Country will be first to adopt cryptocurrency as legal tender next month – but economists are sounding warnings over risks Litha María de Los Angeles slaps two cheese-filled pupusas – the El Salvadoran cornmeal flatbread – on the griddle. With a camera click on the QR code, she receives her payment: four hundred-thousandths of a …
Scepticism grows in El Salvador over pioneering Bitcoin gamble Read More »
The company’s collapse has changed the startup environment, but some say the industry still hasn’t faced a ‘true reckoning’ A charismatic young leader, billions of dollars in valuations and a technology that promised to change the world but failed to deliver: the meteoric rise and fantastic fall of the medical tech startup Theranos has been …
‘Selling a promise’: what Silicon Valley learned from the fall of Theranos Read More »
Guardian Australia picture editor Carly Earl explains the dos and don’ts of taking pictures of the moon When a full moon rises, many people will pull out their mobile phones to try and take an Instagram-worthy picture, but unfortunately it is really challenging to get a great photograph of. Two reasons: it is very far …
How to photograph the moon on your phone or camera with the right settings Read More »
Technology could help power a clean energy transition if it can overcome hurdles of cost, design and opposition from fishing In the stormy waters of the North Sea, 15 miles off the coast of Aberdeenshire, in Scotland, five floating offshore wind turbines stretch 574 feet (175 metres) above the water. The world’s first floating windfarm, …
Floating wind turbines could open up vast ocean tracts for renewable power Read More »
Trillions of metallic nodules on the sea floor could help stop global heating, but mining them may damage ocean ecology In a display cabinet in the recently opened Our Broken Planet exhibition in London’s Natural History Museum, curators have placed a small nugget of dark material covered with faint indentations. The blackened lump could easily …
Is deep-sea mining a cure for the climate crisis or a curse? Read More »
He’s the Silicon Valley Übermensch, the maverick boss of Tesla and SpaceX who wants us to colonise Mars and who can wipe out billions of dollars with a single tweet. So what’s not to love? It’s interesting whenever Elon Musk’s name comes up and people begin discussing his accomplishments, such as the reinvention of money, …
‘The smartest person in any room anywhere’: in defence of Elon Musk, by Douglas Coupland Read More »
Homegrown adult content site announced last week it was suspending adult content, only to quickly change its mind For five days, it looked like one of Britain’s most successful tech startups was on the verge of a make-or-break gamble, one that would either see it burst on to the global stage or destroy its billion-dollar …
Why OnlyFans had second thoughts on banning sexually explicit content Read More »
Once the world’s youngest female self-made billionaire, the former head of Theranos is facing fraud charges and possible jail time The rise and fall of the blood testing startup Theranos turned the tech world upside down and captured the attention of millions beyond Silicon Valley, inspiring multiple books, documentaries and a television series. Theranos set …
Elizabeth Holmes: from Silicon Valley’s female icon to disgraced CEO on trial Read More »
As blood testing startup founder’s fraud trial looms, John Carreyrou says hero worship is still a problem in Silicon Valley The unraveling of Theranos began with a 2015 article in the Wall Street Journal that revealed how the revolutionary technology promoted by the blood testing startup wasn’t exactly what it seemed. Over the proceeding months, …
‘People wanted to believe’: reporter who exposed Theranos on Elizabeth Holmes’ trial Read More »
Power from fusion has proved too hard to generate at scale. Can recent breakthroughs and massive investment change that? On 8 August 2021, a laser-initiated experiment at the United States National Ignition Facility (NIF), based at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, made a significant breakthrough in reproducing the power source of the stars, smashing …
The race to give nuclear fusion a role in the climate emergency Read More »
