BLOG

In October 2020, The Guardian published a tongue-in-cheek “Pass Notes” article about how young people no longer understand traditional hand gestures such as miming a phone call or requesting a bill at a restaurant.  Questioning whether we’re losing part of our cultural heritage as a result, the piece takes the form of a conversation between the interviewer and the interviewee: hand gestures themselves. "Can you give me an example of what you’re talking about?" "Certainly: pl

A very fishy trend has surfaced since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic: a surge in webcam usage.  It’s no surprise that webcam usage went through the roof as employees around the globe settled into their new working-from-home routines, but this is something quite different. The views in question were for live streams from Monterey Bay Aquarium, California. Since the aquarium closed to the public in March, visits to its website have tripled year-on-year. With ten webcams to

From the creation of Alan Turing’s melody-making machine in 1951 to David Bowie’s digital lyric randomiser, music and artificial intelligence have long been intertwined, but curiosity around untapped potential remains as strong as ever. In June this year, NME published an article that piqued my interest: “YouTuber creates fake Nirvana song using artificial intelligence.” I was curious to hear the results, and I was not disappointed. Funk Turkey, the alias behind the creation

Remember the good old days of playing board games? So-called 'family fun', sitting inside on a rainy afternoon with your sibling getting increasingly irate as you gleefully demand rent for your three hotels on Park Lane. Well, those days might have changed for good since Monopoly introduced a voice-activated edition of their family staple... Boasting that ‘Mr. Monopoly now listens’, you simply say commands like "pay rent on Piccadilly" and bam! the payment is moved to the pla

When we were young, we’d find out what music was popular by tuning into Top of the Pops on a Friday evening, or listening to the chart show on the radio. Nowadays, many people listen solely to streaming services — such as Spotify — who use algorithms to recommend songs we’ll like based on our listening history. As such, our notion of what is and isn’t popular with the masses is greatly affected.   Similar to the Echo Chamber Effect, if you and those you follow consistently l

The UK General Election in December 2019 saw the Labour Party’s worst result since 1935. When the exit poll figures were revealed, I’m sure even the most die-hard of Conservative supporters were a little shocked at just how great the gains were.   In the run up to the result, numerous news outlets including the  Independent ,  Metro   and  The Telegraph spoke of how Labour were closing the gap, due in no small part — it was believed — to their savviness with social media.  J

Whilst my meeting-packed week often prevents me from watching as many new movies as I’d like to, there are a few greats that are etched in my memory. Most of which are fun, fantastical and futuristic affairs centered around technology (I’m looking at you  Back to the Future …) ​ And with my recent blog delving into the implications of Spike Jonze’s  Her and the announcement of the fourth Matrix instalment, what better time to explore the technological triumphs from other ga

If you’ve seen Spike Jonze’s 2013 film, Her, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson, the prospect of forming an intimate and meaningful relationship with artificial intelligence might not seem too far-fetched...  ​ For in the not-too-distant future, we find our protagonist — a lonely, depressed and introverted individual named Theodore Twombly (played by Phoenix) — seeking solace from a female-voiced virtual assistant to numb the pain of his impending divorce. Samant

You may have heard of the uncanny valley effect before. It’s a memorable name, that’s for sure, but what does it pertain to? In short, it's the hypothesised relation between an object's degree of resemblance to a human being and the emotional response to the object. Or, in other words, when you find a humanoid robot hella creepy! That uneasy feeling is central to the notion of uncanny valley, first hypothesised by Masahiro Mori — a Japanese roboticist — way back in 1970. Near

I’m not usually one for self-help books. I’ve always felt life lessons are best learned through enduring personal experience, rather than heeding prescriptive advice from writers who enjoy a very different existence to my own. ​ That said,  The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck   had an intriguing title and the coveted New York Times Bestseller accolade — enough to warrant a read from me.  Before reading the book, I was of the view that many of these so-called “experts” in hap

The rapid growth in the popularity of eSports perfectly demonstrates how a more connected world has not only changed how we interact with one another but how we entertain ourselves.  ​ For any child or gamer in the 90s, the preluding EA Sports “It’s in the Game” slogan was likely heard more times than “dinner’s ready”, “tidy your room” and “you’ll be late for school” combined. The no-nonsense tone of the voiceover reverberated around millions of bedrooms on both sides of the

It's a sad fact of life that many of the musical legends of our youth are no longer with us. Of those that remain, not all of them are willing or able to continue performing. But what of the fans still desperate for more?   That's where holograms come in... It’s hard to believe that it’s been a decade since Jennifer Saunders first donned the dowdy dungarees of Mamma Mia’s Donna Sheridan, AKA Meryl Streep, for Comic Relief. And lucky for the British populace, Saunders and co w

The sheer scale of advancements over the past decades, and the subsequent penetration into the pockets and purses of the masses, may have left a few of you feeling overwhelmed.   Sure, you know what 'app' means. But how about Bitcoin? Quantum computing? Serverless? In many ways, navigating the minefield that is technology terminology is akin to sitting an A-Level exam on the works of Shakespeare with zero studying. In other words, it’s gobbledygook.  In much the same way, lea

If, like me, you class the  Back to the Future trilogy as some of the finest storytelling to ever grace the silver screen, then you’ll know that the 21st October 2015 was a special date for many. It was the day that the 'future' became the present.   But now that present is the past, did we manage to live up to expectations? 21st October 2015 was the day that the 'future' became the present. When Doc, Marty and Jennifer pile in the DeLorean in 1985 and land in 2015; greeted