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Al Jazeera reports that the Milky Way Two or Tianhe 2, can accomplish 33.86 quadrillion calculations per second, more than twice the number of calculations done by the fastest existing computer, Titan, which was built in America and crowned the world’s fastest computer at the start of this year.

What is even more unique about the Tianhe 2 is that its system design and software are Chinese made. It currently makes use of America’s Intel processors, but Chinese-made chips are expected to replace those in the near future.

The supercomputer reportedly cost some $290 million to build. It is expected to aid number-crunching jobs like weather-forecasting, climate research, finding new drugs or modelling jet engines.

Watch the Al Jazeera report below:

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Next to the workshops, meat stores and barbershops on what could be any bustling street in sub-Saharan Africa, a grey concrete building stands out with a garish sign advertising the Tablette Cafe.

“This is the first tablet cafe in the world, a cafe that works with tablets,” said Tidiane Deme, the head of Google in French-speaking Africa.

The concept, introduced by the Internet search giant, is a simple twist on the traditional cyber cafes which have been springing up across Africa as the Internet boom takes hold, ditching PCs for tablet computers.

When Medoune Seck, 33, opened his Equinoxe cyber cafe in 2007, he quickly discovered that frequent power cuts and exorbitant electricity bills were a major headache for him and his customers.

Then along comes Google which offered funding in 2012 to turn one cyber cafe in Africa into a pilot tablet cafe. Seck applied and his cafe was picked as their guinea pig.

While tablets have taken advanced industrialised countries by storm and pushed cyber cafes further to the margins, in the developing world they could lead to their renaissance.

Tablet cafes could take hold in Africa because most people cannot afford to buy the devices, and tablets use batteries and mobile data connections which make them not vulnerable to power cuts.

The Equinoxe now sports 15 tablets and has installed cabins for private video chats, while a corner of the cafe is given over to a shop selling various items of electronic equipment.

Three PCs remain enthroned on boxes near a wall, but they do not generate much interest among clients, who recline on the cafe’s bright orange and blue sofas, jabbing at their touch screens.

Seck says his tablets cost more than PCs but they save on power bills as they consume 25 times less electricity.

He believes they can help revive cyber cafes which, according to Google, are in something of a slump precisely because of the high cost of electricity and frequent power failures cutting into business.

“Tablet computers will revolutionise Africa, and Senegal,” said Seck.

The simplicity of using the touchscreen devices could help bring computing to scores of new people.

An elderly grandmother in a billowing bubu robe, headscarf and sash from the house opposite the cafe was among the first through the doors to “bless” her neighbour’s business, and she left amused after being given an introduction to using a tablet.

Mamadou Camara, a 16-year-old Facebook and Skype user, enthused about the improved computing experience of tablets.

He complained about “cyber cafe PCs which are very slow and exhaust your credit.”

Upon arrival, customers hand over an ID card and pay in advance for a set connection time before they are given a tablet.

When they leave the device is reset, wiping out any data from their session, and it is ready fot the next customer.

The Tablette Cafe charges the same price as its predecessor did for PCs: 300 CFA francs (60 euro cents, 80 US cents) per hour.

“Our hope is that cyber cafes attract new customers interested in a more simple and interactive way of going online, and make significant savings on their number one operating expense: electricity,” Alex Grouet, Google’s business development manager in Francophone Africa, said in a blog post.

Cafe owners should be able to invest the savings on electricity costs into improving their connection speeds, he suggested, thereby boosting their clients’ experience.

“We look forward to finding out as the project unfolds, and hope that people living in Dakar will stop by to try out something new.”

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For now, the flying bike is still in development and is controlled remotely, but its designers hope that it will eventually be piloted by the rider.

They also hope battery technology will advance to make the invention marketable. At present the bicycle is only capable of five minutes of flight before the batteries need to be recharged.

“Because the capacity of batteries doubles about every ten years, we can expect that in the future the capacity would be enough for the bike to used for sports, tourism or similar things,” said Milan Duchek, the technical director of Duratec Bicycles.

Designed using French 3D software with a frame resembling a small motorcycle, the flying machine has six propellers, two the front, another two at the back and one on each side, that allow it to fly.

These are powered by six engines, all, in turn, powered by electric batteries.

The “pilot”, Jan Spatny, said the weight of the craft makes it tricky to control.

