London, Oct 1 : A winged robot, inspired by dragonfly, called the ExoFly, would soon be guiding planetary rovers on the bumpy surfaces of Mars.

The ExoFly will first be sent out first to explore the terrain of the red planet, reports New Scientist.

Team member Tanja Zegers of the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands, said that the rover would then be directed towards any sites of interest by the easiest route.

One predecessor of the ExoFly, called DelFly, has already been developed at the Technical University of Delft.

However, ExoFly has to flap its wings much faster than DelFly to stay aloft in the thin atmosphere of Mars.

Similarly, other ExoFlies would also be tailored to their host planets or moons.

Washington, Oct 1 : Researchers suggest that active, hands-on experience can be an immensely effective way of improving infants'' ability of learning.

The team has found that infants who had an opportunity to use a plastic cane to get an out-of-reach toy were better able to understand the goal of another person''s use of a similar tool than were infants who had previously only watched an adult use a cane to retrieve a toy.

"Acting on the world is one way infants learn about the world, and only recently have there been studies showing that active, hands-on experience is a more effective way of learning than watching," said Jessica Sommerville, a University of Washington assistant professor of psychology and lead author of a study.

London, Oct 1 : With advertisers finding it increasingly difficult to capture the attention of consumers during programme breaks, ITV is developing a new technology that may address the issue.

While watching their favourite programmes, television viewers usually like to fast-forward through advertising breaks.

Now, ITV is developing a new form of unavoidable advertisement that can be embedded in television programmes.

The new technology, developed for ITV by Keystream, a Californian company, uses complex computer algorithms to find clear space, such as blue sky or blank walls, in video footage in which to display logos or messages.

Berlin, October 1 : A thorough survey using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has observed around 14 million stars in 69 galaxies, which has given astronomers clues about how stars form.

The detailed study, called the ACS Nearby Galaxy Survey Treasury (ANGST) program, explored a region called the Local Volume, where galaxy distances range from
6.5 million light-years to 13 million light-years from Earth.

Some galaxies were found to be full of ancient stars, while others are like sun-making factories.

A typical galaxy contains billions of stars but looks smooth when viewed through a conventional telescope because the stars appear blurred together.

Washington, Oct 1: Nokia has been ranked as the most eco-friendly electronic brand, according to Greenpeace's annual Guide to Greener Electronics.

In the ninth edition of its guide, Greenpeace has declared that Nokia is a step ahead of other well-known manufacturers like Samsung and Nintendo.

Nokia managed to get a high score of seven out of ten possible points, because of its improved take-back practices in India, toxic chemical issues, utilizing models free of PVC and aiming to have all new models free of brominated flame retardants and antimony trioxide by the end of 2009, reports Environmental News Network.

With the ever increasing demand for more RAM, Samsung has come out with new