By BBC World Service
Technological and digital news from around the world.
Could audio files be the new digital drugs? New research shows that binaural beats - illusionary tones created by the brain when the brain hears two different tones in each ear – can change someone’s emotional state. ...
As African connectivity improves, so does the spread of cybercrime across the continent. The first ever African cybersecurity conference was held in Togo recently and resulted in twenty nine nations signing the Lomé declaration, a policy that commits to...
A robot boat is to gather data following Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha'apai’s eruption to try and help scientists what may have caused one of the fiercest volcanic eruptions in more than a century. The 12m long robot boat, called Maxlimer, will map...
It’s been reported that Ukraine is receiving help to identify Russian infiltrators or ID dead soldiers. A facial recognition company called Clearview AI is offering access to its database of billions of facial images. We’ve reported on Clearview before as...
The shifting geopolitical economics following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to the reappearance of the word “Splinternet”. In recent years some countries have created the physical infrastructure to potentially run many internet services outside of the reach of the...
A number of Brazilian civil rights organisations have filed a civil lawsuit against a company operating the São Paulo metro and their use of facial recognition technology. They are calling for an immediate suspension of the technology as well...
NewsGuard – tracking Russian disinformation and propaganda sites False claims and misinformation about Ukraine and its allies have been rife online for months. Now a new tracking centre, which monitors Russian-Ukraine disinformation, has been set up and has published its...
Did you know that the tech behind your door bell was likely to have been designed in the Ukraine? Or that Grammarly’s founders are Ukrainian. It’s probably easier to list the tech that we all use that has...
Imagine receiving the latest medical implant that can partially restore your vision, now imagine the technology behind your implant no longer being produced or supported. That’s what happened to about 350 patients around the world, as the medical start-up...
India has announced a digital budget with plans to create its own cryptocurrency – the digital rupee. It also plans a 30% digital asset tax. Bhaskar Chakravorti, Dean at the Fletcher School at Tufts University explains the implications. Mars landing...
Télécoms Sans Frontières has sent satellite kits to Tonga to improve connectivity on the islands following the volcanic eruption. Before the pandemic TSF would have immediately deployed to Tonga after it went dark, but strict quarantine rules limit what...
The first-ever robotic surgery without a human surgeon guiding it has been successfully performed at Johns Hopkins University. The Smart Tissues Autonomous Robot (STAR) completed a keyhole procedure called intestinal anastomosis – the sewing together of two sections of soft...
Connectivity to Tonga partially restored but undersea cable repair could take weeks. The underwater volcanic eruption severed the country’s only underwater network cable and ash clouds have made satellite connectivity impossible. Professor Nicole Starosielski from NYU, an expert in underwater...
After 222 days the social media platform is back up and running in Nigeria. The country suspended Twitter after it deleted a tweet by President Buhari and Nigerians have been accessing the platform via VPN, but now Twitter has agreed...
Huge robots, including a seven-metre two-tonne vessel named Ran, are on their way to the Thwaites Glacier to learn more about the retreating ice and its impact on Climate Change. But this won’t be the only tech that’s being deployed...
This week we have a special programme on Afrofuturism and tech innovation. It’s a subject often covered in science fiction, but what makes Afrofuturism different from standard science fiction is that ancient African traditions and black identity is steeped...
We look back on some of the stories we covered in 2021 – from age appropriate design to protect children, through internet shutdowns, a remote air traffic control tower and a WhatsApp school in Zimbabwe to a virtual reality opera....
Twenty-five years ago the world wide web was 2.5 terabytes and you needed to dial-up via your phone line to get onto it, so Brewster Kahle decided to set up a project to archive what was out there already. ...
Ministry of Health websites in Brazil are still down following a number of cyber-attacks. Millions of people now do not have access to their Covid-19 vaccination data (including certificates). It is estimated that 50TB of data has been removed...
New research shows that mobile phones may not be as beneficial to displaced people as previously thought. Using video diaries, where displaced people in Somalia recorded their mobile phone use, researchers found that women, in particular, are being exploited...
PIX instant payment limits to reduce kidnappings Last year the PIX instant payment system was introduced in Brazil. It currently has 112 million registered users – that’s 62% of the population. It’s proving incredibly popular and is allowing the 40 million...
IoT devices like smart speakers and networked heating controls are increasingly being used by perpetrators of domestic violence – for instance by changing the temperature the heating is set to or the music that the victim listens too, remotely. ...
TikTok School challenge It’s November so school children in the US are being encouraged to “Kiss your friend’s girlfriend at school”. In September the TikTok school challenge suggested they “Vandalize the restroom”. These are just two of the examples that...
We’ve reported before on the programme about the massive energy consumption of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, which is based on blockchain technology. Now we’ll be looking at some of the other environmental impacts of blockchain. Professor Cathy Mulligan, Blockchain Expert and...
