Listen here on your chosen podcast platform.
With elections in the UK just days away, followed by the US later this year, Tech & Science Daily looks into the relative security of our voting infrastructure.
We’re joined by Pippa Catterall, professor of history and policy at the University of Westminster, who specialises in electoral systems.
She examines the global factors influencing American voting technology reforms, the challenges of online ballot systems for the UK and why low-tech methods inside the polling station can offer better security.
The first stage of an under-development rocket has detached from its launch pad and crashed in central China.
Aerospace company Beijing Tianbing Technology, also known as Space Pioneer, reported the accident involving its Tianlong-3 rocket caused a fire but no casualties.
The Caribbean islands are on high alert as the first hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic season is set to sweep across the region.
The US National Hurricane Center says the category 4 storm will produce “potentially catastrophic hurricane-force winds, a life-threatening storm surge, and damaging waves”.
And the rest:
Monzo’s unveiled a way to prevent criminals from raiding savings after stealing someone’s phone.
Can volcanoes generate renewable energy?
Plus, a Barbie that travelled to the International Space Station will go on public display for the first time at London’s Design Museum, in a special exhibition marking the 65th anniversary of Mattel’s doll.
Find this podcast on the player above, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you stream your podcasts.
Here’s an automated transcript of today’s episode:
I'm Rachelle Abbott, and this is The Standard's Tech and Science Daily podcast.
Coming up, the extremely dangerous hurricane heading to the Caribbean, and the Chinese rocket crash.
But first, with elections here in the UK just days away, and in the US later this year, we've been looking into the relative security of our voting systems.
Experience varies across the US, but some 70% of voters live in areas which use paper ballots, which are then electronically read.
There was a big shift towards direct recording electronic machines after the 2000 presidential election in America, but Trump's false claims in 2020 that these were being manipulated have contributed to a move back towards a paper based system of the kind used in Britain.
Pippa Catterall, Professor of History and Policy at the University of Westminster, who specialises in electoral systems, and says global factors have also influenced American voting infrastructure reforms.
Another factor in the US shift away from a purely machine based voting system was the Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
There was no evidence that the machines were hacked into, but there were fears that they might be.
Russia certainly also tried to influence UK elections, but you can't hack a purely paper based system as used in Britain, except for local elections in Scotland.
And we asked Professor Catterall if she thinks a purely online system could work for the UK.
Although people here have become used to electronic voting for things like game shows, I don't think there's as yet much voter appetite in Britain for a shift from ballot papers, except perhaps among tech companies who might stand to benefit.
Pippa told us that India first experimented with election voting technology in 1982, and it's also pioneered voter verified paper audit trails to reassure voters that their votes are correctly recorded, a system which is now increasingly used in the US.
In countries which have shifted towards online voting around 2000, such as the US or France, the movement in that direction has stalled or been reversed.
There are arguments for online voting, not least that it is faster and cheaper to tally votes than using teams of increasingly weary volunteers to hand count as in Britain.
Although it seems to be taking ever longer to count our elections, I don't think for most voters that's a clinching argument.
There's more general election coverage in a three part deep dive focusing on the economy, the NHS and immigration on The Standard podcast starting today, Monday at 4 p.m.
Next, the first stage of a rocket that's under development has detached from its launch pad and crashed in central China.
Chinese aerospace company Beijing Tianbing Technology, also known as Space Pioneer, reported the accident involving its Tianlong-3 rocket, which caused a fire but no casualties.
According to the company, the first stage of the Tianlong-3 ignited normally during a hot test, but later detached from the test bench due to a structural failure and landed in hills about a mile away.
Space Pioneer says the performance of Tianlong-3 is comparable to SpaceX's Falcon 9, which is also a two-stage rocket.
Now, the Caribbean islands are on high alert as the first hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic season is set to sweep across the region.
It's called Hurricane Beryl and the eye of the storm is expected to move across the Windward Islands, a cluster of islands including St. Lucia and Grenada today.
The US National Hurricane Centre said the Category 4 storm will produce potentially catastrophic hurricane force winds, a life-threatening storm surge and damaging waves.
According to the NHC, Beryl is expected to remain powerful as it moves across the Caribbean and the organizations warned residents and officials in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica and the rest of the Northwestern Caribbean to carefully monitor its progress.
Next, Monzo has unveiled a way to prevent criminals from raiding savings after stealing someone's phone.
The new app-based features have been designed to stop the transferring or withdrawing of cash from accounts, impersonation scams or stealing personal information.
Tracking technology will enable users to select where transactions can be made, so the bank can identify and stop transactions in other new locations.
Customers can also select a family member or friend to the account to stop withdrawals.
The digital bank said the new in-app security tools are the first of their kind to be launched across mobile banking and should be available to customers in the coming weeks.
According to trade body UK Finance, more than £1 billion were stolen by criminals through unauthorised and authorised fraud in 2023.
Let's go to the ads.
Coming up, why volcanoes hold the secret to renewable energy.
Why not hit follow in the meantime and give us a rating.
Welcome back.
What if volcanoes could generate renewable energy?
Scientists at the University of Oxford are looking at a volcano on the Caribbean island of Montserrat for two things, gathering its precious metals and harvesting its natural heat.
Volcanoes around the world emit copper, lithium, gold and many other metals that are currently mined around the world for batteries and electric cars.
Plus, beneath dormant volcanoes, fluids called geofluids can be found, which experts from the Uni's Oxford Martin Programme on Rethinking Natural Resources believe could be a viable source of geothermal energy.
Next, researchers at Drexel University's College of Engineering say they've developed an artificial intelligence algorithm capable of detecting deepfake video with 98% accuracy.
Scientists at the university's Multimedia and Information Security Lab say they've created what's been named the “MISLnet algorithm” that picks up signs of deepfakes and fragments of media that have been manipulated.
They trained a machine learning algorithm to extract and recognise digital fingerprints.
According to Live Science, the algorithm was trained using a technique known as constrained neural network that's able to find abnormalities actually behind pixels in video clips.
And finally, life's fantastic for one Barbie who travelled to space.
The doll will go on public display for the first time at the Design Museum in a very special exhibition to mark the 65th anniversary of the world-famous brand Bayou Mattel.
Released with the European Space Agency in 2021, she resembles ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, who was also Europe's first female commander of the ISS, and spent six months orbiting Earth with her on board the International Space Station.
According to the ESA website, the doll was designed to encourage girls to become “the next generation of astronauts, engineers and space scientists.”
You're up to date.
Come back at 4pm for more election 2024 coverage from The Standard podcast.
We will be back tomorrow at 1pm.
See you then!
