Science & Technology

The race is on to bring a jetpack to market. New Zealand-based Martin Aircraft has (Read More)

A colleague recently described the internet as “immoral”. Some might think it is “amoral” – a neutral place, where it is we, human beings, decide whether it is good or bad. But this colleague was adamant. The internet, right from its very foundations (even deeper, from its roots) is substantially immoral. It’s bad, rotten to the core. That immorality may have been made in ignorance by its originators, or it may have been consciously chosen. So says my colleague. (Read More)

We have tended in recent years in the realm of social media to think of privacy as the opposite of transparency. Companies such as Facebook have espoused an ideology in favour of transparency. Whilst stating that privacy is a human right, they have mined our data in order to sell it to third parties and better “target” us with advertising. This is built on a basic business model of social media being free in return for access to this behavioural data. (Read More)

Managers and bosses now have the right to snoop digitally on their staff. They might just find that the transparency they think they have won leads to a deeper transparency flying out of the office windows as people zip up, minimise and, more dangerously, take the conversations underground. We then end up with a kind of toxic silence. (Read More)

Facebook’s recent apology for its Year in Review feature, which had displayed to a grieving father images of his dead daughter, highlights again the tricky relationship between the social media behemoth and its users’ data. (Read More)

“Most of our thoughts these days are reactions to, and shaped by other people, organisations (Read More)

The idea of “digital addiction” has returned to the fore with UCL researchers suggesting physical activity should displace the compulsive watching of television, internet surfing and video gaming. Often it’s suggested that at least gaming is more active and engaged than merely passively watching television, but the UCL study’s authors regard gaming as “just a different way of sitting down and relaxing”. (Read More)

Likes come very cheap, and, as things stand on most social media platforms, there is no dislike button. So likes tend to be thumbs up, love hearts and instant one liner “amazing”s. Negative reaction tends to be phrase-based, even paragraph-based, is more elaborate and often experienced as more of an attack. I have written about how this can get quickly descend into chat rage as comments get out of hand and the subject of the reaction can feel threatened and attacked from all sides. (Read More)

Imagine the Earth was 45 years old, not 4.5 billion. On this timescale the dinosaurs died out 8 months ago; the first humans evolved just yesterday; agriculture only began within the last hour and the industrial revolution happened just one minute ago.
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The dust has now settled on the latest product launch from Apple, which for many trumped headlines about refugees, poverty and the battles for the Republican nomination and leadership of the UK Labour Party. We have new iPads, iPhones and more. But how new are they really? (Read More)

Samsung has advised users of its televisions not to speak aloud in front of it! I’m serious. Specifically the corporation suggested not speaking personal information aloud. You see the device, which can be voice activated, is in a constant start of alertness, ready for your command. It is recording all you say and, according to Samsung (as reported by the BBC), “Such TV sets “listen” to every conversation held in front of them and may share any details they hear with Samsung or third parties”. (Read More)