Technology

More than half a billion people use mobile phones to access Facebook

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More than half a billion people reportedly access Facebook from their mobile devices.

It is reported that nearly 526 million of Facebook’s monthly active users access the social network site using mobile phones, marking another milestone in Facebook’s shift to mobile.

According to Tech Crunch, that’s up from 456 million in the previous quarter, and it’s an increase of around 78 percent from the 296 million mobile-only users that Facebook saw during the same period last year. It also includes about 38 percent of Facebook’s 1.39 billion monthly active users.

Facebook testing new ‘Place Tips’ app that shows relevant info about user’s location in News Feed

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Facebook is testing a new feature called Place Tips that will put useful and relevant information about the users’ location in their News Feed.

According to the Verge, the Facebook app will try to guess when a user is in a popular or interesting location and surface relevant tips, photos, and posts from the place in question.

Facebook’s product manager Mike LeBeau said that News Feed today is a pretty good tool at connecting one to friends and news, adding that it is Facebook’s job to connect the world.

The latest feature has been rolled out to users in New York as of now.

New 3-D map of nearby supernova remnant reveals its ‘bubbly interior’

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Astronomers have recently created a 3-D map of nearby supernova remnant with the help of the astronomical equivalent of a CAT scan, which revealed that it has a “bubbly interior.”

Cassiopeia A, or Cas A for short, is one of the most well studied supernova remnants in our galaxy. But it still holds major surprises. A Harvard-Smithsonian and Dartmouth College astronomer with the help of map found it was composed of a collection of about a half dozen massive cavities or “bubbles.”

Hubble spots massive ring made of stars in space caused by gigantic galactic collision

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NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has recently observed a massive ring made of stars in space caused by the gigantic galactic collision.

The NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope photo of NGC 7714 presents an especially striking view of the galaxy’s smoke-ring-like structure. The golden loop was made of Sun-like stars that have been pulled deep into space, far from the galaxy’s center. The galaxy was located approximately 100 million light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Pisces.

Titan behaves like Venus, Mars when exposed to raw power of solar wind

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NASA’s Cassini mission has recently found that Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, behaves like Venus and Mars when exposed to raw power of solar wind.

The observations suggest that unmagnetized bodies like Titan might interact with the solar wind in the same basic ways, regardless of their nature or distance from the Sun.

Titan is large enough that it could be considered a planet if it orbited the Sun on its own, and a flyby of the giant moon in Dec. 2013 simulated that scenario, from Cassini’s vantage point.

Scientists identify biological clock to predict longivity

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A group of scientists has identified a biological clock that could help predict how long we live, according to a study.

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh in collaboration with researchers in Australia and the US studied chemical changes to DNA to establish an individual’s biological age which they compared with their actual age, the Mirror reported Friday.

The results showed that people with biological age greater than their true age were more likely to die sooner than those whose biological and actual ages were the same.

Pak telecom regulator blocks over 2 million SIMs over security

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Pakistan’s telecom regulator authority has blocked over 2 million SIM cards across the country under a campaign launched by the government for authentication of details of mobile phone subscribers.

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) earlier this month gave 91 days to verify 103 million unverified SIMs through the Biometric Verification System (BVS), as part of security measures following the December Peshawar school massacre that killed 150 people, the Dawn reported.

New ‘skin-based generators’ can help smartphone charge its battery from your skin

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A new research has revealed about a new flexible generator that converts muscle movements into enough power for small electronics, using human skin as one of its charge-collectors.

The postage-stamp-sized device takes advantage of static electricity to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. Such friction-powered generators could usher new types of wearable sensors that don’t require batteries but instead are powered by the wearer’s daily activities like walking, talking or holding an object.

Dolphins, cats are not similar despite sharing same genes

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A new research has revealed the reason behind dolphins not being a cat, or the reason of rich diversity in mammals.

The research led by European Molecular Biology Laboratory found out the reason behind the divergence of mammals instead of having same genes, and examined genome sequences in around 29 mammals and compared gene regulation in liver cells from 20 key species.

Reddit’s first transparency report reveals only 55 requests for user data received in 2014

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Reddit has released its first transparency report, revealing that the link-sharing website received only 55 requests for user data in 2014.

According to Mashable, the report reveals that Reddit, which boasts more than 174 million users, turned over data for only 32 (58pc) of those requests.

The figure seems irrelevant when compared to that of Google and Facebook , which received 32,000 and 35,000 similar requests, respectively

The company said in its report: “At Reddit, we believe transparency about our privacy practices encourages trust and more user expression.”

Twitter cofounders come to CEO Dick Costolo’s aid amid criticism from investors, analysts

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Twitter cofounders have come out in support of the social networking site’s CEO Dick Costolo amid a series of criticisms of his performance by investors and analysts.

According to Mashable, Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s cofounder and current CEO of Square, issued a lengthy tweetstorm on Thursday in which he praised the progress of the social network and offered a firm endorsement of Costolo’s leadership.

