More than just tech tycoons

To say that technology entrepreneurs have an influence on our day-to-day lives would probably be a vast understatement.

That influence, as we've seen, can be a knife that cuts both ways.

Of course, I'm referring to Elon Musk, who has become quite the polarising figure as he insists on trying to exert his influence at the White House – even if it comes at the expense of his other endeavours.

Yet, he is not alone. In the past decade, we've seen technology tycoons seek to be more than just tycoons, and to some extent they've achieved that.

What happens next, however – amid so much public angst – is unknown. We're in uncharted technology territory.

Cody Sigel Combs , Future Editor

The Big Story

Circling the world

In brief | Sometimes the biggest stories aren't appreciated when they happen. That's exactly what happened with the satellite news beat in recent days.

First, we learned about the increasing risk of satellite collisions due to climate change.

Meanwhile, thousands gathered in Washington for one of the world's largest meetings of satellite technology companies, where low Earth orbit satellites were on the minds of almost everyone in attendance.

At a consumer level, Abu Dhabi-based company Space42 introduced its Thuraya One smartphone, which it says blends cellular and satellite connectivity into one device, an industry first.

Why it matters | Often it's the things we can't see that have the biggest impact on our lives.

If, for some reason, satellites suddenly stopped working, most of us would be immediately impacted in one way or another.

With the increasing prevalence of low Earth orbit satellites and the ability to access them, we're soon going to be noticing and appreciating satellites on a whole new level.

With that, however, comes certain risks, but the benefits will far outweigh those.

Quoted | “Satellites have become embedded in people's day-to-day lives, but it's mostly invisible to them, which drives us a little bit crazy because I think the policy makers, regulators and the general public don't always sufficiently understand just how vital and mission critical the services are that we provide. But that's changing”

– Daniel Goldberg, Telesat chief executive

Future in focus

Digital detox | Abu Dhabi opens first clinic to tackle child screen addiction

Due process | Could the US State Department use AI to revoke student visas?

Scrapped devices | Delhi's e-waste graveyard is a hazard to health and environment

Cryptocurrency summit | How the digital asset sector came of age

Predicting the future: Signal or noise?

For almost an entire day, X (formerly Twitter) suffered one of its lengthiest outages in recent memory. While there's often talk about the waning influence of X, it still has hundreds of millions of users, and those users took note of the outage. X's owner, Elon Musk, later went on TV and claimed that a cyber attack was to blame, and more specifically, he said that the company had traced IP addresses in the Ukraine area as the source of the attack.

This is noise: As of the writing of this newsletter, Mr Musk hasn't provided any proof about the source of the cyber attack being from Ukraine. That being said, even if IP addresses were tracked to Ukraine, there are bigger questions that need to be addressed. Why was X, a company that's no stranger to the need for strong cyber security, so vulnerable?

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