Tech Life

From summarising video calls to making presentations in minutes, Microsoft is launching an AI copilot on some of its apps and Tech Life have been for a preview. But will it change how we work or present new challenges? We also speak to the tech entrepreneur, Miron Mironiuk, who is collaborating with Pope Francis to teach children tech skills. And we meet 21 year old Luke Farritor who has won $40,000 unscrambling ancient texts that were left unreadable after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

Presenter: Shiona McCallum

(Picture: a video call taking place on line Getty/Mayur Kakade)

BBC disinformation reporter Shayan Sardarizadeh talks to Tech Life about the spread of false information online during times of conflict, and how he verifies social media posts. An expert on electric cars answers your questions about EVs. We send our reporter out to sea to find out how tech can help marine conservation. And say hello to some old friends - Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario.

(Photo: Man holds a yellow warning symbol in front of a laptop. Credit: Getty Images)

Researchers estimate that the AI industry could consume as much energy annually as a country the size of the Netherlands by 2027. We take a look at the details and ways of reducing electricity demand. Also, we talk to one of Africa's leading technology entrepreneurs about how he sees AI helping the continent and how workers can adapt to it. And how do you persuade an unwanted wildlife creature not to mess up your garden ? One man trained his home camera system to solve the problem.

(Photo: Electricity pylons. Credit: Igor Borisenko/Getty Images)

Shiona McCallum takes Tech Life on the road to find out more about electric vehicles and the challenges of rolling them out globally. Monica Miller is in Singapore experiencing some of the new cars on the block and Alasdair Keane joins Nissan's Formula E team in France.

(Picture: Shiona McCallum plugging in an EV)

An AI-powered tool helped blind people make sense of the world - then ran into privacy concerns. Be My AI user, the BBC's Sean Dilley, in Washington DC, tells us what happened next.

A rare interview with the boss of Spotfiy, Daniel Ek, who tells us there is a place for AI in music making.

Plus, reporter Marc Cieslak tells us about second thumbs and brain hacking, as he explores the mind boggling world of neural interface technology.

(Photo: A blind man using a mobile phone. Credit: Agrobacter/Getty Images)

Simon Gordon, founder of Facewatch, a British facial recognition company and Fraser Sampson, the UK's Biometrics and Surveillance Commissioner discuss the growing use of facial recognition tech. Dr. Cosmas Zavazava, Director of the ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau, tells us about how much of the world remains offline. And Tom Singleton reports on how a digital payment scheme, set up by the UNCDF, is proving to be a lifeline for people exposed to extreme weather in the Pacific Islands.

(PHOTO CREDIT: A young man captured by a facial recognition system. Credit: Izusek. Copyright: Getty Images)

There's a new testing kit for life-threatening diseases in sub-Saharan Africa. We hear about the technology from the project leader and some of those involved in Uganda and Kenya. Also in Tech Life, we report on lab grown diamonds in India. And posting photos of flooding on social media could help experts predict where it might happen next.

(Photo: Composite image with a globe and medical staff looking at a tablet. Credit: Getty Images)

Associate Professor Lee Seok Woo, from NTU, in Singapore, tells us how a Tom Cruise film inspired him to create a battery, powered by tears, that's so small it could be fitted to a contact lens. Ben Derico reports from San Francisco on why Chatbot detectors are mistakenly accusing people for whom English is a second language of cheating in exams. Analyst Ben Wood, from CCS Insight, brings us up to speed on Apple's latest product plans. And journalist Jack Thompson guides us through the farming revolution in Senegal, being powered by WhatsApp voicenotes.

This week, the academic Kate Crawford tells us how she travelled the world to find the true cost of AI. Reporter Chris Vallance updates us on a watermark system - developed by Deepmind, Google's AI arm - which aims to show whether an image was generated by a machine or designed by a human. Mansoor Hamayun, Co-Founder and CEO of Bboxx tells us about the company's smart cooking valve, designed to protect lives - and trees - in Rwanda. We speak to Fu’ad Lawal, the founder of Archivi.ng,and archivist Grace Abraham, about why the key to Nigeria's tech future may lie in digitsing newspapers from its past.

(Picture credit: an imagined digital landscape, by Andriy Onufriyenko, for Getty images)

Have you ever turned to a smart assistant on your phone or a speaker to catch up on the progress of a big sports match? During the Women's Football World Cup one popular device failed to recognise the women's semi-final as a football match. We explore why, and other biases that exist in AI. We also answer another listener question to explore AI in drug and vaccine discovery, and meet the people in Malaysia and Japan who are among Wikipedia’s top editors.

(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images: Goal picture from the World Cup semi-final match between Australia and England at Stadium Australia on August 16, 2023)