Between the 1930s and 1970s, billions of dollars were spent to build early-warning systems—often in the most remote parts of the world. But by the late 1980s, most of these sites had been abruptly shuttered—made increasingly obsolete by the emergence of satellite communications. … | Continue reading
Researchers have that found that 3D printers spew tiny particles into the air as they operate, though the quantity and nature of these potentially toxic aerosols are poorly understood. A new study identifies a startling variety of these emissions, and the conditions under which t … | Continue reading
From the neon-drenched noir of Altered Carbon to the technophobic Black Mirror, dystopia is all over mainstream entertainment these days—and considering the current political climate, it’s easy to see why. But when was the last time you watched a utopian show or movie? Unless, li … | Continue reading
We've put together this handy primer for you on the Culture, the pan-galactic civilization whose members and ex-members are the subjects of so many Banks novels. Not only do we have a rundown of every single Culture novel, but we've also got some important excerpts from … | Continue reading
After making a mere $84 million at the U.S. box office, Star Trek Into Darkness is considered by some to be a disappointment. Perhaps the problem is that it was a touch confusing. To help our readers better understand it, we've complied and answered these Frequently Asked Que … | Continue reading
As AT&T rushes to pare down its business in an apparent attempt to not seem like a giant monopolistic media company sucking at the teet of the American public by relying on subsidies and overpriced data plans to stay afloat, some hard choices have to be made. The latest is de … | Continue reading
During World War II, the boiler room under Harvard's Memorial Hall was turned into a secretive wartime research lab. Here, volunteers were subjected to hours of noise as scientists tested military communications systems. Out of this came the Harvard sentences, a set of stand … | Continue reading
Kodak may be going under, but apparently they could have started their own nuclear war if they wanted, just six years ago. Down in a basement in Rochester, NY, they had a nuclear reactor loaded with 3.5 pounds of enriched uranium—the same kind they use in atomic warheads. | Continue reading
Gravity is incredibly weak. Just think: You can lift your foot despite the mass of the entire Earth pulling against it. Why is it so weak? That’s unclear. And it might take a very, very big science experiment to find out. | Continue reading
If you thought that scene in Sucker Punch where the doctor gave lobotomies with an ice pick was artistic exaggeration - well, it wasn't. That's exactly how Walter Freeman, a popularizer of lobotomies in the 1940s, performed thousands of operations. | Continue reading
It sounded a little slippery last week, when Facebook announced Portal, a new voice-activated speaker and video chat gadget, and the company said that it would not use data collected through the device to target ads. It was, in fact, very slippery. Facebook just admitted that Por … | Continue reading
Out of every original comment sent to the Federal Communications Commission about its Net Neutrality repeal proceedings, nearly all were against killing the regulations, according to a new Stanford University study. The study found that 99.7 percent of non-duplicated comments we … | Continue reading
Paul Allen, the man who co-created Microsoft with Bill Gates, one of the largest and most impactful technology companies in history, has passed away. He was 65. | Continue reading
The privacy tool used by millions of people doesn’t actually protect your privacy. | Continue reading
The privacy tool used by millions of people doesn’t actually protect your privacy. | Continue reading
New reports from Motherboard and MacRumors suggest that Apple’s 2018 MacBook Pro, as well as the iMac Pro, can be bricked if the repairs are not performed by Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider. | Continue reading
Lime—the San Francisco-based company behind those scooters that threatened to call the cops on people—lost a request on Friday for a temporary restraining order that would have delayed two competitors from launching in the California city next week. | Continue reading
Using a technique called reinforcement learning, a researcher at Google Brain has shown that virtual robots can redesign their body parts to help them navigate challenging obstacle courses—even if the solutions they come up with are completely bizarre. | Continue reading
Birds and planes are a bad combination, but it’s not so easy to shoo our avian friends away from airport runways. Thankfully, scientists from France have stumbled upon an ingenious solution to the problem—an optical illusion that appears to scare the crap out of large predatory b … | Continue reading
“Today, our world feels divided.” Rony Abovitz, CEO of the infamous mixed reality startup Magic Leap stood awkwardly on a circular stage, surrounded by hundreds of attendees of his company’s first developer conference, and first major public-facing event, eyeing a teleprompter, a … | Continue reading
Optical illusions take advantage of shortcomings in the visual system. Certain special designs can trick our brain as it’s trying to process the information that’s coming in. Learning more about what can trick our minds would help us learn more about the human mind itself. | Continue reading
Notch haters of the world certainly had one more thing to complain about yesterday, as Google confirmed the XL version of the new Pixel 3 would include a cutout at the top of the screen to accommodate the phone’s two front-facing cameras and sensors. But in a tweet yesterday, the … | Continue reading
Do you remember the Boston Dynamics robots videos of just a few years ago? It was a big deal that robots like Atlas could walk on (gasp!) uneven ground. But Atlas keeps blowing through milestones left and right, like in this new video that shows Atlas effortlessly jumping over ob … | Continue reading
Capping off a probe launched in 2015—instigated by reporting from Oregon Live—Tesla Energy Solutions has agreed to pay $13 million back to Oregon after the investigation concluded the cost of 14 solar power projects in the state had been in inflated to qualify for higher tax cred … | Continue reading
As history has repeatedly shown, political systems come and go. Given our rapid technological and social advances, it's a trend we can expect to continue. Here are 12 extraordinary — and even frightening — ways our governments could be run in the future. | Continue reading
Google has dropped out of the competition for a Pentagon cloud computing project that could be worth as much as $10 billion and last up to a decade, citing a possible clash with its corporate values, Bloomberg reported on Monday. | Continue reading
The Department of Homeland Security released a statement this weekend supporting Apple and Amazon’s denial of an explosive Bloomberg Businessweek report claiming that a Chinese military unit inserted microchips into Super Micro Computer Inc (Supermicro) server motherboards in wid … | Continue reading
Neanderthals cared for their sick and wounded, and new research suggests this well-documented behavior was more than just a cultural phenomenon or an expression of compassion—it really did help them survive. | Continue reading
The internet has entered into a new era, forcing us to second-guess virtually everything we see, hear, and read. In their new book, LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media, P. W. Singer and Emerson Brooking explore the disturbing ways in which the internet is transforming news … | Continue reading
Silicon Valley has pissed off a great number of people, particularly in 2018, so promising to grab Mark Zuckerberg by the short hairs and rein in his company’s misuse of personal data seems like a pretty good way to rally the troops. It’s not Facebook alone, of course, but every … | Continue reading
As I was driving from Malaga to Cadiz for the unveiling of the first full-scale Hyperloop capsule, I got stuck on a simple math problem: “If it takes me two and a half hours to travel this 150-mile route, then the Hyperloop would take...” Oh, what does it matter? The road is stee … | Continue reading
A new technology in which insects are used to genetically modify crops could be converted into a dangerous, and possibly illegal, bioweapon, alleges a Science Policy Forum report released today. Naturally, the organization leading the research says it’s doing nothing of the sort. | Continue reading