Author: The Conversation

The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, seems set to purchase the social media platform Twitter for around US$44 billion. He says he’s not doing it to make money (which is good, because Twitter has rarely turned a profit), but rather because, among other things, he believes in free speech. Twitter might seem an odd place to make a stand for free speech. The service has around 217 million daily users, only a fraction of the 2.8 billion who log in each day to one of the Meta family (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp). But the platform plays a disproportionately large role in society. It is…

With nearly 84% of the world’s population now owning a smartphone, and our dependence on them growing all the time, these devices have become an attractive avenue for scammers. Last year, cyber security company Kaspersky detected nearly 3.5 million malicious attacks on mobile phone users. The spam messages we get on our phones via text message or email will often contain links to viruses, which are a type of malicious software (malware). There’s a decent chance that at some point you’ve installed malware that infected your phone and worked (without you noticing) in the background. According to a global report commissioned by private company Zimperium, more…

Netflix’s recently released first-quarter earnings for 2022 reported a shocking loss of 200,000 subscribers – a worrying shift for a business that had previously only seen sustained growth since 2011. The New York Times headline: Netflix loses subscribers for the first time in a decade was catchy – however, a little bit of nuance is required. The company’s withdrawal from Russia as a response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and related sanctions saw a loss of 700,000 subscribers attributed to the quarter. The net result, taking into account the Russian loss, was a growth of 500,000 subscribers – a number still short…

It appears Twitter’s board of directors finally warmed to Elon Musk’ hostile bid and agreed to a sale – but not before it took a severe beating from the Tesla and SpaceX billionaire, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and other prominent users on their own social network. Musk, who on April 25, 2022, sealed a deal to buy Twitter for US$44 billion, criticized board members for owning almost no shares of the company they oversee. Dorsey, who will step down from his seat on Twitter’s board at the end of his term in May 2022, called it the “dysfunction of the company.” Conservative politicians derided the board as “scared”…

Have you ever made a mistake that you wish you could undo? Correcting past mistakes is one of the reasons we find the concept of time travel so fascinating. As often portrayed in science fiction, with a time machine, nothing is permanent anymore — you can always go back and change it. But is time travel really possible in our universe, or is it just science fiction? Our modern understanding of time and causality comes from general relativity. Theoretical physicist Albert Einstein’s theory combines space and time into a single entity — “spacetime” — and provides a remarkably intricate explanation of…

Most people who use Twitter have had the experience: you fire off a quick tweet, realise it contains a typo, then get annoyed you can’t click “edit” to fix it. Twitter users have been clamouring for an edit button for years. Elon Musk, who has recently been buying up shares in the microblogging platform and has made a US$48 billion offer for the whole company, asked his 82 million followers if they wanted an edit button. His (deeply unscientific) poll attracted 4.4 million responses, with 73% in favour. Do you want an edit button? — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 5, 2022 Other social…

In 2021, an investment firm bought 2,000 acres of real estate for about US$4 million. Normally this would not make headlines, but in this case the land was virtual. It existed only in a metaverse platform called The Sandbox. By buying 792 non-fungible tokens on the Ethereum blockchain, the firm then owned the equivalent of 1,200 city blocks. But did it? It turns out that legal ownership in the metaverse is not that simple. The prevailing but legally problematic narrative among crypto enthusiasts is that NFTs allow true ownership of digital items in the metaverse for two reasons: decentralization and interoperability. These two technological features have led some to claim…

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is much more than just a buzzword nowadays. It powers facial recognition in smartphones and computers, translation between foreign languages, systems which filter spam emails and identify toxic content on social media, and can even detect cancerous tumours. These examples, along with countless other existing and emerging applications of AI, help make people’s daily lives easier, especially in the developed world. As of October 2021, 44 countries were reported to have their own national AI strategic plans, showing their willingness to forge ahead in the global AI race. These include emerging economies like China and India, which are leading the way in building national AI plans within the…

When Allen & Unwin requested a sequel to J.R.R. Tolkien’s first novel The Hobbit (1937), they could not have known that it would be one of the best publishing decisions of the century, if not all time. The Lord of the Rings has sold an enormous number of copies, and generated a vast and still-growing multimedia franchise, including the upcoming TV series The Rings of Power. Tolkien’s work and ideas also inspired countless readers and authors and is at the root of contemporary fantasy’s commercial and artistic success. All of this took time, even after the 15 year the publishers waited for their…

It was a technological feat that made history, wowed audiences and brought a dead rapper back to life. In April 2012 at the Coachella festival in California, Tupac Shakur took to the stage with Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre. He’d been dead for 16 years, killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. But this was Tupac the hologram, foul-mouthed and lifelike, performing before a “shocked and then amazed” crowd. Since humans first delighted in the sound of music, advancements in technology have managed to make musical expression immortal. Throughout history, innovators have strived to create original, accessible and eternal performances. As engineering…