NASA has achieved a lot in space exploration in 2014, including taking giant steps on Mars, testing cutting-edge technologies and making scientific discoveries while studying our changing Earth and the infinite universe .
Astronomers have recently spotted a new neighbor for Milky Way galaxy, a tiny and isolated dwarf galaxy almost 7 million light years away
The team, led by Prof Igor Karachentsev of the Special Astrophysical Observatory in Karachai-Cherkessia, Russia, found the new galaxy, named KKs3 , using the Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) in August 2014. Kks3 was located in the southern sky in the direction of the constellation of Hydrus and its stars have only one ten-thousandth of the mass of the Milky Way.
NEW DELHI: Country’s second largest software services firm Infosys is increasing its focus on geographies like North America and EMEA region to drive growth of its core banking solution Finacle.
“Finacle has a dominant share in India. While we continue to invest in India, we are also making significant investments in markets like North America, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa),” Infosys senior vice president and global head of Finacle Michael Reh told PTI.
Reh took over his new role as head of Finacle in October this year.
NASA has for the first time ’emailed’ hardware to space after the US space agency sent a new wrench as an emailed digital file for the International Space Station’s onboard 3D printer.
The printer, a collaboration between NASA and company Made In Space, was shipped up to the ISS in September.
A request from ISS astronaut Barry Wilmore for a ratcheting socket wrench led the Made In Space team to design the tool after which it sent the digital printing file to NASA which uploaded it to the station.
The US Department of Defense is testing a bullet that could change direction in mid-air.
The Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance (EXACTO), currently being tested by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is a .50 calibre round that can change direction as it flies towards its target.
The details of how it will work are completely secret, Popular Science reported.
It is designed specifically for use by snipers, for whom slight improvements such as these could make the difference between life or death.
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Washington, Dec 22 (IANS) Here comes an app that would help you land your plane in case the aircraft engine fails.
The new iPad app Xavion connects with a small plane’s autopilot via wi-fi that would guide you to the nearest airport or safe landing area.
The Xavion App extracts data from the autopilot to provide additional aid to the pilot.
The pilot can then make an informed decision and land the plane safely.
A new study has revealed that both positive and negative experiences influence how genetic variants affect the brain and thereby behavior.
Sheilagh Hodgins of the University of Montreal said the evidence show that the effects of variants of many genes that are common in the population depend on environmental factors. Further, these genetic variants affect each other.
The researchers conducted a study to determine whether juvenile offending was associated with interactions between three common genetic variants and positive and negative experiences.
Scientists have created a stick bug robot, named Hector, which would study movement over various terrain.
The funny part was that the researchers from Bielefeld University, motion captured a real stick insect walking and climbing, with the help of the little balls that are often seen attached to actors when they make CG movies, in order to design the robot, the Verge reported.
A new research has revealed that learning dance sequence by visual observation is better than learning by spoken instruction.
Researchers from Bielefeld University and the Palucca University of Dance in Dresden studied whether dancers learn a dance sequence better by seeing or by listening, that is, if a dance instructor first demonstrates the sequence, or if he or she first gives a spoken explanation.
The increasing amount of marine debris like plastic, glass, rubber and others break or damage reef, a senior scientist said here.
“Marine debris like plastic, glass, metal, rubber abandoned fishing nets and other gear often get entangle and kill reef organisms and break or damage them,” said Dr Mahua Saha, senior Scientist from National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) addressing representatives of SAARC nations during a workshop held at Port Blair, Andaman.
Google has introduced a new feature to its Google+ web app that allows users to enhance videos they upload online.
However, the enhancement will not be automatic. Google will ask users through a banner if they want to preview the potential changes.
Google engineer Tim St. Clair said that the new Google+ feature will be able to automatically enhance lighting, color and stability, reported TechCrunch.
He also said that a new feature that is coming soon would enhance speech in videos as well.
The new feature is available in Google+ on Mac, Windows and ChromeOS.
If you think that only humans are turning vegetarian, here is a new study that has found certain carnivorous plants are also becoming vegetarians.
The bladderworts (Utricularia) is a species of carnivorous plant that catches and digests tiny animals.
Now, the plant is turning to algae and pollen grains for a balanced nutrition.
The species catches its prey with the help of suction bladders, trap doors and lightning speed.
Once captured by the bladderwort, the animal suffocates, and is then broken down by enzymes and digested.
Boeing and BlackBerry are reportedly developing a smartphone that will self-destruct itself if someone tempers with the device.
