Technology
Technology
China to launch artificial moon within two years in order to light up night skies in urban areas, project in Chengdu expected in place by 2022 projected to save USD 170 million a year in electricity costs
New Zealand fan-film "Fanimatrix" oldest extent BitTorrent file at 15 years old, the file share is a relic of a bygone Internet era but still has several "seeders" keeping it active
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt predicts Internet will bifurcate between China and world, current CEO Pichai has initiated "Project Dragonfly" to build a censored search engine for Chinese market
South Korean police raid Seoul offices of BMW investigating potential vehicle defect coverup, over 40 BMW diesel models have caught fire in Korea this year, BMW Korea chief Kim Hyo Joon has blamed a faulty fuel circulation mechanism for the conflagrations
Over 1.1 billion Indians' biometric and demographic info registered in Aadhaar ID government database raising privacy concerns, the system was recently defended by Bill Gates who extolled its ability to reduce corruption in government payrolls, government whistleblower Edward Snowden has come out against the system claiming it is so insecure you can find private ID info on the web merely by searching for a user's 12-digit string
EU Commissioner of Competition threatens Apple with imposition of uniform USB cable charging standard as the company clings to its proprietary Lightning technology, the EU arch-bureaucrat recently meddled with Google to the tune of a USD 5 billion fine, Apple's proprietary cable technology is a lucrative source of licensing fees
Facebook gave unlimited access to user data to at least four Chinese companies, including telecom giant Huawei with close ties to Chinese state
Portland woman says her Amazon Alexa recorded private conversation in her home and sent recording to random contact, was noticed when one of her husband's employees called and said he had heard conversation about hardwood floors
Shaun Nichols: Cambridge Analytica's shutdown more of a market exercise, official documents show new firm Emerdata Limited run by similar management and investors as former company's parent organization and headquartered at same offices
Project In Codice Ratio uses AI and OCR software to create digital transcripts of Vatican Secret Archives which is one world’s largest historical collections, lack of spaces between words has previously made transcription difficult
Russia launches floating 70MW nuclear power plant, two reactors will be used to power 100,000-person town of Pevek, desalination plant and oil rigs, towed from St Petersburg via Murmansk
Rick Dickinson dies while receiving treatment for cancer, famous for having designed iconic home computer ZX Spectrum for Sinclair Research
Joseph James DeAngelo who is suspected to be Golden State Killer was arrested after DNA found on crime scene partially matched genome of relative on open-source genealogy website
Spotify starts testing way of filtering out songs which have explicit lyrics, previously word "explicit" was displayed next to tracks
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies begins building two test tracks running 320 and 1,000 meters in length at facility in Toulouse in southern France, ready for testing later this year
Virgin Galactic makes its first engine powered test flight of the space craft SpaceShipTwo since the accident in October 2014 when the second pilot Michael Alsbury died but the first pilot, Peter Siebold survived, the craft is released from an airplane that reaches, at its highest, 25,600 meters altitude, and speed of Mach 1.87
Airline Qantas starts second longest direct route with flights between London and Perth in western Australia, only Qatar Airways line between Doha and Auckland, New Zeeland is longer, made posible by increasingly fuel efficient airplanes
Woman dead after being hit by self-driving Uber car in Tempe, Arizona, Uber pauses tests of autonomous vehicles in several cities
Lightning Network for Bitcoin relased in beta version, supported among others by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and former PayPal exec David Sacks who calls event an decisive moment in history of Bitcoin, means transaction capacity will be unlimited in theory and lower transaction costs
Elon Musk says SpaceX will be ready to fly its Big Falcon Rocket in 2019, rocket will land on Mars in 2022 according to earlier plan
Apple confirms use of Google cloud solution to store iCloud data, has previously used Microsoft Azure and still uses Amazon Web Services
Tesla to install solar panels and Powerwall 2 batteries in 50,000 South Australian homes in cooperation with local authorities, could save average family more than AUD 700 per year, customers will pay 27 cents per kWh compared to current average price of 42.4 cents per kWh
Unicode Consortium shows 157 new emojis coming later this year, mosquito, parrot, peacock, kangaroo and swan are some of the animals, super heroes and villains also among additions
Successful virgin launch of world's most powerful rocket Falcon Heavy toward Mars orbit, two out of three rocket stages land according to plan shortly thereafter near Cape Canaveral launch site
Apple removes Telegram from app store, says it enables dissemination of inappropriate content, app has previously ben criticized for blocking surveillance by end-to-end encryption
US class action lawsuit filed against Apple after it admitted to throttling older iPhones to maintain battery life, critics view it as way to make people switch to newer devices
70 meter electric cargo ship unveiled in China, 2.4 MWh battery capacity and 80 km reach used to ship coal
Trajectory thrusters on Voyager 1 fired for the first time since 1980 and work perfectly, could mean extended life span of three years for the probe 21 billion kilometers away
Holthausen Group modifies Tesla Model S with hydrogen fuel cell, doubles reach to nearly 1,000 km, plans to sell conversion kit for EUR 50,000
Pocket-sized ultrasound device connected to smartphone the first one based on semiconductor chip technology to reach the market, images not as detailed but costs considerably less than earlier generations
