Today’s Tech Sightings: Brexit Fallout Begins as Vodafone Warns It Could Move Headquarters Out of UK Britain’s biggest technology company – Vodafone – could move its headquarters out of Britain after the country’s vote to exit the European Union. The move is contingent on understanding the future relationship between the U.K. and the EU. The […]
All posts by Aida Akl
Tech Firms Scramble After Brexit; Windows 10 Update Coming August 2
Pakistan Goes for Robocup Glory; Russia’s New Online Spying Laws
Today’s Tech Sightings: Pakistani Roboteers Hunt Global Soccer Glory For the first time, students at Pakistan’s National University of Science and Technology will participate in the annual RoboCup tournament, held this year in Leipzig, Germany, June 30–July 4. The Pakistani ‘team’ of six humanoid robots was purchased from France, costing about $17,000 each. Russia’s State […]
Privacy Mindset Lags as Change, Millennials Shape Future
Transformed by new technologies, mega-hackings, and government snooping, online privacy is evolving at lightning speed while the traditional understanding of privacy is stuck in the past. And it is likely that the social media generation often accused of sharing the most could end up defining the future of privacy. What does privacy even mean? Our […]
Qatar 3-D-prints World Cup Stadiums; Google’s ‘Autism Glass’ Project
Today’s Tech Sightings: Qatar Uses 3-D Printers to ‘Desert-proof’ World Cup Stadiums Scientists at Qatar University are experimenting with 3-D-printed models of football stadiums to address concerns about summer heat when the country hosts the 2022 World Cup tournament. The researchers hope to test the durability of the models against summer heat and sand and […]
Tech Giants Look to DNA for Data Storage; Zuckerberg’s Webcam Tape
Today’s Tech Sightings: The Future of Storage May Be in DNA It used to be a big deal to have a hard drive with 20 or 40 megabytes of storage space. Now they can fit terabytes of data. But the sheer volume of space needed now and in the future to store all of humanities’ […]
Apple Pulls Refugee ‘I Sea’ App; Preserving Digital History
Today’s Tech Sightings: App That Falsely Claimed to Aid Refugees at Sea Pulled From App Store Apple has pulled from its App Store an app called I Sea that claimed it could help find refugees lost at sea by showing real-time satellite footage of the Mediterranean Sea. But developers found the app only shows the […]
In the Parallel War of Ad Blockers, Privacy Is Lost
The war surrounding ad blocking software has cost advertisers and online publishers nearly $22 billion in blocked ad revenues in 2015. Caught in the middle are 198 million-plus users blocking ads for a slew of reasons, not the least of which is to escape online tracking. It is a war of parallels. As online advertising revenue […]
Apple’s Youngest Developer; African Startup Wins Major US Investment
Today’s Tech Sightings: Meet Apple’s Youngest App Developer. She’s Nine. Her name is Anvitha Vijay. The nine-year-old who created an app about animals in Australia applied to a scholarship to attend Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference. She was accepted – the youngest developer to attend – and got a shout-out from CEO Tim Cook himself. Scholarship […]
Facebook, India Push to Curb Suicide; Is Facebook’s Future All-video?
Today’s Tech Sightings: Facebook Launches Suicide Prevention Tools for 148 Million Indian Users India leads the world with depression rates and has more suicides than any other country, according to the World Health Organization. Mental illness topics remain taboo in that country and in other developing parts of the world. Facebook’s new tools help nudge […]
Ransomware Bosses Earn Big Bucks; N. Korea Hacks 140,000 PCs
Today’s Tech Sightings: Ransomware Bosses Make $90K Annually A recent study found that Russian ransomware bosses “earn” US$90,000 a year. That’s 13 times the average income of people who were taught that crime doesn’t pay. The availability of Ransomware as a Service (RaaS) business model is saving hackers a lot of money and accelerating the […]