Recent study which examined thousands of tweets from Canadian public health agencies and officials in the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic suggests many struggled to adapt messaging to local needs. The study was published online in the Health…
Patients May Not Heed Advice from AI Doctors Who Know Their Names
Researchers from Penn State and University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) discovered that people are less likely to listen to health advice from an AI doctor when the robot has their medical history. But on the other hand, patients like…
New Singapore Research Controls Venus Flytraps Through Smartphone Apps
Researchers in Singapore have discovered a way to control a Venus flytrap making use of electric signals from a smartphone, an innovation they hope may be used in a wide range of sectors including robotics, environmental functions and so on.…
Scientists Develop Intelligent Shoe to Help Visually-Impaired People Avoid Obstacles
Computer scientists have invented an ‘intelligent’ shoe which helps visually-impaired people avoid obstacles. The product called InnoMake, worth €3,200, was developed by Austrian company Tec-Innovation, supported by Graz University of Technology (TU Graz). The product is made up of waterproof…
Artists and Activists Urge Spotify to Rule Out “Invasive” Voice Recognition Technology
A coalition of musicians and human rights groups persuaded music streaming company Spotify to secure against possible use of speech recognition tool it recently developed to suggest songs— painting the technology as ‘creepy’ and ‘invasive’. Earlier this year, Sweden-based Spotify…
New Report Finds that School Apps are Sharing Students’ Data with Third Parties
During the COVID-19 pandemic, educational institutions shifted their services to the digital world in an unprecedented rate to educate students safely. These digital tools have taken up the students’ data, suffered security breaches and generally mishandled their students’ personal…