Swarms of drones could soon bring relief to drought-stricken regions by'seeding' clouds to increase rainfall. In a step towards that goal, a fixed-wing unmanned aircraft has, for the first time, successfully managed to seed a cloud during a test flight in Nevada. The Savant aircraft – named the'Sandoval Silver State Seeder' – fired off two silver-iodide flares during its 18 minute flight at Hawthorne Industrial Airport. A fixed-wing unmanned aircraft has, for the first time, successfully managed to'seed' a cloud during a test flight in Nevada. The Savant aircraft – named the'Sandoval Silver State Seeder' – fired off two silver-iodide flares during its 18 minute flight at Hawthorne Industrial Airport Microscopic particles of silver iodide are shot into existing clouds using land based generators or aircraft.

A video game that allowed players to zap marching aliens with dot lasers and another that gave them flamethrowers and put them in the driver's seat in a violent 3-D world are among six games inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. 'Space Invaders' and'Grand Theft Auto III,' along with'The Oregon Trail,' ''Sonic the Hedgehog,' ''The Legend of Zelda' and'The Sims,' were honoured Thursday for their influence on gaming and pop culture at the hall inside The Strong museum in Rochester. 'Space Invaders' wasn't the first shooter game when it was introduced in Japan in 1978, but it spurred many imitators and a craze for arcade games, said Jeremy Saucier, assistant director of The Strong's International Center for the History of Electronic Games. In this April 21, 2016 photo provided by The Strong museum in Rochester, N.Y., the 2016 inductees to the World Video Game Hall of Fame are displayed. From top left, clockwise, are'Grand Theft Auto III,' 'Space Invaders,' 'Sonic the Hedgehog,' 'The Sims,' 'The Legend of Zelda,' and'The Oregon Trail.'

A pair of glasses that is able to'read' text and convert it into speech allowing blind and visually impaired people has been tested by scientists. The device looks like a small camera attached to the side of a pair of glasses. Using OCR - optical character reading - technology, the camera and tiny computer it contains can read printed materials. A pair of glasses (pictured) that is able to'read' text and convert it into speech allowing blind and visually impaired people has been tested by scientists. It is activated by pointing it at an object and pressing a trigger button.

Footage of Canadian soldiers sporting Kurdish flags on their uniforms in Iraq has raised questions about Canada's military training mission in the war-torn country. Canadian military personnel are training Kurdish Peshmerga forces in northern Iraq in their fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Footage shot by Canadian news channel CTV in Iraq showed Canadian troops wearing the red, green and white flag of Kurdistan, with a yellow sun at its centre, on one sleeve of their uniforms in late April. A spokesperson for the Department of National Defence told Al Jazeera the Kurdish flag is being used to ensure troop safety. "Our members are wearing the flag of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region to enhance cohesion with partner forces and to ensure easy visual identification, which contributes to force protection," Daniel Lebouthillier said in an email.

In this April 21, 2016, photo provided by The Strong museum in Rochester, N.Y., the 2016 inductees to the World Video Game Hall of Fame are displayed. From top left, clockwise, are "Grand Theft Auto III," "Space Invaders," "Sonic the Hedgehog," "The Sims," "The Legend of Zelda," and "The Oregon Trail." Ask video gamers or programmers today what a teletype printer is and you're sure to get blank stares in a time when games are created on super computers that can be played on vibrant color monitors that can cover entire walls, or on mobile devices that can fit in the palm of your hand. The Oregon Trail, designed to be a fun way for children to learn about American history, hit the market in 1971 at a time when computers were in rare supply. With more than 65 million copies sold, it has stood the test of time as technology has exploded, and Thursday morning, the game was one of six that were inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, N.Y. "The fact that this has been used in classrooms over so many years is quite gratifying to us," said Rawitsch, who attended the induction ceremony with his son Jeff.

Two additional deaths in Malaysia were linked to ruptured air bag inflators made by Takata Corp., further damaging the reputation of the Japanese supplier as it works to comply with a U.S. order to expand a record recall. Two fatal Honda car crashes in Malaysia, one on April 16 and the other just last Monday, involved ruptured driver-side air bag inflators made by Takata, according to a statement by Honda Motor Co. The air bags had not been replaced though the two vehicles were included in recalls announced by the authorities, the automaker said. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Wednesday ordered Takata to replace as many as 40 million additional air bags in the U.S., more than doubling what has been announced. At least 13 deaths are now linked to the malfunctioning devices, underscoring the scale of the crisis confronting President Shigehisa Takada, who has seen his family company's market value plunge by 75 percent over the past year.

NEW YORK – A video game that allowed players to zap marching aliens with dot lasers and another that gave them flamethrowers and put them in the driver's seat in a violent 3-D world are among six games inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. "Space Invaders" and "Grand Theft Auto III," along with "The Oregon Trail," "Sonic the Hedgehog," "The Legend of Zelda" and "The Sims," were honored Thursday for their influence on gaming and pop culture at the hall inside The Strong museum in Rochester, New York. "Space Invaders" wasn't the first shooter game when it was introduced in Japan in 1978, but it spurred many imitators and a craze for arcade games, said Jeremy Saucier, assistant director of The Strong's International Center for the History of Electronic Games. A virtual universe away, "Grand Theft Auto III" armed players with flamethrowers and assault rifles. "By providing players with a license to do virtually anything they wanted to do on foot or behind the wheel, 'Grand Theft Auto III' renewed debates about the role of games and violence in society while it signaled video games aren't just for kids," Saucier said. The hall of fame inductees were chosen from among 15 finalists culled from thousands of nominations from around the world.

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

It's a strong contender for the geekiest video ever made: a close-up of a smartphone with line upon line of numbers and symbols scrolling down the screen. But when visitors stop by Nicola Marzari's office, which overlooks Lake Geneva, he can hardly wait to show it off. "It's from 2010," he says, "and this is my cellphone calculating the electronic structure of silicon in real time!" Even back then, explains Marzari, a physicist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, his now-ancient handset took just 40 seconds to carry out quantum-mechanical calculations that once took many hours on a supercomputer -- a feat that not only shows how far such computational methods have come in the past decade or so, but also demonstrates their potential for transforming the way materials science is done in the future. Instead of continuing to develop new materials the old-fashioned way -- stumbling across them by luck, then painstakingly measuring their properties in the laboratory -- Marzari and like-minded researchers are using computer modelling and machine-learning techniques to generate libraries of candidate materials by the tens of thousands.

Joab Rosenberg is the former deputy head analyst for the Israeli government and CEO of Epistema. Nature magazine announced in late January that a computer designed by Google's DeepMind defeated a human master in the ancient Chinese board game, "Go." This impressive achievement once again raised the expectations for a predicted future in which computers will have artificial intelligence, with major media outlets worldwide touting this anticipated future. One of the major questions raised in response to DeepMind's achievement is what are the outer limits, if any, of intelligent machines? In November of last year, Dr. Kira Radinsky, a computer scientist and "machine learning" expert, argued in the Israeli newspaper "Ha'aretz" that computers will be able to accurately predict the outcome of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.