Emerging markets like India are a “key source” of growth for Facebook, with increasing number of users logging onto the site through handsets, driving up its advertising revenues 76 per cent to USD 2.34 billion during the December quarter.
Of this, mobile advertising revenue represented about 53 per cent, growing from around 23 per cent a year-ago.
Microsoft”s yet-to-be-released Windows 8.1 Update 1 has been reportedly leaked on the web showing a number of changes to the OS that is yet to find traditional desktop users” whole-hearted welcome.
The Windows 8.1 Update 1 is set for a March debut, however, the leaked version includes a new title bar for the Windows 8-style apps (Metro apps), allowing users to close, minimize, and snap apps to appear side by side by a mouse.
Researchers have come up with a new technique that could help them analyze the space dust for life’s ingredients.
Lead author Michael Callahan of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. and his team at Goddard’s Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory recently applied advanced technology to inspect extremely small meteorite samples for the components of life.
Callahan said that they found amino acids in a 360 microgram sample of the Murchison meteorite, asserting that this sample size is 1,000 times smaller than the typical sample size used.
Chemists have developed a new process that could help make gasoline-like fuels from cellulosic materials like farm and forestry waste
Lead author Mark Mascal, professor of chemistry at University of California, Davis, said that though there are lots of processes to make linear hydrocarbons, until now nobody has been able to make branched hydrocarbons with volatility in the gasoline range.
The Hasselblad “Lunar Module Pilot” camera, the only camera to return to earth amongst the 14 that took photos of Apollo 15’s successful moon landing in 1971 is up for auction.
The camera was used by astronaut James B.Irwin, who clicked 229 photos of the moon’s surface with it, the Daily Star reported.
According to the Westlicht Gallery in Vienna, the camera will fetch between 125,000 and 150,000 pounds at the auction, which will be held on 22nd March.
Google Now will soon be available in Chrome beta for Mac, Windows and Chromebook .
Following its arrival in Chrome Beta, Google’s automatic alerts for relevant information including updates on traffic, work-routes and so on will be made available on desktops.
According to the Tech Crunch, as of now, the company’s latest feature is available only in English on Chrome beta, which is considered to be the most stable of Chrome’s preview channels.
Meanwhile, Google will release its new features later this week. (ANI)
Researchers have found liver tumors in mice exposed to the Bisphenol A (BPA) – chemical present in plastic – via their mothers during gestation and nursing.
The study is one of the first to show a significant association between BPA and cancer development.
Apple is reportedly said to be exploring the possibility of using solar power-based charging in its range of highly anticipated wearable smartwatches.
Sources have claimed that the tech giant is considering equipping the smartwatch’s screen with a solar-charging layer that would top up the battery when the device is worn in daylight.
According to The Verge, such a solution is considered ‘years from becoming a reality’ and the company is yet to introduce such a tech to its iPhones.
Psychologists have found that while a majority of adults cite the ability to compete with friends as their primary reason for playing online casual video games, they report differing perceived benefits from playing the games based upon their age.
Exoplanets may have been teeming with alien microbial life just 15 million years after the Big Bang, according to a Harvard scientist.
Exoplanets that orbit far beyond the habitable zone may have been able to support life in the distant past, warmed by the relic radiation left over from the Big Bang that created the universe 13.8 billion years ago, said astrophysicist Abraham Loeb from the Harvard University.
Researchers have developed a new type of laser that will enable exciting new advances in areas as diverse as breath analysis for disease diagnosis and remote sensing of critical greenhouse gases.
The team from University’s Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing and the School of Chemistry and Physics said that they have been able to produce 25 times more light emission than other lasers operating at a similar wavelength which has opened the way for detection of very low concentrations of gases.
Yahoo is reportedly directing its focus back on algorithmic search and search advertising, tech site, Recode, has revealed.
The Internet giant is said to have ordered up two new search-related initiatives, codenamed Fast Break and Curveball.
According to Cnet, the projects are reportedly priorities for Yahoo; both with three-to-four month time frames, and involving search chief Laurie Mann, mobile head Adam Cahan, and SVP of platforms Jay Rossiter.
Researchers have mapped the surface of a brown dwarf – an object larger than a planet and smaller than a star – for the first time.
The team of European scientists carried out a pair of studies to analyze the atmosphere of the nearest brown dwarf to Earth, known as Luhman 16B, some 6.5 light-years from the Sun.
Researchers found that Luhman 16B has a complex structure of patchy clouds made up of droplets of liquid iron and other minerals, with temperatures in the clouds exceeding 1,000 degree Celsius.
