Gizmag Team

It's hard to comprehend the impact of the Black Death. The "Great Pestilence" is believed to have originated somewhere in Northern Asia in the 1330s before hitting Europe in 1347. It killed an estimated 75 million people worldwide - that's around 25 per cent of all humans in existence at the time. Now in an effort to better understand modern infectious diseases, scientist have sequenced the entire genome of the Black Death. Read More

Apple Co-Founder Steve Jobs has passed away aged 56. This sad news comes just a little over a month after Jobs stepped down as CEO of Apple, the company he co-founded in 1976. Apple's new CEO Tim Cook summed up the loss in an email to the company's employees today: "Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being." Read More

The US Navy has successfully flown its MQ-8B Fire Scout Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) on biofuel. The unmanned helicopter became the Navy's first UAV to use biofuel technology when it took-off on Friday over Webster Field in St. Inigoes, Maryland, running on a blend of JP-5 aviation fuel and plant-based camelina. The Navy says that the use of this blend cuts carbon dioxide output by 75 percent when compared to conventional aviation fuel. Read More

Australians are getting their first taste of LTE (long-term evolution) mobile network speed. Telecommunications provider Telstra launched its USB 4G mobile broadband modem today with the promise of coverage in capital city CBDs and 30 regional and metropolitan centers with download speeds ranging from 2Mbps to 40Mbps and upload speeds of 1Mbps to 10Mbps. Read More

Contracts have been signed, funds have been transferred and flight testing is complete. All is in readiness for the hand-over of the first Boeing 787 Dreamliner destined for commercial use. Boeing will mark the occasion with a delivery ceremony at its 787 factory in Everett, Washington, this morning before launch customer All Nippon Airways (ANA) flies its newest acquisition to Tokyo on Tuesday at 6:35 a.m. Read More

The all new Concept_One EV we previewed ahead of this month's Frankfurt Motor Show has been revealed. The brainchild of 23-year-old Croatian automotive designer Mate Rimac, the Concept_One backs its sleek design with a cracking spec sheet - 1088 hp, 3,800 Nm of torque, 0-62 mph (100 km/h) in 2.8 seconds, a top speed of 190 mph (305 km/h) and a 370 mile range (600 km). If those figures translate to the limited-edition production model due in 2013, Concept_One will definitely have earned its "electric supercar" tag. Read More

LaCie has finally joined the Thunderbolt club with the release of its Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Series. Announced earlier this year, the Little Big Disk Thunderbolt is available in 1 TB (7200RPM) and 2 TB (5400 RPM) HDD configurations at a price of US$399 and $499 respectively. There's also a 240 GB SSD model on the way but pricing is yet to be confirmed. Read More

The flow of Thunderbolt peripherals onto the market definitely seems to be building steam with this latest example from Sonnet bringing expanded connectivity options to those with machines packing Apple's new I/O technology. Sonnet's US$150 EchoExpressCard/34 Thunderbolt Adapter uses a PCIe interface to link a range of existing peripherals such as USB 3.0, FireWire 800, eSATA, Gigabit Ethernet and high speed memory cards through a single Thunderbolt port. Read More

Among the huge list of Concept Cars taking to the revolving stage in Frankfurt this week is Volvo's Concept You. Put forward as a design study for the company's next large sedan, the You takes on an elongated "fastback profile" and crams some ambitious tech ideas into the cockpit while piling on the luxury trimmings, from suede roof lining all the way down to wooden floors covered in hand-tufted carpet. Read More