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Wednesday, April 22, 2026
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The Largest Telescope in the World Is Being Built in China

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The Largest Telescope in the World Is Being Built in China

Reportedly, 9,000 people are about to or in process of being relocated because the largest telescope in the world is being built in China. The scientists and authorities explain the necessities behind such a dire act where thousands of people are being forced to leave their homes for new ones. But it’s all for science and in order to create the perfect environment for what is meant to be one of the world’s most recent and largest telescope up to this date.

The radio telescope in question is being constructed in the Guizhou Province that was dubbed Five Hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) last year when the Guizhou Provincial Committee secretary-general approved its construction. Beyond the fact that FAST is an amazingly large construction itself, the engineers who designed it said that it is made in such a way that it requires a sound electromagnetic wave environment in order to return proper results.

In that sense, Li Yuecheng, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference secretary-general in Guizhou Province said that things such as radio waves produced by house appliances and electronic devices such as cell phones, microwave ovens and many others could actually lead to a large amount of interference of the telescope’s good functioning.

So the approximately 9,000 individuals living on a 5 kilometer radius from the site of this massive scientific project have no choice but to leave and find somewhere else to live. The officials have said that they have made 4 different settlement locations available for the ones affected in two different counties – Pingtang and Luodian. The families living near the scientific site will still have until September this year to relocate as that is when the Five hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope is expected to be completed and be put to action.

This year will mark the end of a more than 5 years long construction which only commenced after 17 more years of searching for a large enough natural depression optimal for the construction of this telescope dish. Once it is completed, the FAST telescope will officially become the largest of its kind, 200 meters wider in diameter than the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, which is currently holding the world record.

Once it becomes functional, the FAST telescope will be capable of detecting much fainter radio waves across the galaxy, as well as sensing much further away than previously, scientists say. Even radio waves coming from distant pulsars and even other galaxies could be picked up by it, not ruling out the chance of detecting signals from other intelligent forms of life.

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Microsoft Translator Now Includes Text Recognition from Images

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Microsoft Translator Now Includes Text Recognition from Images

Similarly to how Google did with its own Google Translate mobile app, Microsoft Translator now includes text recognition from images too, along with its previous methods. So now you can also easily translate signs and entire chunks of text you can see by taking a photo of them and letting Microsoft Translator do the job. This completes the series of methods you can use in order to find your way around foreign countries, airports and whatnot, in addition to typing text or voice recognition.

This is a change that has only been made on the iOS version of Microsoft Translator so far, and currently only has support for 11 languages: English, Simplified Chinese, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Vietnamese. This takes the Microsoft Translator app up to par with its direct competitor, Google Translate by making it possible to easily read content on signs, menus, flyers and so on.

Even though the two services are almost identical right now, they still differ the smallest amount. For the time being, at least, it would seem that Microsoft doesn’t yet support instant image translation, by making use of an overlay translation as soon as you point your camera at something. On top of that, the app requires you to manually download different free translation packs for particular languages.

So in case you’re planning to go in a particular country where you expect Microsoft Translator to be able to do all the heavy lifting of translation for you, make sure you have the right packages installed before you leave. It’s also great to know that the image translation service can be used offline, so you don’t even need to worry about the aspect of Wi-Fi connectivity.

Considering you can use it with iPhone and iPod Touch devices running iOS 8.0 or over, and even includes the Apple Watch in its midst of compatible devices, even if at the moment the last of the three doesn’t include a camera on it, there’s a large growing curve for the app’s mere usefulness.

On top of the newest image translation addition, the Microsoft Translator app does a fairly consistent job of translating real life conversations, on the spot. However, the voice translation feature is not supported in offline mode, meaning you will have to have a stable internet connection or mobile data turned on in order to be capable of making use of it.

It hasn’t been announced when the new features will be making their way on to Android platform as well, but Microsoft stated that they want all versions of the Translator to offer the same package of services, regardless of platform used.

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The Conclusion of the iPhone 6 Error 53

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The Conclusion of the iPhone 6 Error 53

An issue that has been plaguing a portion of the iPhone users for nearly 2 weeks now has finally come to an end, it would seem, as this is the conclusion of the iPhone 6 error 53. It would appear that after major consumer complaints and even threats of lawsuits that could have ended costing Apple hundreds of millions, the company came up with a fix that was pushed through a bug fix patch just today.

