Beyond Infinity

Live-to-air radio interviews on RPPfm. Weekly covid reporting from Piers Cunningham with Brendon Telfer. 2-9/11/20: Australian state border closures continue, but there are signs of hope. International travel bubbles under consideration. Politics of covid. Vaccine developments. Victoria's travel restrictions finally lifted. Flu numbers down massively from last year. The need for asymptomatic testi...

A look at Apple's 2020 laptop line up - impressions of ownership, pros, cons and which one to choose. They all have the same premium feel and share many features, but it's the new M1 processor that looks like being well worth the wait, that is if you haven't already committed... Love your gadgets? Keep us talking and support the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BeyondInfinityRPP?fan_landin...

In a major boost for Bitcoin and other leading cryptos, digital payment company PayPal is introducing the ability to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies and plans to significantly increase their utility by making them available as a funding source for purchases at its 26 million merchants worldwide from early 2021. The move is likely to increase the mainstream acceptance of digital currencies arou...

Tom Cruise is slated to make a movie in space. The action adventure star is renowned for doing his own stunts, so this should make for exciting entertainment. Though details are scarce, the project has the support of NASA and Elon Musk. NASA wants to commercialise activities on the space station and drum up public enthusiasm for its Artemis program to return astronauts to the Moon. Excited by this...

Research at the University of Bath's Center for Accountable, Transparent and Responsible Artificial Intelligence is developing a new technique that allows more fluent communication by either supporting or, even better, replacing the need to type out what you want to communicate, by using brain signals to do the ‘typing’ instead. Intrigued by this story? Check out our searchable backlist of over 75...

How sophisticated disinformation campaigns muddy the waters and make it harder to understand the truth about Covid-19 vaccines. Research at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and the EUvsDisinfo Project sheds light on false narratives seeded through news channels and social media. Like this story? Keep us talking by supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BeyondInfinityRPP?fan_lan...

A look at the very ambitious plan for NASA and its international partners to land people at Shackleton Crater at the moon's South Pole in 2024. Project Artemis includes the deep space Gateway space station in lunar orbit and a lunar surface base with in-situ resource utilisation. Eventually the technology and skills learned at the moon will enable a manned mission to Mars. Like this story? Keep us...

Live-to-air radio interviews on RPPfm. Weekly covid reporting from Piers Cunningham with Brendon Telfer. 16/10/20: Tough questions for the Premier from Peta Credlin. COVID-19 Hotel Quarantine Inquiry. Unrealistic elimination policy. Analog Vs digital contact tracing. 26/10/20: Endless lockdown. Northern metro outbreak. Government messaging. Asymptomatic spreading. Acceptable risk management. Compa...

In September 2020, the internet exploded with news of life existing at the Earth's twin planet. The James Clerk Maxwell telescope in Hawaii and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile found the biomarker phosphine - a phosphorus and hydrogen molecule - high in the Venusian atmosphere. But there are deep doubts about how life could exist at Venus, given its hellish surface tempera...

John explains why he didn't buy a new Pixel 5 (he bought an Oppo Find X2 Pro instead). But he's still a fan of this mid-range smart phone from Google. He likes the OLED screen, great battery life (with shared charging capability), advanced camera system and 5G connectivity. He reckons for many people it's a perfectly good alternative to some of the high-end, uber-exxy phones out there. Like this s...

Live-to-air radio interview on RPPfm. Weekly covid reporting from Piers Cunningham with Brendon Telfer and Shivani Pillai. 9/10/20: Melbourne GPs dealing with much higher incidence of mental illness, especially among young patients and new mums. Anti-depressants prescribed to 12 year olds. Dr. Stacey Harris's open letter to Premier Andrews. Doctors meeting with new health minister Martin Foley. Gr...

Piers talks with busy Melbourne GP Dr. Stacey Harris about the disturbing incidence of mental health issues among her young patients and new mothers. Dr. Harris says lockdowns do more harm than good and have caused a mental health crisis in Melbourne. She insists we can open up safely, with an emphasis on more robust contact tracing and that the huge cost of striving for corona virus elimination i...

