Science writing wasn’t really an early focus in my career for two reasons. First, it’s a small, specialised field and I frankly didn’t have the experience or knowledge. Second, I’d considered myself a computer, phone and application guy since first becoming a freelance writer.
I reviewed the latest mobiles and software. I was fully acquainted with the whole Mac versus PC thing at its height. I gave ratings out of five, knew all the products RRPs and my system was littered with product shots from PR agencies working for the IBMs, Lenovos and Samsungs of the world.
Today my interest is where tech fits into our lives. Sometimes it’s AI agents that appear all but human, sometimes it’s an emerging field like the new Internet of Things paradigm of short lived, disposable sensors.
But my knowledge of science evolved and grew and I’ve been thrilled to join the ranks of writers I’d always admired and envied and write about scientific topics from the whimsical, like when Skylab returned to Earth in remote Western Australia, to the socially urgent, like the way the human brain reacts to sexual assault.
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The last boundary of data collection is from non-silicon-based systems like clothes, food, the environment or even our own bodies. Welcome to the Internet of Disposable Things (IoDT), where temporary or ultra-cheap sensors are embedded or affixed to any number of inexpensive media that aren’t computer-based. … Continue readingThe Internet of (Temporary) Things
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