Beyond Infinity

Our weekly news round-up: Tencent and Alibaba look like becoming trillion dollar companies, dominating 770 million Chinese internet users; Curiosity rover resumes onboard rock sample analysis after 18 month hiatus; Cryosleep chamber under development by NASA for long-duration space travel; Big Californian utilities expand their EV infrastructure spend in readiness for the phase out of petrol-powered transportation; Big study finds chemotherapy not useful in treatment of most common early stage breast cancer; Aussie webcams hacked and fake testimonials posted on YouTube as endorsements for scammers' service; Google Lens arrives on Android phones (and it's really useful); Big tech companies team up to make computers more accessible to the vision-impaired.

While Trump's use of the secret messaging service Confide may breach federal record-keeping laws, there are also concerns about security breaches. Chief of Staff John Kelly may have used a compromised phone for months when he was Secretary of Homeland Security, while several inner circle advisors relied on private devices to conduct government business. On the social media front, a US Judge says that as President, Trump doesn't have the right to block followers on Twitter.

QuestaGame and Nature's Notebook in the US encourage everyday people to photograph, document and monitor animals and plants in the wild and experience biodiversity.

Our weekly news round-up: How to find out what Apple and Google know about you; Alan Bean, 4th man on the Moon, dies aged 86; German scientists debunk NASA's EM-drive propulsion claims; Apple AirPlay 2 lets you stream music to a wide variety of 3rd party speakers; Amazon Alexa records private conversation and sends it to a random contact; Hours after EU's new General Data Protection Regulation laws took effect, Facebook, Google and others were accused of breaches; South Australian government will honour Tesla virtual power plant project of previous Labour government.

The Chinese maker of application specific integrated circuits is increasing its control of mining, amid concerns that such centralised power could be used to disrupt or attack cryptocurrency networks.

If you've received updated terms of service emails lately from the likes of Twitter, Spotify and eBay, it's because of new laws which provide huge fines if companies breach your privacy. They're the EU's General Data Protection Regulation.

With his trademark boundless ambition and enthusiasm, Elon Musk updates plans to beat traffic chaos by tunneling underground. He announced a deal to work with Los Angeles County Transportion Authority on a project that aims to one day take passengers from the city to LAX airport in 8 minutes at 200 km/h.

Our weekly news round-up: Old data from Galileo spacecraft reexamined to confirm plumes on moon Europa; Human habitation in the Philippines dates back 700,000 years; Cold Atom Lab to create lowest temperature in the Universe aboard ISS; Google revisits its 'Don't Be Evil' mantra; Telstra suffers another major mobile outage; Facebook users shrug off recent scandals; Net neutrality rules caught up in Trump lawyer allegations.

Tolstoy wrote: "One can no more approach people without love than one can approach bees without care. Such is the quality of bees..." To mark World Bee Day on 20th May, Piers talks with Simon Mulvany of Save The Bees Australia about his intensifying legal battle with big honey, recent wins in having dangerous chemicals banned by major retailers, his disdain for Australian Certified Organic and his change.org petition to ban toxic neonicotinoids in Australia - as Europe has already done.

Delegates were treated to a raft of cool (and slightly creepy) innovations. Google Assistant can robocall and make an appointment for you in a very human-sounding voice, while Gmail now has automated, predictive reply options and smart compose.