In this new feature, TechCentral’s editors curate 10 of the most interesting technology pieces from around the Web they’ve read in the past week.
Microsoft Flight Simulator back from the grave
Microsoft Flight Simulator was one of the most popular simulator games of the 90s and early 2000s, until Microsoft closed the studio responsible for its development in 2009. The series made a brief return in 2012 with Microsoft Flight, although the title was critically panned and the studio was closed once more. Read more…
Cher Wang: HTC’s visionary tech founder returns
Cher Wang started HTC with the goal of putting powerful computers in consumers’ hands. Now the once-prosperous company is struggling. Can she bring it back to its former glory? Read more…
Samsung considers its counterattack
What goes up must come down. That principle seems to be coming true for Samsung Electronics, the world’s top cellphone maker, whose profit is falling in part because of pressure from its price-cutting rivals in China. Read more…
Spark Labs raises $4,9m to help engineers make their devices smart
A San Francisco start-up called Spark Labs has raised US$4,2m in new venture funding to help “makers,” from novices to experienced engineers, create smart devices using open-source technology. Read more…
Satya Nadella says changes are coming to Microsoft
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has written a company manifesto of sorts. His 3 100-word essay, distributed by e-mail to Microsoft employees on Thursday morning, is Nadella’s mission statement and a rallying cry for the staff. Although it contained few specifics, the essay appeared to lay the groundwork for significant changes to be announced this month. Read more…
Why Europeans don’t refrigerate their eggs
British supermarkets don’t refrigerate eggs. The breakfast food can be found hanging out between the canned vegetables and boxes of dry cake mix in the grocery store aisle with other traditionally nonperishable foods. Read more…
Why Google’s Waze is trading user data with local governments
In Rio de Janeiro, most eyes are on the final, nail-biting matches of the World Cup. Over in the command centre of the city’s department of transport, though, they’re on a different set of screens altogether. Planners there are watching the aggregated data feeds of thousands of smartphones being walked or driven around a city, thanks to two popular travel apps, Waze and Moovit. Read more…
This humanoid robot uses walking sticks to climb over rubble
Oussama Khatib and Shu-Yun Chung, two researchers at Stanford University, are working on a system to allow bipedal robots extra stability by giving them a pair of walking sticks. Unlike us weak humans, however, the robots will bend and twist in all sorts of ways to get across chasms or over large obstacles. Read more…
The ultra-simple app that lets anyone encrypt anything
Encryption is hard. When Edward Snowden wanted to communicate with journalist Glenn Greenwald via encrypted e-mail, Greenwald couldn’t figure out the venerable crypto program PGP even after Snowden made a 12-minute tutorial video. Nadim Kobeissi wants to bulldoze that steep learning curve. Read more…
Scientists develop material so dark that you can’t see it
A British company has produced a “strange, alien” material so black that it absorbs all but 0,035% of visual light, setting a new world record. To stare at the “super black” coating made of carbon nanotubes — each 10 000 times thinner than a human hair — is an odd experience. Read more…
AND THIS WEEK’S PICKS FROM TECHCENTRAL
M-Net to get hit shows as they air in US
Imagine being able to watch the latest hit shows on South African television just hours after they’ve been aired in the US. That’s what local pay-television viewers can now look forward to. Due to the growing threat posed by online piracy, M-Net, the pay-TV entertainment brand in the MultiChoice stable, has announced it will air the very latest American shows, sometimes barely an hour after they’ve been broadcast in the US. Read more…
Ex-UCS bosses eye new tech fund
Capital Eye Investments, the company that emerged out of what was left of JSE-listed UCS Group after Business Connexion acquired its services businesses four years ago, plans to launch a private equity fund to invest in start-ups and established technology businesses. Read more…
Steve Jobs was right: Flash must die
In another example of how good Steve Jobs was in picking technology losers and winners, in 2010 he listed all of the reasons why the world needed to move on from using Flash. At the time, Jobs was explaining why the iPhone and iPad would not support Flash but it is clear that if he could, he would have banned it from the desktop. Read more…
