Technology News
Browse all articles and features filed under the News desk.
NASA twin spacecraft to map inner Moon
The US space agency plans to launch two unmanned spacecraft Thursday that will chase each other around the Moon as they use gravity measurements to draw an unprecedented map of its inner workings. Known as the GRAIL mission, or Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory, the satell
Gem of a planet struck: study
Astronomers claim that a planet orbiting a small fast spinning star, called a pulsar, is likely made of diamond. Pulsars are small spinning stars about 20 km in diameter – the size of a small city – that emits a beam of radio waves. As the star spins and the radio beam sweeps rep
Twin NASA craft on the way to moon
CAPE CANAVERAL: A pair of spacecraft rocketed toward the moon Saturday on the first mission dedicated to measuring lunar gravity and determining what's inside Earth's orbiting companion — all the way down to the core. "I could hardly be happier," said the lead scientist, Maria Zu
NASA's Inspiring, Enlightening, and Successful Search for New Earths
A journey that began four decades before Columbus sailed for the New World finally ended when the Kepler space telescope snared a few errant photons as they shot past Earth’s orbit en route to infinity. The light had sped through space for 560 years, traveling more than three qua
Apple planning early 2012 launch for new iPad
NEW YORK: Apple plans to begin trial production of a next generation iPad in October with an eye to an early 2012 launch, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. The newspaper, citing "people familiar with the situation," said Apple is working with component suppliers and its as
China launches navigation satellite
China launched its ninth navigation satellite on Wednesday, the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing sources at the launch centre. A rocket carrying the "Beidou", or Compass, navigation satellite orbiter blasted off from the Xichang Satellite Launching Centre in southwest
Tools of the Trade The Giant Crusher That Can Destroy NASA Rockets
On March 23 scientists at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center spent the day destroying perfectly good metal in the name of rocket science. The engineers watched as a giant machine crushed a 20-foot-tall hollow metal can with nearly a million pounds of force over the course of abo
Moon may be 200 million years younger than thought
IT MAY be grey but it is not as old as you might imagine. A rock thought to date from the moon's formation points to the satellite being about 200 million years younger than previously calculated, suggesting its history may need to be rewritten. The moon is generally considered t
One Ribbit Too Many
Female animals flock to the ridiculous: the gangly antlered moose, the blue-bottomed baboon, and the garish peacock. But a new study suggests that túngara frog (Physalaemus pustulosus) females from Latin America keep that machismo posturing from turning too bizarre. Males of this
The Fate of the First Black Hole
The Canadian rock band Rush knows its astronomy. In a lengthy 1977 song, the musicians proclaimed Cygnus X-1, an x-ray emitting object thousands of light-years away, a black hole where voyagers venture "through the void to be destroyed"—even though physicist Stephen Hawking had b
Crowdsourced online learning gives robots human skills
TWO robots named Rosie and James are making pancakes. It's a tough task that requires coordination, planning and a fine touch with a spatula. Midway through the process, Rosie slides the spatula under the half-cooked cake, lifts the pancake from the heat and carefully flips it ov
New anti-hacking tool – from game theory
How can any organisation detect the onset of an attack on its computer network, giving it time to respond quickly and block any intrusion or compromise of its data? The answer could lie in game theory. Modern firewalls and other technology are already in place, but these have not
NASA plans most ambitious mission – to the asteroids
NASA will somehow have to accomplish its most ambitious mission – landing on an asteriod within 15 years, after a presidential directive. The challenges are manifold, but NASA nerds are delirious at tackling the nitty gritty of such an inconceivably challenging project – though H
A software that teaches you how to read
Computer science students have come up with an innovative way to help children learn to read — a software that acts as a virtual reading coach. Ashley Steel, Luke Bjerring and Andre Meister of Waikato University worked with a curriculum coordinator in Switzerland and primary teac
Rising phishing cases open career prospects for ethical hackers
If you are an expert in computers and can decode a programme without much effort, give a thought to working with the Indian government or a multinational company to secure their websites from cyber attacks. As internet hacking has in recent years become a common occurrence, nervo
Control computer by sight’ technology is here
A laptop prototype has been unveiled with a device that allows a user to control the computer by sight.The eye-tracking technology monitors the user’s gaze and works out where they’re looking on the computer screen and means, among other things, that users can play a game where t
Cloud computing to create one lakh jobs in India: Study
As the next technology wave, cloud computing by enterprises has the potential to create about 100,000 new jobs in India, a study said Tuesday. “Of the projected $4.5-billion total cloud computing market in India by 2015, private cloud will account for $3.5 billion, generate about
Seven new BlackBerries to be unveiled soon
Warding off investors’ anger at their annual meeting at Waterloo near here Tuesday, BlackBerry co-CEOs announced that seven new smart phones running a new operating system will hit the market soon. Declining market share, shrinking revenue, profit warnings and delays in replacing
Facebook hires Sony hacker
Social network Facebook has hired a computer hacker who was recently sued by Sony for hacking the online game system PlayStation 3, The Sun reported. Facebook, however, did not reveal what 21-year-old George Hotz will do for the firm. Hotz – also known by the alias “GeoHot” – gai
We’ll meet aliens in next 20 years: Russian scientist
Human beings will meet creatures from outer space within the next 20 years, a top Russian scientist has said. “The genesis of life is as inevitable as the formation of atoms. Life exists on other planets and we will find it within 20 years,” Andrei Finkelstein, director of the Ru