Breaking News, Latest Philippines Headlines, World, Entertainment, Politics, Weather & Video News
WASHINGTON, June 8, 2024 (AFP) – Virgin Galactic on Saturday successfully completed its last spaceflight before heading into a two-year pause on commercial operations to upgrade its fleet, as the space tourism company seeks to finally turn a profit. “Galactic07 is back on terra firma, now as astronauts!” the company said on X, formerly Twitter, referring to a team of two pilots and two passengers. “Our pilots, crew and spaceship have landed safely at […]
TOKYO (AFP) – Popular Japanese video-sharing website Niconico has suspended its services as it has been under “a large-scale cyberattack,” its operator said. “Currently, Niconico is under a large-scale cyberattack, and we are suspending our services to minimise its impact,” operator Dwango said in a statement late Saturday. “We are hastily investigating and taking countermeasures, but we won’t be able to restore the service until we make sure about its safety after completely excluding the […]
WASHINGTON, June 8, 2024 (AFP) – William Anders, the former US astronaut who took the historic “Earthrise” photo from space over 55 years ago, died in a plane crash on Friday at the age of 90, his family said. Anders had been piloting a small plane which crashed off the coast of Washington state on Friday morning, his son told US media. Anders was alone in the plane. His body was later recovered by a […]
By Joseph Boyle with Anuj Chopra in Washington PARIS, June 4, 2024 (AFP) – Wildly popular social network TikTok approved adverts containing political disinformation ahead of European polls, a report showed Tuesday, flouting its own guidelines and raising questions about its ability to detect election falsehoods. International campaign group Global Witness created 16 ads targeting Irish audiences with false information about this week’s EU elections and tried to get them approved by three platforms — […]
WASHINGTON, June 3, 2024 (AFP) – Russia is waging an intense disinformation campaign aimed at tarnishing the reputation of the International Olympic Committee and stoking fears of violence at this summer’s Paris Games, according to a new report from Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center. According to Microsoft, the influence operations utilize a potent mix of fake videos, fictitious news stories, and AI-generated impersonations, including the faked voice of Hollywood star Tom Cruise. “Russia is ramping up […]
BEIJING, June 4, 2024 (AFP) – A module of a Chinese lunar probe successfully took off from the far side of the Moon on Tuesday carrying samples to be taken back to Earth, state media reported. The achievement is a world first, and the latest leap for Beijing’s decades-old space programme, which aims to send a crewed mission to the Moon by 2030. The ascender module of the Chang’e-6 probe “lifted off from lunar surface”, […]
By Gianrigo Marletta with Issam Ahmed in Washington CAPE CANAVERAL, June 1, 2024 (AFP) – Troubled aerospace giant Boeing will try once more to fly its first crew to the International Space Station aboard a Starliner spaceship on Saturday, after the last attempt was scrubbed hours before liftoff. Following checks by engineering teams, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are “go” for launch atop a United Launch Alliance rocket at 12:25 pm (1625 GMT) […]
By Juliette Collen PARIS, May 26, 2024 (AFP) – Will clouds help cool or warm our world in the years ahead? The EarthCARE satellite will soon blast off on a mission to find out, aiming to investigate what role clouds could play in the fight against climate change. The collaboration between the European Space Agency and Japan’s JAXA space agency is scheduled to launch Tuesday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from California’s Vandenberg base. […]
DENPASAR, Indonesia, May 19, 2024 (AFP) – Tech billionaire Elon Musk launched Sunday his Starlink service on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali as the country aims to extend internet to its remote areas. Millions of people in Indonesia, a vast archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, are not currently hooked up to reliable internet services. Musk, making his first visit to the Southeast Asian nation, inaugurated the satellite unit services at a clinic in Bali’s […]
By Daniel Lawler PARIS, May 18, 2024 (AFP) – Tourists normally have to pay big money and brave cold climates for a chance to see an aurora, but last weekend many people around the world simply had to look up to see these colourful displays dance across the sky. Usually banished to the poles of Earth, the auroras strayed as far as Mexico, southern Europe and South Africa on the evening of May 10, delighting […]
WASHINGTON, May 17, 2024 (AFP) – The first crewed launch of Boeing’s Starliner to the International Space Station has been delayed again due to a technical issue, NASA said Friday. The launch in Florida was scheduled for Tuesday but NASA said it is now planned for May 25 to allow teams to further assess a helium leak linked to the service module, which sits on top of the rocket. Earlier this month, a Starliner launch […]
SAN FRANCISCO, May 18, 2024 (AFP) – OpenAI on Friday confirmed that it has disbanded a team devoted to mitigating the long-term dangers of super-smart artificial intelligence. OpenAI weeks ago began dissolving the so-called “superalignment” group, integrating members into other projects and research, according to the San Francisco-based firm. Company co-founder Ilya Sutskever and team co-leader Jan Leike announced their departures from the ChatGPT-maker this week. The dismantling of an OpenAI team focused on keeping […]
