Facebook bans all crypto-currency ads

Facebook has said it will block any advertising promoting crypto-currency products and services.

The company said it was open to...read more...

Nintendo Switch overtakes the Wii U

The Nintendo Switch games console has outsold its predecessor, just 10 months after its launch.

Nintendo sold 7.23 million Swit...read more...

Global register lists alien species

The first global register of alien species shows that a fifth of 6,400 plants and animals catalogued are causing harm.

Netflix's history: From DVD rentals to streaming success.

Netflix has reported a surge of subscribers to 117m in 2017, which it's put down to interest in its original content.

The company has come a long way since its start as an online DVD rental company in 1998.

Big SpaceX rocket lights 27 engines

Falcon Heavy: Big SpaceX rocket lights 27 engines

By Jonathan AmosBBC Science Correspondent

America's SpaceX company has conducted a key test ahead of the maiden flight of its new rocket - the Falcon Heavy.

In what...read more...

Can staying awake defeat depression.

Making people stay awake for hours in a hospital may seem an odd way to battle depression – but for some people it is proving a promising therapy. Linda Geddes reports.

By Linda Geddes

From Mosaic

The first sign that something is happening is Angelina’s hands. As she chats to the nurse in Italian, she begins to gesticulate, jabbing, moulding and circling the...read more...

LG DISPLAYS LARGE ROLL-ABLE TV

CES 2018: LG Display shows off large rollable TV screen.

LG Display has created the world's first large, rollable, ultra-high definition screen. Read more...

ELON MUSK PRESENTS LA TUNNEL PLAN

Elon Musk's Boring Company has presented plans to build a Hyperloop tunnel under Culver City, California.

The plans were presented at a council meeting on Monday by Jehn Balajadia, operations co-ordinator of the firm. Read more...

NEW UNIT OF TIME (a flick)

A new unit of time has been invented by Facebook.(called as a flick)

The flick has been designed to help developers keep video effects in sync,according to a description on the code-sharing site GitHub. Read more...

MONSTER ATOMIC BOMB (Too big to use)

By Stephen Dowling

This story is featured in BBC Future’s collection. Discover more of our picks.

On the morning of 30 October 1961, a Soviet Tu-95 bomber took off from Olenya airfield in the Kola Peninsula in the far north of Russia.

Are you a social media ADDICT

How much is ‘too much time’ on social media?

Researchers are investigating whether social media addiction constitutes a mental disorder. Is this a moral panic or food for thought? Watch the video above.read more...

US shutdown: Trump and Democrats blame each other

Recriminations have begun over the failure of the US Senate to pass a new budget and prevent the shutdown of many federal services.

A bill to fund the federal government for the coming weeks did not receive the required 60 votes by the deadline of midnight on Friday.

President Trump accused the Democrats of putting politics above the interests of the American people.

The Democrats blame him for rejecting bipartisan compromise proposals.

Negotiations in both houses of Congress continued on Saturday, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said the chamber would be back in session on Sunday to try to end the impasse.

The White House budget chief has expressed optimism that a resolution will be found before Monday.

But if not, hundreds of thousands of federal workers face the prospect of no work and shuttered offices at the start of the working week.

The last government shutdown was in 2013, and lasted for 16 days.

Why can the two sides not agree?

This is the first time a government shutdown has happened while one party, the Republicans, controls both Congress and the White House.

The vote on Friday was 50-49, falling far short of the 60 needed to advance the bill. With a 51-seat majority in the Senate, the Republicans did not have enough seats to pass the bill without some support from the Democrats.

They want funding for border security - including the border wall - and immigration reforms, as well as increased military spending.

The Democrats have demanded protection from deportation of more than 700,000 undocumented immigrants who entered the US as children.

This could be a protracted, ugly fight

Anthony Zurcher, BBC News, Washington

The game of chicken ended with a head-on crash.

Republicans are anxious to label this the "Schumer shutdown" and, essentially, they're right. Chuck Schumer and his fellow Democrats (with the help of a few Republicans) blocked a bill that would have kept the government open - at least temporarily.

Determining responsibility and apportioning blame, however, are two decidedly different endeavours.

Democrats will argue that they had a deal with the president on their bipartisan compromise that included immigration reform - only to have him back away during that fateful obscenity-laden Oval Office meeting last week. Republicans will frame this as liberals putting undocumented immigrant protections over military readiness and health insurance for poor kids.

The winner of the blame game has yet to be decided. Generally, the loser in these types of showdowns is the party entering the fight with the lowest popularity - bad news for Mr Trump and the Republicans.

The good news, for both sides, is that their political bases will be thrilled they are playing hardball. Midterm election years, like 2018, tend to encourage this kind of rally-the-base manoeuvres.

Now that the line has been crossed, this could become a protracted, ugly fight.

