Category Archives: Technology

The sculpture, Monument I, had been created for a show about the Hereafter Institute, a fictional organization that now lives only online. It purports to arrange a digital afterlife for its clients preserving their online presence and, through virtual reality, even the memory of their physical existence. On its website, the institute greets visitors with such deadpan sales pitches as, What will death mean when our digital souls outlive our physical bodies?

A video from the Hereafter Institute, an immersive art installation by Gabriel Barcia-Colombo, that purports to help clients preserve their digital profiles after they die.

In fact, sculpture and institute alike were the work of Gabriel Barcia-Colombo, a 35-year-old New York artist and teacher at New York Universitys Interactive Telecommunications Program. Working with a grant from Lacma, Mr. Barcia-Colombo invented the institute as a way of exploring the rituals of death in the digital age.

Now, at Mr. Goodmans invitation, he has curated the digital art exhibition at Sothebys. The young artists in the show several I.T.P alumni among them tend to share, despite their immersion in digital technology, a profound ambivalence about where it is taking us. They also seem to share the Black Mirror sensibility behind the Hereafter Institute: The perception, endemic to the satirical British TV series, that technology has led us into a digital fun house where nothing is as it seems and everything is as we fear it might be.

The show at Sothebys, called Bunker, runs through Aug. 10. It includes Jeremy Bailey, a Toronto artist who merges Snapchat with art history, portraying individuals through an augmented reality lens in poses that recall famous portraits from the past. A digital C-print of his wife as she stares at a tablet that appears to be coming to life recalls Dante Gabriel Rossettis Lady Lilith gazing into a mirror.

Its the idea of looking at oneself through the technology of the day, Mr. Bailey said by phone. An adjacent self-portrait shows him in the guise of the persona he has adopted that of an obnoxiously ebullient naf who proclaims himself a famous new media artist. He believes deeply that technology can help, and yet technology consistently lets him down, Mr. Bailey said of his alter ego. So damn it, why doesnt it deliver?

Elsewhere in the show, you can don a virtual reality headset to navigate the childhood home of Sarah Rothberg, who reconstructed her experience growing up in Los Angeles from old photos and home movies. Or view lacy, metallic sculptures by Ashley Zelinskie self-portraits whose surfaces are made up of the letters that spell out her genetic code. One piece in a series called Android has a cube embedded in the face; the cubes surface is made up of the computer code that was used to generate it.

Ms. Zelinskies human-digital mash-ups are about how were becoming one with our technology, she explained in her studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn a small, crowded loft with NASA fliers and Star Trek posters taped to the walls. In theory, the computer code on the cubes surface means the cube could be read by a computer which is why she sometimes says shes making art for robots as well as humans.

In fact, like the label on a can of pet food, the code on Ms. Zelinskies sculptures is meant for humans. Aliens, too, perhaps. I like taking ideas that have been reiterated again and again the human face, geometric forms and putting them in a time capsule made of math, she said. To me, this is preserving human culture.

Another Brooklyn artist in the show, Carla Gannis, seems less intent on preserving human culture than on documenting its degradation. In The Garden of Emoji Delights, based on the early-16th-century triptych by Hieronymus Bosch, she reimagines one of the best-known paintings of the Northern Renaissance as a gleefully hacked computer file, its frolicsome figures and hellish beasts transmogrified into cartoonlike characters. There are two versions a 13-foot-by-7-foot C-print (roughly the same dimensions as the Bosch), and a smaller electronic variant that lights up like a video game. The e-version presents a deliriously animated tableau that ends in catastrophe on all three panels Eden wiped out by a plane crash, Earth overtaken by forests, hell freezing over. Its mesmerizing, in a twitchy sort of way but in place of depth and enigma, we get candy-colored titillation and a nagging sense that nothing exists beneath the surface.

The most haunting work in the show is Jamie Zigelbaums Doorway to the Soul, which consists of a white pedestal surmounted by a 16-inch-high video monitor that stands at average human height. On the screen is a face every 60 seconds. You may not realize the feed is live, or that the faces belong to workers at Mechanical Turk, Amazons micro-employment site, who are being paid 25 cents to stare into their computers webcam for one minute.

That archetypal looking into someones eyes its a very powerful moment, Mr. Zigelbaum said.