The Boeing Black phone has a unique tamper-proof covering that will erase data if it is disassembled, the Verge reported.
It will also have dual SIM cards and an expandable back panel for biometric scanners and satellite transceivers to be able to connect to satellites for secure lines of communication.
Researchers have recently discovered the earliest 6,000-year-old Mesolithic encampment at Stonehenge.
The discovery by University of Buckingham archaeological would reveal for the first time how Britain’s oldest ancestors lived, but it could be damaged if Government plans for a tunnel at Stonehenge go ahead.
Google has marked the shortest day of the year with an animated Doodle on its homepage.
The Doodle can be seen with a cartoon Father Christmas helping two children to build a snowman before the children’s mother appears and produces a carrot from her shopping bag to use as the snowman’s nose, the Independent reported.
The winter solstice occurs when the sun’s daily maximum elevation in the sky is at its lowest and the North Pole is tilted furthest away from the sun.
A Facebook app now lets you put huge emoticons and cute cartoons over your friends’ faces with ease.
The app called Stickered for Messenger was launched in the Google Play store Saturday, and is “coming soon” to the iOS App Store, techcrunch reported.
So, if you want huge smiley faces on your selfies and send funny pictures to your friends on Facebook Messenger, get the ‘Stickered’ app.
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Even as Blackberry’s revenue continued to fall over the last three months, it managed to narrow down its losses in comparison to previous year.
According to PC World, revenue for the three months, BlackBerry’s third fiscal quarter, fell to US 793 million dollars, compared to 916 million dollars in the preceding three months and 1.19 billion dollars a year earlier.
The company incurred a net loss of 148 million dollars for its third fiscal quarter against 207 million dollars in the second quarter.
Citigroup has reexamined the valuation of Instagram that was recently bought by Facebook, revealing that the app is now worth 35 billion dollars.
Citi had previously said that Instagram valued at 19 billion dollars, reported the Verge.
Instagram earlier announced that it has over 300 million active users per month which resulted in the app’s increased value. The current number of users of Instagram also results in the application faster than expected growth.
Sony Pictures Entertainment has issued a statement saying that the company has been looking for alternatives to ensure the release of the controversial film ” The Interview”.
According to The Verge, Sony stated that despite breach of its networking system and threatening emails to its employees, the company maintained its focus on releasing the film.
The movie giant said that free expression should never be suppressed by threats and extortion.
Apple has said that the company is “deeply offended” by BBC’s investigation into workers’ conditions in Chinese factories involved in manufacturing its devices.
According to BBC, senior Apple executive Jeff Williams said that Apple is trying to improve the conditions of the workers and that he did not know of any other company that is doing as much as Apple.
Filming on an iPhone 6 production line by the BBC showed that Apple’s promises to protect workers were “routinely broken”.
Samsung is closing its ChatOn application in all its markets in the first quarter of the next year as a survey found that users spent only six seconds on the app per month.
The app would be shut down in most of the countries by February 1. However, it would stay a little longer in the United States, till at least the end of March, reported the Verge.
Although Samsung earlier reported that the application had attracted more than 100 million users since its launch in 2011.
NASA and Made in Space was recently able to successfully email the designs of 3D-printing socket wrench to an ISS astronaut Barry Wilmore, it has been reported.
It was mentioned that scientists and engineers on the ground can now design whatever the astronauts might need, and send the file directly to the 3D printer aboard the ISS to be printed and used immediately, CNet reported.
An spectroscopy experiment at University of Oregon has opened a window on how sunlight can be converted into electricity.
Using four pulses of laser light on nanoparticle photocells, the work could inspire devices with improved efficiency in solar energy conversion.
Spectroscopy is all about light and molecules and what they do together. It is a really great probe that helps to tell us about the reaction pathway that connects the beginning of a chemical or physical process to its end.
Photo sharing website Instagram, which has more than 16 billion users – a figure much higher than Twitter – has been valued at $35 billion by Citigroup.
This beats Twitter’s market cap of $23 billion by a wide margin, wired.com reported
In April 2012, Instagram was acquired by Facebook for $1 billion and had about 30 million users.
The app was downloaded over a million times on the day the android version hit and has continued to grow.
A new study has revealed that forests around the world are affected by man-made climate change, suggesting that degradation of woods cannot be ruled out for the future.
Taking a risk perspective, a team of scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) caution that global warming puts additional pressure on some of the most valuable ecosystems on Earth.