Yahoo! buys app from British teen

Yahoo! buys app from British teen

SAN FRANCISCO: Yahoo! announced plans Monday to buy mobile news reader app Summly from the London teenager who invented it, likely transforming him into one of the world's youngest self-made multimillionaires.

The company did not disclose the terms of the deal it struck with 17-year-old Nick D'Aloisio, but the London Evening Standard said Yahoo! would pay between #20 million and #40 million ($30 to $60 million).

"We're excited to share that we're acquiring Summly, a mobile product company founded with a vision to simplify the way we get information, making it faster, easier and more concise," Yahoo! said in a statement.

"At the age of 15, Nick D'Aloisio created the Summly app at his home in London. It started with an insight -- that we live in a world of constant information and need new ways to simplify how we find the stories that are important to us, at a glance."

Yahoo! said most articles and web pages were formatted for browsing with mouse clicks and that "the ability to skim them on a phone or a tablet can be a real challenge -- we want easier ways to identify what's important to us."

The California firm said that "Nick and the Summly team are joining Yahoo! in the coming weeks."

D'Aloisio said in a tweet: "@Summly has signed an agreement to be acquired by Yahoo!! Excited for the next chapter of Summly! Thanks to all who have supported me."

The Evening Standard said the Wimbledon youth, who would become one of the world's youngest technology millionaires, claims to have created the app as a hobby.

"I didn't realize it was possible to make money out of it," he was quoted as saying.

About the new inflow of cash, the youth said: "I like shoes, I will buy a new pair of Nike trainers and I'll probably get a new computer, but at the moment I just want to save and bank it. I don't have many living expenses."

Former Google executive Marissa Mayer took over at Yahoo! in July 2012 as part of efforts by the struggling Internet search pioneer to reinvent itself. (AFP)

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Swiss police arrest "healer" accused of infecting 16 with HIV

 

March 16, 2013 - Updated 514 PKT
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ZURICH: Swiss police have arrested a self-styled healer after he stopped attending a trial where he stands accused of infecting 16 people with HIV using acupuncture needles.

Swiss police said on Friday that they stormed the home of the 54-year-old man, who had barricaded himself inside, was armed with a knife and had issued repeated threats. An unidentified woman with him was also arrested.

The man had been free on bail since August. His trial began on March 6, but he stopped turning up in court on Thursday.

The case came to the attention of the Swiss authorities after an HIV-positive patient told a Berne hospital he had traced his infection back to acupuncture treatments carried out by the accused. The man has denied the charges.

According to Swiss media, the majority of the infected individuals were students of a music school run by the man, who also ran an acupuncture practice.

In accordance with Swiss criminal proceedings, the suspect's identity has not been released. (Reuters)

 

 

Swarming cockroaches turn US bus into roach-mobile

 

March 16, 2013 - Updated 423 PKT
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NEW YORK | Fri Mar 15, 2013 5:51pm EDT

(Reuters) - A Greyhound bus ride into New York City on Friday turned into a horror show for passengers suddenly swarmed by an invasion of cockroaches that forced the driver to pull over and evacuate the vehicle.

Cockroaches began emerging about 15 minutes after the bus departed from Atlantic City, New Jersey, on Friday morning, a Greyhound spokesman said.

The driver soon pulled over and the 48 passengers scuttled off the infested bus to wait for a replacement vehicle.

Cell phone photos showing armies of cockroaches scampering over the seats and floor were posted by local media outlets, supplied by passengers on the bus.

"We at Greyhound apologize for this inconvenience and have spoken with each passenger regarding this incident," Tim Stokes, a spokesman for a Greyhound, a unit of Scotland-based FirstGroup Plc, said in a statement.

"Currently, our team is investigating the situation and working to determine its cause," Stokes said.

The company said it had refunded the passengers' fares and that they arrived without further incident in New York City in the afternoon. (Reuters)

 

Amazon CEO recovers Apollo engines from Atlantic

 

March 21, 2013 - Updated 414 PKT
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LOS ANGELES: Rusted pieces of two Apollo-era rocket engines that helped boost astronauts to the moon have been fished out of the murky depths of the Atlantic, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos and NASA said Wednesday.

A privately funded expedition led by Bezos raised the main engine parts during three weeks at sea and was headed back to Cape Canaveral, Florida, the launch pad for the manned lunar missions.

``We've seen an underwater wonderland _ an incredible sculpture garden of twisted F-1 engines that tells the story of a fiery and violent end,'' Bezos wrote in an online posting.

Last year, the Bezos team used sonar to spot the sunken engines resting nearly 3 miles (5 kilometers) deep in the Atlantic and 360 miles (579 kilometers) from Cape Canaveral.

At the time, the Internet mogul said the artifacts were part of the Apollo 11 mission that gave the world ``one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.''

Bezos now says it's unclear which Apollo mission the recovered engines belonged to because the serial numbers were missing or hard to read on the corroded pieces.

NASA is helping trace the hardware's origin. Apollo astronauts were launched aboard the mighty Saturn V rocket during the 1960s and 1970s.

Each rocket had a cluster of five engines, which produced about 7 1/2 million pounds of thrust. After liftoff, the engines _ each weighing 18,000 pounds (8,166 kilograms) _ fell to the ocean as designed, with no plans to retrieve them.

Bezos and his team sent underwater robots to hoist the engines, which are NASA property.

