Author: The Conversation

A defining characteristic of the way many people live today is persistent online connectedness. Since the introduction of smartphones about 15 years ago, the rapid and broad adoption of these devices has had an impact on people’s behaviour at all hours of the day. Forecasts suggest that the number of smartphone connections in sub-Saharan Africa will reach 678 million by the end of 2025, representing an adoption rate of 65%. Many people check their phones when they wake up, use them while travelling to work and constantly keep an eye on them while at work. A phone screen is the last thing many see before…

Tech giant Microsoft recently announced the retirement of its longstanding web browser, Internet Explorer, in favour of its newer product, Microsoft Edge. With support for Internet Explorer only set to last until June 15, 2022, its remaining users have just over a year to find an alternative. But of course, most web users already have. While the eventual downfall of Internet Explorer was seen as a foregone conclusion by those who monitor web trends, the news might come as an unwelcome surprise for those who are somewhat less up-to-date. For the most part, though, this news is a whimper rather…

Within seconds after reaching a city, earthquakes can cause immense destruction: Houses crumble, high-rises turn to rubble, people and animals are buried in the debris. In the immediate aftermath of such carnage, emergency personnel desperately search for any sign of life in what used to be a home or office. Often, however, they find that they were digging in the wrong pile of rubble, and precious time has passed. Imagine if rescuers could see through the debris to spot survivors under the rubble, measure their vital signs and even generate images of the victims. This is rapidly becoming possible using…

If you’re an iPhone user, check your storage now by selecting Settings, then General and then iPhone Storage. You’ll probably see a lot of recognisable categories eating up your storage — apps, photos, and so on. But there is one, often rather large category, that may raise concerns: “Other”. It’s shaded light grey and often represents a significant proportion of the overall storage available. There is one, often rather large category, that often raises concerns: ‘other’. Author provided What is ‘Other’? For more detail, scroll down and tap the “Other” category (right at the end). It doesn’t say much — just…

Queenie Tan is full of financial advice. Whether it is cheap date ideas, buying furniture, saving your first $100,000, doing your tax return or investing in Dogecoin, there is seemingly no topic the 24-year-old Sydney woman can’t confidently tackle. Her posts and videos have gained her 15,000 followers on Instagram and 42,000 followers on TikTok. Her explainer on Australian tax rules for cryptocurrency capital gains has been viewed more than 360,000 times. Her tips for first home buyers more than 400,000 times. Both videos last less than a minute. Queenie’s qualifications as a financial expert are slim. She has worked as a marketing manager. She says…

President Joe Biden’s cybersecurity executive order, signed May 12, 2021, calls for the federal government to adopt a “zero-trust architecture.” This raises a couple of questions. What is zero-trust security? And, if trust is bad for cybersecurity, why do most organizations in government and the private sector do it? One consequence of too much trust online is the ransomware epidemic, a growing global problem that affects organizations large and small. High-profile breaches such as the one experienced by the Colonial Pipeline are merely the tip of the iceberg. There were at least 2,354 ransomware attacks on local governments, health care facilities and schools in the U.S. last…

In an effort to reverse the flood of abuse on the platform, Twitter is rolling out a new feature which will show a self-moderation prompt to users who compose replies that the platform’s algorithms recognise to be abusive. The prompt effectively asks users to think twice before posting an abusive message. Because it compels users to rethink and reflect on abusive tweets, Twitter’s new self-moderation prompt could be a promising step away from fast and furious social media posting and towards a more considered slow media – or “slowcial media”. Twitter’s new feature This isn’t the first time Twitter has trialled and released “nudges” aimed at…

China’s rover Zhurong, named after the mythological fire god, successfully touched down on Mars on May 14 – the first time that China has successfully landed a rover on the red planet. On May 19, China’s National Space Administration issued the first images the rover had taken on Mars. After a summer of Mars launches in 2020, and with 2021 shaping up to be a successful one for landers and orbiters, it might seem like landing on Mars is routine. Yet to understand why a first successful landing is such a huge achievement, we need to look back at the…

We have developed and tested a secure new computer processor that thwarts hackers by randomly changing its underlying structure, or shape-shifting, thus making it virtually impossible to hack. Last summer, 525 security researchers spent three months trying to hack our Morpheus processor as well as others. All attempts against Morpheus failed. This study was part of a program sponsored by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Program Agency to design a secure processor that could protect vulnerable software. DARPA released the results on the program to the public for the first time in January 2021. A processor is the piece of computer hardware that runs software programs.…

An estimated 73.4 million people will be using wearable technologies in the United States by 2022. Wearables are smart electronics that can be worn on different parts of the body. The most popular smart device is the smartwatch. An important characteristic of wearable technology is that they are easy to acquire and thus they can be used almost anywhere. This convenience and adaptability means that smartwatches are used in a variety of circumstances, including while driving a car. Safety while using a smartwatch use is an issue for both smartwatch users and those around them. One in six Americans owns a smartwatch that…