Facebook brand crisis: New name might give the company a facelift, but that doesn’t book a rebrand
When Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook, in 2004, it was a mere directory of students at Harvard: The Face Book. Two decades, 90 acquisitions and billions of dollars later, Facebook has become a household name. Now it wants a new one. Zuckerberg is expected to announce a new name for the...
Study: Recycled lithium batteries as good as new, raise hope of reduced environmental pollution
Lithium-ion batteries, with their use of riskily mined metals, tarnish the green image of EVs. Recycling to recover those valuable metals would minimise the social and environmental impact of mining, keep millions of tonnes of batteries from landfills, and cut the energy use and emissions created from making batteries. But...
Domestic violence: Virtual reality enables batterers feel what it’s like to be attacked, learn some empathy
“I have to come home every day and look at your shitty face,” the man barks to his partner. “When we married, you were hot. Look at you now. You look like shit.” The man advances, knocking the phone to the ground, until his face looms menacingly close. This harrowing...
AI: Training machines based on earlier examples can embed past prejudices, uphold discrimination
In the past decade, data-driven technologies have transformed the world around us. We’ve seen what’s possible by gathering large amounts of data and training artificial intelligence to interpret it: computers that learn to translate languages, facial recognition systems that unlock our smartphones, algorithms that identify cancers in patients. The possibilities...
Electric cars: Consumers main worry about losing power or being unable to recharge on a long trip
Driving range is important for the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. Most consumers buy cars on the basis of reach because they worry about losing power or being unable to recharge on a long trip. Yet, most car journeys are short – to the shops or school. In the United...
How safe city tech turned 8 African countries, including Kenya and Senegal, into ‘Chinese data colonies’
Chinese technology firms have been peddling “safe city” and “smart city” packages of technology in Africa for years. Suites of interconnected products and services include surveillance equipment, communications tools and digital municipal management systems. Billed as public safety tools, the programmes are increasingly used to control the population and crack...
Food securityGene-edited wheat cleared for first field trial in the United Kingdom
Scientists have been given the greenlight to grow the UK’s first field trial of gene-edited wheat. According to Farmers Review, UK gave the go-ahead on August 24 following an application by Rothamsted Research, which announced that it had run a series of field trials that had consequently been approved by...
Scammers could sack you as AI can now create phishing messages in flawless language
Natural language processing continues to find its way into unexpected corners. This time, it is phishing emails. In a small study, researchers found that they could use the deep learning language model GPT-3, along with other AI-as-a-service platforms, to significantly lower the barrier to entry for crafting spear-phishing campaigns at...
Ransomware hacker spills beans about Russian cybercriminal’s plan as row over proceeds rages
Someone claiming to work with one of the most notorious ransomware gangs says they’re fed up with how extortion money is divvied up and has leaked a host of the gang’s files on a hacker forum. The files, posted to a forum frequented by Russian-speaking cybercriminals and reviewed by NBC...
Russia calls on UN to broaden cybercrime offences, network backdoors and online censorship
Russia has put forward a draft convention to the United Nations ostensibly to fight cyber-crime. The proposal, titled United Nations Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes,” calls for member-states to develop domestic laws to punish a far broader set of offenses than current...
