Technology

Communist state North Korea has reportedly claimed that it is manufacturing smartphones with the use of indigenous technology.

According to the Sky News, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un gave his seal of approval to the project and said that these smartphones will be very convenient for the users as their camera function has high pixels.

The handset is named after a famous North Korean folk song ‘Arirang’ and some experts believe that China might be in fact manufacturing the device and it is but a piece of North Korean propaganda to claim it as their own.

The Norwegian government has reportedly restricted software manufacturer Apple from taking aerial photographs of the capital city Oslo for its Maps app over security reasons.

According to the BBC, anyone wishing to fly over Oslo to take pictures requires a license from the authorities and Apple has been denied the permit.

However satellite imagery, as used by other map brands, is not protected.

Scientists have explained a new mechanism behind Earth’s 100,000-year Ice Age cycle that points to the alternating influence of continental ice sheets and climate on this global climatic interchange.

Science has struggled to explain fully why an ice age occurs every 100,000 years. As researchers now demonstrate based on a computer simulation, not only do variations in insolation play a key role, but also the mutual influence of glaciated continents and climate.

The Chelyabinsk meteor which exploded over Russia earlier this year, injuring more than 1000 people, was not a one-off – there are 20 more lurking on a similar path, Spanish astronomers have warned.

Scientists discovered that the Chelyabinsk bolide, an 18-meter wide 11,000-ton space rock that burst in a 460-kilotonne explosion above Russia, used to be a part of a larger space body.

Researchers has uncovered a protein that plays a vital role in how plant roots use water and nutrients, which could pave way for improving the production and quality of crops and biofuels.

Plant roots use their endodermis, or inner skin, as a cellular gatekeeper to control the efficient use and movement of water and nutrients from the soil to the above-ground parts of the plant.

A key part of that cellular barrier is the Casparian strip, which also helps plants to tolerate stresses such as salinity, drought and flooding.

The world’s biggest smartphone maker, Apple Inc., is reportedly planning to launch its next iPhone on September 10, 2013.

It is being speculated that Apple might introduce both an iPhone 5S as well as a cheaper iPhone for lower-end customers this year, Fox News reports.

The company has been losing its share in the smartphone market to Google”s Android platform in the last few quarters.

Apple”s iOS has accounted for 13 percent of smartphone sales in Q2, compared to 17 percent in the same period last year, the report added.

The Greenland ice sheet is melting from below, caused by a high heat flow from the mantle into the lithosphere. This influence is very variable spatially and has its origin in an exceptionally thin lithosphere. Consequently, there is an increased heat flow from the mantle and a complex interplay between this geothermal heating and the Greenland ice sheet.

A new study has revealed that Earth is still recovering from the loss of giant sloths and armadillo-like glyptodonts and others massive beasts of the last ice age, 12,000 years ago.

A key method to spread certain nutrients over Amazon basin seems to have disappeared after the deaths of these big South American herbivores.

The massive beasts’ disappearance may even account as to why phosphorus, which is a very important soil nutrient, is so scant in the Amazonia.

The annual Perseid meteor shower will illuminate the night sky with up to 60 stars shooting across the sky per hour tonight.

Every year at this very time, Earth passes through the orbit of a comet called Swift Tuttle, and pieces of debris from it enter the planet’s atmosphere at more than 100,000 mph and burn up.

It can be seen during the July’s last week or August’s first week, but the peak will come tonight, ABC Reported.

Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office said that the best time to view the showers will be right before dawn.

Unregulated tourism and development activity along beaches like Mandarmani and Digha in West Bengal is killing turtles including the vulnerable Olive Ridleys, say researchers.

“In Digha intense tourism pressure has resulted in the decline of turtles and based on information revealed by local people, no nesting population of Olive Ridley turtles was observed in the area in the last five to six years,” says a latest study by WWF on the status of marine turtles.

Microsoft has launched a petition against Google for invading Gmail user’s privacy in a bid to position itself as a consumer friendly choice which gives more control to the users over their emails.

Scroogled.com, new website of Microsoft, has claimed that Gmail scans words in sent and received emails and then send targeted adverts, disguised as new messages, to the user’s inbox, the Metro reports.

Gmail is facing scrutiny from Microsoft for violating consumer trust.

A petition on the site, addressed to Google’s chairman, demands the company to stop this malpractice.

Researchers have found that one in five children get targeted by cyberbullies.

The study which is been done by National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) also revealed that 10 percent of youngsters suffer daily abuse at the hands of internet trolls on sites such as Ask.fm, the Guardian reported.

Research by the NSPCC stated that 10 percent of 11 to 16-year-olds had been targeted daily by internet “trolls”.

Electronics manufacturer Samsung is reportedly going to unveil its Ativ Book 9 Plus laptops for pre-order in the US on August 18, which is conceived to be the ‘highest resolution 13-inch laptop’.

