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Incognito mode: the battle for privacy in a world of face recognition

12 September 2018

Face recognition technology has rapidly found its way into modern society, from policing to shopping. Is it too late to hold back the tide?

Artificial intelligence is about to revolutionise warfare. Be afraid

12 September 2018

Sci-fi loves to depict military AIs as malign killer minds or robots. But the truth is more subtle and more terrifying – and it's happening right now

Google's AI hate speech detector is easily fooled by a few typos

7 September 2018

Demand is growing for tools that automatically flag online hate speech, but the current crop can easily be fooled by adding a few typos or an innocuous word

Japan wants people to virtually embody avatars orbiting in space

7 September 2018

The Japanese space programme has partnered with an airline to build humanoid robots to assist astronauts and allow people on the ground to experience space

Glass box of atomic vapour could work as a James-Bond-style spy radio

7 September 2018

Most radios use antennae to pick up a signal, but this new one uses a glass box full of vapour instead, with lasers to translate the signal into a sound

A four-wheeled robot that can echolocate

Watch this bat-inspired robot use sound to navigate and spot plants

6 September 2018

Robat, a bat-inspired robot, can navigate in the dark using echolocation. It can also use the same technique to recognise objects

Humans, not bots, spread Twitter conspiracies after Parkland shooting

6 September 2018

Hundreds of bots tweeted conspiracy theories after the Parkland mass shooting in February, but it was humans who were responsible for spreading the falsehoods

Reddit’s megapixel masterpiece illustrates how culture evolves

5 September 2018

Over a million users battled for control over a virtual canvas, one pixel at a time. Now, researchers are studying the process to examine the forces that shape cultures