Google no to phone with interchangeable parts

San Francisco: Alphabet Inc’s Google has suspended Project Ara, its ambitious effort to build a modular smartphone with interchangeable components. The move marks an about-face for the tech company, which aimed to create a phone that users could customise on the fly with an extra battery, camera, speakers or other components. Reuters

Mission on track despite SpaceX rocket blast

Washington: NASA’s first mission to bring a sample of near-Earth asteroid remains on track for launch on September 8, despite the SpaceX rocket explosion on Thursday. SpaceX, a US-based aerospace company, was conducting a routine test-firing of its unmanned rocket Falcon 9 when the blast occurred at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket and OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will bring back samples from the asteroid Bennu. PTI 

New plastic clothing to keep people cool      

Los Angeles: Stanford scientists have developed a low-cost, plastic-based textile that could cool your body far more efficiently than is possible with the natural or synthetic fabrics. The material cools by letting perspiration evaporate it, something ordinary fabrics already do. But it also provides a second, revolutionary cooling mechanism: allowing heat that the body emits as infrared radiation to pass through the plastic textile. PTI