Science and technology

Xiaomi has won the approval of China’s state planner to manufacture electric vehicles (EVs), said two people with knowledge of the matter, marking a major step towards the smartphone maker’s goal of producing cars by early next year. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), which regulates new investments and production capacity in China’s auto industry, gave the nod for EV manufacturing to Beijing-based Xiaomi earlier this month, said the people. Xiaomi’s venture is only the fourth since end-2017 to win NDRC approval. While NDRC’s nod brings Xiaomi closer to mass production of EVs more than two years after it first announced the plans, the venture still needs clearance from the Ministry of Industry and Information (MIIT), which assesses new automakers and models for technical and safety requirements. And it would be entering China’s car manufacturing sector at a time when the world’s largest auto market is wrestling with a series of issues, including a capacity glut ...

Pushing into a new chapter of technologically advanced biological sensors, scientists from the University of California San Diego and their colleagues in Australia have engineered bacteria that can detect the presence of tumor DNA in a live organism. Their innovation, which detected cancer in the colons of mice, could pave the way to new biosensors capable of identifying various infections, cancers and other diseases. The advancement is described Aug. 11, 2023, in the journal Science.  Bacteria previously have been designed to carry out various diagnostic and therapeutic functions, but lacked the ability to identify specific DNA sequences and mutations outside of cells. The new “Cellular Assay for Targeted CRISPR-discriminated Horizontal gene transfer,” or “CATCH,” was designed to do just that.“As we started on this project four years ago, we weren’t even sure if using bacteria as a sensor for mammalian DNA was even possible,” said scientific team leader Jeff Hasty, a p...

Meta Platforms said on Tuesday it was launching the web version of its new text-first social media platform Threads, in a bid to retain professional users and gain an edge over rival X, formerly Twitter. Threads’ users will be able to access the microblogging platform by logging-in to its website from their computers, the Facebook and Instagram owner said. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Threads post that the web version would reach users “over the next few days.” The widely anticipated roll out could help Threads gain broader acceptance among power users like brands, company accounts, advertisers and journalists, who can now take advantage of the platform by using it on a bigger screen. Threads, which crossed  100 million  sign-ups for the app within five days of its launch on July 5, saw a decline in its popularity as users returned to the more familiar platform X after the initial rush. In just over a month, daily active users on Android version of Threads app drop...

India’s space agency is attempting to land a spacecraft  on the moon’s south pole, a mission that could advance India’s space ambitions and expand knowledge of lunar water ice, potentially one of the moon’s most  valuable resources . Here’s what’s known about the presence of frozen water on the moon – and why  space agencies  and private companies see it as a key to a moon colony, lunar mining and potential missions to Mars. HOW DID SCIENTISTS FIND WATER ON THE MOON? As early as the 1960s, before the first Apollo landing, scientists had speculated that water could exist on the moon. Samples the Apollo crews returned for analysis in the late 1960s and early 1970s appeared to be dry. In 2008, Brown University researchers revisited those lunar samples with new technology and found hydrogen inside tiny beads of volcanic glass. In 2009, a NASA instrument aboard the Indian Space Research Organisation’s Chandrayaan-1 probe detected water on the moon’s surface. In the ...

WhatsApp, the Meta-owned messaging platform, is developing new text formatting tools, which will provide users with more ways of presenting a particular text. Back in 2016, WhatsApp introduced formatting tools like bold, italics, and strikethrough for text in the app, so you can lay emphasis on specific aspects, create subheadings, and redact text as needed. Later that year, the monospace option was added, usually used to format code snippets. In 2017, developers delivered a tiny update squeezing all these options into the floating text toolbar they reside in today. Since then, WhatsApp has done little to keep formatting tools abreast, while the likes of Telegram, Discord, and Slack raced ahead. Read More: WhatsApp introduces Community Examples feature New formatting tools A report by WABetaInfo reveals that WhatsApp has a new beta update for WhatsApp for Desktop, which has got three new text formatting tools. These come in addition to the existing bold, italic, and underline op...

Chinese smartphone brand Honor will relaunch in India through a licensing deal with a local company and is aiming to start domestic manufacturing by early next year, its country head told Reuters. Honor had stopped selling its smartphones in India and reportedly retreated last year amid limited marketing budget and less prudent portfolio management. “India was never a focus market for the Huawei Technologies-owned Honor until 2020 – when it was forced to spin-off the brand and reassess strategy,” said Neil Shah, vice president at Counterpoint Research.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Honor India (@hihonorindia) Honor’s comeback is underpinned by a licensing deal with a newly formed Gurugram-based firm Honor Tech for an undisclosed “agreed-upon cost” tied to the transfer of technology and hardware. It will launch three variants of Honor phones in India, with the mid-ranged Number series expected by September. The ...

Apple has yet again upped its game with the announcement of iOS 17, with a plenty of new updates and discovers for iPhones users. Apple revealed iOS 17 for your iPhone back at WWDC 2023 in June, but only for developer beta testers. There’s a lot to get excited about here, from updates to Messages and FaceTime to a new app for journaling and glanceable information while your iPhone charges. With rumors that iPhone 15 could be arriving in late September, it’s not a stretch to assume that iOS 17 will also arrive around then. Device Compatibility Notably, iOS 17 requires the A12 Bionic chip or newer. This means that the iPhone X, iPhone 8, and iPhone 8 Plus – all of which were first released in 2017 – won’t get the update this year. Here’s the full rundown of iOS 17 supported devices: iPhone XS and XS Max iPhone XR iPhone 11 iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max iPhone 12 and 12 mini iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max iPhone 13 and 13 mini iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max i...