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This article was originally published on .cult by Mikaella C, Inês Almeida. .cult is a Berlin-based community platform for developers. We write about all things career-related, make original documentaries, and share heaps of other untold developer stories from around the world. Last year we brought you our first comprehensive breakdown of developer salaries in Germany. We used extensive data gathered over the course of...

A UK scale-up this week unveiled an industry-first approach to identity verification: asking users to turn their heads. Onfido, an Oxford University spin-out, launched the software amid surging identity fraud. Growing economic pressures, increasing digitization, and pandemic-fuelled upheaval recently led politicians to warn that a “fraud epidemic”  is sweeping across Onfido’s home country of the UK. Similar developments have been observed around the world....

References: Didn’t they go out with the ark? These days we are far more inclined to think that all the power in job hunting lies in employee referral programmes or social media recommendations, and as a result, lots of job seekers forget about the power of a good reference. According to a Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) survey, 92% of employers conduct background...

You’ve got a brand new MacBook? Perfect. Now’s the time for you to completely ruin its battery, to ensure it only lasts for minutes when you’re out and about. I mean, what’s the point in your laptop being portable? As far as I’m concerned, none. That’s why we’ve put together a handy guide outlining everything you should do to mess up your MacBook’s battery...

It’s a bold new world for automobile makers. After a century of development and fine-tuning, the combustion engine is going the way of the dodos as Europe shifts to clean energy. But there’s more to the future of cars than just electric motors. The onset of fully autonomous vehicles may lie just beyond the technological horizon and the promise of a million-mile battery draws...

Vinyl has undergone one hell of a renaissance. In 2006, the format was effectively dead. But since then? Vinyl records have experienced year-on-year growth, with the US alone clocking 41.7m units sold in 2021, a 45-fold increase from 16 years ago. While in Germany, sales went from 0.3m in 2006, to 4.5m last year. Those numbers are somewhat misleading though — and their exuberance...

European businesses, investors, and talent are all vying for a ticket on the metaverse hype train. Even political heavyweights are making moves — or, at least, pronouncements. French President Emmanuel Macron wants to build “a European metaverse” to challenge US and Chinese tech giants. The EU’s digital chief, Margrethe Vestager, meanwhile, is mulling new antitrust regulation. But their ambitions are a long way from being...

Influencers may crave attention by “occupation,” but a new AI experiment shows they can’t always control their admirers’ gazes. Dubbed “The Follower,” the project tracks Instagrammers in the wild. In the process, it offers a glimpse at the terrifying capabilities of automated surveillance. The experiment is the brainchild of Dries Depoorter, a Belgian artist who previously caught our attention by monitoring politicians using phones at...

The global AI explosion has supercharged the need for a common sense, human-centered methodology for dealing with data privacy and ownership. Leading the way is Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), but there’s more than just personally identifiable information (PII) at stake in the modern market. What about the data we generate as content and art? It’s certainly not legal to copy someone else’s...

What’s big, good for your brain, and about to land in Spain? That’s right, TNW València! On March 30th and 31st in 2023, we’re bringing our world famous tech event to España. To achieve this, we’ve partnered with the Ajuntament de València (that’s the city council) for two days of celebrating and showcasing the best of Southern European tech and startups. So… why València?...

Scientists at the University of Oxford recently published the results of a mind-blowing experiment wherein they entangled two atomic clocks at a record-breaking distance of two meters. Up front: Atomic clocks have been in popular use since the 1950s. They’re used in myriad applications ranging from managing fairness on the stock market to allowing spaceships to navigate at extreme speeds. The Oxford team’s experiment...

The future is becoming less car-centric. But in Germany, the autobahn runs a whopping 13,000 kilometers. It’s not only one of the longest and most dense road systems globally but a love letter to taking cars to the limit featuring stretches with effectively no speed limit for certain classes of vehicles.  But it also provides a critical test bed for the future of mobility,...