“It’s not as easy (to control) as a toy or RC (Remote Control) model. It’s quite a complicated thing, you have to take into account that it weighs 95 kilos. You have to take into account motionlessness and other things,” he said.

In its current configuration, the flying bike will be capable of flying with a rider whose maximum weight is 11 and a half stone.

Source: APTN

The fast-charging device is a so-called supercapacitor, a gizmo that can pack a lot of energy into a tiny space, charges quickly and holds its charge for a long time.

What’s more, it can last for 10,000 charge-recharge cycles, compared with 1,000 cycles for conventional rechargeable batteries, according to Eesha Khare of Saratoga, Calif.

“My cellphone battery always dies,” she told NBC News when asked what inspired her to work on the energy-storage technology. Supercapacitors also allowed her to focus on her interest in nanochemistry — “really working at the nanoscale to make significant advances in many different fields.”

To date, she has used the supercapacitor to power a light-emitting diode, or LED. The invention’s future is even brighter. She sees it fitting inside cellphones and the other portable electronic devices that are proliferating in today’s world, freeing people and their gadgets for a longer time from reliance on electrical outlets.

“It is also flexible, so it can be used in rollup displays and clothing and fabric,” Khare added. “It has a lot of different applications and advantages over batteries in that sense.”

Khare’s invention won her the Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, conducted this week in Phoenix, Ariz.

CEO Thorsten Heins said on Tuesday that the Q5 device will be available this summer.

It is RIM’s third smartphone to run the new BlackBerry 10 system.

It will have a physical keyboard.

Heins is speaking at the company’s annual three-day conference in Orlando, Florida.

RIM unveiled new, versatile BlackBerrys this year after delays allowed Apple and others to dominate.

The BlackBerry, pioneered in 1999, had been the dominant smartphone for on-the-go business people and consumers before the iPhone debuted in 2007, and showed that phones can handle much more than e-mail and calls.

RIM faced numerous delays modernising its operating system.

RIM continues to do well internationally.

- AP

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Nokia has worked with developers such as Facebook and Twitter to make apps for the phone.

It offers 17 hours of talk time, 56 hours of music playback and 48 days of standby time on 2G networks, the Finland-based phone manufacturer says.

‘The new Nokia Asha 501 raises the bar for what is possible in affordable smartphone design and optimisation,’ said Timo Toikkanen, executive vice president, Mobile Phones, Nokia.

‘The synergy between the physical design and the engine that is the new Asha platform has created a smartphone with both style and substance at a great price.’

It comes as Apple is believed to be preparing a budget version of its iPhone with a plastic case, which could go on sale later this year according to some reports.

Nokia says it’s aiming to make ‘high-end design and quality accessible to more people’ with the launch of its new Asha 501, 1200 mAh battery and accompanying software platform.

The Asha 501 will come in red, blue, black, yellow, white and green while its hardware is set to include a 3″ multi-touch screen, Wifi and Bluetooth connectivity, as well as 3.2 Mega Pixel camera and a MicroSD memory option, which is expandable up to 32 GB.

Experts say the handset could prove popular with budget buyers.

‘Nokia has surpassed expectations of what’s achievable in the sub-100 USD phone category with a new Asha handset that is unlike any other, with design cues from Lumia and a mix of features, services and affordability that is valued by price-conscious buyers,’ said Neil Mawston, executive director, Global Wireless Practice, Strategy Analytics.

‘This is a welcome addition to the market and a refreshing option for consumers looking to upgrade from feature phones.’

The Asha 501 will not support 3G or 4G data speeds, though the phone comes equipped with the new Nokia Xpress Browser, according to Nokia.

Xpress Browser compresses Internet data by ‘up to 90 per cent,’ the phone manufacturer says, which would make mobile browsing more accessible in emerging markets and offer all users cheaper data options.

The company’s new Asha mobile operating system has already attracted app developers from some of the most popular content creators for Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.

Those apps include Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn, CNN, ESPN, The Weather Channel and Twitter.

Nokia is working with wireless carrier Airtel and Facebook to provide free data access through the Asha Facebook app and all mobile Facebook web pages to Asha 501 users connected to Airtel neworks in Africa and India.

‘The collaboration with Nokia is in line with our strategy of enabling people to access data in Africa as we seek to bridge the digital divide across the continent,’ Andre Beyers, Airtel Africa’s chief marketing officer, said in statement about the partnership.

‘The provision of free Facebook access is an excellent proposition to the millions of Airtel consumers.’

