Category: Technology

Millions of people around the world use EFF’s Privacy Badger. This browser extension blocks the hidden trackers that twist your web browsing into a commodity for Big Tech, advertisers, scammers, and data brokers. But did you know that we’re trying to solve an issue that’s even bigger than creepy ads and user profiling? You can help. JOIN […]

Illustration of a Mars mission that utilises nuclear propulsion. Nasa Nasa is developing ways to use nuclear power to send spacecraft to their destinations. Nuclear propulsion could greatly reduce the journey time to Mars, perhaps cutting a voyage of more than six months to three or four months. The idea of nuclear propulsion in space […]

Agriculture is the lifeblood of Africa. More than 60% of African households depend directly or indirectly on the land for their livelihoods. And the continent has nearly 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land. Farming is a fragile sector, however. It has to deal with climate change, market volatility, weak infrastructure and demographic pressure. Addressing […]

Last week, Instagram ended its opt-in, and therefore rarely used, end-to-end encryption feature. Years after publicly promising to provide the privacy protections of end-to-end encryption across its platforms by default, it instead gave up on that technical challenge. Now, we’ve all lost an option for safer conversations on one of the biggest social media platforms […]

This week, Apple released iOS 26.5, an update that supports end-to-end encryption for Rich Communication Services (RCS), meaning conversations between Android and iPhone will soon be encrypted in the default chat apps. This has been a long time coming, and is a welcome delivery on a promise both Google and Apple made. With this update, […]

Hiring algorithms are one of the systems that could be affected by discrimination. PeopleImages If artificial intelligence (AI) systems shape decisions that affect people’s lives, they should do so fairly. This should be a given considering that potential applications for AI include automated hiring systems, as well as tools used in education, finance and criminal […]

Hiring algorithms are one of the systems that could be affected by discrimination. PeopleImages If artificial intelligence (AI) systems shape decisions that affect people’s lives, they should do so fairly. This should be a given considering that potential applications for AI include automated hiring systems, as well as tools used in education, finance and criminal […]

Throughout history, most of the world’s genomic research has relied on DNA data from people of European ancestry. A genome is the full DNA code of about three billion (a thousand million) bases, including all the chromosomes. Each person has two genomes: one from their mother and the other from their father. Well resourced environments […]

Amazon's MK30 drone is now being used to deliver packages in Darlington, County Durham. Photograph: Amazon Prime Air There is a new buzz around Darlington: the sound of delivery drones. This northern English town is now the only place outside the US where retail giant Amazon offers airborne delivery to people’s homes via its Prime […]

Aston University and the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC) Hartree Centre are joining forces to accelerate the development and industrial adoption of neuromorphic computing across the UK. The initiative focuses on brain-inspired computing technologies with the potential to transform the design, power and real-world application of future artificial intelligence systems. The collaboration will set […]