You put your blood, sweat, and tears into building an amazing product that’ll solve your customers’ problems and blow the competition away. The problem is: no one knows about it. Sound familiar? You can spend all the time you want on product development, but without a well-defined brand, you’ll struggle to catch the eye of customers and investors, or stand out against competitors. The...

The ancient art of origami could have a future in space. Sweden’s first astronaut and the European Space Agency (ESA) this week unveiled a new project inspired by the paper-folding technique. The program will use technology designed by Stilfold, a Swedish startup that’s pioneered a manufacturing process called “industrial origami.” The technique uses robotic arms to fold sheets of steel over curves to form...

 The end of summer also sounded the end of Germany’s €9 public transport ticket — a tenth of its usual price. Unsurprisingly popular with commuters, it left people wondering what was next.  This week the Berlin Senate has announced its plan to secure funds for reduced-price BVG tickets. According to Mayor Franziska Giffey, a monthly ticket price of €29 for zones A-C has been...

In the age of Google, we all naturally turn to the internet when we’re facing a challenge. For example, “How do you snake a drain?”, “What’s the best way to get over a hangover?”, or perhaps even, “How do I land my dream job?.” If you’re currently in the market for a new career, you’ve probably spent a little bit of time trawling through...

The digital platform economy has exploded in the last few years. According to European Commission figures, over 28 million people in the EU work through digital labor platforms today. By 2025, their number is expected to reach 43 million. Workforce digitalization, which accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, has radically changed the European labor market. For some people, that means insecure contracts and stressful working...

Lithium-ion batteries have become a key component in the rise of electric mobility, but forecasting their health and lifespans is limiting the technology. While they’ve proven successful, the capacity of lithium-ion batteries degrades over time, and not just because of the ageing process that occurs during charging and discharging — known as “cycling ageing.” Batteries also degrade when not in use Lithium-ion battery cells...

Researchers from DeepMind, the UK’s juggernaut AI lab, have forsaken the noble games of chess and Go for a more plebeian delight: football. The Google sister company yesterday published a research paper and accompanying blog post detailing its new neural probabilistic motor primitives (NPMP) — a method by which artificial intelligence agents can learn to operate physical bodies. Per the blog post: An NPMP...

When it comes to mobility, the future is electric, and that means a lot of batteries. Unfortunately, batteries can potentially catch fire or explode, causing fast, ferocious fires. But we might have a solution – or several solutions. This article is Part Three, the final of a series I’ve been writing on lithium-ion battery fires in escooters and ebikes. Part One explored the incidence...

Scientists have tapped neuromorphic computing to keep robots learning about new objects after they’ve been deployed. For the uninitiated, neuromorphic computing replicates the neural structure of the human brain to create algorithms that can deal with the uncertainties of the natural world. Intel Labs has developed one of the most notable architectures in the field: the Loihi neuromorphic chip. Loihi is comprised of around 130,000 artificial...

Europe is experiencing one of the hottest summers on record. July 18th was the hottest day recorded in France in almost 20 years and London experienced a sweltering 40 degrees for the first time ever in July. Countries like Switzerland and Sweden also broke their previous records. When the weather is this hot, it’s hard to focus on anything work-related. Emails seem just a...

A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics recently demonstrated a record-breaking experiment that could turn the quantum computing industry on its head. The quantum slalom One of the biggest challenges facing STEM researchers today is the difficulty of building a fault-tolerant, stable quantum computer. In essence, modern physicists are darting back and forth between trying to scale quantum computers...

Nikita Gourianov, a physicist at Oxford university, yesterday published a scathing article full of wild, damning claims about the field of quantum computing and the scientists who work in it. According to Gourianov, the quantum computing industry has been led astray by greedy physicists who’ve hyped up the tech’s possibilities in order to rip off VCs and get paid private-sector salaries for doing academic...

If you’re impressed by the recent spate of text-to-image generators, get ready for the next step in AI artistry: text-to-video. While the huge compute costs and scarcity of text-to-video datasets have stunted the technique’s growth, recent research has brought the promise closer to reality. A computer artist called Glenn Marshall has given a glimpse at the potential. The Belfast-based composer recently won the Jury Award...