According to Cnet, the Ativ Book 9 Plus offers a 13.3-inch screen with a hefty resolution of 3,200×1,800 pixels and with the Gorilla Glass, the display is 2.8 times sharper than a full HD screen priced at 1,399 dollars.

A security bug has been discovered in Google Chrome browser that allows the software to automatically display users’ saved passwords while importing bookmarks from other browser.

According to ABC News, the web designer, Elliott Kember discovered the flaw while importing his bookmarks from Safari browser to Chrome and found that while there is a check mark to disable the password import it can’t be unchecked on an Apple Mac device.

A US technologist has designed a phone case that shields your mobile’s cellular, Wi-Fi, and GPS signals, keeping your location from being tracked.

New York-based artist and technologist Adam Harvey, has just launched a Kickstarter programme to develop the signal-blocking phone case called Off Pocket.

Harvey also made headlines in January for his line of stealth clothing designed to hide wearers from the spying eyes of drones, ‘Discovery News’ reported.

Researchers including an Indian origin have discovered that manipulating the ‘spin’ of electrons in organic solar cells, a new class of solar cell mimicking the natural process of plant photosynthesis, dramatically improves their performance.

The sells currently lack the efficiency to compete with the more costly commercial silicon cells and can just achieve as much as 12 percent efficiency in turning light into electricity, compared with 20 to 25 percent for silicon-based cells.

Scientists including an Indian-origin have gained new insights on the working of turbulence which could help optimise vehicle performance and save billions in global energy costs.

Dr Ati Sharma, a senior lecturer in aerodynamics and flight mechanics at the University of Southampton, worked in collaboration with Beverley McKeon, professor of aeronautics and associate director of the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) to build models of turbulent flow.

A couple of Online Electric Vehicle (OLEV) buses, that can recharge while driving over specially equipped asphalt, have hit South Korea roads.

According to the project’s developer, the 12km route is the first of its kind in the world, the BBC reported.

The vehicles, which are fitted with compatible equipment, do not need to stop to recharge and they can also be fitted with smaller than normal batteries.

Two public buses are already using the technology and there are plans to add 10 more by 2015.

Popular messaging service Whatsapp has reportedly added a new feature to its smartphone software- the ability to record and send voice messages.

In a bid to compete with other services like Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Voxer and BBM which already have this feature, Whatsapp is the latest to add this ability to the 300 million people who use its app at least once a month, BBC reports.

The patent fight between two of the world’s leaders in software and mobile manufacturing namely Google and Apple has been revived as a US appeals court has ruled that Apple should be able to renew its arguments against the company over violating two patents related to the iPhone.

According to Stuff.co.nz, the Federal US Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Apple should renew the arguments at the International Trade Commission (ITC) that Google acquired Motorola Mobility unit violated the patents.

Scientists are trying to harness the unique properties of diamonds for development of new generation of lasers whose benefits range from better treatment of skin complaints and diabetes-related eye conditions to improved pollution monitoring and aeronautical engineering.

A University of Strathclyde team has developed a new type of high-performance, ultra-versatile Raman laser, that harnesses diamonds to produce light beams with more power and a wider range of colours than current Raman lasers.

Wildlife lovers are jubilant as babies of estuarine crocodiles have emerged out of the eggshells in and around the crocodile research farm in Bhitarkanika national park in Odisha’s Kendrapara district.

Over 500 crocodile hatchlings have so far broken out of the eggshells to make their way into water-bodies and water-inlets of Bhitarkanika national park.

The rare natural phenomenon which is still in progress was watched by few ground-level forest staff. Forest personnel maintained safe distance from the nests as human interference turns the reptiles violent and aggressive.

Currently whatever is known about Jupiter’s moon Europa is what has been gleaned from a dozen or so close flybys from NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1979 and NASA’s Galileo spacecraft in the mid-to-late 1990s.

Even in these very fleeting encounters, scientists have been able to see a fractured, ice-covered world with tantalizing signs of a liquid water ocean under its surface.

Such an environment could potentially be a hospitable home for microbial life.

Search engine giant Google’s operating system Android has not only pushed down Apple’s dominance in the tablet industry but has also topped the world’s smartphone market.

A new study by Strategy Analytics found that Google’s Android is responsible for 80 percent of handsets sold in the second quarter of 2013 accounting to 182.7 million handsets, Fox News reports.

The research firm said that it is a significant boost from the number of handsets sold in the same quarter last year and attributed the success to Android’s ability to target various price tiers.

Software and mobile manufacturer Apple has reportedly launched a worldwide programme to replace third-party and counterfeit USB charges following electrocution of a Chinese woman by a non-Apple charger.

According to the BBC, Apple will replace third-party chargers for an official replacement on payment of 10 dollars or the equivalent in local currency.

The move comes in light of the recent incident where a Chinese woman, Ma Ailun was killed when she answered her iPhone 5 while it was plugged into a wall charger, which was later blamed to be the cause of the death.