Science & Enviroment

Apple in talks to acquire Shazam
21:08 2017-12-10

Shazam’s smartphone app is already tightly integrated with Apple’s Siri digital assistant. Citing the tech news website TechCrunch, Reuters reports that the company could pay about $400 million for Shazam and that a deal could be signed as early as next week. Shazam did not respond to a request for comment. The price TechCrunch reported …

Oxford tops ranking of world’s best universities
20:05 2017-12-10

For the first time in 14 years, an American college didn’t crack the top two in a ranking of the best universities in the world, the Independent reports, citing Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2018 list. United Kingdom-based Oxford and Cambridge Universities came in No1 and No 2, respectively. Times Higher Ed reviews the …

The Japanese drone that forces overworked employees to go home by flying through offices and blaring out music
23:10 2017-12-09

A drone that hovers over Japanese employees and blares out music to force them to go home has been created by an office security and cleaning firm. The ‘T-Frend’ buzzes over those trying to work late, blasting out the notes of ‘Auld Lang Syne’, a Scottish tune used in Japan to announce that a store …

Facebook re-invents the ‘poke’ with five new greetings including a hug, high-five and a wave
22:06 2017-12-09

Facebook has introduced a new feature to let users send a variety of ‘greetings’. Reviving memories of those long-forgotten ‘poke-wars’, you will now be able to send a wink, a high-five, a hug and a wave as well as the old faithful poke. Each greeting interacts with your friend’s profile in a unique way, with …

Whale-sized asteroid capable of DESTROYING a major city skimmed past our planet at just a third of the distance between Earth and the moon – and NASA didn’t even notice
21:07 2017-12-09

An asteroid that could have obliterated an area the size of New York city skimmed past Earth at speeds of nearly 5.5 miles per second (9km/s). The whale-sized space rock – called 2017 VL2 – was just 73,000 miles (117,480 km) from our planet when it sped by – which is just a third of …