Nepal’s first robot waiter is ready for orders

“Please enjoy your meal,” says Nepal´s first robot waiter, Ginger, as she delivers a plate of steaming dumplings to a table of hungry customers.The poor Himalayan nation is better known for its soaring mountain peaks than technological prowess, but a group of self-taught young innovators are seeking to change that.Local start-up Paaila Technology built Ginger, a 1.5 metre (five-foot)...

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Facebook denies hiding Russian sabotage, but fires lobbying firm

WASHINGTON: Facebook on Thursday denied allegations in the New York Times that it tried to mislead the public about its knowledge of Russian misinformation ahead of the 2016 US presidential election, but severed links with a Republican consultancy.The Times detailed obfuscation by Facebook’s top bosses on the Russia front, said the company has at times smeared critics as anti-Semitic...

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Silicon eyed as way to boost electric car battery potential

The race to build a better electric car battery is turning to silicon, with several companies working to engineer types of the material that can boost driving range and cut production costs.About 500,000 electric vehicles (EVs) were sold globally in 2016, a figure that is expected to jump sevenfold by 2022, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.That increase...

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SpaceX gets nod to put 12,000 satellites in orbit

WASHINGTON: SpaceX got the green light this week from US authorities to put a constellation of nearly 12,000 satellites into orbit in order to boost cheap, wireless internet access by the 2020s.The SpaceX network would vastly multiply the number of satellites around Earth.Since the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik, was launched in 1957, humanity has sent just over 8,000...

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New space industry emerges: on-orbit servicing

WASHINGTON: Imagine an airport where thousands of planes, empty of fuel, are left abandoned on the tarmac. That is what has been happening for decades with satellites that circle the Earth.When satellites run out of fuel, they can no longer maintain their precise orbit, rendering them useless even if their hardware is still intact.“It’s literally throwing away hundreds of millions...

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