Friday, 21 October 2016
Facebook apologises for removing cancer video
Facebook has apologised for taking down a breast cancer awareness video because the images were flagged as offensive, saying the move was “an error”.
Swedish cancer charity Cancerfonden said Thursday that its video explaining to women how to check for suspicious lumps, featuring animated figures of women with circle-shaped breasts, had been removed from the US social networking site.
“We find it incomprehensible and strange how one can perceive medical information as offensive,” Cancerfonden communications director Lena Biornstad told AFP.
“This is information that saves lives,” she said. “This prevents us from doing so.”
In a tongue-and-cheek open letter to Facebook, Cancerfonden had offered a different version of the offending round cartoon breasts.
“After having tried to meet your rules for several days without succeeding, we have now reached
Turkish Airlines bans Galaxy Note 7 from all flights
Turkey’s flagship carrier Turkish Airlines on Friday said it has banned Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 smartphones from all of its flights with immediate effect after reports of fire risk.
“Samsung Galaxy Note 7 devices can no longer be transported on person, in carry-on baggage, in checked bags or as air cargo on all Turkish Airlines flights with immediate effect,” the company said in a warning note to passengers on its website.
Thursday, 20 October 2016
Scientists discover giant, long-necked dinosaur species in Australia
Scientists unveiled fossils Thursday from a new species of giant, long-necked dinosaur unearthed in northeast Australia, speculating that its ancestors had trekked across Antarctica some 105 million years ago.
At least 14 metres (45 feet) from head-to-tail, Savannasaurus elliottorum was a plant-chomping, barrel-chested member of the sauropod group, which includes the largest land animals to ever have roamed the planet.
The discovery, along with a specimen of another sauropod called Diamantinasaurus matildae, was detailed in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.
Palaeontologists nicknamed the two dinos Wade and Matilda. Both species are thought to be unique to Australia.
How and when these and other dinosaurs made it Down Under is a source of ongoing debate, and the new find is sure to add fuel to the fire.
Monday, 17 October 2016
Germany asks Tesla to stop using ‘Autopilot’ in advertising
German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt has asked Tesla to stop advertising its electric vehicles as having an Autopilot function as this might suggest drivers’ attention is not needed, his ministry said on Sunday.
A spokeswoman for the ministry, confirming a report in the daily Bild am Sonntag (BamS), said the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) had written to Tesla to make the request.
“It can be confirmed that a letter to Tesla exists with the request to no longer use the misleading term Autopilot for the driver assistance system of the car,” she said in a written response to a Reuters’ query.
A Tesla spokeswoman said the Autopilot term, describing a system operating in conjunction with a human driver, had been used in aerospace for decades, and that the company had always made
Tuesday, 11 October 2016
Samsung announces it is killing Galaxy Note 7 smartphone
Samsung has announced it is permanently halting production of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, a gadget that was intended to propel a comeback but instead has engulfed the South Korea company in a major corporate crisis.
Samsung had a been on a roll earlier this year with the introduction of the Galaxy 7, which saw its mobile sales pickup after a couple of rough years. The Galaxy Note 7, with its bigger design and stylus, also came just as rival Apple was seeing a first-time-ever slump in iPhone sales.
Any sense of victory, however, quickly turned sour amid reports of exploding Galaxy Note 7s. The company initiated a clumsy recall process that left consumers confused and angry. It seemed to finally stop the bleeding with the delivery or replacement units.
However, in recent weeks, new reports emerged that at least three replacement units had exploded.
Self-driving car with passengers to be tested on UK streets for first time
A driverless vehicle carrying passengers will take to Britain’s public roads for the first time on Tuesday, as part of trials aimed at paving the way for autonomous cars to hit the highways by the end of the decade.
The government is encouraging technology companies, carmakers and start-ups to develop and test their autonomous driving technologies in Britain, aiming to build an industry to serve a worldwide market which it forecasts could be worth around 900 billion pounds ($1.1 trillion) by 2025.
Earlier this year, it launched a consultation on changes to insurance rules and motoring regulations to allow driverless cars to be used by 2020 and said it would allow such vehicles to be tested on motorways from next year.
A pod – like a small two-seater car – developed by a company spun out from Oxford University
Tuesday, 4 October 2016
WHO develops electronic solution to child, maternal deaths
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has developed an electronic solution using hospital-based study on 10,000 pregnant women in Nigeria and Uganda to reduce the high labour-related child and maternal death rate in sub-Saharan Africa.
The software, an electronic health solution, tagged Simplified, Effective, Labour Monitoring-to-Action (SELMA) tool, would be built into mobile phones, tablets and other mobile devices. It promises to enhance the capacity of less skilled persons working in rural areas but does not replace the expertise of a specialist.
WHO BOLD Research Group was led by João Paulo Souza, a Medical Officer at the WHO Department of Reproductive Health and Research, and a professor of Social Medicine at the Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo, Brazil.
Other members of the team include Prof. Olufemi T. Oladapo, a medical officer at the Department of
WikiLeaks plans to release documents on US election and Google
WikiLeaks plans to release documents pertaining to Google and the US electoral system over the next ten weeks, the organization announced today. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced the planned release schedule in a video address at the end of a press conference in Berlin on Tuesday morning, where the organization was celebrating its tenth anniversary.
Assange said the forthcoming documents will pertain to Google, the US presidential election, arms trading, war, oil, and mass surveillance. The organization plans to release them on a weekly basis over the next ten weeks, with Assange saying that all information related to the US presidential race will be published before election day on November 8th.
There was a lot of build-up to today’s press conference, in anticipation of what had been billed as an “October surprise” that could swing the US presidential election. Instead, WikiLeaks devoted most of the event to recounting its most notorious releases and refuting criticism levied against it.
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