Science & Tech

Cancer researchers win 2018 Nobel Medicine Prize

Medicine

MNA Science Desk: American James Allison and Japanese Tasuku Honjo won the 2018 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discoveries leading to new approaches in harnessing the immune system to fight cancer, the award-giving body said on Monday. “Allison and Honjo showed how different strategies for inhibiting the brakes on the immune system can be used in the treatment of cancer,” the Nobel Assembly at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute said, on awarding the prize of 9 million Swedish crowns ($1 million). Medicine is the first of the Nobel Prizes awarded each year. The prizes for achievements in science, literature and ...

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YouTube videos on ‘how to hack Facebook’ streaming

YouTube

MNA Tech Desk: Even as Facebook struggles to deal with a fresh data breach that affected nearly 50 million of its users, Google’s video streaming platform YouTube continues to host tutorials that claim to provide people ways to hijacking Facebook accounts, the media reported. Hours after Facebook revealed the breach on Friday, some YouTube videos, which were seen several thousand times, described a method similar to the one used by the hackers to get access to the millions of Facebook accounts. In the fresh Facebook data breach case, hackers stole “access tokens” or digital keys that keep people logged in ...

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MNP service to be launched from Oct 1

MNP

MNA Tech Desk: Mobile number portability (MNP) service for users will be launched in Bangladesh from October 1.MNP service allows cellphone or smartphone customer to change telecom carrier/operator while keeping the same phone number.  The authorized company for the job, Infozillion Teletech BD, has already completed all preparations for the launch. Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory council (BTRC) has also taken all preparations including connecting with all mobile operators for providing the service. The MNP service was supposed to launch from May 30 but mobile phone operators were not ready.  To get the service, users have to pay Tk 50 free and ...

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Up to 50 million Facebook accounts breached

breached

MNA Tech Desk: Facebook revealed on Friday that up to 50 million accounts were breached by hackers, dealing a blow to the social network’s effort to convince users to trust it with their data. The social network is investigating the extent of harm done when hackers exploited a trio of software flaws to steal “access tokens,” the equivalent of digital keys that enable people to automatically log back into the social network. Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said engineers discovered the breach on Tuesday, and patched it on Thursday night. “We don’t know if any accounts were actually misused,” Zuckerberg ...

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Google Doodle celebrates the search giant’s 20th birthday

Google Doodle

MNA Tech Desk: Google turned 20 today and it wants to make sure you’re aware of its birthday. The search giant on Thursday introduced a new playable Google Doodle with “Google” spelled out in letter-shaped balloons tied to a pile of gift boxes featuring popular searches over the past 20 years. The doodle is just one of the ways that Google is celebrating the occasion, which marks two decades of dominance in the search business. The company has gone from humble beginnings as a search engine to the most dominant force in advertising. Google now has a parent company, Alphabet, ...

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Instagram co-founders resign from FB

Instagram

MNA Tech Desk: Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, who co-founded Instagram eight years ago, are leaving the service’s parent company, Facebook. The news of their departure comes from The New York Times, and is corroborated by a statement from Systrom. The duo have resigned from the company and will leave in the coming weeks. Instagram has come a long way since it first evolved from a location check-in app called Burbn into a photo sharing network back in 2010. It was sold to Facebook for $1 billion a couple of years later, and is closing in on a billion users ...

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Facebook dating service in Colombia

dating service

MNA Tech Desk: Facebook said a dating service it teased early this year is being rolled out in Colombia. The social media giant chose the Latin American country as its test lab because Colombians are particularly avid fans of using social networks and websites to find partners. The new feature, rolled out in Colombia this week, allows users to create a separate “dating” profile not visible to their network of friends, with potential matches recommended based on preferences and common interests. The service is programmed not to link up people who are already connected as family or friends, and users ...

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Internet users cross 90m: BTRC

internet users

MNA Tech Desk: The number of the country’s total internet users is now 90.5 million, according to statistics published on Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC)’s website. The BTRC released its statistics updated till the end of August, reported news agency. Among them, 84.7 million consumers are mobile phone internet users, 5.7 million are broadband internet (ISP + PSTN) users and the rest 83,000 are WiMax users. The total number of internet subscribers reached 88.9 million at the end of July.

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Japanese billionaire confirmed as first Moon tourist

Japanese billionaire

MNA Tech Desk: A Japanese billionaire and online fashion tycoon, Yusaku Maezawa, will be the first man to fly on a monster SpaceX rocket around the Moon as early as 2023, and he plans to bring six to eight artists along. Maezawa, 42, will be the first lunar traveler since the last US Apollo mission in 1972. He paid an unspecified amount of money for the privilege. “Ever since I was a kid, I have loved the Moon,” Maezawa said at SpaceX headquarters and rocket factory in Hawthorne, California, in the middle of metropolitan Los Angeles, late Monday. “This is ...

