated with your member account, and you will be asked to accept the new general terms of use.
The current general terms of use for the SINGULARITY application are furthermore always available on our website www.vaonis.com.
6 FREE APPLICATION
There is no charge for creating a member account on the SINGULARITY application and using this application (apart from the cost of your internet connection).
Please note, however, that you will only be able to access most of the features of the SINGULARITY application if you own and connect a VAONIS telescope to our application. This telescope can be purchased online from our company on its website www.vaonis.com, or from our authorized dealers, a list of whom is also available on our website.
In addition, some features of our SINGULARITY application require, to operate, the purchase of additional accessories that are not supplied with our VAONIS Telescopes. Such is the case with the "SOLAR POINTING" feature. This allows you to observe the sun by installing a compatible solar filter, sold by our company, on your VAONIS telescope, and to take photographs of your solar observations in JPEG format, which can then be saved.
7 MEMBER ACCOUNT
7.1 Creating a member account
You will be asked to create a member account the first time you use our application.
The following information is required to create your member account:
Your first and last name;
Your email.
This information must be accurate, complete and up-to-date.
You may also choose to associate an image from your gallery with your account, but this is optional. In this case, you must authorize us to access your gallery for this purpose only.
Finally, you'll need to create a unique username, choose a password and accept these general terms of use and our privacy policy.
Once your member account has been created, you will receive confirmation at your email address.
You can then connect to the SINGULARITY application by entering your login and password.
IMPORTANT: You may share your account with members of your household for personal use only. If you present yourself as a professional and make professional use of our application and the VAONIS Telescope, then this use must be expressly authorized by our company (in accordance with article 10.1).
In any case, if you give access to your member account to third parties, you are responsible for their use of our application and that of the associated VAONIS Telescope.
7.2 Loss of your member account details
You are responsible for protecting the login and password associated with your account.
If you lose your password, you can request a link to be sent to the email address associated with your member account to choose a new one. You can also contact our support team if you have any problems.
Use of your member account is deemed to be your use or the use of persons in your household whom you have duly authorized. You are therefore responsible to us for the activity carried out on your member account.
In the event of usurpation of your member account, you should therefore change your password as soon as possible by following the procedure available on the application or contact our service as indicated in article 13.
7.3 Deleting your member account
Please note that uninstalling our application on your terminal does not delete your member account.
To delete your member account in the SINGULARITY application, simply use the "Delete my account" button on your profile page. This action will send your deletion request directly to us. Alternatively, you can send your request to dpo@vaonis.com. We will process your request as soon as possible and inform you of the effective deletion of your member account by e-mail.
We also reserve the right to delete your member account in the event of any breach of these general terms of use or any inappropriate or unlawful behavior on your part. In this case, we will send a notice to your e-mail address informing you of the violation and the notice period applied before your account is deleted. In such cases, we reserve the right to refuse you any further registration to our SINGULARITY application.
Your member account will be automatically deleted after three years of uninterrupted inactivity. You will be notified in advance of this deletion and may prevent it by reconnecting to your telescope before the expiry of this given deadline.
You are informed that the deletion of your member account entails the deletion of all content associated with your member account and stored on our Cloud, such as your photographs and sky observations, as well as the data you have recorded on the application, such as your sky observation points.
8 ACCESS REQUESTS RELATED TO THE USE OF THE APPLICATION
8.1 Access to your location data
When you log on for the first time, you will be asked to provide your location data.
This location data is required to set up your VAONIS telescope for sky observation according to your position. This data not only enables you to initialize your VAONIS Telescope and give it the necessary instructions concerning the space to be observed, but also enables to take account of meteorological parameters to adapt your observations.
In case of malfunction of our application or of the VAONIS Telescope related to the initialization and setup of the Telescope, please note that our support team will also need access to the location data you have provided to the application, as well as to other usage data of the VAONIS Telescope, in order to resolve bugs.
You can provide the location data required to operate the VAONIS Telescope by entering them manually or by activating your GPS. If you choose to activate your GPS, you will have to accept the push notification requesting access to your GPS.