Microsoft introduces TruePlay in Windows, which prevents third-party applications from watching the game's memory, prevents cheating, Windows users wishing to play games with TruePlay must approve the terms
Billboard changes the way they calculate the charts, paid platforms will have bigger weights than channels funded by advertising, at present all platforms have the same weight
Big security flaw called KRACK detected in WPA2 that encrypts many Wi-Fi networks, Windows, iOS, Linux, Android and many routers are affected
Yahoo says 2013 data breach affected all three billion accounts, said in 2016 statement that only one billion accounts were compromised – passwords in clear text, payment card data and bank account information not among stolen information according to investigation
Twitter allows small share of users the ability to tweet 280 characters, considers everyone independent of language should have the same opportunity to express themselves in a tweet
International Space Station carries out tests of computer running Linux, previously advanced calculations have been made on Earth but on trips to Mars it takes 20 minutes for data to travel from spacecraft to ground
Professor in Boston develops chat robot that will provide elderly people with end-of-life spiritual counseling and support, would make it easier for the dying to convey their last wishes
The Pirate Bay tests new technology to generate revenue, users' processors are used to create Monero coins, can in the future be used instead of ads
Scientists in China use ultrasound to control digital assistants, method called "DolphinAttack," proves great success but the attacker needs to be close and preferably not surrounded by other sounds
Microsoft invests millions of dollars on research and development laboratory for quantum computing in Copenhagen, wants to speed up development of scalable quantum computer
Fourth kind of chocolate, ruby, introduced, first new natural color since white chocolate was launched more than 80 years ago
Nintendo loses in court and is forced to pay USD 10 million for use of motion sensors patented by iLife, game giant appeals
Sewing Machine Robot nearly twice as fast as human line at t-shirt production, cost of production in the US comparable to Bangladesh
Elon Musk raises USD 27 million for Neuralink to connect computers and brains, unclear where the money comes from
LinkedIn ordered by San Francisco judge to remove all technical limitations for third party applications to collect public data from their network
FaceApp removes ethnicity filter after users condemned it as racist, allowed change of selfies to another ethnicity
Mazda becomes the first manufacturer to successfully harness the power of an HCCI gasoline engine, combines the advantages of both gasoline and diesel, making it environmentally friendly
Disney decides to remove its movies from Netflix and launch its own streaming service, fragmentation of streaming services risks maintaining the relevance of piracy
IBM stores 330 terabytes of uncompressed data on tape, equivalent of 330 million books, a new world record of 201 gigabits per square inch
Alphabet seeks to store energy by heating salt and cooling antifreeze or hydrocarbons, reversal of process powers turbine, potential to be cheaper than lithium ion batteries in storing renewable energy
Facebook shuts down AI program after it started communicating in language developers couldn't understand
Adobe to stop distributing Flash Player at end of 2020, will offer security updates during transition
Elon Musk announces that he has been granted oral permission to build hyperlink between New York and Washington DC, unclear which authorities that have given permission, the travel time is estimated to 29 minutes
Microsoft plans to provide fast Internet access to rural areas using unused TV channels, focusing on 12 US states to add 2 million new high-speed internet users
Edible chop sticks announced in Japan, made out of rush grass like traditional tatami mats, initiative to create new interest for tatami and economic growth in Kumamoto prefecture
Ethereum finds use case to automate media bureaucracy with smart contracts, intended to promote precise reporting readers want and journalists want to report
New software predicts how people look through analysis of DNA traces, predicts eye color, skin color and geographical descent, to be used by US law enforcement to find suspects when full DNA or fingerprints are not available
Company behind Chinese rail bus running elevated above car lanes investigated for illegal financing, test track has increased traffic problems
Kinetic impactor technique for changing orbit of asteroids to be tested by NASA, DART project to launch refrigerator-sized spacecraft in October 2022 to move Didymos B as it approaches Earth
Volvo's Large Animal Detection system is confused by kangaroos, uses ground as reference point to assess distance and is affected by jumping
US war veterans get bionic arms developed by DARPA, technology hailed as most significant advance in upper extremity prosthetics in more than a century
Sony resumes vinyl production after 30 year hiatus, Japanese production increased eightfold between 2010 and 2016, Panasonic resurrects Technics
Mining of cryptocurrency pushes prices of graphics cards up, manufacturers begin selling special devices targeted towards mining
Broken Hyperthreading on Intel Skylake and Kaby Lake Processors, can cause unexplained errors and data loss
Nintendo presents new version of Super Nintendo under brand name SNES Classic, available from September 29 including previously unreleased Star Fox 2, manufactured in limited edition
ThyssenKrupp performs first official test of maglev elevator, can travel sideways, higher and requires less space
Research on moth eyes could improve anti-reflective properties of computer screens by factor ten, according to researchers in Florida and Taiwan
Oil companies collect increasing amounts of data about drilling, weather and earthquakes through sensors, parallel computational capacity of graphics processors used more often to process data and enable "deep learning" and simulations