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Machines to do more tasks than humans ‘by 2025’

tasks

MNA Science Desk: Robots will handle 52 per cent of current work tasks by 2025, almost twice as many as now, a World Economic Forum (WEF) study said Monday. The sharp increase could also see a net gain in “new roles” for humans, who will have to revamp skills to keep pace with the “seismic shift” in how we work with machines and computer programmes, the forum estimated. “By 2025 more than half of all current workplace tasks will be performed by machines as opposed to 29 per cent today,” a statement by the Swiss non-profit organisation said. Simultaneously, rapid ...

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SpaceX set to begin sending tourists to Moon

SpaceX

MNA Tech Desk: In a step that commercialises space travel, US private space firm SpaceX announced that it will send the first private passenger to Moon and will reveal his identity on Monday. The tourist will fly in the Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) being designed to carry people into deep space, the Elon Musk led company said in a tweet. “SpaceX has signed the world’s first private passenger to fly around the Moon aboard our BFR launch vehicle-an important step toward enabling access for everyday people who dream of travelling to space. “Find out who’s flying and why on Monday, ...

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Pathao launches in Kathmandu next month

kathmandu

MNA Tech Desk: Pathao, one of the fastest growing tech startups in Asia, has announced the launch of its services in Nepal. This is the first time that a Bangladeshi ride-sharing platform has launched operations beyond its borders, reported news agency. Founded in 2015, Pathao has become a popular e-commerce delivery and ride-hailing service—later expanding into the food delivery industry. “Pathao has built a platform that enables employment for thousands of drivers and a product that millions of customers use in Bangladesh. We are excited to take our Pathao platform internationally – starting with Nepal. We have already started to ...

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Google introduces ‘Touring Bird’

Touring Bird

MNA Tech Desk: Google’s in-house start-up incubator “Area 120” has introduced a travel guide website called “Touring Bird” that lists tours, attractions and activities for travellers and tourists in popular travel destinations. “Area 120” is a workshop for the tech giant’s experimental products. So far, the site provides information about 20 cities that include New Delhi, Prague, Chicago, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin and Las Vegas among others and they plan to increase their coverage in the coming months. “When you select a destination city, you’ll see popular attractions, suggested tours and activities along with prices, options for free guided tours and ...

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Apple to unveil new iPhone models on Sept 12

new iPhone models

MNA Tech Desk: Apple Inc said it will host an event on Sept 12 at the Steve Jobs Theatre in the company’s Cupertino, California, campus, where it is widely expected to unveil new iPhone models. Analysts believe Apple plans to release three new smartphones this year, including one with a larger display than previous models. Analysts also expect Apple to release an iPhone with an edge-to-edge display similar to the iPhone X but using less-costly LCD screen technology. Apple’s event invitation made heavy use of the colour gold, fuelling speculation on social media that the company plans to launch a ...

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FB removes Burmese translation feature

independent body

MNA Tech Desk: Facebook has removed a feature that allowed users to translate Burmese posts and comments after a Reuters report showed the tool was producing bizarre results, reported news agency. A Reuters investigation published on August 15 documented how Facebook was failing in its efforts to combat vitriolic Burmese language posts about Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims. Some 700,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar over the past year amid a military crackdown and ethnic violence. In late August, United Nations investigators said Facebook had been “a useful instrument for those seeking to spread hate” against the Muslim minority group. The Reuters article ...

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Facebook, Twitter to face US senate

Facebook

MNA Tech Desk: Top Twitter Inc and Facebook Inc executives will defend their companies before US lawmakers on Wednesday, with Facebook insisting it takes election interference seriously and Twitter denying its operations are influenced by politics. But no executive from Alphabet Inc’s Google is expected to testify, after the company declined the Senate Intelligence Committee’s request to send one of its most senior executives, frustrating lawmakers, reported news agency. Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, appearing alongside Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey, will say that her company’s efforts to combat foreign influence efforts have improved since the 2016 US election, ...

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Twitter plans threaded conversations, ‘who is online’ feature

accounts

MNA Tech Desk: Twitter is planning to roll out threaded conversations like Facebook along with status indicators — showing who else is online among your followers — on its platform. In a tweet, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said on Friday that the micro-blogging platform will soon get interesting updates. ‘Playing with some new Twitter features: presence (who else is on Twitter right now?) and threading (easier to read convos),’ Dorsey tweeted, along with some samples. The ‘presence’ feature will make it easier to engage with those you follow who are online at the moment. The ‘threading’ feature would allow users ...

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Apple to unveil new iPhone models next month

iPhone models

MNA Tech Desk: Apple Inc said it will host an event on 12 September at the Steve Jobs Theater in the company’s Cupertino, California, campus, where it is widely expected to unveil new iPhone models, reported news agency. Analysts believe Apple plans to release three new smartphones this year, including one with a larger display than previous models. Analysts also expect Apple to release an iPhone with a edge-to-edge display similar to the iPhone X but using less-costly LCD screen technology. Apple’s event invitation made heavy use of the colour gold, fueling speculation on social media that the company plans ...