In a statement, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden called the recovery ``a historic find.''

Bezos plans to restore the engine parts, which included a nozzle, turbine, thrust chamber and heat exchanger.

Amazon.com Inc. spokesman Drew Herdener declined Wednesday to reveal the cost of the recovery or restoration.

NASA has previously said an engine would head for the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.

If a second was recovered, it would be displayed at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, where Amazon.com is based.

The ocean floor off Cape Canaveral is strewn with jettisoned rockets and flight parts from missions since the beginning of the Space Age.

What survived after plunging into the ocean is unknown. In one of the more famous recoveries, a private company in 2009 hoisted Gus Grissom's Mercury capsule that accidentally sank in the Atlantic after splashdown in 1961.

The capsule is now featured at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center.Besides running the online retailer, Bezos founded Blue Origins, one of the companies with a NASA contract to develop a spaceship to carry astronauts to the International Space Station.

In a previous posting, Bezos said he was inspired by NASA as a child, and by recovering the engines ``maybe we can inspire a few more youth to invent and explore.''

 

 

Undersea cable fault dents Internet services in Pakistan

 

March 13, 2013 - Updated 030 PKT
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KARACHI: About 10-20 percent of Internet and other communication services in the country have suffered after a submarine optic-fiber communications cable was reportedly damaged last week, Geo News reported.

According to sources in Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), the undersea cable developed a fault on Friday, March 1, 2013.

The world consortium for the submarine Internet cable says their technical team has nailed down the exact location of the fault and repair was in progress.

 

 

Curiosity finds conditions once suited to life on Mars

 

March 13, 2013 - Updated 028 PKT
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WASHINGTON: Analysis of Mars rocks by the Curiosity rover uncovered the building blocks of life -- hydrogen, carbon and oxygen -- and evidence the planet could once have supported organisms, NASA said Tuesday.

"A fundamental question for this mission is whether Mars could have supported a habitable environment," Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program said. "From what we know now, the answer is yes."

At a televised press conference, the NASA team said this is the first definitive proof a life-supporting environment had existed beyond Earth.

"There are places we've suggested could be habitable, but we haven't measured there," said Dave Blake, principal investigator for Curiosity's Chemistry and Mineralogy investigation.

Curiosity, a six-wheeled robot with 10 scientific instruments on board, is the most sophisticated vehicle ever sent to another planet.

The sample was drilled from sedimentary bedrock in an area which previous research had shown to be an ancient river system or lake bed.

It was found to contain clay minerals, sulfate minerals and other chemicals.

Based on the analysis of those chemicals, researchers were able to determine that the water in which the rocks were formed was of a relatively neutral pH -- not overly salty, acidic, or oxidizing.

"We have found a habitable environment that is so benign and supportive of life, that probably if this water was around and you had been there, you would have been able to drink it," said John Grotzinger, a Curiosity project scientist from the California Institute of Technology.

Speaking at the same press conference, one of NASA's top officials John Grunsfeld said the discovery makes him "feel giddy."

He said the new data helps add to the picture of what the red planet may have looked in a previous era, with a possible freshwater lake and a snow-capped Mount Sharp.

But it wouldn't have looked like that any time recently, the researchers cautioned.

Although it is hard to confirm an exact date, it was probably at least three billion years ago, said Grotzinger.

Researchers also noted that future rock samples will be needed to confirm these results, because it is possible that residual carbon on the drill affected the analysis.

But "the instrument is working beautifully," enthused Paul Mahaffy, principal investigator for Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars investigation.

The team is already planning out where and when to take the next rock samples, as well as planning out the rover's route to nearby Mount Sharp, where mineral analysis should help with dating calculations.

The $2.5 billion nuclear-powered Curiosity has been exploring the planet's surface since its dramatic landing on August 6, for an anticipated two-year mission.

Scientists do not expect Curiosity to find aliens or living creatures -- and indeed, they said Tuesday, the rover does not have the capability to identify microbial life or fossils, even if they were present today.

But the analysis of soil and rocks is aimed at finding evidence Mars may have supported life in the past. (AFP)

 

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US teens go mobile for Internet

 

March 13, 2013 - Updated 1137 PKT
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WASHINGTON: Most American teenagers use their phones to access the Internet, with one-fourth of them going online mostly on their mobile device, a survey showed Wednesday.

Some 78 percent of US teens have a cell phone, and 47 percent of those own smartphones, according to the survey by the Pew Internet Project with Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

It found 74 percent of teens have mobile Internet access and one in four are "cell-mostly" Internet users, more than the 15 percent of the adult population in this category who go online without a desktop or laptop computer.

Fully 95 percent of teens are online, a percentage that has been consistent since 2006, the researchers found. But the patterns of Internet use have changed as more users go mobile.

"In many ways, teens represent the leading edge of mobile connectivity, and the patterns of their technology use often signal future changes in the adult population," the researchers wrote.

"Teens are just as likely to have a cell phone as they are to have a desktop or laptop computer. And increasingly these phones are affording teens always-on, mobile access to the Internet -- in some cases, serving as their primary point of access."

Tablets are also gaining ground, with 23 percent having access to one of these devices, the survey found.

The research, which interviewed some 800 parents and 800 youth from the ages of 12-17, found that teen girls are especially likely to be cell-mostly Internet users: 34 percent, compared with 24 percent of boys ages 14-17. (AFP)