Poor Kafka, born too early to blame his writer’s block on 21st-century digital excuses: social media addiction, cell phone addiction, streaming video… Would The Metamorphosis have turned out differently had its author had access to a machine that would have allowed him to self-publish, communicate facelessly, and dispense entirely with typists, pens and paper?

To paraphrase science fiction writer William Gibson, the farm of the future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.

Sooner rather than later, a robot is going to be able to do part or all of what you do for a living. In response to this and other pressures, the Canadian province of Ontario is gearing up to launch a basic income trial this summer. For a limited period of time, and in three regions across the province, the government will be giving people a living wage, for free and with no strings attached, and seeing how the hell it goes, eh?

Nasa’s new rover is intended to store rock samples it plucks from the Martian surface. But what happens after that? Richard Hollingham finds out.

$26 billion in market value partly depends on a 23-year-old staying healthy and alive.

After heavy opposition, robocall company gives up attempt to avoid FCC rules.

“Ok Google, good morning.” There’s never a dull moment at home -- from getting the family ready to go in the morning to kicking back after a long day, and everything in between. Wouldn’t it be great to get some extra help? Starting today, Canadians can get their hands on Google Home, our voice-activated smart speaker, powered by the Google Assistant in English and French.

Writing well is hard. Very hard. There are no short-cuts or “hacks.” The only way to improve is practice.

Millions dream of quitting the grind and replacing their income through a rewarding, creative endeavour.

It happens to the best of us. Sometimes it is hard to find that inspiration for writing even though we feel a drive to produce more and better content to push marketing numbers. Sometimes we should stand back and let the numbers do the writing for us.

Nancy Schrum watched curiously as a colleague from her law firm waved an iPhone above a credit-card reader to buy a Subway sandwich with Apple Pay earlier this year. “I have that, but I’m afraid to use it,” said Ms. Schrum, who feared the technology wouldn’t work. When Apple Inc. launched its mobile-payment service more than two years...

Linus Torvalds took to the stage in China for the first time Monday at LinuxCon + ContainerCon + CloudOpen China in Beijing. In front of a crowd of nearly 2,000, Torvalds spoke with VMware Head of Open Source Dirk Hohndel in one of their famous “fireside chats” about what motivates and surprises him and how aspiring open source developers can get started. Here are some highlights of their talk.

An Australian engineer is hoping to use drones to plant 1 billion trees every year to fight an unfolding global catastrophe. Burned or cleared forests release their stored carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and land restoration experts say technology must play a big part in addressing the problem.

Poland’s largest website for ordering food online, Pyszne.pl, now accepts bitcoin for all orders. The site boasts the largest selection of restaurants in the country with approximately 5,062 locations and 883,000 active customers.

The UK Parliament has been hit by a cyber-security attack. MPs were reportedly told about the hack on Friday night and later told of difficulties in accessing their emails away from the Westminster estate. A Commons spokeswoman said the lack of email access was not a result of the cyber-attack itself but part of the steps being taken to manage the issue. She said Parliamentary authorities were liaising with the National Cyber Security Centre.

Decentralized networking could bring the internet to those who need it most—rural communities and disaster victims. In the most recent season of Silicon Valley, the protagonist Richard Hendriks abandons the video chat business he started with his friends to pursue his own dream of creating a new internet. Although Hendriks's peers initially look at him askance for doggedly pursuing such a crazy idea, the dream of decentralizing the internet is alive and well IRL.

A US defence contractor and former state department security officer was arrested by American counterintelligence officials and charged with spying for China. The justice department said on Thursday that Kevin Mallory of Leesburg, Virginia, allegedly sold classified documents to Chinese intelligence agents on trips to Shanghai in March and April.

Several US senators spoke out this week on the importance of net neutrality to innovation and free speech. They are right. The Internet has become our public square, our newspaper, our megaphone. The Federal Communications Commission is trying to turn it in something more akin to commercial cable TV, and we all have to work together to stop it.

Google wants to make it easier for governments to access customer data stored on overseas servers. The company believes current rules on information sharing are outdated, and is set to press US lawmakers to update them. If it gets its way, governments would be able to quickly get their hands on the personal data of Google account holders around the world.

Deep-learning systems tend to be one-trick wonders: they’re great at the task they’ve been trained to do, but pretty awful at everything else. Now a new neural network from Google suggests that AI can be taught to multitask after all. Most deep-learning systems are built to solve specific problems, such as recognising animals in photos from the Serengeti or translating between languages.