We’re joined by The London Standard’s defence editor Robert Fox on ICBMs, Moscow’s military strategy and future risk.
Will Google be forced to sell Chrome?
Plus, what is ‘sound symbolism’ and why is it important, with Marcus Perlman, associate professor in linguistics and communication at the University of Birmingham.
- Microsoft has begun opening up Xbox Cloud Gaming
- Inspector Gadget voice actor dies at 82 following Parkinson’s battle
- Instagram users can test recommendations “reset”
- Mysterious space-like creature wriggling on south coast beach identified
Here’s a fully automated transcript of this episode:
I’m Rachelle Abbott, and this is The Standard’s Tech and Science Daily podcast.
If you’re new here, make sure to give us a follow.
Coming up, will Google be forced to sell Chrome?
But first, Kyiv is claiming Russia launched an intercontinental ballistic missile into Ukraine, but that’s reportedly being disputed by US officials.
A senior US official told The New York Times the weapon appeared to be an intermediate range ballistic missile, adding, But it is a new type we have been tracking.
The Kremlin also told reporters it had nothing to say about the hardware used in the strike.
It’s not a short range missile or medium range missile like Storm Shadow and the ATACMS, the army missile of the US, which is being fired around the Kursk area at the moment.
It is in response to that.
It is very significant in that this weapon, whatever it was, undoubtedly, is normally used in the order of battle for nuclear warfare.
And it’s a thing that you would use to launch over a thousand kilometers, over a thousand miles with a nuclear warhead.
That’s The London Standard’s defence editor, Robert Fox.
Putin lowered the threshold for using nuclear weapons after President Joe Biden gave Ukraine permission to fire US ATACMS long range missiles into Russia.
Russia has shown that it is interested and capable of disrupting supplies of information, underwater cables, possibly food supplies, certainly energy supplies.
Have we all forgotten about the Houthis, who are going on gangbusters with this, with Iranian and behind them Russian technology?
We are in a contest and it does require a complete re-address and levelling with the public about what the security risks are and the resilience, that is how you can contribute by supporting public services, being aware of the dangers, the cyber attacks which can lead to outages.
We’ve had these mysterious fires in Britain and the Allies.
We’ve had the Russian survey ships surveying table points in and across the Irish Sea and across the English Channel.
This is where we’ve got to up the game.
To hear the full report, Robert Fox joins Mark Blunden on The Standard podcast from 4pm today.
The US prosecutors say Google must sell the Chrome browser to restore competition in the online search market.
Google is believed to control around 90% of the online search market, with around 95% on smartphones.
The DoJ and a coalition of states want Google to end agreements with tech firms such as Apple.
If the case is successfully won, the search platform will be highly regulated for 10 years.
It’s believed Google will appeal the case.
What do you think should happen?
Let us know in the comments.
Next, new research has found one of the strongest cases ever documented of sound symbolism.
That’s a direct link between speech sounds and meaning.
The standard theory in linguistics is that the relationship between the form of a word, the sounds of a word and its meaning that that relationship is arbitrary.
Any form can be connected with any meaning and there’s no resemblance between form and meaning.
Sound symbolism is the exception to this rule and maybe the big exception, where the sounds of speech actually convey meaning in themselves, that they somehow depict or resemble the meaning that they express.
That’s Marcus Perlman, Associate Professor in Linguistics and Communication at the University of Birmingham.
He explains how their research, now published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, has shown that speech sounds have texture and shape to them, such as the letter R, which has been described as rough.
People around the world, no matter what language they speak, the vast majority of people have a strong intuition that a trilled R sound, the sound you might hear in Spanish or Italian, like in the Spanish word for dog, Pedro, that that trilled R sound, it sounds rough to them.
And so when you ask them to associate that sound with a jagged line or a straight smooth line, the vast majority of people associate that sound with the jagged line.
And conversely, an L sound, an O sound, they associate with the smooth or straight line.
The researchers conducted their study through online and field experiments involving 1,030 adults who spoke a total of 28 different languages.
The study originated with a previous study that we published a couple of years ago, where we found in different analyses that in vocabulary, in spoken languages across the world, around the world, that words that are used to refer to rough textures have a much higher preponderance of R sounds in those words than you would expect by chance.
So words for rough often have an R sound, and if you look across languages, it seems driven especially by trilled R sounds, so that’s in natural vocabulary.
This was an experimental demonstration that people have a sense of, the reason that pattern exists in spoken languages and in vocabularies is because people see a perceptual resemblance between that sound, that speech sound, and the texture or shape of the line.
Coming up in part two, Microsoft has begun opening up Xbox Cloud Gaming.
We’ll see you back here in just a minute.
Inspector Gadget voice actor, Dan Hennessey, has died aged 82 following a Parkinson’s battle.
His family have confirmed.
Hennessey is well known for playing Chief Quimby in Inspector Gadget, but also Care Bear character Braveheart Lion.
Throughout his career, he also lent his voice to George Raccoon on the Raccoons, X-Men the animated series, and Star Wars animated spinoff, Ewoks, plus many more.
The family have requested donations in his memory to be made in his name to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s research.
Now, frustrated with recommended posts on Instagram?
Well, as part of a test, the site will be letting some users completely start afresh on the app and reset.
Users will be able to start as though they’re on a brand new account by removing all that Instagram currently uses to recommend posts and other content seen on the platform.
Parent Company Meta says the idea is to give users new ways to shape their Instagram experience.
This comes amid concerns that algorithms could be directing users towards unhealthy or negative content.
Next, Microsoft has begun opening up Xbox Cloud Gaming to existing Xbox game libraries.
If you’re a subscriber to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, you can now stream 50 games that you already own.
That includes Final Fantasy titles.
Games are available through TV, smartphone, tablet and PC.
And finally, an alien-like creature has been spotted crawling along a beach in Sussex.
Fear not, this isn’t something from space.
It’s actually been described as a sea mouse by Rye Harbour Nature Reserve Conservationists.
Rye Harbour Events Officer Sarah Watson described the mouse as a furry creature and basically a chunky marine worm.
A sea mouse is 15 centimetres long and rarely seen, but in winter, storms can wash them up on the high tide line.
Conservationists did return the creature back to sea.
You’re up to date, come back at 4pm for The Standard podcast.
For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk.