Stephen Hawking once suggested Albert Einstein’s assertion that “God does not play dice” with the universe was wrong. In Hawking’s view, the discovery of black hole physics confirmed that not only did God play dice, “but that he sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can’t be seen.” Are we here by chance or design? A more pragmatic approach to the question, considering the subject matter, would be to assume that all answers are correct. In fact, that’s the basis of quantum physics. He
I’m one of countless people who are foolishly faithful to Chrome. Despite the browser’s horrible rep for privacy, memory-hogging, battery-draining, and role in Google’s monopoly, I can’t call it quits. We had too many good times together — and the old bastard is still pretty. Our relationship, however, may soon face a new threat. According to a page on the Microsoft website that was spotted by Neowin, the software giant has developed a built-in VPN for the Edge browser. The service remains a pre
Bigger isn’t always better, but sometimes it is. Cerebras Systems, a company bent on accelerating machine learning systems, built the world’s largest chip last year. In the time since, it’s developed bespoke solutions to some of the largest problems in the AI industry. Founded in 2015, Cerebras is a sort of reunion tour for most of its C-suite executives. Prior to building chips the size of dinner plates, the team was responsible for Sea Micro, a company founded in 2007 that eventually sold to A
Unlimited annual leave — it’s the dream, right? Going from a set number of days at your previous employer to a new company where the world is your oyster (in holiday terms) can feel exciting, liberating — and potentially a little bit scary. Will you ever get any work done? The concept of unlimited holiday leave originated in the mid-1990s within the tech industry in Silicon Valley. IBM was an early adopter, and despite often being decried as a PR, rather than HR, tool its adoption has spread glo
With nearly 84% of the world’s population now owning a smartphone, and our dependence on them growing all the time, these devices have become an attractive avenue for scammers. Last year, cyber security company Kaspersky detected nearly 3.5 million malicious attacks on mobile phone users. The spam messages we get on our phones via text message or email will often contain links to viruses, which are a type of malicious software (malware). There’s a decent chance that at some point you’ve installe
Renting an escooter is cheaper than getting a cab, requires less effort than biking, and is certainly much more convenient than a packed bus. But at the same time, the number of escooter accidents is rising — with the injury rate in some cases exceeding that of motorcycles. As a preventive measure, Cincinnati has become the third city in the US to implement a nighttime ban on escooters. Citing “pedestrian safety concerns, underage riding, and criminal activity,” the city will allow the operation
“Everyone wants free public transport, but no one wants to pay for it” is a claim I often hear writing about mobility. But an equally pressing challenge is often excluded from the conversation: equal access to public transport. It’s a challenging problem for transport providers. They have to contend with servicing the busiest routes. This is often at the expense of more disparate locations and times. And the further away you live from highly-populated inner urban areas, or need services outside
The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, seems set to purchase the social media platform Twitter for around US$44 billion. He says he’s not doing it to make money (which is good, because Twitter has rarely turned a profit), but rather because, among other things, he believes in free speech. Twitter might seem an odd place to make a stand for free speech. The service has around 217 million daily users, only a fraction of the 2.8 billion who log in each day to one of the Meta family (Facebook, Instagra
Yesterday, Meta announced its second quarterly results after its major rebranding, and things were a bit more positive this time around. The company gained daily active users (1.96 billion from 1.92 billion last quarter), and posted $27.9 billion in revenue with a year-on-year growth rate of 7%. While it was the slowest growth the tech giant has ever posted, Wall Street was happy with this performance. From its earnings call, we got to learn that the company is putting in more money towards buil
Are you a would-be founder looking for the right industry to build, grow, and scale? Are you an engineer looking for a new challenge? Do the words ‘earth observation’ and ‘geospatial data’ get you going? Then SpaceTech might be the next frontier for you. In the past, space was dominated by missions run by big space players, the US, Russia, and China. But the EU has set its sights to the skies, announcing a 20% increase in the European Space Agency’s budget at the end of 2021 — the largest the ag