NASA has begun inviting the public to help astronomers discover embryonic planetary systems hidden among data from the agency’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission through a new website, DiskDetective.org.
James Garvin, the chief scientist for NASA Goddard’s Sciences and Exploration Directorate, said that through Disk Detective, volunteers are going to help the astronomical community discover new planetary nurseries that will become future targets for NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope.
Researchers have made an important advancement towards a quantum computer by shrinking down key components and integrating them onto a silicon microchip.
Scientists and engineers from an international collaboration led by Dr Mark Thompson from the University of Bristol have, for the first time, generated and manipulated single particles of light (photons) on a silicon chip – a major step forward in the race to build a quantum computer.
Facebook has reportedly announced its much-anticipated visual news reader app for iOS.
The app, dubbed ‘Paper’, is the first one out of Facebook Creative Labs and intends to deliver human and algorithm-curated full-screen articles and photos in categories a user selects like Tech, LOL, and Pop Culture.
According to Tech Crunch, Paper would be launched on the iOS platform to everyone in the US on February 3, just a day before the social networking site turns 10.
Yahoo has said that usernames and passwords of its email customers have been stolen and used to access accounts, but the company isn’t saying how many accounts have been affected.
Yahoo is the second-largest email service worldwide, after Google’s Gmail, according to the research firm comScore. There are 273 million Yahoo mail accounts worldwide, including 81 million in the US.
Yahoo Inc. Yesterday said in a blog post on its breach that “The information sought in the attack seems to be names and email addresses from the affected accounts’ most recent sent emails.”
An unmanned NASA Rover has captured images of a celestial object, believed to be a UFO, on Mars.
One of the internet users said that the unexplained shape photographed is just “something on the lens of the rover camera”, while another said that it’s “just a weather balloon”, the Mirror reported.
However, some believe that it is an “Asteroid”.
The video of the bizarre celestial object, which looks like a spacecraft complete with vapour trail has been uploaded to YouTube by Ufologist Streetcap1 under the heading ‘Mars ufo?’ (ANI)
A new app for Android smartphone reportedly turns the lock screen into a finger-scanner, a feature incorporated by Apple in its latest iPhone 5S.
Scientists in Japan have found a remarkably easy way to make cells that can grow into any tissue in the body.
The method if it can be repeated in human tissue, may lead to cheap and simple methods to make patient-matched stem cells that could repair damaged or diseased organs.
In a series of elegant experiments, researchers showed that cells plucked from mice could be turned into all-powerful master cells by immersing them in a mildly acidic solution for half an hour.
NASA is planning missions to show how to make oxygen on Mars and water on the moon.
Previously, studies have showed that the viable option for future human expeditions to Mars – as well as Mars sample return missions – require “in-situ resource utilization,” or IRSU, to cut the costs of launching everything from Earth.
Lunar geologist Paul Spudis, with the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, told Discovery News, said that doing ISRU gives leverage as the fraction of intelligent-to-dumb mass on your spacecraft is changed in favor of the intelligent part.
Internet users can now register addresses in new domain names such as .bike, .guru and others.
Internet registrar Donuts has opened the door to seven new domains: .bike, .singles, .clothing, . guru, . holdings, .plumbing, and .ventures.
According to the Washington Post, the unique and new domains help businesses looking to highlight their core business – bike shops, for example.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the organization charged with regulating domains, first approved the expansion in 2011, the report added. (ANI)
Researchers were able to use a small strip of latex rubber coated with bacterial spores to power a new electric generator.
The contraption uses harmless soil bacterium Bacillus subtilis, which when nutrients are scarce, turns itself into a tough little spore capable of withstanding heat, desiccation, chemical assaults, radiation.
The spores respond to changes in humidity. When the air dries the bacterium shrivel up like grapes turning into raisins and when the air is moist they become plump again.
American retailer Target Corp. has reportedly revealed that cyber criminals who launched the mega data breach, compromising data of about 110 million customers, used a vendor’s credentials to exploit the system.
According to Fox News, a Target spokeswoman revealed that hackers used credentials they stole from one of its vendors, but declined to reveal what type of credentials were stolen.
Samsung Galaxy S5 is likely to debut with a 2,560 x 1,440-pixel 2K smartphones with AMOLED display soon, followed by 4K screens next year.
According to Cnet, this 2K resolution is unlike anything that has been around from Samsung.
Samsung”s already working on an AMOLED UHD display capable of 3,480 x 2,160 pixels 4K smartphones, the report added.
Recently, Samsung revealed that these 4K smartphones with pixel densities of 820ppi are on the horizon. (ANI)
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