Uber tests self-driving cars in Pittsburgh

The company is working out the bugs in its self-driving technology. The ride-hailing behemoth announced in a blog post Thursday that it has begun testing a self-driving car in Pittsburgh, home of the company's nascent Advanced Technologies Center. The car, a Ford Fusion Hybrid with a roof-full of radar, lasers and cameras, will be collecting road-mapping data as well as testing its real-world traffic reactions. Uber's interest in autonomous car technology dates to a year ago, when the $60 billion start-up began hiring Carnegie Mellon University robotics experts to staff its new center not far from the Pittsburgh-based school.

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Hypersonic Jet Can Fly From Sydney To London In Less Than Two Hours

Scientists in Australia have successfully tested a new type of jet aircraft capable of reaching speeds of more than seven times the speed of sound, bringing the possibility of hypersonic travel one step closer to reality. For a rocket or jet to be considered hypersonic, it has to be able to reach Mach 5, or at least five times the speed of sound. The new aircraft, known as the Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation (HIFiRE) 5B, not only broke through the Mach 5 mark, but easily reached Mach 7.5, or 5,760 miles per hour 
and an altitude of about 173.4 miles during its latest trial in the Australian desert. 

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Astronaut Speaks With Wisconsin Students From Space

Astronaut Jeff Williams took a time out during his stay in the International Space Station to speak with students from his hometown of Winter, Wisconsin, through a video uplink with NASA. Around 320 students looked on from the bleachers of Winter’s middle-school gym as Williams took questions via satellite link from their classmates. The students asked questions about everything, from bone and muscle loss in space to whether solar energy is used to power the International Space Station.  

"What are you personally researching and what will be done with it when the experiments are finished?" asked fifth-grader Albert Blair. 'Williams explained their experiments cover areas like plant and cell growth and DNA, but he said the bulk of research focuses on

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Asia-Pacific accounts for 91% of global natural disaster deaths: UN report

By 2070, Kolkata, Mumbai, Bangkok, Dhaka, Guangzhou, and Shanghai will be the top Asian cities with maximum exposure to coastal flooding.

The Asia-Pacific region accounted for the bulk of deaths from natural disasters in the last century, said a United Nations report, which called it the world’s most disaster-prone region.

“The region accounted for 91% of the world’s deaths due to natural disasters in the last century,” said the report Global Environmental Outlook (GEO-6): Regional Assessments

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1GB RAM Android Smartphone Is A Fraud

A lot of folks have complained about OEM’s who slam 1GB RAM on smartphones and sell for over N30,000. It is not clear why manufacturers still continue to do this, but this action has reached an unbearable point.

A guy who purchases a smartphone above N30,000 expects the phone to function properly. In most cases, this doesn’t happen. After prolong usage, traces of lag and low performance becomes noticeable.

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3 Ways to Analyse SEO Content and Increase Sales

I’ve got news for you. You’re missing the fundamental point of SEO and google is laughing at you.

Why? Because while you tinker with your backlink profile and worry about the semantic variety of thematic keywords, Google is doing the one thing you aren’t:thinking about the customer.

The future of SEO lies in a customer-centric approach to search. Don’t get me wrong – we still need to build technically fast, competent platforms for the wider search environment. Technology and content KPIs and traditional streams of work are still critical in the doing. However, optimising for traditional Search KPI’s alone is akin to chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Reality is far removed from this world of fiction. I liken SEO to medical diagnosis and treatment – you may know the anatomy of a body on paper and the different effects of medicines, but

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Microsoft to sell feature phone business to Foxconn

Microsoft announced it will sell its feature phone business to a subsidiary of Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn.

In a statement released Wednesday, Microsoft says it will transfer its feature phone assets including brands, software and services to FIH Mobile and Finnish company HMD for $350 million. The deal is expected to close during the second half of this year.

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Get up close with Van Gogh: Google camera captures gigapixel images of art that lets users zoom in to see each brushstroke

Gigapixel image is made of 1 billion pixels and shows incredible detail

Google's Art Camera is being used in 25 new museums around the world

Google is today sharing the first 1,000 high resolution images of artworks     from artists including Pissarro, Signac, Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Mone 

Forget going to the Tate. Google has unveiled an incredibly high-resolution camera that will bring detailed works of art to your phone or computer.

Dubbed the 'Art Camera', the device has so far taken a thousand gigapixel images of famous masterpieces, which can all be viewed online by anyone for free.

A gigapixel image is made of over one billion pixels, and can bring out details invisible to the naked eye – allowing viewers to see individual brush strokes. 'Zooming into these images is the closest thing to walking up to the real thing with a magnifying glass,' writes Ben John and engineer at Google Cultural Institute. Google is today sharing the first thousand ultra-high resolution images of artworks from artists including Pissarro, Signac, Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Monet.

Around 200 of these gigapixel images were taken in the past five years, showing individual brush strokes and subtle changes in colour. But these first images were captured using highly specialised and expensive equipment, and required a trained technician to complete the job.

