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Hubble's Time-Lapse of a 'Light Echo'
Well, this is awesome. Scientists have been keeping an eye on an unusual star called V838 Monocerotis since 2002, when it had an explosion that made it, for a few weeks, 600,000 times brighter than...
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What Happens to a Place When the Data About It Is Lost?
The place appeared suddenly and unexpected on my phone’s screen as we were driving through one of the less populated regions of the Northern Swedish countryside. “The little island in the middle of the...
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How to Write 225 Words Per Minute With a Pen
As a journalist, I begin most interviews by holding up my pen and asking, “Have you ever seen one of these?” No one ever has. It’s not an ordinary pen, of course. It’s a Sky wifi smartpen, a piece of...
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The Lost Innovation History of Doritos Tacos Locos
I have some mind-blowing new information about Doritos Locos Tacos. But first, for the uninitiated, let's review why this food product is worthy of investigation. Doritos Locos Tacos are like normal...
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Is Nuclear Power Ever Coming Back?
It was the winter of “Snowmaggedon” in Boston, and MIT grad students Leslie Dewan and Mark Massie had just passed their qualifying exams in nuclear engineering. Suddenly, after months of nonstop...
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Emoji Are Designed to Be More Permanent Than Countries
There are many reasons you might use an emoji flag. Perhaps you want to tout your nation’s performance in the World Cup, salute the national cuisine that gave us sushi, or refer obliquely to...
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The Insane New Kids on the Block Fan Community on Prodigy
For a short, chubby 13-year-old girl with a boy band obsession, going online in the early 1990s was a lot less hostile than going to school. Looking back, I most miss the personal anonymity; an online...
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How SCOTUS Tried to Limit Its Own Decision on Aereo
The Supreme Court just handed down a decision that will have far-reaching implications for the future of television: Aereo, the streaming TV service, has violated the Copyright Act. In a 6-3 ruling,...
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Why It Matters That Google's Android Is Coming to All the Screens
There is a likely vision for computing in the next decade that looks like this: One smart device in your pocket acts as the brain for an ever-evolving constellation of screens in your car and living...
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Want to Search That Cell Phone? Better Get a Warrant
One smartphone owner in eight, Chief Justice John Roberts noted Wednesday, admits to sometimes taking a cell phone into the shower. (The other seven, I think, are probably lying.) Thanks to the Court,...
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'I Dare You to Watch This Entire 3-Minute Video'
It’s an era of great attentional need. Tweets, texts, sexts, and open browser tabs: They clamor for our limited attention, and we flit from one to the other, never quite focusing on any of them. Or so...
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Google's Brand Is Not What It Once Was
Maybe it is the Snowden revelations. Maybe it is Google Glass. Maybe it is the creeping realization that Google is a megacorporation, and not just some quirky guys who help you find webpages. But over...
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A Corrected History of the Typo
These days, a lot of people imbue the printed word with a sense of irrevocability. Print is physical. It is serious. It is, nostalgists like to argue, somehow better—more infused with truth, more...
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The Beautiful, Invisible Game
The first goal of the 2014 World Cup was Brazilian, and it was an own goal. All the television replays showed how unlucky the eccentric Brazilian defender Marcelo was, how the Croatian cross swirled...
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I Sent All My Text Messages in Calligraphy for a Week
I got my first mobile phone when I was in high school. It was 2005, and the feeling of “cool” overwhelmed me. Text messaging was something sacred in those days. I was allotted 200 messages per month. I...
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You Can't Go Home Again, Digital Edition
A few days ago, I wrote about how frustrating it was that I couldn’t remember the password to my first email account—or, more importantly, the dashed-off answers I’d given to security questions when I...
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How the Bicycle Paved the Way for Women's Rights
The bicycle, when it was still new technology, went through a series of rapid iterations in the 19th century before it really went mainstream. Designers toyed with different-sized front and back...
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Software Notes: Solution to Info Overload and Other Eternal Challenges
The new issue (subscribe!) is out. I've just received my in-print copy, and tonight and tomorrow, en route to Colorado, I look forward to reading the 99% of the issue's contents I had heard about in...
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The First Use of 'to Google' on Television? Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Today I learned that, beyond the success Buffy the Vampire Slayer entailed for Joss Whedon—late of Avengers-directing fame—it has a nerdly milestone of its own. According to Charles Arthur in his book...
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