The UK’s roads are some of the main culprits of its greenhouse gas emissions. And in 2020, 92% of passenger kilometers travelled in the UK was made by cars, vans, and taxis. That means getting around by private vehicle has a disproportionately large negative impact on the environment. What’s more, only 5.8% of vehicles on UK roads are ultra-low emission. Even electric vehicles, though they create less pollution when driven, have a substantial environmental impact thanks to the materials used to
If you ever wanted to buy an NFT based on Ethereum, you would have to pay a transaction fee to register it on the blockchain. Last week, that fee skyrocketed to unprecedented levels. So you might have had to pay thousands of dollars as fees to get an NFT that might be worth a few bucks. Strap in for another weird web3 story. Yuga Labs, the creator of the infamous Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs, opened up its mint to its Otherside metaverse over the weekend. With many anticipatory participants,
Ever watched a YouTube or TikTok video and thought, “I could create something like that”? Well, that’s easier said than done when you haven’t created a video before. While our unlimited access to content makes video creation appear simple (if there are so many videos out there, it can’t be that hard, right?), there are a few common pitfalls first-time video makers often run into. We spoke with video editing expert, Kwangsub Kim, to get the pro tips you need to create an amazing first video. Afte
If a person is lost in the wilderness, they have two options. They can search for civilization, or they could make themselves easy to spot by building a fire or writing HELP in big letters. For scientists interested in the question of whether intelligent aliens exist, the options are much the same. For over 70 years, astronomers have been scanning for radio or optical signals from other civilizations in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, called SETI. Most scientists are confident that
Brands are beginning to see the need to incorporate emotional intelligence into the customer experience. It is crucial to implement automation in the sales, marketing and customer service industry while also finding ways to personalize an experience for a customer using empathy. Studies show human empathy is on the decline – a deficit costing the average brand $300 million in lost revenue every year. Developments in artificial intelligence (AI) to help brands recognize opportunities to respond i
During the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, and the early decades of the 20th century, U.S. captains of industry such as William Randolph Hearst and Jay Gould used their massive wealth to dominate facets of the economy, including the news media. They were, in many ways, prototype oligarchs – by the dictionary definition, “very rich business leaders with a great deal of political influence.” Some have argued that the U.S. is in the midst of a Second Gilded Age defined – like the first – by va
Wall Street has long been likened to a casino. Robinhood, an investment app that just filed plans for an initial public offering, makes the comparison more apt than ever. That’s because the power of the casino is the way it makes people feel like gambling their money away is a game. Casinos are full of mood lighting, fun noises, and other sensory details that reward gamblers when they place coins in slots. Similarly, Robinhood’s slick and easy-to-use app resembles a thrill-inducing video game ra
Artificial intelligence has become a buzzword in the tech industry. Companies are eager to present themselves as “AI-first” and use the terms “AI,” “machine learning,” and “deep learning” abundantly in their web and marketing copy. What are the effects of the current hype surrounding AI? Is it just misleading consumers and end-users or is it also affecting investors and regulators? How is it shaping the mindset for creating products and services? How is the merging of scientific research and com
Meta recently announced a long-term research partnership to study the human brain. According to the company, it intends to use the results of this study to “guide the development of AI that processes speech and text as efficiently as people.” This is the latest in Meta’s ongoing quest to perform the machine learning equivalent of alchemy: producing thought from language. The big idea: Meta wants to understand exactly what’s going on in people’s brains when they process language. Then, somehow, i
What do you call an airport for flying taxis? A vertiport. And this week, we took a step closer to the option of catching a flying taxi. UK company Urban-Air Port opened the world’s first vertiport this week in a partnership with the Supernal, the Urban Air Mobility division of Hyundai. The vertiport is called Air-One and is poised to meet the future demand for autonomous drones and electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) passenger vehicles. To be clear, the vertiport is a pop-up demon