Announced Tuesday, the BlackBerry (BBRY, Tech30) Passport Silver Edition is an upgraded version of the BlackBerry Passport, released in late 2014.

The Silver Edition has a 4.5" square screen, 13 MP camera and the latest BlackBerry operating system -- the same as the original Passport. But a closer look tells you why this BlackBerry isn't going to make you yawn and move on.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based firm has been listening to its customers and implementing subtle but necessary changes.

"We strive to deliver products that combine cutting-edge technology with purposeful, globally recognized design, and the BlackBerry Passport Silver Edition is the latest manifestation of this vision," Scott Wenger, Global Head of Design at BlackBerry, said in the press release.

BlackBerry claims that the design improvements make communication easier.

"It brings together BlackBerry's latest OS platform, enhanced productivity features, and a refined industrial design based on customer and user feedback to deliver an unmatched experience for professionals who value precision and focus," Wenger said.

A new stainless steel body adds strength and durability. A textured back and rounded bottom edges that don't jab you when you type will go a long way with BlackBerry fans.

And if you feel as strongly about a physical keyboard as Kim Kardashian does, you're still in luck. The physical tap-tap-tap is here to stay. The trackpad capability across the improved keyboard is ideal for those who resent touchscreens.

Makers of this business-phone have made smart changes. With every enhancement, BlackBerry hit two birds with one stone: aesthetics and functionality.

The BlackBerry Passport Silver Edition is priced at only $50 more than its predecessor. It started retail in North America through ShopBlackBerry.com for $549. It will become available internationally in the coming weeks.

Customers who order the phone before 19th August may be eligible for $130 worth free bonus accessories too.

Newstac.com is a tech-based site that is dedicated to bringing you the latest technology news and updates around the globe with its exciting features and categories to choose from. Visit us at www.newstac.com

Manchester United are prepared to pay as much as £240m to land Barcelona superstar Neymar this summer, according to reports.

Louis van Gaal has made it no secret that he is determined to strengthen his strike-force, with United captain Wayne Rooney yet to get off the mark this season and Javier Hernandez the only other experienced option in attack.

Having seen little progress in their pursuit of Bayern Munich forward Thomas Muller, United are believed to have switched targets to Barcelona’s Neymar, and The Sun is reporting that officials at Old Trafford have approved a huge £240m to try and tempt the Catalan club to part ways with the Brazil international.

The report goes on to add that United will pay the £130m release clause in Neymar’s contract, though that fee will increase to a record-breaking £165m with tax add-ons that would smash the world’s most expensive transfer fee of the £86m that Real Madrid paid Tottenham two years ago for Gareth Bale.

Should Barcelona decide to cash in on Neymar, United are prepared to award him a five-year contract worth an incredible £75m, though the expectation is that Barcelona will reject any approach and will look to secure the 23-year-old to a new long-term contract.

The speculation comes after Barcelona president Josep Bartomeu announced that contract talks are in the pipeline, and that the player himself is very happy at the Nou Camp, having moved from Brazilian side Santos in 2013 for a reported £71.5m in total.

"Neymar feels great at Barca,” declared Bartomeu in an apparent warning shot to United.

“We’ll have renewal talks later. We want him to stay for years and even to retire here.”

United's executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward has come under fire from United fans after failing to bring in any attacking reinforcements despite the departures of Robin van Persie and Radamel Falcao.

United manager Van Gaal clearly sees summer acquisition Memphis Depay as an attacking midfielder, leaving Rooney to lead the line on his own and carry the burden of high expectations at the club. The failure to sign Pedro, who scored on his Chelsea debutafter electing to move to the London club instead, has only angered those fans more, but a move for a player of the caliber of Neymar would certainly go a long way to appeasing their concerns.

Newstac.com is a tech-based site that is dedicated to bringing you the latest technology news and updates around the globe with its exciting features and categories to choose from. Visit us at www.newstac.com

After five straight days of losses, Wall Street finally took a breather when buyers returned Tuesday.

The Dow jumped more than 200 points after China flooded its economy with more cheap money in a bid to calm markets and stabilize growth.

The move sent stocks in Europe sharply higher, and put an end to the dramatic wave of selling that has slammed the markets in recent days. The Dow plummeted an unprecedented 1,089 points at Monday's opening bell -- and closed the day down nearly 600 points -- due to deepening fears about China's economic slowdown and its crashing stock market.

Some sort of bounce was anticipated due to the enormous losses inflicted even though the American economy doesn't appear to be falling off a cliff. All three major U.S. equity indexes had plunged into correction territory -- their first 10% decline from recent highs since 2011.

China's central bank slashed interest rates , an emergency action aimed at calming financial markets and boosting economic growth by flooding the markets with cheap money.
"The lighter fluid on the flame was that China cut interest rates," said Mark Luschini, chief market strategist at Janney Capital Markets.

For now, investors around the world are cheering China's emergency actions in hopes they will at least stabilize conditions in Asia. European stocks surged 4% higher, while crude oil prices
bounced more than 3% to climb back near $40 a barrel.
The big gains underscore how much China matters to the global markets. China is the world's second-biggest economy and its explosive growth over the past two decades helped lift many other countries.

That's especially true for emerging markets like Brazil that rely on China's huge demand for its natural resources. That's why the turbulence in China's stock market has unnerved so many investors. The Shanghai Composite plunged another 7.6% on Tuesday in a selloff that occurred prior to the interest
rate cut. The bubble in Chinese stocks has burst, leaving the Shanghai index down a whopping 42% since June 12.

Many market veterans believe the damage done by the selloff in the U.S. was overdone considering the American economy doesn't appear to be tanking at this point. Unlike the market turmoil in 2008, the economy isn't on track for a recession.

Not only does the jobs market look healthy, but the housing industry continues to recover and cheap oil is creating a huge windfall for consumers at the pump . "We know that Mr. Market can be in a sour mood and completely disconnect with what's going on in the economy. I haven't seen any data to suggest the decline in the stock market was necessarily warranted," Luschini said.

Faith in the underlying economy helped carry consumer stocks like Best Buy, Netflix ( , Tech30 ) and Michael Kors sharply higher on Tuesday. Best Buy alone spiked 14% after reporting stronger profit growth than expected thanks in part to solid demand for big-screen TVs.

The Nasdaq outpaced the broader markets by soaring nearly 3% at one point. It's currently up 2%, and on track for its biggest gain since 2011. Big winners include Apple ( , Tech30 ), Facebook ( , Tech30 ) and Amazon ( , Tech30 ), all of which rallied more than 4%. The gains show how some investors are seizing on discounts created by the market turmoil. They're betting that corporate
profits won't collapse, meaning some U.S. stocks that have tanked recently may now look cheap. That would be a big change from recent months when even bullish investors acknowledged American stocks looked expensive compared with their peers overseas.

Of course, Tuesday's turnaround doesn't mean everything is back to normal in the global financial markets just because China cut interest rates. Volatility remains extremely elevated and more turbulence may lie ahead. Just look at CNNMoney's Fear & Greed Index . Despite the
rebound in stocks, this gauge is currently flashing "extreme fear." "It's tempting to say we got the correction and it's over now. I see this as a new environment of volatility, meaning big down moves and big up moves," said Jeff Kleintop, chief global investment strategist at Charles Schwab.

Watch out for more dramatic market moves as new clues emerge about whether the financial turmoil causes the Federal Reserve to delay its plans to raise interest rates in September until later in
the year or even 2016.

Newstac.com is a tech-based site that is dedicated to bringing you the latest technology news and updates around the globe with its exciting features and categories to choose from. Visit us at newstac.com

Nakamura was always the smartest kid in the room.

By the time the Japanese-born American reached the ripe old age of 10, he was anointed the title of chess master. Five years later, he became the youngest grandmaster since the legendary Bobby Fischer.

Now 27, Nakamura is the world No. 3 gearing up to face the rest of the top 10 in the $1 million purse Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis, Missouri.

CNN caught up with the speed-chess expert on his mind-set leading into the tournament's opening move on Saturday, where he expanded on everything from Garry Kasparov to the stock market to sake:

How old were you when you won your first tournament?

I was seven years old.

