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TAIPEI, Taiwan (AFP-Services) — Shen Yan-lin can mix music by computer. His fingers whip across the panel of a smartphone from app to app, changing settings at the same high speed. The faithful Windows user who studied PCs mostly by himself just wants more precision when using Narrator, a built-in Microsoft tool that literally reads things aloud, voicing text and describing notifications or calendar appointments. Shen, 18, is in his third year at Taipei School […]
DETROIT, United States (AFP) — Volkswagen said Sunday that its namesake brand sold more vehicles worldwide in 2017 than ever before, a sign it is recovering from a bruising emissions-cheating scandal three years ago. “We finished 2017 with the best performance ever for Volkswagen,” Herbert Diess, chairman of the board of management of the Volkswagen passenger cars brand, said Sunday night at the Detroit Auto Show. Global sales rose 4.2 percent to 6.2 million, with […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — Authorities in northern China have demolished a megachurch in a move denounced by a religious rights group as “Taliban-style persecution”. China’s officially atheist Communist authorities are wary of any organised movements outside their control, including religious ones. The huge evangelical Jindengtai (“Golden Lampstand”) Church, painted grey and surmounted by turrets and a large red cross, was located in Linfen, Shanxi province. Its demolition began on Tuesday under “a city-wide campaign to […]
LAS VEGAS, United States (AFP) — The 2018 Consumer Electronics Show, which concluded Friday in Las Vegas, drew some 4,000 exhibitors from dozens of countries and more than 170,000 attendees, showcased some of the latest from the technology world. Here are highlights from the show: Artificial intelligence battle The duel between Amazon and Google for supremacy in artificial intelligence played out at the show. Amazon pushed its “Alexa Everywhere” strategy bringing its digital assistant to […]
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AFP) — Facebook took part this week in key talks with European police agencies on how to stop and eliminate violent and terror-related Islamic jihadist posts, in an evolving battle against such propaganda. Representatives from the giant social network travelled to The Hague for Thursday’s unprecedented talks at Europol’s headquarters in the city, officials said Friday. They were also joined by Instagram officials and police from Britain, France and Belgium, aiming “to […]
LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Precious stones from Britain’s crown jewels were hidden in a biscuit tin and buried at Windsor Castle during World War II, a BBC documentary to be shown on Sunday reveals. Gems, including the Black Prince’s Ruby from the Imperial State Crown, were buried under a secret exit from the mediaeval castle used in times of emergency. The operation, intended to ensure the priceless gems did not fall into Nazi hands, […]
by Glenn Chapman © Agence France-Presse LAS VEGAS, United States (AFP) — Technology is going to the dogs. And to cats and horses, for that matter, as high-end gadgetry showcased at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show offered ways that smart devices can improve the lives of animals and their human friends — starting with a good night’s rest. US-based Petrics was at the show with what it billed as the first pet smart bed, capable of keeping […]
By: Mark Christofer Manalo I do not spend much time on social media. The utility of sharing personal information and pictures of one’s lunch escape me. But in the few times I checked out Facebook, I was greeted with two blatantly false stories that were passed around as “health news.” And by blatantly false, I mean that in an easily-disproven, just-a-Google-search-away, top-search-results kind of way. The first one had a ring of truth […]
by Glenn Chapman Agence France-Presse LAS VEGAS, United States (AFP) — Carless commuting is cruising in the fast lane at the Consumer Electronics Show, with companies showing off electric bicycles, scooters, skateboards and more aimed at making the internal combustion engine a thing of the past. As the ranks of people around the world living in cities have grown, so too has the cost of car ownership as well as traffic congestion. Nowhere was this […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — Young women with the BRCA gene mutation that prompted actress Angelina Jolie’s pre-emptive and much-publicized double mastectomy are not more likely to die after a breast cancer diagnosis, scientists said Friday. In fact, they may have a “survival advantage” over non-carriers if diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, a form that is particularly hard to treat, a team wrote in the journal The Lancet Oncology. “Women diagnosed with early breast cancer who […]
LAS VEGAS, United States (AFP) — Facebook on Thursday announced a major update that will put friends and family above pages or celebrities in a user’s news feed — and likely result in people spending less time on the leading social network. The change to the way Facebook ranks posts will put more weight on social interactions and relationships, according to News Feed product manager John Hegeman. “This is a big change,” Hegeman told AFP. […]
LAS VEGAS, United States (AFP) — With a wave, Kinji Asamura summoned a riderless motorcycle to his side in the Yamaha booth at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. The concept electric motorcycle, called ‘Motoroid,’ then balanced in position, holding its place even when Asamura tried gently to push it over. Nearby, a robot that might seem suited for a futuristic action film was astride a production model Yamaha super-bike that it […]
