Hope for the Rosetta comet-landing mission: Philae wakes up and sends signal to earth, European Space Agency says June 14, 2015 The Philae probe that landed on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko in November has finally woken up from hibernation. According to the European Space Agency, which launched the Rosetta space mission to land on a comet in 2004, the probe radioed the agency this weekend for the first time in seven months. Read more: Rosetta takes a selfie in [...]
Over 30m people have watched Gfinity’s London eSports events June 12, 2015 London-based eSports firm Gfinity today told investors it generated more than 30m online views from the first half of its 2015 championship series, which have been broadcast in 10 languages to 25 countries around the world. Shares in Gfinity were down by over two per cent on Friday afternoon, even after the rapidly rising eSports firm [...]
Twitter share price soars as chief exec Dick Costolo steps down, Jack Dorsey steps in June 11, 2015 Twitter chief executive and co-founder Dick Costolo will step down from the role on July 1, but continue to serve on the board of directors. The social media company's board has appointed Costolo's co-founder and current Twitter chairman Jack Dorsey as interim chief while it looks for a replacement. Read more: Twitter share price plummets as [...]
Former Tesco asset Blinkbox Music goes into administration less than six months after sale June 11, 2015 Blinkbox Music, the music streaming service sold off by Tesco in its asset fire sale, has gone into administration less than six months into its new ownership. Australian firm Guvera, which bought the company in January for significantly less than the £10m the supermarket paid to acquire it back in 2012, attempted to sell Blinkbox [...]
Oculus Rift virtual reality headset to be compatible with Xbox One games such as Halo June 11, 2015 Oculus Rift has finally arrived. Kind of. Three years since Oculus first got off the ground with a Kickstarter campaign, and just over a year since it was bought by Facebook for $2bn, the virtual reality company today debuted the consumer version of its Oculus Rift headset. Expected to be available to buy early in [...]
War of the wearables: Jawbone sues Fitbit for second time ahead of IPO June 11, 2015 The war of the wearables is hotting up even more. Jawbone, the maker of the Up fitness tracker has filed a second lawsuit in the US courts alleging that soon-to-IPO rival Fitbit, which also makes fitness trackers, infringed several of its patents. It's the second lawsuit filed by Jawbone against Fitbit in two weeks – [...]
Mixing diamonds and graphene could revolutionise engineering – and it all comes down to friction June 11, 2015 When you add diamond, one of the world's hardest natural materials, to graphene, the world's strongest man-made material, the result is practically frictionless, scientists have discovered. The resulting mixture, as scientists at the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory discovered when they added diamond nano-particles to the one-layered carbon substance, is the first to [...]
Theresa May is pushing for snooping powers but the independent reviewer is not so convinced June 11, 2015 Home Secretary Theresa May is continuing her push for further web surveillance powers to counter terrorism, but the independent watchdog has raised some serious questions about her plans in a new report. David Anderson QC, the author of the government-commissioned but independent report , says: There should be no question of progressing proposals for the [...]
Amazon’s facing another EU investigation – this time its ebooks business is under the microscope June 11, 2015 Amazon is the latest US tech firm to face the scrutiny of regulators in Europe. The European Commission has opened a new investigation into the retail giant, this time putting its ebook business under the microscope. Brussels will be taking a closer look at Amazon's contracts with publishers and whether the deals are anticompetitive and [...]
Middle-class kids are selfish, and it’s bad for their health June 11, 2015 Richer children tend to be more selfish than their poorer counterparts – and this could be hurting their health. A new scientific study has found that children as young as four could reap health benefits from being more altruistic. But this behaviour is “less common among kids from high-income families”, the research, published in [...]