Did you play high school chess?

No I didn't play high school chess, because by that time I was already being home schooled. So I was competing in individual tournaments all over the world.

At what age were you pulled from the traditional classroom?

At nine years old, after fourth grade. Primarily it was to give me the opportunity to compete abroad because if I stayed in regular school I would not have been able to get the excused absences to compete in enough events to progress my career.

For example one tournament is roughly nine rounds, and most of them were serious enough that it was one round per day, so if you average that out, that's nine days potentially. You can do that once or twice during the school year, but beyond that it's just not going to work.

Any idea you'd go on to be a chess champion at that point?

I think (my parents) had some inclination that I might become a top chess player -- I was already one of the top junior players in America -- but to go from a strong junior player to world champion caliber, you really can't know that ahead of time.

They perhaps had some dreams or thoughts, but I don't think they really thought it was likely. I think they just wanted to see how far it could go.

At what age did the corner start to turn?

I think when I was 15-years-old, when I broke the record for the youngest American grandmaster. Bobby Fischer previously held the record (Nakamura was three months younger; it has been broken twice since.) Once I broke the record, I knew I would have some chances to go quite far. Visit newstac .com to get the full gist.

Newstac.com is a tech-based site that is dedicated to bringing you the latest technology news and updates around the globe with its exciting features and categories to choose from. Visit us at newstac.com

Acura clearly wants to get this thing right. The original aluminum-intensive 1991 NSX was a stunner, a sunrise of engineering inspiration that chased away the darkness in the realm of sports cars and laid bare the multitude of sins being committed there. For the first time, a large automaker that took quality seriously had applied itself to a segment rampant with all manner of pop-riveted, glued-up, hammered-down, and wiggy-wired silliness. In the presence of the $60,000 NSX, the self-important air-puffed mediocrities of the eroti-car industry scurried for cover.

It didn’t last. Everybody else got better, with newer and faster cars, while the NSX mainly just got more expensive, chained as it was to the rapidly inflating yen. The final targa-topped NSXwent off the line in 2005, and hardly anybody noticed. Since then, Acura has launched, scrubbed, relaunched, rescrubbed, and re-relaunched projects intended to replace it. In the first two tries, the car got as far as a fully styled and drivable prototype, which in NASA parlance is 30 feet above the moon, before Acura aborted.

There was that coupe with the V-10 in its big schnoz screaming around the Nürburgring in 2008. Corporate canned it later that year, figuring out something that To­yota never did during development of the Lexus LFA: An interstellar unicorn that is seriously into six figures will do little for a brand that sells most of its vehicles for less than $50,000. The next attempt was a Porsche 911 fighter. It was a mid-transverse hybrid that plucked the parts bin for a version of Honda’s ubiquitous 3.5-liter V-6. Concept cars were shown, Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld made a Super Bowl ad for one of them, and a fully clothed prototype circled Mid-Ohio in August 2013 in front of thousands of IndyCar fans.

But even as NSX version 3.0 made its first glory laps, Acura had already decided to scrap major elements of the design. According to NSX project leader Ted Klaus—notably not a Japanese citizen, for this project is U.S.-based—it was in mid-2012 that “the performance targets were changed.” Meaning upped considerably, to confront an era in which Nissan GT-Rs have more than 500 horsepower and a Dodge Charger can make more than 700. According to Klaus, the transverse, single-cam 3.5 was maxed out trying to make just so-so power, which didn’t give the NSX any room to grow. So it was back to the CAD stations for changes.

Out went the shared 3.5 and in went an all-new, longitudinally mounted, dry-sump, twin-turbo, four-cam, 75-degree 3.5-liter V-6 with exactly nothing major in common with any other Honda production engine. Not even bore centers are shared. A new, nine-speed dual-clutch gearbox integrated with an electric motor drives the rear wheels and collaborates with two electric motors that power the front wheels. Total output is a secret, but plan on more than 550 horsepower. The NSX is back to stalking Ferraris again.

The upside of the engine swap is more power; the downsides are huge increases in cost and complexity, plus a decentralizing of the powertrain mass.

The car’s styling has also morphed, the changes including another radiator opening up front and much larger corner and side ducts, plus a couple of hood vents, all to service 10 separate cooling circuits with airflow. Undoubtedly, curb weight is up as well, probably to around 3700 pounds, though the final figure is still guarded.

Indeed, Acura is drip-dripping the details on this car, but we know that the 2016 “New Sports eXperience” is considerably wider than the original while sur­prisingly not much longer, given its new north-south powertrain. Its 103.5-inch wheelbase is just a 3.9-inch stretch from the 2005 NSX, while overall length grows by only 1.8 inches, providing a trunk roomy enough for a set of golf clubs. However, the spec Klaus is perhaps most proud of is the center of gravity, said to be more than an inch lower than the original NSX’s.

The new space-frame structure, joined by self-piercing rivets, flow-drill screws, welding, and lots of adhesive, is described as aluminum-intensive. That means there’s also high-strength steel in the superthin A-pillars (another point of pride for the NSX team) and a carbon-fiber floor panel. Acura uses a supposedly novel—also undisclosed—aluminum-casting technology for part of the rear subframe, providing ample stiffness with low weight. The hood and doors are aluminum while the fenders are SMC (sheet molding compound, a common form of fiberglass). Buyers have the option of an aluminum or carbon-fiber roof.

Acura describes the suspension as “­conventional multilinks” enhanced with magnetorheological self-adjusting dampers. Buyers can opt for carbon-ceramic brakes, though four-wheel steering has been left off, we’re told, in the interest of low mass. Continental Conti­­Sport­Contact 5P tires, sized 235/45 up front and 295/30 in back, will mount on 19- and 20-inch wheels, respectively.

In principle, the NSX operates like a Porsche 918 Spyder, able to drive electrically or on engine torque alone, though the first mode is mainly a gimmick. One big electric motor located at the front of the transaxle can power the car up to 50 mph for a few miles in a quiet mode. The lithium-ion battery pack behind the seats is too small to supply more. On the front axle, the “Twin Motor Unit” drives each wheel separately through planetary gearsets that allow the motors to provide torque-vectoring capability in concert with the brakes at the rear. Four driver-selectable modes—quiet, sport, sport-plus, and track—progressively ratchet up the car’s aggression level.

Lots of money and effort was flushed in the pursuit of what Klaus calls “a human-centered supercar,” but the end result, designed and built in Marysville, Ohio, will be a technical thunderclap destined to reach customers before the end of the year. This latest iteration, let’s call it version 3.5, shows who won the marketing struggle over where to drop the marker: the guys originally proposing the Amex Centurion NSX. The ’16 NSX will start around $150,000 and probably sell closer to $170,000 or $180,000 with options. An even hotter version (a Type R, perhaps?) will arrive later and perhaps break the $200,000 mark. Sitting right beside this new NSX in Acura showrooms will be the brand’s next-most-expensive car, the RLX sedan, with a current base price of $49,370.

Will Acura be able to put enough of these assuredly fabulous NSXs on the road to in any way help the brand’s sleepy image? That may be the next big challenge.

Newstac.com is a tech-based site that is dedicated to bringing you the latest technology news and updates around the globe with its exciting features and categories to choose from. Visit us at www.newstac.com

Thin design, great screen, gimmicky camera

At $399, which is roughly 81,000 naira, the Dell Venue 8 7000 isn't exactly cheap, but it mostly merits its flagship price. Thanks to a combination of a thin and beautiful design, excellent build quality, long battery life and a stunning screen, the Venue 8 earns its status as one of the best Android tablets you can buy. As the first tab with Intel's RealSense 3D camera setup, its unique photographic capabilities are a draw too, although some of the use cases feel more like gimmicks.

What would make this already-excellent tablet even better is better image quality to match its imaging tricks. Also, while having the world's thinnest tablet design is mostly a plus, some ill-thought-out design decisions mean your fingers will end up blocking the speaker and rear cameras more often than you might like.

These annoyances aside, it's an impressive device that shows Dell doesn't deserve anymore to be the butt of endless "Dude, you're getting a Dell" jokes; the once-stodgy PC maker has shown it can go head to head with the likes of Samsung, Sony and Apple. Even if the Venue 8 itself isn't perfect, it makes me excited to see what the company does next.