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The $1billion boat arrives in Britain: World’s biggest cruise ship Harmony of the Seas

The $1billion boat arrives in Britain: World’s biggest cruise ship Harmony of the Seas rules the waves as it docks in Southampton ahead of maiden voyage 

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Africa: On World Telecommunication Day, UN Hails Role of It in Sustainable Development

The global sustainable development agenda recognizes the great potential of information and communication technology to accelerate human progress, bridge the digital divide and advance knowledge, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, marking World Telecommunication and Information Society Day with a call for Governments, businesses and civil society leaders to develop new technologies that have a lasting social impact. In his message for the Day, the UN chief highlighted that the 17 Sustainable Development Goals specifically call for employing information and communication technology (ICT) to realize the overall vision of a life of dignity for all people.

"These technologies provide smart

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Mars is within reach, says German tapped for space command

Humans could set foot on Mars within decades if they wanted to, according to the German astronaut who has been tapped to become his country's first commander of the International Space Station. Alexander Gerst said the space station offers a unique opportunity to test the technology needed to explore other planets, especially if its lifetime is extended beyond 2020. "It is very clear to me that those manned missions to the moon and Mars, human missions, will happen," he told The Associated Press in an interview at the European Space Agency's astronaut training center in Cologne, Germany. "But we need the decision as a society. And once we do that we are ready to go, basically."

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Genome Analysis Reveals How Giraffes Developed Exceptionally Long Necks

Why the long neck, you ask? Several genetic clues from the giraffe and its relative may provide insight on how the animals developed their exceptional height, a new study revealed. Considered as the world's tallest terrestrial species, giraffes are dominated by their long neck and legs, which contribute to their overall stature. These animals' size can reach up to 5.79 meters (19 feet) tall or nearly the equivalent of a two-storey building.

Additionally, giraffes can sprint at a speed of 37 miles per hour (60 km per hour). The animals' heart can pump blood two meters (6.56 feet) up to its brain, suggesting a powerful cardiovascular function. This is plausible, as its left ventricle has evolved to become unusually large.

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Google's bigger I/O attracts more women, minorities

SAN FRANCISCO — Google's annual conference for software developers looks a lot like Google itself: Mostly male, white and Asian. Unwilling to accept the status quo, the tech giant is leading the charge to shake up the lopsided demographics of tech conferences and, at I/O, Google says it's making progress in closing the gender and racial gap.

The percentages of women and minorities attending the developers conference have not budged much since last year, but the numbers have, Google says. Women account for 23% of conference goers, same as last year, but I/O is 25% bigger, according to Google. Women accounted for 16% of attendees in 2014 and 8% in 2013. For the first time this year, Google

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How to use or avoid hidden iPad keyboard options

Q. The keyboard on my iPad has moved up the screen. How do I pull it back down?

A. This option to “undock” iOS’s standard keyboard,added back in iOS 5, possesses a frustrating combination of qualities: It’s both unadvertised and possible to invoke by mistake.

Although you won’t find any mention of this in Apple’s iOS-keyboard help page or a separate introduction to the iPad’s onscreen keyboard, you only need to tap and hold the hide-keyboard button in the bottom right corner to get a menu to pop open with “Undock” and “Split” items.

The first moves the keyboard about 40 percent of the way up the screen. I am not sure what benefit that provides. I do know that when I undocked my iPad mini 4’s keyboard with an errant swipe that must have lingered over the hide-keyboard key

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Your Dose Of Disruptive Tech For This Week !

As a part of the Technology we bring you the latest in the technology from around the world under “TECH THIS WEEK!” every Sunday! This week we saw BMW revealing its plans for a self driving car and periscope  broadcasting via drones. We also saw Hyundai launching wearable suits and Facebook’s new Wi-Fi project. In case, if you’ve missed any of those, along with Hyperloop’s exclusively licensed passive magnetic levitation system, don’t worry just keep reading!

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IOSCO drives global securities markets’ growth

The International Organisation of Securities Commissions has opened the public sessions of its annual conference in Lima focusing on small and medium enterprise financing, investor protection and education, and the opportunities and challenges of new financial technologies. The public conference comes at the conclusion of IOSCO’s private meetings in which members discussed responses to the challenges facing markets regulators, according to a statement by the body. During the four-day meeting, the IOSCO Board, the Growth and Emerging Markets Committee, the four regional committees and the Affiliate Members Consultative Committee discussed policy initiatives to strengthen

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Nigeria: Oil Exploration Causes Environmental Warming in Nigeria - NGO

Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), said oil exploration by multinational companies was a major contributor to environmental warming and climate change effects in Nigeria.

Coordinator of the organisation, Mr Nnimo Bassey, stated this on Sunday at an environmental awareness campaign tagged "Break Free 2016" in Ibeno, Akwa Ibom.

He said that exploitation of crude oil and flaring of gas had destroyed the ecosystem thereby causing environmental warming in the country.

"We can break free from fossil fuel; we cannot

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