Vivek Wadhwa and Mauritz Kop recently penned an op-ed urging governments around the world to get ahead of the threat posed by the emerging technology known as quantum computing. They even went so far as to title their article “Why Quantum Computing is Even More Dangerous Than Artificial Intelligence.” Up front: This one gets a very respectful hard-disagree from me. While I do believe...

A new “water map” of Mars could offer fresh clues about the planet’s past — and potential landing spots for the future. Researchers from the European Space Agency (ESA) spent a decade developing the map from data collected by two Mars orbiters. They found hundreds of thousands of areas containing aqueous mineral deposits, which are created though interactions between rock and water. As the minerals...

The City of New York is grappling with a problem — fire. Specifically, escooter and ebike lithium-ion batteries catch fire and sometimes explode. And there’s no sign of it ending anytime soon. Earlier this year, I wrote an introductory article detailing the rate of lithium-ion battery fires. Today I want to look at New York as a cautionary tale in the struggle of dealing...

We all know the drill. During the pandemic, offices shut-down, employees worked from home… and companies discovered, it wasn’t all bad. Now, with half of workers wanting to continue the work from home life and the other half running back to the office with open arms, companies are weighing the potential benefits of remote, hybrid, and flexible work arrangements. In the wake of the...

Europe has some of the most progressive, human-centric artificial intelligence governance policies in the world. Compared to the heavy-handed government oversight in China or the Wild West-style anything goes approach in the US, the EU’s strategy is designed to stoke academic and corporate innovation while also protecting private citizens from harm and overreach. But that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. The 2018 initiative In 2018,...

Gen Xers and boomers will remember the musical powerhouse that was Janet Jackson in the late 1980s. But now her music has been found to have a new power — it can crash laptops.  This week Microsoft chief software engineer Raymond Chen shared the story of what happens when older Windows XP laptops play the music video for Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation.” Specifically, Chen recalls...

This article was originally published on .cult by Saudamani Singh. .cult is a Berlin-based community platform for developers. We write about all things career-related, make original documentaries, and share heaps of other untold developer stories from around the world. If you’ve ever used Alexa or Siri, sat in a self-driving car, talked to a chatbot, or even watched something recommended to you by Netflix,...

Late last week, the City of New York announced a revolutionary way to curb the problem of speeding using speed limiters. It’s not only a first for the city, but a massive upgrade on efforts rolled out this year in Europe.  As part of a new six-month pilot program, 50 city fleet vehicles are fitted with active intelligent speed assistance (ISA), which restricts a...

There’s nothing quite so dramatic and inspirational as a scientific breakthrough. But what happens when different groups of scientists can’t seem to agree on the science? DeepMind, an Alphabet research company based in London, published a fascinating research paper last year wherein it claimed to have solved the huge challenge of “simulating matter on the quantum scale with AI.” Now, nearly eight months later,...

Drone deliveries are hot right now. In the US, companies like Walmart and Amazon taking the lead. As well as the industry rollout, there’s a slew of innovation in technology and hardware solutions that augment and enhance the delivery experience.  Let’s take a look. Dronedek drone docking stations  I’ve raised the challenge of what I call “the last steps” to get the package to...

During the Covid-19 pandemic, international travel pretty much came to a halt. As countries around the globe closed their borders and put extra security measures in place, people were forced to holiday a little bit closer to home. Staycations were all the rage and for a while, they seemed to fill a void. But now, we’ve moved on. 2022 is officially the year of...

Picture it. Using an app, you order a new mobile phone on Amazon or a burger from your favorite restaurant. A mere 20 minutes later, you get an alert on your phone and head out to the backyard to see a drone descending from the sky holding your package. Your package gently drops to the ground, and the drone flies off. And it’s being...

Researchers have discovered a surprisingly simple way to detect deepfake video calls: ask the suspect to turn sideways. The trick was shared this week by Metaphysic.ai, a London-based startup behind the viral  Tom Cruise deepfakes. The company used DeepFaceLive, a popular app for video deepfakes, to transform a volunteer into various celebrities. Most of the recreations were impressive when they looked straight-ahead. But once the...

