Tech Roundup: Climate Change, SARS & More
[A recurring feature on the latest in Science & Technology.]
The costs of climate change:
Climate change will pose severe constraints on food supply in the coming decades, reports the New York Times quoting a leaked draft of a report by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). "The report also finds other sweeping impacts from climate change already occurring across the planet, and warns that these are likely to intensify as human emissions of greenhouse gases continue to rise. The scientists describe a natural world in turmoil as plants and animals colonize new areas to escape rising temperatures, and warn that many could become extinct," writes Justin Gillis on the findings. Agricultural production could get reduced by as much as 2% per decade due to global warming, the demand expected to increase at the rate of 14% over the same period as world population is projected to touch 9.6 billion by 2050. Any shortfall in supply is likely to push food prices through the roof hitting the world's poorest very hard, it warns.
It may be noted that IPCC, not more than a month back, released a report blaming humans to be the dominant cause for climate change. Meanwhile, oceanographers have called for immediate action to mitigate global warming, stating the world's oceans are becoming increasingly acidic due to higher carbon emissions, in the process becoming less effective at taking out carbon from the air. The chemical imbalance, they add, could be detrimental to several oceanic lifeforms such as corals, molluscs, fishes and oysters.
Amazon rainforest deforestation up 28% after years of decline:
Brazilian government has reported that annual destruction of its Amazon rainforest was up 28% after four years of steady decline in what is being considered due to loosening of the country's environmental laws. However it's the second lowest amount of jungle destroyed since the nation began its annual deforestation monitoring in 1988. Vast tropical rainforests like the Amazon act as effective carbon sinks (much like oceans) and help naturally counter global warming. Increased loss of forest cover adds more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, contributing to an eventual increase in global temperature. (Check out the interactive map from Google charting the forest cover gain and loss between 2000 and 2012.)
A recent Greenhouse Gas Bulletin released by United Nations World Meteorological Organization in fact goes on to state that annual greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide etc.) concentrations touched record levels last year, and that the rate of global warming increased by 32% between the period 1990 and 2012.
SARS originated in Chinese bats, researchers say:
The deadly SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) pandemic that left over 8,000 seriously ill and about 770 dead in 2002-2003 worldwide has been traced to Chinese horseshoe bats, according to new evidence. By collecting and analyzing the bats' throat and fecal swabs, researchers have discovered two SARS coronaviruses that share the same traits as the coronavirus that infected humans, indicating the virus originated from the nocturnal mammals. The scientists also add the outbreak could have happened in wildlife markets in countries like China where humans thrive in close proximity with the bats, creating an ideal environment for the virus to jump between the two species.
What's new in Android KitKat?
Android Jelly Bean may be on 50% of all Android smartphones, but the newest kid on the block, KitKat 4.4, boasts of some neat features like the full-screen immersive mode, unified messaging via Hangouts, tighter Google Now integration (which is now also the left-most panel on the homescreen with the new Google Experience Launcher that's exclusive to Nexus 5), QuickOffice for viewing and editing documents, Emoji and cloud print support, and a screen recording feature that lets the user capture videos of their on-screen actions and save them as MP4 files.
The headlining feature in my opinion, is however the Smart Dialer - Google's own take on apps like TrueCaller and the likes - which can be incredibly helpful (or creepy, depending on how you see it). If you receive a call from a number that is not saved in your Contacts, then Android KitKat will attempt to retrieve the Caller ID information from local listings within Google Maps. While this could be useful to identify business related calls, Google will also try to match the phone numbers from incoming and outgoing calls with their Google+ profile pictures and names if they have the numbers registered against their Google accounts and have the discovery option turned on. Said to be rolling out early next year, it can be opted out here.
Snapchat and the battle for the ultimate instant messaging app:
Now that the long awaited Twitter IPO has come and gone, markets are abuzz with the next big tech valuation. And all their eyes have fallen on Snapchat, an ephemeral photo-messaging application for Android and iOS headed by a 23-year old CEO Evan Spiegel, after news emerged that Facebook reportedly was in talks to acquire the service for $3 billion. Apparently that was not all. According to a Silicon valley rumour mill (and later confirmed), Google also jumped into the table with an offer of $4 billion. But Spiegel & Co. seems to have rejected both offers with the belief that it could be valued even higher, considering the rate at which its traffic has been growing (it has 350 million users at present, from 200 million last June).
Google and Facebook's instant messaging services, Hangouts and Messenger respectively, have been witnessing intense competition from WhatsApp, WeChat, Kakao Talk and Viber, and with Facebook's recent admission that teens are deserting the social network for instant messaging apps like Snapchat and others (for better privacy), Zuckerberg's latest move is not in the least surprising. And as for Google, it probably doesn't want Snapchat to end up with Facebook! The incredulous aspect is nonetheless the high valuation that defies all logic, given the company generates zero revenue at present. Is this a tech bubble waiting to burst?
In other news:
The costs of climate change:
Climate change will pose severe constraints on food supply in the coming decades, reports the New York Times quoting a leaked draft of a report by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). "The report also finds other sweeping impacts from climate change already occurring across the planet, and warns that these are likely to intensify as human emissions of greenhouse gases continue to rise. The scientists describe a natural world in turmoil as plants and animals colonize new areas to escape rising temperatures, and warn that many could become extinct," writes Justin Gillis on the findings. Agricultural production could get reduced by as much as 2% per decade due to global warming, the demand expected to increase at the rate of 14% over the same period as world population is projected to touch 9.6 billion by 2050. Any shortfall in supply is likely to push food prices through the roof hitting the world's poorest very hard, it warns.