The infamous Error 53 is the reason thousands of users were left without a phone over the last two weeks after they attempted updating their systems to the latest iOS 9.3 patch. The reason? The firmware update that came with it would detect if any third-party service center repairs had been done to the phone, and brick it if the response was positive.

This left a great number of individuals without a functional phone, with no fix to it and the only prospect being purchasing a new device altogether, with no method of accessing the data of your previous phone unless you had a recent backup of it saved on your computer. Now, two weeks into the problem, user uproar and threats of lawsuits, Apple has come forward with a way to fix the devices that ended up being bricked by error 53.

The fix comes packed in the update known as iOS 9.2.1 and it will stop phones from being affected. This came along with an official apology from Apple and urged the ones affected to get in touch with Apple Support. It also came along a clear explanation of what made error 53 appear all of a sudden and affect so many units.

Apparently, along with the firmware update came a new method of amplifying the levels of security found in the phone. Considering that the Touch ID sensor is the way one can access some of the most private and sensitive features of your iPhone, whenever the system detected that it had been tampered with (and to be more exact, whenever someone went into a third party service center to get a home button or their screen fixed) and instantly shut down to prevent personal data breach.

Now, the ones affected can revive their bricked phones by plugging them in their computers and updating the system via iTunes. However, the patch also prevents the fingerprint reader from working for the time being, seeing that Apple says the error 53 incident was a factory test that accidentally was let slip past the confines of the company.

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Ads Are Making Their Way to Facebook Messenger App

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Ads Are Making Their Way to Facebook Messenger App

If you thought the messaging lightweight application was your way to escape the ads on social platforms, you were right; ads are making their way to Facebook Messenger app, but not in the way you expect. Luckily, the way the messenger application looks and loads remains the same, allowing users to be able to chat in a low-memory consumption and fast loading manner.

However, it would appear that starting Q2 of 2016, the Messenger app will allow advertisements to come in the form of messages. As harrowing as that sounds, you shouldn’t despair thinking that your inbox will get flooded by all the weight loss and kitchen appliances ads on a daily basis.

Apparently, the way it will work is that businesses will be able to send advertisements as messages to users who have contacted a particular company. Think of it like businesses being allowed to ‘text’ you first, only after you texted them.

This will be able to be done by the user opening a message thread with a particular company, which will remain open as long as the user wishes for it. In that window, whenever the company has a new advertisement or piece of news, it will simply display it in the thread. Think of it as a replacement for newsletters; the kind that fills up your e-mail’s inbox and makes you wish there was a better, lighter way of handing it.

Well, there you have it, by allowing companies to ‘contact’ you in such a manner, without allowing them to feel invasive or overwhelming and sluggish, Facebook may have just found a way to make the entire concept a lot more acceptable for both the user and the businesses who want to advertise themselves to potential consumers. The only difference is that it only allows companies to advertise to already loyal public, but doesn’t give them a method of attracting new customers.

This was a very insightful and inspired move on behalf of Facebook. The company only recently released statistics pointing at Facebook Messenger as being one of the most used apps on the mobile platform. Just recently, it was reported of having 800 million monthly active users, which scores many more visits than the basic Facebook app. Using it as a platform that allows advertising was a clever method employed by the company in order to start monetizing Facebook Messenger.

The kind of ads that you should expect to see once the change hits our smartphones is news regarding product launches, flash sales, free gifts, promotions, videos, photos or posts of the business, follow-up reminders on availability and costs and so on.

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Ordnance Survey Completed a Digital Map of Mars

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Ordnance Survey Completed a Digital Map of Mars

A first of its kind project of the ones involved, Ordnance Survey completed a digital map of Mars. Ordnance Survey is an organization actually in charge of mapping Britain’s ways that took the chance of doing something that had not been done before – at least not at this scale.

But the project was not without a grand purpose in mind: it was done for the scientist currently planning the landings of the ExoMars rover, planned for 2018 by the European Space Agency. While it is only the first of many, this mapping of the Red Planet will surely guide and assist the planned human navigation of the planet whenever that occurs, in the next few decades.

The map was rendered with the help of pictures taken by NASA along the last few years and made available to the public, but it is far from complete. While Mars is only about half of planet Earth in diameter, the map that was made by the Ordnance Survey only covers a surface roughly the size of the United States, which makes up about 7 percent of the total surface of planet Mars and translates into 3.7 million square miles.

