Tech

Chicago O'Hare Boring Company Loop

Elon Musk's Boring Company has won the contract to build a new transport system between Chicago city centre and O'Hare airport. The Boring Company will build an Express Loop system allowing the 16 mile trip to be covered in 12 minutes using underground pods running up to 150 mph. The trip is estimated to cost $25 each way.

Innovation

Tech

Read more about Chicago O'Hare Boring Company Loop

The Rise Of USSD Apps In Africa

#111

Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) is a protocol of the GSM standard form 1997, mostly used to allow simple queries to be sent and received to and from the mobile network, like requesting your account balance. The advent of mobile internet and smartphones have largely decimated the use of USSD in developed markets. However in Africa, where there is only 18% internet penetration, there is over 80% penetration of GSM mobile phones. As a result, developers have started using USSD as a widespread delivery mechanism for apps from banking to fertility tracking.

Innovation

Tech

Read more about The Rise Of USSD Apps In Africa

Build Your Own Blockchain

#111

This is a nice step by step tutorial by Daniel van Flymen on how to learn about blockchain by building your own blockchain and interacting with it via an API.

Tech

Read more about Build Your Own Blockchain

Ben & Jerry's Blockchain

#110

Ben & Jerrys have comitted to contribute a penny per cone to buy carbon credit tokens using Poseidon, a micro-transactions blockchain payment system. Poseidon uses the Stellar blockchain network to track and link each purchase to Ecosphere's forest conservation project, as an offset to negative carbon purchases.

Innovation

Tech

Read more about Ben & Jerry's Blockchain

Professional Diploma in UX Design

#110

Irish company UXTraining.com have launched the UX Design Institute, which offers an online Professional Diploma in UX Design, accredited by Glasgow Caledonian University. The course is 40 hours in duration with a 2.5 hour exam, delivered online and includes mentoring and support. I have attended a UXTraining.com course in the past, and I found them and the material to be excellent and very worth while. The Professional Diploma in UX Design is currently available for 30% off as part of a special launch offer.

Tech

Web Dev

Read more about Professional Diploma in UX Design

New UK Drone Laws

#110

New Drone laws have/are coming into effect in the UK, that will restrict drones from flying higher than 400ft (120m) and within 1km of any airport. According to the UK government website, the laws are now in effect. According to dronesafe.uk, a CAA website, the laws don't coming into effect until July 30th.

Tech

Read more about New UK Drone Laws

Teens Dropping Facebook

#110

New survey results from the Pew Research Center show that usage of Facebook by 13 to 17 year olds has dropped significantly in the last 3 years. Youtube, Snapchat and Instagram are where it's at, in case you wanted to know :-)

Tech

Read more about Teens Dropping Facebook

Bitcoin Explained By AI

#109

This hilarious video was made to accompany a script written using predictive keyboards, which were trained using dozens of bitcoin explainers.

AI & ML

Tech

Read more about Bitcoin Explained By AI

Swansea Laptop Ochestra at BBC Radio 1 Academy Swansea

#108

This week The BBC Radio 1 Academy came to Swansea. The Swansea Laptop Orchestra spent a day at The Adademy demonstrating and performing in The Swansea Grand Theatre.The photo above is of one of SwanLork's newly hacked musical interface controllers.You can view some more of my photos of the day here.

Music

Tech