But in this case, the other person is disembodied, and the moment you share is mediated by technology by video cameras, by digital networks, by Amazons microtasking platform. Youre looking into someones eye, but you dont know if they can see you or who they are, Mr. Zigelbaum said. The technology that makes the Mechanical Turk workers visible also renders them intangible. Communication is enhanced and impeded at the same time.

Whats not on view at Sothebys is anything by Mr. Barcia-Colombo himself. After seeing his Monument I, Mr. Goodman asked if he wanted to bring the Hereafter Institute to Sothebys. And I said great, Mr. Barcia-Colombo recalled, but its a complicated show, and its about death, so your clientele might not like it. With the show he did mount, he added: Some people are like, reserve that piece I want it! And others are like, this is Sothebys?

Mr. Barcia-Colombos Lacma installation was indeed complicated. For two days last August, museumgoers were offered a free consultation on their digital afterlife. To ensure a fully customized experience, they were asked to sign up in advance and to share access to their Facebook profiles.

When they showed up at the museum, they were greeted by actors in white lab coats and given a 3-D body scan that was used to generate a life-size digital avatar. They were shown a memorial virtual-reality film such as the one Mr. Barcia-Colombo made about his grandfather, a Spanish poet who fought against Franco and ended his days an emeritus professor of Spanish literature in Los Angeles.

Then they got to attend their own funeral, complete with a eulogy based on their social media posts. As the eulogy concluded, their avatar appeared onscreen, only to turn and walk off into the clouds.

As this suggests, Mr. Barcia-Colombo is actually less concerned with death than with memories of life with what happens to peoples Facebook pages when theyre gone, for instance. Its a common concern so much so that two years ago Facebook started allowing its users to appoint a legacy contact to manage their profiles after they die. But is that enough?

I wanted to design a digital urn some kind of object, some kind of memory machine you could step into, he said at N.Y.U., where he teaches animation and video sculpture. What if Facebook goes down?

An unlikely prospect at this point but were it to ever happen, he pointed out, there would be no record of the many billions of lives and trillions of likes that have been so casually, trustingly, innocently recorded on it. The whole point is to make that data physical, he said, so that a record exists of that persons life.

Gravestone makers and turntable manufacturers, please take note.

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Young Digital Artists, Anxious About ... Technology - The New York ... - New York Times

The new algorithm will help cut down the research time involved in developing fusion reactor technology to create plasma. Photograph: Dino Fracchia/Alamy

Google and a leading nuclear fusion company have developed a new computer algorithm which has significantly speeded up experiments on plasmas, the ultra-hot balls of gas at the heart of the energy technology.

Tri Alpha Energy, which is backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, has raised over $500m (383m) in investment. It has worked with Google Research to create what they call the Optometrist algorithm. This enables high-powered computation to be combined with human judgement to find new and better solutions to complex problems.

Nuclear fusion, in which atoms are combined at extreme temperatures to release huge amounts of energy is exceptionally complex. The physics of nuclear fusion involves non-linear phenomena, where small changes can produce large outcomes, making the engineering needed to suspend the plasma very challenging.

The whole thing is beyond what we know how to do even with Google-scale computer resources, said Ted Baltz, at the Google Accelerated Science Team. So the scientists combined computer learning approaches with human input by presenting researchers with choices. The researchers choose the option they instinctively feel is more promising, akin to choosing the clearer text during an eye test.

We boiled the problem down to lets find plasma behaviours that an expert human plasma physicist thinks are interesting, and lets not break the machine when were doing it, said Baltz.

This was a classic case of humans and computers doing a better job together than either could have separately.

Working with Google enabled experiments on Tri Alpha Energys machine to progress much faster, with operations that took a month speeded up to just a few hours. The algorithm revealed unexpected ways of operating the plasma, with the research published on Tuesday in the journal Scientific Reports. The team achieved a 50% reduction in energy losses from the system and a resulting increase in total plasma energy, which must reach a critical threshold for fusion to occur.

Results like this might take years to solve without the power of advanced computation, said Michl Binderbauer, president and chief technology officer at Tri Alpha Energy. He said the company was aiming to produce electricity within a decade.

Tri Alpha Energy recently added former US energy secretary Ernest Moniz to its board of directors, and announced early in July that its new $100m generator had produced its first plasma.