Newstac.com is a tech-based site that is dedicated to bringing you the latest technology news and updates around the globe with its exciting features and categories to choose from. Visit us at www.newstac.com

As the tablet market slows, mobile computing is gravitating toward devices that can convert from a tablet to a laptop and back again.

Apple CEO Tim Cook once compared a tablet-laptop combo to mashing up a refrigerator with a toaster. The resulting Frankenstein device would do an equally lousy job of chilling your food and warming it up. That was three years ago.

Today, these tablet-laptop hybrids -- which blend the mobility and touchscreen friendliness of a tablet with the capabilities of a PC -- are on track to becoming the fastest-growing computing category. Shipments of so-called 2-in-1 devices like Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 and the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro, for example, are expected to grow almost fivefold this year. That's thanks in part to attachable or foldable keyboards and more-powerful hardware, such as Intel's Core M microprocessors, that let slimmer, tabletlike devices hit speeds on par with midrange laptops.

And tablet sales? The market for large slabs of glass that are used mostly for playing games, reading email and watching videos has begun to slide. Sales of slate-style tablets are expected to fall 8 percent, according to a report from research firm Strategy Analytics. Sales in Apple's iPad business, meanwhile, fell 18 percent year over year in its most recent quarter, the sixth consecutive quarterly decline.

Consumers can't seem to get enough of devices that let them have, and do, it all.

"I feel like this took about three years," said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. "You now have very high quality 2-in-1s that are very thin, affordable -- and people haven't upgraded their notebook for a while."

Rumors are swirling that Apple this fall will introduce an even larger premium iPad, dubbed the iPad Pro, with a nearly 13-inch screen. That would pit the Pro directly against 2-in-1s and standard laptops.

Apple has already introduced features in its annual software update, called iOS 9, that will let its larger screen devices perform some of the heavy lifting of laptops, like running two apps side-by-side. The new version is scheduled for release sometime next month.

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A small percentage" of the phones sold between September and January have iSight cameras that take blurry shots. But if you got stuck, you can get a fix at no charge.

Does the camera on your iPhone 6 Plus turn out blurry photos? You may be able to get it replaced for free.

Apple said "a small percentage" of 6 Pluses have a faulty component that affects image quality, and that the company will replace the iSight camera on the back of those phones at no charge.

The devices in question were sold, for the most part, between September of last year and January 2015, Apple said. Affected customers can bring their device to an Apple store or to an authorized service provider (but not to their wireless provider).

The iPhone 6 Plus went on sale in late September, alongside a sister phone, the iPhone 6. The devices were seen by many as an answer to rival Samsung's successful larger-screened smartphones, and the answer seemed to be an effective one: By one measure the 6 Plus was the hottest selling "phablet" -- or large-screen phone/tablet -- device in the US during the first quarter of the year.

The 6 Plus -- along with the iPhone 6 -- has also been cited for its high-quality photo-taking skills. And with people increasingly eschewing dedicated digital cameras in favor of their smartphones to snap everyday pictures, Apple made photography the focal point of its "Shot on iPhone 6" campaign this year.

Apple's iPhone has become more vital than ever to the company's financial results. For the past couple of quarters, more than two-thirds of Apple's sales have come from the device. The company is expected to introduce the next version of the iPhone, the 6S, in early September.

Newstac.com is a tech-based site that is dedicated to bringing you the latest technology news and updates around the globe with its exciting features and categories to choose from. Visit us at newstac.com

For the first time since the Ebola outbreak was declared in Sierra Leone, the country has recorded zero new infections.

There were no new Ebola cases reported last week according to the WHO.

At the height of the outbreak Sierra Leone was reporting more than 500 new cases a week. Last week, for the first time since May last year, there were zero new cases.

But authorities are warning against complacency.

OB Sisay, Director of the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC), said: "This does not mean Sierra Leone is suddenly Ebola free.

"As long as we have one Ebola case we still have an epidemic. People should continue to take the public health measures... around hand-washing, temperature checks, enhanced screening."

In Sierra Leone currently:

two Ebola patients are still being treated81 people who have been in contact with infected patients are being monitored by authoritiesfour contacts are currently missing, according to the World Health Organization

Restrictions on public gatherings, travel and trade have been eased in the last couple of weeks. Nightclubs and theatres have re-opened and markets are allowed to stay open for longer.

"People are really happy," said OB Sisay.

"The jubilations haven't started yet because we are constantly on the radio saying it's not over yet, but people are extremely pleased that they are [starting to] see the end of this."

Officially though, the end of the outbreak will only be declared six weeks after the last Ebola patient either dies or tests negative for the virus. Whilst neighbouring Guinea continues to report a small number of cases, this final goal remains out of reach.

Guinea identified three new infections last week. Liberia has been on zero new cases since 23 July.

On Friday, President Ernest Bai Koroma lifted the quarantine on one of the last villages to be cordoned off to help stop the spread of the virus, marking the moment as the beginning of the end of the outbreak in Sierra Leone.

The World Health Organization said the use of rapid response teams and strong community involvement in tracing sick people and their close contacts is helping to finally bring an end to the outbreak.

It said the focus is now on tracking each and every chain of Ebola virus transmission, and closing them down as quickly as possible.

Tracking chains of transmission means finding every single person who has been in contact with someone infected with Ebola, monitoring them closely for 21 days and then quickly moving them to a treatment centre if they develop symptoms.

Dr Anders Nordstrom, WHO Representative in Sierra Leone said: "We have to keep doing this intensive working with communities to identify potential new cases early and to rapidly stop any Ebola virus transmission.

"It's important for Sierra Leone that we have come this far, but it's not over for the region until we are at zero for 42 days in all three countries."

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Apparently a gorilla is on the cusp of learning to talk. BBC Earth's Melissa Hogenboom looks at the evidence

In the gorilla world Koko is a bit of a celebrity. At least, to humans. She's known for her incredible sign language skills, learnt in her 40 years of living with humans.

She's a Western Lowland gorilla and started her training when she was one.
If you've read the headlines, you could be forgiven for thinking that Koko was in the process of mastering the ability to talk. "The most famous gorilla is showing signs of earth speech" – wrote one influential website. "She is showing signs that she may be able to learn to talk" a newspaper wrote. You get the idea.

But is this true, is Koko really showing any such ability?

Spoiler alert:

In short no. What Koko can in fact do, is manipulate her vocal chords to create an assortment of sounds. For example, she coughs on cue:

Well, I hear you say, that's not quite as exciting as a gorilla being able to talk. True, but it's still an interesting finding, one which - along with similar studies - is changing our idea of how speech evolved.

To understand why, I spoke with the man behind these new observations of Koko, Marcus Perlman of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, US.

He sifted through 71 hours of footage of Koko and started noticing some "amazing vocal repertoires". His intention was to look at her gestures, not her vocal abilities, so he was surprised by what he discovered.

As well as her fake coughes, she also fakes sneezes, blows "raspberries" with her tongue and was observed pretending to talk on the phone.

These behaviours all require her to control her vocalisation and breathing. The observations are published in the journal Animal Cognition.

There has been a longstanding idea that all non-human primates, such as great apes such as chimpanzees and gorillas, were unable to control their vocal sounds at all.

It was thought their grunts were just automatic response to stimuli. It was also not believed possible for apes to learn new vocalisations.

Because of that, the idea that "flexible vocal behaviour" was important to human speech was dismissed, says Perlman.

Instead, gestures were deemed more important and we have long known that apes can make distinct, meaningful gestures. The idea was that "maybe their gestures evolved into human language, and maybe the original language of our ancestors were more gesture-like," Perlman explains.

Koko, along with other studies, puts this idea to rest. For example, other research found that chimps changed the type of grunt they use to signal the word 'apple', to make it align with their new companions. This shows that their grunts are not only meaningful, but can change over time.

If apes have these vocal abilities, in addition to gestures, their flexible sounds may have been the framework on which our language capacity was built over the course of millions of years, says Perlman.

This all points to one thing: the fact that apes are able to manipulate their vocal sounds suggests our common ancestor did too.

