What happens when money comes with conditions attached? India is testing a digital currency that allows some welfare payments to be spent only on approved goods from approved vendors. It's one of the developments driving interest in the Human Rights Foundation's free Financial Freedom webinar, which returns this month: 22-24 June @HRF | @Win Ko Ko Aung | @Destiny | @BitcoinSafariTz | #Bitcoin #BTC #freedommoney View article →

A government doesn't need to shut down a newspaper if it can freeze the journalists' bank accounts. That's the concern after authorities in El Salvador froze assets linked to journalists at El Faro following a documentary investigation. It's one of several examples highlighted in my latest feature on the Human Rights Foundation's free Financial Freedom webinar for nonprofits and activists – featuring @Win Ko Ko Aung @BitcoinSafariTz and @Destiny #Bitcoin #BTC #education @HRF View article →

"The rescue of the downed American airman was real. Ghost Murmur, as described, almost certainly was not. I say this not to diminish the operation, but because the technology being credited for it contradicts sixty years of established physics" – says my good friend (and biomedical engineering graduate), MJ Zerehpoush. If any of you weren't forced down a rumour-induced rabbit hole after the CIA made this bold claim, don't worry, I've done it for you. They claim to have isolated the man's heartbeat across a deserted 40 km expanse, with a little bit of help (as always nowadays) from artificial intelligence. The technology they're talking about definitely exists but there's no public evidence that it can work to this extent. However, we can prove that it's being used elsewhere with a high degree of success. I asked Jeffrey Bander, MD and Kit Yee Au-Yeung of SandboxAQ to explain what it can do and how it's being used. Read more in my first article for WIRED Middle East 👇 #AI #tech #journalism #WIRED #freelance