Category: Technology

Government departments across South Africa are increasingly relying on digital tools to evaluate public programmes and monitor performance. This is part of broader public-sector reforms. Their aims are to improve accountability, respond to audit pressure and manage large-scale programmes with limited staff and budgets. Here’s an example. National departments tracking housing delivery, social grants or […]

ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum) A recent study showed that Mars was warm and wet billions of years ago. The finding contrasts with another theory that this era was mainly cold and icy. The result has implications for the idea that life could have developed on the planet at this time. Whether Mars was once habitable […]

The New York Times reported that Meta is considering adding face recognition technology to its smart glasses. According to an internal Meta document, the company may launch the product “during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns.”  This […]

Nicoleta Ionescu/Shutterstock The short, dark days of winter are never easy to get through. But for many people in the UK and across Europe, this winter has felt particularly gloomy because of the seemingly endless rain. If you live in some parts of south-west England or the Welsh borders, at the time of writing it […]

Discord has begun rolling out mandatory age verification and the internet is, understandably, freaking out. At EFF, we’ve been raising the alarm about age verification mandates for years. In December, we launched our Age Verification Resource Hub to push back against laws and platform policies that require users to hand over sensitive personal information just […]

Pablo Carlos Budassi, CC BY-NC-SA To an astronaut today, the Earth looks like a vibrant blue marble from space. But 700 million years ago, it would have looked like a blinding white snowball. This seems an unlikely cradle for life, yet new evidence suggests the frozen ocean featured restricted ice-free oases that provided a lifeline […]

Frame 352 from the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film in 1962. wikipedia It was the image that launched a cultural icon. In 1967, in the northern Californian woods, a seven foot tall, ape-like creature covered in black fur and walking upright was captured on camera, at one point turning around to look straight down the lens. The […]

Criticize the government online? The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) might ask Google to cough up your name. By abusing an investigative tool called “administrative subpoenas,” DHS has been demanding that tech companies hand over users’ names, locations, and more. We’re explaining how companies can stand up for users—and covering the latest news in the […]

The DeepTech Catalyst Biotech Incubator (DTC Bio) is a collaboration between the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). Shaping a better tomorrow Addressing a range of real-world challenges, the latest businesses to join the DTC Bio are: Oshun Labs: developing functional products derived from seaweed to […]

Sorapop Udomsri/Shutterstock Are you one of those people who can’t drop off to sleep if it’s “too quiet”? If so, you’re not alone. According to a 2023 survey of UK participants, 50% of people listen to some kind of noise to help fall asleep. Many people have turned to pink, white or brown noise to […]