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Auschwitz survivor is world’s oldest man, Guinness says

March 15, 2016 liesbeek 2 Comments

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A 112 year-old Israeli man, who is an Auschwitz survivor, has become the world’s oldest living man, the Guinness World Records organization said Friday.

Israel Kristal, who is 112 years and 178 days as of Friday, received his Guinness World Records’ certificate at his home in Haifa.

“I don’t know the secret for long life,” he told the record keepers. “I believe that everything is determined from above, and we shall never know the reasons why. There have been smarter, stronger and better looking men then me who are no longer alive. All that is left for us to do is to keep on working as hard as we can and rebuild what is lost.”

Kristal was born in Poland, near the town of Zarnow, on September 15, 1903.

He has lived through both World Wars and survived the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz in 1943 where he lost his wife, according to Guinness World Records. Their two children had died in Lodz during the German occupation, the Jerusalem Post reported.

He moved to Haifa in 1950.

The oldest living person is American Susannah Mushatt Jones, who is 116 years, 249 days old.

News by : CNN

Google car crash ‘not a surprise’ – US transport secretary

March 15, 2016 liesbeek 1 Comment

The recent crash involving a Google self-driving car and a bus was “not a surprise”, the US transport secretary has said.

Anthony Foxx told the BBC that accidents were inevitable, but that the emerging technology should not be compared “against perfection”.

Nobody was hurt in the crash, but it was the first time Google’s on-board computer has been blamed for causing a collision.

Secretary Foxx was attending the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Texas.

He announced that seven US cities – Austin, Columbus, Denver, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Portland and San Francisco – had reached the final stage of a competition to receive $40m in government funding for “smart” technologies.

Secretary Foxx agreed that smart technologies could put some people out of work.

“Driverless technology presents a lot of potential for disruption on a number of fronts,” he said.

“It’s unclear to me now exactly how that future unfolds.”

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Secretary Foxx is leading efforts to bring self-driving cars to US roads. The Obama administration has committed $4bn to that goal – which includes attempts to develop standardised regulations for autonomous cars across the entire country.

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