The idea of a car that turns into a plane in three minutes sounds like a dream. Imagine you’re driving along during peak hour. You get an alert of incoming traffic and shapeshift into an aircraft that takes to the skies, overtaking commuter delays, toll bridges, and construction delays — suck it, gridlock! But the reality of the flying car (aka air car) is...

In this series we examine some of the most popular doomsday scenarios prognosticated by modern AI experts. Previous articles include Misaligned Objectives, Artificial Stupidity, Wall-E Syndrome, Humanity Joins the Hivemind, and Killer Robots. We’ve covered a lot of ground in this series (see above), but nothing comes close to our next topic. The “democratization of expertise” might sound like a good thing — democracy, expertise, what’s not...

It’s strike season on the London Underground, and that means one thing for the UK’s interminable Tory governments: time to rev-up the driverless hype train. Conservative politicians have long called for a fully-autonomous metro. In 2012, then-London Mayor Boris Johnson said Britain’s capital would have driverless trains within 10 years. A decade later, he claimed the switch would free people from being “prisoners of the...

The future of last-mile package delivery is fast and contactless, with delivery providers focused on eliminating traffic and parking challenges. An increasingly prominent option is the use of uncrewed aerial vehicles or drones.  This week research comparing the environmental impact of different forms of last-mile delivery was published in the scientific journal Patterns. Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University compared the energy consumption of quadcopter...

Say you had millions of dollars to spend. If you’re an automotive enthusiast, perhaps you’d buy the latest Ferrari or a 1956 Aston Martin. But would you spend an exorbitant amount for a car you can’t physically drive? It may sound illogical, but research by Vanarama shows people are digging deep into their pockets to buy car-related NFTs. This means that they own the...

Have you ever been catfished? Maybe you’ve met someone on a dating app and decided to go for a coffee or a drink, but when you showed up, the person looked nothing like their profile pictures. Unfortunately, this kind of deception is such a part of dating in 2022 that we’ve almost come to accept it. But that kind of deceit would never happen...

Experts believe some 80-percent of the universe could be made up of a mysterious substance called “dark matter.” Some even think there’s an entire group of particles forming a “dark sector” that could be as complex as the matter and antimatter families. Unfortunately, the quest to finally observe dark matter is hitting a wall. Simply put we need more particle colliders. And whether they...

In an effort to bring personal flying machines to the skies, French inventor and former jet-ski champion Franky Zapata is taking invites for people to try out his latest flying machine – the JetRacer.  Meet the JetRacer  The JetRacer is a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft powered by ten kerosene-fueled micro-turbo-jet engines.  The Zapata JetRacer Controlled by two joysticks, it’s capable of a...

What if wearable electronics could monitor your health and detect diseases even before symptoms appear? That’s exactly the vision of Sihong Wang and his research team at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME). “With this work we’ve bridged wearable technology with artificial intelligence and machine learning to create a powerful device which can analyze health data right on our own...

Today, social media users want serendipitous shopping experiences — where new brands and ideas pop up on their feeds like wizened wizards in an RPG. In this world, your social media profile is your shop window. How you dress it up, counts. If you’re a solopreneur or an influencer, social media will likely be one of the first touchpoints your audience will have with...

The USA’s “love affair with the automobile” hasn’t been kind to pedestrians. In 2020, more than 6,500 people were struck and killed while walking in the country. A new report by Smart Growth America lays most of the blame on roadways. “Our nation’s streets are dangerous by design, designed primarily to move cars quickly at the expense of keeping everyone safe,” the study authors...

Last month saw the Eurobike 2022 conference in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, bringing a swag of new ebikes, cargo bikes, and escooters to industry professionals and product enthusiasts. Here’s some of the tech that caught my eye. The Noordung ebike  At first glance, the Slovakian Noordung ebike looks like any cool, retro-inspired lightweight carbon fiber ebike. But it possesses a couple of superpowers. It...