Technology

Two Californian officials have reportedly announced plans to introduce a bill that would require smartphones to have a ‘kill switch’ in case devices are stolen or lost to make them inoperable.

State Sen. Mark Leno and San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon said that the bill would be formally introduced in January at the start of the 2014 legislative session.

Sen. Leno said that smartphone theft is common on California streets and the crimes are becoming increasingly violent, Fox News reports.

2-in-1 devices, which work as both a PC and tablet, are expected to find more consumer preference in 2014 as prices fall and more people opt for them.

“In 2013, we saw a lot of OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) coming out with 2-in-1 devices, which could be used both as a PC and tablet. They called it swivel, hybrids and some other names too,” Sandeep Aurora, Director, Marketing and Market Development, Intel South Asia, told PTI.

NASA has ordered astronauts to do emergency spacewalks to carry out repairs on a broken cooling line at the International Space Station.

The US space agency said that the work to replace a faulty pump module is gong to require the services of two astronauts, and three spacewalks – the first of which has been planned for Saturday, the BBC reported.

NASA has said that the situation is potentially serious but is not life-threatening; 50 per cent of the cooling system had automatically shut down last week after it detected abnormal temperatures.

Facebook has updated its Messenger app that includes a ‘dislike’ button.

However, the ‘dislike’ option is only available on the desktop and mobile versions of Facebook Messenger, Fox News reports

In order to access the new sticker pack, users will have to download it from the Sticker Store inside the Messenger app.(ANI)

After three years of innovative study, researchers have presented a body-wing-blending configuration with double flanking air inlets layout to aim at design requirements of high lift-to-drag ratio as well as high volumetric efficiency of next generation hypersonic airplanes.

Dr. Cui Kai and his group from State Key Laboratory of High Temperature Gas Dynamics, Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences worked together to design a hypersonic airplane that can travel from Beijing to New York in only two hours.

A new sleeping mask lets users to have a nap of their choice of duration without worrying about sleep inertia.

The Napwell sleeping mask coaxes the wearer awake gently as it slowly lights up providing a soothing effect.

Developers Justin Lee and Neil Joglekar believe that the napping tool can help users feel more energized at work, better on plans or establish a new sleeping plan, Tech Crunch reports.

According to the report, the device lets users set a nap duration and then nod off and once the user nears the end of nap, the mask slowly lights up with a diffuse.

Facebook has reportedly acquired social startup SportsStream that provides sports fan with social chatter and updates about their favourite sports in a personalized feed.

The startup was launched in June 2012 and is backed by business magnate Paul Allen and its acquisition for an undisclosed amount by the social networking giant indicates to a competition with rival Twitter as a source of real-time information around major events.

Google’s highly-anticipated wearable computing device Glass’s updated feature reportedly allows users to take a picture with just a wink of an eye.

The controversial wink to snap a photo feature had been enabled via an app called Winky before drawing flak from privacy advocates who viewed its potential misuse.

A Canadian aerospace engineer duo has accomplished a 1980 dare to create an aircraft that was powered by a human, could reach 3 meters in altitude and hover for at least a minute. Although the task was attempted by dozens of teams in the past, none won the 250,000 dollars Sikorsky Prize, set up by the American Helicopter Society, apart from Todd Reichert and Cameron Robertson, CNN reported. The pair won the prize with their 64-second flight in an indoor athletic arena outside Toronto.

Waste water treatment facilities can be hotspots for the spread of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, making them immune to drugs that fight infection, a report said Wednesday.

Compiled by 26 experts from around the world, including Chand Wattal who chairs the department of microbiology at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in the national capital, the report, “Antibiotic Resistance – The Need For Global Solutions,” said chlorination of drinking water can concentrate some antibiotic resistant genes.

NASA today debated whether to go ahead with a planned cargo mission to the International Space Station or postpone it so astronauts can do spacewalks for urgent repairs.

On Wednesday of last week, NASA learned that a faulty valve had interfered with the cooling loops that regulate equipment temperature aboard the orbiting space lab.

The six-man crew was never in danger due to the problem, but NASA has said it would like the system fixed for good, and soon.

Researchers have revealed that the chances of Earth being fried by a largest gamma ray burst are exceedingly rare.

According to Dr. Rob Preece, doctoral candidate J. Michael Burgess and Dr. Michael S. Briggs, earth was actually at the center of the hit from April’s big gamma ray burst, which they picked up on equipment aboard the Fermi Space Telescope that UAH and partners NASA/MSFC and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany designed and tested.

About 80 percent of all Likes and Shares on Facebook are reportedly a result of users located outside the US, a new data has revealed.

The data has pointed that Facebook has seen a 5 percent increase in clicks on Like and Share buttons since resigning the buttons last month.

According to Mashable, the redesigned Like and Share buttons appear on more than 7.5 million third-party websites, and are viewed by Internet users more than 22 billion times per day.

Google is reportedly set to offer the upgraded version of its Google Glass allowing users a one-time option to trade in their old Glass units in exchange for the new one.

The hi-tech wearable computing gadget has not been rolled out to the general public and is limited to a set number of Glass Explorers.

In November, the search giant had announced that it would give the existing owners a change to upgrade to the new model and if they agreed, the company would reserve a spot in line for the upgrade, Mashable reports.

Samsung is reportedly lining up an iris verification system, QHD resolution and a new Tizen OS as main technologies for 2014.

The electronics giant is said to be applying the QHD resolution that is of higher quality than full HD and iris verification tech into its smartphone range next year.

According to Cnet, the iris verification technology was acquired by Samsung and been known via Korea’s Patent Office and lets users unlock their smartphone with an iris scan.