Hello!
The Tech team are signing in for our weekly post on the news and views that have captured our tech minds this week.
This week we share the latest wearable tech from Samsung, discuss how robots are trusted by kids, and talk about Google’s transparency for political ad spend.
Cheers! The Vibrant Tech Team
Top Tech Stories This Week
Samsung Galaxy Watch: A Tough and Classy Activity Tracker
Great review from The Register on Samsung’s latest venture into wearable tech. The Gear branding has been dropped for the first “Galaxy Watch”, which looks both classy and robust – and touts a very long battery life. It looks like Samsung are a real contender for Smartwatch innovation.
Children instinctively Trust and Conform with Robots
Children aged between seven and nine tend to trust and conform to behavioural norms set by robots, University of Plymouth research has found. Adults were largely uninfluenced by robot test-takers around them, although they were, as expected, influenced by their human peers.
Google Provides Data on U.S. Political Advertising
The move follows similar steps from Twitter and Facebook in late June, as social media platforms face the threat of U.S. regulation over the lack of disclosure on such spending. The data available here from Alphabet Inc’s Google gives details on advertisers who have spent more than $500 on political ads from May 31, 2018.
Google Bod wants Cookies to crumble and be Made into Something More Secure
A key member of the Google Chrome security team has proposed the death of cookies to be replaced with secure HTTP tokens. The idea is that tracking code would be controlled by a browser through a secure HTTP header, passed along when someone visits a given website, rather than held on the server.
We Have Finally figured Out How to Snap Spaghetti in to Two Pieces
It is a puzzle that has perplexed physicists for decades: hold a strand of dry spaghetti at both ends, bend it until it snaps, and you will always end up with three or more pieces. A team of mathematicians led by Jörn Dunkel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have concluded it is possible, provided you add a twist into the mix.