The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has released declassified footage of its DragonFire laser weapon. DragonFire shoots a high-power beam at the speed of light. It’s so precise, it can fry a…
Month: March 2024
UK fusion startup breaks pressure record using giant ‘gun’ machine
A British startup has set a new pressure record using the world’s strongest pulsed power machine, as it looks to forge a cheaper, faster path to fusion energy. First Light Fusion launched…
Sharing the AI journey: Amplifying female founder voices
In October last year, researchers at the Alan Turing Institute sounded the alarm that there was an “urgent issue” of gender imbalance in artificial intelligence investment. No one, unfortunately, was surprised. However,…
Experts call for stricter femtech laws to safeguard women’s data
It’s hard to imagine more intimate data than that collected by female technologies or “femtech.” These apps and devices not only monitor women’s menstrual cycles but also record their sexual encounters, orgasms,…
The EU’s DMA is a new take on tech regulation — but that doesn’t mean it’ll work
It happened, after years of chin-wagging and back-and-forth and bad blood, it finally happened: the compliance date for the Digital Markets Act arrived on March 7th. From here on out, big tech…
EU’s new attack on big tech risks becoming ‘missed opportunity’
The EU’s strictest-ever crackdown on big tech has only just begun, but critics fear it’s already missing the targets. Called the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the landmark law aims to curb the…
Red Sea cable cut by anchor from Houthi ship attack, says internet firm
Several subsea communications cables in the Red Sea were cut on Saturday, temporarily affecting a quarter of all data traffic flowing between Asia and Europe. Some have blamed the Houthi rebels for…
Spain halts Sam Altman’s eyeball-scanning startup Worldcoin over privacy concerns
Spanish regulators have ordered Worldcoin to pause operations over fears that the company’s eyeball-scanning technology may intrude on users’ privacy. Worldcoin — co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in 2019 — uses…
Startup searching for ‘holy grail’ of encryption raises $73M
French startup Zama has raised $73mn to commercialise the “holy grail” of cryptography: fully homomorphic encryption (FHE). Conceptually simple but practically complex, FHE enables computations on encrypted data without having to first…
Dutch government launched secret task force to keep ASML in Netherlands, report says
The Dutch government has reportedly launched a secret task force to keep chip giant ASML in the Netherlands. Dubbed “Operation Beethoven,” the task force was formed to allay ASML’s fears about the…