The message arrives on my “clean machine”, a MacBook Air loaded only with a sophisticated encryption package. “Change in plans,” my contact says. “Be in the lobby of the Hotel ______ by 1 pm. Bring a book and wait for ES to find you.” ES is Edward Snowden, the most wanted man in the world. Read more…
Elon Musk: AI could be more dangerous than nukes
The entrepreneur has used technology to reshape payments, electric cars and space travel, but he’s still really worried about what could happen if tech gets super-smart. Read more…
The pitfalls and promise of Internet.org and Project Loon
Facebook-led Internet.org and Google’s Project Loon have many noble aims. Unfortunately, the understandable enthusiasm around these projects has totally outpaced their feasibility. Read more…
Astronaut captures stunning moonset photos
An astronaut uploaded photos taken outside Earth’s orbit of a “supermoon” to Twitter on Sunday. Oleg Artemyev, a Russian astronaut currently stationed inside the International Space Station, shared the photos of a “moonset” — which capture the moon passing Earth. Read more…
IBM’s scalable computer chip inspired by the human brain
IBM has developed a chip with a million neurons, 256m synapses, and 4 096 cores. With 5,4bn transistors, it’s the largest chip that the company has built. IBM aims to create an entirely new type of computer chip, Synpase, whose architecture is inspired by the human brain. Read more…
Reversible USB cables are almost here
The next generation of USB connectors is finally ready for production. The completion of the USB Type-C specification has just been announced, meaning we will soon have a new cable and connector scheme designed for both mobile and larger devices. Read more…
Android fragmentation no longer a problem
As developers, we’re extremely excited about what we’ve seen from Android over the past year. Throw out the fragmentation myth, and the reasons to engage on Android projects evaporate quickly. Read more…
The next big smartphone maker might be Lenovo
The company says it is now the largest seller of smartphones in its home market of China, though worldwide it’s still a fairly distant fourth. Lenovo doesn’t have a presence in the US market, but increasing share in China has become a major goal for other smartphone makers of late. Read more…