Can you judge a book by its odour?

Cocoa, wood, rusks every book has a distinctive smell. And each smell says something about how and when it was made, and where it has been. What does it mean to experience a book? To a bibliophile such as Alberto Manguel, smell plays an important part. In a talk at the British Library this week, […]

Disrupt NY 2017

Instagram is killing it. The photo-sharing behemoth has topped 600 million users, with the most recent 100 million joining in the last year. Plus, the company now has more than 1 million active advertisers, building on Facebooks already-dominant advertising business. But there is also a question of whether Instagram can continue iterating in a unique […]

Aurora’s massive LightningStrike VTOL UAV just got one step closer to reality

A vertical take-off and landing craft (VTOL) that can stand toe-to-toe with combat helicopters, a concept taken directly from sci-fi, it’s almost the default futuristic military ship among Hollywood epics. A real one just finished its first test flight program, as the Aurora Flight Science LightningStrike XV-24A Demonstrator Craft ended its first stage of flight […]

‘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 […]

Bob Dylan receives Nobel Prize in literature in Sweden

(CNN)Singer-songwriter Bob Dylan finally received his Nobel Prize in literature Saturday at a private ceremony in Stockholm, according to a statement posted online by the head of the Swedish Academy. The presentation came five months after the academy announced Dylan was the winner and more than three months after the formal award ceremony, which Dylan […]