Author: The Conversation

Apple recently launched the latest version of its operating system, iOS 14.5, which features the much-anticipated app tracking transparency function, bolstering the tech giant’s privacy credentials. But iOS 14.5 also introduced support for the new Apple AirTag, which risks doing the opposite. For the uninitiated, an AirTag is a small device (similar to a Tile) that can be attached to personal items such as keys, wallets or luggage. The tag periodically sends messages that can be used to track its location, letting you find any lost or missing items with the help of an app. While clearly useful, AirTags can also potentially be misused. Concerns…

The pandemic has challenged and changed how most people date and hookup. “Monogamy is preferable at this time,” said Horacio Arruda, Quebec’s National Director of Public Health, during the height of the first wave. Government-imposed physical distancing measures, stay-at-home orders and other public health initiatives resulted in a shift toward online dating. This shift has increased the number of dating app users and the amount of time people spend on dating apps. Tinder says its users had 11 per cent more swipes and 42 per cent more matches last year, making 2020 the app’s busiest year. Since dating apps were created to help people…

Data breaches have become common, and billions of records are stolen worldwide every year. Most of the media coverage of data breaches tends to focus on how the breach happened, how many records were stolen and the financial and legal impact of the incident for organizations and individuals affected by the breach. But what happens to the data that is stolen during these incidents? As a cybersecurity researcher, I track data breaches and the black market in stolen data. The destination of stolen data depends on who is behind a data breach and why they’ve stolen a certain type of data. For…

Tesla’s relationship with cryptocurrencies has been a stop-start rollercoaster. In February, the electric vehicle manufacturer announced it had purchased US$1.5 billion (£1.1 billion) of bitcoin and planned to accept the cryptocurrency in future as a means of payment from its customers. The price of the largest cryptocurrency surged that day from just over US$39,000 to US$46,000, on its way to an all-time high of almost US$65,000 in April – and a paper profit of well over US$1 billion for Tesla. Fast-forward a few short weeks and the situation has changed entirely. First came the news in late April that Tesla had sold 10% of its bitcoin…

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has recently commissioned three private companies, Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin and General Atomics, to develop nuclear fission thermal rockets for use in lunar orbit. Such a development, if flown, could usher in a new era of spaceflight. That said, it is only one of several exciting avenues in rocket propulsion. Here are some others. Chemical rockets The standard means of propulsion for spacecraft uses chemical rockets. There are two main types: solid fuelled (such as the solid rocket boosters on the Space Shuttle), and liquid fuelled (such as the Saturn V). In both cases, a chemical reaction…

Chinese technology provider Huawei was recently accused of being able to monitor all calls made using Dutch mobile operator KPN. The revelations are from a secret 2010 report made by consultancy firm Capgemini, which KPN commissioned to evaluate the risks of working with Huawei infrastructure. While the full report on the issue has not been made public, journalists reporting on the story have outlined specific concerns that Huawei personnel in the Netherlands and China had access to security-essential parts of KPN’s network – including the call data of millions of Dutch citizens – and that a lack of records meant KPN couldn’t establish how often this…

Life outside our living rooms has been in short supply since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, so it’s no surprise that people have increasingly turned to producing and consuming social media posts that focus on food. With limited access to our favourite restaurants, cafés or fast-food joints, social media has become a safe way for people to get their culinary fix. But what is it about videos of food that engages users and generates the most likes, comments and shares? Our recent investigation, published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, focused on the nutritional makeup of dishes depicted on social…

China’s space program is making impressive progress. The country only launched its first crewed flight in 2003, more than 40 years after the Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. China’s first Mars mission was in 2020, half a century after the US Mariner 9 probe flew past the red planet. But the rising Asian superpower is catching up fast: flying missions to the Moon and Mars; launching heavy-lift rockets; building a new space telescope set to fly in 2024; and, most recently, putting the first piece of the Tiangong space station (the name means Heavenly Palace) into orbit. What is the Tiangong space station? Tiangong is the successor to China’s…

Want to be a space tourist? Billionaire Jeff Bezos’s space launch company Blue Origin has announced it will sell its first flights into microgravity to the highest bidder. Blue Origin and its two greatest competitors in the “space tourism” field, SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, claim to be advancing humanity through the “democratisation” of space. But these joyrides aren’t opening up access to space for all. A changing landscape At face value, the prospect of a space tourism industry is exciting. It promises an easier path to space than the one followed by astronauts, who must go through higher education, intense training and extremely competitive selection processes.…

When it comes to dancing, pulling a sled, climbing stairs or doing tricks, “Spot” is definitely a good dog. It can navigate the built environment and perform a range of tasks, clearly demonstrating its flexibility as a software and hardware platform for commercial use. Viral videos of Boston Dynamics’ robotic quadruped showcasing those abilities have been a key pillar of its marketing strategy. But earlier this year, when a New York art collective harnessed Spot to make a different point, the company was quick to deny its potential for harm. The project, “Spot’s Rampage”, involved fitting a sample of the…