By giving us this authorization, you agree to provide us with your GPS location data to ensure the operation of the VAONIS Telescope. Depending on the model of your terminal, you may be asked for this authorization each time you use the application, or it may be prerecorded for subsequent use. In all cases, you can set your GPS access authorizations directly in your terminal settings.
Unless you choose to save your location data to create an "observation point" enabling you to observe said observation point on a recurring basis, your location data will only be stored in our application for strict maintenance purposes.
You can manage the creation and deletion of your "observation points" directly from the application.
Finally, we would like to point out that if you have chosen to activate your GPS to provide your location data, your GPS will automatically deactivate after each use of our application.
The application only requires location data when you use it to initialize the VAONIS Telescope or when you observe the sky with your Telescope, even if this data is otherwise stored in our application installed on your terminal and on our secure servers to meet any maintenance needs you may have.
We remind you that you can set your GPS access authorizations directly in your terminal settings.
8.2 Entering your interests and personalizing your profile
You can also indicate your interests (painting, cinema, literature, music, etc.) in the application, so that our application can offer you a personalized observation catalog, as well as tailored information content.
You are free to indicate your interests or not in the application.
This information is only intended to personalize the content of the SINGULARITY application according to your centers of interest, to the exclusion of any use of this information for commercial purposes, and to the exclusion of any communication of this information to third parties.
In your profile page, you'll also find the photographs you've saved in our Cloud.
Please note that your profile page is not shared with other users of the SINGULARITY application.
8.3 Connecting the application to your VAONIS telescope
To connect the application to your VAONIS telescope, simply follow the tutorial displayed on the application, which is designed to guide you through your first connection.
8.4 Accessing your calendar
The SINGULARITY application lets you record events linked to your sky observation on the calendar associated with your terminal.
In this case, you will receive an authorization request enabling the application to send information about the selected events to the calendar associated with your terminal. If you refuse, the events you have selected cannot be saved in your calendar.
Deleting your member account does not modify any events you may have already saved in the calendar associated with your terminal.
8.5 Access to your photo gallery
To store the photographs taken with your VAONIS Telescope on your terminal, the application will need access to your photo gallery. Access to your photo gallery will be strictly limited to the storage of your photographs. If this access request is refused, the photographs taken by your telescope cannot be stored on your terminal.
You can also store your photographs taken with the VAONIS Telescope in our cloud, within the limits of the storage space made available to you.
You can manage the photographs hosted on our Cloud directly in our application. Please note that if you delete your member account, this content will also be deleted.
8.6 Sharing functions
The SINGULARITY application lets you share photographs taken with the VAONIS Telescope with friends and family, using third-party communication services already installed on your terminal and recognized by our application.
In this case, once you have chosen the third-party service enabling you to share your content, our application will communicate the data you have selected to said service. You acknowledge that our company is not responsible for the use of your content by these third-party services, as our application only offers a sharing functionality via services already installed on your terminal, under your instructions and on your behalf.
8.7 Microphone access
The SINGULARITY application lets you ask questions to Open AI (GPT), either in writing or verbally. This second option requires that you give us access to your microphone.
You will be asked for permission the first time you use this feature, and you can revoke it at any time thereafter, in your device settings.
Please note that the recording will not be communicated to any third party, and only a written transcript of the recording will be sent to Open AI (GPT).
9 LIABILITY
9.1 Interruption of our application
We make every effort to ensure that you can use our application 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. However, we cannot be held liable for any interruptions or temporary alterations to our application resulting from maintenance, updates or causes beyond our control, in particular if the interruption is caused by the Internet network itself or by the means of connection you are using.
VAONIS shall not be held liable should it choose to cease making its SINGULARITY application available to the public for reasons of its own and at its own discretion.
9.2 Cloud storage service
We make every effort to ensure the continuity of our Cloud and the content hosted on it. However, we cannot guarantee this continuity.
As a result, we strongly recommend that you back up the content you store in our Cloud with another storage medium. Otherwise, you accept the risk of losing content that has been stored in our Cloud without being copied.
We would like to point out that if we cease to provide our application or Cloud hosting service, you would be informed in advance so that you can recover your hosted content within a reasonable period of time.
