Main content

Virtually Making A Fortune?

Why are people spending real money to buy land that only exists in virtual reality? Could computers do a better job than humans at checking fake news; and the appeal of Antarctica.

Why are people spending real money to buy land that only exists in virtual reality? In the virtual world of Decentraland, users can build whatever they can imagine. Some hope to make a profit by trading goods and services using the social platform鈥檚 own cryptocurrency. Could this be the birth of a new virtual economy or a cryptocurrency bubble waiting to burst?

Could computers do a better job than humans at exposing fake news? Tim Harford interviews Mevan Babakar of the fact-checking organisation Fullfact about the software tools she and her team are building to try to automatically verify statistical claims.

Why would you go to the coldest place on Earth? A place mostly devoid of life, where there are rarely more than a few thousand other humans spread out across a landmass twice the size of Australia. Shabnam Grewal reports on Antarctica whose sublime beauty is matched by its capacity to kill you, very fast.

(Photo Credit: Decentraland.org)

Available now

50 minutes

Last on

Thu 30 Aug 2018 23:06GMT

Broadcasts

  • Thu 30 Aug 2018 08:06GMT
  • Thu 30 Aug 2018 17:06GMT
  • Thu 30 Aug 2018 23:06GMT

Podcast