It's like a backwards puzzle, all other early-humans have gone extinct, so we can only look at living apes to infer how our extinct ancestors may have developed language abilities.

Koko, we must remember, grew up in unique circumstances and was immersed in human interaction from birth. Her repertoire of meaningful gestures is therefore unusually large.

What do other researchers think?

Joseph Devlin from University College London's department of experimental psychology, in the UK, also studies the evolution of language.

It's funny that there is so much excitement over the gorilla that coughs, he says. Still, though it sounds banal, "there is something cool here".

"Speech is impossible without cognitive control of breathing. So grunts, chuffs and the noises that other primates make might just be emotional vocalisations that occur automatically without conscious control.

"The fact that Koko can blow her nose or fake a cough when asked to demonstrates that she exhibits conscious control of her breathing like we do."

Language has many aspects to it. Koko's gestures and grunts may seem mundane but they represent crucial manipulations, the ability of which is important in everday speech.

Language in its full form may be unique to humans, but every species has traits which make them unique. As Darwin said, we differ from our closest relatives in degree, not kind.

And I have written before, many traits which we once believed were unique to humans are found in the animal kingdom.

Devlin agrees.

"Perhaps what is unique to humans is that we may be the only species that has *all* of these abilities. But it is increasingly evidence that most, if not all, of the component abilities that make up language are also found in other species, and that’s pretty exciting."

Newstac.com is a tech-based site that is dedicated to bringing you the latest technology news and updates around the globe with its exciting features and categories to choose from. Visit us at www.newstac.com

You know the saying “lightning never strikes the same place twice”? Forget it. On a good night, one lake in Venezuela hosts thousands of lightning strikes every hour.

The phenomenon is known variously as the Beacon of Maracaibo, Catatumbo lightning or – cue dramatic roll of thunder - the “everlasting storm”. That last one might be a slight exaggeration but where the Catatumbo River meets Lake Maracaibo there is an average of 260 storm days per year.

Here the night sky is regularly illuminated for nine hours with thousands of flashes of naturally produced electricity.

Summer storms are familiar to many of us but along the equator, where temperatures are higher, skies rumble throughout the year. DR Congo in Central Africa is known as the thunderstorm capital of the world where the mountain village of Kifuka, with 158 lightning flashes per square kilometre each year, was thought to be the most electric place on Earth. That was until more detailed data was analysed.

In 2014, official figures from NASA revealed that the Brahmaputra Valley of far eastern India had the highest monthly lightning flash ratebetween April and May when thunderous activity ushers in the annual monsoon.

But Venezuela’s Lake Maracaibo earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for “highest concentration of lightning” with 250 lightning flashes per square kilometre each year. The storms ease off in the dryer months of January and February and are most spectacular at the peak of the wet season around October. At this time of year, you can see an average of 28 lightning flashes each minute.

Experts have sought reasons for the area’s uniquely intense storms for decades. In the 1960s it was thought uranium deposits in the bedrock attracted more lightning strikes. More recently, scientists suggested the conductivity of the air above the lake was boosted by the abundance of methane from oil fields below.

Neither theory has been proved though, so for now this record-breaking light show is attributed to a potent combination of topography and wind patterns.

“A lot of the [lightning] hotspots are tied to features in the terrain - slopes of mountain ranges, curved coastlines, combinations of those,” explains Dr Daniel Cecil from the Global Hydrology and Climate Centre’s lightning team.

Newstac.com is a tech-based site that is dedicated to bringing you the latest technology news and updates around the globe with its exciting features and categories to choose from. Visit us at www.newstac.com

The world's most-used search engine is so powerful and national elections are so tight, that even a tiny tweak in Google's (GOOGL, Tech30) secret algorithm could swing the 2016 presidential election, according to Robert Epstein, senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology.

In an op-ed on Politico.com, Epstein said that he and a team of researchers studied behavior in undecided voters who had been exposed to rigged search results. By displaying results that shone a more favorable light on a particular candidate the researchers could shift opinion towards that favored candidate.

The study boosted a candidate's favorability rating by between 37% and 63% after just one 15-minute search session. The five double-blind, randomized studies included 4,500 undecided voters in the United States and India.

A Google spokeswoman said that the company's algorithm is designed to provide "relevant answers," and rigging them to favor one view over another "would undermine the people's trust in our results and company."

Epstein said Google's response was "meaningless."

"How does providing 'relevant answers' to election-related questions rule out the possibility of favoring one candidate over another in search rankings? Epstein wrote in his op-ed. "Google's statement seems far short of a blanket denial that it ever puts its finger on the scales."

The research suggested that swinging an election was "well within Google's control," considering that President Obama won the 2012 election by just 3.9% and the 2016 polling is similarly too close to call.

Though Epstein falls short of saying that Google would rig an election, he points to historical precedent suggesting that Google wouldn't be alone if it tried.

Epstein pointed to Western Union's attempt to swing the 1876 presidential election towards its favored candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes. The election was the closest in U.S. history, and Western Union used its telegraph network monopoly and exclusive carriage contract with the Associated Press to ensure that only positive stories about Hayes made it on the wire. Hayes ultimately won by a hair.

On average, Google adjusts its algorithm more than once a day. Epstein said it's possible that even if the Alphabet triumvirate of Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt didn't get directly involved in tipping the scales on an election, a rogue employee could tweak the code without the leaders' knowledge.

"Google could easily be flipping elections worldwide as you read this," Epstein said.

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A black man killed in a shooting by St. Louis police Wednesday died from a gunshot wound in the back, the city's police department said Friday, citing an autopsy.



Police have said that Mansur Ball-Bey, 18, pointed a gun at them before officers opened fire -- an account disputed by his family's attorney. Chief of Police Sam Dotson said that the wound's location doesn't confirm or disprove the officers' account that Ball-Bey pointed a gun, according to a report Friday by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

"Just because he was shot in the back doesn't mean he was running away," Dotson said, according to the Post-Dispatch. "It could be, and I'm not saying that it doesn't mean that. I just don't know yet."

Wednesday's shooting sparked demonstrations that night, with protesters throwing bricks and bottles at officers, and people setting a car on fire and burglarizing businesses, according to police.

Ball-Bey's death comes amid tense relations between police and some residents in St. Louis following last year's shooting death of black teenager Michael Brown by a white police officer in nearby Ferguson, Missouri. Brown's death sparked protests and reignited a national conversation about race and policing.

The two officers involved in Wednesday's shooting were placed on administrative leave, per police policy. The autopsy findings will be included in an investigative report to city and federal prosecutors, who will decide whether charges will be filed in the case, police said.

Police said officers were carrying out a search warrant in north St. Louis on Wednesday when two men ran out of the back of a house.

"Officers in the rear alley ordered them to stop and to drop the gun. As they ran, (Ball-Bey) turned and pointed the gun at the officers. There were two officers in the alley. Both officers fired," Dotson told reporters.

Ball-Bey, who police said did not fire a shot, was struck and pronounced dead at the scene near the intersection of Walton Avenue and Page Boulevard.

Police say they recovered the gun that they say Ball-Bey had.

An attorney for Ball-Bey's family, Jermaine Wooten, contends that the teen didn't have a gun, citing what he says were accounts from witnesses.

"Speaking with every witness on the scene, no one confirms he had the gun. Everyone said just the opposite -- he did not have a gun," Wooten said.

Wooten said he understood that DNA tests were being performed on the weapon that police say Ball-Bey had, but that results had not been returned by Friday morning.

The second person who ran from the house remains on the loose. Other people who had been in the house were taken into custody, the chief said.

Officers recovered three other guns, including one inside the raided home and two that were tossed over a fence as the suspects were running, according to Dotson. Three of the four recovered weapons were stolen, he said.

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"I think she's a super athlete in a weak division," Lesnar told ESPN, according to MMAFighting.com. "I really do. I think she is a man amongst women in the women's division, and I take my hat off to her. She's doing an excellent job at what she's doing."

Lesnar's not wrong, per se, as Rousey is in a completely different stratosphere than her contemporaries in the puddle-deep women's bantamweight division. Still, Lesnar shouldn't huck boulders in a glass house. The heavyweight division wasn't necessarily the beacon of depth during his brief reign on top, though it was much more established than the 135-pound weight class Rousey rules over.