The Asha 501 will be available in Asia Pacific, India, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Europe starting June 2013 for an unsubsidized cost of N15,000 ($99), a Nokia spokesperson told ABC News.

Culled from Dailymail.co.uk

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Its Harvard University developers say tiny robots like theirs may eventually be used in rescue operations.

It could, for example, navigate through tiny spaces in collapsed buildings.

The development is reported in the journal Science.

Dr Kevin Ma from Harvard University and his team, led by Dr Robert Wood, say they have made the world’s smallest flying robot.

It also has the fly-like agility that allows the insects to evade even the swiftest of human efforts to swat them.

This comes largely from very precise wing movements.

By constantly adjusting the effect of lift and thrust acting on its body at an incredibly high speed, the insect and the robot’s flapping wings enable it to hover almost motionless in the air or perform sudden evasive manoeuvres.

And just like a real fly, the robot’s thin, flexible wings beat approximately 120 times every second.

The researchers achieved this wing speed with special piezoelectric material, which contracts every time a voltage is applied to it.

By very rapidly switching the voltage on and off, the scientists were able to make this material behave like just like the tiny muscles that makes a fly’s wings beat so fast.

“We get it to contract and relax, like biological muscle,” said Dr Ma.

The main goal of this research was to understand how insect flight works, rather than to build a useful robot.

“[But] a robotic insect stands as a tangible end goal to drive this research forward,” Dr Ma told BBC News.

He added though that there could be many uses for such a diminutive flying vehicle.

“We could envision these robots being used for search-and-rescue operations to search for human survivors under collapsed buildings or [in] other hazardous environments,” he said.

“They [could] be used for environmental monitoring, to be dispersed into a habitat to sense trace chemicals or other factors.

Dr Ma even suggested that the robots could behave like many real insects and assist with the pollination of crops, “to function as the now-struggling honeybee populations do in supporting agriculture around the world”.

The current model of robo-fly is tethered to a small, off-board power source but Dr Ma says the next step will be to miniaturise the other bits of technology that will be needed to create a “fully wireless flying robot”.

“It will be a few more years before full integration is possible,” he said.

“Until then, this research project continues to be very captivating work because of its similarity to natural insects. It is a demonstration of how far human engineering ingenuity has reached, to be mimicking natural systems.”

Similar techniques to make simple body parts have already been used in patients, but the kidney is one of the most complicated organs made so far.

A study, in the journal Nature Medicine, showed the engineered kidneys were less effective than natural ones.

Fergus Walsh reports for BBC.

Thirty two-year-old mogul, Dmitry Itskov has been pushing the project forward since 2011 when he founded the 2045 Initiative.

His ultimate goal is to transfer a person’s mind or consciousness from a living brain into a machine with that its personality and memories intact.

The so called “Cyborg” will have no physical form, and exist in a network similar to the Internet and be able to travel at the speed of light all over the Earth, or even into the space.

Itskov’s first highly ambitious goal, called Avatar A, involves a person controlling a robotic human replica through a brain-machine interface (BMI), a technology that already exists.

The deadline for this first stage is set for 2020. The Avatar B, due in 2025, would involve transplanting a human brain into an artificial body “at the end of one’s life.”

Next in line is the Avatar C, that rolls around in 2035, that would also involve a human-machine brain transplant, but with all personality intact.

Itskov hopes the Initiative will have learned enough about the human mind to free it completely from physical form finally, by 2045.

According to the report, from the Internet-like hive mind, individual personalities could manifest themselves as holograms when they need to interact with their environment.

“We believe that it is possible and necessary to eliminate ageing and even death, and to overcome the fundamental limits of the physical and mental capabilities currently set by the restrictions of the physical body,” the project website says.

Itskov is recruiting scientists and authoring an open letter to the UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, asking him to support to push society’s transition to “neo-humanity.”

After disabling the assailant, the undergarment has been designed to automatically send a text message to police or family members containing the GPS location of the attempted crime.

Pressure sensors on the garment, sewn in around the bust area, detect unwanted force and trigger the powerful shock. It can deliver up to 82 electric shocks, more than enough to disable any attacker.

Manisha Mohan, who helped develop the product, told The Times of India: ‘The lingerie with global positioning system, global system for mobile communications and also pressure sensors is capable of sending shock waves of 3,800 kV as well as alerts to parents and police.

