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The Original Patent for the Slurpee Maker
On a sweltering August day, what better to cool you down than a "semi-frozen drink comprising tiny frozen particles each of which contains the proper proportions of water, flavoring and carbon...
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The American Attitude to Self-Driving Cars
Self-driving cars will bring a variety of benefits, say a majority of Americans. More than 60 percent of surveyed Americans think autonomous vehicles are very or somewhat likely to lead to fewer...
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Before a High-Stakes Standardized Test, Uzbekistan Shut the Whole Country's...
Test-makers and test-takers are engaged in an eternal battle. The test-takers want to look as good as possible, and therefore try to use any tool—any technology—to improve their scores. Test-makers,...
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The Evolution of Slang
The New York Times recently published an article about the implementation of a $25 penalty for pot possession in Washington, D.C. The article quoted residents of the District sharing their thoughts on...
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This Jet Was Transformed Into an Ebola Quarantine Unit
Over the weekend, a plane took off from Liberia, bound for the United States. On board was, along with a small group of medical personnel, Kent Brantly, 33, one of two Americans who became infected...
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What One Little Button Reveals About The New York Times 'Brain'
One of the tasks the human brain best performs is identifying patterns. We're so hardwired this way, researchers have found, that we sometimes invent repetitions and groupings that aren't there as a...
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Why Ebay Tells Manufacturers in China What You're Searching For
In a recent conversation with some colleagues about cool—okay, memorable—things from the early 1990s, our chatter turned, as it does, to Crystal Pepsi, Pocket Rockers, and Cross Colours. All of which...
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The Robots Are Coming, but Are They Really Taking Our Jobs?
Here's what we can agree on: The robots are coming. They're coming to your house, to your doctor's office, to your car, and to your favorite coffee shop. By 2025, technologists believe artificial...
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When Robots Write Songs
When Pharrell Williams accepted five Grammy Awards this year for the French duo Daft Punk (pretending to be robots), he may have portended a coming invasion by real music robots, from France. Computer...
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Why We Dug Atari
There we were at a trash dump in New Mexico: archaeologists, a documentary film crew, Alamogordo city representatives, security and safety teams, a French gourmet food truck, a bevy of hundreds of...
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The Remarkable Way Chewbacca Got a Voice
Darth Vader may have the most famous voice in the Star Wars movies—"Luuuuke, I am your faaaather"—but the most interesting character voice belongs to Chewbacca, Han Solo's furry friend. The voice is...
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A More Pseudonymous Internet
“Some chick asked me what I’d do with 10 million bucks. I told her I’d wonder where the rest of my money went.” That’s from the epically ridiculous Twitter account, @GSElevator. Since 2011, it has...
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Man-Made Earthquakes Are Changing the Seismic Landscape
This isn't just the stuff of comic-book villains: Real humans in the real world—actually, in Oklahoma, of all places—can cause earthquakes. Scientists have known about man-made earthquakes for...
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Tricking Facebook's Algorithm
We often talk about algorithms like they're people. Algorithms take action. They think. They make decisions. Sometimes they even offend us and we tell them so: "Um, no thanks, Facebook." "Whoa, that's...
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Wifi in the Woods
We had only been out of Internet range for a few hours, and already DJ Spooky was getting twitchy. The plan had been to fly straight from Fairbanks to the tundra, where we would spend a week running...
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The Biometric Future of Crossing Borders While Brown
When I used to enter the United States on a student visa, I would keep my papers tucked into my bag until I reached the counter. Most likely no one cared, but I still felt the weight of collective...
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What Good Is All This Tech Diversity Data, Anyway?
It has become a grand gesture in tech this summer for big companies to release demographic data about their workforces. It started back in May, when Google blogged about its lack of diversity, saying,...
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Why Bottled Water Comes From California, Which Doesn't Have Much to Spare
Bottled-water drinkers, we have a problem: There's a good chance that your water comes from California, a state experiencing the third-driest year on record. The details of where and how bottling...
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Bump Tracker: Nine Months of Big Data
Anne Morriss put down the phone and rushed to where her baby lay sleeping. She watched her newborn breathe for a minute before hurriedly picking up the phone, “He’s still alive,” she said shakily. Anne...
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