Mini Games

An initiative called Breakthrough Starshot wants to explore another star system using ultra-powerful laser beams and wafer-thin spaceships. It’s a goal that sounds so fantastic, you’d be forgiven for dismissing it as science fiction. But it’s no joke, and the project’s chief engineer says millions of dollars’ worth of work is moving along without any

When your computer stores data, it has to pause while the information moves from one piece of hardware to another. But that may soon stop being the case, as scientists from MIT and the Singapore University of Technology and Design uncovered a new manufacturing trick that should let them build computers that don’t have those

What internet users Down Under say online will no longer be kept on the down low. On Thursday, Australia’s Parliament passed the Assistance and Access Bill. The legislation will force tech companies to help Australian authorities decrypt users’ online communications — and it could represent a major blow to data privacy elsewhere in the world.

The promise of quantum computing brings with it some mind-blowing potential, but it also carries a new set of risks, scientists are warning. Specifically, the enormous power of the tech could be used to crack the best cyber security we currently have in place.   A new report on the “progress and prospects” of quantum

There are a few things we should demand from a decent power supply. Not least, it shouldn’t require oven-like temperatures to function. That’s just a given. For decades, fluoride has sat on the sidelines as a potential competitor for lithium-ion batteries. If not for its need to bake at more than 150 degrees Celsius (300

Britain’s Parliament has just given the world an unprecedented look at the ruthless tactics of Facebook’s executive team. On Wednesday, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee published leaked emails from the Silicon Valley tech giant’s leadership team that had been obtained by Six4Three, an app developer that’s locked in a legal battle with Facebook

A year ago today, Tesla’s big battery in South Australia began dispatching power to the state’s grid, one day ahead of schedule. By most accounts, the world’s largest lithium-ion battery has been a remarkable success. But there are some concerns that have so far escaped scrutiny.   The big battery (or the Hornsdale Power Reserve,

Bill Gates sees nuclear energy as a potential solution to lowering carbon-dioxide emissions around the world, and he has spent the past decade funding new ways to produce the energy in a safe, affordable way.   About 10 years ago, Gates cofounded a company called TerraPower to build new kinds of nuclear reactors. TerraPower is

It happens all the time. You’re online, checking out products, maybe looking for a holiday, or researching home loans, when all of a sudden there’s a pop-up. “Live help is available! Chat now with a member of our friendly customer support team!” It’s easy to dismiss these chat dialogues, but it’s also easy to take

The price of Bitcoin has dropped by 75 percent in the past year, so anyone who invested heavily at the peak will have lost a lot of money. And now there’s more bad news for crypto-currency investors to worry about: they may not legally own the digital assets they have purchased.   My colleagues and

Humans are going places. NASA’s newest plan is to launch crewed missions to Mars in the 2030s, and we’ll need the most advanced and reliable space technology to help get us there safe and sound.   That’s where HAL 9000 – the villainous, insane killbot from 2001: A Space Odyssey – comes in. Believe it

A set of wings with wires for engines has established a landmark in aviation, becoming the first object to breeze through the air on the cusp of its own, self-generated ionic wind.   At first glance, it looks like the kind of aircraft even the pioneering Wright brothers would have rejected as too ludicrous to fly.

For a brief moment earlier this year, a small spot in China blazed with such heat, the Sun would have been staring down at Earth feeling mightily jealous. Scientists announced this week that the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) reactor in Hefei has finally achieved a temperature exceeding 100 million degrees Celsius, setting a new

If you’re eagerly awaiting the next generation of personal transport, we’ve got some good and bad news. The good news is you can now order your very own hoverbike for delivery in the first half of 2019; the bad news is it’ll cost you an estimated US$150,000.   The Hoverbike S3 is manufactured by Californian

We’re facing a deadly Catch 22. As the world grows hotter, people crank up the air con. As they crank the air con, the world grows hotter. And so on. And so on. If it seems like there’s no escape from this gloomy, no-win situation, take heart: a new technology developed by scientists from the

On Friday, Apple announced that two of its products – the iPhone X and the 13-inch MacBook Pro (non Touch Bar) – have known hardware issues. Bloomberg first reported on these issues after being posted on Apple’s support pages on Friday.   Apple said that on some iPhone X devices, display screens are experiencing touch issues. Those issues include:

One of the difficulties in developing quantum computers to their full potential – and there are quite a few – is cutting out interference. With technology as delicate as this, any kind of environmental noise or imperfection that affects the careful balance of a quantum computer could cause havoc with its calculations.   To overcome

According to a new study, the energy costs of mining Bitcoin alone could cause a 2-degree Celsius rise in global temperatures within 20 years. Bitcoin might be promising a brave new world of financial freedom, but it’s also responsible for a huge spike in electricity use, so the new study has attempted to put a number