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Inequality in American Education Will Not Be Solved Online
With funding tight, the state of California has turned to Udacity to provide MOOCs for students enrolled in remedial courses. But what is lost when public education is privatized? Unlit road at night...
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Graph: Facebook's Attempt to Be More Than Just a Big Time Suck
With its new search tool, Facebook is aiming to be more than an online social space -- it wants to be a resource too. Facebook Speaking in broad generalities, Facebook is for fun. It's where you go to...
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Aghast Over Beijing's Air Pollution? This Was Pittsburgh Not That Long Ago
Change takes a long time. Pittsburgh, for its part, did not enact smoke controls until more than a century after travelers described it as hell with the lid off.NASA The photographs and measurements...
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Video: Coming Face-to-Nothing with a Driverless Vehicle
I've heard and read a lot about driverless cars. I've read New Aesthetic essays and listened to Google engineers. I've pondered whether they'll be a net environmental disaster or quite the opposite....
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The White House Petition Site Is a Joke (and Also the Future of Democracy)
Want to troll your federal government? It just got a lot more difficult. Whitehouse.gov First of all, it should be said: Hahahahahahahaha. The White House -- the seat of federal power in the United...
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The Java Menace, Cont.
As I mentioned two days ago, tech people I take seriously are themselves taking seriously the threat of computers being hacked through a vulnerability in Java code. For the record, some updated...
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Inequality in American Education Will Not Be Solved Online
With funding tight, the state of California has turned to Udacity to provide MOOCs for students enrolled in remedial courses. But what is lost when public education is privatized? Unlit road at night...
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Aaron's Law
It won't bring him back. But the loss of the Internet activist has prompted a bill in Congress that would protect others from the same kind of prosecutorial abuse. ThoughtWorks/AP A week ago, Aaron...
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When Technology Invents Problems, Moisturizing Jeans Edition
Denim, disrupted. Wrangler via Fast Company Did you know about the scourge that is systematically sabotaging your beauty regimen? Did you know that the culprit is in your closet? Did you know that the...
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Nightmareliner: The FAA Has Grounded All Boeing 787 Aircraft
Reuters Earlier today, a Boeing 787 -- better known as the "Dreamliner" -- made an emergency landing at Takamatsu airport in western Japan after a burning smell was detected in the plane's cockpit and...
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How Bad Are the Dreamliner's Problems?
(Please see update below.) The Boeing 787 "Dreamliner" is a beautiful airplane in some serious trouble right now. You should read our Megan Garber's look at the news yesterday. But also please check...
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Michelle Obama Is on Twitter (Again)
Happy birthday, Mrs. Obama! Here's a new Twitter feed. Twitter.com/flotus Today is Michelle Obama's birthday. By way of gifts to celebrate the occasion, the First Lady is getting the present that is...
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Obscurity: A Better Way to Think About Your Data Than 'Privacy'
Obscurity is a protective state that can further a number of goals, such as autonomy, self-fulfillment, socialization, and relative freedom from the abuse of power. (tajai/Flickr) Facebook's...
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We Just Sent the Mona Lisa to the Moon ... With Lasers
The first time anyone has achieved one-way laser communication at planetary distances Since mid-2009, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been, as its name would suggest, circling the moon. As its...
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This 1-Minute Video of the Earth's Rising Temperatures Will Keep You Up at Night
2012 was not the hottest year on record, but the direction we're heading is pretty clearly a bad one. Whew! We did it! We didn't have another warmest-year-on-record! Just kidding. 2012 might not have...
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Siri, Why Aren't You Sassy?
Apple's looking for a writer to give its cyborg assistant more "character." AP Q: Siri, why are you so boring? A: I'm sorry, Megan, I didn't quite catch that. Q: I just asked -- Siri, why are you...
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Apple's Hiring a Writer to 'Evolve and Enrich Siri'
Siri is a character in your phone. And Apple has decided, she needs some new dialog. The company posted a job listing earlier this month to LinkedIn looking for a writer/editor to work on Siri. Among...
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Coming Soon: Fewer Pictures of Naked People at Our Nation's Airports
The TSA has ended its contract with controversial scanner maker Rapiscan. A security officer examines a computer screen showing a scan from a Rapiscan full-body scanner. (Reuters) Here's the latest in...
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9 Other Things That Harper's Publisher Rick MacArthur Googles
"Try finding Harper's Magazine when you Google 'magazines that publish essays' or 'magazines that publish short stories' -- it isn't easy." No, Rick, no it's not. I don't want to delve too deeply into...
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Report: You Do Not Use Facebook Nearly as Much as You Think You Do
When asked, students said they spent an average of 149 minutes *per day* on Facebook, but monitoring software found that this was a gross overestimation. Reynol Junco People are notoriously unreliable...
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