Nuclear fusion has long held the hope of clean, safe and limitless energy and interest has increased as the challenge of climate change and the need to cut carbon emissions has become clear. But despite 60 years and billions of dollars of research, it has yet to be achieved and commercial scale nuclear fusion is still likely to be decades away.

But numerous other groups are chasing the nuclear fusion dream, with the largest by far the publicly funded Iter project in southern France. The 18bn (16bn) project is a partnership of the US, the European Union, China, India, South Korea, Russia and Japan, and is building a seven-storey facility.

Iter uses a conventional tokamak, or doughnut-shaped, reactor and aims to create its first plasma in 2025, scaling up to its maximum power output by 2035. If successful, Iter could be the foundation of the first fusion power plants.

Other groups are experimenting with different fusion reactor designs that might be better and, in particular, smaller. A 1bn reactor opened in Germany in 2016 uses a stellarator in which the plasma ring is shaped like a Mobius strip, giving it the potential to operate continuously, rather than in pulses as in a tokamak.

There are also a series of private companies, staffed by experienced fusion researchers, including General Fusion, which uses a vortex of molten lead and lithium to contain the plasma and is backed by Amazons Jeff Bezos.

Lockheed Martins famous Skunk Works team said in 2014 they would produce a truck-sized fusion plant within a decade but attracted criticism for providing few details. The UKs Tokamak Energy is aiming to harness particle accelerator technology and high-temperature superconductors and other firms include Helion Energy and First Light Fusion

David Kingham, chief of Tokamak Energy said the Tri Alpha Energy was exciting progress: While publicly funded laboratories excel at fundamental research, the private sector can innovate and adopt new technologies much more rapidly. In April, Tokamak Energy achieved first plasma in a new reactor, its third in five years, and aims to reach the 100m degrees centigrade needed for fusion in 2018.

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Google enters race for nuclear fusion technology - The Guardian

Shares of Seagate Technology PLC STX, -14.50% plummeted 17% in premarket trade Tuesday toward an eight month low, after the data storage products maker reported fiscal fourth-quarter results that were well below expectations and announced a leadership transition. Net profit for the quarter to June 30 rose to $114 million, or 38 cents a share, from $70 million, or 23 cents a share, in the same period a year ago. Excluding non-recurring items, adjusted earnings per share came to 65 cents, missing the FactSet consensus of 98 cents. Revenue fell to $2.41 billion from $2.65 billion, below the FactSet consensus of $2.56 billion. "Although the near-term dynamics of technology shifts present demand variations for the storage industry from time to time, we continue to see growing storage demand in the long-run driven by the proliferation of data growth from new technologies, emerging industries, and growing businesses," said Chief Executive Steve Luczo. Separately, the company said Luczo will transition to executive chairman on Oct. 1, and will be replaced as CEO by Dave Mosley, currently Seagate's chief operating officer. The stock has plunged 21% over the past three months through Monday, while the S&P 500 SPX, +0.44% has gained 3.4%.

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Seagate Technology's stock plunges after profit and sales miss, CEO change - MarketWatch

(Reuters) - Diego Maradona has backed the use of video assistant referees (VARs) in soccer even though he is aware that his infamous 'Hand of God' goal would not have stood if the technology had existed during his heyday.

The goal during the 1986 World Cup quarter-final between Argentina and England is one of the most talked about in the history of football, alongside his brilliant solo run past five defenders in the same game that gave his side a 2-1 victory.

The diminutive Argentine, who tapped the ball over the head of onrushing goalkeeper Peter Shilton with his fist to score his country's first goal, gained even more notoriety when he claimed afterwards it had been scored by the 'Hand of God'.

"Obviously I think about it whenever I show my support for the use of technology," Maradona said in an interview posted on global soccer's governing body FIFA's website (www.fifa.com) on Tuesday.

"I thought about it and, sure, that goal wouldn't have stood if technology had been around. And I'll tell you something else: at the 1990 World Cup I used my hand to clear the ball off the line against the Soviet Union.

"We were lucky because the referee didn't see it. You couldn't use technology back then, but it's a different story today."

FIFA has tested VAR technology at several tournaments ahead of next year's World Cup in Russia, including at last month's Confederations Cup, and its head of refereeing Massimo Busacca said afterwards that the technology should be refined.