What is a government shutdown?

The US budget must be approved by 1 October - the start of the federal financial year.....read more

Trump - A BUSINESS GENIUS

YOU MAY HATE HIM BUT TRUMP IS A BUSINESS GENIUS: APPLE’S US$350 BILLION INVESTMENT PLAN PROVES IT

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook doesn’t like Donald Trump. It’s not hard to understand why Mr. Cook (a liberalist) and Mr. Trump (a nationalist)don’t see eye to eye – until now. The Apple chief had previously blamed the U.S. president as a white supremacist and a racist who promotes “hate and bigotry” in the United States. He even slammed Trump’s decision to withdraw from Paris Agreement.

While both individuals have the opposite political views, they have finally found a common interest – business. Apple’s blockbuster announcement that it will repatriate almost all of its US$250 billion in overseas cash, create 20,000 new U.S. jobs, open a new U.S. campus, and invest US$350 billion to the U.S. economy ends any serious debate about the new tax reform law.

Washington: President Donald Trump said in a tweet Wednesday that Apple Inc.’s decision to bring hundreds of billions of overseas dollars back to the US is a “huge win for American workers and the USA!”

“I promised that my policies would allow companies like Apple to bring massive amounts of money back to the United States,” Trump said in the tweet. Great to see Apple follow through as a result of TAX CUTS.”

The iPhone makers announced on Wednesday that it would make the move, paying about $38 billion in taxes on the money and spending tens of billions on domestic jobs, manufacturing and data centers in the coming years. Apple also told employees that it’s issuing stock-based bonuses worth $2,500 each following the new US tax law, according to people familiar with the matter.

In its December approval of the most extensive tax-code revisions since 1986, Congress scrapped the previous international tax system for corporations— an unusual arrangement that allowed companies to defer US income taxes on foreign earnings until they returned the income to the US. That “deferral” provision led companies to stockpile an estimated $3.1 trillion offshore and many were criticized for the moves, including Apple.

Trump deserves every single credit for creating a business-friendly environment and reforming the tax code which even Tim Cook finds hard to resist. In fact, Trump had no idea the explosive effect of his tax reform until Apple’s juicy announcement. The U.S. President was practically on cloud nine after Apple unveiled its ambitious investment plan that he personally called and thanked Mr. Cook.

Trump said – “In the news, I heard US$350 billion, I thought, ‘You mean US$350 million? That’s going to be a beautiful plant.’ They said, ‘No, it’s three-hundred and fifty billion dollars.’ And I just called Tim Cook and I thanked him.” He got so excited that he sang songs of praise for the Apple CEO – “Tim Cook is a great guy – the head of Apple.”

Although the plan is quite vague, Apple said it would directly contribute US$350 billion to the U.S. economy over the next 5 years, with the bulk – about US$55 billion this year – to be splashed on a new campus to house technical support for customers and US$10 billion toward data centres across the country. Initial fund for domestic manufacturing will be increased to US$5 billion from US$1 billion.

Most new cars must be electric by 2030, ministers told

Three-fifths of new cars must be electric by 2030 to meet greenhouse gas targets, ministers have been warned.

Homes also need to be built to a higher standard, the Committee on Climate Change - the official watchdog - says.

The government says the UK is cutting emissions faster than any other G7 nation - and the committee agrees there has been a big shift under Theresa May.

However, it says the UK will fall short of its ambitions unless ministers do more to turn pledges into reality.

The warning comes less than a week after the prime minister launched a 25-year plan to protect the environment, including eradicating all avoidable plastic waste by 2042.

The committee agrees the government's recently-published Clean Growth Plan is a big improvement, and says the UK has been a world leader in cutting emissions so far.

But it argues that the plan still doesn't offer detailed policies to meet legal carbon targets.

Carbon capture from industry must be made to happen, it says, and wood and plastics should be banned from landfill in order to re-use them.

More trees should be planted to soak up carbon dioxide, with a view to creating 70,000 hectares (173,000 acres) of new woodland by 2025, and farming must do more to cut emissions.

'Major change'

Industry, too, is urged to take greater responsibility.

The committee's chairman Lord Deben, told BBC News: "If you're going to sell an electric car your dealers have got to understand these things, so training dealers is essential.

"If you're running a big fossil fuel company, you have to start thinking about the realities of when, not if, because it is not if any longer, we use a lot less fossil fuels."

He also criticised construction firms for only doing the "absolute minimum" required on building energy efficient homes.

The committee points out that better insulated homes would cut people's bills as well as tackle climate change, and calls for more incentives to encourage "able to pay" households to install efficiency measures.

Lord Deben said the Clean Growth Strategy had "changed the tone" of the government on the issue.

"These issues have been put into the centre of government policy - that's a major change."

But, he said, ambitions alone are not enough.

