SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

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• Namibian Boy Built a Phone that Works without Sim or Airtime

  Aug 3, 2016 by Admin / 653 Views

  It may not be the sleek, light or slim structure that we’ve come to expect from our mobile phones, but it does the job and more importantly… it does it for free. Using spare parts from a telephone and a television set, Petrus has built a handset that uses radio frequencies to place calls anywhere as long as there is signal. The invention also functions off power supplied through a radiator.

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• HMD GLOBAL TO CREATE NEW GENERATION OF NOKIA MOBILE PHONES

  Jul 27, 2016 by Admin / 568 Views

  According to recent reports, Nokia is returning to the smartphone market. Microsoft recently announced it’s offloading of Nokia’s old feature phone business to a Foxconn subsidiary and a Finnish company called HMD Global.

  It has been revealed by Nokia that HMD is also acquiring the rights to use the Nokia name on smartphones and tablets for the next ten years. This means the day is not far when we will see Nokia branded smartphones and tablets run on Android.

  According to a statement from HMD, it plans to invest $500 million over the next three years to develop and promote products.The money will supposedly come from investors and from profits from the newly-acquired feature phone business. Though it has been made clear that Nokia’s involvement in the new devices will be very limited, it will be a part of HMD’s board and will set mandatory brand requirements and performance-related provisions.

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• Owner of the world’s 2nd most popular torrent website KickassTorrents arrested in Poland

  Jul 21, 2016 by Admin / 459 Views

  TThe world’s second most popular torrent website, Kickasstorrents, went offline after reports of alleged owner of a Kickass admin being arrested surfaced. The man allegedly presumed to be behind the world’s largest illegal torrent download site, KickassTorrents also known as KAT has been arrested in Poland. The Polish police arrested the 30-year-old Ukrainian at the request of the U.S. government and also seized funds from a Latvian bank account. In addition, a federal court in Chicago has ordered the seizure of several KAT domain names such as kickasstorrents.com, kastatic.com,

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• Messaging app Line soars in largest tech IPO of the year

  Jul 15, 2016 by Admin / 442 Views

  Message received. Wall Street still has an appetite for big tech IPOs.

  Line, operator of a messaging app popular in several Asian countries, soared in its debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday morning after completing the largest public offering of any tech company this year.

  Line, trading under the ticker symbol "LN," opened at $42. The stock dipped slightly in later hours, but ended the first day of trading at $41.58, up 27% from its IPO price -- with a market value of about $8 billion.

  The debut performance was evidence of strong investor demand despite lingering concerns over user growth and Line's ability to compete against apps from Facebook and WeChat.

  The company raised $1.3 billion from selling shares on the stock market in New York and in Tokyo, which followed its U.S. success with a 50% pop at the open, before settling up 32% at market close.

  Executives rang the opening bell while standing next to a life-sized frowning brown bear and winking rabbit, paying homage to two of the many virtual stickers that drive more than $250 million a year in sales for the company.

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• Huge Helium Gas Field Found in Africa

  Jun 30, 2016 by Admin / 555 Views

  The discovery of a huge helium gas field in East Africa is a “game changer for the future security of society’s helium needs” amid a global shortage, researchers in Britain said Tuesday. The discovery in Tanzania is the result of a new exploration approach for the precious gas that is essential to spacecraft, MRI scanners, nuclear energy, according to the Oxford University statement. Helium also fills party balloons.

  This is the first time helium has been found intentionally, said the statement. Until now, the gas has been found in small amounts accidentally during oil and gas drilling. Independent experts have estimated the helium discovery is about 54 billion cubic feet, Oxford professor Chris Ballentine said.

   

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