Beyond Infinity

The Event Horizon Telescope, a huge effort of more than 200 scientists who synchronised 8 different telescopes around the world, has directly imaged a black hole for the first time. Located at the heart of galaxy Messier 87, it is 55 million light-years from Earth and has a mass some 6.5 billion times that of our Sun.

Despite assurances it's secure and your privacy is protected, sources claim that in addition to software and AI responding to your Alexa voice commands, there are humans listening back at Amazon.

The Human Research Program is NASA's comprehensive effort to enable safe and productive travel for people in space. Now retired identical twin astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly took part in a year long mission to closely compare changes in their bodies. Scott spent more than 300 days aboard the ISS, while Mark remained on Earth. Both submitted to regular checks of their immune systems, genetics, bone formation, gut bacteria, the effects of vaccines, radiation and biochemical changes. The information recorded will be used for years to come to understand how to make a return journey to Mars survivable.

Launched from Norway, NASA's Auroral Zone Upwelling Rocket Experiment dropped gases through aurora borealis to better understand the interaction of Earth's ionoshere with particles from outer space.

The new video game streaming service will start in late 2019. It'll run on the Chrome browser, will "state share" via YouTube and, depending on available bandwidth, promises lots of great hi-def games without the need for local storage.

Antibiotics were introduced in the 1940s and have saved countless lives from deadly infections. Now drug-resistant super bugs are becoming more prevalent, preying on the weak and infirm. This is largely due to massive over-use of antibiotics in farming and the third world.

From solid state data storage and back-up through to dash cams and smart plugs, we rack our brains for the most indispensable and affordable consumer devices out there. For detailed product info and to send feedback to us, head to http://beyondinfinity.com.au

UK scientists at Imperial College London are working on a synthetic alcohol substitute which promises many of the joys of grog, minus the hang-over or physical harm.

A slew of new, highly capable robots can now do amazing things. The latest factory robot, the Handle, can handle heavy boxes with ease and neatly stack pallets.

In addition to hunting for microbes, testing oxygen production and caching rock cores, NASA's next big rover will carry a small solar-powered helicopter. If this technology demonstrator is successful, expect to see more helicopter drones exploring the surface of the red planet.

The lawless wild west internet has failed. Now is the time to introduce tough, binding global regulations of social platforms. And with the prospect of monster fines and even prosecution of top executives, Mark Zuckerberg agrees that there should be laws controlling Facebook content.

In the wake of the Christchurch massacre, law makers around the world are focused on how to control the spread of extremism and objectionable material on social media. But can it be done and what will be the effect on the internet as a whole?

Rolling out in 2020, 5G mobile technology promises to be super fast, with minimum speeds of 100mbs. But you'll need a new 5G compatible device and a pretty robust data plan to handle the speed. If you only have 10 gigabytes of data a month, you could easily get through this in under a minute!

Spotify has complained to the European Commission that Apple's AppStore rules "purposely limit choice and stifle innovation" and asked the regulator to take action to guarantee fair competition. Apple has countered that "Spotify's aim is to make more money off others' work" and that it under-pays artists.

The Disinformation and 'Fake News' Final Report has been published on parliament.uk. It is scathing of social media platforms, especially Facebook's role in illegally influencing democratic elections and referenda in Britain, going back to 2014. The Commons Select Committee calls for tough modern regulations and far more law enforcement oversight of social media companies, with heavy penalties for breaches.

To highlight potential advantages and disadvantages of artificial intelligence, a website called thispersondoesnotexist.com displays believable images of AI generated people who don't exist. Meanwhile, OpenAI's GPT2 "deep fakes for text" can produce believable stories with no connection to reality or truth, revealing AI's mastery and comprehension of language. And 'Summit', the world's most powerful super computer, is using machine learning to help with long-term weather forecasting and earlier warnings of storms and floods.

A ripping yarn about the hugely successful New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, by Alan Stern, principal investigator and astrobiologist David Grinspoon. After 25 years of painstaking work, scientists involved were astounded to find that the icy world has been geologically active throughout its four billion year history. No wonder they say that Pluto is the new Mars!

Russia wants a 'kill switch' on its internet connection to the outside world to protect it from cyber attack, while Australian political parties have been targeted in a sophisticated hack into parliamentary servers by a so-called state actor.

A study by the Lunar and Planetary Lab at the University of Arizona suggests that Mars could still be geologically alive. Researchers think a suspected lake beneath the south pole could only be kept liquid by a hot magma chamber. Internal heating raises the chance of finding underground life.

A study of 14 and 15 year old teenagers by the UK's venerable Royal Society finds no link between violent video games and acts of violence in the real world.