Technology

New data showed a major jump in the number of ransomware-related payments that have been reported to US authorities. New data out Friday showed $590 million in ransomware-related payments were reported to US authorities in the first half of 2021 alone, setting a pace to beat totals for the whole...

Bitcoin has had an eventful year, reaching a record high and becoming legal tender in El Salvador. Bitcoin breached the $60,000 mark for the first time since April on growing optimism that American regulators will greenlight the first US futures exchange-traded fund for the cryptocurrency. The digital currency was up...

A new kind of fiber developed by researchers at MIT and in Sweden, dubbed OmniFibers, contain a fluid channel in the center which can be activated and allow the fiber to act as an artificial muscle. Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology A new kind of fiber developed by researchers at...

The model with Flickr and AI generate an overall measure of landscape aesthetic quality for each area. Credit: Ilan Havinga (photos Sergio and Graeme Churchard (CC-by/2.0) To measure an ecosystem's beauty and the well-being it produces for people can help inform public environmental policy. Scientists at EPFL and Wageningen University...

Credit: Shutterstock More than half of the most popular New Zealand websites may be unfairly manipulating visitors, according to our latest research into the use of "dark patterns" in sites with a "co.nz" domain name. While legal, dark patterns have been described as a type of online design employed to...

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain You may have read recently that TikTok allegedly "serves up" sex and drug videos to minors. Media reports have described the video-sharing platform, which is designed predominantly for young people, as an "addiction machine" that promotes harmful content. In an investigation, reporters at the Wall Street...

Map showing the different reference station positions from which OPS-SAT received beacon transmissions. Credit: Tom Mladenov / JSatTrak Between September 1982 and December 2020, at least 51,512 people were rescued on land and at sea with help from a network of Earth-orbiting satellites able to detect and locate emergency distress...

Fiber reinforced polymer coatings are an affordable way to externally strengthen concrete structures, but how long does the protection last? Scientists find out. Credit: Korea Maritime and Ocean University In modern society, the majority of our infrastructure (buildings, bridges, tunnels, etc.) is made of aging concrete. A recently developed cost-effective...

The impact of chip shortages hitting companies the size of Apple represents the enormity of the issues facing companies across the world, according to a leading academic. Dr. Florian Lücker, senior lecturer in supply chain management at Bayes Business School (formerly Cass), says the ongoing problem is showing no signs...

Authorities expect the facial recognition payment system to speed up traffic in Moscow's sprawling metro network. Moscow on Friday rolled out a facial recognition payment system in the city's metro system, part of a rapid expansion of the controversial technology in Russia. Rights activists have criticised the technology—already in use...

Permanent waterholes in arid Australia are sustained by groundwater. Credit: linders University Australia's future growth is closely aligned to good resources management, and water is top of the list. This is underpinning a growing shortage of groundwater scientists and engineers. The demand is rising, with the National Centre for Groundwater...

Credit: CC0 Public Domain French cloud computing group OVHcloud made its debut on the Paris stock market Friday, turning its Polish-born founder, Octave Klaba, into Europe's newest tech billionaire. The shares traded at slightly above their introduction price of 18.5 euros on Friday, valuing the group at around 3.5 billion...

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Witness first-hand how your mountain of waste plastic expands over the years and what impact your food has on the rainforests. Virtual reality gives you a front-row seat to the impact of unsustainable behavior. Communication scientists Marijn Meijers and Hande Sungur have developed highly effective virtual...

Credit: Georgia Tech Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology In the last few years, mechanically assistive exosuits, long depicted in works of popular science fiction and film, have finally started to see commercial deployment, according to Aaron Young, researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Most of these exosuits have a...

In this May 15, 2017, file photo, employees watch electronic boards monitoring possible ransomware cyberattacks at the Korea Internet and Security Agency in Seoul, South Korea. South Korea said Friday, Oct. 15, 2021, it's asked Interpol for help to arrest two foreigners, including a Ukrainian, over their alleged involvement in...

Italy's new national carrier ITA will still use Alitalia's iconic green, white and red logo as it replaces the failed airline. Italy's new national carrier ITA Airways took its debut flight Friday, closing a turbulent chapter that witnessed the decline of the country's storied but ill-fated Alitalia after 74 eventful...

In this Oct. 27, 2005, file photo, the logo of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) is displayed during a third quarter press conference in Taipei, Taiwan. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. confirmed Friday, Oct. 15, 2021 it is planning to build a computer chip factory in Japan. Credit: AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying,...

Microsoft arrived in China in 1992 and now employs around 6,200 in the region. Microsoft, which will close its career-oriented social network LinkedIn in China, is one of the few US tech titans that have managed some success in the country. The software giant has kept its business alive in China...

A drone carrying a box marked "Flying Sushi" is airborne in the Israeli coastal city of Herzliya. Drone powerhouse Israel is translating the know-how of air force veterans to the delivery of sushi and ice-cream, as companies tap their expertise to avoid collisions in increasingly crowded skies. On a grassy...

A former Boeing chief test pilot provided the Federal Aviation Administration with "materially false, inaccurate, and incomplete information" about the 737 MAX flight handling system, according to the US Justice Department. A US federal grand jury on Thursday charged a former Boeing chief test pilot with misleading aviation regulators during...