Melinda Gates & the birth control debate
More than 200 million women who don’t want to get pregnant lack access to contraceptives.
It's a stunning fact that has prompted Melinda Gates to action.
At the Women Deliver 2013 conference in Kuala Lumpur, I caught up with the co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Its goal is to get modern contraceptives to another 120 million women by year 2020.
Gates tells me that reframing the birth control debate is key. She says, "What we have to do is put the women and the girl at the center of this."
A year of living Internet-free
Tech blogger Paul Miller of the Verge is back online after being off the Internet for an entire year.
That's right. No surfing (not even shoulder surfing). And not a single text message was sent.
His verdict? It was "bad" for his social life, but good for building up his patience and ability to focus "in the present."
And if you're thinking about your own Internet detox, Miller has this warning. "I started wasting a lot of time later into the year," he says. "Decide what you want to do and disconnect in order to do that. Don't just disconnect for the sake of disconnection."
The promise and peril of 3D printing
3D printers have been around for a while, used in industry for rapid prototyping.
But the promise and peril of 3D printing really came to the fore this week, after that shocking announcement from the Texas-based "Defense Distributed" which claimed it has successfully fired the world's first gun made by a 3D printer.
Thanks to cheaper 3D printer models, the technology is available to anyone with around a thousand dollars to spare.
Here's how it works. Instead of using ink like regular inkjet printers, 3D printers use materials like plastic. They take a digital image that you can create using modeling software on a computer, and then print it out building up layer upon layer of material to create complex solid objects.
Toys, car parts, even mini human organs have been 3D printed by manufacturers and scientists who've been using the technique for decades.
How far can the technology go? What will 3D printers be able to do for us 10 years from now? And is it an advance that needs to be regulated today?
In the video clip above, News Stream contributor Nicholas Thompson of the NewYorker.com weighs in on the 3D printing debate.
The hard sell for Huawei smartphones
At company headquarters in Shenzhen, I talked to Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group – the world’s third-largest smartphone vendor.
Huawei says its market priority is China, followed by Europe and Japan. But - when it comes to smartphones - it’s not ruling out the U.S. market despite security concerns and the recent back and forth about Huawei’s commitment there.
"Gradually, step by step, more and more people will trust Huawei," says Yu. "I think with a brand, the most important thing is trust."
He hopes to build that trust with products like the $500 Ascend P2 which is billed as the “world’s fastest 4G LTE smartphone.”
Watch the video above to see a walk-through of Huawei's flagship smartphones and to hear Yu's sales pitch to Huawei-wary American consumers.
From MindMeld to Google Glass - can tech be too smart?
You've heard of Siri. You may be familiar with Google Now.
But what about MindMeld?
The app, built by Expect Labs, bills itself as "a smarter way to have conversations on your iPad."
It hasn't been released yet, but tech giants Samsung, Intel and Telefonica have just joined on as the startup's latest inventors.
This is how it works. When you talk, MindMeld listens so it can search and bring up information that's relevant to your discussion.
But after looking at the product demo online, it's easy to see why some call it "Siri on steroids" - a voice-activated search engine that hangs on to your every word.
There's something deeply fascinating and creepy about the technology that tracks everything you say. Why would I want to use it? And what do I give up for using it and similar tracking technologies like Google Glass?
CNN contributor Nicholas Thompson of the NewYorker.com says by using such hyper-smart technology, we are trading in our privacy in return for utility. There's always resistance at first, but eventually we grow to accept it.
What's your take?
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