Science and Technology

Saturday, 03 August 2019 04:15

Digital ‘clothes’ could be the next big Instagram hit

Hip Scandinavian fashion retailer Carlings knew it had to make a big impression when it launched its first online store in 2018 — years after most other apparel brands. Carlings has more than 200 physical stores in Norway, Finland and Sweden and is known for its wide range of jeans and casual clothes. When it finally started selling online last year, it wanted to do something that would draw people to its website and make it stand out. Virtual “clothes,” pieces that were available only as digital items, turned out to be the answer. It turned to Virtue, the creative…

Saturday, 27 July 2019 04:37

Feeling hot or cold? This pocket gadget the size of your ATM card provides sweet relief

Sony is crowdfunding a portable wearable air conditioner about the size of a bank card which blasts cool air down the back of your shirt. The Reon Pocket is a bluetooth device that uses thermoelectric cooling for the hot summer months or heating, for use during winter. This week, UK has been experiencing its hottest temperatures on record, with parts of the south reaching a staggering 39°C. It slips into a special undershirt with a pocket at the base of the neck, and connects to an app, which you can control on your phone. Sony says that it can cool…

Friday, 26 July 2019 05:26

Nigerian accent introduced on Google Maps

Commuters making their way through Nigeria can now hear travel advice in a local voice on Google Maps under new features aimed at attracting more users in Africa that were unveiled by the company on Wednesday. The local accents feature, unveiled at an event in the commercial capital Lagos and also available on Google Assistant, is the first move by the U.S. technology giant to offer such a service in Africa. Rapidly expanding populations, increased mobile phone penetration and crowded cities that are often poorly signposted have led technology firms to identify African countries as potential growth areas. They are…

Saturday, 20 July 2019 05:26

Deepfake videos pose a threat, but ‘dumbfakes’ may be worse

Sophisticated phony videos called deepfakes have attracted plenty of attention as a possible threat to election integrity. But a bigger problem for the 2020 U.S. presidential contest may be “dumbfakes” — simpler and more easily unmasked bogus videos that are easy and often cheap to produce. Unlike deepfakes, which require sophisticated artificial intelligence, audio manipulation and facial mapping technology, dumbfakes can be made simply by varying the speed of video or selective editing. They are easier to create and can be convincing to an unsuspecting viewer, which makes them a much more immediate worry. A slowed-down video of House Speaker…

Tuesday, 16 July 2019 04:32

Will ships without sailors be the future of trade?

On 7 May, customs officers in Ostend, Belgium, received a box of oysters from the UK. The molluscs had been caught in Essex and transported to Belgium on a 12m (39ft) aluminium-hulled vessel, which traversed the English Channel with no humans on board. It was the world's first unmanned commercial shipping operation. The crewless boat was carefully watched by four people in a control centre in Tollersbury, Essex, headquarters of Hushcraft, the company behind the design and development of the craft. UK and Belgian coastguards also monitored the oysters' progress. "You could actually listen to the waves hitting the boat,"…

Friday, 12 July 2019 05:02

Is your smartphone secretly listening to you?

We’ve all been there. You talk on the phone with a friend about something, say sneakers, and then a little later see an ad for the latest Nike shoes in your Facebook feed. It’s almost like your phone, or one of the apps installed on it, is listening to everything you say. Could that be true? Or is it just a modern myth? More on Security & Privacy Well, it’s technically possible for phones and apps to secretly record what you say. And lots of people sure seem to think they do. According to a nationally representative phone survey of…