‘A person trying to molest a girl will get the shock of his life the moment pressure sensors get activated, and the GPS and GSM modules would send an SMS (to the Indian emergency number) as well as to parents of the girl’.

Details of the device, which were published on the Indian technology website Techpedia, show how the electric shock circuit board, is ‘placed near the bosom’ after a survey found that attackers usually grab a woman in that area as they initiate a rape attack.

Ms Mohan added: ‘Studying in a convent girls school, we were always taught to be good to everyone around and bear a cheerful smile.

‘After stepping into the real, cruel world we realized that our smile could not last for long as the threat to our purity and integrity always lingered on.

‘Since the law makers take ages to come up with just laws and even after that, women are unsafe. Hence, we have initiated the idea of self‐defense which protects the women from domestic, social and workplace harassment.’

India has seen a spate of rapes in recent months including the gang rape and beating of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student who later died.

That case sparked huge protests and widespread condemnation of the government and judiciary for their failure to protect women.

Last month a Swiss Woman was attacked and a British tourist told how she was forced to jump out of her hotel window when a man attempted to attack her.

The surge in violence against women is believed to be having a serious effect on the country’s tourism industry.

A recent study found that that in the last three months, the number of foreigners travelling to India has fallen by 25 per cent with the number of female tourists down by 35 per cent.

Read more: DailyMail

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In a much-hyped public event, the technology giant introduced the Galaxy S4 with an array of new features, including a few triggered with simply a wave of the hand.

The event at New York’s Radio City Music Hall – which featured a live orchestra, bubbly master of ceremonies and even a tap dance number – was streamed on Samsung’s YouTube channel.

The Galaxy S4, which crams a 5-inch 1080p screen into body slightly smaller than the S III’s, will go sale globally in the April to June period.

Skinny but durable, the S4 is 69mm wide, and 7.9mm thick. It weighs just 130 grams, and is encased in polycarbonate.

The newest features involve different options for navigation. If the phone senses someone is looking at the screen, the user can tilt it forward or backwards to scroll up and down a Web page.

That feature falls slightly short of what some consumers may have expected after the New York Times reported that the phone would be able to scroll automatically by tracking readers’ eyes.

But what it can do is sense when it has someone’s attention. When a video is playing the stream will automatically pause if the person looks away from the device and it will restart when the eyes come back to the screen.

Texting while driving will be a thing of the past, as the smart phone’s voice recognition feature has the capability to dictate, reply, forward and save messages using only verbal commands.

The same voice recognition can be seen in the translator feature, which can understand nine languages.

Samsung has also made efforts to combat the issue of messy fingerprints, with a screen that now senses fingers hovering just above the screen, and applications that react.

The Mail application shows the first few lines of an email when a finger hovers above it in the list, and the Gallery application shows an expanded thumbnail.

Users can control some other applications by making gestures in the air above the phone.

In the browser, you can command the screen to scroll up by swiping from top to bottom a few inches from the phone.

The Camera application can now use both the front and rear cameras simultaneously, and can insert a picture of the photographer even as he or she is capturing the scene in front of them.

It also has an erase feature, which allows the phone to take several pictures of a subject, then create a composite of the images to remove an unwanted photobomber.

In the U.S., the S4 will be sold by all four national carriers – Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA – as well as by smaller ones US Cellular and Cricket.

Samsung did not say what the phone will cost, but it can be expected to start at $200 with a two-year contract in the U.S.

JK Shin, the executive in charge of Samsung’s mobile communications division, promised the money would be well spent for a ‘life companion’ that will ‘improve the way most people live every day.’

That bold promise set the tone for the kind of flashy presentation associated with the showmanship of Apple, the company that Samsung has been trying to upstage.

Apple contends Samsung has been trying to do it by stealing its ideas – an allegation has triggered bitter courtroom battles around the world.

In the last two years, Samsung has emerged as Apple’s main competitor in the high-end smartphone market.

At the same time, it has sold enough inexpensive low-end phones to edge out Nokia Corp. as the world’s largest maker of phones.

The Galaxy line has been Samsung’s chief weapon in the smartphone fight, and it has succeeded in making it a recognizable brand while competitors like Taiwan’s HTC Corp. and Korean rival LG have stumbled.

Samsung has sold 100 million Galaxy S phones since they first came out in 2010.

That’s still well below the 268 million iPhones Apple has sold in the same period, but Samsung’s sales rate is catching up.

