Browsing: Technology News

There is now widespread concern about the amount of time children spend staring at screens – with many people worried about the negative impacts mobile devices might have on health and well-being.

Concerns have also been raised about the influence of technological change on relationships and face-to-face interactions. Sherry Turkle, a professor of the social studies of science, came up with the famous term “alone together” – which is also the name of her book. “Alone together” captures this idea of spending time on devices to the neglect of interacting with those who are physically nearby.

Earlier this year we heard that Lenovo-owned Motorola is taking another crack at their iconic Razr phone, only this time it is going to be a (very expensive) foldable device. Pricing over R20k? We were hoping that the device would justify the cost beyond just being an entry in the burgeoning folding phone wars but… yeah. 

Zuckerberg aims to make private messages private and ephemeral – meaning Facebook can’t read our messages, and the data doesn’t stick around on the company’s servers for longer than necessary. His vision involves merging Facebook and the company’s other digital platforms – Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger – into a super app, similar to China’s WeChat.

Some people suggest these tasks should be automated, as machines do not get bored, tired or distracted over time. However, computer vision algorithms tasked to recognize faces could also make mistakes. As my research has found, together, machines and humans could do much better.

The folks at Stuff love a good drone. The flying-around one, not the type that puts you to sleep when…

This week on Light Start, we go up in the air (twice — once for drones, the other for photos), check out some Swedish sci-fi, and download The Division 2.

Instead of being central to the system of decisions that affects us, we are cast out in to its environment. We have progressively restricted our own decision-making capacity and allowed algorithms to take over. We have become artificial humans, or human artefacts, that are created, shaped and used by the technology.

Lonely Planet, and others, have become excited by tourism powered by virtual reality(VR) – both on this planet and, thanks to NASA, on others.

VR films are also being developed by travel companies, such as Thomas Cook. And Tourism Australia has partnered with Google to understand the marketing potential of VR (well, 360 degree panoramic videos).

We’ve gotten used to Facebook being rather terrible at anything like protecting user privacy, being transparent about … most things, or keeping its promises. So we could be forgiven for being skeptical of Mark Zuckerburg’s newest note to the internet, which claims that Facebook is looking towards a “privacy-focused” future for the social network. 

Drones are useful, and are helping in the recovery after the deadly Alabama tornadoes, but most require individual pilots, who fly the unmanned aircraft by remote control. That limits how quickly rescuers can view an entire affected area, and can delay actual aid from reaching victims.