Author: The Conversation

These days, it’s hard to know whom to trust online, and how to discern genuine content from fakery. Some degree of trust in our devices is necessary, if we’re to embrace the growing number of technologies that could potentially enhance our lives. How many of us, however, bother trying to confirm the truth, and how many blindly approach their online communications? In a study published this week, Texas Tech University researchers tested how university students reacted when unknowingly given incorrect calculator outputs. Some students were presented with an onscreen calculator that was programmed to give the wrong answers, whereas a second group was…

In fact, the 42 authors of DeepMind’s paper, published today in Nature, greatly outnumber the rest of the world building bots for StarCraft. Without wishing to take anything away from an impressive feat of collaborative engineering, if you throw enough resources at a problem, success is all but assured.

While many websites offer a way to opt out of targeted advertisements or unwanted emails, we discovered in our recent research that exercising privacy choices isn’t always easy. But that helped us formulate some simple solutions that could make things easier for users around the web.

If you’re a Gmail user, you might have recently noticed a ghost-like presence in your email account. It’s light grey, and it comes and goes, sometimes when you’re not expecting it. And, like most ghost sightings, glimpses of it have been reported to be a little creepy.

More than 200m homes now have a smart speaker providing voice-controlled access to the internet, according to one global estimate. Add this to the talking virtual assistants installed on many smartphones, not to mention kitchen appliances and cars, and that’s a lot of Alexas and Siris. Because talking is a fundamental part of being human, it is tempting to think these assistants should be designed to talk and behave like us. While this would give us a relatable way to interact with our devices, replicating genuinely realistic human conversations is incredibly difficult. What’s more, research suggests making a machine sound human may be unnecessary and…

Drones are revolutionizing the way scientists observe, measure and monitor the natural environment. From mapping the patterns of wildfires, like those in California, to measuring the size of jellyfish populations, drones have the potential to improve our understanding of the natural environment.

Here’s what you need to know about DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH). A new technology promises to make your web browser more private than ever, keeping your internet activity from prying eyes. But some argue your data won’t actually be all that private. And others are worried it could actually help criminals including child abusers to avoid justice.

The latest industrial robots look like petting zoo versions of the big machines found in many modern factories – small, cute and you can play with them. But don’t be deceived by their cuddly appearance. They have the potential to change the way humans work with machines and disrupt the existing market for industrial robots.

The Large Interactive Virtual Environment Laboratory (LIVELab) at McMaster University is a research concert hall. It functions as both a high-tech laboratory and theatre, opening up tremendous opportunities for research and investigation.

The tech giants Amazon, Google and Facebook have all begun to use machine learning to give you tips on what to wear. Is fashion styling the next field to be disrupted by artificial intelligence (AI), or will the human eye remain supreme?