Beyond Infinity

With his trademark boundless ambition and enthusiasm, Elon Musk updates plans to beat traffic chaos by tunneling underground. He announced a deal to work with Los Angeles County Transportion Authority on a project that aims to one day take passengers from the city to LAX airport in 8 minutes at 200 km/h.

If you've received updated terms of service emails lately from the likes of Twitter, Spotify and eBay, it's because of new laws which provide huge fines if companies breach your privacy. They're the EU's General Data Protection Regulation.

Our weekly news round-up: Old data from Galileo spacecraft reexamined to confirm plumes on moon Europa; Human habitation in the Philippines dates back 700,000 years; Cold Atom Lab to create lowest temperature in the Universe aboard ISS; Google revisits its 'Don't Be Evil' mantra; Telstra suffers another major mobile outage; Facebook users shrug off recent scandals; Net neutrality rules caught up in Trump lawyer allegations.

Tolstoy wrote: "One can no more approach people without love than one can approach bees without care. Such is the quality of bees..." To mark World Bee Day on 20th May, Piers talks with Simon Mulvany of Save The Bees Australia about his intensifying legal battle with big honey, recent wins in having dangerous chemicals banned by major retailers, his disdain for Australian Certified Organic and his change.org petition to ban toxic neonicotinoids in Australia - as Europe has already done.

Delegates were treated to a raft of cool (and slightly creepy) innovations. Google Assistant can robocall and make an appointment for you in a very human-sounding voice, while Gmail now has automated, predictive reply options and smart compose.

In April 2018, average atmospheric carbon dioxide exceeded 410 parts per million. There are various dangers including rising sea levels and deteriorating human health resulting from what has been described as an unprecedented experiment on the only home we have.

Uber, Google, Boeing, Bell Helicopter and others are teaming up to make electric aerial transport ubiquitous. But there is plenty of testing, development and regulatory work to do to achieve this dream.

Our weekly news round-up: Mars 2020 lander will carry a helicopter; Australian Space Agency aims to triple industry size in 12 years; Super computer modelling casts doubt on multiverse theory; 2 more killed in US Tesla crash; Apple using drones to improve their Maps; Ransom-seeking hackers target NSW family planning centre; Equifax reveals full extent of data heist on its servers; Robocallers hit with big FCC fines for breaching Truth in Caller ID Act.

There are rising concerns over the unfettered use of the technology. How well is your information secured and what are the possibilities for abuse? Should businesses like Ticketmaster in Australia be allowed to access this unique identifying technology for ticketing and venue access?

Not according to the latest ground-penetrating radar survey of the boy pharaoh's tomb, but the hunt for unknown chambers at the Great Pyramid of Giza continues.

Jeff Bezos has been awarded the 2018 Axel Springer Award. At a ceremony in Berlin, he outlined how he can get through his US$130B fortune - by investing in his space company Blue Origin and helping humanity populate the solar system.

Our weekly news round-up: A large Harvard University survey shows how to increase life expectancy by a decade or more; MarCO cubesats piggy back to Mars; China has amazing drone swarms with military applications; Somnox: a smart cushion for insomniacs; A futuristic solar power generating highway in Jinan; Trackable suitcases banned from flights; Telegram instant messaging service outlawed in Russia and Iran; Facebook trials a 'dislike' button, while launching its own dating service.

Bill Gates and Google's Larry Page launch the "Universal Influenza Vaccine Development Grand Challenge" to fund novel concepts that reduce flu's global death toll and prepare us all for the next pandemic.

The Australian Government pledges A$500 million to help save the Great Barrier Reef, but is it too little too late? Spring already sprung? Nature's Notebook aims to garner information gathered by the American public to help understand changes in seasonal transitions.

Our weekly news round-up: NASA's InSight lander will probe the Martian interior; Spacecraft AR app allows spacecraft to be visualised as never before; Space Net offers super hi res, multi-spectral imagery to developers and start-ups for free; Pigs brains kept alive after decapitation; Private owner of France.com has his site seized by French Government; Apple will pay US$21 billion in back taxes to Ireland; Drug testing tech at dance parties and festivals; Scam watch: fake utility bills.

An unregulated free-for-all sparks protests from the elderly, disabled and city halls. But for the gung ho start-ups behind the scooter plague, these are just the growing pains of urban transportation in transition.

A constellation of satellites operated by start-up EarthNow could one day deliver real-time video from space to businesses and governments. Uses include monitoring the health of the planet, better crop management, more accurate and timely weather prediction, preparing for natural disasters and keeping an eye on conflict zones.

Our weekly news round-up: TESS exoplanet hunter successfully launched toward unusual lunar resonant orbit; The many, varied (and slightly scary) ways Facebook gathers information about you; World heritage Henderson Island in the remote South Pacific has the planet's worst plastic pollution; Japanese researchers make an enzyme that breaks down PET plastic bottles; Woolly mammoths and many other large mammals declined with people's migration out of Africa; Gmail hacked by spam scam - users receive messages from themselves; Lyrids meteor shower worth a look; Digital medical consultations via Coviu, a cloud-based video platform; Extracting gold from SIM cards to reduce e-waste; Grasshopper - a free app to learn the basics of coding.

Will another attempt to unify Android users under a new messaging service fail because it doesn't use encryption?

1.5 billion Chinese ranked by a behaviour monitoring system. If you've been bad, stiff restrictions are imposed by the State, including limited internet access, travel bans and reduced job opportunities.