Sci-Tech

SpaceX makes fourth successful rocket landing

  Miami, United States (AFP) — SpaceX launched an Asian communications satellite into a distant orbit Friday and for the fourth time managed to recover the rocket that did the work. Under blue skies dotted with clouds, the shiny white Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 5:40 pm (2140 GMT) carrying the Thaicom 8 satellite. The rocket returned to Earth about 10 minutes later, firing its engines and maneuvering with its […]

Pentagon’s research agency showcases future tech

(AFP) The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better know as DARPA, a $3-billion agency shows off some of its projects in the Pentagon’s central courtyard, where scientists set up science-fair-style stalls to showcase their work. https://youtu.be/6k-pBgDjGWg Katie Schubauer / AFPTV / AFP

Facebook extends lead as news gateway: study

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Facebook has become an important news source for close to half of American adults, a study showed Thursday amid increased scrutiny over the social network’s gateway role. The Pew Research Center survey showed 62 percent of US adults get news on social media, and 18 percent do so often. That shows a growing role for Facebook and other social networks as a news source. In 2012, based on a slightly […]

Microsoft to end smartphone manufacturing: union

HELSINKI, Finland (AFP) — Microsoft announced Wednesday it would let go up to 1,850 employees and a Finnish union called it the end of the company’s smartphone manufacturing business, bought from Finnish telecom equipment maker Nokia. “Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday announced plans to streamline the company’s smartphone hardware business, which will impact up to 1,850 jobs,” it said in a statement, adding 1,350 of those jobs would be eliminated in Finland where its smartphones have been […]

Google to open Detroit-area autonomous car center

SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) 5/25/2016 – Google announced plans Wednesday to open a Detroit-area technology center for its self-driving car program. The new center in Novi, Michigan, will house engineers and others testing vehicles provided by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, a statement by Google parent Alphabet said. “For the past few years, members of our team have been working from the Greater Detroit area,” the statement posted on Google+ said. “Now it’s time to lay […]

Smart home gadgets need to live together

by Glenn CHAPMAN Smart home technology that has long been knocking at doors will settle into the mainstream after rival gadgets and services become hassle-free guests that get along with one another, industry insiders say. While smart home offerings have been around for years, attention has been heightened by Google, Amazon and Apple maneuvering to be at the heart of managing devices capable of wirelessly taking commands or feeding information. “We need to look at […]

RoboBee learns to perch to save enrgy

MASSACHUSETTS, United States (Reuters) — Harvard’s RoboBees have been upgraded. The tiny robots, the smallest flying drones ever developed, are now capable of perching like a bat to save energy, according to its makers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. The team used electrostatic adhesion, the same basic science that causes a balloon to stick to a […]

Facebook makes changes to avoid political bias

SAN Francisco, United States (AFP) — Facebook on Monday said it was making changes aimed at keeping political bias out of its “trending” stories list even though an internal investigation revealed no evidence it was happening. “Our investigation has revealed no evidence of systematic political bias in the selection or prominence of stories included in the Trending Topics feature,” Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch said in a letter responding to a query from Republican US […]

World’s oldest Olympic champion Sandor Tarics dies at 102

BUDAPEST, Hungry (AFP) — The oldest living Olympic champion Sandor Tarics, who was a member of Hungary’s gold-medal winning waterpolo team at the 1936 Games, has died aged 102. Tarics, who was born in 1913 in Budapest, passed away at his home in San Francisco, according to a statement by the Hungarian Olympic Committee (MOB) Saturday. A keen mathematician from an early age and an engineer by profession, he left Hungary after the Communist Party […]