The governing body has already said it would like to use VAR at the 2018 World Cup, and soccer's law-making body IFAB is expected to decide next March whether to allow them to become part of the game on a permanent basis.

VAR involves two video assistant referees who monitor the action on screens and draw the match referee's attention to possible officiating mistakes.

But criticisms include the time taken to make decisions and the referees' criteria in deciding when to use the system, with some close calls being made without consulting the VARs.

Maradona cited Frank Lampard's disallowed goal for England against Germany at the 2010 World Cup and Geoff Hurst's goal that won England the Jules Rimet Trophy in 1966, which modern replays later showed did not fully cross the line, as instances where technology could have made a difference.

"People used to say that we'd waste a lot of time, that it would cause a lot of annoyance. But that's not the case," he said.

"Football can't fall behind. Given the rate at which technology is advancing and the fact that every sport uses it, how can we not think about using it in football?"

Writing by Simon Jennings in Bengaluru; Editing by Christian Radnedge and Pritha Sarkar

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Maradona backs use of video technology to prevent another 'Hand of God' - Reuters

Walking around at San Diego Comic-Con, the booth for a small publisher known as Sunday Press stands out in the quieter half of the convention. Standing amidst retailers hawking bagged rarities and boxes of superhero comics, the books on display are distinctive: theyre massive almost two feet to a side and they bear names like Dick Tracy: Colorful Cases of the 1930s, White Boy in Skull Valley, Society Is Nix, Gleeful Anarchy at the Dawn of the American Comic Strip, and others. The outfit is run by Peter Maresca, a comic collector-turned publisher who describes himself as a discount archivist, and who has earned recognition from the broader comic community for his efforts producing amazingly beautiful restorations of the comics that kicked off the entire industry.

As con-goers pass by the booth, Maresca talks to the one or two who stop by, providing a detailed history lesson behind some of the books on display. He explains that he has been collecting classic comics since he was in his 20s, acquiring complete runs of some of the stories, including a strip called Little Nemo in Slumberland, illustrated by Winsor McCay. That strip debuted in 1905 in the New York Herald, and its been held up as an influential story by numerous creators, including Maurice Sendak, Alan Moore, and Neil Gaiman.

A century after they were published, the original comics were deteriorating

But a century after they were first published, those original comics were deteriorating badly. Maresca realized that he had an opportunity to honor the comic and its creator for its centennial. He had a full run of the series, and could assemble a collected edition that would restore and reintroduce the comic to fans and newcomers alike. Importantly, he wanted to recreate the look and feel of the original comic, which included its massive size. Publishers thought it was a neat idea, but ultimately passed on the project.

So Maresca decided to publish the book himself.

The goal, he explains, was to recreate the experience of reading the original comics when they were first released.

Maresca mused that many have predicted that computers would eventually replace old-fashioned reading, but explained that it was computers and software that allowed him to restore the century-old cartoon for a modern audience.

While the comics had received retrospective treatments and reprints, he explains that these were often small reproductions, which made the fine details difficult to see. But he wanted to do more than just showcase the art.

What I originally wanted to do, he says, was to give people the opportunity to experience the comic strips they had been a hundred years ago, which is impossible to do with the smaller books.

In the century since they were published, the original comics have aged with time, yellowing and tearing. This presented Maresca with a challenge: he wanted to replicate the original experience, so he turned to Photoshop. Each page was scanned in two parts, which he then stitched together. From there he set about adjusting the colors and removing the wear and tear that theyd accumulated over the years. Some imperfections remained, like the ink smears that the comics originally came with.

Marescas goal was to recreate the original reading experience, not just the art

Once he cleaned up the panels, Maresca created a new background that resembled the texture of newspapers from the early 1900s, so that each page would be consistent, and then dropped the panels in.

I tried to keep the warm colors of the strip, without having to have a totally faded out background, he says. Its a bit of a hybrid between a brand new newsprint and a comic strip that looks kind of faded.

Once he completed his post-production work, Maresca shipped the digital files to a printer in Malaysia, which could print the files directly from the PDF in 11 colors something that wasnt possible before. From there, the large nature of the book meant that it had to be hand-stitched.

The final product is a book that approximates what the comic would have looked like when it was first published, in size and in color. People say that the books are too big for a bookshelf, Maresca jokes, so I suggest sliding it under the sofa, and on Sunday morning, pull it out and read a page or two on the floor. He goes on to say that hes gotten a number of comments from people who say that the books bring back memories for people, making them feel as though theyre six years old, leaning over a colorful page of cartoons on after the paper arrived.