Research firm Strategy Analytics said the Galaxy SIII overtook Apple’s iPhone 4S as the world’s best-selling smartphone for the first time in the third quarter of last year, as Apple fans were holding off for the iPhone 5. The iPhone 5 took back the crown in the fourth quarter.

One way Samsung and other makers of Android phone have been one-upping Apple is by increasing the screen size.

Every successive generation of the Galaxy line has been bigger than the one before.

The SIII sported a screen that measures 4.8 inches on the diagonal, already substantially larger than the iPhone 5′s 4-inch screen. The S4′s screen is 56 per cent larger than the iPhone’s.

In a Wednesday interview, Apple Phil Schiller declined to discuss whether Apple is considering enlarging the screen on the next model of the iPhone, which is expected to be released later this year.

He said Apple remains confident that the iPhone 5 is the most useful and elegant smartphone available, hailing it as ‘the most beautiful consumer electronics device ever created.’

Samsung believes the S4 will set the new standard.

Apart from the larger screen and upgraded processor, the S4 has a battery that’s 20 per cent larger than that of the SIII.

Samsung didn’t say if that translates into a longer battery life – the added capacity might be gobbled up by the bigger screen or other internal changes.

The S4 comes with a built-in infra-red diode, so it can control an entertainment center as a universal remote. This is a feature that has showed up in Android tablets before.

When several S4s are in close proximity, they can link up to play the same music, simultaneously – perfect for headphone dance parties.

Read more: DailyMail

You like a Facebook page, and yes, Facebook are on it like hawks.

The social networking site can learn a lot about you from even that smallest social interaction.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge designed a simple machine-learning system to predict Facebook users’ personal information and traits based solely on which pages they had liked, according to a report.

“We were completely surprised by the accuracy of the predictions,” Michal Kosinski, lead author on the paper in PNAS, said to New Scientist.

Kosinski and his colleagues built the system by scanning likes for a sample of 58 000 volunteers, and matching them up with other profile details such as age, gender and relationship status.

He also matched up those likes with the results of personality and intelligence tests the volunteers had taken.

The team then used their model to make predictions about other volunteers, based on their likes.

In a nutshell, they found it’s pretty easy to predict someone’s sexual orientation, gender, political leanings, and personality traits.

Sarah Downey, lawyer and analyst with privacy technology company Abine, foresees insurers using the information held by Facebook to help them identify risky customers and perhaps tag them with higher premiums.

Downey says the research is the first solid example of the kinds of insights that can be made through Facebook.

“This study is a great example of how the little things you do online show so much about you,” she says. “You might not remember liking things, but Facebook remembers and it all adds up.”

Making personality predictions this way is interesting because likes are visible to the public by default on new Facebook profiles, she says.

A Facebook spokesperson said this kind of insight into personal preferences has been around for years, although did not address the fact that tapping into this information is now easier than ever using its new Graph Search facility.

“With Graph Search it’s not just whether you get a job, but whether you get a date,” says Downey.

In what has been described as the most eagerly awaiting technology release of the year, the Galaxy S4 will be unveiled in New York on Wednesday and rumours are the device will feature eye control.

The S4’s predecessor, the S3, already had a feature called Smart Stay that detected if users were looking at the screen.

But the S4 is expected to have revolutionary functions such as ‘eye pause’ and ‘eye scroll’, which will let users scroll around apps and websites simply by moving their eyes.

Since its launch last year, the S3 briefly outsold the iPhone 4S but after the release of the iPhone 5, Apple have regained the top spot.

However, the S4 is predicted to become the biggest seller when it hits the stores in a few weeks thanks to rumoured technological improvements such as wireless charging,

It is also expected to be powered by an eight core processing chip, compared to the iPhone’s two, and to have a larger screen – 5in compared to 4.8in on the S3.

Other leaks suggest it will have a 13 megapixel camera, as opposed to the iPhone’s eight.

Francisco Jeronimo, from technology analysis firm IDC, said: ‘Apple is not the one leading the market. I wouldn’t be surprised if the new Samsung device sells more than the new Apple device over the next two years.’

The S4’s launch ceremony will be held at the famous Radio City music Hall and will be broadcast live in Times Square.

South Korean electronics giant Samsung have released a few teaser advertisements for the phone, which show a boy’s face being lit up by a golden glow as he opens a box containing the S4, with the catchline ‘one of the most amazing products to hit the market since TVs went colour.’