Digital Planet is looking at green tech during COP26. Firstly, we discover the green credentials of your favourite websites with the Green Web Foundation. Can we really make the internet more environmentally friendly? Also we’ll be hearing...
This week former Facebook employee and whistleblower, Frances Haugen, was speaking to the committee that’s discussing the UK’s draft online safety bill, legislation that will tackle harmful content online. Canada is working on similar legislation. But there are questions over...
False information online has left one in five girls feeling physically unsafe, according to The Truth Gap, a new report by Plan International. One in three say false information is affecting their mental health, leaving them feeling stressed, worried...
Research by the World Wide Web Foundation has found that the gender gap for internet accessibility has cost countries billions of USD in lost GDP. In the 32 countries studied a third of women were connected to the internet...
This decade’s Indian national census will be the first to be carried out digitally. However, COVID-related delays have slowed progress and there are growing concerns about its accuracy. Dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University, Bhaskar Chakravorti explains...
Spyware threatening independent media Samuel Woodhams, the author of a report entitled “Spyware: An unregulated and escalating threat to independent media”, is live on the show. His research shows that the current unchecked growth of the commercial spyware industry is allowing...
Arctic AI Have you checked the ice-cap forecast? Melting sea ice might be a well-known symptom of global warming, but how do scientists predict how quickly ice will recede? A new Artificial Intelligence tool does a better job than traditional...
Digital Planet is back in Jersey, the small English speaking island off the coast of France. We’re travelling around in an on-demand electric vehicle – all booked, paid for and locked and unlocked with an app from our smart phones....
The so-called Children’s Code has just come into force in the UK. The Age-appropriate design code aims to protect children online by making digital services accessed by children comply with standards that safeguard children from being tracked and profiled....
This week’s Digital Planet is something of a celebration, it's 20 years since the BBC World Service launched the programme. Originally entitled ‘Go Digital’, the programme has always been innovative. It was the first radio programme to generate digital video,...
While the stereotype of the Afghan Taliban is that they lack sophistication, that certainly isn’t true for their online presence, which is geared to influence across many languages within Afghanistan and around the world. Adam Rutland co-founder of the...
Uganda introduced an extensive CCTV network ostensibly to cut down on crime. Now there are plans to place trackers on every vehicle for similar reasons. However, critics see both measures as ineffective and open to abuse. They are particularly concerned...
Brazil’s Data Protection Law Brazil has started to enforce its data protection law with companies facing fines of up to $10m USD if they fail to comply. We’re speaking to the Director of the recently formed National Data Protection Authority,...
This week we’re reporting from Jersey, somewhere that’s at the forefront of development for digital technology. Known for its financial tech it’s also leading the way in ecological and medical technology too. This digital innovation is supported by a commitment...
After a fleet driver was kidnapped whilst driving in Mexico, the technology he had in his car alerted emergency services. Artificial vision and in-cabin video were used to flag the event in real-time. Combining Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things...
As protests continue in Cuba, so do its internet shutdowns. Anti-government protesters are demonstrating against food shortages, power cuts and coronavirus restrictions. In response Cuban authorities have been shutting down internet connections in an attempt to stop protests. Meanwhile Venezuela...
US President Joe Biden has signed an executive order asking the Federal Trade Commission to “limit powerful equipment manufacturers from restricting people’s ability to use independent repair shops or do DIY repairs”. This could mean manufacturers can no longer require...
Four of the world’s biggest tech platforms are adopting a new set of commitments to tackle online abuse and improve women’s safety online. This is the first time there has been cross-industry collaboration on ways companies can address...
Why did YouTube take down video testimonies from family members of people imprisoned in China’s internment camps? To ensure the credibility of these videos, people show proof of identity. Now, YouTube says it has concerns that these people...
Our own bias is becoming engrained in computer code. There is a huge amount of evidence showing that human bias and ignorance is encoded into our digitally driven world. The impact of this is unsurprisingly impacting the most...
El Salvador has voted to recognise bitcoin as legal tender, and there is a great deal of interest globally in digital currencies that provide an alternative to cash. However mining bitcoin, the intensive computation needed to claim ownership of new...
‘Non-fungible tokens’ are a kind of digital asset that can be bought and sold. They have captured the imagination of many artists. Art pieces can be given a digital identity as an NFT. However, they have also been used to...
India has brought in stringent new laws that WhatsApp says will force it to break its end-to-end encryption. In a social media chat that’s been forwarded by multiple users, the new rules require the person who originated and shared that...
Speech smart assistants currently do not support any African language, but now Mozilla’s Common Voice project is building a dataset for Kiswahili which is spoken by more than a 100 million people in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, and South...
More than 100 million people worldwide have interacted with Covid-19 misinformation since the beginning of the pandemic, according to a new study in PLOS One. We speak to Professor David Nemer, from the University of Virginia, to explain the impact...
Pascal Leroy, Director General of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Forum joins us live to discuss their report on a proposed recycling framework for critical raw materials – CEWASTE – and why recycling critical raw materials from circuit boards,...