Washington, Jan 18 - Wikipedia, which describes itself as the largest encyclopaedia in human history, has blacked out its English-language site to protest proposed US anti-piracy laws.

"Imagine a world without free knowledge," says a statement posted against a black background when one tries to access the site.

Wikipedia is opposing the US Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) being debated by Congress.

Jimmy Wales, who founded the site, told the BBC: "Proponents of SOPA have characterised the opposition as being people who want to enable piracy or defend piracy".

San Francisco, Jan 19 - Yahoo's co-founder Jerry Yang has resigned from its Board of Directors and all other positions with the company, it was announced Tuesday.

The 43-year-old Yang also resigned from the Boards of Yahoo! Japan and Alibaba Group Holding limited, Xinhua quoted the company as stating in a press release.

Having founded the online company in 1995 with David Filo, Yang was Yahoo's chief executive from June 2007 until January 2009. (IANS)

Washington, Jan 13 : Scientists have succeeded in developing the world’s smallest data storage unit, which uses just twelve atoms per bit and squeezes a whole byte (8 bit) into as few as 96 atoms.

In comparison, a modern hard drive still needs more than half a billion atoms per byte.

The nanometre storage unit was developed by scientists from IBM and the German Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL).

Washington, Jan 11 : Advanced nanomaterials could now open the door to a new generation of high-performance, cost-effective solid state refrigeration and air conditioning, requiring no refrigerants and no moving parts, a new study led by Indian origin researcher has revealed.

The key ingredients for this innovation by engineering researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are a dash of nanoscale sulfur and a normal, everyday microwave oven.

Washington, Jan 11 : Drawing inspiration from science fiction, researchers have developed a controllable endoscopic capsule that patients can swallow like a pill and let doctors explore inside of their bodies.

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have successfully tested a prototype of the capsule that has the ability to "swim" through the body and could provide clinicians with unprecedented control when photographing the inside of the human body.

The capsule can be equipped with a camera.

Once inside the patient's digestive track, a doctor can "steer" the capsule through the body using an MRI machine, photograph specific areas of interest, and view those pictures wirelessly.

Washington, Jan 10 : Three start-up gadget makers are now offering micro-thin coatings that protect cellphones from moisture even when they are completely immersed in water.

The special coatings are made of nanomaterials that can seamlessly and invisibly encase iPhone or Android phone and keep it safe from water.

HzO, P2i, and Liquipel will be putting their technology on display this week at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

“We can’t see why every cellphone on the planet shouldn’t be using our technology,” Paul Clayson, president and CEO of nanotech firm HzO told FoxNews. com.

Washington, Dec 31 : We are a lot closer to living robots than we may realize, says a scientist who has developed a robot that uses the same words, expressions and movements that humans do to communicate with each other.

Philip K. Dick Andriod, built by Hanson Robotics, is a state-of-the-art robot with a large vocabulary, complex facial expressions, a sense of humour and something of an ego, ABC News reported.

He is, well, surprisingly human, not just in mechanics, but also in appearance.

Washington, Dec 23 : A new under sea telescope that will be the second largest structure ever built after the Great Wall of China, is currently under development.

The KM3net telescope planned for the sea bed under the Mediterranean will be a network of detectors with a volume of several cubic kilometres, built to detect neutrinos - tiny, fast-moving particles that pass straight through water and even solid rock.

Washington, Dec 22 : Yahoo is reportedly planning to cut its 40 percent stake in Chinese Internet firm Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to about 15 percent.

Yahoo, which has been shopping itself to a slew of private-equity suitors, is considering cutting its stake as part of a tax-free transaction worth between 17 billion and 18 billion dollars, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Yahoo’s current stake in Alibaba represents a 40 percent investment and is valued at about 13 billion dollars, according to the paper.

Washington, Dec 22 : Though originally aimed at teaching Hindi to Indian children in the US, an Indian American has launched a virtual tutoring portal for teaching various academic levels as well as 18 languages.

TheETutor. com, an educational online tutoring company, started by Harry Aurora, CEO, and Preeti Aurora, managing director, was launched by Nassau county executive, Edward P. Mangano, at a function in Long Island, New York last week.

Describing the state-of-art virtual portal as a revolution in learning, Aurora said the students participate in one-on-one tutoring led by superb tutors from the comfort of their home.

San Francisco, Dec 22 : Smartphones and tablets running Intel's chips will enter the mobile market early next year, posing a challenge to the dominance of Apple's iPhone and iPad, US media reported Wednesday.

Technology Review, a magazine published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said it had tested prototype smartphones and tablets equipped with Intel's latest mobile chip, dubbed Medfield. The products run Google's Android mobile operating system, reported Xinhua.

San Francisco, Dec 22 - Yahoo's board is expected to meet Thursday to discuss selling its holdings in China's Alibaba Group and its Japanese affiliate back to their majority owners in a transaction valued around $17 billion, US media reported Wednesday.

Under the current proposed terms, Softbank, Yahoo Japan's majority owner and Alibaba would create new legal entities consisting of both cash and certain operating assets. Yahoo would swap out most of its stake in Alibaba and all of its stake in Yahoo Japan for these entities to sell those holdings, the New York Times reported.

New York, Dec 20 : AT&T Inc. abandoned Monday its $39 billion bid for T-Mobile USA, a deal that sparked opposition from the US government and consumer groups.

The Dallas-based giant said it decided to withdraw its offer for the US wireless unit of Germany's Deutsche Telekom after a thorough review of the options.

"The actions by the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice to block this transaction do not change the realities of the US wireless industry," AT&T said in a statement.

San Francisco, Dec 20 - Apple and Google are working on wearable technology that would send data to their smartphones, US media reported Monday.

Researchers in Google's secret Google X lab, a facility where Google is reportedly working on projects pertaining to future technologies, have begun working on peripherals that would communicate information back to Android smartphones when they are attached to one's clothing or body, said Bits, a technology blog of the New York Times, citing sources.

Washington, Dec 20 - Facebook has announced that its final wave of employees have moved into its new headquarters in the one million-square foot Menlo Park city of California.

The world's largest social network is now officially headquartered at 1601 Willow Road in Menlo Park, Xinhua reported.

The new campus consists of 10 eco-friendly buildings with no private offices and cubicles. Over 2,000 local employees moved to the campus from its previous location in Palo Alto, California, US.

"This morning, the final wave of employees walked through the doors of the new Facebook Menlo Park campus," said the company Monday in its official blog.