The map, as it was rendered by the cartographers on the project, is highly detailed in geographic contours, displaying a very accurate representation of all the landmarks present on the surface of Mars. You can spot impact craters, landing sites and the different terrain characteristics that make up the surface of the red planet.

The cartographers that have been working on the map of Mars commented on what it was like to create the representation of a planet so different than our own. Chris Wesson discussed how even though the principles behind creating both are pretty much the same, the aesthetics and the process of it all are very different. It took a large amount of effort to map the US-sized representation of Mars’ surface as the terrain is particularly uneven and the cartographers needed multiple ‘shots’ of the same locations in order to reveal an accurate representation of Mars’ landscapes.

The map is hoped to be suitable enough in order to be used for the future Mars missions that space agencies hope to achieve by the year 2030, the next greatest step humans will take in our solar system.

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The Remedy to Urban Beliefs of Robot Uprising

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The Remedy to Urban Beliefs of Robot Uprising

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology say they may have figured out the remedy to urban beliefs of robot uprising. Possibly one of the most popular themes in science fiction works and the like, the idea that robots created by mankind would one day become sentient and turn against their creators is an idea that strikes fear in many.

Now, this hasn’t so far been a real issue as the robots created up to this point in time are still far from becoming sentient and capable of getting at the level where they would make decisions of the likes found in Sci-Fi novels by themselves. However, it’s very well known that artificial intelligence is the focus of many tech giant companies out there, with some of them currently having entire departments focusing their finances and man force in order to develop AI’s known capabilities.

The methods that these companies apply is by devising systems that are capable or learning through experience. Anyone has, at one point, come in contact with system learning how to ‘behave’ according to the profile of the one using them is displaying. The simplest example would be the way Google searches work these days.

By gathering data about the kind of websites you visit, the things you post, the things you normally look up, what you type, what you watch and what you listen to, Google now makes it easier to find personalized results for you based on what it has learned about the user.

That’s the basic idea behind robot ‘psychology’ too. By exposing robots to multiple fields that they can draw their knowledge from, their prediction system would – in time – allow them to achieve outstanding levels of artificial intelligence.

However, this takes us to the main point that the scientists at Georgia Institute of Technology are trying to make; researchers and great scientific minds alike believe that a robot uprising is not out of the question when the robots will reach a certain level of understanding.

Which is why researchers have also tried to think of a method to prevent that from happening, even if we’re possibly a few decades early. They believe that by delivering good moral messages to robots, they may learn to peacefully live with humans. The first idea that the scientists thought of were actually fairy tales – a very simple method of teaching robots the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, similarly to how adults do with their children.

That way, robots may be able to adopt the values of the human society as it is nowadays.

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Hubble Space Telescope Detected the Composition of Super Earth Atmosphere

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Hubble Space Telescope Detected the Composition of Super Earth Atmosphere

The mere capabilities of space observation tools these days has become truly outstanding as proved recently – the Hubble Space Telescope detected the composition of super earth atmosphere. The telescope studied a particular super earth known as 55 Cancri e, also called Janssen.

55 Cancri e is an extrasolar planet that orbits Copernicus, a G-type star 41 light years away from the Earth. In terms of astronomic distances, this counts as close to our own solar system, but still unfeasibly far away from human or probe travel at the current time. 55 Cancri e is called a super earth because It is larger than our very own Earth, but its mass remains smaller than the ones found on gas giants in a solar system.

Which is what makes the fact that the Hubble Space Telescope was able to not just spot it, but also thoroughly study it and the composition of its atmosphere. 55 Cancri e is a planet that lies very close to its sun, resulting in a temperature that goes up to 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit (2,000 degrees Celsius).

By applying a new method of observation and analysis, the Hubble Spacce Telescope was able to look closely at what the atmosphere of this planet is like, in hopes of understanding and expanding the knowledge we have on super earths across the Milky Way. This is an important study as it’s believed that super earths are the most often found type of planet in our galaxy. Now that a characterization of this type of planet has been made, researchers can understand better what they should be looking for when studying other planets.

55 Cancri e is a very exotic example of a super earth regardless, and most likely one of the most inhospitable scenarios to begin with. Because it’s orbiting so close to its host star, it completes one orbit every 18 hours. Scientists have detected that its atmosphere is mostly comprised of hydrogen and helium, extremely dry with no indications of any water vapors. Although it was originally believed that 55 Cancri e had an interior heavily consisting of carbon, gaining the title of a possible ‘diamond planet’. After the most recent studies, however, it was detected that the core may not be as carbon-rich as previously thought, but instead the atmosphere proved to contain hydrogen cyanide instead.