It may be noted that IPCC, not more than a month back, released a report blaming humans to be the dominant cause for climate change. Meanwhile, oceanographers have called for immediate action to mitigate global warming, stating the world's oceans are becoming increasingly acidic due to higher carbon emissions, in the process becoming less effective at taking out carbon from the air. The chemical imbalance, they add, could be detrimental to several oceanic lifeforms such as corals, molluscs, fishes and oysters.
Amazon rainforest deforestation up 28% after years of decline:
Brazilian government has reported that annual destruction of its Amazon rainforest was up 28% after four years of steady decline in what is being considered due to loosening of the country's environmental laws. However it's the second lowest amount of jungle destroyed since the nation began its annual deforestation monitoring in 1988. Vast tropical rainforests like the Amazon act as effective carbon sinks (much like oceans) and help naturally counter global warming. Increased loss of forest cover adds more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, contributing to an eventual increase in global temperature. (Check out the interactive map from Google charting the forest cover gain and loss between 2000 and 2012.)
A recent Greenhouse Gas Bulletin released by United Nations World Meteorological Organization in fact goes on to state that annual greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide etc.) concentrations touched record levels last year, and that the rate of global warming increased by 32% between the period 1990 and 2012.
SARS originated in Chinese bats, researchers say:
The deadly SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) pandemic that left over 8,000 seriously ill and about 770 dead in 2002-2003 worldwide has been traced to Chinese horseshoe bats, according to new evidence. By collecting and analyzing the bats' throat and fecal swabs, researchers have discovered two SARS coronaviruses that share the same traits as the coronavirus that infected humans, indicating the virus originated from the nocturnal mammals. The scientists also add the outbreak could have happened in wildlife markets in countries like China where humans thrive in close proximity with the bats, creating an ideal environment for the virus to jump between the two species.
What's new in Android KitKat?
Android Jelly Bean may be on 50% of all Android smartphones, but the newest kid on the block, KitKat 4.4, boasts of some neat features like the full-screen immersive mode, unified messaging via Hangouts, tighter Google Now integration (which is now also the left-most panel on the homescreen with the new Google Experience Launcher that's exclusive to Nexus 5), QuickOffice for viewing and editing documents, Emoji and cloud print support, and a screen recording feature that lets the user capture videos of their on-screen actions and save them as MP4 files.
The headlining feature in my opinion, is however the Smart Dialer - Google's own take on apps like TrueCaller and the likes - which can be incredibly helpful (or creepy, depending on how you see it). If you receive a call from a number that is not saved in your Contacts, then Android KitKat will attempt to retrieve the Caller ID information from local listings within Google Maps. While this could be useful to identify business related calls, Google will also try to match the phone numbers from incoming and outgoing calls with their Google+ profile pictures and names if they have the numbers registered against their Google accounts and have the discovery option turned on. Said to be rolling out early next year, it can be opted out here.
Snapchat and the battle for the ultimate instant messaging app:
Now that the long awaited Twitter IPO has come and gone, markets are abuzz with the next big tech valuation. And all their eyes have fallen on Snapchat, an ephemeral photo-messaging application for Android and iOS headed by a 23-year old CEO Evan Spiegel, after news emerged that Facebook reportedly was in talks to acquire the service for $3 billion. Apparently that was not all. According to a Silicon valley rumour mill (and later confirmed), Google also jumped into the table with an offer of $4 billion. But Spiegel & Co. seems to have rejected both offers with the belief that it could be valued even higher, considering the rate at which its traffic has been growing (it has 350 million users at present, from 200 million last June).
Google and Facebook's instant messaging services, Hangouts and Messenger respectively, have been witnessing intense competition from WhatsApp, WeChat, Kakao Talk and Viber, and with Facebook's recent admission that teens are deserting the social network for instant messaging apps like Snapchat and others (for better privacy), Zuckerberg's latest move is not in the least surprising. And as for Google, it probably doesn't want Snapchat to end up with Facebook! The incredulous aspect is nonetheless the high valuation that defies all logic, given the company generates zero revenue at present. Is this a tech bubble waiting to burst?
In other news:
- Polio outbreak confirmed in war-torn Syria; Lebanon initiates mass vaccination program.
- India's Mars Orbiter Mission Mangalyaan successfully placed in Earth's orbit; to start its sojourn towards the Red planet on Dec 1.
- A good night's sleep helps clean the brain of toxins, reveals new study.
- New fossil evidence shows Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis and Homo erectus to be part of a single evolving lineage that led to modern humans; disproves idea that multiple species of humans were walking on Earth millions of years ago.
- Sony drops out of US and Chinese smartphone markets to focus on Europe and Japan; outs latest PlayStation 4 console in the US.
- Facebook now lets teens post status updates and photos publicly to their timelines; revises its privacy policy to address privacy concerns.
- Popular multi-platform game Temple Run to made into a movie.
- Apple reportedly working on iPhones with larger screen sizes, reports Bloomberg.
- Google's Shared Endorsements and Google+ commenting system on YouTube go live.
- BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins steps down after failed Fairfax takeover; receives $1bn from investors to figure out its next move.
- Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates unimpressed with Google and Facebook's attempts to achieve global internet connectivity; wants to work for improving human health conditions.
- Twitter debuts on New York Stock Exchange for its IPO.
- Google Helpouts are official; can help you with anything.
- Apple releases iOS 7.0.4 to fix FaceTime bug.
- Microsoft's official support for Windows XP ends on April 8, 2014.
- Google Play Music finally comes to iOS.
- Network giant Cisco warns of significant fall in revenues due to political repercussions from Edward Snowden surveillance leaks among other macroeconomic issues.
- HP and Google halt sales of Chromebook 11 following overheating problems.
- Motorola announces cheaper Moto G smartphone; to land in India come January next year.
- Twitter's Vine lands on Windows Phone.
- Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 7 now available for download.
- Android KitKat update rolling out for Nexus 4,7 and 10; Galaxy Nexus left out.
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