Suvastu Tech

Watching the two little lion cubs boisterously play with each other at a conservation centre outside of South Africa's capital Pretoria, it's hard to see anything out of the ordinary. But these cubs are unique. "These are the first ever lion cubs to be born by means of artificial insemination - the first such pair anywhere in the world," announced the University of Pretoria, whose scientists are researching the reproductive system of female African lions. The two cubs, a male and female, born on August 25 are healthy and normal, said Andre Ganswindt, the director of the University of Pretoria's mammal research institute. His team's breakthrough came after 18 months of intensive trials. "We collected sperm from a healthy lion," Ganswindt told AFP. Then when the lioness' hormone levels were found to be viable, she was inseminated artificially. "And luckily it was successful," said Ganswindt, adding tha...

PARIS: Facebook is at the centre of controversy yet again after admitting that up to 50 million accounts were breached by hackers. Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said engineers discovered the breach on Tuesday, and patched it on Thursday night. "We don’t know if any accounts were actually misused," Zuckerberg said. "We face constant attacks from people who want to take over accounts or steal information around the world." Facebook reset the 50 million breached accounts, meaning users will need to sign back in using passwords. It also reset "access tokens" for another 40 million accounts as a precautionary measure. Here is a roundup of the scandals dogging the social media giant. Cambridge Analytica  In Facebook’s telling, everything goes back to 2013 when Russian-American researcher Aleksandr Kogan creates a personality prediction test app, "thisisyourdigitallife", which is offered on the social network....

Workplace collaboration software firm Slack is actively preparing for a share offering in early 2019, which be the largest in the tech sector since Snap´s debut last year, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. Citing unnamed sources, the newspaper said Slack is aiming for an initial public offering (IPO) in the first half of the year that would value the California startup at well above the $7.1 billion it reached in its most recent funding round. The company declined to comment, with a spokesman saying "Slack does not comment on rumors or speculation." In August, the company raised $427 million to give it a valuation of some $7.1 billion, making it one of the most richly valued "unicorns," or startups with private funding worth at least $1 billion. Slack, which offers real-time messaging for the workplace, said in its announcement it has more than eight million daily active users and more than 70,000 "paid teams" that subscri...

SINGAPORE: An Indian game industry veteran has recounted his interaction with young Pakistani entrepreneurs at Google’s “Indie Games Accelerator” programme, saying he found them “polite, professional and absolutely driven”. Alok Kejriwal, CEO and Co-founder of Games2win, mentored a team of young Pakistani studio here in Singapore at Google’s Asia HQ during a session and was “honoured and surprised” by the “sweet” response from them. Alok Kejriwal, CEO and Co-founder of Games2win “Yesterday, the moment I sat down for my first mentoring session, I saw the Pakistan Flag. I was mentoring a team from Pakistan! The moment we looked at each, we burst into a smile and chatted in Hindi. (Their Hindi was so polished compared to my 'Mumbaiya' Hinglish). I came across folks that were so polite, professional and absolutely driven. They had an awesome game that IS destined to do well. I gave them my best...,” he stated in his LinkedIn post. The US tech giant ...

San Francisco: Facebook announced Friday that up to 50 million accounts were breached in a security flaw exploited by hackers. The large social network said it learned this week of the attack that allowed hackers to steal "access tokens," the equivalent of digital keys that enable them to access their accounts. "It´s clear that attackers exploited a vulnerability in Facebook´s code," vice president of product management Guy Rosen said in a blog post. "We´ve fixed the vulnerability and informed law enforcement." Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said engineers discovered the breach on Tuesday, and patched it on Thursday night. "We don´t know if any accounts were actually misused," Zuckerberg said. "This is a serious issue." As a precaution, Facebook is temporarily taking down the "view as" feature -- described as a privacy tool to let user see how their own profiles would look to othe...

WASHINGTON: Leading internet search engine Google will acknowledge that it has made "mistakes" on privacy issues in testimony an executive of the Alphabet Inc unit will deliver to a US Senate committee on Wednesday.  "We acknowledge that we have made mistakes in the past, from which we have learned, and improved our robust privacy program," Google chief privacy officer Keith Enright will say in written testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee. Google will testify alongside AT&T Inc, Amazon. com Inc, Apple Inc and other companies amid growing concerns about data privacy. Google's written testimony did not identify specific prior mistakes but the company has come under fire for privacy issues. In 2012, Google agreed to pay a then record $22.5 million civil penalty to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it misrepresented to Apple Safari Internet browser users that it would not place tracking "cookies" or serve t...

SAN FRANCISCO: Google unveiled changes Monday aimed at making the leading search engine more visual and intuitive to the point it can answer questions before being asked. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are core drivers of how Google will pursue its 20-year-old mission to organize the world´s information and make it accessible to anyone, search vice president Ben Gomes said at an event in San Francisco. The search engine focused strongly on mobile use and appeared to be growing more like Facebook, encouraging users to linger and explore topics, interests or stories with increasingly emphasis on photos and videos. Results will be increasingly personalized. "Search is not perfect, and we are under no illusions it is," Gomes said. "But, you have our commitment that we will make it better every day." He described the latest changes as shifting from answers to journeys, providing ways to target queries without knowing what words...