Digital Planet

Could 3D-printing be serving us up a tasty food revolution, or is it the ultimate in gimmicky processed foods taking us yet further away from natural eating? In the kitchen, a 3D-printer builds up customised tasty treats like exotic cheesecakes, layer by layer, using edible pastes, gels and liquids. The results look delicious, and delicate, and can be tweaked to suit the individual’s specific nutritional needs. The latest possibili...

Digital Planet caught up with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. In the first of two interviews with Gareth, Jimmy explains why Wikipedia was restricted in Pakistan recently and how they overcame the block. And he gives his thoughts on Twitter’s plans to stop the bots and banish its free API.

6G – what we can expect Professor Sana Salous, Chair of Communications Engineering at Durham University is about to submit her latest recommenda...

It may seem that in some countries surveillance cameras are everywhere – recording almost our every move. We are using fingerprints and facial recognition to get access to our banking, work emails and even our healthcare systems. Alongside this rise in use comes a rapid increase in biometric data gathering, spurred on by contact tracing apps during Covid-19. But where is this very personal data going, who is using it and how.

We br...

As Ukraine enters the second year of the full-scale Russian invasion, we hear about an app through which citizens can help alert defence authorities of air attacks. To help prevent future attacks, the country’s Air Defence Forces want people to use their phones to report hostile airborne objects. Simply install an app, point your handset at the object, select the category – say a drone or a missile - and press the button. It means ...

After the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Northern Syria, how do you collate data to aid those coordinating the disaster response? Cecilia Utas from DEEP (Data Entry and Exploration Platform) explains how important data is in disaster relief and crisis management. And Aziz Şasa from the Turkish Amateur Radio Association also explains the vital role of amateur radio as a key communication method in the region after the earthqua...

Within hours of the magnitude 7.8 earthquake across Turkey and northern Syria, the internet in Turkey was partially shutdown. And it wasn’t just because of damage to network infrastructure from the quake itself, but Twitter was blocked, as the authorities raised concerns over misinformation online.

Internet shutdowns are used by governments around the world to control people’s access to information, for example during protests, but ...

What is happening with API’s, more commonly known as bots, on Twitter? The platform is set to eliminate free access to its APIs this Thursday, although there appears to have been some backtracking following announcements that bots providing “good content” will have access to the Twitter API for free. Tech writer, broadcaster and bot user and creator Kate Bevan will be on the show with the latest. The right to disconnect Kenya...

One of the main causes of maternal mortality during childbirth is that the baby cannot be delivered vaginally, most likely because it is not positioned correctly in the womb. Without a plethora of medical equipment and training to check the baby’s position, midwives and doctors in developing countries struggle to reposition the baby safely. Scientists at UCL have developed a smart glove that links to an app, which in lab tests appe...

In the summer of 2021 Kazakhstan was the second biggest producer of Bitcoin in the world, but what has happened since the crypto currency crash? Tech reporter Peter Guest is on the show to tell us about his trip to the country and how mega warehouses that once contained the computing power to make crypto millions now stand empty in the country’s rust belt. He tells us the story of the rise and fall of the bitcoin miners in this r...

MIT researchers have concluded in a new study that computers that power self-driving cars could generate as many greenhouse gas emissions as the total of the world’s data centres do today. We’ve reported many times on the huge carbon footprint of data centres as well as the massive amounts of electricity needed to run them. They currently account for 0.3% of global greenhouse gas emissions – a similar level to Argentina - accordin...

One of our listeners in Ukraine contacted us to tell us how he stays online during power outages following bombing in Ukraine. Volodymyr Bielikov is on the show to explain the issues he’s regularly facing with internet connectivity.

AI avatars undressed and virtual employees Ghislaine Boddington looks at the alarming story of how a young female reporter created avatars in the AI avatar app Lensa and was shocked to find that out of ...

This week and to start the New Year we take a look at the use of technology in agriculture around the world. Agriculture as an industry is keen to clean up its act on emissions, so what could be better than an electric tractor. But will it be able to manage all that farming throws at it? Gareth puts the questions to Praveen Penmetsa who is co-founder and CEO of Monarch Tractors which recently launched a ‘Smart Tractor’.

It’s no use ...

We’re looking back on the technology year that was 2022. We go firstly to Ukraine to look at the booming tech industry before the war and discuss how that is doing now. Also how the cybersecurity declaration signed in Africa is already leading to the beginnings of a legal and regulatory framework across the continent. There was trouble for visually impaired patients using an implant to improve their sight – with some of the hardw...

More than 8 million unregistered SIM cards have been blocked in Ghana. The Ministry of Communications and Digitisation set a final deadline for mobile phone users to link their SIM card to their identification cards and now those who have not been able to register cannot use their SIMS. Opposition parties and civil liberties groups are protesting as the SIM needs to be registered with the biometric Ghana Card. The scheme has been f...

One of the biggest platforms in South East Asia, which is as popular as Google, YouTube and Facebook, has stopped bank transfer payments. Users have reported money missing from their accounts – the transactions should have been secured with a one-time passcode but according to social media they we processed without permission. Shopee have now stopped customers from linking their accounts to the platform directly. The company also...

Due to climate change cyclones are increasing in frequency and intensity. Data available to study these weather phenomena though is quite scare, so a new project at Imperial College in London, hopes to harness the computing power of people’s mobile phones to create a virtual supercomputer and create a massive public database of simulated cyclone models to help predict future events. Professor Ralf Toumi, Co-Director of Grantham I...

Researchers at MIT have made significant steps toward creating robots that could practically and economically assemble nearly anything, including things much larger than themselves, from vehicles to buildings to larger robots. Many objects could be built from tiny identical lightweight pieces e.g. an airplane wing or a racing car, and this latest work is a big step towards a fully autonomous self-replicating robot assembly system....

What is happening with Twitter and what can we expect? Bill Thompson give us his assessment while Angelica Mari discusses the how the new direction of the platform

Pix payments two years on PIX payments have revolutionised how people in Brazil use money – especially the 40 million of the population who are unbanked. We discuss with Fintech expert David Birch why Pix has been so successful and where does it go from here.

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