Sci-Tech

Race is on to turn flying car into reality

by Tangi Quemener Agence France-Presse LE BOURGET, France (AFP) – Aeronautics giants are treating the idea of a flying car with caution, as such a project raises more questions than it answers, experts say — it’s a child’s dream, a millionaire’s toy. But is it really the next big thing in transport? At this year’s Paris Air Show, you had to search hard to find an aircraft that looked anything like an automobile: but one […]

Multinationals hit by global wave of cyberattacks

by By Oleksandr Savochenko with Maria Antonova in Moscow and AFP bureaus Agence France Presse KIEV, Ukraine (AFP) — A global wave of cyberattacks that began in Russia and Ukraine on Tuesday wrought havoc on government and corporate computer systems as it spread to Western Europe and across the Atlantic. Several multinational companies said they were targeted, including United States pharmaceutical giant Merck, Russian state oil giant Rosneft, British advertising giant WPP and the French […]

Google hit with record 2.4-billion euro EU fine

by Alex Pigman Agence France Presse The European Union hit Google with a record 2.4-billion-euro fine Tuesday for illegally favoring its shopping service in search results, in a fresh assault on United States firms that risks the wrath of President Donald Trump. Hard-charging European Commission competition chief Margrethe Vestager said the tech giant “abused its market dominance” as the world’s most popular search engine to give an advantage to its Google Shopping service. “What Google has […]

Facebook to produce own TV series, games

NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Facebook is starting production on high-quality television series and gaming shows to be broadcast on its platform, one of the social media giant’s executives said on Monday. The online platform, which has around two billion monthly users worldwide, is working on the project with a small group of partners and hopes to start putting out episodes of its forthcoming series by the end of the summer, Nick Grudin, the […]

Robotic ‘suit’ helps Japan’s older employees lift heavy loads

TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) — A distribution and storage management company in Japan, where the population is ageing faster than any other country in the world, has introduced a robotic harness called a Power Assist Suit to support their older employees. Over half of the nearly 100 employees working at Ueda Group’s distribution center in the country’s biggest industrial region, Kawasaki, are in their 40s and 50s, the company said, and their jobs require them to […]

VR tool lets you step inside your design

ZURICH, Switzerland (Reuters) — Designing a new building can be a laborious and costly task, and getting a clear idea of how the interior spaces will look can be tricky. Swiss-based researchers founded the company Inspacion to remove this uncertainty with a virtual reality (VR) platform that allows users to step inside the design before it has been built. They say it could be particularly useful when the layout of a room is vital to […]

Hi-tech bracelet could replace safety alarms, says designer

VALENCIA, Spain (Reuters) — A young industrial designer says her newly designed bracelet, which is activated by a unique ‘panic grip,’ could replace unwieldy panic buttons used by the elderly in their homes. Hanne Pålsson developed the bracelet as her Master’s thesis project at Lund University in southern Sweden. The bracelet includes a built-in mobile phone and GPS system and doesn’t require a base station. The user can program it with up to seven phone […]

Boom’s supersonic prototype prepares for 2018 test flight

Reuters — Colorado-based start-up Boom Supersonic is hoping to compete with the major airline companies by developing a new supersonic passenger jet. If successful, their supersonic airliner will fly 2.6 times faster than any other aircraft on the market today. Hitting speeds up to 1,451 miles per hour, the planes could reduce typical New York to London flight times of seven hours to little more than three hours. Boom is aiming to test their XB-1 […]

SpaceX Falcon launches ten communications satellites

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, United States (Reuters) – SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Sunday (June 25) carrying 10 communications satellites to low-Earth orbit, the company said on its website. “This is the second set of 10 satellites in a series of 75 total satellites that SpaceX will launch,” it said in a statement. The launch is for Iridium, a provider of voice and data communications. […]

Facebook launches plan to combat online extremism

LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — US social media giant Facebook launched a campaign in Britain on Friday to counter the spread of online extremism following warnings from Prime Minister Theresa May after four terror attacks in three months. Facebook said it would seek to educate charities and other organisations on how to fight hate speech, in the wake of recent terror attacks in Belgium, Britain and France. The Online Civil Courage Initiative (OCCI) will act […]

India successfully launches 31 satellites

SRIHARIKOTA, India (Reuters) — India fired a rocket carrying 31 small satellites into space on Friday, several of them for European countries looking for high-resolution earth images, underlining its strength as a low-cost provider of services in space. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) launched a 712 kg Cartosat-2 satellite for earth observation and 30 other tiny satellites from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh at 9.29 a.m. (0359GMT). The rocket is carrying satellites from India and […]

Electric vehicles inefficient way to reduce CO2 emissions: study

MONTREAL, Canada (AFP) — Subsidizing the purchase of electric cars in Canada is an inefficient way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that is not cost effective, according to a Montreal Economic Institute study released Thursday. “It’s just a waste,” said Germain Belzile, one of the authors of the study, which examined electric vehicle subsidies offered by Canada’s two biggest provinces Ontario and Quebec, which can rise to as much as a third of a vehicle’s […]