On 7 May, customs officers in Ostend, Belgium, received a box of oysters from the UK. The molluscs had been caught in Essex and transported to Belgium on a 12m (39ft) aluminium-hulled vessel, which traversed the English Channel with no humans on board. It was the world's first unmanned commercial shipping operation. The crewless boat was carefully watched by four people in a control centre in Tollersbury, Essex, headquarters of Hushcraft, the company behind the design and development of the craft. UK and Belgian coastguards also monitored the oysters' progress. "You could actually listen to the waves hitting the boat,"…

We’ve all been there. You talk on the phone with a friend about something, say sneakers, and then a little later see an ad for the latest Nike shoes in your Facebook feed. It’s almost like your phone, or one of the apps installed on it, is listening to everything you say. Could that be true? Or is it just a modern myth? More on Security & Privacy Well, it’s technically possible for phones and apps to secretly record what you say. And lots of people sure seem to think they do. According to a nationally representative phone survey of…