9.3 Third-party services
Our company is not responsible for third-party services to which you expressly grant access to a photo or whose functionalities you use while using our SINGULARITY application. In particular, our company cannot be held responsible for the use of content you send via third-party services using the sharing features mentioned in article 8.6.
Similarly, our company is not responsible for any content provided by the use of artificial intelligence applications such as Open AI (GPT). Please note that this information, whether descriptions or answers to your questions, is generated automatically and may not be perfectly accurate, complete or up to date. You are therefore advised to check this information, especially when making important decisions, and we accept no responsibility for any errors, omissions or incorrect interpretations.
9.4 Consequential damages
VAONIS cannot be held liable for any indirect damage you may suffer as a result of accessing, using or interrupting our SINGULARITY application.
9.5 VAONIS warranties
To ensure the safety of you and your equipment, it is imperative that you follow the instructions for VAONIS telescopes and our products when using our SINGULARITY application. You should also follow the instructions and tutorials displayed when using the SINGULARITY application.
Furthermore, you should only use accessories produced by us or accessories expressly approved by our company on your VAONIS Telescopes, in accordance with the technical requirements set out in article 4 and the instructions for use for our products. Failure to do so may result in serious damage to your equipment.
VAONIS shall not be liable for the use of the SINGULARITY application and our products, in particular our VAONIS Telescopes, if you fail to comply with the instructions for use contained in the manuals supplied with our products and also published on our website, and/or if you fail to comply with the instructions displayed in our application during its use. We also exclude liability if you use our products under abnormal conditions or for purposes other than those for which they were intended, in particular for professional use without our express authorization, or if you use accessories not supplied by or expressly approved by VAONIS.
In the event of malfunction of our products or material damage resulting from violation of our instructions for use and/or non-observance of the instructions available in our application, you acknowledge that the legal warranties applicable to our products may be excluded. The same would apply in the event of any direct, indirect and/or consequential bodily injury and/or material damage.
9.5.1 EXPRES WARNING REGARDING SUN OBSERVATION AND THE "SOLAR POINTING" FUNCTION:
You are expressly informed that your VAONIS Telescope must never be pointed in the direction of the sun unless a solar filter supplied by our company and compatible with your VAONIS Telescope is installed. Never look directly at the sun without adequate protection. Unprotected direct observation of the sun without a solar filter, even for a short time, can lead to serious eye burns and potential loss of vision, even to blindness.
If you use a solar filter supplied by our company and compatible with your VAONIS Telescope to implement the "SOLAR POINTING" functionality of our application, you agree to comply with the instructions for use of this accessory and the instructions displayed in our application.
In particular, it is imperative that your VAONIS Telescope has been used at night at least once. It is also imperative to check i) the condition of the solar filter (the filter must not be damaged), ii) its correct positioning, and iii) that you have upgraded your VAONIS Telescope in accordance with our instructions and the SINGULARITY application.
If your VAONIS telescope or the application detects a problem during filter installation, you must stop observing the sun immediately and start installing the solar filter again, following the instructions on your device and in the user manual. If the problem persists, you can contact our support department using the contact details given in your VAONIS solar filter manual, or those listed in article 13 below.
If you do not follow these instructions, your sunbathing presents a high risk to your instrument, including the risk of overheating and fire. You are also exposing yourself to a significant health risk, as unprotected sunbathing may cause irreversible eye damage.
In accordance with article 9.5, you acknowledge that in the event of any breach of our instructions for use and/or failure to comply with the above instructions and/or those available in our application concerning the "SOLAR POINTING" functionality, the legal warranties applicable to our products may be excluded. In particular, you will be liable for the cost of repairing our products as a result of such breaches.
9.5.2 Disclaimer for eclipse viewing
The removal of the solar filter integrated into Vaonis devices and the deactivation of the safety mechanism are your sole responsibility. In this respect, you undertake to take all the steps recommended by Vaonis on Singularity. Consequently, we cannot be held responsible for any damage caused by the removal of the solar filter before the total eclipse and/or the folding back of the solar filter after the total eclipse and/or the deactivation of the safety mechanism.
10 INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
10.1 Our intellectual property
The SINGULARITY application is protected by intellectual property rights.
