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Why NYC Drops an 11,875 Pound Ball on New Year's Eve
The tradition dates back to December 31, 1907, though the balls have changed along with technology. On New Year's Eve, a number of word class cities will harken in 2013 with giant fireworks displays....
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Who Was First in the Race to the Moon? The Tortoise
In the race to the moon, who came in first? You might say the answer is Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and that other guy Michael Collins, the crew of Apollo 11. Or you could represent for the crew of...
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Bruce Sterling on Why It Stopped Making Sense to Talk About 'The Internet' in...
Five simple reasons: Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft. Bruce Sterling (flickr/webmink, with some fiddling).Many people use, as a kind of shorthand, The Internet to mean a wide variety of...
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More Than Half of American Homes Don't Use a Landline
With the ascent of mobile, landlines dip back to World War II-era penetration. The landline phone has died and gone to heaven (the russians are here/Flickr) We all knew this day was coming: According...
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You Know What I Want to Do in 2013? Talk to My Television
A plea to TV makers in 2013: give me radically simply voice-control for changing channels.Imagine doing this on your couch in front of your friends. And yes, you have to wear the sweater. Be recognized...
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The Lost Apple 'MacPhone'
This thing is basically the centaur of gadgets.Helmut Esslinger via Design BoomIn the early 1980s, Frog Design founder Helmut Esslinger had the freedom to create a new look and feel for Apple. In a new...
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How-Not-To: This Holiday Season, Show Your Parents How to Break Their Computers
A 2013 resolution: I'm going to demonstrate how to screw up technologies safely.Not like this (flickr/binarydreams).It is a well-recognized feature of the holiday pilgrimage: We children pay homage...
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Remember When Japanese Electronics Firms Were Dominant? Now They're Apple...
It was a very bad year for the country's gadget makers.Glory days! You could have played that Springsteen tape in here, too (flickr/rockheim). From Neojaponisme, we find this pretty bleak assessment of...
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On the Ambivalence We Feel About Seeing Pictures of Tragedy on the Web
Lessons from Saint Augustine and other scholars St. Augustine (Antonello da Messina) Phillip Kennicott, in the Washington Post, deplores the proliferation of horrifying images like the New York Post's...
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The Man Who Collected 1,320 Best-Books-of-2012 Lists
And in the process he learned something awesome. Switch lists coming in by teletype at a Chicago and Northwestern railroad yard, December 1942 (Library of Congress) It's easy to be cynical about -- or...
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The Emancipation Proclamation Was Written Double-Sided
The document that changed everything was, like every other thing, a creature of its time. Pages 1 and 5 of the Emancipation Proclamation, signed on January 1, 1863. Notice the hole punches on each...
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A Thought for You As You Stare Up at the Stars and Ponder the New Year
All the stars in the sky? That's nothing in the cosmic scheme of things. flickr/dawn_perryThe Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait, points out that even when you look up into the infinitude of the night sky,...
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Our Most Popular Technology Stories from 2012
The most-read posts of the outgoing year.I think the best way to review what happened here on The Atlantic's technology pages is to take a look at the e-book we put out of our best work. But I respect...
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Umberto Eco on Why We Love Lists
What is it about humans that make lists so appealing to us? According to Umberto Eco, "We like lists because we don't want to die." A perfect list from earlier this year (Buzzfeed) As each year comes...
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Podcasts to Try in 2013
If it's true, as some sage said, that thoughts shape actions and actions shape habits and habits shape character and character shapes destiny, the obvious question is: What shapes thoughts? Well, lots...
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A Computational Model of the Human Heart
How we try to make sense of the wondrous organ, and when the mechanism fails. The heart is a beautiful pump. While lacking the poetry of most odes to the heart, the Barcelona Supercomputing Center's...
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3D-Printed Records Sound Eerily Like Edison's Early Wax Recordings
At the frontier of 3D printing technology, Amanda Ghassaei transforms digital audio files from Nirvana, New Order, and more, into playable 12" records. The results are recognizable, though fuzzy,...
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Going to the Gym Today? Thank This 19th-Century Orthopedist
Dr. Zander started a movement for movement itself. A patient at the Zander Institute in Stockholm, 1890s. (Tekniska Museet/National Museum of Science and Technology, Stockholm, via Cabinet Magazine)...
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What Treadmills Were Made For
Providing horizontal motion for absurdly complex dance moves. Megan Garber delivered a pocket history of the invention of the gym machine today. But she left out one key use for the treadmill:...
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After 10 Years of Delay, the FCC Begins to Address Unjust Phone Rates for...
Families can pay up to around $20 for just a 15-minute call with a loved one in prison. Perhaps that is about to change. Reuters For Americans behind bars, connections to the outside world are scarce:...
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