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Tech Update: Magic That Works, Magic That Doesn't
Front courtyard of The Queen’s College, Oxford, recently, in a panorama that Google Photos automatically created from several overlapping smart-phone shots. Here is a link to the same composite picture...
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Image-Melding, from Google Photos
Recently I recommended that you check out Google Photos if you have not done so already. Like Gmail, it’s a way to store huge quantities of digital material and leave its management to someone else. (I...
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Google Photos: Did Microsoft Get There First?
Panorama photo created by Microsoft’s Windows Live Photo Gallery. For details, read on. In two earlier dispatches, here and here, I suggested that you give Google Photos a try if you hadn’t done so...
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A Washing Machine That Recycles Its Own Water
Rick Wilking / ReutersEarlier this year, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosted the inaugural MIT Water Innovation Prize, inviting attendees from around the world to pitch their...
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Video Is Never Enough
Jim Young / ReutersOn October 20, 2014, a white Chicago Police Department officer named Jason Van Dyke fired 16 shots at a black Chicago resident, a 17-year-old named Laquan McDonald. Van Dyke started...
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Out of the Mouths of Bots
The head of an automaton is pictured in a box in the workshop of Swiss artisan Francois Junod in 2011. Denis Balibouse / ReutersOn a hot Saturday evening in early August, an endearing Canadian robotics...
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Google and Microsoft: Why Does One Seem Cooler and ‘More Innovative’ Than the...
Young Bill Gates, innovator (Microsoft)In the three previous installments you’ll find lower down in this Thread, I started with ‘Google’s powerful new Photos feature — and then heard from a Microsoft...
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President Taft Ate a Lot of Possums
When I wrote about White House Thanksgiving menus earlier this week, lots of readers noted the detail about President Taft having served a giant possum along with a turkey.What I didn’t mention was...
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The Internet Isn't Available in Most Languages
David Mercado / ReutersTweet, tuít, or giolc? These were the three iterations of a Gaelic version of the word “tweet” that Twitter’s Irish translators debated in 2012. The agonizing choice between an...
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OPM Just Now Figured Out How Much Data It Owns
ReutersWhen the government announced this summer that more than 4 million federal employees had their personal information stolen—likely by Chinese hackers—lawmakers and victims were outraged....
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November Must-Reads
Scientists believe a new and troubling form of antibiotic resistance likely comes from feeding a key drug to pigs in China and elsewhere. China Stringer Network / ReutersThis fall, my colleagues and I...
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Please Be Brief
Matthias Tunger / CorbisBlinkist is an app that aims to solve a problem I thought only I had: It summarizes thick nonfiction books into digestible summaries that take 15 minutes to read, as opposed to...
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Finding Dark Fiber in a Desert Ghost Town
Ingrid BurringtonLots of fiber-optic cable in the United States runs along right-of-way routes for highways and railroads because it offers telecoms a straight-shot easement over a really long...
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Nature Has Lost Its Meaning
Denis Balibouse / ReutersHumans were once a fairly average species of large mammals, living off the land with little effect on it. But in recent millennia, our relationship with the natural world has...
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Mapping Climate Change: Ways to Envision What's Happened Already, and What Is...
Map of biological “biomass carbon sink” areas, where carbon is tied up in living plans. It is one of a large collection of climate-related maps in a new Esri release. (Esri) As the climate talks open...
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Bill Gates and the Quest for Sustainable Energy, Cont'd
The Microsoft tycoon and humanitarian, timed with the start of the Paris Climate Conference, just released details of his big push for clean energy (discussed in the above interview last month with...
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The High-Stakes Race to Rid the World of Human Drivers
Rudy Balasko / Andrey_Kuzmin / Shutterstock / Zak Bickel / The AtlanticThe race to bring driverless cars to the masses is only just beginning, but already it is a fight for the ages. The competition is...
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Why Are There So Many Data Centers in Iowa?
Jim Young / ReutersThe variables that determine where to locate a data center form a carefully calibrated form of real estate alchemy. When I’ve asked data center operations managers, the answer has...
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How Solar and Wind Got So Cheap, So Fast
A power-generating wind turbine is seen in front of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, ahead of the UN climate talks. Christian Hartmann / ReutersA funny change has happened this year: People have become...
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Humming, Glowing, Glorious Lightsabers
A still photo of Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker and Bob Anderson as Darth Vader in "Star Wars: Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) LucasfilmThe lightsaber is an intimate weapon. Its neon glow may...
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