Live-to-air radio interviews on RPPfm. Weekly covid reporting from Piers Cunningham with Brendon Telfer and Shivani Pillai. 25/9/20: How good is the covid modelling? Alternative views on lockdown from Irish Youtuber Ivor Cummins who says masks are useless and lockdowns are a "medieval" solution. Lessons from Sweden. 2/10/20: Growing frustration from senior Melbourne doctors. Why won't the Victoria...

Live-to-air radio interviews on RPPfm. Weekly covid reporting from Piers Cunningham with Brendon Telfer and Shivani Pillai. 11/9/20: The Covid Doctors Network open letter to Victorian Premier Dan Andrews. Bureaucracy not medical experts driving government response to pandemic. Devastation of business from prolonged lockdown. Government in crisis. 18/9/20: Vaccine espionage - all countries are spyi...

Box Hill Hospital urologist Geoff Wells says Melbourne's prolonged hard lockdown is causing depression and elevated anxiety, especially among adolescents. Citing unjust discrimination against young people, he says schools should open and people should be allowed to play sport and exercise outdoors. Geoff is critical of the Victorian government's disproportionate approach to the pandemic; the virus...

Resident techie John Young recently took possession of a pair of Jabra Elite 75T in-ear buds and he's pretty impressed. He says they're comfy to wear all day, work well for phone calls, "hey google" commands and have particularly good sound reproduction of streaming music. Jabra Elite 75t https://amzn.to/3juI1PQ #ad #CommissionsEarned Like this story? Check out our searchable backlist of over 750...

Piers talks hacking with Dr. Ian Storey, lecturer in information systems at RMIT. Ian continues the discussion of a range of different hacking methods, including backdoors and trapdoors, logic bombs, man-in-the-middle attacks, trojans, malware and viruses. Part 2 of a 2 part interview. Like this podcast? Donate and become a Beyond Infinity Patron. https://www.patreon.com/BeyondInfinityRPP/creators

Piers is joined by Dr. Ian Storey, lecturer in information systems at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Ian shares his in-depth knowledge from years of teaching data security and anti-hacking courses. Topics covered include information security for businesses, public key encryption, cryptography and various kinds of hack attack. Part 1 of a 2 part interview. **For our complete searchabl...

A leaked database known as the Overseas Key Individual Database suggests China is collecting vast amounts of information on millions of prominent people around the world. The leak's source, Shenzhen's Zhenhua Data, stands accused of spreading disinformation and promoting conflict.

Piers talks with digital marketer Michael Simonetti about the Australian Competition and Consumer Commissions's campaign to introduce revenue sharing between local news originators and Facebook and Google. Michael thinks regulators are wasting their time trying to change the media landscape of the digital age.

Piers talks with Robert Millar, general surgeon and transplant specialist at Royal Melbourne Hospital and an original signatory of the Covid Doctors Network's open letter to the Victorian Government, which expressed serious concern with its handling of the covid pandemic. The speed and accuracy of covid testing is discussed, along with the possibility of a nano cellular microscopy test with reliab...

Piers talks with Michael Simonetti, the founder and CEO of digital agency Andmine, about what businesses can do to survive Melbourne's severe economic shutdown. Michael says the covid pandemic has accelerated the move to digital by five years and if you're not already doing it, you need to hurry up. He advises people to work out what events they can automate and make digital in their business and...

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is pressuring Google and Facebook to support locally produced news by agreeing to pay for material that appears on their platforms. The regulator believes there is a significant power imbalance between the American tech giants and news originators. But Google and Facebook disagree. Google is warning users its popular services will be diminished, w...

On 31st August 2020, a group of thirteen senior Melbourne doctors signed an open letter to Victorian Premier Dan Andrews expressing deep concern with the government's handling of the corona virus pandemic. Five days later, 491 other medical practitioners, mainly from Melbourne, had added their signatures to the letter, which describes the government policy of stage 4 lockdown as “ill-focussed, hea...

A look back over 5 years of beyondinfinity.com.au coverage of artificial intelligence. While there are legitimate fears about misuse and abuse of the technology, there are also benefits for all humanity. This compilation includes: discussion of inceptionism and the strange art produced by artificial neural networks; quantum computing and Kurzweil's Singularity; how AI is harnessed for mass surveil...