Our company VAONIS nevertheless grants you a free, non-exclusive, worldwide and by nature precarious right to use the SINGULARITY application, including the use of its interfaces, its functionalities and the consultation of its contents.
This right of use is granted for personal and private use of our application, in compliance with the present general terms of use. This use is exceptionally limited to members of your household.
Any use of the application and our VAONIS Telescopes for professional purposes requires prior express written authorization, independent of these general terms of use. In this case, please contact us at: info@vaonis.com.
If you make professional use of our application, and in particular commercial use, without having obtained prior authorization from our company, you may not only be subject to deletion of your member account but also to legal action.
You are hereby informed that the right of use granted to you by VAONIS ceases upon deletion of your member account or upon simple notification by VAONIS. This license also ends if the SINGULARITY application is no longer used by our company for reasons of its own.
In any case, the license granted to you does not allow you to reproduce the contents of our SINGULARITY application (images, videos, files, texts, brands, logos, etc.), to modify them, to extract them, to export them, or even to distribute them to third parties outside your family circle or close relations, such acts being likely to constitute acts of infringement allowing our company VAONIS to take legal action against you.
Web scraping, data aggregation and/or indexing activities are prohibited without our express prior authorization.
We may implement any technical and/or organizational measures with purpose and/or effect of preventing any use contrary to our conditions; you agree not to misuse and/or circumvent these measures.
In the event of infringement of our intellectual property rights, we reserve the right to suspend or terminate your member account and the use of our VAONIS Telescopes without notice. Any creation of a new member account to circumvent this measure may also be subject to suspension or deletion of said account at our discretion.
Finally, we would like to point out that some of the content of our application is licensed to us by third parties, comes from Creative Commons licenses, or is freely made available by third parties. Our company VAONIS is therefore not the owner of this content, which is non-exhaustively identified below.
More specifically, this includes content from:
Photo Icons made by Those Icons from www.flaticon.com
Humidity Icons made by Those Icons from www.flaticon.com
Wifi Icons made by By Gregor Cresnar from www.flaticon.com
Notifications Icons made By Anatoly from www.flaticon.com
Favorites Icons made By Freepik from www.flaticon.com
Profil Icons made By Freepik from www.flaticon.com
Retouching Icons made By Freepik from www.flaticon.com
Control Icons made by By Freepik from www.flaticon.com
List Icons made By Freepik from www.flaticon.com
Share Icons made By Freepik from www.flaticon.com
Temperature Icons made By Freepik from www.flaticon.com
Settings wifi Icons made By Pixel perfect from www.flaticon.com
lost connection Icons made By Pixel perfect from www.flaticon.com
Cadena Icons made By Pixel perfect from www.flaticon.com
Duration Icons made By Pixel perfect from www.flaticon.com
USB Icons made By Darius Dan from www.flaticon.com
Refresh Icons made By By Becris from www.flaticon.com
Folder Icons made by Dimitri13 from www.flaticon.com
Recadrage Icons made by Good Ware from www.flaticon.com
Explore Icons made by Good Ware from www.flaticon.com
Discovery Icons made by By srip from www.flaticon.com
Random icon made by kiranshastry from www.flaticon.com
Image formats icons made by Viktor Vorobyev by nounproject.com
Folder icons made by BlackActurus by nounproject.com
We also use images from NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), the US federal agency, in our SINGULARITY application:
To illustrate the planet Venus: https://images.nasa.gov/details-PIA23791 (Secondary credits: JPL-Caltech);
To illustrate the planet Uranus: https://images.nasa.gov/details-PIA18182 (Secondary credits: JPL-Caltech);
To illustrate the planet Netpune:https://images.nasa.gov/details-PIA01492 (secondary credits: JPL);
To illustrate the planet Earth: https://images.nasa.gov/details-PIA00122 (secondary credits: JPL).
10.2 Your intellectual property
The content you create by observing the sky through your VAONIS Telescope is your property. More precisely, by this content we mean the photographs you can take using the functions of your VAONIS Telescope.
However, if you decide to publish this content on our collaborative platforms for the use of other users of the SINGULARITY application, you agree to grant us a non-exclusive and free license allowing us strictly to host and publish your photographs for the use of other members and users of the SINGULARITY application.
