Keon the historian: loves a Medieval tapestry

On Monday PastMaster is in battle mode for our maiden trip to Hastings in 1066.

Can Keon convince the Saxon troops he’s not a Norman spy? Will his ‘invention’ prevent Harold taking an arrow in the eye?

And can Earthsong heal the divisions in post Battle-of-Hastings Britain?

Episode drops on Monday 18th August.

What about Normans: have we lost their trust?

AI in the news

AI: going nuclear

AI has an energy problem - it’s hard to square the amount of energy consumed by using it with our need to reduce harmful emissions that damage the planet.

But business superman and Rolls Royce head honcho Tufan Erginbilgic believes nuclear power could be an ace card that plays to the UK’s hand.

Mr Erginbilgic told the BBC Rolls Royce has the potential to become the UK's highest-valued company by overtaking the largest firms on the London Stock Exchange thanks to its small modular reactor (SMR) deals.

“There is no private company in the world with the nuclear capability we have,” he said.

Despite concerns about the amount of water needed for cooling down SMRs, AI enthusiasts Google, Microsoft and Meta have all signed deals to take power from SMRs in the US when they become available.

Video face swaps

Putin: a surprise participant on your next Teams call

Picsi.AI has just released its latest face-swapping program which allows you to impose another face over yours in real time video.

The next step in online disguises surely paves the way for rampant fraud - be vigilant, friends! We can no longer trust anything we see online.

Just imagine surprising your boss at your next video call by turning up as… I don’t know… Vladimir Putin.

Can we lose the tech glasses?

AI glasses: too much

Smartphone maker HTC has unveiled its new AI glasses which combine voice assistance, photography and translation.

It follows in the footsteps of Meta’s tech specs and seems to be a small step closer to a sci-fi synthesis of man and machine.

I guess logically it makes sense that we’d use augmented reality to make life more efficient. But when you’re separated from the world and other people by yet another digital layer, at what point do we lose our connection to reality?

Be like Luke Skywalker: ditch the scanner and use the Force.

UNTIL NEXT TIME

Tan and the PastMaster crew.

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