Author: The Conversation

Fifty years ago, U.S. scientists launched a satellite that dramatically changed how we see the world. It captured images of Earth’s surface in minute detail, showing how wildfires burned landscapes, how farms erased forests, and many other ways humans were changing the face of the planet. The first satellite in the Landsat series launched on July 23, 1972. Eight others followed, providing the same views so changes could be tracked over time, but with increasingly powerful instruments. Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 are orbiting the planet today, and NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey are planning a new Landsat mission. The images and data from these satellites are used…

This past June, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced a probe into Tesla’s autopilot software. Data gathered from 16 crashes raised concerns over the possibility that Tesla’s AI may be programmed to quit when a crash is imminent. This way, the car’s driver, not the manufacturer, would be legally liable at the moment of impact. It echoes the revelation that Uber’s self-driving car, which hit and killed a woman, detected her six seconds before impact. But the AI was not programmed to recognize pedestrians outside of designated crosswalks. Why? Because jaywalkers are not legally there. Some believe these stories are proof that…

We hear the phrase “digital transformation” a lot these days. It’s often used to describe the process of replacing functions and services that were once done face-to-face by human beings with online interactions that are faster, more convenient and “empower” the user. But does digital transformation really deliver on those promises? Or does the seemingly relentless digitalisation of life actually reinforce existing social divides and inequities? Take banking, for example. Where customers once made transactions with tellers at local branches, now they’re encouraged to do it all online. As branches close it leaves many, especially older people, struggling with what was once…

Events where groups of people come together to create or improve software using large data sets are usually called hackathons. As health data researchers who want to build and maintain public trust, we recommend the use of alternative terms, such as datathon and code fest. Hackathon is a portmanteau that combines the words “hack” and “marathon.” The “hack” in hackathon is meant to refer to a clever and improvised way of doing something rather than unauthorized computer or data access. From a computer scientist’s perspective, “hackathon” probably sounds innovative, intensive and maybe a little disruptive, but in a helpful rather…

A digital twin is a copy of a person, product or process that is created using data. This might sound like science fiction, but some have claimed that you will likely have a digital double within the next decade. As a copy of a person, a digital twin would — ideally — make the same decisions that you would make if you were presented with the same materials. Read more: What are digital twins? A pair of computer modeling experts explain This might seem like yet another speculative claim by futurists. But it is much more possible than people might like to believe.…

The U.S. has the largest number of surveillance cameras per person in the world. Cameras are omnipresent on city streets and in hotels, restaurants, malls and offices. They’re also used to screen passengers for the Transportation Security Administration. And then there are smart doorbells and other home security cameras. Most Americans are aware of video surveillance of public spaces. Likewise, most people know about online tracking – and want Congress to do something about it. But as a researcher who studies digital culture and secret communications, I believe that to understand how pervasive surveillance is, it’s important to recognize how physical and digital tracking work together. Databases can…

China’s digital economy has advanced rapidly over the past two decades, with services, communications and commerce moving online. The Chinese government has generally encouraged its citizens to accept digital technologies in all aspects of daily life. Today China has around a billion internet users. China has made clear it aims to be a global leader in digital infrastructure and technologies. Leadership in digital tech has been deemed critical to China’s future economic growth, domestically and internationally. Like Western countries, China has seen the rise of a handful of dominant digital platform or “big tech” internet companies. We studied China’s recent efforts to regulate…

One of the world’s most popular social media platforms, TikTok, is now host to a steady stream of deepfake videos. Deepfakes are videos in which a subject’s face or body has been digitally altered to make them look like someone else – usually a famous person. One notable example is the @deeptomcriuse TikTok account, which has posted dozens of deepfake videos impersonating Tom Cruise, and attracted some 3.6 million followers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyiOVUbsPcM Deepfakes gained a lot of media attention last year, with videos impersonating Hollywood actor Tom Cruise going viral. In another example, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to be confessing to conspiratorial data…

Earlier this month, the Internet Archive asked a US court to end a lawsuit filed against it by four large book publishers. The Internet Archive is a not-for-profit organisation founded in 1996 that lends digital copies of books, music, movies and other digitised content to the public. It aims to support people with print disabilities, preserve digital content for future generations and democratise access to knowledge. The publishers say the Internet Archive’s digital lending practices amount to wilful copyright infringement. Authors have also complained the site hosts pirated content. The Internet Archive says it is behaving like an ordinary library, as it only loans digital copies of physical books…

The COVID-19 pandemic placed enormous pressure on education systems worldwide. At the peak of the crisis, school closures forced over 1.6 billion learners out of classrooms. This exacerbated a learning crisis that existed before the pandemic, with many children in school but learning very little. Widespread school closures are not unique to COVID-19. Teacher strikes, natural disasters, other disease outbreaks and extreme weather conditions all result in lengthy school closures. The cost of school closures has proved to be substantial, in particular for lower socioeconomic status households. When schools are closed, remote learning is rarely as effective as in-school instruction, and caregivers become the front-line educators.…