Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, wishing you a happy New Year’s Eve filled with cheer, champagne and Mariah Carey’s comically awful rendition of Auld Lang Syne. Today, we’re looking forward to the next year in technology news. I am watching five trends I think will define the year: datacenters will see rapid proliferation beyond the US and China; billionaires will reap billions more; self-driving cars will park themselves in a slew of brand-new locales; AI will find its niche at work; and consumer tech will…
Tag: Malaysia
Search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 expected to resume on Tuesday
The search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is expected to resume on 30 December, more than a decade after the plane disappeared with 239 people onboard in one of aviation’s greatest mysteries. A renewed search by Ocean Infinity, a UK and US-based marine robotics company, had begun earlier this year but was called off in April because of bad weather. The Malaysian transport ministry announced this month that the search of the seabed would be conducted intermittently over 55 days from 30 December. Ocean Infinity has agreed a “no find,…
Trump in Asia: five key questions as US president prepares for diplomatic tour
Donald Trump is about to embark on a tour of Asia that many hope will ease trade tensions with countries in the region and repair damaged ties with China. Trump will begin his trip on Sunday at a meeting of south-east Asian nations in Malaysia, before flying to Japan to meet its new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, early next week. But the most important stop on his itinerary will come at the end of the month, when he is expected to discuss trade, and possibly Taiwan, with Chinese leader Xi…
US warships patrol South China Sea after two Chinese ships collide
The US has briefly deployed two warships in a disputed South China Sea shoal where two Chinese ships collided earlier in the week while trying to drive away a smaller Philippine ship in a high-seas accident that raised alarms about maritime safety. Both China and the Philippines claim Scarborough Shoal and other outcroppings in the South China Sea. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also lay overlapping claims in the contested waters. The USS Higgins, a guided missile destroyer, and USS Cincinnati, a littoral combat ship, were shadowed by a Chinese…
The MH370 families seeking closure, justice and a fresh search
Ten years on, Jiang Hui still hopes he will one day find the answer to what happened when his mother disappeared in 2014. “My mother was a very normal person. She came from a working-class family. She was very resilient, persistent,” says Jiang, 50, from Beijing. His mother, Jiang Cuiyun, was a 72-year-old retired picture editor and had just been on a holiday in Malaysia. She was one of 153 Chinese citizens onboard flight MH370. Jiang now tries to embody those tenacious qualities of his mother in his decade-long search…
MH370: one of aviation’s biggest mysteries remains unsolved 10 years on
Shortly after midnight on 8 March 2014, a Boeing 777 heaved into the air from Kuala Lumpur and climbed steadily to its assigned cruising altitude of 35,000ft. After being instructed to switch frequencies to Vietnamese air traffic control, the pilot replied in the polite but methodical manner that is common in radio calls: “Good night, Malaysian three seven zero.” It was the last message that would ever be received from Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. A decade has passed since the plane veered wildly off course during a routine flight to…
Timeline of the search for MH370 – a visual guide
Since the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in 2014, countless hours have been spent scouring vast swathes of the Indian Ocean to locate the wreckage, using search aircraft and surface vessels equipped with the latest technology. The three official investigations launched by Malaysia and Australia, piecing together evidence from as far away as Mozambique, have so far failed to prove conclusively what happened to the missing flight. Below is a timeline of the search, from the moments of hope when pieces of debris were discovered, to the devastation after…
‘We need to go again’: Australian who led MH370 search joins calls for fresh effort to find plane
The man who led Australia’s search for MH370 has urged the Australian government to support any new effort to find the plane, which disappeared 10 years ago on Friday. On Sunday the Malaysian government said it was in talks with the US marine robotics company Ocean Infinity to discuss a new search. The company says it is willing and able to return to the search, and has submitted a proposal to the Malaysian government. The Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 departed Kuala Lumpur on 8 March 2014, bound for Beijing with…
Competition over the South China Sea explained in 30 seconds
The South China Sea is one of the most strategically and economically important waterways in the world. In 2016 more than 21% of global trade was estimated by UN bodies to have transited through it, and it contains extensive oil and gas reserves. But it is highly contested. China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan all have claims over areas within the 3.5m sq km area, many of which overlap. Brunei is the only party that does not lay claim over any disputed islands, but it does say part…
Malaysia investigates Chinese barge suspected of links to looting of British WW2 wrecks
Malaysia’s maritime agency has said it found a cannon shell believed to be from the second world war on a Chinese-registered vessel and was investigating if the barge carrier was involved in the looting of two British warship wrecks in the South China Sea. The agency said it detained the vessel registered in Fuzhou, China, on Sunday for anchoring without a permit off southern Johor state, and that an inspection revealed scrap metal and a cannon shell it suspected dated from the second world war. It said there were 32…