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by Ivan Couronne © Agence France-Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP)–Friday morning at 5:24 am (0924 GMT), a rocket owned by the US company SpaceX will blast off from Florida carrying two and a half tons of gear from NASA, only to dock three days later and 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth at the International Space Station. The rocket itself is not new. It launched a NASA satellite into orbit two months ago, then landed […]
LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — An inspirational new version of Barbie will encourage young girls to embark on careers in engineering and the sciences, the iconic doll’s manufacturer Mattel said on Tuesday. Barbie, who first hit the shelves in 1959, prides herself on trying out jobs where women aren’t strongly represented, to add to her more traditional skill set of dancing with Ken and looking fabulous. The company has announced a “Career of the […]
by Marlowe Hood Agence France-Presse A bacterial infection ravaging olive orchards in southern Europe can be detected from small planes or drones well before symptoms appear, offering panicky growers the prospect of an early warning system, scientists said Monday. Using high-tech cameras that detect heat and the electromagnetic spectrum from X-ray to radio waves, researchers were able to spot diseased trees that, on the ground, still seemed healthy, they reported in the journal Nature […]
by Edouard GUIHAIRE Agence France-Presse LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Uber claimed Monday to have mended its ways as the ride-hailing app started its appeal against being stripped of its license to operate in London. Uber agreed that the city’s transport authority was right to block its renewal last September — but said it had since undergone “wholesale change” in response, and the decision should therefore be overturned. Transport for London (TfL) had decided […]
PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AFP)–Czech state-run power group CEZ is targeting the wind energy sector in France, a country where the segment has been on the rise for the past decade, a company official told AFP. France has vowed to raise the share of green power in its energy mix to 23 percent by 2020 and to 32 percent by 2030 as part of meeting EU-wide renewable energy targets. CEZ, which is 70-percent-controlled by the Czech […]
by Julie Charpentrat Agence France-Presse SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — Instagram said Wednesday it now has more than one billion active users, as it unveiled a new long-form video feature in a bid to attract “creators” like those on YouTube. It becomes the fourth Facebook platform to hit the billion-user mark, including the namesake social network with more than two billion users, and the messaging applications WhatsApp and Messenger. Instagram, which had some […]
SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — Facebook said Tuesday it is offering a series of new formats for its online video platform including interactive game shows, quizzes and polls. The new formats will be available to those creating video content on the social network, which is searching for a niche to compete against rivals ranging from Netflix to Google-owned YouTube. One of the features from Facebook will allow interactivity, which could be used for live […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japanese technology giant Fujifilm said Tuesday it was suing US firm Xerox, seeking more than $1 billion in damages after a merger between the two firms was scrapped last month. Fujifilm slammed what it said was a “unilateral decision to terminate without legitimate cause” the planned merger announced in January. The merger was shelved after a lawsuit by powerful shareholders Carl Icahn and Darwin Deason, who together own more than 15 […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Apple was Tuesday fined Aus$9 million (US$6.7 million) by an Australian court for making false claims about consumer rights when refusing to fix faulty iPhones and iPads previously repaired by a third party. Customers of the US tech giant had complained to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) after an operating system update disabled their devices in a global issue known as “error 53”. The users were told by Apple […]
by Marlowe Hood Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Video gaming can be addictive in the same way as cocaine or gambling, the World Health Organization said Monday in a much anticipated update of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). “After consulting with experts across the world, and reviewing evidence in an exhaustive manner, we decided that this condition should be added,” Shekhar Saxena, director of the WHO’s department of mental health and substance abuse, […]
by Kerry SHERIDAN Agence France Presse TAMPA, United States (AFP) — A massive dust storm raging across Mars has overcome NASA’s aging Opportunity rover, putting the unmanned, solar-powered vehicle into sleep mode and raising concerns about its survival, the US space agency said Wednesday. The unusually severe dust storm has blocked out the Sun over one-quarter of the Red Planet, blanketing an area spanning 14 million square miles (35 million square kilometers), NASA said. Opportunity, […]
SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — Snapchat messaging service on Thursday set out to spread its reach, and panache, to other smartphone apps with a software kit that promised to share little data about users. Parent company Snap said people will be able to use Snapchat credentials to sign into apps the way they might do using Facebook or Google credentials, while strictly limiting access to personal data or activity tracking. The software kit […]