"I'm not taking any talent away from her at all," Lesnar said. "But I think she's a super beast, a super freak in the women's division."

Rousey has run roughshod over her opponents since coming over to the UFC from Strikeforce in 2013, needing a mere 64 seconds to completely dismantle her last three opponents.

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Inspired by the world portrayed in post-apocalyptic movies” and apparently named for a Marvel comics villain, the Immortus is a one-off concept fromEVX Ventures, a collaboration between the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne and a group of Austalian engineers and solar-car racers.

Unlike the racecars built to compete in Australia’s annual World Solar Challenge, a 1,900mi desert road race from Darwin to Adelaide, the Immortus isn’t a sunshine-or-nothing car. In addition to 75 square feet of silicon photovoltaic cells on the roof, the car features a plug-in electric powertrain with a lithium-ion battery pack and pair of hub motors in the rear wheels.

As long and wide as a Mercedes-Benz S-Class Coupe, the Immortus – which offers interior space for two occupants and their hand luggage – isn’t small. But the company promises sports-car handling and brisk performance. The trip from zero to 62mph takes less than 7 seconds and the car will hum to a top speed of in excess of 90mph. On a sunny day, the Immortus – traveling at about 50mph – will cover more than 340 miles before requiring a plug-in recharge. At a constant 37mph, the car has “unlimited range” on solar power alone. It’s unlimited, of course, until nightfall, but the claim – for anything other than a one-trick solar racer – is pretty impressive nonetheless.

So why SEMA? EVX Ventures’ decision to unveil the Immortus in Vegas doubtless has more to do with its plans to commercialise aspects of the car as a hybrid-electric conversion kit for gasoline-powered cars and trucks. The company is saying nothing about production plans for the Immortus, but that may come when the car has its moment in the Las Vegas sun. The 2015 SEMA show kicks off on 3 November. Newstac

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A man has been jailed for raping a 13-year old girl, whom he bribed with money and a talking teddy bear.

Lawrence Fernandes, of Foundry Lane, Southampton, met the girl through an online chat room and travelled from Hampshire to Devon to meet her.

The 35-year-old was found guilty of two rapes and two counts of indecency that all took place 10 years ago.

Fernandes was jailed for six years at Exeter Crown Court by Recorder Mr Ignatius Hughes.

The court heard Fernandes raped her in a lane near her Teignmouth home the first time they met.

The church-going air cadet volunteer gave the vulnerable girl a novelty teddy bear in which he recorded his own voice telling her he loved her and asked her to listen to it every night before she went to sleep.

The abuse only ended when the girl confronted him in a public park in Teignmouth and shouted at him that he was a paedophile and to leave her alone.

Mr Hughes said: "You exploited her vulnerability to satisfy your paedophilic leanings.

"You acted with a degree of determination. You plied her with alcohol and gifts and there was a significant degree of planning."

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The first Project Ara hardware was due to be trialled in Puerto Rico this year, but according to reports gotten from BBC, it has been pushed back to at least 2016.

The trial will take place in a new location in the US, the Project Ara team said via a series of tweets. The team blamed "lots of iterations" in the design, which was first shown off in 2013, for the delay.

Project Ara is Google's intriguing attempt at creating a smartphone that comes in bits. Newstac gathers that certain components can be added or taken away without the need for intricate alterations to the phone. It would potentially mean smashed screens or worn batteries would be less costly to replace, as well as allowing others to create bespoke hardware for specific tasks.

Google had planned to offer around 20 to 30 different modules for the Puerto Rico trial. In a series of tweets, the team told followers that "#Project Ara isn't going anywhere", but said it had been set back by "Lots of iterations… more than we thought".

The first public demonstration of the technology, at Google's I/O developers conference in May, was well-received.
Writing on a forum for developers interested in working on Project Ara, San Francisco based designer Garrett Kinsman said he felt a "sense of overwhelming sadness" at the delay. All we can do it wait until 2016.

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If you have put up your phone number on your Facebook profile, then your personal data is very much at risk.

'Reza Moaiandin', the technical director of Salt.agency, has discovered a flaw in Facebook wherein an attacker will be able to decrypt personal details simply by putting in a phone number in the search bar.

Mr. Moainandin created a coding script that generated every possible phone number combinations in UK, US and Canada. These numbers were sent to Facebook’s app-building program and he was able to gain a number of personal details of people with a Facebook account.

In a statement made to the Daily Mail, Mr. Moaiandin said, “With this security loophole, a person with the right knowledge can harvest the non-private details of the users who allow public access to their phone numbers, enabling the harvester to then use or sell on the user details for purposes that the user may not be happy with.” He also said that he had contacted Facebook with this information, but they had emailed him back saying, “We do not consider it a security vulnerability but we do have controls in place to monitor and mitigate abuse.”

However, the data that was gathered was only those which the users had made public. This has underlined the need for users to be more aware about Facebook’s privacy settings. In the 'About Me' section, they can select which groups can see personal details such as birthdates, relationship statuses, address, and phone numbers.

This comes just a few days after Facebook terminated the internship of an Indian-origin Harvard student, 'Aran Khanna', after he exposed flaws in the service. According to Mr. Khanna, “My Facebook internship was cancelled after I developed an app that pointed out the privacy flaws in the popular social media’s messenger service.” According to Facebook, his app violated the user agreement by “scraping” the website.

Regardless, Facebook’s 1.44 billion users are advised to change their privacy setting as soon as possible so as to ensure that their data is protected. They should also be a lot more careful when allowing any third party app access to their Facebook account. Especially considering this isn't the first time Facebook has been criticised for its privacy settings.

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Manchester City Disgraced Chelsea to send out another emphatic message that they want to regain the Premier League title as they embark on yet another 3-0 victory.

On this form they will be unstoppable with Chelsea struggling to stay in the contest. Captain John Terry was subbed at half-time, the first time he has ever been taken off by Jose Mourinho, and Chelsea desperately look in need of reinforcements with an ageing defence and mis-firing attack which did not come.

City scored three but could have doubled that scoreline such was their complete supremacy as Mourinho was powerless to stop them. It ended a desperate week for Chelsea following the row over Mourinho’s treatment of Dr Eva Carneiro and physio Jon Fearn.

Sergio Aguero could have scored four in the first-half, inside the opening 22 minutes , before he struck. The goal was superbly constructed and taken with David Silva crossing low, just after half an hour, to pick out Aguero who instantly played the ball short to Yaya Toure. It was chested back to Aguero who sharply turned Gary Cahill, not for the first time, and then calmly passed the ball into the net as John Terry lunged across to block.

Finally Aguero had beaten Asmir Begovic who was making his first start for Chelsea, replacing the suspended Thibaut Courtois. Three times Begovic had denied Aguero before the goal. After just 20 seconds the Argentinean had been sent clear by Silva, who else, and lost Cahill before Begovic saved his low shot with his legs. Jesus Navas eventually drove the ball across goal and wide.

As they treated Cahill the game carried and Fernandinho caught Diego Costa on the head with his elbow. Costa stayed down, he also needed treatment and on ran City’s team as Chelsea’s were busy. Eventually Costa’s head was bandaged and he remained incensed, seeking out Fernandinho as the players walked down the tunnel at half-time with Chelsea’s assistant manager Rui Faria pulling him away. It looked set to continue.

Chelsea had been out-played and out-paced. Nemanja Matic had flashed a header over, Costa had claimed a penalty as he went over under Mangala’s challenge, the defender pulled his leg away, but that was it. They appeared under-cooked and raw and looked set to be overwhelmed.

Mourinho needed to shore it up somehow but had to replace Terry, bringing on Kurt Zouma at half-time. Was Terry injured? He took his place on the bench. If Mourinho was going to replace a central defender then Cahill to newstac had been more at fault but Chelsea were being undone by City’s pace.

Finally Chelsea found a foot-hold. After the ball had rebounded around their area before being hacked away close to goal they struck back with Ramires turning a cross into the net. The effort was ruled out for offside but at least there was now some pressure on the City goal.

