Christmas Eve fly-by: An asteroid will travel past the Earth this afternoon, while the International Space Station will look just like Santa and his sleigh December 24, 2015 Today, an asteroid is going to fly past the Earth as it zooms through space. Called asteroid 2003 SD220, it was spotted by scientists at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who noticed that it moved considerably closer to us between 17 and 22 December. Thankfully, it's going to pass at a distance that poses no threat – [...]
Here’s what London looks like to a driverless car – can you identify the famous locations and landmarks? December 23, 2015 Driverless car technology relies on computers being able to see things. That's pretty hard to do, but now there's a new technology that uses deep machine learning to help them, and shows us just what a driverless car really might see while winding down the roads. Trees, roads, buildings and even pedestrians can be identified by [...]
Presents delivered to Tim Peake and the other ISS astronauts just in time for Christmas December 23, 2015 Time Peake and his team at the International Space station (ISS) have received their presents just in time for Christmas Day. A Progress 62P vehicle, loaded with gifts and equipment for experiments, docked this morning with the Pirs section of the station. It was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan two days earlier aboard [...]
Forget passwords, Google is trialling password-free logins using only your phone to improve IT security December 23, 2015 If you’re the type who’s always forgetting their password, this might just be the most welcome news of the day for you. Google has confirmed it is trialling password-free logins to sign in to a Google account, letting you authenticate through a smartphone notification instead. Passwords are well established as IT security’s weakest link: ineffective [...]
Mysterious moon: Scientists find unusual rock on lunar surface December 23, 2015 While we search far and wide in space to find out everything we can about the universe, it turns out there are still some unanswered questions about our closest neighbour – the moon. An unmanned Chinese rover, currently roaming the lunar surface, has identified a new type of rock with a composition that's different from [...]
Hoverboard Lucozade thief Omaree Lindsay who went viral from CCTV video released by police is spared jail December 23, 2015 What's thought to be the first ever conviction for using a hoverboard illegally has been handed down to a thief who brazenly swiped a crate of Lucozade and escaped down the street on a self-propelled scooter, becoming internet famous in the process. Footage of the theft went viral after CCTV was released by the police to catch him. [...]
Beatles back catalogue confirmed for music streaming from midnight on Christmas Eve on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Amazon, Google December 23, 2015 The back catalogue of hit songs from the Beatles such as Hey Jude will be available on music streaming service for the first time, giving a Christmas treat to music fans. The fab four's music will be available on Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play, Amazon Music, Deezer, Tidal, Groove and Rhapsody. On Spotify, both free and premium users will be able to [...]
Nasa has had to cancel its 2016 mission to Mars – and it won’t be rescheduled until 2018 at the earliest December 23, 2015 Nasa has had to put its latest Mars mission to one side, due to a technical fault in one of its scientific instruments. The US space agency was due to send its InSight spacecraft to the red planet in March next year, with the intention of probing the structure of the Mars's interior by listening to [...]
Tweet controlled drones? Twitter just patented that (watch out Marcel Hirscher) December 23, 2015 Drones raise enough questions as it is – where can they fly, who can fly them, how do you avoid accidents, to name just a few – but imagine if they were controlled simply with a tweet? Sounds a a little crazy, yes, but not too crazy for Twitter. The social network has filed a [...]
Cyber siege: What businesses should learn from 2015’s hacks against TalkTalk, Carphone Warehouse and Wetherspoons December 23, 2015 We will remember the past year in IT security as yet another in which cyber-attackers have got the better of major organisations, from the US government’s HR agency, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and health insurance giant Anthem over in the States, Hong Kong-based toy manufacturer VTech and Japanese-owned Hello Kitty brand, through to [...]
