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 [...]
Northern Powerhouse: The North’s digital economy is booming but needs more infrastructure spending December 23, 2015 This year has seen the potential of the Northern Powerhouse truly realised and our digital sector sits at the beating heart of this agenda. The North’s digital economy is booming. It employs over 170,000 people and there has been a 57 per cent rise in new digital companies over the past three years. The UK’s [...]
Winter Solstice 2015: What you need to know about the shortest day of the year December 22, 2015 Today is officially the shortest day of the year, meaning we will see less sunlight than on any other day in 2015. By the time the sun goes down this afternoon, we will have experienced a total of seven hours, 49 minutes and 41 seconds of sunlight in the UK. So, what is the winter [...]
From lack of control to confident ignorance – these are the three different types of stupid December 22, 2015 From blatant buffoonery to more subtle levels of idiocy, most of us would agree that it takes a lot of effort just to avoid stupidity as we negotiate daily life. But now scientists have given us a helping hand – by putting labels on the different types of stupidity. Hungarian experimental psychologist Balazs Aczel and his team collected online news [...]
Elon Musk’s SpaceX successfully returns its Falcon 9 rocket after sending it to space in breakthrough for reusable rockets December 22, 2015 Activist billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX has sent its Falcon 9 rocket into space and back again – an important breakthrough for reusable rockets in space exploration. The first stage of the Falcon 9 gently touched down at Cape Canaveral 10 minutes after lift-off, to employees’ cheers. This was SpaceX’s first flight since June, when one of its rockets exploded [...]
Fintech firm Transferwise in early stage talks to team up with banks in the UK December 21, 2015 London fintech firm Transferwise is set to partner up with the banks it has previously accused of “scamming” customers. The money transfer firm has announced it is in early stage talks with up to 20 banks around the world, including established and challenger banks in the UK, to embed its services in their online banking [...]
Fintech adoption could double among digitally active consumers in the next year December 21, 2015 Consumers' love of technology is growing at such a pace that their adoption of financial technology (fintech) could double in the space of a year. According to a survey of more than 10,000 digitally active consumers from around the world released today by EY, 16 per cent have used at least two fintech services in the last six months, [...]
Watch live: Astronauts at the International Space Station go on spacewalk while Tim Peake assists December 21, 2015 Two astronauts based at the International Space Station (ISS) are currently walking in space. Wearing their astronaut suits, they have exited their spacecraft are now floating around, gravity-free. The purpose of their space walk is to mend a key component of the ISS’ machinery, the mobile transporter, a rail car that moves a robotic arm along [...]