Knowledge Update

​Washington, March 22 (IANS) In a key advance for safely navigating future human exploration of the solar system, NASA said it is set to send its next-generation atomic clock to space in late 2017.

This clock will be smaller, lighter and magnitudes more precise than any atomic clock flown in space before, NASA said.

Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California have completed integration of the instrument, the Deep Space Atomic Clock, with the spacecraft that will take it into orbit later in 2017, the US space agency said in a statement on Tuesday.

Timekeeping plays a critical role in spacecraft navigation and will be especially important for future deep space missions. 

Most spacecraft are tracked using "two-way" methods -- the ground-based antenna 'pings' the spacecraft and waits for the signal to return. 

By measuring how long the signal takes to travel, the distance to the spacecraft can be calculated. 

A navigation team then processes this information to determine the spacecraft's flight path and also determine if any course corrections are required. 

The next-generation atomic clock developed by NASA enables "one-way" tracking, where the spacecraft does not need to send the signal back to Earth. 

The tracking measurements could be taken onboard and processed with a spacecraft-based navigation system to determine the path and whether any manoeuvre are needed to stay on course. 

This will be a key advance for safely navigating future human exploration of the solar system by providing astronauts with their position and velocity when they need it, according to NASA.

It will lighten the load on the antennas in NASA's Deep Space Network, allowing more spacecraft to be tracked with a single antenna.

The Deep Space Atomic Clock would also improve the precision and quantity of the radio data used by scientists for determining a planet's gravity field and probing its atmosphere, NASA said.

United Nations, March 22 (IANS) Nearly 600 million children, one in four worldwide, will live in areas with extremely limited water resources by 2040, according to a UN report.

The report was released late Tuesday by the UN International Children's Emergency Fund (Unicef), Efe news reported on Wednesday.

Unicef warned of the threat to children's lives due to the lack of safe water and of how climate change is exacerbating the problem.

"Water is elemental; without it, nothing can grow. But around the world, millions of children lack access to safe water -- endangering their lives, undermining their health, and jeopardising their future," Unicef Executive Director Anthony Lake said.

"This crisis will only grow unless we take collective action now," he insisted.

The report warns that population growth as well as increased consumption and demand are putting more and more stress on water availability, while right now such stress is already "extremely high" in 36 countries.

The situation occurs when demand for water far exceeds the renewable supply available, the report said.

It also highlighted various factors affecting the quality and availability of water such as warmer temperatures, rising sea levels, melting ice and increasing droughts.

To date, 663 million people are lacking adequate access to water sources and more than 800 children under the age of five die every day from diarrhoea linked to contaminated water and inadequate sanitation and hygiene.

According to Unicef, the lack of an adequate supply exposes children to deadly diseases forcing children in many places to spend hours every day to collect water, preventing them from going to school.

The report furthermore includes recommendations for different sectors and urges governments to plan for possible changes in water availability and demand over the coming years.

According to Unicef, the priority must be to safeguard access to water for the most vulnerable children

​New York, March 21 (IANS) In a bid to make easier for media firms to post live video broadcasts, micro-blogging website Twitter will launch Live video application programming interface (API) later this week.

​New Delhi, March 21 (IANS) With the nominal year-over-year (y-o-y) expenditure growth at 12 per cent and with consumption set to triple to $4 trillion, India will be the third largest consumer market by 2025, a report said on Tuesday.

New York, March 19 (IANS) Yahoo is reportedly in talks with Facebook about an advertising partnership that would allow the social networking site to sell ads on Tumblr.

According to a report in The Information website, Yahoo is considering a deal with Facebook that would allow the social network giant to sell ads inside Tumblr’s mobile app.

​New York, March 21 (IANS) In a battle against fake news, Facebook has started to roll out a new tool that fact-checks the stories a user shares.