Read more: Dailymail

The walls show Facebook updates, and life-sized friends during video chats.

It can also be controlled from anywhere – even bed – using gestures or speech.

The system works uses projectors and sensors already available.

‘The hardware is complete but only 40 per cent of the software is finished,’ said Ion Cuervas-Mons, director of Think Big Factory, a Spanish design agency which created the project.

‘Everything in the house can be used to communicate, the interface is ubiquitous.

‘Through projections that are activated by the presence of a person, we can control everything with the movement of the hands: the lights; turning on any electrical household appliances; music; even connecting to Skype for a conference from any part of the house.’

The system aims to replace the current slew of keyboards and remote controls needed to interact with technology.

However, Mr Cuervas-Monsclaims much of the technology will be invisible.

‘I don’t think that an Openarch home is going to look any different,’ he said.

‘New technologies must be non-intrusive and natural.’

Mr Cuervas-Mons says the first inhabitant has already moved into the experimental apartment.

‘He is using some parts of the house, and we are learning from that.

‘The main interface is in the living room, where you can see social networks, magazines, and play music just using gestures,’ he said.

The prototype uses sensing cameras such as Microsoft’s Kinect to track users, allowing them to swipe in mid air to move through menus.

The project started three years ago, and the prototype built in an apartment in the North of Spain, all using existing technology.

‘Now we have around 40% of the applications actually running – and we hope to finish soon, then begin developing products so people can actually begin using it.’

Read more: DailyMail

Their study, which includes more than 30 years of research, found that the antidepressant tranylcypromine, or TCP, may essentially reverse the effects of the disorder.

An estimated 2.5 million Americans — including one in every 12 African Americans and one in every 100 Latinos — carry one copy of the sickle cell gene.

According to the National Institutes of Health, signs and symptoms of sickle cell disease usually begin in early childhood and include a low number of red blood cells (anemia), repeated infections, and periodic episodes of pain. The severity of sickle cell symptoms varies from person to person, with some people experiencing mild symptoms and others requiring frequent hospitalization.

But while U-M scientists say it’s too early to test out TCP as a treatment for sickle cell disease, they’re confident their findings hold promise.

“It demonstrates that once you understand the basic biological mechanism underlying a disease, you can develop drugs to treat it,” said Doug Engel, Ph.D., senior author of the study and chair of U-M’s Department of Cell & Developmental Biology, in a release.

Patients with sickle cell disease have a form of adult hemoglobin — the protein responsible for transporting oxygen in the blood — that can cluster causing red blood cells to become C-shaped or “sickle” shaped, stiff and sticky, Engel explained. Those cells, in turn, can clog small blood vessels in the limbs and internal organs, causing organ damage, pain, and raising the risk of infection.

In a similarly groundbreaking study on sickle cell last year, Chicago resident Ieshea Thomas became one of the first ever to receive a successful stem cell transplant to cure her sickle cell disease. The procedure, which doctors say is only possible for patients who have a healthy sibling who is a compatible donor, has proven to be successful in just a handful of patients across the U.S.

But both developments require further research, experts say.

The first clinical trial on TCP and its affect on sickle cell is now being planned with researchers at Wayne State University in Detroit. Further information will be available later this year if it receives approval to go forward.

By HuffingtonPost

Twitter. Photo: malibu-run

AP – Twitter said Friday that hackers, in the latest online attack, may have gained access to information on a quarter of a million of its more than 200 million active users.

The social media giant said in a blog posting that earlier this week it detected attempts to gain access to its user data. It shut down one attack moments after it was detected.

But it discovered that the attackers may have gained access to usernames, email addresses and encrypted passwords belonging to 250,000 users. Twitter has reset the pilfered passwords and sent emails advising users that they’ll have to create a new one.

“This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident. The attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organizations have also been recently similarly attacked,” the blog said. “For that reason we felt that it was important to publicize this attack while we still gather information, and we are helping government and federal law enforcement in their effort to find and prosecute these attackers to make the Internet safer for all users.”

The hack is the latest high-profile cyber-attack on US media and technology companies recently. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal reported this week that their computer systems had been infiltrated by China-based hackers.

One expert said that the Twitter hack probably happened after an employee’s home or work computer was compromised through a vulnerability in Java, a commonly-used computing language whose weaknesses have been well publicized.

