When you mention virtual reality (VR), most people’s thoughts turn to videogames. Indeed, Sony has just announced its new Playstation VR headset. But VR isn’t just about gaming. There are many other interesting and exciting uses for it. Education
Author: The Conversation
The past 70 years have seen the way we live and work transformed by two tiny inventions. The electronic transistor and the microchip are what make all modern electronics possible, and
On Saturday, 26 March, Britain’s Independent newspaper will publish its last edition in print. The Independent on Sunday sold for the last time on 20 March. The distinctive El Pais of Madrid has announced that it will take “a step from paper to digital”. The
Terry Pratchett once told me that he didn’t actually recommend beginning your relationship with the Discworld through his first novel in the series, The Colour of Magic (1983). That’s because
Most people are bamboozled by bitcoin. It’s shrouded in jargon and geek speak. It borrows physical metaphors from all over the place adding to the confusion. It talks of “coins”, but there are no physical coins. You’ll hear about “miners”, although there is
South Africa’s political landscape is shifting almost by the hour. The gloves are off in a power struggle that pits President Jacob Zuma against a group of reformers, led by finance minister Pravin Gordhan. It is a high-stakes drama that has profound, long-term
It’s not every day that I feel the need to fight with Martin Wolf. The Financial Times commentator is an eminently respectable analyst and most of the time makes good sense. However, last week he sort of lost the plot. Wolf has written that technology will do to finance
South Africa has made domestic and international commitments to climate change mitigation. But the country continues to depend on coal-fired power plants, which provide 92% of its electricity. A key challenge for the country in dealing with electricity shortages is
Our modern world is based on semiconductors. In addition to your computer, cellphones and digital cameras, semiconductors are a critical component of a growing number of devices. Think
Astronomers are getting ever closer to understanding the origin of mysterious “fast radio bursts” – very brief but intense pulses of radio waves from outer space – after a series of recent contradictory