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by Michel VIATTEAU MIKOLOW, Poland (AFP) — Silently the eight propellers of the Hermes V8MT drone begin to spin and the large yellow aircraft rises up, locates its direction and moments later disappears into the sky in southern Poland. Today the drone is making a successful 8.5-kilometer (5.3-mile) test flight near the headquarters of the Polish firm Spartaqs in the town of Mikolow; soon it will be making journeys between a blood bank and the […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The Pentagon said Friday it was awarding a $10 billion cloud computing contract to Microsoft, following a highly scrutinized bidding process which Amazon had been favored to win. The 10-year contract for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure program, better known as JEDI, ultimately will see all military branches sharing information in one system that can be scoured in real time with the help of artificial intelligence. The Pentagon earlier […]
LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — SpaceX could launch US astronauts to the International Space Station as early as next year if tests on the company’s long-delayed Crew Dragon capsule prove conclusive, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Thursday. Bridenstine made the announcement as he toured the California headquarters of billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX, a major contractor for NASA. The visit came as Bridenstine and Musk have been engaged in a public spat over the much-delayed […]
by Maria ANTONOVA MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Russia on Thursday launched an unmanned rocket carrying a life-size humanoid robot that will spend 10 days learning to assist astronauts on the International Space Station. Named Fedor, short for Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research, the robot is the first-ever sent up by Russia. Fedor blasted off in a Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft at 6:38 am Moscow time (0338 GMT) from Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz is […]
SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — Microsoft has halted development of an ambitious update to Minecraft, throwing in the towel after concluding it was technically too complicated, according to a blog post by the team responsible for the hit adventure and construction game. Microsoft had unveiled the project, dubbed “Super Duper Graphics Packs,” to great fanfare in 2017, at E3, the world’s biggest video game trade show. “Unfortunately, the pack proved too technically demanding to […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — Seoul began testing delivery by drone in the country’s remote regions Wednesday, with the hope of improving residents’ quality of life, the government said. The project, jointly launched by the interior and safety ministry and Korea Post, among other government agencies, aims to establish a “public drone delivery system” to serve the country’s dispersed population. A test operation on Wednesday transported medical relief items from Dangjin, a city 80 kilometers […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — A French inventor and entrepreneur on Sunday soared above the Champs-Elysees on a turbine-engine-powered flying board in front of President Emmanuel Macron and other EU leaders. Former jet-skiing champion Franky Zapata, grasping a rifle in a sign of the possible military uses of his device, took to the air in a futuristic showpiece of the annual Bastille Day parade, an AFP reporter said. French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly told France […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — European aerospace giant Airbus and Paris underground operator RATP will study the viability of adding flying vehicles to the city’s urban transport network, the companies said Wednesday. The firms will “explore the feasibility of urban air mobility services” in the French capital and the broader Ile de France region, they said in a statement. “Airbus is developing demonstrators of autonomous and unmanned technologies,” said the company’s chief executive Guillaume Faury. “This […]
by Theodore Lim Agence France Presse SINGAPORE (AFP) — Tech giants have reacted with horror after Singapore proposed laws against “fake news” allowing authorities to order the removal of content and impose hefty fines, in what critics say is an assault on free speech. The government unveiled a bill last week containing tough measures, including powers for ministers to order social media sites like Facebook to put warnings next to posts authorities believe to […]
by Claire Lee Agence France Presse SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — Telecom giant Samsung Electronics on Friday released the Galaxy S10 5G, the world’s first available smartphone with built-in fifth-generation communications, as South Korea seeks to build a lead in the transformative technology. On Wednesday the South became the first country to launch nationwide 5G services, with three superfast networks going live offering data speeds that allow users to download entire movies in less […]
by Kang Jin-kyu Agence France Presse SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korea launches the world’s first fully-fledged 5G mobile networks Friday, a transformational leap that already has superpowers sparring for control of an innovation that could potentially change the day-to-day lives of billions of people. The superfast communications heralded by fifth-generation wireless technology will ultimately underpin everything from toasters to telephones; from electric cars to power grids. But while the South has won […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The US military said Monday it had successfully tested an anti-intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) system, with a target launched from the Marshall Islands shot down by two interceptors based in California. To protect against the threat from ICBMs, the US has developed the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, which is designed to fire an interceptor missile into space and use kinetic energy to destroy the incoming target. While it […]
