Beyond Infinity

Our weekly news round-up: Trump directs Pentagon to set up "Space Force" to ensure America's continued dominance beyond Earth; Microsoft's Project Natick places environmentally friendly data centres underwater; Google's DeepMind AI learns how to see via a generative query network; Europe's new General Data Protection Regulation is cleaning up the world's email spam problem; Vivo X21 is world's first smart phone with in-display fingerprint sensor; Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission abandons deal with NEC to expand national fingerprint database with other biometric info, such as facial and footprint recognition.

In the first of a three part interview, bee experts Simon Mulvany and Ben Moore compare Australia's honey bee industry with those in Europe and New Zealand. They discuss the big problems caused by the varroa mite and welcome the banning of neonicotinoids, which are widely-used insecticides deadly to bees. Both Simon and Ben are firm believers that social media can be pivotal in raising awareness of the serious dangers facing bees and those who depend on them around the world.

At WWDC 2018, the company foreshadowed changes coming soon in iOS 12, including a new feature called Screen Time which aims to make it easier to curb smart phone addiction. Following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, another big theme was improved privacy. Apple also touted significant improvements to Siri, MacOS, Watch OS 5 and AppleTV. And Facetime will soon allow up to 30 people to share the same video conference call.

With a 6 inch display, the latest Snapdragon 845 SoC, 8GB of RAM and a 90Hz refresh rate, the ROG phone is really more gaming console than phone. It also has some neat add-ons to boost battery life and enhance the gaming experience. For serious gamers, this device sounds like it's got a lot to offer.

To find an alternative to cellophane, NZ biotech start-up Humble Bee looks to mimic the Australian masked bee's nesting material to create a bioplastic.

Our weekly news round-up: Japan moves to tighten regulations on Airbnb; How to save on iPhone storage costs; Juno mission extended by 3.5 years to meet science goals; Continuing headaches for some NBN users; Most popular ridiculously insecure passwords; PageUp HR reveals major breach of clients' personal details.

Ahead of the July 1st introduction of GST on all online purchases, the ecommerce juggernaut now redirects shoppers to its Australian site. Some are disappointed at the reduced choice this change will entail, while others reckon the change will have minimal impact.

Despite their current humble beginnings, the future looks bright for AR/VR developers. John offers his thoughts, forecasting that conventional offices could become obsolete and VR dating the norm.

Our weekly news round-up: Tencent and Alibaba look like becoming trillion dollar companies, dominating 770 million Chinese internet users; Curiosity rover resumes onboard rock sample analysis after 18 month hiatus; Cryosleep chamber under development by NASA for long-duration space travel; Big Californian utilities expand their EV infrastructure spend in readiness for the phase out of petrol-powered transportation; Big study finds chemotherapy not useful in treatment of most common early stage breast cancer; Aussie webcams hacked and fake testimonials posted on YouTube as endorsements for scammers' service; Google Lens arrives on Android phones (and it's really useful); Big tech companies team up to make computers more accessible to the vision-impaired.

While Trump's use of the secret messaging service Confide may breach federal record-keeping laws, there are also concerns about security breaches. Chief of Staff John Kelly may have used a compromised phone for months when he was Secretary of Homeland Security, while several inner circle advisors relied on private devices to conduct government business. On the social media front, a US Judge says that as President, Trump doesn't have the right to block followers on Twitter.

Our weekly news round-up: How to find out what Apple and Google know about you; Alan Bean, 4th man on the Moon, dies aged 86; German scientists debunk NASA's EM-drive propulsion claims; Apple AirPlay 2 lets you stream music to a wide variety of 3rd party speakers; Amazon Alexa records private conversation and sends it to a random contact; Hours after EU's new General Data Protection Regulation laws took effect, Facebook, Google and others were accused of breaches; South Australian government will honour Tesla virtual power plant project of previous Labour government.

QuestaGame and Nature's Notebook in the US encourage everyday people to photograph, document and monitor animals and plants in the wild and experience biodiversity.

The Chinese maker of application specific integrated circuits is increasing its control of mining, amid concerns that such centralised power could be used to disrupt or attack cryptocurrency networks.

With his trademark boundless ambition and enthusiasm, Elon Musk updates plans to beat traffic chaos by tunneling underground. He announced a deal to work with Los Angeles County Transportion Authority on a project that aims to one day take passengers from the city to LAX airport in 8 minutes at 200 km/h.

If you've received updated terms of service emails lately from the likes of Twitter, Spotify and eBay, it's because of new laws which provide huge fines if companies breach your privacy. They're the EU's General Data Protection Regulation.

Our weekly news round-up: Old data from Galileo spacecraft reexamined to confirm plumes on moon Europa; Human habitation in the Philippines dates back 700,000 years; Cold Atom Lab to create lowest temperature in the Universe aboard ISS; Google revisits its 'Don't Be Evil' mantra; Telstra suffers another major mobile outage; Facebook users shrug off recent scandals; Net neutrality rules caught up in Trump lawyer allegations.

Tolstoy wrote: "One can no more approach people without love than one can approach bees without care. Such is the quality of bees..." To mark World Bee Day on 20th May, Piers talks with Simon Mulvany of Save The Bees Australia about his intensifying legal battle with big honey, recent wins in having dangerous chemicals banned by major retailers, his disdain for Australian Certified Organic and his change.org petition to ban toxic neonicotinoids in Australia - as Europe has already done.

Delegates were treated to a raft of cool (and slightly creepy) innovations. Google Assistant can robocall and make an appointment for you in a very human-sounding voice, while Gmail now has automated, predictive reply options and smart compose.

In April 2018, average atmospheric carbon dioxide exceeded 410 parts per million. There are various dangers including rising sea levels and deteriorating human health resulting from what has been described as an unprecedented experiment on the only home we have.

Uber, Google, Boeing, Bell Helicopter and others are teaming up to make electric aerial transport ubiquitous. But there is plenty of testing, development and regulatory work to do to achieve this dream.