Talking Elon Musk on ABC Melbourne

ABC logoThe demonstration launch of SpaceX’s Dragon Heavy launch vehicle was for me the highlight of the week. It got some attention elsewhere too, and not just from space geeks.

By complete coincidence, I’d been booked for ABC Melbourne’s regular Wednesday night “Please Explain” spot, with the task of explaining Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX. Here’s the full conversation with Lindy Burns and Declan Fay.

This audio is ©2018 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Explaining the Cloud on ABC Melbourne

ABC logoABC Melbourne has a regular spot called “Explain This”. This week I was asked to join them to explain the Cloud.

In this edition of Explain This we delve into the cloud computing: what it is, and how it works.

Privacy and cyber-security journalist Stilgherrian gives you the lowdown on some of the stickier question involved with cloud computing such as can you erase things from it and do you actually even own your files once they are stored there.

Here’s the full 20-minute conversation with Lindy Burns as broadcast on Wednesday night.

This audio is ©2017 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and it’s being served directly from the ABC website.

Talking trust and the uncanny valley on ABC Melbourne

ABC logoIt’s been a while since I’ve posted the audio from any of my radio spots, but we’re back. Here’s my conversation with Lindy Burns on ABC Melbourne from the evening of 31 October.

Two stories took our fancy.

First was the Australian tour of a supposedly intelligent robot called Sophia. I’m sceptical about how intelligent it actually was, but it gave me an excuse to talk about the uncanny valley, and the early chatbot ELIZA.

Second was the news that Amazon is launching a new service called Amazon Key, which will let couriers open people’s front doors and put deliveries inside. Would you trust strangers to come into your house?

This audio is ©2017 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Talking yet more cybers on ABC 774 Melbourne

ABC Sydney TARDIS 1

ABC logoIn this month’s now semi-regular spot on ABC 774 Melbourne, it was only natural to talk about the Australian government’s new Cyber Security Strategy, as I did on four spots elsewhere last week.

But as you’ll hear, this 20-minute conversation with Lindy Burns on Tuesday night covered quite a bit of territory — even, briefly, the National Broadband Network.

For further background material, see the first post in this series.

This audio is ©2016 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

[Photo: The view in ABC Radio’s Sydney TARDIS 1 just before I did this radio spot on 26 April 2016.]

Talking surveillance and privacy on ABC 774 Melbourne

ABC logoEarlier this month I was in Melbourne to speak at Pause Fest, as well as talk to the media about some of the issues surrounding digital surveillance and privacy.

Here’s the 19-minute conversation I had with Lindy Burns on ABC 774 Melbourne on Wednesday 10 February. As usual, we rambled all over the landscape of the topic, but I think you’ll find it interesting.

This audio is ©2016 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

[Note: Yes, I’m catching up on my blog posts, I should have them all caught up within the next 24 hours.]

Talking Anonymous on ABC 774 Melbourne

ABC logoAnonymous was back in the news last week following their declaration of war against Islamic State, and the declaration of last Friday as a day of trolling against IS.

On Tuesday night, I spoke about the “organisation” and its history with ABC 774 Melbourne evening presenter Lindy Burns.

The audio is ©2015 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.