Sci-Tech

New digital piggy bank helps Swiss kids save

ZURICH, Switzerland (AFP) — In Switzerland, one of the world’s wealthiest countries, financial planning starts young. The country’s number two bank Credit Suisse on Tuesday unveiled a piggy bank with built-in apps allowing children under 12 to set savings goals, check their balance and make payments. “The financial education of children is a concern to people in Switzerland,” Credit Suisse said in a statement, citing a recent study showing that 90 percent of parents in […]

Facebook to reject ads from pages touting ‘fake news’

SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — Facebook on Monday said that pages that make a habit of linking to bogus news stories will no longer be able to advertise at the world’s leading online social network. The move is the latest shot fired by Facebook in its war against ‘fake news’ used to deceive instead of enlighten. “If Pages repeatedly share stories marked as false, these repeat offenders will no longer be allowed to advertise […]

German team wins SpaceX Hyperloop competition with 200 mph pod

CALIFORNIA, United States (Reuters) — A team from the Technical University of Munich in Germany, known as WARR Hyperloop, won a competition hosted by Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Sunday (August 27) to design the fastest pod for a proposed future transportation system of giant vacuum tubes known as the “Hyperloop.” The WARR (pronounced: VAR) team’s pod traveled down the mile-long Spacex Hyperloop test track at 324 kilometers per hour (201 miles per hour). “That was […]

Samsung heir guilty of bribery, sentenced to five years jail

  by Sebastien Berger Agence France Presse SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — The heir to the Samsung business empire, which includes the world’s biggest smartphone maker, was sentenced Friday to five years in prison for bribery and other offenses in connection with the scandal that brought down South Korean president Park Geun-Hye. Lee Jae-Yong’s penalty could leave the giant firm rudderless for years and hamper its ability to make key investment decisions. The vice-chairman of […]

SpaceX launches Falcon 9 rocket

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, California (Reuters) — SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket carrying an Earth-observation satellite on Thursday, August 24. The Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 1151 local time (1851GMT). The rocket carried the Taiwanese-made Formosat-5 spacecraft into orbit and then landed on a SpaceX drone ship in the Pacific Ocean. SpaceX said the Formosat-5 will provide detailed images of the Earth for at least five […]

World Robot Conference in Beijing features innovation and development in robotic research

BEIJING, China (Reuters) — The media day of World Robot Conference 2017 kicked off in Beijing on Tuesday (August 22) featuring the world’s major areas of robotic research, application and innovation. China is still one of the largest markets for industrial robots with a growing demand for this kind of products. World Robot Conference runs from August 23 to 27 with exhibitors from different areas of robotic research showcasing their work. The event will be […]

College students, officials hold “Great Eclipse” party in Georgia

  By Colleen Knight (EBC Florida Bureau) Eagle News Service BRUNSWICK, Georgia (Eagle News) – “Cloudy” and “rainy” are not the words usually used to describe ideal eclipse viewing conditions, but those were the conditions at the College of Coastal Georgia viewing party in Brunswick, Georgia, in the United States. Despite the gloomy weather, as 2 p.m. on Monday (August 21) approached, excited students, faculty and staff began to gather. A palpable tension was in […]

Cubans view eclipse with homemade instruments

HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) — Dozens of Cubans gathered in the main plaza of Old Havana on Monday (August 21) to watch a rare partial solar eclipse cross the country. Many observers brought their own homemade instruments to view the eclipse’ progress. Abel Rodriguez built a box based on a YouTube tutorial that followed the projection of the eclipse. He said that special glasses to protect the eyes were hard to come by, forcing him to […]

New tech makes any electric wheelchair autonomous

TORONTO, Canada (Reuters) — Autonomous wheelchair technology that could be retrofitted to any existing electric wheelchair for less than $1,000 USD has been developed by Canadian firm Cyberworks Robotics, Inc and researchers at the University of Toronto (U of T). The technology combines inexpensive off-the-shelf sensors and artificial intelligence. Electric wheelchairs have been around for more than 60 years but their fundamental technology has changed little. “Conventional electric powered wheelchairs use joysticks for their control […]

Black hole in a ‘bathtub’ makes waves for UK scientists

NOTTINGHAM, England (Reuters) — Scientists are unlocking the mysteries of black holes… in a giant bath tub at the University of Nottingham. A team from the Quantum Gravity Laboratory says they have successfully simulated the conditions around black holes and published the first statistical evidence of an effect known as super-radiance, whereby a wave hitting a rotating black hole can extract energy from it. They built a specially designed 3 metre by 1.5-meter tub with […]

Mars weather: ‘Cloudy, chance of nighttime snowstorm’

PARIS, France (AFP) — Mars is buffeted by turbulent snowstorms that occur only at night, according to a study released Monday that revises our understanding of Red Planet weather. Up to now, it was thought that snow falling from low-lying Martian clouds settled slowly and sparsely to the ground in a environment bereft of violent winds. The new findings, reported in the journal Nature Geoscience, suggest that ice-water particles swirling in a storm hit the […]

Total solar eclipse begins on US West Coast

by Sébastien VUAGNAT / with Kerry SHERIDAN in Charleston Agence France-Presse MADRAS, United States – Emotional sky-gazers on the US West Coast cheered and applauded Monday as the Sun briefly vanished behind the Moon — a rare total solar eclipse that will stretch across North America for the first time in nearly a century. Eclipse chasers and amateur star watchers alike converged in cities along the path of totality, a 70-mile (113-kilometer) wide path running through 14 […]