Technology

Facebook's newly-launched oversight board issued its first rulings on Thursday, overturning four of five decisions to remove controversial posts from the platform. The initial batch of rulings did not include Donald Trump's indefinite suspension from Facebook and Instagram after the storming of the US Capitol, but the board said last week it agreed to consider that case. The four overturned decisions included a post that asserted that France lacked a health care strategy and included claims that a cure for Covid-19 exists. This post was initially removed on grounds that it contributed to "risk of imminent... physical harm." But the review board said Facebook's rule on misinformation and imminent harm was "inappropriately vague." Another case involved nudity. An Instagram user in Brazil had posted pictures of women's nipples as part of a breast cancer awareness message. It was removed, but the board said the photos should be allowed in light of ...

Students of Sri Shakti Institute of Engineering and Technology, in Coimbatore, have designed and developed a satellite at a cost of ₹2.5 crores. It would be inaugurated by chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Dr R Sivan on 28 January. The formation of the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre in June last by Prime Minister Narendra Modi inspired 12 students of the institute to collaborate with ISRO and develop 'SriShaktiSat', the institute chairman Dr Thangavel told reporters here on Wednesday. After installing Sri Shakti Sat Ground Station in collaboration with Serbia-based Community for Space Programme Development, the institute became a member of the Satellite Networked Open Ground Station (SATNOGS) project, he said. Thangavel said SATNOGS aimed at providing technologies for a distributed network of low earth orbit satellite ground stations. Srishaktisat would be weighing only 460 grams but can perform like any other nanosatellites weigh...

Nearly two-thirds of 1.2 million people polled worldwide say humanity faces a climate emergency, according to a UN survey, the largest of its kind ever undertaken. Young and old, rich and poor, respondents in 50 nations home to more than half the global population also chose from a score of policy options to tackle the problem, researchers at the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the University of Oxford reported Wednesday. The findings suggest the grassroots global climate movement that surged onto the world stage in 2019 — led, in part, by a then 16-year Greta Thunberg of Sweden — is still gaining momentum, even if a raging pandemic has obscured its scope. "Concern about the climate emergency is far more widespread than we knew before," Stephen Fisher, a sociologist at Oxford who helped design the survey and process the data, told AFP in an interview. "And the large majority of those who do recognise a climate emergency want urgent and comprehensive action." ...

A new supercomputer in Wyoming will rank among the world’s fastest and help study phenomena including climate change, severe weather, wildfires and solar flares. Houston-based Hewlett Packard Enterprise won a bid to provide the $35 million to $40 million machine for a supercomputing centre in Cheyenne, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, announced Wednesday. The HPE-Cray EX supercomputer will theoretically be able to perform almost 20 quadrillion calculations per second — 3.5 times faster than the existing machine at the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center. The new machine’s maximum speed per second will be roughly equivalent to each person on Earth completing a math equation every second for an entire month. That power will enable some of the most sophisticated simulations yet of large-scale natural and human-influenced events. The supercomputer should rank among the world’s 25 fastest after it’s installed this year and goes into operation in early 202...

Novavax Inc. said Thursday that its COVID-19 vaccine appears 89% effective based on early findings from a British study and that it also seems to work — though not as well — against new mutated versions of the virus circulating in that country and South Africa. The announcement comes amid worry about whether a variety of vaccines being rolled out around the world will be strong enough to protect against worrisome new variants – and as the world desperately needs new types of shots to boost scarce supplies. The study of 15,000 people in Britain is still underway. But an interim analysis found 62 participants so far have been diagnosed with COVID-19 – only six of them in the group that got vaccine and the rest who received dummy shots. The infections occurred at a time when Britain was experiencing a jump in COVID-19 caused by a more contagious variant. A preliminary analysis found over half of the trial participants who became infected had the mutated version. The numbers are very sm...

A majority of respondents in a survey said they will not use Whatsapp payment features and may discontinue business chat if the app shares information with Facebook and third parties, according to a survey. The survey – conducted around Whatsapp new proposed policy across the country covering over 17,000 respondents – found that five per cent users have deleted the app, while 22 per cent claimed to have reduced using the mobile messaging platform. "Whatsapp and Facebook must reconsider this feedback and make changes to their policy if they are serious about Whatsapp Pay becoming a key player in the UPI payments space in India. Currently, Google Pay, Phone Pe and Paytm have a majority of the market share in this segment," the survey by online platform Localcirlces said. Early this month, WhatsApp informed users of an update in its terms of service and privacy policy regarding how it processes user data and partners with Facebook to offer integrations across the social me...

FAU-G  had been creating a lot of buzz prior to its launch. FAU-G is a locally-developed game that has been made by Bangalore-based nCore games. The game was launched on 26 January and has managed to become a massive hit. It has become the most popular free game on Google Play Store and has managed more than 5 million downloads in a single day. More so, the game has received an average of 4.1 ratings on the Google Play Store . Game developer nCore Games took to Twitter to announce the news, writing, "#MakeInIndia Wins @GooglePlay FAU-G is now the #1 Free Game. Thank you India! #JaiHind." #MakeInIndia Wins ❤️ @GooglePlay FAU-G is now the #1 Free Game. Thank you India! #JaiHind Download now: https://t.co/4TXd1F7g7J #FAUG #atmanirbharbharat @vishalgondal @akshaykumar @dayanidhimg @BharatKeVeer pic.twitter.com/GUdyI22f5T — nCORE Games (@nCore_games) January 27, 2021 The announcement of the game was made initially by the Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar via his Twitt...