New Delhi, May 17 (IANS): For Sony PlayStation lovers in India, the wait got much longer as pre-orders for the PlayStation5 (PS5) and PS5 Digital Edition that went live at 12 pm (noon) on Monday disappeared within no time. The limited stock of PS5 and Digital Edition went unavailable or sold out in seconds on Amazon, Reliance Digital and Sony Center online platforms. There is no information when the popular gaming consoles will be back in India. The PlayStation 5 costs Rs 49,9

Chennai, May 17 (IANS) Scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, have grown human brain tissues called 'organoids' with help of a 3D Printed Bioreactor that they developed. The objective was to observe the brain tissues while they grow and develop, a technology that can potentially accelerate medical and therapeutic discoveries for diseases such as cancer and neurological disorders like Alzheimer&

San Francisco, May 15 (IANS) Facebook-owned photo-sharing platform Instagram is reportedly working on an update to its desktop website that will allow users to create posts from there as well. The update brings the post creator to the web version of Instagram -- which was previously only available on the mobile Instagram website besides the official app, 9To5Google, citing developer and app analyst Alessandro Paluzzi, reported. Paluzzi managed to enable the new option on his prof

New Delhi, May 15 (IANS) With the controversial WhatsApp privacy policy coming into effect from Saturday for its over 2 billion users including more than 400 million in India, industry experts emphasised that the government must implement stricter data privacy rules and restrain the Facebook-owned app as was done while banning Chinese apps to protect the sovereignty of the country. Giving an interim solace for those who do not accept the new policy, WhatsApp has said that its users

New York, May 14 (IANS) More investigation is needed to determine the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic, say a team of 18 scientists from Universities in the US, Canada, the UK and Switzerland. "Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable," they wrote in a letter published on Thursday in the journal Science. "Knowing how Covid-19 emerged is critical for informing global strategies to mitigate the risk of future outbreaks,"

Taipei, May 13 (IANS) Taiwan-based fabless semiconductor company MediaTek on Thursday unveiled the new Dimensity 900 5G chipset, the latest addition to its Dimensity 5G family. The Dimensity 900 chipset, built on the 6nm high-performance manufacturing node, supports Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, ultra-fast FHD+ 120Hz displays and a 108MP main camera for an all-around incredible experience. "Dimensity 900 brings a suite of connectivity, display and 4K HDR visual enhancements to mid-t

London, May 8 (IANS): Double-mutant variant of severe acute respiratory syndrome SARS-CoV-2 -- B.1.617 -- that has emerged in India, entered certain types of lung and intestine cells with slightly increased efficiency compared with the original wild-type strain, say researchers. The researchers, including Markus Hoffmann from German Primate Center, also reported that the entry of B.1.617 into the lung and intestinal cells was blocked following treatment with soluble angiotensin-conv

San Francisco, May 8 (IANS): A Sony Playstation user has sued the company over its alleged digital monopoly, saying that it allows Sony to charge supra-competitive prices for digital PlayStation games, the media reported. The suit seeking a class-action lawsuit has been filed in a court in California, reports The Verge. Lawyers claimed that "Sony's 2019 decision to stop PlayStation users from buying third-party download codes is violating antitrust and unfair competition

New Delhi, May 8 (IANS): Facing criticism over its upcoming privacy policy, WhatsApp has said that its users will not immediately lose their accounts or face curtailed functionalities on the platform on May 15, but they will have to eventually go through limited functions if they fail to accept the new norms in the due course of time. The Facebook-owned messaging platform with more than two billion users, with over 400 million users in India, warned that failing to accept the new po

San Francisco, May 7 (IANS): As a part of "sweeping visual rejuvenation" planned for later this year, Microsoft is finally preparing to refresh its Windows 95-era icons. The software giant has been slowly improving the icons it uses in Windows 10. So, far it has redesigned File Explorer, folder, Recycle Bin, disk drive icons and more, The Verge reported. Windows Latest has spotted new icons for the hibernation mode, networking, memory, floppy drives, and much more as pa

