Facebook said to be working on dedicated video chat device

Facebook is reportedly working on dedicated video chat hardware, per a new report by Bloomberg. The device is said to be the inaugural major product from Facebook’s hardware-focused Building 8 product development lab, and will include a notebook-sized display. “It’s intended to make video chat participants separated geographically feel like they’re together in the same […]

Rise of the machines: who is the Internet of things good for?

The long read: Interconnected technology is now an inescapable reality ordering our shopping, monitoring our cities and sucking up vast amounts of data along the way. The promise is that it will benefit us all but how can it? In San Francisco, a young engineer hopes to optimise his life through sensors that track his […]

The robot debate is over: the jobs are gone and they aren’t coming back

New report shows automation is already causing losses, depressing wages and likely to have lasting, devastating effect. In 2013, the Oxford Martin School released a report that looked at the automation of work, assessing the likelihood that robots and other technologies would replace humans. It concluded that of the 702 job categories examined, 47% were […]

‘Future of Sex’ podcast tackles the frontiers of sex and technology

Bryony Cole wants women to build the sex tech future they want. Image: Shutterstock / WhiteHaven We built the internet, we got online porn. We invented haptic engines that can automatically convey a remote sense of touch, we got teledildonics. Technological advances and the shifting of sexual boundaries are intertwined, and this is the world […]

Japanese authorities decry ongoing robot failures at Fukushima

Six years ago, a massive earthquake, consequent tsunami and nuclear crisis struck Japan. International organizations rushed to help the countrys devastated residents, and to figure out how to clean up Fukushima Daiichi, the wrecked nuclear power plant. Robots offered a ray of hope amid unfathomable loss. At least they did, until recently. As the Asahi […]