SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

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• Researcher: Hate, dangerous speech low among Ethiopian facebook users

  Jun 28, 2016 by Admin / 309 Views

  Ethiopians’ discussion on facebook is much more nuanced than perceived to be, according to a team of researchers monitoring the social media.

  
  

  The lead researcher, Iginio Gagliardone, says the ratio of hate speech and dangerous speech is negligible.

  Yet, one out of seven statements analysed were found to be “attacking another speaker or a specific group by belittling, provoking, teasing them maliciously, or explicitly threatening them”.  That might explain why some users perceive nasty statements dominate facebook. Such statements, however, do not always qualify as hate speech or dangerous speech.

  “Often political opponents accuse each other of producing hate speech, but when analysed, most statements are actually just political insults”, added Iginio Gagliardone, a lecturer at the university of the  Witwatersrand  in South Africa and associate research fellow at the university of oxford 

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• 'Invisible' train set to roll in 2018

  Jun 25, 2016 by Admin / 357 Views

  It's a train out of a "Hunger Games" world. Except it could actually happen.

  A nearly invisible train designed by one of Japan's leading architects is scheduled to debut in Tokyo in 2018. Designed by award winner Kazuyo Sejima, the commuter train uses semi-reflective and semi-transparent materials to blend into the scenery whether it's traveling through the city or the countryside, according to a Newsweek report. The train "travels in a variety of different sceneries, from the mountains of Chichibu to the middle of Tokyo, and I thought it would be good if the train could gently coexist with this variety of scenery," Sejima said.

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• Facebook Just Made A Pretty Awkward Change To Your Profile

  Jun 24, 2016 by Admin / 308 Views

  If you haven’t looked at your own Facebook profile recently, you might want to go check it out.

  The social network recently tweaked a setting that changes how your employment and education history is displayed, a spokeswoman for Facebook told The Huffington Post on Monday. While the change won’t make any private information public, it could make some previously tucked-away information very obvious to your friends — which might be a bit uncomfortable.

  Essentially, the tweak causes your extended education and employment history to appear by default in the “Intro” field on your profile. That “Intro” section is the very first thing someone sees when they go to your page.

  For example, a friend of mine is accidentally broadcasting all of this information (that we’ve redacted) in his Intro field:

  Asked about it, he said, “That’s so weird.”

  Facebook said it wants to help users understand more about their privacy settings.

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• Flash Falcon Supersonic Aircraft: A Dream to Fly from London to New York in 2.5 hours

  Jun 21, 2016 by Admin / 398 Views

  Holidaymakers may one day be able to fly from London to New York in less than three hours if this supersonic aircraft ever graces the skies. The radical concept from designer Oscar Viñals would reach a top speed of Mach 3 (approximately 2,300mph) – cutting transatlantic journey times in half. Viñals’ double-decker plane, called Flash Falcon, resembles a bird or even a spaceship and is intended to be an eco-friendly aircraft that is powered by nuclear fusion energy. Flash Falcon would have a capacity for 250 passengers, who would enjoy comfortable cabins while travelling at three times the speed of sound, said Barcelona-based Viñals.

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  Radical supersonic concept plane has a top speed of 2,300mph and can take off and land like a helicopter

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• Tanzania on Final Stages to Manufacture Its Own Helicopter

  Jun 20, 2016 by Admin / 307 Views

  Tanzania has started to build its own helicopters in a project that will see the first batch of such choppers taking into the sky sometimes in 2018.

  Already, the prototype model, a two-seater aircraft is in its final stages of completion at the Mechanical and Engineering Department of the Arusha Technical College, which runs a fully-fledged factory producing various forms of machinery, including a prototype motor vehicle and a number of industrial engines.

  But it is the Tanzanian-made new helicopter that seems to be turning heads here; “We are complementing President Magufuli’s industrialisation policy in pioneering the first locally made helicopters that will be available to ordinary residents at affordable prices,” explained the man behind the ATC chopper project, Engineer Abdi Mjema.

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