Maresca set up Sunday Press as his own publishing company, and produced his first run of the books, which promptly sold out after a positive review in The New York Times, and set about producing his next project, a similar treatment of another McCay cartoon, Little Sammy Sneeze. In the years since, hes gone on to produce twelve books in all, earning 14 Eisner nominations and two wins.

While popular in their day, these are comics that have largely been forgotten by all but dedicated fans and industry professionals. The books produced by Sunday Press help restore these comics for a new generation of fans and students. With the advances in printing and photo manipulation in recent years, the earliest comic books will be easily accessible for the next generation of cartoonists.

So much talent and creativity went into these stories, Maresca says. That shouldnt be forgotten.

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How technology is putting the earliest comics back into the hands of fans - The Verge

Greg Clark, the secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy. Photograph: Richard Gardner/Rex/Shutterstock

A 246m investment in developing battery technology in Britain is to be launched by the government as part of its drive towards what it says is a modern industrial strategy.

The business and energy secretary, Greg Clark, will announce the funding, including a 45m competition to make batteries more accessible and affordable, in a speech on Monday that should spell out further the governments plans to increase productivity and growth.

The 246m, to be spent over four years on research and innovation in battery technology, is likely to have particular benefits in the automotive sector and renewable energy.

The search for an industrial strategy was launched in January by Theresa May, designed to help Britains economy after Brexit, garnering more than 1,900 responses from businesses and other organisations in a three-month consultation. A white paper is due later in the year, but Clark is expected to say of the strategy: For all our citizens to be able to look forward with confidence to a prosperous future, we need to plan to improve our ability to earn that prosperity. To enjoy a high and rising standard of living we must plan to be more productive than in the past.

He will also say: Economists have pointed to what they have called a productivity puzzle in Britain. That we appear to generate less value for our efforts than, say, people in Germany or France. In other words, we have to work longer to get the same rewards.

Its not that we want or need people to work longer hours. Its that we need to ensure that we find and seize opportunities to work more productively as a country, as cities and regions, as businesses and as individuals. If we can do so, we can increase the earning power of our country and our people.

Investing in science and research was the first of 10 pillars of the outlined industrial strategy. Clark will add that the strategy could bring together concerted effort on areas of opportunity that have previously been in different sectors, or which require joining forces between entrepreneurs, scientists and researchers, industries, and local and national government.

Professor Philip Nelson, chief executive of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, said: Batteries will form a cornerstone of a low carbon economy, whether in cars, aircraft, consumer electronics, district or grid storage. To deliver the UKs low-carbon economy we must consolidate and grow our capabilities in novel battery technology.

Richard Parry-Jones, formerly of the UK Automotive Council, will chair a board overseeing the investment.

Clark will also confirm another 25m to be allocated to research and development of connected autonomous vehicles, this time on schemes for off-road, driverless vehicles destined for construction, farming and mining.

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Business secretary to announce investment in battery technology ... - The Guardian

We mustnt be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology. This has happened again and again in historytechnology has advanced and this changes social conditions and suddenly people have found themselves in a situation which they didnt foresee and doing all sorts of things they didnt really want to do.

Visionary thinker and author Aldous Huxley made that statement in a 1958 interview. The context was broad-ranging and had nothing to do with transportation. But couldnt this prophetic quote just as easily apply to our current situation with the advancing technology that inevitably will determine our transportation infrastructure and how we get from point A to point B?

Weve already been caught by surprise when it comes to smartphones. These little gadgets are impressive technology, indeed, but we are doing all sorts of things we shouldnt do with them, such as staring at the miniature screens instead of watching the road.

It may be too late to get a hold on the smartphone mania, but we still have time with the burgeoning technology of intelligent cars and roadways. Some of that tech already here, but its only the tip of the iceberg. On the horizon is a day when cars will be able to do most, if not all, of the work.

It appears that transportation leaders are working diligently to get ahead of the curve so as to avoid being caught by surprise.

But the express lanes project is just one of several that have already begun.

Heres a rundown of other pilot projects aimed at the future of smart transportation:

One of three projects initiated by the U.S. Department of Transportation in 2015 is based in New York City, according to an article in Public Roads, a Federal Highway Administration publication that laid out details for the pilot programs.

