The Drift to Digital: Cashlessness, CBDCs and the Narratives We Need

Brett Scott in an interview with Caroline Marburger

21 August 2025

Cash is disappearing — not with a bang, but with the quiet hum of terminals, apps, and silent payment flows. Brett Scott argues that there is a systemic drift toward cashlessness, shaped not by a single decision-maker but by the forces of global capitalism. Still, the shift is often narrated as a matter of consumer choice.

DSI Apéro Philo Session: Digital Wellbeing

Kiran Kappeler successfully defended her dissertation

Internet Use as Everyday Religion on the Rise, Cyborgization Still in its Early Stages

Michael Reiss successfully defended his cumulative dissertation  

Talk im Turm: Göttliche Algorithmen und Putins Desinformation

“Artificial Intelligence” in Switzerland 2024: Rapid Diffusion and Increasing Digital Inequality

Campus Oerlikon Lecture Series: Digital Worlds

Rückblick: Talk im Turm zu Desinformation und Algorithmen

Two Awards at SACM 2025 for the Media Change and Innovation Division

For the year 2024, SMEX welcomed four non-resident fellows for the Mariam Al-Shafei Fellowship on Technology and Human Rights, committed to working on the following topics:

In ihrem Gastbeitrag „Data Spaces sind keine Selbstläufer“ in der Rubrik Standpunkte des Tagesspiegel Background erklären Professor Thomas Hess, Mitglied im bidt-Direktorium und Professor für Wirtschaftsinformatik und Betriebswirtschaftslehre an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, und Dr. Christoph Egle, Geschäftsführer des bidt, wie sich der zwischenbetriebliche Datenaustausch über Data Spaces  gestalten lässt.

We are glad to announce today the release of ODE's new version. The app is now evolving into a key companion tool in the early and critical stages of your AI journey.
The post [Announcement] Open Data Editor 1.6.0 AI-enhanced Version Release first appeared on Open Knowledge Blog.

Location: Remote or hybrid, depending on your location.
Commitment: Part-time 
Duration: September 2025 – March 2026 
Compensation: Negotiable. 

Seit dem Aufschwung von ChatGPT im Jahr 2022 hat generative KI Einzug in zahlreiche Anwendungsbereiche gefunden: In Sekundenschnelle kann generative KI Text, Audio, Bild und Video generieren und möglicherweise unterschiedliche Anwendungsgebiete revolutionieren – seien es KI-generierte Nachrichten im Journalismus oder im politischen Wahlkampf, als Tutor für das Aneignen von Programmierkenntnissen oder als Designhilfe von 3D-Entwürfen. Eine globale Studie von Gillespie et al.

Analysing India’s data protection law and its attempt at protecting children and their data This post is authored by Jhalak M. Kakkar, Shashank Mohan, and Angelina Dash. India’s data privacy law, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDP Act), seeks to protect children’s data and shield them from data-linked online harms. However, two years after […]

Women, minorities, and human rights defenders among the most targeted onlineSMEX’s Digital Safety Helpdesk supports activists, journalists, marginalized groups, and human rights defenders facing cybersecurity incidents and online threats in West Asia and North Africa. We work directly with affected individuals  to address account suspensions, doxxing, sexual blackmail, and other forms of cyberviolence, content moderation, and other issues.

Justlight/Adobestock (KI generated)Robots need localisation algorithms to figure out where they are. These algorithms usually work with sensor data, which can be used to calculate their position. For engineers and researchers, figuring out how a sensor is built, what format the sensor data is in, and how the sensor is calibrated on a robot can be quite a challenge.

Professor Hermann Einsele, Direktor der Medizinischen Klinik II am Universitätsklinikum Würzburg (UKW), ist neues Mitglied der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

O Brasil já conta com mais de 160 data centers e deve receber investimentos bilionários no setor. Mas, junto com a inovação, essas estruturas consomem enormes quantidades de energia, água e minérios, gerando emissões, resíduos e impactos em ecossistemas e territórios tradicionais.