Systems & Networks

Air Taxis Are Safe—According to the Manufacturers

IEEE Spectrum: ELECTRIC VERTICAL TAKE-OFF and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for urban commuting are currently under development by more than a dozen different companies. These concepts and prototypes, representing well over a billion dollars of venture capital investment in 2020 alone, promise…

We need to talk about how Apple is normalising surveillance

Wired UK: Among tech giants, Apple stands out for its insistence on offering privacy features instead of joining its competitors in the exploitation of users’ personal data. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently clashed with Facebook on exactly those grounds – making…

The covid tech that is intimately tied to China’s surveillance state

Technology Review: Sometime in mid-2019, a police contractor in the Chinese city of Kuitun tapped a young college student from the University of Washington on the shoulder as she walked through a crowded market intersection. The student, Vera Zhou, didn’t notice…

Satellites Can Be a Surprisingly Great Option for IoT

IEEE Spectrum: For many people, the phrase “Internet of Things” probably brings to mind either smart city efforts such as streetlamps with traffic cameras and air-quality sensors, or connected devices in their own homes. And a very natural question is, why…