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Robot vs. Robot
Beautiful mathematical patterns are hidden in the chaos of Jackson Pollock’s famous drip paintings. The repeating designs—fractals of grey, black, and yellow—were first uncovered in 1999 by Richard...
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The Myth About Bill Clinton's Emails
Bill Clinton, the first United States president to send an email from the White House, is famous for practically never having used it. Clinton "sent a grand total of two emails as president," he said...
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The Newest Place on Earth
Late last year, in the sparkling blue of the South Pacific, a huge volcanic eruption produced the newest island on Earth. The island, formed by the undersea Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano, is...
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Video Games Are Better Without Characters
In the mid-1980s, the easiest way to check out the latest computer games was to go to a bookstore in the mall. Past the John Grisham and the bargain history books in the B. Dalton Bookseller, you’d...
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Like Yelp, but for Autism-Friendly Businesses
Three years ago, Topher Wurts took his son Kirby, who was 10 at the time, to a "run the bases" day at a ballpark in Pennsylvania. The event was billed as kid-friendly, and Wurts hoped it would provide...
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The Military's New Bid to Protect Your Data
The average, technologically connected American worker produces some 5,000 megabytes of digital data a day, enough to fill nine CD-ROMs. Only a small fraction of it is stored permanently or is clearly...
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When Students Can't Go Online
Tim Berners-Lee, the British scientist credited with the creation of the Internet, insists that access to the World Wide Web should be recognized as a basic human right. Using that logic, if education...
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California's Centers of Technology: Bay Area, LA, San Diego, and ... Fresno?
Earlier this week I mentioned a tech company in the Mural District of Fresno's tattered-but-struggling-to-recover downtown called Bitwise Industries. It's a company we first visited one year ago and...
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People Who Use Firefox or Chrome Are Better Employees
There was a time when the browser you used was nothing more than a matter of taste or subtle self-expression. Safari was for Apple purists, Chrome for the fleet of foot, Firefox for the universally...
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How to Set Up a Clinton-Style Home Email Server
Responding to mounting questions, Hillary Clinton—the former U.S. secretary of state and a presumptive presidential candidate—said this week that she “opted for convenience” by using a personal email...
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When Oceans Disappear
All over the universe, there are places where oceans used to be. Deep, sparkling, planet-covering oceans that roiled for billions of years and then dried up. For example, a vast body of water larger...
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How ISIS Succeeds on Social Media Where #StopKony Fails
Social networks offer an incredible tool for tapping into the collective unconscious, a virtual Jungian arena in which competition might be expected to amplify the critical values and anxieties of...
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How to Google Something You Don't Know How to Describe
I was walking through lower Manhattan on the way to work one morning a couple of years ago when I saw a guy in a hardhat peering through something like one of these things mounted on a tripod: Tiger...
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Microsoft Is Phasing Out Internet Explorer
The end is finally in sight for Microsoft’s long-fraught Internet Explorer. At the Microsoft Convergence conference yesterday in Atlanta, Georgia, Chris Capossela, Microsoft’s head of marketing, said...
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3-D Printing Just Got 100 Times Faster
You know that scene in Terminator 2 when the T-1000 emerges from a shallow pool of metallic liquid? It’s a classic. It’s also what inspired researchers at the University of North Carolina and North...
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A Brief History of Astronaut Fashion
While you can always find next season’s most cutting-edge looks in Manhattan’s Garment District, the most futuristic outerwear in New York City wasn’t on the runways during the recent Fashion Week....
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The Most Romantic Thing Ever Caught on Film
In 1988, two kids who didn't know each other happened to spend the same afternoon at Sesame Place, a small theme park in Pennsylvania. Sixteen years later, they met on a blind date. But it wasn't until...
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Celestial Commons: SpaceX Makes Its Photos Easier for Everyone to Use
Photos taken from space—that is, photos that implicitly have humanity in them—got a little easier for humanity to use on Wednesday. The private space contractor SpaceX has released its photos under a...
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The Next Cybersecurity Target: Medical Data
Hackers often carry out massive cyberattacks to gain access to financial data through banks and retail companies, but this week's cybercrime hit a seemingly new target: medical data, taken from the...
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Coffee Today, Everything Tomorrow
Starbucks customers across the country will, by the end of the year, be able to order and pay for coffee from their smartphones before they set foot in a store, the company announced this week. The...
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