Author: The Conversation

Artificial intelligence has changed the way science is done by allowing researchers to analyze the massive amounts of data modern scientific instruments generate. It can find a needle in a million haystacks of information and, using deep learning, it can learn from the data itself. AI is accelerating advances in gene hunting, medicine, drug design and the creation of organic compounds. Deep learning uses algorithms, often neural networks that are trained on large amounts of data, to extract information from new data. It is very different from traditional computing with its step-by-step instructions. Rather, it learns from data. Deep learning is far less transparent than traditional…

Since the start of Russia’s war on Ukraine in late February 2022, Russian internet users have experienced what has been dubbed the descent of a “digital iron curtain.” Russian authorities blocked access to all major opposition news sites, as well as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Under the new draconian laws purporting to combat fake news about the Russian-Ukrainian war, internet users have faced administrative and criminal charges for allegedly spreading online disinformation about Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Most Western technology companies, from Airbnb to Apple, have stopped or limited their Russian operations as part of the broader corporate exodus from the country. Many Russians downloaded virtual…

American Kevin Strickland was exonerated after spending 42 years in prison for being wrongfully convicted of a triple murder in November 2021. His 1978 conviction was based on mistaken identification of an eyewitness. The eyewitness later said that police pressured her into identifying Strickland, and attempted to have her testimony recanted but failed. She died in 2015. Law enforcement agencies worldwide struggle with the unreliability of eyewitness identification and scarcity of physical clues at crime scenes. There is a wealth of evidence showing that mistaken eyewitness identification is a contributing factor in wrongful convictions. Police only collect physical evidence in approximately 15% or less of crime scenes. This makes non-physical…

I love writing code to make things: apps, websites, charts, even music. It’s a skill I’ve worked hard at for more than 20 years. So I must confess last week’s news about the release of a new “AI assistant” coding helper called GitHub Copilot gave me complicated feelings. Copilot, which spits out code to order based on “plain English” descriptions, is a remarkable tool. But is it about to put coders like me out of a job? Trained on billions of lines of human code GitHub (now owned by Microsoft) is a collaboration platform and social network for coders. You can think of it as something like…

Ten years ago, scientists announced the discovery of the Higgs boson, which helps explain why elementary particles (the smallest building blocks of nature) have mass. For particle physicists, this was the end of a decades-long and hugely difficult journey – and arguably the most important result in the history of the field. But this end also marked the beginning of a new era of experimental physics. In the past decade, measurements of the properties of the Higgs boson have confirmed the predictions of the standard model of particle physics (our best theory for particles). But it has also raised questions about the limitations…

South Africa’s Constitutional Court has decided to strike down the government’s plans to end old-style analogue television broadcasting at the end of June. The decision upholds the right to information, which poor South Africans would have been denied as government has been slow to roll out the devices they need to access the new digital signal. But the decision further delays migration to digital broadcasting and will leave South Africa struggling longer with a lack of urgently needed bandwidth. The migration would free up space on the frequency spectrum for mobile data and other uses. The government had many years to ensure…

While manufacturers have successfully increased the water-repelling nature of smartphones, they are still far from “waterproof”. A water-resistant product can usually resist water penetration to some extent, but a waterproof product is (meant to be) totally impervious to water. Last week, Samsung Australia was fined A$14 million by the Australian Federal Court over false representations in ads of the water resistance of its Galaxy phones. The tech giant admitted that submerging Galaxy phones in pool or sea water could corrode the charging ports and stop the phones from working, if charged while still wet. Similarly, in 2020, Apple was fined €10 million (about A$15.3…

Today marks 15 years since Apple released what’s arguably its flagship device: the iPhone. A decade and a half later, there are few products that have managed to reach a similar level of brand recognition. Announced to an eager audience in 2007, the iPhone has revolutionised how we communicate and even how we live day to day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnrJzXM7a6o The large-screen revolution The iPhone was released in the United States in June 2007, and in a further six countries in November (but notably not in Australia). From the launch of Mac computers in the 1970s to the iPod in 2001, Apple…

Most internet users are by now aware of the vulnerability of their personal data. When the news broke that tech companies misuse and manipulate our personal data, there was a widespread “techlash” against the corporate giants Facebook, Amazon and Google. The explicit motive for data harvesting is the prediction of consumer wants and needs. And scholars and activists have spent years exposing the dangerous effects of big data practices on individual privacy and civil liberties. Researchers have also shown how biased big data and opaque artificial intelligence have reproduced racism, classism and many forms of inequity. However, less attention has been paid to agriculture firms such as…

We’re all familiar with the blissful image of grandma or grandpa playing snakes and ladders with their grandchild – or a large family sat round a table at Christmas over a game of Scrabble, Monopoly or Cluedo. You’d be forgiven for thinking that the popularity of board games might have waned in favour of the smartphone, tablet or other online gaming. In fact, the market value of board games has been growing considerably in recent years. While board games were already on the rise pre COVID, lockdown fuelled this trend. A study conducted during the lockdowns suggested nostalgia may have been an important…