Suddenly it was more of a contest. Chelsea were more aggressive, a bit quicker and were trading attacks with City. A chance came their way. Eden Hazard broke and fed the ball through to Costa who powered on, turned and rolled a pass to Hazard who had continued his run. His low shot was smartly blocked by Joe Hart and Mangala cleared. It was a wasted opportunity for Chelsea and was also their first shot on target.

Seventy minutes had elapsed. Chelsea paid the price. They fell further behind and it was a poor concession. Silva took a corner and there was Vincent Kompany proving too strong for Branislav Ivanovic who he easily out-muscled to direct his header across Begovic and into the far corner. Surely that was it.

But it was not the end of the scoring. City again broke at pace with Samir Nasri centering. The ball was cleared out to Ivanovic whose touch was lazy and was charged down by Silva. It fell to Fernandinho who arrowed a fierce first-time shot back across Begovic from the area’s edge. Three-nil and no more than City deserved. The champions were falling apart.

Costa hit the post, with a poked shot, in injury-time and then Hart blocked the follow-up but there was no way back.

Manchester City 3 Chelsea 0, this leaves newstac to wonder, Where Is Eden Harzard!!!

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Samsung isn't lagging behind as far as technology development is concerned as it unveils its 16 terabytes-big hard drive.

The Korean tech opressors this week introduced the PM1633a, what it calls the world's largest hard drive, according to Ars Technica UK and Golem.de.

The 2.5-inch solid state drive, targeted at the enterprise market, packs an impressive 15.36TB of storage. To put that in perspective, the largest hard drives made by Seagate and Western Digital top out at 8 to 10TB, Ars noted.

Ars' 'Sebastian Anthony explains: "The secret sauce behind Samsung's 16TB SSD is the company's new 256Gbit (32GB) NAND flash die; twice the capacity of 128Gbit NAND dies that were commercialized by various chip makers last year," Sebastian continues; "To reach such an astonishing density, Samsung has managed to cram 48 layers of 3-bits-per-cell (TLC) 3D V-NAND into a single die. This is up from 24 layers in 2013, and then 36 layers in 2014." http:///uHZ0zVXsu1
And the PM1633a? It uses between 480 and 500 of the new NAND flash chips. Samsung this week at the Flash Memory Summit in California showed off a server with 48 of the new SSDs installed for a total of 768TB.

Though, no word on pricing or availability details for the PM1633a has been revealed , don't expect this supreme storage to come cheap.

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Lol. Indeed. But that's the world we are leaving in. Speedy advancement in technology

BlackBerry has expanded its premium smartphone range in India with the launch of the Porsche Design P'9983 Graphite.

Priced at Rs. 99,990, possibly 306,969 naira, the new premium Qwerty smartphone will be available to buy in the coming days. The move to launch its new premium smartphone now appears to be an attempt by BlackBerry to tap the upcoming festival season in the country.

The new premium Qwerty smartphone is a variant of the Porsche Design P'9983 smartphone that was launched last year.

Initially launched in May, the BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9983 Graphite smartphone features "exclusive graphite-metallic coloured elements" while also sporting "hand-wrapped leather on the back door cover."

The new Porsche Design P'9983 Graphite smartphone is the fourth smartphone launched in collaboration between BlackBerry and Porsche Design, with the others being BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9983, BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9982, and BlackBerry Porsche P'9981. For more info on its specification and more visit - Newstac http:///1yMsdJcGuS

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Samsung wants to make these physical payment problems a thing of the past with Samsung Pay -- and it may have better luck than other companies trying to do the same. That's because Samsung Pay will work almost everywhere.

The South Korean electronics titan is launching its own pay-using-your-phone product later this month in Korea, and on September 28 in the United States.

Samsung Pay will work not only with tap-to-pay Near Field Communication readers, but also plain old magnetic stripe card readers.

Being able to work with both kinds of technologies means Samsung will have a leg up over Apple(AAPL, Tech30) Pay and Google's (GOOGL, Tech30) Android Pay, which only work with NFC -- a technology that's still not as widely used as traditional magnetic card readers.

In addition, the Samsung Pay app will create a barcode that can be scanned if the magnetic card reader function doesn't work.

What's also great about Samsung Pay is that it can be used for virtually any kind of credit, debit, and loyalty card -- including store-branded credit cards. You can add far more kinds of cards to the Samsung Pay app than you can with Apple Pay or other rivals.

People may finally have a reason to truly leave all of their cards at home.

Well, almost. One downside of the Samsung Pay feature is that it won't work at certain gas stations where you have to insert a card to make a payment. And, you'll only be able to use Samsung Pay if you have one of the company's newest devices like the Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, Edge+, or Note 5.

Payments are authorized through the phones' fingerprint reader, and actual credit card numbers are hidden from vendors.

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It's gruesomely fascinating and strangely beautiful, but is an ear on an arm art?

Stelarc, the award-winning Australian performance artist who has grown a third ear on his arm for art's sake, believes it is. And as he pursues further surgeries to install a Wi-Fi connected microphone that will allow people anywhere in the world to listen to what he hears, he hopes he can convince others of his vision.

"It's when art is surprising that it becomes interesting," Stelarc, told CNN. "Because it's generating that anxiety, that uncertainty and that ambivalence and reaction that makes the body re-examine the world."

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A bomb tore through a crowded vegetable market in Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 36 people and seemingly showing ISIS' brutality and reach once again, this time in Iraq's biggest city and capital.



The explosives were packed in a truck that detonated in the Souk Jameela neighborhood in the eastern part of Baghdad.

In addition to the 36 dead, Iraq's Interior Ministry reported 75 wounded from the blast.

The top U.N. official in Iraq , Gyorgy Busztin, gave a higher death toll of 45 people.

"These figures tragically are expected to rise," Busztin said in a news release. "I utterly condemn this heinous and cowardly attack, targeting innocent civilians, many children included, in a public marketplace."

A statement circulated online by ISIS supporters claimed responsibility for the blast in what they described as a "blessed operation" targeting Shiite militia and members of the Popular Mobilization Units in one of their strongholds in Baghdad's Sadr City area.

The Popular Mobilization Units, predominantly Shiite militias allied with the government, have been deployed alongside Iraqi forces to try to push back against ISIS, which consists of Sunni Muslim extremists.

Such attacks with large death tolls occur with sad regularity in and around Baghdad.

Earlier this week, a suicide car bomb killed 61 people in the city of Baquba, 40 miles (65 kilometers) north of Baghdad. ISIS, which has targeted areas not far from the Iraqi capital, claimed responsibility for the Baquba bombing. That blast hit a mostly ethnic Shiite area.

ISIS has also struck Shiite areas closer to Baghdad. Last month, a truck laden with explosives killed at least 120 people in an outdoor market in Khan Bani Saad, a town some 32 kilometers (20 miles) north of Baghdad.

U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby, who until recently had that same role at the Pentagon, said the Baghdad and other recent attacks "show once again the utter disregard (ISIS) has for innocent civilians, including women and children."

ISIS has employed this approach with success while taking over vast swaths of Iraq and neighboring Syria, saying its faith justifies large-scale killings, taking slaves and raping girls and older women who are "nonbelievers."

Busztin predicted this approach won't work.

"I have no doubt in my mind," he said, "the terrorists will fail."

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An 11-year-old girl denied an abortion after allegedly being raped by her stepfather has given birth to a healthy baby girl in Asunción, Paraguay, where a fierce debate is brewing over a law banning most abortions.

Thursday's birth was confirmed by Asunción Red Cross Director Mario Villalba.
In the mostly Catholic country, 684 girls between the ages of 10 and 14 gave birth last year. Most of the minors had been victims of sexual abuse, according to government figures. A Paraguayan law bans abortions except in cases where the pregnancy endangers the mother's life.

The baby was born by cesarean and weighed 3 kilograms (about 6.6 pounds). Villalba said the baby and her mother "are in good health condition." He also said doctors are monitoring them closely. They are expected to be released within three days if no complications arise.

The case shocked Paraguayans when it came to light in May. At the time the girl was 10 years old and 22 weeks pregnant. Authorities immediately arrested the girl's mother. The woman, who according to reports is 32 years old, was charged with child neglect and complicity.