This program takes aim at how connected-vehicle technology can improve safety in packed urban areas, according to the Public Roads article, which notes that there are about 4,000 injuries and 250 traffic-related deaths on the streets of New York each year.

In this pilot, 310 intersection signals have been fitted with instruments that will communicate with specially equipped vehicles and pedestrians who have devices to help them safely cross streets.

According to the Public Roads article, drivers who use the reversible express lanes on the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway in Tampa experience significant delays in the morning commuter rush (Sound familiar?).

The expressway is surrounded by connector roads and other streets where trolleys and pedestrians are added to the mix.

For this pilot, some 1,500 cars, 10 buses and 10 trolleys will be fitted with communication devices allowing them to communicate with units that will be installed along the roadside. Also, 500 pedestrians will use smartphone apps as part of the program.

The third pilot project is focused on Interstate 80 in Wyoming, considered a major freight corridor (Sound familiar?), through which more than 32 million tons of products are hauled annually, according to the Public Roads article.

For this program, vehicle-to-vehicle technology will be installed in tractortrailers, state fleet vehicles, snowplows and police patrol cars so they can communicate with roadside equipment along a 400-mile stretch of the interstate.

The vehicles will be able to receive information on such things as roadway alerts, parking notifications and trip guidance.

Buckle up, folks, its a brave new world.

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GETTING THERE: Technology can be friend or foe - Fredericksburg.com

The WNBA has a long ways to go to reach the popularity of other U.S. professional sports leagues. But new technology platforms like Twitter and FanDuel are becoming important growth tools for the 21-year-old organization as it looks to expand its marketing efforts around the world.

WNBA Commissioner Lisa Borders was in Seattle this weekend for the WNBA All-Star Game, held in the Emerald City for the first time since the league launched back in 1997. She spoke to reporters before the game on Saturday at Key Arena and shed light on the leagues growth in recent years.

Borders, who took over in 2016 after leadership stints with public, private, and non-profits ranging from Coca-Cola to the Atlanta City Council, noted traditional metrics like attendance numbers, points per game, or three-point shots to show how the WNBA is progressing.

But she also took time to talk about new metrics, and specifically viewership data from the WNBAs new streaming deal with Twitter. The site has streamed 10 WNBA games this season, with an average of 800,000 viewers, and a third of which have surpassed 1 million. For comparison, Twitters Thursday Night Football NFL streams averaged 3.5 million viewers last season.

Borders pointed out how 60 percent of those watching on Twitter live outside the U.S.

What does this tell you about attendance in arena and our traditional metrics? Borders said. New metrics like Twitter tell us that there is a hunger for our game and womens basketball in particular. This is a global game played in more than 200 countries.

Beyond streaming, Borders said Twitter is also valuable because it lets the 144 WNBA players communicate with fans directly, even when the WNBA season wraps up in the U.S.

Many of our players are global citizens and play during the secondsix months of the year in the international markets, she said. So those markets are now able to follow our players on a consistent basis throughout the year on a platform like Twitter and can even broaden the reach of the WNBA today.

Added Borders, on Twitter: We think its going to increase the number ofeyeballs watching the WNBA, making them moreaware of the league, of our players, and what anextraordinary sport that we play.

Borders also called out FanDuel, the daily fantasy sports giant that just had its merger with DraftKings canceled, and said there are more than 1 million fans playing WNBA-related games on the platform. The league inked a deal with FanDuel this year and launched the first official womens sports fantasy game.

Were talking about exposure here, she explained. In the fantasy space, as well as the social and digital space, were seeingtremendous growth in terms of numbers.The first thing with any product in any business ismaking sure that people know you exist and they areaware of where you are and what youre doing. So FanDuel in the fantasy space its completely new to our league, which means a new pool of people and a deeper and broader set of interests.

The WNBA is embracing new tech platforms as it comes off a season that saw the highest attendance numbers in five years and records for digital viewership, social media traction, and retail sales. The league also saw double-digit growth in TV viewership. Those are promising numbers for a league long-critiqued for its lack of relevance; technology certainly seems like a way for the WNBA to shed that reputation.