Demonstrating its support for Costolo, Twitter later went on to promote Dorsey’s tweets.

Whales can hear through their bones

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Using computer simulation of a fin whale head, scientists have discovered that the skulls of at least some baleen whales have acoustic properties that capture the energy of low frequencies and direct it to their ear bones.

Baleen whales, also known as mysticetes, are the largest animals on earth, and include blue whales, minke whales, right whales, gray whales and fin whales.

These whales can emit extremely low frequency vocalisations that travel extraordinary distances underwater.

The wavelengths of these calls can be longer than the bodies of the whales themselves.

Microsoft launches new Outlook app for iOS, Android users

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Taking Gmail and other email apps head on, Microsoft has launched a new Outlook app for iOS and Android devices.

The new app is basically a replacement for San Francisco-based email startup Acompli that was acquired by Microsoft for $200 million in December last year, New York Daily News reported.

Outlook will support Office 365, Exchange, Outlook.com, Yahoo Mail, Gmail, iCloud and other key email services.

The app will also help users manage calendar and fetch attachments within the same app.

‘Mini brain’ in spinal cord helps us balance

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US researchers have discovered a “mini brain” hidden in our spinal cord that helps us remain balanced while maneuvering our way through crowd or walking across an icy parking lot in winter so that we do not slip and fall.

Such a task happens unconsciously, thanks to a cluster of neurons in our spinal cord that integrate sensory information and make the necessary adjustments to our muscles.

Analysts say Apple outdoes Samsung as ‘world’s largest smartphone vendor’

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After netting the biggest quarterly profit by any company ever, Apple has added one more feather to its hat by establishing itself as the world’s largest smartphone vendor, eclipsing Samsung in the process.

The tech giant reported record sales of 74.5 million smartphones in the quarter whereas Samsung sold a total of 95 million handsets, of which about 71- 75 million were smartphones, reported The Verge.

Now, app that ranks your relationship with people you interact

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Researchers have launched a new app that monitors the reaction and behaviour of the users while interacting with others.

Lauren McCarthy and Kyle McDonald are the creative minds behind this innovative app called ‘Pplkpr’ (People Keeper) that observes the negative or positive impact of the people by recording the feelings of the user while interacting, Mashable.com reported.

Snowden files now snare Canadian spy agency

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Canada’s electronic spy agency intercepts and analyses millions of videos and documents downloaded online everyday by people around the world to identify extremists, media reported.

The Communications Security Establishment (CSE) project, named “Levitation”, was carried out in partnership with countries including the US, Britain, New Zealand and Australia, Xinhua news agency reported citing a CBS News report Wednesday. The report is based on a document recently released to CBC News by US whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Google says YouTube too crammed to keep check on terror related videos

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Google says that its video-sharing website YouTube is overloaded to the point where the staff is finding it difficult to filter terror related content.

The overflowing content on the site is slowing down the task to stop terrorists from uploading propaganda and hostage videos.

According to CBS News, Google Public Policy Manager Verity Harding said that about 300 hours of video material is being uploaded to YouTube every minute, making it virtually impossible for the company to filter all images.

Microsoft’s Eric Horvitz says artificial intelligence will ‘not’ end human race

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Microsoft head of research Eric Horvitz has said that though machines will eventually achieve a human-like consciousness, they do not pose a threat to the survival of mankind.

Horvitz said in an interview that there have been concerns about the long-term prospect that they lose control of certain kinds of intelligences, but he fundamentally doesn’t think that’s going to happen, Stuff.co.nz reported.

Samsung sees drop in profits in Q4 2014

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Samsung seems to be losing on profits with the company making an operating profit of 5.29 trillion won (4.87 billion dollars) on 52.73 trillion won (48.6 billion dollars) in revenue last quarter.

According to the Verge, last year, Samsung’s operating profit was 8.31 trillion won from 59.28 trillion won revenue, meaning that these latest results reveal respective dips of 36 and 11 percent.

Despite increased sales of the Galaxy Note 4, the company’s mobile division is still down 64 percent year-on-year in terms of operating profit.

‘Internet-connected pacemakers’ come closer to reality

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A new study has revealed that pacemakers with internet connection are not-so-distant goal as the University of the Basque Country has designed an efficient security protocol to protect the information provided by medical devices connected to the Internet.

In modern western societies the fitting of pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) is growing rapidly, which control heart rhythm and, if necessary, send an appropriate response to make the heart beat at the right rhythm.

Scientists warn Ebola virus has mutated

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Scientists tracking the Ebola outbreak in Guinea have recently stated that the virus has started to mutate, which might make it somewhat less deadly but more contagious eventually.

Researchers at the Institut Pasteur in France, which first identified the outbreak in March 2014, are investigating whether it could have become more contagious, the BBC reported.

More than 22,000 people have been infected with Ebola and 8,795 have died in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Scientists are starting to analyze hundreds of blood samples from Ebola patients in Guinea.