The NHS contract tracing app has been scrapped in favour of a system developed by Google and Apple. Although health secretary Matt Hancock has been heavily criticised for this failure, the UK is by no means alone. For example, Denmark, Germany and Italy each tried to build
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Last week, the entire world witnessed the shambles of the vote counting in the Iowa Democratic caucus. It should have been straightforward — but adding all the votes up in a consistent way took a whole week. The list of errors is as long as your arm.
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If there were a betting market in future winners of the Nobel prize in economics, MIT’s Daniel Acemoglu would be at pretty short odds. His highly innovative work has already won him a string of prizes. So his research is always worth following – especially when he
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Guess which of the 964 jobs listed in the widely used Occupational Information Network online database is the least susceptible to replacement by artificial intelligence (AI). The unsurprising answer is that of “massage therapist”. This is one of the findings of a paper in the latest issue
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The announcement that experiments will take place with driverless lorries on UK motorways ought to be a cause for celebration. Once again, human ingenuity is pushing out the frontiers of technology. But the general reaction in the media has been one of anxiety and concern. Wholly contradictory
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Last month, the largest global cyber-attack in history recently infected Windows computers in a network. It utilised a security glitch in the Windows operating system that allowed it to jump from computer to computer on an internal network. Only this week, yet another ransom attack spread across
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Perhaps George Osborne’s most abiding legacy from his time as chancellor will be the creation of the concept of the Northern Powerhouse. Certainly Manchester, its principal focus, is booming. The landscape of the centre is being altered dramatically by skyscrapers. Peel Holdings, the huge investment and property
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