India’s mega geostationary satellite GSAT-8 was spinning in an elliptical geo-synchronous transfer orbit early Saturday after an Ariane-V rocket successfully lifted it off the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana, said a top official of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).”The Rs.260-crore advanced communication satellite was injected into the transfer orbit 31 minutes after a textbook launch at 0208 IST and it started beaming signals to our …

Apple has overtaken Google as the world’s most valuable brand, ending a four-year reign by the internet search leader.The iPhone and iPad maker’s brand is now worth $153 billion (£93bn), almost half Apple’s market capitalisation, the annual BrandZ study of the world’s top 100 brands says. Apple’s portfolio of coveted consumer goods propelled it past Microsoft to become the world’s most valuable technology company last year, the Telegraph reports. …

It’s a phone, a laptop, a PC and recognises its owner by his fingerprint. Motorola’s ATRIX is being marketed as the world’s most powerful smartphone packed full of tech wizardry “any aspiring spy can be proud of”. The ATRIX smartphone can be plugged into a range of docks that convert it into a laptop, personal computer, media centre, or a sat-nav, the Daily Mail reports. It is the first smartphone to operate with fingerprint recognition to ensure …

State-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has built a supercomputer which is fastest in terms of peak performance of 220 teraflops (220 trillion floating point operations per second), the space agency said Monday. “The new graphic processing unit (GPU)-based supercomputer named ‘Saga-220′ at Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) in Thiruvananthpuram in Kerala will be used by our scientists to solve complex aerospace problems,” ISRO said …

India will launch five satellites by June, including one for advanced remote sensing and two for communications, say officials of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The first launch, scheduled for April 20, will be of Resourcesat-2, intended for study and management of natural resources and sending back pictures and other data, and two other satellites. India has the largest constellation of remote sensing satellites in the world providing …

A new laser device could make high-speed computing faster and more reliable, opening the door to a new age of the Internet. Professor Dennis Deppe at the University of Central Florida has created miniature laser diodes that emit more intense light than those currently used. The light emits a single wavelength, making it ideal for use in CD players, laser pointers and optical mice for computers, in addition to high-speed data transmission. Until …

Scientists have discovered four types of fungus in the Brazilian rainforest that can take control of ants. These “zombie fungi” alter the behaviour of the Carpenter ant and kill the insect in a spot where the fungus has ideal conditions for its spores. The fungi were found in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais and have been described in the journal “Plos ONE” by the team of scientists around David Hughes from Pennsylvania State University. The …

The world wide web has broadcast dire warnings about how the movement of the moon will trigger tidal waves and volcanic eruptions on March 19. The conspiracy theorists claim that on March 19, the moon will be closer to Earth than at any time since 1992, just 221,567 miles away, and that its gravitational pull will bring chaos on Earth. The tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands of people in Indonesia happened two weeks before such a ’supermoon’ …

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) proposes to launch the latest remote sensing satellite and two others in the second week of April, seeking to replace a crucial component in its fully-assembled launch vehicle by dismantling one section. ISRO will take apart its polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV) at the Sriharikota launch facility some 80 km from here to substitute the existing gas motor with an upgraded one, ISRO sources said. “We …

A laptop prototype has been unveiled with a device that allows a user to control the computer by sight.The eye-tracking technology monitors the user’s gaze and works out where they’re looking on the computer screen and means, among other things, that users can play a game where they defeat enemies because the game’s lasers hit where they look. It can also scroll text on the screen in response to eye movements, sensing when the reader has reached …