Oldest running car finds its owner

In the year 1884 this little car could be seen running on the streets. Its name was: De Dion Bouton Et Trepardoux Dos-a-Dos Runabout. On Friday, at the RM Auctions Hershey, the world’s oldest running car has finally found its owner. At the auction the car managed to sell for double the pre-sale estimated price. The car has a steam powered engine which works with a tank of water that needs to be refueled every 20 miles. The automobile can reach 38 miles per gallon and was used in the first motor car race that was held in 1887. At that time it reached 16 mph.

This car is considered the first family car considering the fact that it is able to accommodate four people while one drives. The car was sold for $4.2 million. A 10 percent fee was also added to the price, augmenting it with $420,000.

The car is also known as “Le Marquise” after the mother of its creator. At the auction another car was mentioned, the Grenville which also competes for the title of “oldest running car”. It was described as “basically a powered gun carriage.” However, a representative of the National Motor Museum explained that the description was incorrect and that, in fact, the car was a family car and not a gun carriage. It was used for personal transportation.

“Le Marquise” has now reached its fifth owner. So far it is unknown whether it will be added to a private collection or if it will be put on public display.

Google translate added 14 more languages

Google’s translation application for Android recently added more languages. The company is known to have offered text translations and speech-to-text translation for a long time. Still, in January, it took a new step and made an attempt at making speech-to-speech translations from English to Spanish.

With the new update that was released on Thursday, the application can now converse in 14 languages. Besides English and Spanish, it has added Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Russian and Turkish.

“Mobile technology and the web have made it easier for people around the world to access information and communicate with each other,” product manager Jeff Chin explained in a post on the company’s blog. “But there’s still a daunting obstacle: the language barrier. We’re trying to knock down that barrier so everyone can communicate and connect more easily.”

Chin pointed out that the application was still an early alpha. Due to the accents and background noise its accuracy is far from stellar.

“But since it depends on examples to learn, the quality will improve as people use it more,” Chin said. “We wanted to get this early version out to help start the conversation no matter where you are in the world.”

Google also added a feature that allows you to see what the application believes it heard. Therefore you can correct any mistakes.

In addition, the number of languages that are supported for the application’s text and text-to-speech translations keeps on growing. At the moment there are 63 languages supported for text, while speech-to-text has 17 languages and text-to-speech works in 24 languages.

NASA strikes deal with Virgin Galactic

The space tourism company Virgin Galactic has announced it has a deal with NASA worth approximately $4.5 million. Virgin Galactic officials announced today that they will provide their new private spaceliner SpaceShipTwo, in order to aid in research. Based on this deal, NASA will have to charter three flights on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo which is an air-launched spacecraft that may carry up to eight people on trips towards suborbital space. Two days ago officials from Virgin Galactic announced that Mike Moses, NASA's former deputy space shuttle program chief became the company’s vice president of operations.

"We are excited to be working with NASA to provide the research community with this opportunity to carry out experiments in space,” said George Whitesides, president and CEO of Virgin Galactic, in a statement they sent to the press.

"An enormous range of disciplines can benefit from access to space, but historically, such research opportunities have been rare and expensive," Whitesides added. "At Virgin Galactic, we are fully dedicated to revolutionizing access to space, both for tourist astronauts and, through programs like this, for researchers."

Each of the ships that will be used by NASA may carry 1,300 pounds (590 kilograms) of scientific experiments. A flight test engineer will join every mission in order to monitor and conduct experiments.

"Bringing Mike in to lead the team represents a significant investment in our commitment to operational safety and success as we prepare to launch commercial operations," Whitesides said.

Until he was chosen as a director in 2005, Moses acted as a space shuttle flight controller for 10 years.

"I am extremely excited to be joining Virgin Galactic at this time, helping to forge the foundations that will enable routine commercial suborbital spaceflights," Moses added in a statement. "Virgin Galactic will expand the legacy of human spaceflight beyond traditional government programs into the world’s first privately funded commercial spaceline."