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NASA Spitzer Telescope marks 15 years in space

Spitzer

MNA Science & Tech Desk: NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, the youngest member of the “Great Observatory” programme, has completed 15 years in space. The Great Observatories are four big-ticket space telescopes — Spitzer, Hubble Space Telescope, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO), and the Chandra X-ray Observatory — designed to view the universe in different and complementary wavelengths of light. Launched into solar orbit on 25 August 2003, Spitzer was initially scheduled for a minimum 2.5-year primary mission. But the space telescope has lasted far beyond its expected lifetime, the US space agency said in a statement. Celebrating Spitzer’s incredible ...

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FB removes accounts of Myanmar military officials

military officials

MNA Science Tech Desk: Facebook said on Monday it was removing certain Myanmar military officials from the social media website and an Instagram account to prevent the spread of “hate and misinformation” after reviewing the content. “Specifically, we are banning 20 Burmese individuals and organizations from Facebook — including Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and the military’s Myawady television network,” Facebook said. “We’re removing a total of 18 Facebook accounts, one Instagram account and 52 Facebook Pages, followed by almost 12 million people,” Facebook said in a blog post. The world’s largest social media networking ...

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Twitter CEO to testify before US House panel

panel

MNA Tech Desk: Twitter Inc’s chief executive will testify before a US House of Representatives committee on 5 September, the panel said, after some Republicans raised concerns about social media companies removing content from conservatives. The House Energy and Commerce Committee “intends to ask tough questions about how Twitter monitors and polices content,” Republican Representative Greg Walden, the panel’s chairman, said in a statement. “We look forward to Mr. Dorsey being forthright and transparent regarding the complex processes behind the company’s algorithms and content judgment calls,” Walden said. US president Donald Trump accused social media companies of silencing “millions of ...

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App launched for ambulance services

launched

MNA Tech Desk: Bangladesh’s first app-based medical ambulance service – URAL EMS – has been launched recently, reported news agency. With a slogan “Be a Champion, Save a Life”, URAL EMS, a health tech startup, already started its operation in Dhaka, said a press release on Sunday. Ural EMS provides a standardised ambulance service through their app and call centre (01969906555). The app is available on Google Play Store. Using a smartphone device, a patient can get a hassle free and cost effective ambulance service within a short time. A patient can also call to its call centre to arrange ...

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App launched for finding toilets

Finding

MNA Tech Desk: Finding a clean toilet becomes stressful especially for women children and the elderly people who face the problem during long Eid vacation journey. With Eid travels just around the corner, a ‘Public Toilet Bangladesh’ app is now available for download in Play Store, providing toilet locations across four major highways and selected areas of Dhaka city based on a user’s GPS location or through direct searches, reported news agency. WaterAid has been working with city corporations and local authorities to renovate and build public toilets in Dhaka city and beyond (Sylhet, Khulna, Chattogram) for over 5 years ...

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FB ‘too slow’ to fight hate speech in Myanmar

hate speech

MNA Tech Desk: Facebook has been “too slow” to address hate speech in Myanmar and is acting to remedy the problem, the company said in a statement on Thursday, reported news agency. The acknowledgement came a day after a Reuters investigation revealed how the company has struggled to address a wave of vitriolic posts about the minority Rohingya, targeted last year in what the United Nations has termed ethnic cleansing. More than 1,000 examples of hate speech about the Rohingya and other Muslims were still online as of last week, including posts comparing them to dogs and maggots. “The ethnic ...

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SpaceX vows manned flight to space station

SpaceX

MNA Science & Tech Desk: Tech magnate Elon Musk’s SpaceX vowed Monday to send its first astronauts into orbit on schedule next year—part of a drive to restore America’s dominance of the space race, reported news agency. Gwynne Shotwell, the aerospace manufacturer’s president, told journalists in Los Angeles an unmanned flight to the International Space Station in November would pave the way for a manned mission in April 2019. NASA awarded contracts to SpaceX and Boeing in 2014 as part of its commercial crew programme, aimed at helping private industry build spaceships to reach low-Earth orbit. On 3 August the ...

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Samsung unveils Galaxy Note 9

Galaxy Note 9

MNA Tech Desk: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd unveiled the Galaxy Note 9 “phablet” in New York in a key product launch that it hopes will attract younger customers with stepped-up features and services for gamers and music-lovers, reported news agency. Launching the Note 9 at 11:00am in New York, or Friday midnight in Seoul, Samsung also announced partnerships with global hit game Fortnite and music-streaming service Spotify Technology SA in a stepped-up challenge to Apple Inc in the premium-phone race. Samsung’s new focus marks a shift away from its previous positioning of the Note as a multi-tasking device popular with ...

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FB asks US banks to share customer data

independent body

MNA Tech Desk: Facebook has asked major US banks to share customer data to allow it to develop new services on the social network’s Messenger texting platform, reported news agency. Facebook had discussions with Chase, JPMorgan, Citibank, and Wells Fargo several months ago, said the source, who asked to remain anonymous. The Silicon Valley-based social network also contacted US Bancorp, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news. Facebook, which has faced intense criticism for sharing user data with many app developers, was interested in information including bank card transactions, checking account balances, and where purchases were ...

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