You’ll own nothing and be happy: the subscription crisis
Gen Z subscribes to everything from music and films to software and storage, paying endlessly for things we never actually own. As ownership is increasingly replaced by access, are subscriptions making life more convenient - or creating a generation that pays forever and owns nothing? There was once a revolutionary...
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AI agents hacked Australia’s national healthcare database
Revealed during the United Nations General Assembly, this hack exposes a critical failure in current safety standards, sparking concerns over the future of AI. In these past few years, conversations around AI seem to linger around a never-ending crossroads, with the recent shocking breach of Australian government data by OpenAI...
Gen Z women are driving the African gaming boom
For young people, gaming has changed from being merely recreational into an economic pathway into the digital economy, especially in a challenging labour market. In Africa, women are driving this growth. Young women are pioneering the evolution of African gaming, taking up roles not only as competitive players but as...
Google fined by Irish data watchdog for GDPR violations
Tech giant Google has been fined £345 million by the Republic of Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) over misuse of location data following a six-year investigation. Google has been hit with a fine of £345 million by the Republic of Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) over mishandling of location data. The...
The US officially confirms it has space weapons orbiting Earth
The nation has confirmed that it possesses weapons in orbit, crossing a new threshold that could accelerate the global arms race in space. On September 14th, US Air Force Secretary Troy Meink announced that the country had officially deployed weapons into space. And yes, you read that right –...
Why is Insomniac’s ‘Wolverine’ facing backlash?
Despite reportedly having a budget of $300 million USD, Insomniac’s latest superhero video game ‘Wolverine’ has faced intense criticism for being too forgiving, linear, and patronisingly handholdy to the point of frustration. Is this a warning to other AAA developers? Insomniac, the developer behind the recent, critically acclaimed ‘Spider-Man’ games,...
Trump’s Space Academy could change the space race
With America’s space ambitions only continuing to grow, Trump is turning his focus to the industry’s workforce that could keep the US ahead of adversaries like China. In both his terms in office, aside from immigration and anti-wokeness, President Donald Trump’s focus has increasingly turned towards the space front. In 2019, he established the US Space Force (USSF), emphasising the growing importance of space to national security. But this interest...
How YouTube is shifting the media hierarchy
People are flocking to the platform as online alternatives replace mainstream media. But Gen Z already knew that. Which chat show host has the monopoly on late-night entertainment? Ask anyone under the age of 35 and they’ll tell you it's not a TV presenter, but a YouTuber. Amelia Dimoldenberg, the mastermind behind breakout show Chicken Shop Date, has said her YouTube show is finally being taken seriously in the industry, as...
How Russia’s invasion reshaped the story of Metro 2039
Ukrainian studio 4A Games has endured arguably the worst set of circumstances a game development cycle has ever seen. The war with Russia not only made work on Metro 2039 incredibly difficult, but also fundamentally changed the game the team wanted to make. There’s something uniquely grim about developing a post-apocalyptic game while occasionally having to stop and hunker down because of real-life air-raid sirens. That was the reality endured by...
AI songs to be banned from Australian charts
After months of escalating concerns that AI music is flooding streaming platforms like Spotify, the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) has said it will be banning any tracks that are not human-made from the charts. The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) has announced that songs made predominantly using AI tools are to be banned from the charts. Starting immediately, all songs must be ‘substantially human-made’ to count in the chart listings....
