In this Thursday, Dec. 22, 2016, photo, Emerson Hill, 6, plays with Pepper the robot at Westfield Mall in San Francisco. While merrily chirping, dancing and posing for selfies, Pepper looks like another expensive toy in the San Francisco mall where it will be entertaining shoppers through mid-February. But it would be a mistake to dismiss Pepper as mere child’s play, even though kids flock around the […]
If the loftier visions of Silicon Valley’s most ambitious internet companies turn into reality, the stratosphere is about to become a very crowded place. Amazon has joined the sky-bound dreamers with an idea that sounds like it has been drawn straight from the pages of science fiction: airship warehouses floating high above the clouds, feeding a fleet of drones that whisk purchases straight to the buyer. The […]
Technological revolution means robots no longer are the song of the future. The Governor of the Bank of England predicts today that up to half of British workforce face redundancy in the imminent ‘second machine age’. No wonder, the research of multi-robot systems generates serious buzz both for promising (albeit at times scary) results and for their application prospects in the real world. (via WSJ)
Diagnosing illnesses can sometimes take a lot of time and money. Some medical procedures that go beyond mere prodding can also be very painful. However, thanks to a new device developed by researchers in Israel, doctors could soon determine a person’s illness simply by getting a quick read of their breath. Just one puff is all it takes. Prof. Hossam Haick and his colleagues at the Technion-Israel […]
Each year, around 88 million tons of food is discarded in the EU. This is something that researchers wants to do something about. They are now giving companies in the food supply chain specific tools that can reduce both food waste and the environmental impact of food transport. (via WSJ)
“We have seen pro-Israeli presidents all along, and Israel First was the standard policy of the United States of America over the last 50-plus years,” Mr. Abdulla said. “But Trump is going much further than that. It seems he is even more Zionist than the Zionists.” Continue reading the main story Sympathy for the Palestinians has historically been among the few issues that united Arabs across political […]
By Yashaswini Swamynathan Wall Street looked set to open little changed on Thursday, a day after the S&P 500 index suffered its biggest fall in two months, putting a damper on a post-election rally. A report showed the number of Americans applying for jobless claims fell by 10,000 to 265,000 last week, indicating sustained strength in the labor market. U.S. equities had been enjoying a rally since […]
After the legalization of recreational marijuana in the state of Washington in 2012, its use among adolescents increased while the perceived risks associated with it dropped. According to a recent study, adolescents in the eighth and 10th grade are less concerned about the negative effects of the use of marijuana. The research, carried out at the University of California, Davis, was published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics and it […]
India’s former central bank chief Raghuram Rajan was once described as a “rock star” economist but the Reserve Bank of India’s new deputy governor has actually written an album of songs. Viral Acharya, a New York University professor, was on Wednesday named as a deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Not only does Mr. Acharya have an impressive professional and academic record, he is also […]
By Jamie McGeever | LONDON LONDON European shares, the dollar and bond yields fell on Thursday, with traders using the quiet holiday period to book some profit on the rise that had lifted all three to multi-year and in some cases record highs recently. Weakness in European financial stocks helped push broader indices into the red, extending the slippage after soft U.S. housing data the previous day. […]
Health officials in New Hampshire revealed on Tuesday, Dec. 27, that a former psychiatric patient at a state hospital posted thousands of private information on a social media website. Jeffrey Meyers, commissioner of the state’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), said the patient used a computer in the New Hampshire Hospital’s library in October 2015 to illegally access the personal data of 15,000 individuals who had […]
In the Philippines, the past year has been about one individual: Rodrigo Duterte, who is both beloved and despised for his rabble-rousing persona and hard-hearted leadership. No one else comes close. Back in August, three months into his term as the country’s new president, he made a promise in a speech delivered to an audience of military generals. “There will be an ongoing purge,” he said. “And […]
People can learn and remember more of a subject when they are already familiar with it, new research concludes. And the more familiar they are with the subject, the better they remember new information related to it, add the researchers. Source
A new study just released from Public Health England concludes that 4 out of 5 Brits between the ages of 40 – 60 are fat, lazy and/or alcoholics, characteristics which the study shockingly found to be having an adverse effect on the group’s long-term health. The study, which compared data collected from 40 – 60 year olds between 2011 – 2013 to similar data collected 20 years […]
New research shows price hikes in ride-sharing services such as Uber and Lyft during peak use times, such as New Year’s Eve, can actually benefit both drivers and consumers. (via WSJ)
Aliens may be communicating to us in the form of fast radio burst (FRB) signals, scientists believe. Two separate groups of astronomers have recently discovered radio bursts coming from the Auriga constellation, which is about 3 billion light years away from the Milky Way galaxy. According to a report filed in The Astrophysical Journal, the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia discovered five radio bursts coming from the Auriga […]
Saudi Arabia’s austerity measures will weigh heavily on consumer spending in 2017 with households cutting back on “non-essential” expenses, according to BMI Research. In its latest country report, the Fitch Group firm reiterated its previous forecasts that the kingdom’s economy would fall into recession next year, as fiscal consolidation and oil production cuts impact economic activity. It forecasts real gross domestic product (GDP) growth to decline by […]
By Andreina Aponte | CARACAS CARACAS Roughly one person is being lynched in crisis-ridden Venezuela every three days as frustrated residents take revenge on suspected criminals, a monitoring group said on Wednesday. The Venezuelan Observatory of Violence (OVV), which monitors crime, said mob killings have become a generalized phenomenon across the country, with 126 deaths reported in 2016 versus 20 last year. “Due to being repeated victims […]
Nevada’s state government website has leaked the personal data on over 11,700 applicants for dispensing medical marijuana in the state. Each application, eight pages in length, includes the person’s full name, home address, citizenship, and even their weight and height, race, and eye and hair color. The applications also include the applicant’s citizenship, their driving license number (where applicable), and social security number. We left a number […]
Reproducibility is a necessity for science but has often eluded researchers studying the lifetime of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Recent research from Japan sheds new light on why: impurities present in the vacuum chamber during fabrication but in amounts so small that they are easily overlooked. (via WSJ)
Within the tech world, there is something known as a Chaos Monkey. It is a software tool that simulates chaos and uncertainty, rampaging through a system pulling at cables and kicking computers. Simulate big problems so you can prepare for them; that’s how the thinking goes. Chaos Monkeys are tame – they are a tool employed by network administrators to make their systems safer and more stable. […]
The FTSE 100 was within touching distance of a closing high on Wednesday, as optimism about the outlook for metal prices lifted the shares of the heavyweight miners on Britain’s blue-chip index. On the market’s first day back after the Christmas holiday, the FTSE 100 was up 0.6 per cent at 7107.56 in early afternoon trading, putting it on track to surpass its closing high of 7103.98 […]
AVATAR can detect changes in physiology and behavior during interviews with travelers. AVATAR can detect changes in physiology and behavior during interviews with travelers. Credit: Aaron Elkins When you engage in international travel, you may one day find yourself face-to-face with border security that is polite, bilingual and responsive—and robotic. The Automated Virtual Agent for Truth Assessments in Real Time (AVATAR) is currently being tested in conjunction […]
Post-Millennials in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia call for more investment in clean energy – mirroring actions being undertaken as part of Government’s Vision 2030 Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, December 28, 2016 Ambitious plans set out by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the deployment of renewable energy are strongly aligned with the hopes and ambitions of the country’s young people, according to global research […]
