Clik here to view.
Here Are Cybercommentators Discussing Cyberlove When Cyberlife Was New
"One of the most bizarre aspects of the growing cyberlife is the number of couples who meet, fall in love, even get married online." Growing cyberlife. As you may have guessed, the video above was...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Wandering Life of the Electric Horseman
I met the Electric Horseman on a spring day last year. He told me I could find him in Lompoc, California, where he would begin the first leg of an expedition north toward Oregon. More specifically, he...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What It's Like to Live Underwater for 31 Days
Fabien Cousteau is on the ocean floor right now, and he's not coming up for air until July. He can breathe down there, of course. There's an oxygen feed between the surface of the sea a few miles off...
View ArticleClik here to view.
NASA is About to Test a Mega-Parachute at the Edge of Space
The key to a successful Mars landing is the same thing that matters in landing on any planet: You have to slow down before you hit the ground. That's why scientists are testing a new supersonic...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Real Reason Apple Wants You to Talk to Your House
“In a few decades’ time,” the computer scientist Karl Steinbuch wrote, “computers will be interwoven into almost every industrial product.” That was in 1966. Since then, futurists and realists alike...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Scientists Found a Way to Save a Long-Lost Spacecraft—Now It's Facing Its...
On April 7, 1986, NASA scientist Bob Farquhar sent final instructions to the International Comet Explorer (ICE), a half-ton probe that had made its way 54 million miles from Earth. It had passed...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What Roads Were Before Cars
1. How cars and car operators colonized our roads. "Roads were seen as a public space, which all citizens had an equal right to, even children at play. 'Common law tended to pin responsibility on the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Guess What Year 'Computerized' Peaked
The word 'computerized' used to promise something. A computerized process was efficient, rigorous, unfailing, and impartial. Computerization was beige magic that could be applied to any field of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Rare Look Inside the Air Force’s Drone Training Classroom
Learning how to drop bombs and fire Hellfire missiles is more like sitting in a regular college classroom than you might expect. There are hundreds of pages of text to digest, continual testing of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
There Are 64 Tiananmen Terms Censored on China's Internet Today
Today—the day known to much of the rest of the world as the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests—is known, in China, as "Internet maintenance day." In anticipation of the anniversary, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Who Knew Balloons Would Be Such a Big Part of the Future?
1. James Bridle is flying a balloon over London this summer. "This summer, artist and writer James Bridle is flying a balloon from the roof of Bold Tendencies, a multi-storey car park and art space in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Who's Going to Buy The New York Times's New Opinion App?
When The New York Times announced its new mobile app, NYT Now, in April, it did more than release a new piece of software to the world. It proposed a new media schedule for would-be users: With...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Not Quite Tinder for Senior Citizens
Dating is a rough world, no matter what your age. And in this day of online/mobile dating, it can be terrifying and exhausting. You can fill out endless questionnaires about your beliefs and morals for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The NSA Probably Really, Really Wants a Quantum Computer
This is huge: Physicists have figured out how to reliably transmit quantum information, a major first step toward the kind of quantum communications and quantum computing that would dramatically...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Science Confirms: Yup, This Book Really Is Bound in Human Skin
Surely, you've seen our recent work on anthropodermic bibliopegy, the early modern practice of binding books in human skin? No? Well, a quick refresher: some books, since the 16th century but before...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How the NFL Field Tests a New Logo
This afternoon, the National Football League revealed its logo for the Super Bowl that will take place, in San Francisco's Candlestick Park 3-Com Park Levi's Stadium, in 2016. The design, which...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Snowdeniversary: The Tech World Can't Forget June 5
1. It's the world's one-year Snowdeniversary, and the EFF is trying to rally the troops about surveillance. "On June 5, 2013 the Guardian newspaper published the first of Edward Snowden's astounding...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Find the World's Oldest Computer (Using an Iron Man Suit)
The Antikythera mechanism is a multi-part machine that was developed, we believe today, to predict eclipses and other astronomical phenomena. It dates back to the 1st century BC; it was discovered at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Forgotten Bliss of Feeling Loyal to a TV Network
Feeling crabby from too much work and a sore back, I’ve been taking refuge in a short YouTube video with extraordinary restorative powers. Although barely 16 seconds long—some versions are less than...
View ArticleClik here to view.
'It Is Now the War of the Men': How the NBC of the 1960s Saw D-Day
In 1962, NBC's DuPont Show of the Week ran a mini-documentary looking back on an event that had taken place nearly a generation earlier: the invasion of Omaha Beach in Normandy. The event that would...
View Article