Beyond Infinity

Our weekly news round-up: Mars 2020 lander will carry a helicopter; Australian Space Agency aims to triple industry size in 12 years; Super computer modelling casts doubt on multiverse theory; 2 more killed in US Tesla crash; Apple using drones to improve their Maps; Ransom-seeking hackers target NSW family planning centre; Equifax reveals full extent of data heist on its servers; Robocallers hit with big FCC fines for breaching Truth in Caller ID Act.

There are rising concerns over the unfettered use of the technology. How well is your information secured and what are the possibilities for abuse? Should businesses like Ticketmaster in Australia be allowed to access this unique identifying technology for ticketing and venue access?

Not according to the latest ground-penetrating radar survey of the boy pharaoh's tomb, but the hunt for unknown chambers at the Great Pyramid of Giza continues.

Jeff Bezos has been awarded the 2018 Axel Springer Award. At a ceremony in Berlin, he outlined how he can get through his US$130B fortune - by investing in his space company Blue Origin and helping humanity populate the solar system.

Our weekly news round-up: A large Harvard University survey shows how to increase life expectancy by a decade or more; MarCO cubesats piggy back to Mars; China has amazing drone swarms with military applications; Somnox: a smart cushion for insomniacs; A futuristic solar power generating highway in Jinan; Trackable suitcases banned from flights; Telegram instant messaging service outlawed in Russia and Iran; Facebook trials a 'dislike' button, while launching its own dating service.

Bill Gates and Google's Larry Page launch the "Universal Influenza Vaccine Development Grand Challenge" to fund novel concepts that reduce flu's global death toll and prepare us all for the next pandemic.

The Australian Government pledges A$500 million to help save the Great Barrier Reef, but is it too little too late? Spring already sprung? Nature's Notebook aims to garner information gathered by the American public to help understand changes in seasonal transitions.

Our weekly news round-up: NASA's InSight lander will probe the Martian interior; Spacecraft AR app allows spacecraft to be visualised as never before; Space Net offers super hi res, multi-spectral imagery to developers and start-ups for free; Pigs brains kept alive after decapitation; Private owner of France.com has his site seized by French Government; Apple will pay US$21 billion in back taxes to Ireland; Drug testing tech at dance parties and festivals; Scam watch: fake utility bills.

An unregulated free-for-all sparks protests from the elderly, disabled and city halls. But for the gung ho start-ups behind the scooter plague, these are just the growing pains of urban transportation in transition.

A constellation of satellites operated by start-up EarthNow could one day deliver real-time video from space to businesses and governments. Uses include monitoring the health of the planet, better crop management, more accurate and timely weather prediction, preparing for natural disasters and keeping an eye on conflict zones.

Our weekly news round-up: TESS exoplanet hunter successfully launched toward unusual lunar resonant orbit; The many, varied (and slightly scary) ways Facebook gathers information about you; World heritage Henderson Island in the remote South Pacific has the planet's worst plastic pollution; Japanese researchers make an enzyme that breaks down PET plastic bottles; Woolly mammoths and many other large mammals declined with people's migration out of Africa; Gmail hacked by spam scam - users receive messages from themselves; Lyrids meteor shower worth a look; Digital medical consultations via Coviu, a cloud-based video platform; Extracting gold from SIM cards to reduce e-waste; Grasshopper - a free app to learn the basics of coding.

Will another attempt to unify Android users under a new messaging service fail because it doesn't use encryption?

1.5 billion Chinese ranked by a behaviour monitoring system. If you've been bad, stiff restrictions are imposed by the State, including limited internet access, travel bans and reduced job opportunities.

A Queensland University study finds that limiting time on Facebook lowers levels of the stress hormone cortisol, as Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg gets a grilling from Congress. Regulation of the social behemoth seems far more likely now, as millions around the world are notified they're data was misused.

Our weekly news round-up: Boost for space tourists as Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity soars in flawless test flight; Flesh-eating super bug outbreak reaches epidemic levels on coasts south of Melbourne; Red Bull plans to send rovers to Apollo 17 landing site in 2019 media extravaganza; NASA's TESS exoplanet hunter ready for launch; SpaceX's huge internet-from-space satellite constellation approved by FCC; Big revamp for Gmail; Tesla's solar roof in use in California; NBN rolls out fibre-to-the-curb, for the lucky few.

The view from space shows our planet's nights are getting much brighter, thanks to economic development and the increasing use of LED lighting. But there are adverse effects for plant and animal life, not to mention city dwellers looking to marvel at the firmament above.

Dr. Ian Storey, lecturer in information systems at RMIT, discusses the vast potential for good and ill offered by quantum computing. QC can help molecular modelling, industrial processes and AI, but might in the long run threaten encryption, on which secure ecommerce depends.

Our weekly news round-up: How to cheaply upgrade iPhone storage; Chinese space station crashes back to Earth; Musk April Fool's tweet backfires; Russian hacker of Linkedin, DropBox and Formspring finally extradited to US to face the music; Google Lunar X Prize competition to rove on the moon expires with no result.

A serious security flaw exists in the hardware at the heart of many of the world's computers. And being hardware, it can't be fixed with a software patch. Dr. Ian Storey says it can give access to supposedly secure areas of microprocessors, where passwords and private keys are stored, thereby threatening safe ecommerce.

The social network stands accused of allowing Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm, to use psychographic data to target political and divisive ads on its platform. Congress and the UK's Information Commissioner are looking into whether the data of 50 million Facebook users was illegally used both in the last US presidential election and in the Brexit campaign.