Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist.

In New York, I'm John Fassman.

And from London, I'm Jason Palmer.

Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

Virtual reality is one of those technologies that has seemed just around the corner for

years.

But its moment may at last be arriving, along with that of its cousin, augmented reality.

It'll take you inside the battle of the headsets.

And you may not remember a time when a gigabyte of memory or data seemed like an impossibly

big number.

For many, it was the first encounter with the prefix giga.

Now it's everywhere.

We take a look at the linguistic inflation that technology brings.

First, in Afghanistan's Bamyan province, the fate of female protesters reportedly detained

by the Taliban is in question.

On April 4th, they disrupted a rally held in support of the Taliban, tearing down banners

to the sounds of cheers and demanding that schools for girls be reopened.

This week, Heather Barr of the Women's Rights Division at Human Rights Watch expressed

concern for the protesters and recalled recent instances when women were held by the Taliban

for weeks in abusive conditions.

On Tuesday, America's Secretary of State Antony Blinken unveiled the State Department's

annual country reports on human rights.

...