Category: Technology

BOCA CHICA: Elon Musk’s SpaceX is preparing up for the seventh orbital flight test of Starship, the colossal prototype rocket the company hopes will help humans colonise Mars. From the company’s Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, a launch window opens at 4:00pm (2200GMT) Wednesday and will be carried in a live webcast on Musk’s X platform. Space enthusiasts will be eager to see if SpaceX can replicate the stunning feat of catching the first-stage Super Heavy booster in the launch tower’s “chopstick” arms during descent, approximately seven minutes after liftoff.…

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Social media users in the United States have resorted to Xiaohongshu, another Chinese app, in the days leading up to a planned ban on TikTok by the US government. Last year, a law was enacted in America coercing ByteDance, the owner of the well-known video platform, to sell it or close it down by January 19. With that deadline looming, Xiaohongshu — a lifestyle-focussed Instagram-meets-Pinterest alternative — has been propelled to the top of the US Apple App Store free downloads chart. The hashtag “tiktokrefugee” had more than 290 million…

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WASHINGTON: Scientists have observed flashes of X-rays emanating from the nucleus of a galaxy near our Milky Way, gradually increasing in frequency that seem to be originating from a white dwarf — a highly compact stellar ember on a destructive path. The observations made using the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton orbiting X-ray telescope appear to show a white dwarf nearing the point of no return — called the event horizon — as it orbits the galaxy’s supermassive black hole, according to the researchers. “It is probably the closest object we’ve…

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NEW YORK: China’s officials are exploring a potential sale of US TikTok operations to billionaire Elon Musk as the video-sharing platform faces an American law requiring imminent Chinese divestment, Bloomberg News reported Monday. The report, which is citing anonymous people familiar with the matter, outlined one scenario being discussed in Beijing where Musk’s social media company X would purchase TikTok from Chinese owner ByteDance and combine it into the platform formerly known as Twitter. The report estimated the value of TikTok’s US operations at between $40 and $50 billion. Although Musk is…

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Scientists in Australia have discovered a bigger, more venomous species of the Sydney funnel-web spider, one of the world’s deadliest. The new funnel-web species has gotten the nickname “Big Boy” and was first discovered in the early 2000s near Newcastle, 170km (105 miles) north of Sydney, by Kane Christensen, a spider enthusiast and former head of spiders at the Australian Reptile Park. “This particular spider is a lot larger, its venom glands are a lot larger and its fangs are a lot longer,” he said. In research released on Monday,…

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The Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 has been set for launch this Wednesday, January 15, carrying Nasa science and technology to the Moon as part of the space agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative and Artemis campaign. According to Nasa, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, the mission will lift off on a SpaceX’s Falcon 8 rocket from Launch Complex 39A. Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander will spend approximately 45 days in transit after the launch to the Moon before landing on the lunar surface in early…

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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said he does not think SpaceX CEO Elon Musk will use his close ties with US President-elect Donald Trump to undercut his space company Blue Origin, adding he feels “very optimistic” about the incoming administration’s space agenda. “Elon has been very clear that he’s doing this for the public interest and not for his personal gain. And I take him at face value,” Bezos, founder of Blue Origin which rivals SpaceX in the space industry, told Reuters in an interview on Sunday. Jeff Bezos spoke with Reuters in Cape…

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Imagine a world where truth feels increasingly fragile, where falsehoods spread faster than facts, and trust in institutions, media, and even one another erodes by the minute. This is not a dystopian fantasy; it is our reality. From online conspiracies that undermine trust in institutions to viral misinformation that fuels division across political lines and distorts public perception, disinformation affects all sides of the spectrum. Its appeal lies in its simplicity: false narratives often provide quick fixes or affirm comforting biases, making them more palatable than the complexities of reality.…

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The massive asteroid (887) “Alinda” has made its closest approach to Earth in decades and is set to reach peak brightness in a rare and once-in-a-decade event. The event can be observed this weekend using basic stargazing binoculars or via a free livestream, according to Live Science. The near-Earth asteroid, designated (887) Alinda, is estimated to be 2.6 miles (4.2 kilometres) wide — roughly the width of Manhattan — as per Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The massive space rock made its closest approach to Earth in decades on Wednesday, coming…

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WASHINGTON: TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance’s lawyer warned during Supreme Court arguments over a law that would result in its ban in the United States or would compel the sale of the app. If Congress could do this to TikTok, it could do this to other companies too. The law was the subject of arguments before nine justices on Friday and sets a January 19 deadline for TikTok’s parent company to sell the short-video social media app or face a ban on national security grounds in US. The…

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