Police arrested the girl's stepfather, identified as 42-year-old Gilberto Benitez Zárate.Benitez was charged with rape and abuse of a child. He denied the charges and demanded a DNA test to back up his claim.

The girl's mother was released on bond in June, but still faces charges. Once out of jail, she told CNN that she went to authorities asking for help in November 2013.

"I was the one who reported all of this, asking for justice to be done and hoping that something would be done, but prosecutors dismissed the case," she said in an exclusive interview with CNN en Español on June 25. "Otherwise, this would have never gotten to this point," the unidentified mother said.

Paraguayan Health Minister Antonio Barrios told CNN earlier that neighbors were the ones who had reported the abuse, and that the mother had denied accusations against her husband.

The pregnancy was discovered in late April when the mother took her daughter to the hospital after the girl complained of abdominal pain.

The mother wanted the girl to have an abortion. Human rights groups, especially Amnesty International, supported her position.

"The physical and psychological impact of forcing this young girl to continue with an unwanted pregnancy is tantamount to torture," Guadalupe Marengo, deputy director for the Americas at Amnesty International said then. "The Paraguayan authorities cannot sit idly by while this young rape survivor is forced to endure more agony and torment."

But Paraguayan authorities refused. Health minister Antonio Barrios said that, even in this case, an abortion would be a violation of Paraguayan law.

"We're totally against interrupting the pregnancy," Barrios said in May. "The girl is getting assistance permanently in a shelter and the pregnancy is progressing normally without a problem." There was no comment from the Paraguayan government Thursday regarding the birth.

Erika Guevara, Amnesty's Americas director, said Thursday that the fact that the girl did not die "does not excuse the human rights violations she suffered at the hands of the Paraguayan authorities, who decided to gamble with her health, life and integrity despite overwhelming evidence that this pregnancy was extremely risky and despite the fact that she was a rape victim and a child."

Paraguay has one of the strictest abortion laws in the world. It bans abortions except in cases where the pregnancy endangers the mother's life. In the case of the 11-year-old, doctors ruled that, in spite of her age, the pregnancy did not endanger her life. Violation of the law carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

According to a 2013 United Nations report, 2 million girls under age 14 give birth in developing countries every year, many of whom suffer resulting long-term or fatal health problems. It estimated that 70,000 adolescents die each year from complications from pregnancy or childbirth.

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Chagas disease is spread by the triatomine bug -- nicknamed "kissing bugs" -- which carries the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi. Over time, the parasite can chew through cardiac muscle and cause heart failure causing an estimated 11,000 deaths globally each year.

One rainy Friday morning in March 2015, Dr Laila Woc-Colburn saw two patients with neurocysticercosis (a parasitic infection of the brain) and one with Chagas disease, which is transmitted by insects nicknamed "kissing bugs." Having attended medical school in her native Guatemala, she was used to treating these kinds of diseases. But she was not in Guatemala any more -- this was Houston, Texas.

For half a day each week, one wing of the Smith Clinic's third floor in Houston is transformed into a tropical medicine clinic, treating all manner of infectious diseases for anyone who walks through the door. Since it opened in 2011, Woc-Colburn and her colleagues have treated everything from dengue and chikungunya to river blindness and cutaneous leishmaniasis. Their patients are not globetrotting travelers, bringing exotic diseases back home. The Smith Clinic is a safety net provider, the last resort for healthcare for people on low incomes and without insurance. Many of their patients haven't left the Houston area for years.

This suggests that what Woc-Colburn sees in the clinic may be just the leading edge of a gathering crisis. Diseases once associated with "elsewhere" are increasingly being found in the southern states of the USA. Infectious disease physician Peter Hotez was so concerned that he founded a school of tropical medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, well within the territory that Hotez argues is one of the world's ten hotspots for so-called neglected tropical diseases.

"While we were calling them neglected tropical diseases, the 'tropical' part is probably a misnomer," says Hotez. "Most of the world's neglected tropical diseases are in wealthy countries. It's the poor living among the wealthy."

Poverty is a critical factor. But the American South's hot and humid climate, the influx of insects that carry diseases, and the ever-increasing movement of humans have combined with the region's high poverty levels to create a perfect storm of disease. While we might already have seen some of the storm's effects, the worst has yet to arrive.

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Ever since Microsoft announced its acquisition of Nokia's devices and services business in 2013, the one question that every loyalist of the Finland-based company asked was- "Will Nokia return to mobile business again"?

FANS HOPE

Nokia tried to answer the question recently and clarified its stand on returning to mobile device business, saying the re-entry into the segment was a bit "complicated." Fans still believe that Nokia merely has to return to the market - FREE OF MICROSOFT - and it will be welcomed back with open arms. The reality, however, is going to be a little more complicated than that.

NOKIA PREPARES FOR MASSIVE COMEBACK

Nokia, once a leader in the smartphone space, has plans to return to mobile business through a brand-licensing model, which means the company is looking for a partner that can take care of almost everything including manufacturing, sales, marketing and customer support for the product. It's quite different from the Nokia of old, which was involved in every aspect of its devices, and at first glance, reduces the company to a masthead.

"If and when we find a world-class partner who can take on those responsibilities, we would work closely with them to guide the design and technology differentiation, as we did with the Nokia N1 Android tablet," stated Robert Morlino, spokesman for Nokia Technologies. "That's the only way the bar would be met for a mobile device we'd be proud to have bear the Nokia brand, and that people will love to buy."

While Nokia wants to be proud of the device that will bear its brand, the truth is that it is looking for a partner who can do the "heavy lifting" because it now does not have the resources to manufacture a smartphone. Post-acquisition, Nokia was left with its core network equipment and services business, alongside its smaller Here mapping and navigation unit, as well as Nokia Technologies, which manages the licensing of its portfolio of patents and develops new products such as the Nokia N1 and the Z Launcher. Since then, the company has announced sale of the Here mapping division to a consortium of German premium carmakers.

As far as we know, Nokia is looking to re-enter into the mobile business in the same way it launched the Nokia N1 Android tablet, which was announced last year in a brand-licensing agreement with Foxconn. As part of the deal, the Chinese OEM - which also famously makes the iPhone - is responsible for manufacturing, distribution, and sales of the tablet. In other words, Nokia's way back to phone business seems to be based only on getting its logo back on handsets.

With Microsoft and Windows Phone firmly left behind, loyalists are desperately hoping that Nokia can come up with a product that carries the essence of its legacy models. The amount of interest that consumers have in a Nokia branded phone is so much that a leak about a Nokia 1100 with Android 5.0 Lollipop earlier this year was hugely shared and saw comments in droves. But can Nokia return to its past glories if it's little beyond a logo?

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

At the time when Nokia was at its peak, it was one of the most widely recognised brands and it was trusted a lot more than other brands, among consumers. In 2012, the Brand Trust Report declared Nokia as the most trusted brand among consumers in India for the second year running.

The Finland-based company lost its charm with fading profits and dropping sales of its smartphone over the years, but a study conducted by The Brand Trust Report earlier this year still listed Nokia amongst the top 5 trusted brands in the country. Despite this, the Nokia Lumia phones never set the market on fire - but Microsoft's operating system was held to blame by fans.

Next year when the brand returns to the market, it will again come with a partner, but if it doesn't succeed this time, will people finally be ready to give up on Nokia? There are some significant obstacles ahead for Nokia, but there are still some reasons to hope as well. While we hope that the company can pull it off, but it's definitely not going to be an easy task.

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Don't be deceived by the smaller engine, 2016's 488GTB brings more power and more speed.

Ferrari, which has unveiled its new eight-cylinder, mid-engine sports-car standard-bearer, and the successor to the much-loved 458 Italia sees the insane-revving, naturally aspirated V-8 retired in favor of a turbocharged unit. This follows Ferrari’s recent promise that all of its future engines will be turbocharged or hybridized.

