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The 20th century brought an education revolution. Could the 21st century be on the brink of another? In 1900, only one in three children went to school. By the turn of the millennium, it was four in five – an astonishing leap. The mission to widen access to education was a world-changing success. But in 2025, it’s starting to run out of steam. Schoolchildren have all the world’s information at their fingertips – and AI assistants to help do their homework – yet classrooms, c

After months of speculation, two years of development, delays and impatient countdowns from the AI faithful, GPT-5 has finally arrived – and the reaction has been... interesting. Some users see it as a significant step forward; others are left wondering what the fuss is about. For casual ChatGPT users – the ones who drop in to ask, “What’s the best movie trilogy ever, and why is it Back to the Future?”   – the grand reveal likely felt underwhelming. The “4” in the corner quie

With enough data and the ability to crunch it, virtually any challenge facing humanity today can be solved – Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO If you’re a regular iluli follower, you’ll know that in recent months we’ve covered topics like the world-changing potential of superconductors , the pursuit of new frontiers in outer space, and how AI-powered breakthroughs in biology are transforming our understanding of life itself. Technology is revolutionising the world and solvin

In January 2020, Detroit Police pulled up outside the home of Robert Julian-Borchak Williams and arrested him in front of his wife and two daughters. His crime? Stealing five watches from a shop that he’d never even visited.  Despite protesting his innocence, Robert spent nearly 30 hours behind bars before being released on bail. Eventually, the truth emerged  – an AI-powered facial recognition system had mistaken him for another Black man.  This was the first documented case

From space travel to smartphones, many of today’s groundbreaking inventions first appeared in fiction.  But beyond predicting new technologies, science fiction can tell us something much more important. It invites us to imagine not just what’s possible, but the kind of future we want to create.  Here’s my short explainer on the subject: Predicting the future I’m going to take an educated guess that your introduction to many of today’s technological marvels came from the film

What does 2025 have in store for us gadget fanatics? A special blend of nostalgia and innovation, it would seem… This year, innovation is shaping up to be less about flashy breakthroughs and more about revisiting and refining what we already know – sometimes with a surprising twist. From breathing new life into old gadgets with AI enhancements to embracing the minimalist charm of less-is-more tech, 2025 promises a captivating blend of the familiar and the futuristic. Think ge

So the moment has finally arrived for AI to receive the Apple treatment. Marketed as “ AI for the rest of us ” and “personal intelligence right where you need it,” Apple Intelligence will roll out in the UK as part of updates for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac starting in December 2024. By partnering with ChatGPT – one of the most recognised AI interfaces – Apple will combine established expertise and computational power with its own innovative AI features. With AI proving transfo

In a logical world, longer life expectancy would be a reason to celebrate. Yet, the ageing population – marked by more retirees and proportionally fewer workers – has led to a crisis in adult social care systems worldwide. In countries like Japan, Italy, and South Korea, life expectancy now stretches into the mid-80s. But when the care system we’ll rely on in our twilight years is buckling under the strain, it’s hardly a surprise that we’re not all partying like it’s 2099. W

“To understand life, we need to understand proteins,” said New Scientist magazine in July 2022. And yet, if we’re being honest, the topic of “protein folding” doesn’t sound all that exciting to most of us. Compare it to black holes, quantum computing or gene editing. You don’t need much prior knowledge of any of these to get a sense that they are thrilling developments at the cutting edge of science. But proteins? Well… To the uninitiated, protein equals nutrition. Important

Have you made the switch to electric yet? One of the challenges preventing more people from adopting electric vehicles is concern over battery life and charging capacity. Often referred to as "range anxiety," this is the fear of whether the car will reach the next charging station in time.   And even if you make it, will the charger actually work? The current charging infrastructure still leaves much to be desired, often forcing drivers to go miles out of their way to find a

What’s the most destructive weather you can think of? Chances are that solar storms aren’t what you picture. But perhaps they should be. The Sun doesn’t just send heat and light our way. It also belches out a colourful variety of destructive forces, including solar winds and phenomena known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – giant coiling magnetic fields carrying a dense plasma of energetic particles tens of thousands of kilometres wide. Thanks to Earth's magnetic field, our

How do you feel about machines tracking your emotions? Imagine if your phone could sense that you’re feeling stressed, and it responded by recommending a meditation app. The rapid rise of emotion recognition technology means this could soon be a reality. If AI-powered tech can learn to recognise and respond to our emotions, the potential will be huge. But so are the concerns. And that’s before we get to the really big question: can this technology actually work?  Watch my sho

ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini – formerly known as Bard – can plan parties, write stories, hold conversations and pass exams. These incredible Large Language Model (LLM) systems might look like the all-knowing AI promised by science fiction. But they are not.  As powerful, impressive and revolutionary as they are, LLMs are essentially elaborate bluffing systems which use statistics to piece sentences together. It is only by understanding how these systems work that we will get t

Everyone loves a good magic trick. Take mind-reading, for instance. We can enjoy the stagecraft and illusion safe in the knowledge that it isn’t actually possible for someone to pry into our innermost thoughts. But what if it was? We may be on the verge of a technological breakthrough that takes mind-reading from illusion to reality. Brain scanning is one of the wonders of medical science. Its history goes back to 1924 and, over the years, the abstract signals and images coll

If you think Marmite divides opinion, wait until you spend some time in the company of capitalism. Is it the greatest concept in the history of human civilisation? Or is it the root of all that is unfair in the world, helping the rich get richer at everyone else’s expense? It’s probably a topic best avoided at dinner parties. But, how well do we actually understand how economies work? In his book, Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: A Brief History of Capitalism , Yani

In medical emergencies, every moment counts. That’s why innovations that can shave even fractions of a second off the time it takes someone to get life-saving treatment represents a massive leap forward. When it comes to organ transplantation, speed really is of the essence. According to the American Transplant Foundation , an average of 16 people die each day because they do not receive organs in time. What’s more, between 2014 and 2019 there were 370 “ near misses ” where

Spoiler alert: Yes, it’s already happening. Scorsese. Kubrick. Lynch. Anyone with the last name Coppola. Iconic directors invariably have a distinct style and vision that make their work easily recognisable. Chances are that even if you didn’t see the words "Directed by Quentin Tarantino" appear in the credits of a film, you’d still be able to identify the auteur through the kind of snappy dialogue, hammy violence and unique overall aesthetic seen on screen. Or would you? In

In years gone by, parents would worry about letting their children play out in the street. Nowadays, it’s the potential dangers lurking online that are just as likely to keep mums and dads awake at night. The explosion of games, apps, and video content has happened faster than regulators and the rest of us can possibly keep up with. In that respect, the internet is like the new Wild West. Some countries are now turning to facial recognition to identify the age of those consum

Chatbots are proliferating rapidly thanks to advancements in AI. Most of us have come into contact with them, commonly in a customer service capacity. Formulaic responses aside, they can save a lot of time. Who wants to spend over an hour on hold, only to be hung up on? Chatbots mimic whatever information is fed to them. The result is a reflection of the integrity (or otherwise) of whoever programmed the information. Given the nefarious potential, it’s left some to question i

Proteins probably don’t weigh too heavily on your mind day to day. It’s ironic, given every single cell in your brain, and the rest of your body, is made up of a myriad of protein building blocks known as amino acids. A whopping 20,000 proteins are expressed by the human genome. The information needed to create these proteins is contained in the nuclei of our DNA. Now, scientists have discovered an intelligent method for reading these instructions. We’re just beginning to scr