“Orwellian” references are invoked to the point of cliche, but big tech sure makes them hard to resist. The latest temptress is Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta. In a move redolent of 1984’s Two Minutes Hate, the company has temporarily permitted calls for violence and deaths. The social media behemoth has provisionally permitted hate speech in certain Facebook and Instagram posts. There’s no need to worry, however; the malice can only target Meta-approved baddies. Violent speech will now be permitted whe
The electric transformation of Volkswagen’s iconic T1 microbus has been in the making for five years — a decade if we count the various Bulli concepts VW has consistently teased us with. Now, the VW ID Buzz has finally made its debut as an all-electric, multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) and cargo van. Was it worth the wait? ABSOLUTELY. Feast your eyes! On the left, the ID Buzz. On the right, the ID Buzz Cargo. Image: Volkswagen Design-wise the ID Buzz is clearly channeling the retro DNA of the origina
The Andean highlands of South America — where Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia meet — is also known as the “Lithium Triangle,” as the region contains more than half of the world’s supply of the valuable metal. This has attracted numerous mining companies, with their focus especially on one lake in northeastern Chile called Salar de Atacama. This is estimated to contain almost 30% of the globe’s known lithium. The so-called “Lithium Triangle.” Image: Economist But as promising as this sounds for our
One year ago, an artwork was sold for US$69 million (£52.6 million) by the prestigious auction house Christie’s. This was no lost Matisse or rarely seen Van Gogh. Instead, it was a composite collection of digital art by the then relatively unknown artist Beeple. What makes this piece, Everydays: the First 5000 Days, truly remarkable, is that it was sold as a non-fungible token (NFT). In the year since that sale, NFTs have gone from a relatively obscure tech-world phenomenon to the mainstream. NF
On March 1, the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, Mykhailo Fedorov, made an appeal to eight commercial satellite operators. “Russia is bombarding our cities every day and night and so many civilians are in danger,” Fedorov wrote in a letter shared on Twitter. “We badly need the opportunity to watch the movement of Russian troops, especially at night when our technologies are blind in fact!” Fedorov urged the companies to provide satellite imagery to Ukraine’s armed forces. He asked them to collab
It isn’t every day you stumble across the weirdest robot ever. But if you can guess this little machine’s function just by looking at it, you’ve officially won the internet for today: My, what an interesting shape for a hand-held robot. No, it doesn’t vibrate. But you’re close. The researchers call it “OMOY: A Handheld Robotic Gadget that Shifts its Weight to Express Emotions and Intentions.” Apparently, its purpose is to read your texts aloud and calm you down when you get upset. It does this b
With rising fuel prices in many countries, owning an EV probably feels like a smart move lately. But buying a new car isn’t cheap, and the delay in mass EV production means even second-hand EVs are retailing at massively inflated prices. So, if you’re still driving an ICE vehicle, here are some tips and resources for preserving your fuel intake through the practice of hypermiling. What is hypermiling? Hypermiling (also known as energy-efficient driving) is driving a car using intentional techniq
The invasion of Ukraine has triggered a significant digital shift for Russia. Sanctions imposed by governments around the world – together with company closures or mothballing – have significantly impacted the country. A plethora of events have escalated the invasion into the digital world, with cyberattacks, cybercriminals taking sides, and even an IT army of civilians being mobilized by Ukraine. The sanctions imposed on Russia have not only directly hit its economy (and by extension the global
The metaverse has been here for a long time — it just hasn’t been very good. The term, a conceptual catch-all of interconnected virtual spaces, has surged in the cultural zeitgeist since Facebook changed its name to Meta. Once simply the domain of gamers and niche commercial applications, a mainstream embrace of extended reality seems practically inevitable. The immediate problem with this future — whether you’re excited, apprehensive, or otherwise — is that current extended reality (XR) hardwar
This article was originally published on .cult by Tomasz Łakomy. .cult is a Berlin-based community platform for developers. We write about all things career-related, make original documentaries and share heaps of other untold developer stories from around the world. You might be familiar with the following scenario. You’ve been a developer for a while and you’ve learned quite a lot along the way. Travelled to a couple of tech conferences, saw a number of tech talks and one day you think, “I can