Author: The Conversation

Commercial spaceflight companies such as Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are now offering exclusive opportunities for celebrities and civilians to travel to space. Traditionally, astronauts have been subject to rigorous training and medical scrutiny before going to space, and the risk of death from natural causes was considered remote. But in this new era of space tourism, it appears medical screening may not be carried out, and only minimal pre-flight training provided. With a wide variety of people now going to space, and the prospect in the coming years of humans establishing bases on the Moon and beyond, it raises an important question: what happens if someone dies in space?…

The COVID-19 pandemic, with its lockdown and social isolation, has added to the vulnerability of many Nigerians in several ways. Aside from health risks and disruption to livelihoods, the move from physical to virtual relationships heightened the exposure of people to cybercriminals. The pandemic has changed the landscape of cybercrime in the country. The government’s social and welfare interventions, to cushion the impact of the pandemic, presented an opportunity for fraudsters to take advantage of vulnerable people. These palliative interventions included food distribution, cash transfers and loan repayment relief. In addition, with social distancing and restrictions on movement, people have been doing more…

On April 20, 2010, the offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded, burned, sank in the Gulf of Mexico and terrified the world. This horrific accident — recorded as the largest oil spill in history — killed 11 workers and released 210 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean. While about a half of the oil rose to the surface, the other half formed a suspended plume of many tiny oil droplets about 1,000 metres below the surface. Its extent and whereabouts couldn’t be determined from above. Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are untethered marine robots that can explore the underwater world. AUVs were first…

In just a few months, a simple five-letter puzzle has earned its creator a seven-figure sum. The growth of Wordle, in which players attempt to work out a mystery word, has been rapid. At the start of November 2021, the online game was played by just 90 people. By the start of 2022, that number was 300,000, increasing to 2 million soon after. It has reached a level of popularity that made the New York Times value it at over US$1 million (£738,000). Part of the game’s value to users – and therefore to the publishers of the New York Times – is its simplicity.…

A group of 60 scientists called for a moratorium on solar geoengineering last month, including technologies such as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI). This involves a fleet of aeroplanes releasing aerosol particles – which reflect sunlight back to outer space – into the atmosphere, cooling down the Earth. SAI might make the sky slightly whiter. But this is the least of our concerns. SAI could pose grave dangers, potentially worse than the warming it seeks to remedy. To understand the risks, we’ve undertaken a risk assessment of this controversial technology. A cooler Earth means less water would be evaporating from its surfaces into the atmosphere, changing rainfall patterns. This could produce…

The owners of Google and Facebook were both heavily fined for using cookies illegally at the tail end of 2021 by the French data protection authority, Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Liberté (CNIL). On the French versions of Google, its sister platform YouTube, and Facebook, users were being asked to consent to cookies in such a way that it was much easier for them to accept than reject the request. They could accept cookies with just one click but there was a more laborious process for refusing. Google owner Alphabet was fined €150 million (£125 million) and Facebook owner Meta €60 million. Alphabet…

Artificial intelligence (AI) has now closely matched or even surpassed humans in what were previously considered unattainable areas. These include chess, arcade games, Go, self-driving cars, protein folding and much more. This rapid technological progress has also had a huge impact on the financial services industry. More and more CEOs in the sector declare (explicitly or implicitly) that they run “technology companies with a banking license”. There is also a rapid emergence and growth of the financial technology industry (fintech), where technology startups increasingly challenge established financial institutions in areas such as retail banking, pensions or personal investments. As such, AI often appears in behind-the-scenes processes such as cybersecurity,…

Joe Rogan is described on his website as “stand up comic, mixed martial arts fanatic, psychedelic adventurer, host of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.” It’s the last of these that has really made his name, and for many audiences, made the medium of podcasting too. Rogan’s podcast gets an estimated 200 million downloads each month, making him the most popular podcaster in the US. When Spotify signed a US$100 million (A$140 million) deal with Rogan in 2020 for the exclusive rights to his podcast the industry took notice. Before this, podcasts were everywhere, and their “platform agnostic” status was central to their appeal for creators and…

American chip-making giant Intel is a shadow of its former self. Despite the global semiconductor shortage, which has boosted rival chipmakers, Intel is making less money than a year ago with net income down 21% year over year to US$4.6 billion (£3.4 billion). Unfortunately, this is an ongoing trend. Intel was the world’s largest chipmaker until 2021, when it was dethroned by Samsung. Though Samsung’s main business is memory chips, which is a different segment of the market to Intel’s microprocessors, it is sign of Intel’s decline. We’ve been tracking global companies’ future-readiness at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), and Intel now comes out 16th in…

Earlier this month, Meta announced it is working on a set of ethical guidelines for “virtual influencers” – animated, typically computer-generated, characters designed to attract attention on social media. When Facebook renamed itself Meta late last year, it heralded a pivot towards the “metaverse” – where virtual influencers will presumably one day roam in their thousands. Even Meta admits the metaverse doesn’t really exist yet. The building blocks of a persistent, immersive virtual reality for everything from business to play are yet to be fully assembled. But virtual influencers are already online, and are surprisingly convincing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJQ6z1EsLbg Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse announcement. 30 October 2021. But given…