Sci-Tech

Smartphone market to stay cool this year: forecast

SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — International Data Corporation forecast Wednesday that global smartphone sales would cool this year before heating up with help from new 5G networks and India’s vibrant market. An IDC Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker expected smartphone sales to slip two-tenths of a percent this year to total 1.462 billion in a second straight year of slight decline. But IDC predicted that the smartphone market would reignite next year, growing about 3 percent […]

Papua New Guinea mulls ‘temporary’ ban on Facebook

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Papua New Guinea said Wednesday it was mulling a temporary shutdown of Facebook to uncover false accounts and block fake news in the Pacific nation, which hosts a major global summit later this year. The proposal, which Communications Minister Sam Basil said could lead to replacing Facebook with a locally developed social networking platform, was ridiculed as ill-timed and unworkable by opponents. Basil floated the idea of a one-month shutdown on […]

Jury tells Samsung to pay big for copying iPhone design

San José, United States (AFP) — A federal court jury on Thursday ordered Samsung to pay Apple $533 million for copying iPhone design features in a patent case dating back seven years. Jurors tacked on an additional $5 million in damages for a pair of patented functions. The award appeared to be a bit of a victory for Apple, which had argued in court that design was essential to the iPhone. The case was keenly watched as […]

Two sportscar-sized satellites in orbit to measure Earth’s water

by Ivan Couronne Agence France Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — A SpaceX rocket Tuesday blasted off a duo of sports car-sized satellites built by the US and Germany to reveal changes in sea level rise, ice melt and drought on Earth. “Three, two, one, liftoff!” said a SpaceX commentator as the Falcon 9 rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 12:47 pm Pacific time (1947 GMT). The $521 million payloads, called […]

Facebook’s Zuckerberg agrees to live-stream EU parliament hearing

  BRUSSELS, Belgium (AFP) — Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has agreed to live-stream his meeting with European Parliament members as he answers questions in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, a top official said Monday. The meeting on Tuesday with the parliament’s most senior members was initially set to be held behind closed doors. But influential MEPs had pushed for a public hearing following the worst crisis in Facebook’s history. “I have personally discussed […]

Cement, extreme cold experiments to launch on Orbital cargo ship

by Kerry Sheridan Agence France Presse TAMPA, United States (AFP) — Food for astronauts, new space gardening gear and an experiment to test how cement forms in weightlessness are poised to launch Monday to the International Space Station aboard Orbital ATK’s unmanned Cygnus spacecraft. An extreme cold experiment and a European module to invite plug-and-play research are also among the three tons of cargo scheduled to blast off on an Antares rocket from Wallops Island, […]

US spacewalkers swap, check coolers ‘Leaky’ and ‘Frosty’

by Mariëtte Le Roux Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Astronomers have observed a galaxy a very distant 13.28 billion lightyears away, zooming in closer than ever to the “cosmic dawn” of the Universe’s first stars, they said Wednesday. Pinpointing this period of star birth — which gave rise to oxygen, carbon and other elements in the Universe — is a holy grail for astronomers chasing down the beginning of everything. Now, thanks to […]

Twitter tweak steps up fight against trolls

SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — Twitter said Tuesday it was stepping up its long-running battle against online trolls, trying to find offenders by looking at “behavioral signals.” The new approach looks at behavioral patterns of users in addition to the content of the tweets, allowing Twitter to find and mute online bullies and trolls. Even if the offending tweets are not a violation of Twitter policy, they may be hidden from users if they […]

Trump pledges to safeguard Chinese telecoms jobs

    by Issam Ahmed © Agence France-Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US President Donald Trump said Sunday he was working with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to prevent telecom giant ZTE from going out of business after it was hit by an American technology sales ban. Writing on Twitter, Trump said he had issued instructions for officials to come up with a rescue plan, saying too many jobs were at risk. “President Xi of […]

The challenge of space gardening: One giant ‘leaf’ for mankind

  Kerry Sheridan Agence France Presse MIAMI, Florida, United States (AFP) — It’s not easy having a green thumb in space. Without gravity, seeds can float away. Water doesn’t pour, but globs up and may drown the roots. And artificial lights and fans must be rigged just right to replicate the sun and wind. But NASA has decided that gardening in space will be crucial for the next generation of explorers, who need to feed […]

NASA plans to send mini-helicopter to Mars

  by Kerry Sheridan Agence France Presse TAMPA, United States (AFP) — The US space agency said Friday it plans to launch the first-ever helicopter to Mars in 2020, a miniature, unmanned drone-like chopper that could boost our understanding of the Red Planet. Known simply as “The Mars Helicopter,” the device weighs less than four pounds (1.8 kilograms), and its main body section, or fuselage, is about the size of a softball. It will be […]