Digital Planet

Virgin has recently invested in a futuristic technology, Virgin Hyperloop One, which aims to create a speedy pod-based transport system. Alison van Diggelen talks to Richard Branson about his ambitious plans, including supersonic and space travel. Unrest, a documentary exploring the mysterious condition of ME, was filmed across continents by the director Jennifer Brea who was mostly confined to her bed with ME/CFS. Brea tells Click how she could call in via Skype from her bed, and then interviewees could see her reflection from the teleprompter in the lens of the camera. A new conference for Brighton Digital Festival, The Messy Edge, is an exploration of the frontiers of digital culture, a challenge to dominant perspectives and a place to consider how we run the risk of building a future on the deeply flawed foundations of the present. Bill Thompson reports from the conference. In The Chinese Typewriter: A History, Tom Mullaney recalls the great engineering and linguistic challenges in the 19th and 20th Centuries of getting the Chinese language onto a table top machine. One consequence was the development of predictive text in the Chinese IT world long before it appeared in the West. Click talks to Tom Mullaney. Producer: Colin Grant (Photo: Richard Branson shows a model of Launcher One at the Farnborough International Airshow July 2012. Credit: Adrian Dennis/AFP)