"The strategy doesn't deliver enough action to meet emissions targets in the 2020s and 2030s," he said.

"The government's policies will need to be firmed up as a matter of urgency and supplemented with additional measures if the UK is to deliver on legal commitments and secure its position as an international climate change leader."

He added: "All departments now need to look at their contribution towards cutting emissions - including the Department for Transport."

The committee wants 30% to 70% of new cars to be ultra-low emission by 2030, as well as up to 40% of new vans, as part of efforts to phase out sales of conventional petrol and diesel versions by 2040.

Currently, fewer than 5% of new car sales are "alternatively fuelled", which also includes hybrid models.

Bar chart showing breakdown of sales of petrol/diesel and alternatively fuelled vehicles since 2010

US astronaut removed from ISS mission

The US astronaut Jeanette Epps has been removed from her upcoming mission to the International Space Station (ISS) just months before launch.

Dr Epps was to have been the first African-American astronaut assigned to the space station crew.

She would have flown aboard a Russian Soyuz flight in June but is being replaced by another astronaut.

Nasa has not given a reason for withdrawing her but says she will be considered for future missions.

Jeanette Epps, born in Syracuse, completed a doctorate in aerospace engineering in 2000. After graduating, she worked in a laboratory for two years before being recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

She worked as a technical intelligence officer for seven years before being selected as a member of Nasa's 2009 astronaut class. Her time with the CIA included deployments to Iraq.

The Syracuse-born astronaut was to have flown to the space station in June

Dr Epps will be replaced by Serena Auñón-Chancellor, who has worked with space station crew members in Russia

In an interview with Elle magazine last year, Dr Epps said: "I get very excited when I think about being up in space, partly because I compare it to going into a war zone.

"Both are very dangerous but, for me, it's a no-brainer: I would rather face the dangers in space than go back to a war zone."

She added: "When people come back from space, I see how much they want to go again."

Dr Epps was due to launch to the orbiting outpost from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, along with the German European Space Agency (Esa) astronaut Alexander Gerst and the flight's commander, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Prokopev.

Nasa offered no reason for the decision to remove her from the Expedition 56/57 mission. In a statement, they said she would "return to Nasa's Johnson Space Center in Houston to assume duties in the Astronaut Office".

Her replacement, Serena Auñón-Chancellor, is a medical doctor from Fort Collins, Colorado. Dr Auñón-Chancellor previously spent more than nine months in Russia supporting medical operations for space station crew members.

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How to link aadhaar card with PAN card

Now, Link Mobile SIM With Aadhaar Card From Home Via IVR System

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has issued directives for generating OTP either through the service provider's website or through the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) services to facilitate the Aadhaar linking with mobile number.

Have you linked your Aadhaar number with mobile SIM? Now, many telecom operators are offering a toll-free service - 14546 - for re-verification of your Aadhaar number on your mobile phone through an IVRS or Interactive Voice Response System. Mobile phone users can dial 14546 to link their Aadhaar number with the mobile number through IVRS-based OTP (One-Time PIN) verification. The UIDAI or Unique Identification Authority of India - the issuer of the 12-digit Aadhaar number - has issued directives for generating OTP either through the service provider's website or through the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) services to facilitate the Aadhaar linking with mobile phone number, the government has said on microblogging site Twitter.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had in a communication dated November 30, 2017 directed access service providers to allocate short code 14546 for the IVRS-based OTP authentication process for Aadhaar re-verification of mobile subscribers. March 31, 2018 is the deadline set by the Supreme Court for linking of Aadhaar with the mobile phone number.

The IVRS method of linking Aadhaar card number with mobile SIM is among the three options announced by the government in October last year.

The new IVR-based Aadhaar system will mobile phone subscribers link their SIM from sitting in their home. Earlier, they had to visit the store to get the linking done.

Many telecom operators have activated this service. Mobile phone users may check with their telecom operator for such a facility.

Here's how the IVRS-based Aadhaar authentication through helpline 14546 works:

Once you call the toll-free helpline 14546, the IVR system asks you whether you are an Indian citizen or an NRI. The caller is to provide response 1 in case of Indian citizen.

The caller is then asked to enter his or her 12-digit Aadhaar number.

The IVRS then repeats the number entered and asks the caller to confirm by pressing response 1.

After this step, an OTP or One-Time PIN is sent to the registered mobile number.

The IVR system asks the caller to give consent to the telecom operator to pick his or her name, photo and date of birth from the UIDAI database.

The caller is asked to enter the OTP in the next step.

The caller is asked to press 1 to complete the Aadhaar-mobile number re-verification process.

NRIs/OCIs are not eligible to enrol for Aadhaar and hence fully exempted from any Aadhaar verification of bank accounts/mobile SIM or other services, the UIDAI has said.

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