You also agree to grant us a license to the photographs you store in our Cloud. This license is non-exclusive and free of charge, and strictly allows us to host and store such content in accordance with your instructions.
Please note that you may terminate these licenses at any time, and consequently the publication of your content on the application and its hosting in our Cloud from the application, or by deleting your member account.
We will not make any commercial use of your content: the licenses you grant us are strictly necessary to publish your content on our SINGULARITY application and to host it in our Cloud in accordance with your instructions on our application. These licenses are necessarily global, due to the worldwide accessibility of our application and the dematerialization of our Cloud. They will cover the rights of reproduction and representation of the content concerned on our application and may be transferred in the event of a merger, sale or change of control to the new successor of our company.
11. PERSONAL DATA
Our company VAONIS processes some of your personal data in order to provide you with the services you expect from our application. We also process some of your personal data in our legitimate interest.
In this context, our company acts as data controller within the meaning of EU Regulation n°2016/679 and the French Data Protection Act nᵒ 78-17 of January 6, 1978 as amended.
The data processing carried out by our company VAONIS therefore requires compliance with specific legal obligations arising from regulations on the protection of personal data.
VAONIS is committed to respecting these obligations. We have therefore published a privacy policy which accompanies these general terms of use, in order to provide you with the best possible information concerning the processing of your personal data.
By using our SINGULARITY application, you agree to be bound by this privacy policy. Otherwise you will not be able to use our application.
12. DURATION
These terms govern your use of our SINGULARITY application, until such use ceases and/or your member account is deleted. They are therefore concluded for an indefinite period.
These terms will continue to apply to you in order to resolve any dispute arising from your past use of our application and the VAONIS Telescope. In addition, the articles that are intended to survive the expiry of these general terms of use will remain in force until the extinction of the related rights and obligations.
13. CONTACT - ASSISTANCE
General
If you have any questions or requests concerning our application, such as how it works, how to use it or our services, please contact us at the following address:
Personal data
If you have any questions or requests concerning your personal data, please contact us at the following address:
Our representative will get back to you within one month of receiving your request.
However, this deadline may be extended by two months, depending on the complexity and number of requests. In addition, you may be asked to provide proof of identity in order to process your request.
14. APPLICABLE LAW - DISPUTE
These terms of use are written in French and are governed by French law, subject to the mandatory provisions of private international law.
In the event of a dispute concerning these general terms of use and our SINGULARITY application, amicable settlement will be preferred. In particular, mediation will be offered to our users with consumer status.
In the absence of an amicable settlement, you may refer the matter to the competent courts.
15. MEDIATION
People with consumer status are informed that they can contact a consumer mediator free of charge, and more specifically a mediator from the Centre de médiation de la consommation de Conciliateurs de Justice (website: https://cm2c.net/).
You may also, in order to resolve your dispute, access the European online dispute resolution platform provided for in Regulation (EU) No. 524/2013 of May 21, 2013 on the online settlement of consumer disputes, in particular cross-border disputes, by following the following link: http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/
16. LEGAL NOTICE
The SINGULARITY application is published by VAONIS, a French company headquartered at 225 rue Didier Daurat, 34170, Castelnau-le-Lez, France, with a share capital of €17133.80, registered with the Montpellier Trade and Companies Register under SIRET number 823 710 447, and with individual intra-Community VAT identification number FR93823710447.
The Publishing Director is Cyril Dupuy.
Contact details for VAONIS are:
E-mail address:info@vaonis.com ;
FR telephone number: +33 (0)4 84 98 00 21
US telephone number: +1 (646) 956-5933
The SINGULARITY application is hosted by:
- Amazon Web Services, Inc. P.O. Box 81226 Seattle, WA 98108-1226 USA, which can be contacted at: https://aws.amazon.com/fr/contact-us/
- The company Heroku, San Francisco, California, USA, which can be contacted at: https://www.heroku.com/contact
- DigitalOcean, LLC, 101 Avenue of the Americas, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10013 USA, which can be contacted at: https://www.digitalocean.com/company/contact/