Given these discoveries as they were made thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists can now understand the way the planet evolved and they took the chance to express the surprise at seeing at how much of its primordial gas atmosphere the 55 Cancri e super earth has retained.

Researchers will certainly continue to apply this new analysis technique on other smaller, cooler planets that the telescope can pick up on in search for more knowledge of alien planets.

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One Day Remaining Until Apple Pay Is Released in China

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One Day Remaining Until Apple Pay Is Released in China

The much expected launch of the service is nearly here as there is only one day remaining until Apple Pay is released in China. What that means is that points of sale supported by several banks in China will start working via near field communication contact too, enabling individuals to pay with their iPhones only, after they’ve loaded their cards’ information in their smartphones.

This movement is the mere attempt of Apple to make NFC payments a more popular method than paying with cash or swiping your card. Considering that its release of Apple Pay in the United States nearly a year and a half ago was rewarded with only mild success, but far from the amount of adoption that the company was expecting, it would seem that the tech giant is now preferring to look towards a country such as China.

The reason is the fact that China is officially the second biggest market for Apple and its services were also approved and supported by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. This is the factor that may make the difference when it comes to China – part of the reason Apple Pay was not as successful when it tried expanding its services into United Kingdom and Australia was the major banks’ reticence towards the service. They took a while to start accepting the Apple Pay system and support it in stores, so the service too had a slow evolution.

However, while Apple is receiving a huge amount of support for their payment service in China doesn’t make it easy for the company to breakthrough and establish themselves as a wildly popular alternative. They are currently up against 2 other already very popular payment systems: Tencent’s WeChat Payment and Alipay. It’s not known whether Apple Pay’s ‘attraction points’ have what it takes to steer public away from already well established services to themselves.

There are currently 19 Chinese banks that will support Apple Pay on launch in total, counting ICBC, China Construction Bank and China Guangfa Bank in their midst.

There are currently over 358 million Chinese individuals who make use of online mobile payments in China alone and Apple hopes to gain at least a portion of the market by allowing payment via iPhones, iPads and even Apple Watches. However, the company is not only treading in unknown waters, but also waters that their direct competitors have a lot more knowledge and experience in.

Samsung is planning to brings its own version of the payment service, Samsung Pay, to China later this year as well.

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Sony Denies the PlayStation VR Release Rumor

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Sony Denies the PlayStation VR Release Rumor

There has been a number of fabrications travelling around the internet following statements that were rashly made and now, Sony denies the PlayStation VR release rumor. To be more exact, Gamestop CEO Paul Raines said yesterday that the PlayStation VR headset would not be made available for purchase until Q3 of 2016, during the fall.

This statement created a bit of an uproar with the public as the original Sony announcement regarding the VR headset was suggesting that the device was going to be released during Q2 of 2016 instead. If what Paul Raines said was true, it would suggest a hefty delay to the launch.

It has only been a day since this happened and Sony has already made an official statement to clarify – more or less – the situation. The company simply said that the Gamestop CEO was simply speculating, as they had not previously released any other details on the launch date for the PlayStation VR headset. This may seem informative at first but instead, if you come to think about it, it’s barely saying anything.

Firstly, we still don’t seem to be receiving much news on the topic; Sony has yet to provide us with an exact launch date and instead preferred to remain with its original, ambiguous announcement that stated Q2. Secondly, Sony didn’t purposefully denied the allegations of Paul Raines, saying that his statement was wrong, but instead just lightly suggested that it was a speculation made by the Gamestop CEO.

The speculation, instead, isn’t that farfetched if you come to think about it from a corporation perspective. It is well known that Sony has put a huge amount of effort and made huge investments into developing the PlayStation VR headset, along with employing the help of several first party studios in order to develop various games and apps for the headset. This was all made in hopes that the release would go as well as possible by offering the public as many things as possible with the launch.

The public should maintain a skeptical attitude towards the entire ordeal as it’s not impossible for Sony to slightly delay the release in order to ensure the best customer experience there can be. The company may be waiting for some real experience with public reaction to VR devices as recent events may give producing companies a rough start.

Just thinking about the Oculus Rift pricing issues, it’s not impossible for PlayStation VR to take a little more time before it hits the shelves in order to make the launch event optimal: for both the company and the public.

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