Peek, a new app developed by researchers at the School of Tropical Medicine in London, could help tens of millions of people suffering blindness and sight problems in the developing world, by allowing opticians to visit remote corners of the world and perform eye tests using only a smartphone, then sending the results back to a central hospital for analysis.
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the satellite Sputnik and, with it, an international space race. The United States and the Soviet Union rushed to declare dominance of space for 18 years, until the two countries agreed to a more collaborative model. The real winner? Science. Jeff Steers describes the history — and the benefits — of the space race.
February 1st 2003: A loud thunder is heard throughout east Texas. Shortly after the bang, debris scattered from Dallas to Louisiana and from the Space Shuttle Columbia. I was at a friend’s sleepover and I heard the boom. The Columbia explosion was one of the most terrifying events that I heard about as a kid, second to 9/11. There have been 14 deaths in the 50 years and 500 people that America has sent to space. Therefore, about 3% of Americans sent to space die in an accident. That percentage is still a little bit high before I would jump onto a space shuttle.
North Korea announced that their manufacture own mobile phone, based on the Android operating system. Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released new photos of leader Kim Jong Un examining the nation’s first smartphone on-site, at a factory.
South Korea has unveiled a 7.5 mile section of road which can wirelessly power buses driving along it. Using magnetic resonance, pickups on the bottom of the bus collect energy from cables under the road, allowing them to drive with far smaller batteries.
JAXA, the Japanese space agency, has launched a mini robot astronaut called Kirobo to the International Space Station. The robot is an advanced emotional simulator, designed to hold conversations and interactions with astronaut Koichi Wakata.