San Francisco/Beijing, May 7 (IANS): A 100-foot-tall, 22-metric-tonne Chinese rocket is re-entering the Earth this weekend and according to the US Space Command, it poses low risk to humans. The "out-of-control" Chinese Long March 5B rocket will likely splash down in the ocean on Saturday, according to a report in The Verge. The US Space Command said in a statement that "its exact entry point into the Earth's atmosphere cannot be pinpointed until within hours o

New Delhi, May 3 (IANS) An Indian-origin researcher has warned that billions of computers and other devices across the globe are vulnerable today owing to a vulnerability named 'Spectre' that was first discovered in 2018 but is open to hackers again. Since 'Spectre' was discovered, the world's most talented computer scientists from industry and academia have worked on software patches and hardware defenses, confident they've been able to protect the most vuln

San Francisco, May 3 (IANS): Max Hodak, President of Elon Musk-founded brain-machine interface company Neuralink, has moved on to start a new venture. Hodak co-founded the company with Musk in 2016. Headquartered in San Francisco, Neuralink's team of around 100 people is trying to develop an implementable computer-brain interface. The aim of Neuralink is to increase the rate at which information can flow from the human brain to a machine. "I am no longer at Neuralink

Washington, May 2 (IANS) Four astronauts, part of SpaceX and NASA's first commercial crew programme, returned to Earth safely on Sunday after their six-month mission aboard the International Space Station, the US space agency said. The astronauts -- NASA's Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, along with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission specialist Soichi Noguchi -- returned to Earth in a parachute-assisted splashdown at 2:56 a.m. EDT off the co

New Delhi, April 30 (IANS) Social media giant Facebook on Friday announced plans to help its users in India with access to authoritative information about Covid-19 symptoms and vaccines. This is in addition to the recent announcement by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to donate $10 million to emergency response efforts in India. "As India grapples with the current wave of Covid-19, we are committed to doing our bit to support local communities in the country with medical suppli

Washington, April 28 (IANS) NASAs Expedition 64 crew member Michael Hopkins has harvested two crops in space -- 'Amara' mustard, and a previously grown crop, 'Extra Dwarf' pak choi. They were grown for 64 days, the longest leafy greens have grown on station, the US space agency said. The pak choi grew for so long that it began to flower as part of its reproduction cycle. Hopkins' efforts in eclipsing the mark included using a small paintbrush to pollinate plant f

Singapore, April 26 (IANS): Using a type of antiseptic throat spray, and an oral drug used to treat malaria and arthritis, have been found effective in curbing the spread of coronavirus, according to a new study. The six-week long study, led by researchers from the National University Hospital (NUH) in Singapore, involved more than 3,000 migrant workers from India, Bangladesh, China and Myanmar living in Tuas South dormitory, the Channel News Asia reported. The results showed tha

London, April 25 (IANS) China's technological cyber threat is so grave that it could control the global operating system (OS), UK spy chief warned has warned. The director of the UK's intelligence and cyber agency GCHQ Jeremy Fleming said the country is now a global cyber power, reports ZDNet. However, retaining that status in a fast-changing world is far from guaranteed, especially as China and Russia look to spread competing values and project cyber strength via the use

San Francisco, April 25 (IANS) Google has developed a custom chip, Argos, for YouTube to process videos much more efficiently. Google's Jeff Calow said the Argos chip has brought "up to 20-33x improvements in computing efficiency compared to our previous optimised system, which was running software on traditional servers." The VCU package is a full-length PCI-E card and looks a lot like a graphics card. A board has two Argos ASIC chips buried under a gigantic, passi

New Delhi, April 24 (IANS) The ransomware attacks on high-profile targets such as corporations, government agencies and municipal organisations globally increased by a whopping 767 per cent in one year (from 2019 to 2020), according to a new report. Targeted ransomware attacks have become a major concern globally in the past few years, especially for organisations and businesses in the APAC region, especially India. "At least 61 entities from the region were breached by a ta