Ashkan Soltani, an independent privacy and security researcher, said such a move would give attackers “a toehold” in Twitter’s internal network, potentially allowing them either to sniff out user information as it traveled across the company’s system or break into specific areas, such as the authentication servers that process users’ passwords.

In a telephone interview Friday, Soltani said that the relatively limited number of users affected suggested either that attackers weren’t on the network long or that they were only able to compromise a subset of the company’s servers.

Twitter is generally used to broadcast messages to the public, so the hacking might not immediately have yielded any important secrets. But the stolen credentials could be used to eavesdrop on private messages or track which Internet address a user is posting from.

That might be useful, for example, for an authoritarian regime trying to keep tabs on a journalist’s movements.

“More realistically, someone could use that as an entry point into another service,” Soltani said, noting that since few people bother using different passwords for different services, a password stolen from Twitter might be just as handy for reading a journalist’s emails.

Samsung’s Youm flexible displays can be rolled up or even folded in two. Unfortunately they’re not supported by equally flexible battery technology. Image by: ©Samsung Display

A group of South Korean scientists has developed the world’s first imprintable and bendable lithium-ion battery, which, in turn, could help enhance the development of new flexible mobile devices, such as cellular phones, the science ministry said Tuesday.

Unlike conventional batteries that use liquefied electrolytes, the new rechargeable battery uses nanomaterials that are applied to any given surface to create fluid-like polymer electrolytes.

The use of fluid-like electrolytes not only makes the battery bendable but also more stable, according to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, which partly funded the research.

“Conventional lithium-ion batteries that use liquefied electrolytes had problems with safety as the film that separates electrolytes may melt under heat, in which case the positive and negative may come in contact, causing an explosion,” it said.

“Because the new battery uses flexible but solid materials, and not liquids, it can be expected to show a much higher level of stability than conventional rechargeable batteries.”

The research team was led by Prof. Lee Sang-young of South Korea’s Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, and included nine others from various institutes, including Prof. John A. Rogers of the University of Illinois.

Their joint paper, titled “Imprintable, bendable, and shape-conformable polymer electrolytes for versatile-shaped lithium-ion batteries,” was published in the latest edition of science journal Advanced Materials. via Yonhap News Agency

A range of potential uses, from ‘paper’ tablets to clothes that charge handsets

The Toyota Sequoia SUV, which retails at £30,000, has been converted to withstand driving over a landmine as well as the lavish additions on the inside.

Its exterior remains as anonymous as before, but open the door and the changes are far more noticeable.

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‘The cost for a Lexani Motors interior on an SUV generally runs around $150,000 give or take depending on options.

‘The interiors are handmade by our craftsmen in house and we are a small boutique company so we don’t mass produce our products like many.

‘When we are through with our executive vehicles they not only offer the luxurious appointments the client has chosen in designing their environment but also will function as a mobile office.’

UKmail

The Pebble smartwatch syncs wirelessly with a smartphone allowing users to receive emails and Facebook messages, control their music and even see who is calling them.

Users can even downloads apps to their watch to upgrade its capabilities.

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Timely invention: The Pebble watch, which can link to a smartphone to display messages and run apps, is being shipped to the first customers on January 23

The watch can display emails from a user’s existing account

It works by connecting to an iPhone or Android device via Bluetooth, then downloading the Pebble app to transmit software updates.

Apple is also rumoured to be developing a smartwatch, although the firm has refused to comment on the plans.

Google is also known to be investigating the area.

The Pebble device was announced on Kickstarter last April, a website which invites people to back new, creative ventures that they are interested in.

It broke all records for investment, receiving $10million and 85,000 orders within days – despite only asking for $1000,000 to build a prototype.

The product will begin shipping on January 23 and first in line are those who backed the company from the outset before sales are opened to the general public.

At the moment, the Pebble gadget is available only through the company‘s website and retails for around £92 ($150).

The pebble watch can even tell people who is calling them

The pebble watch even has a customisable face

The Pebble’s rechargeable battery lasts for seven or more days and it is powered up through a USB cable.

The gadget has an LCD e-paper screen, similar to an Amazon Kindle, that allows it to be seen in direct sunlight  – and a back-light for nighttime display.

It is waterproof, shatter-resistant and there are multiple options for the display face.

On the go: The Pebble smartwatch is ideal for those with busy lifestyles, being waterproof and shatterproof

Big hit: The Pebble gadget is available via the company’s website and retails for around $150