Wednesday, November 4th, 2015
Your smart phone can help you make healthier decisions, monitor your conditions, and with the help of wearables, keep track of anything from your activity to your blood glucose levels. There are a plethora of apps out there for your health needs, from losing weight to managing your anxiety. Increasingly our devices monitor us without […]
Thursday, October 1st, 2015
Since Edward Snowdan released classified documents on government surveillance programs, there has been a great deal of debate over the rights of individual privacy. The apparent lack of supervision and oversight of the security agencies raises genuine concerns over civil liberties. However, herein lies a great irony. Whilst we are rightly concerned how our governments […]
Sunday, September 20th, 2015
Hollywood has popularised the notion of a malevolent Artificial Intelligence (AI) from the terrifying Skynet in the Terminator films to the all powerful Matrix. These dangers have been echoed in recent times by a plethora of notable technologists and academics including such luminaries as Prof. Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates and Elon Musk. However, an AI […]
Sunday, September 6th, 2015
This Storify, curated by Neil, illustrates how citizens can participate in democratised ‘citizen sensing’ projects to identify and map environmental pollution: Click here to view.
Sunday, September 6th, 2015
I spoke to Mrigaen Kapadia and Nupur Kapadia, the founders of BreakFree – a mobile phone app aimed at controlling phone addiction and helping maintain a healthy digital lifestyle. In a previous blog I wrote about Nomophobia (or, as it’s also known, Smartphone Separation Anxiety). It’s the pathological fear, anxiety, or discomfort associated with being without […]
Thursday, August 6th, 2015
Recent research by the University of Oxford has suggested that up to 50% of jobs in the United States could be at risk from automation in the next 20 years. Unlike in the past, we may not be able to replace these jobs which will lead to radical changes in our societies. Even people in […]
Thursday, July 2nd, 2015
This week Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched Digital India Week and outlined his vision of a Digital India. You can read his comments here
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2015
Writing for The Conversation, University of Warwick Professor Quassim Cassam asks if head transplants will create an entirely new person? Interestingly, this is a question that has been considered as far back as the 17th Century by English philosopher John Locke. His line of thinking conjectures that provided the person does not lose their memories […]
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2015
What is important about the amount of data now collected on individuals, including, for instance, their health and buying habits? In what way can the forecasts we can make from analysis of this data impact society for the better? How can governments adapt and respond to big data and what kind of analysis should they […]
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2015
This article was first published in the New Statesman, June 26th 2015. You could be one of the millions of people suffering from Nomophobia (or, as it’s also known, Smartphone Separation Anxiety). It’s the pathological fear, anxiety, or discomfort associated with being without your mobile phone. In other words, it’s the sheer panic that descends the […]