According to a report in Telegraph on Monday, some users in the US saw a pop-up window appearing when they shared a story on their profile, reading "Disputed by multiple,

San Francisco, March 21 (IANS) Driven by a series of rumoured new products launch this week, Apple shares on Monday surged one per cent to hit an all-time high of $141.46.

According to media reports, Apple is expected to unveil the new iPad Pro lineup, a larger iPhone SE model with 128GB storage and new Apple Watch bands this week.

New Delhi, March 21 (IANS) Chinese smartphone maker Gionee on Tuesday launched a new selfie-focused smartphone in India that comes with a 16MP front camera with selfie flash and houses a 4,010mAh battery. While the pre-booking for A1 starts from March 3, the price of the device is yet to be announced. "Today's generation views the world from their front camera and they live for creating and celebrating experiences out of moments," said Arvind R Vohra, Country CEO and MD, Gionee India, in a statement. The device is powered by 2GHz octa-core P10 Helios processor paired with 4GB RAM, has 64GB internal memory that can be expanded up to 256GB and runs on Amigo 4.0 on top of Android 7.0 Nougat. A1 is equipped with a fingerprint sensor and claims to unlock the phone in just 0.2 seconds. For humid conditions, the sensor unlocks the device even with moist fingers. A1 has a full-metal body made out of "A6000 aircraft grade material" that is used in making premium cars and aircraft. The 4G and VOLTE enabled smartphone also offers a host of amazing features such as Split Screen, Maxx Audio and Virus detection among other key features.

​London, March 21 (IANS) London has become the cheapest of the worlds major global centres, with the cost of living falling behind that of New York, Paris and Tokyo to its lowest level for two decades, figures revealed on Tuesday.

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) world rankings, the fall is almost entirely due to the Brexit-inspired 15 per cent fall in the pound's fall since last June's referendum to leave the European Union (EU), the Guardian reported. 

The pound's fall has made prices in London much cheaper for foreign visitors, although not for local residents who earn their incomes in sterling.

The EIU said London is cheaper than New York for the first time in 15 years, and that relative prices in Manchester have fallen so far that the cost of living in the city is now on a par with Bangkok.

Meanwhile, the world's most expensive city is Singapore, where average prices are 20 per cent higher than in New York and one-third more than in London. The city-state has long been the most expensive place in the world to buy and run a car, but the EIU said it is also the second-priciest destination in which to buy clothes.

Australia and New Zealand are also pricing themselves out of the price bracket of budget-conscious travellers, the Guardian quoted the EIU as saying. 

Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland and Wellington all now feature in the world's top 20 most expensive cities and each of them are pricier than London.

Almaty in Kazakhstan ranked as the cheapest city in the world.

London's new-found bargain-basement status has encouraged a flood of international shoppers to the city. Even low-cost clothing store Primark has reported strong sales to foreign tourists, joining luxury brands such as Burberry in enjoying a boost in sales from visitors drawn by the cheap pound.

​Colombo, March 21 (IANS) Sri Lanka is looking to increase international air connectivity in an effort to boost tourism, a statement said here on Tuesday.

With the tourism industry recording a positive growth since 2009, officials said they now hope to have more direct flights, open skies policy, competitive landing and parking fees, incentivising low-cost airlines and smoother immigration and check-in procedures, Xinhua news agency reported.

Sri Lanka is also hoping, with public and private stakeholders, to create a "Colombo Calendar" of events which tourists can access across multiple channels.

"The main goal is to ensure Sri Lanka doubles its tourism sector earnings from the present $3.5 billion in 2016 to $7 billion by 2020," the Tourism Ministry statement said.

Last year, 2.05 million tourists arrived in Sri Lanka, taking the island's tourism earnings to a record of $346.98 million in July 2016.

India and China have been the leading markets with the most number of tourist arrivals.

Over 270,000 Chinese tourists arrived in Sri Lanka in 2016, with China recording the strongest growth of 26.4 per cent compared to the previous year.

This year, Sri Lanka has set a target of 2.5 million tourists.