Technology could also help grow interest in the league as it relates to the players themselves. Longtime WNBA veteran Sue Bird, who made her record-tying 10th All-Star appearance this weekend in Seattle, spoke at the GeekWire Sports Tech Summit last month and explained how she wants to see the big innovations in data that are driving more conversations and interest in the NBA and mens basketball make their way to the womens game.

It starts conversations and thats what our league needs, it needs to be talked about, and thats how you get it out there and get people to be involved and become fans, Bird said.

Bird is also a big believer in using technology to improve performance on the court. But she said a lot of the tech you see in other leagues like how NBA players use tablets on the bench during games is lacking in the WNBA, mostly for financial reasons.

We dont have necessarily the means to have some of that technology in our everyday [routine], Bird said. I dont think youre going to see any of us with an iPad on the bench any time soon.

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WNBA sees 'tremendous growth' with technology platforms like Twitter and FanDuel - GeekWire

MediaCity in Salford Quays, Manchester, where almost a quarter of children live in poverty. Photograph: Ian Dagnall/Alamy

Its barely a few hundred yards, but might as well be 100 miles. MediaCity in Salford Quays, Manchester, is one of the biggest digital tech hubs in the UK, benefiting from almost 2bn of investment in recent years but try telling that to many of the young people living nearby.

The citys economy is booming yet almost a quarter of Salfords children live in poverty. It is one of the most deprived areas in the country: household debt is on the rise, theres been a 72% increase in homelessness since 2013 and almost a third of students are eligible for free school meals. The contrasting experiences of these disadvantaged young people growing up on Salfords crumbling estates and the young professionals working in digital startups a few streets away are acute. The digital divide is measured by more than metres.

Technology is part of our everyday lives; it has become integral to the way we interact and communicate with each other. But it can also intensify even create some of the major social issues we face today.

The 2017 consumer digital index suggests that at least 300,000 young people, or 3%, of those aged 15-24 in the UK lack basic digital skills. These include the ability to use a search engine to find information, complete online application forms, manage money or solve a problem using a digital service.

The implications concern more than finding discounts for online shopping. If a young person in urgent need cannot complete an application form or search for help, they may struggle to even find a bed for the night. They can be excluded from accessing job vacancies or government services, which are increasingly moving online. Legal support, drop-in centre opening hours and counselling services are all just a few clicks away but only if you have the opportunity, confidence and ability to navigate the digital world.

Technology companies have responded to the need for digital up-skilling with a range of initiatives, but this only papers over the cracks. By and large these schemes are tailored to the young people who are already aware of and motivated to improve their own digital skills. What about those left behind? If were to really do something about this, we need to understand the extent to which technology and social exclusion are inextricably linked.

We have found that the young people least likely to have digital skills are those most likely to be facing multiple forms of chronic and acute disadvantage. Whether thats poor literacy skills, living in households affected by drug and alcohol abuse, or experience of the care or criminal justice system, these young people are being disenfranchised, both socially and economically. Without the means to access support, they are trapped in a cycle of disadvantage and vulnerability.

This also makes them among the hardest to reach, which is where the not-for-profit sector comes in. Our new Digital Reach programme, for example, is putting expert youth organisations, who have trusted relationships with disadvantaged young people, at the heart of the response.

By investing in six pilot schemes, running in partnership with organisations such as Action for Children and #techmums, we want to help more than 4,000 disadvantaged young people across the UK acquire basic digital skills as well as the confidence and opportunities that brings.

These charities and grassroots organisations are better placed than big tech companies to understand the needs of their users and tailor support accordingly. Working alongside trusted adults, in safe, familiar spaces, they can foster the kind of close relationships that are key to engaging these young people and giving them the chance to change their lives.

Technology allows us to reimagine how we tackle pressing social issues in unique and innovative ways. It can profoundly help those most in need, but we have a collective duty to ensure it does not leave anyone behind.

Chris Ashworth is programme director at Nominet Trust, the charitable foundation of Nominet

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Bridging the digital divide: how to stop technology leaving young people behind - The Guardian

Where Have All the Technologies Gone? Inside Higher Ed (blog) I did not, for example, turn my doctoral dissertation on a worthy topic of Catholic women's higher education into a monograph or the recent manuscript I drafted on information technology in higher education into books. Many a productive morning when I ...

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Where Have All the Technologies Gone? - Inside Higher Ed (blog)