What’s Wrong with the News?
By: Alexandra Borchardt September 11, 2019 The rise of data analytics has made journalists and their editors confident that they know what the people want. Why, then, did almost one-third of respondents to the Reuters Institute’s latest Digital News Report say that they regularly avoid news altogether? OXFORD – The British public can’t get enough […]
Technology New tech to help disabled people
By: Laura Potier September 8, 2019 Electrical stimulation Nine years ago, David Mzee was left paralysed by a gymnastics accident and told he would never walk again. Last week, he competed in a charity run during which he walked 390 metres, thanks to an experimental treatment that uses electrical stimulation of the spinal cord to […]
Inequality – Why and How Might Investors Respond to Economic Inequality?
By: PRI OVERVIEW Economic inequality, understood as the gap between the rich and poor in income and wealth, has received extensive and continuing attention in public and academic discourse across the globe since the financial crisis.1 New research on the nature, causes and consequences of inequality seems to come every week, and considerable political discussion […]
Decentralisation: the next big step for the world wide web
By: Zoe Corbyn September 8, 2019 The story that broke early last month that Google would again cooperate with Chinese authorities to run a censored version of its search engine, something the tech giant has neither confirmed nor denied, had ironic timing. The same day, a group of 800 web builders and others – among […]
Chinese netizens get privacy-conscious
By: The Economist September 7, 2019 ON THE NIGHT of August 30th, soon after ZAO—an app whose name means “to make”—was launched, it proved so wildly popular that its servers crashed repeatedly. Almost as rapidly, a sudden backlash from its many fans nearly unmade it. Technology-news outlets and meticulous netizens who had combed through the […]
Artificial intelligence is changing every aspect of war
By: The Economist September 7, 2019 A S THE NAVY plane swooped low over the jungle, it dropped a bundle of devices into the canopy below. Some were microphones, listening for guerrilla footsteps or truck ignitions. Others were seismic detectors, attuned to minute vibrations in the ground. Strangest of all were the olfactory sensors, sniffing […]
States Take On Facebook In Antitrust Investigation
By: Jennifer Liberto, Avie Schneider September 6, 2019 The push to investigate Big Tech is picking up steam. Attorneys general from eight states and the District of Columbia have launched a formal investigation into Facebook over anti-competitive practices, the New York attorney general’s office confirmed Friday morning. And later in the day, Google’s parent acknowledged […]
More Robots Mean 120 Million Workers Need to be Retrained
By: Shelly Hagan September 6, 2019 More than 120 million workers globally will need retraining in the next three years due to artificial intelligence’s impact on jobs, according to an IBM survey. That’s a top concern for many employers who say talent shortage is one of the greatest threats to their organizations today. And the […]
Smile-to-pay: Chinese shoppers turn to facial payment technology
By: September 5, 2019 New technology is rolling out across the country, despite concerns over privacy China’s shoppers are increasingly purchasing goods with just a turn of their heads as the country embraces facial payment technology. In a country where mobile payment is already one of the most advanced in the world, customers can make […]