Technology

New Stealth Mode In WhatsApp

This year has been super busy for WhatsApp and an important one too — the messaging service is trying to bridge the gap between itself and competitor Telegram, gaining useful upgrades like the ability to send files up to 2GB in size, add up to 512 people in a group, and on the privacy front, last month saw the announcement of some new controls that allow users to hide their profile pictures and last seen from certain contacts. That’s a load of feature adds, but the Meta-owned app isn’t done yet and intends to add even more granular privacy controls with another new feature.

Steve Jobs Gets Medal Of Freedom

The co-founder and former CEO of tech giant Apple Steve Jobs will get the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously on July 7 at the White House by US President Joe Biden. Biden named 17 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the late tech honcho in one of them.

Relieve Pain Without Drugs

Researchers developed a new type of pain relief that involves wrapping a small strip of material around nerves to prevent them from sending pain signals to the brain. If this prototype passes all necessary safety and experimental tests, it could one day replace toxic opioids for patients suffering from chronic pain.

NASA Begins Return To Moon Mission

NASA’s CAPSTONE mission, which will chart a new orbit around the moon that will hopefully be used for a future crewed lunar space station, is underway after a successful launch on Tuesday morning. Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle delivered the CAPSTONE satellite, which is roughly the size of a large microwave oven, to Earth orbit for step one of its lunar journey.

First Images From James Webb Space Telescope

Very soon, humanity will get to view the deepest images of the universe that have ever been captured. In two weeks, the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) — NASA’s super expensive, super-powerful deep-space optical imager — will release its first full-color images, and agency officials today suggested that they could just be the beginning.

A Rocket Hit The Moon

You know you’re living in the space age when a rocket hits the moon, and the industry as a whole points to the sky and, like an angry teacher holding up a paper airplane, asks “Who launched this?!” Truly, that is what occurred this week as an unidentified rocket stage (!) impacted the lunar surface, forming a new and interesting crater and leaving us all wondering how it’s possible to not know what happened.

Antiviral Facemask That Kills Viruses

Traditional face masks, including N95s and KN95s, offer protection against illness and infection but must be disposed of once they come in contact with viruses, thus generating significant plastic waste. So now, researchers have developed a simple method that would give N95 face masks antiviral and antibacterial properties, which could allow them to be worn for longer durations.

MonkeyPox Is Evolving At An ‘Accelerated’ Rate

Researchers investigating the genetic make-up of the MonkeyPox virus have said the virus appears to have mutated far, far more than would normally be expected and has undergone a period of “accelerated evolution”. So far 50 new mutations of the MonkeyPox Virus have been found.

China Launches 4 Satellites With 2 Rockets In 2 Days

With Space X mission of launching rockets more than 60 times in 2022 and conducting three launches within 36 hours span last week, China is also continuing its quest to carry out more than 50 orbital launches this year with a pair of missions lifting off within just over 24 hours of each other.

Jupiter Is Eating Other Planets, Say, Scientists

They don’t call Jupiter “King of Planets” for nothing. It’s massive, really heavy, and now scientists think it ate chunks of other planets to get as big as it is.
That’s right, the gas giant named after Greek and Roman gods is thought to have absorbed a series of small “planetesimals” en route to claiming its place as the biggest planet in the solar system.

Alexa Speaking In The Voice Of A Dead Relative

At Amazon’s Re: Mars conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday, the company demonstrated a feature that enables its Alexa voice assistant to emulate any voice. The feature, which is still in development, could be used to replicate a family member’s voice, even after they’ve died.