POWER AND SPEED

The new engine is smaller than its predecessor, and its displacement of 488 cubic centimeters per cylinder gives the car its name: 488GTB. Multiplied by eight, that works out to 3902 cc for the new 90-degree V-8, which is mated to, as was the 458’s V-8, a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic. Despite the 0.6-liter reduction in displacement, the new engine makes more power: 661 horsepower at 8000 rpm, versus 597 horsepower at 9000 rpm for the 458 Speciale. Torque, predictably, is greater as well, reaching 561 lb-ft at a low 3000 rpm, far eclipsing the 458 Speciale’s 398 lb-ft.

Ferrari credits the engine’s extreme performance to a range of efficiency improvements over the 458’s V-8. For instance, an ion-sensing system helps control ignition timing and is a more exact method of detecting knock. High-tumble intake ports help air rush onto the scene of combustion crime, where fuel is directly injected at a pressure of 2900 psi. The oil pump pushes lubrication at varying levels on demand. Decreased friction in the valvetrain absorbs 10 percent less power.

Like the screaming, naturally aspirated 458, the 488 uses an engine with a flat-plane crankshaft that should help it retain the “seductive soundtrack” that Ferrari promises. The 458 lacks artificial aspiration, but the Maranello carmaker claims that the new car’s twin-turbocharged engine has “zero turbo lag.” The twin-scroll turbos themselves use premium componentry such as shafts mounted on ball bearings and compressor wheels hewn from a low-density alloy of titanium and aluminum. Ferrari even trumpets “a special seal on the turbine housing [that] ensures a minimum gap between it and the compressor wheel for maximum efficiency.”

Variable Torque Management helps get the power all the way to the rear wheels posthaste. Ferrari claims that the superquick seven-speed transmission will enable the engine to hit the rev limiter in fourth gear just six seconds after the car leaves from a stop.

The extra oomph shaves only fractions of a second from the official Fiorano lap time compared with the latest and greatest iteration of the 458, the Speciale A. The 488GTB gets around Fiorano in 1:23.0, a half-second quicker than the Speciale A. The two cars both claim a 3.0-second zero-to-62-mph time. As speeds increase, however, the 488GTB shows its advantage, reaching 124 mph in 8.3 seconds, compared to its forebear’s 9.5. The 488GTB also is said to be capable of 205 mph, 3 mph higher than the now-completely-useless 458 Speciale A. Brembo Extreme Design brakes—derived from the LaFerrari’s—help haul down the 488 in nine-percent less linear space than the 458’s lesser binders could accomplish.

These features and figures should help the Ferrari do battle with the Lamborghini Huracán and the McLaren 650S, the latter of which will beget a higher-performance variant, the 675LT, at Geneva.

AIRING IT OUT

Aside from the revolutionary change affecting the redheaded beauty under the plexiglass cover, the specs indicate that the 488GTB otherwise hews closely to the formula that has been so successful in the 458. The shapely new body is 1.6 inches longer than the 458 Italia’s, 0.6 inch wider, and identical in height. Ferrari says the new car has less aerodynamic drag but creates 50 percent greater downforce (stated as 717 pounds at 155 mph). Large, body-side air intakes are split into two sections and are supposed to reference the original mid-engine, eight-cylinder Ferrari, the 308.

Among the 488’s airflow-managing elements are an “Aero Pillar” on the front end, “vortex generators” underneath, and active flaps in the rear diffuser. A “blown spoiler”—trickle-down Formula 1 technology—funnels air in through a wide channel at the base of the rear window and out the back of the car, just above the license plate.

Ferrari’s quoted “dry weight” (at 3020 pounds) is 22 pounds lighter than it cites for the standard 458 Italia, with 53.5 percent pressing down on the rear wheels. (The forged 20-inch wheels themselves save 18 pounds.)

FAMILIAR ENVIRONS

The multifunction steering wheel includes buttons even for lights, wipers, and turn signals, in an addition to the damper setting, engine start, and Ferrari’s manettino chassis-control switch.

Viewed through the steering wheel is the large, central tachometer with digital gear indicator, and it’s flanked by configurable screens. New seats and door panels are designed to make the interior more humane.

A fresh key design mimics the shape of the engine’s intake plenums and permits passive entry and starting. Optional carbon-fiber trim can cover various parts of the interior (and the exterior aero fillips); also optional are a telemetry system like that in the LaFerrari and a 12-speaker, 1280-watt stereo.

One of the more intriguing bits of technology is Ferrari’s Side Slip Angle Control. It debuted on the 458 Speciale but this time around is “more precise yet less invasive”—which is how we generally like things. It harnesses the electronically controlled rear differential, the traction control system, and—now—the electronically controlled dampers to enable greater tail-out antics. Really amazing rite?

First, though, you’ve got to get your hands on one. There’s no word yet on pricing, but for reference, Ferrari currently asks $243,000 for a 458, please leave your comments on how much you think this would cost.

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Dell 's 17.3-inch Inspiron 17-5000 series has a new Broadwell CPU, a generous amount of RAM, and an LED-lit display.

On the inside, this model sports a fifth generation dual-core 2.2GHz Intel Core i5-5200U processor, integrated Intel HD Graphics 5500, 8GB of DDR3L RAM (1600MHz), a 1TB 5400RPM hard drive, Bluetooth 4.0, and 802.11b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi support. As for the 17.3-inch display, it benefits from an HD resolution of 1600×900 and LED backlighting. And if you want to run a dual-monitor set-up, you can simply connect your existing monitor over HDMI 1.4a.

Unsurprisingly, this large laptop isn’t exactly built for heavy travelers. While it measures only three-quarters of an inch thick, it weighs in at over six pounds. However, it does serve as a tip-top desktop replacement. It has a built-in full-size keyboard with a number pad, a large multitouch touch pad, and three USB ports.

Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) comes installed by default, but it also comes with a license for Windows 8.1 Pro (64-bit) as well. And until July of 2016, you’ll have the option to upgrade to Windows 10 for free, but that's up to you.

Normally, this configuration sells for $832.99, but Dell is selling it online for just $599. You can purchase it on Jumia for 255, 150 naira.

Newstac.com is a tech-based site that is dedicated to bringing you the latest technology news and updates around the globe with its exciting features and categories to choose from. Visit us at www.newstac.com

Samsung has announced two new large high-end Android handsets: the Galaxy S6 Edge+ and the Galaxy Note 5. This phones have 5.7in (14.5cm) screens and are going on sale earlier in the year than their previous generations.

The launches follow five successive falls in Samsung Electronics' quarterly profits. Analysts say the popularity of mid-range phones from Chinese rivals, and Apple's shift to bigger iPhones, have dented demand for Samsung's devices.

The company also revealed that its smart wallet service, Samsung Pay, which allows the phones to trigger payment card transactions, would go live in South Korea on 20 August.
That service will be extended to the US on 28 September and then to the UK and Spain at an unspecified date.

Like previous versions of the Note, the new version comes with a stylus, which Samsung says makes it suitable for productivity tasks. But the phone now has metal edges and a glass back to give it a more "premium" feel.

In a change of strategy, the South Korean firm has no plans presently to release the Note 5 in Europe - a decision it says is purely for marketing reasons.

One company-watcher said that could be a huge mistake. "The Note would have been a good fit for Europe's enterprise market, and if Samsung expects the S6 Edge+ to attract the same business users I don't believe it will succeed," commented 'Francisco Jeronimo' from market research firm IDC.

Unlike last year, there is no "edge" edition of the Note. Instead, the Galaxy S6 Edge+ is targeted at those who want a "phablet"-sized handset with curved sides. The "plus" in its name refers to the fact that its screen is both 0.6in (1.5cm) larger than the earlier edition and more scratch-resistant.

It now has an extra gigabyte of memory, taking it up to 4GB of RAM to aid multi-tasking, but uses the same in-house Exynos processor as before. This marks a change from the S5 Plus, which was the same size but contained a faster processor than the original S5.

The two new phones also introduce a couple of new features:
A button in their camera apps activates a "live broadcast" mode, which streams 1080p high definition video to YouTube and sends invitations to selected acquaintances. They support the ultra-high quality audio (UHQA) format. A new hardware component means there should be "less sound distortion" when files saved in the codec are played. Users can also use bundled software to "upscale" existing MP3s.

Newstac.com is a tech-based site that is dedicated to bringing you the latest technology news and updates around the globe with its exciting features and categories to choose from. Visit us at www.newstac.com