SpaceX will launch 4,425 satellites to bring superfast broadband to the entire world
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Over 65% of the Earths population still don’t have internet, Musks ambitious project will bring them the same internet benefits that the rest of the world have… and fund his city on Mars. SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk, is planning to put more than 4,000...
SpaceX, Facebook and others compete to connect the next 3.5 billion people
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Over half the worlds population has no access to the internet, or the services, or benefits it offers. These audacious global internet programs want to resolve that. Internet access is cheap, fast and available everywhere. Mobile phone and communications companies throw unlimited data plans...
The internet pioneer behind Apache pushes blockchain to fuel the next big internet revolution
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Everyone agrees that blockchain is a disruptive technology, and a technology that could help revolutionise not just one industry but all of them but in order for it to really change the world it first needs to be embedded into the “plumbing” of the internet,...
Report finds that global internet freedom declines for sixth straight year in a row
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Internet freedom is on the decline with over two thirds of the worlds population now subject to government and institutional censorship. Independent watchdog Freedom House has issued its 2016 report along with a chilling warning that internet privacy is becoming something of an oxymoron. Freedom...
UN backs ID2020 blockchain consortium to give 2 billion people an identity
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The UN is backing a blockchain consortium to help them give a voice, and recognition, to over 2 billion people. According to the United Nations there are over 2 billion people who have no way of proving who they are. And while at first glance...
New GE connected dishwasher could disrupt two industries
GE’s connected dishwashers have become self sufficient and it marks the beginning of the disruption of two industries Disruption is sometimes subtle. Sometimes you miss it and then, at some point you wonder what happened to your sales. Then you kick your innovation teams into overdrive and then you realise it’s...
Panasonic unveil an invisible TV that doubles as the heart of your connected home
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Invisible TV’s and electronics have been touted for years but now Panasonic have cracked it. Since the arrival of flatscreen TVs back in the early 2000’s there’s not been a whole lot to get excited about in the world of televisions – after all,...
Dubai announces plans to put the entire Emirate onto the blockchain
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Dubai wants to become less dependent on oil and the emirate is rapidly becoming one of the most progressive nations in the world. Earlier this week, at an event hosted by the Dubai Future Foundation and the Smart Dubai Office, the Crown Prince of Dubai announced...
Nasdaq-GE blockchain paves the way for Virtual Power Plants and distributed energy grids
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Nasdaq imagines a day when you can bypass the local power company and buy power from whoever you like – even your neighbours. Imagine a day when the national rail company buys its power from collectives of neighbourhood consortiums who have an excess from...
From line to plate, Tuna gets its own blockchain
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Tuna becomes the world’s first fish to get its own blockchain to track it’s provenance from net to plate. Most people have heard of bitcoin but fewer people are familiar with blockchain, the revolutionary technology that underpins it. And now this technology, which ostensibly began life in the...
Wanxiang announces plans to use Blockchain to underpin it’s $30 Billion Smarter Cities program
WHYTHIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Blockchains momentum keeps rolling on with another company announcing another major push. Another company jumped on the blockchain bandwagon in a big way, with Wanxiang’s $30 billion smart city project. The Chinese electric car maker announced the mega-project at last weeks Global Blockchain Summit. Wanxiang said...
BHP turns to blockchain to improve its supply chain
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Blockchain is finding a home in the enterprise and now BHP want to use it to improve their supply chain. At this weeks Global Blockchain Summit BHP Billiton, the world’s largest mining firm, revealed that it is going to begin using the Ethereum blockchain and IPFS running on Microsoft Azure...
Accenture debuts editable blockchain prototype
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF One of Blockchains key attributes is that it serves as an Immutable Record, now Accenture wants to change that. Accenture is courting controversy among the blockchain community by patenting a technique that will allow it to edit information held on the blockchain in an attempt...
SpaceX explosion sees Facebooks African internet project go up in smoke
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The Facebook CEO said he was ‘deeply disappointed’ in explosion of Falcon 9 rocket carrying satellite intended to provide internet coverage to parts of Africa In October last year Mark Zuckerberg, Facebooks CEO, proudly announced his first project to deliver internet from space. The post read: “As...
The USAF will plasma bomb the sky to improve radio reception
The US Air Force has plans to improve radio communication over long distances by detonating plasma bombs in the upper atmosphere using a fleet of micro satellites. Since the early days of radio, we have known that signals that cannot be picked up by day may be heard clearly at night...
GE reinvents the dryer to disrupt the laundry industry
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF GE shows us that you can reinvent even the most mundane products and use technology to disrupt your industry. Heating laundry inside a standard 220 volt clothes dryer is a huge energy drain and most households have one but, in an example of how...
The world’s first telepathic interface is getting better
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Imagine a new form of communication, one that transcends phones and virtual reality. Imagine telepathy. I know what you’re thinking… literally. Only kidding – for now anyway. Imagine being able to read another persons mind then imagine a question and answer game played by two people...
Bitcoin slumps twenty percent after $65m Bitfinex hack
The Bitfinex heist is the latest is a growing line of high profile heists that are undermining confidence in the crypto currency The price of the virtual currency Bitcoin fell sharply Tuesday after Hong Kong-based digital-currency exchange Bitfinex said it was hacked, resulting in the possible theft of $65 million...
Governments mull replacing citizens wages with an Universal Basic Income
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Today it’s already a fact that more and more jobs are being automated by machines, faced with societal unrest and mass unemployment Governments around the world are now turning to the idea of providing an Universal Basic Income for everyone. What would you do...
Facebook Aquila takes to the skies to connect the rest of the world
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Only half the world is connected, Facebook’s connecting the other half. Facebook has achieved the first successful test flight of the Aquila drone, marking another notable milestone in the firm’s efforts to deliver internet access to 4 billion people worldwide who are still off...
