Across the world, the conversion of information into a digital format – also called “digitalisation” – has increased productivity in the public and private sectors. As a result, virtually every country in the world is working towards a digital economy.
Modern society has given significant attention to the promises of the digital economy over the past decade. But it has given little attention to its negative environmental footprint.
Satellites are becoming increasingly important in our lives, as they help us meet a demand for more data, exchanged at higher speeds. This is why we are exploring new ways of improving satellite communication. Satellite technology is used to navigate, forecast the weather, monitor Earth from space, receive TV signals from space, and connect to remote places through tools such as satellite phones and NBN’s Sky Muster satellites. All these communications use radio waves. These are electromagnetic waves that propagate through space and, to a certain degree, through obstacles such as walls. Each communication system uses a frequency band allocated for…
Think about the way plastic pollution has been reported in recent years and you’re probably picturing plastic packaging, films and microfibres. But Christmas brings a deluge of another relatively short-lived plastic product that has received a lot less attention – children’s toys.
With a collective gasp and puzzled looks, the world was recently introduced to Tesla’s newest vehicle. The so-called Cybertruck is an angular, stainless steel, all-electric pickup truck that quickly became polarizing.
Our electronic devices store a plethora of sensitive information. To protect this information, device operating systems such as Apple’s iOS and Android have locking mechanisms. These require user authentication before access is granted.
In an interview, PayPal’s chief executive, Dan Schulman, recently discussed the prospects for blockchain – the encrypted, decentralised online ledger system that underpins Bitcoin and myriad other cutting-edge projects. While talking about blockchain’s potential for improving how people make payments around the world, Schulman said: We think there’s a lot of promise to blockchain technology … but it really needs to do something that the traditional rails [of the interntional payments system] can’t do. Most people think that blockchain is about efficiency, but the system today is pretty efficient. There are middlemen sometimes in between, but the rails of it are pretty efficient. So we…
East Africa attracts millions of tourists every year. Over the past 10 years, its earnings from tourism have doubled. Compared to the rest of Africa, the region is experiencing healthy economic growth. This makes it a promising investment destination.
Earlier this week, Russian farmers announced they are testing virtual reality (VR) for dairy cows. Conducted at the RusMoloko farm near Moscow, the trials supposedly use specially adapted goggles to show the animals a view of a pleasant field in summer. The idea is to make the cows happier, which in turn could make them produce more milk.
Videos showing autonomous or self-driving vehicles weaving in and out of crossroads at speed without colliding suggest this technology will solve traffic problems. You almost never see pedestrians or cyclists in these videos. The reality is that they don’t fit.
