Report

Will net neutrality survive Donald Trump?

by @russellbrandom Nov 30, 2016, 1:10pm EST

When FCC chairman Tom Wheeler passed the Open Internet Order in February of 2015, it was the culmination of decades of work. After countless advocacy campaigns and legal fights, the order classified internet providers as common carriers — falling...

New, 23 comments

Designer bacteria build carbon-silicon materials for the first time

by Rachel Becker Nov 29, 2016, 1:54pm EST

Scientists have genetically engineered bacteria to make a protein that squishes silicon and carbon together long enough for them to stick to one another — forming a bond that, until now, only chemists had managed to create. If scientists can teach...

New, 1 comment

Why YouTube’s biggest stars keep quitting

by Ben Popper Nov 29, 2016, 12:03pm EST

Two weeks ago PewDiePie, the world’s most popular YouTuber, announced he was ending his vlog. Four days later Casey Neistat, one of the fastest rising stars over the last two years, said he was ending his daily vlog. Imagine Beyoncé and Taylor...

New, 18 comments

Backlash against voting audits makes elections less secure

by @russellbrandom Nov 28, 2016, 11:05am EST

Almost three weeks after Election Day, Wisconsin is getting ready to recount its votes, and Pennsylvania and Michigan may soon follow suit. Green Party candidate Jill Stein has raised over $6 million to fund the effort, saying fears of a hacked...

New, 96 comments

How your brain tricks you into believing you’re the reasonable one

by @chengela Nov 23, 2016, 9:00am EST

Few people saw Donald Trump’s victory coming, including Donald Trump. There are easy culprits to blame for the surprise win (skewed polls and fake news come to mind), but the biggest enemy might be our own egos. It’s natural to ignore everything...

What a Trump presidency means for the future of self-driving cars

by @andyjayhawk Nov 22, 2016, 4:33pm EST

Carmakers and tech companies working on self-driving cars are pushing back against the Obama administration’s request to share data and safety specifications with the federal government. But they are expressing hope that President-elect Donald...

New, 13 comments

Cults, chaos, and community: how The Tension Experience rewrote the rules of storytelling

by @bcbishop Nov 22, 2016, 3:23pm EST

The future of immersive entertainment is here, and it is bloody

Young blood transfusions are probably not the best way to reverse aging

by @chengela Nov 22, 2016, 11:00am EST

It’s old blood that seems to really make us grow old

Japan’s tsunami warning system worked well in today’s major earthquake

by Rachel Becker Nov 21, 2016, 10:32pm EST

At 5:59AM local time Tuesday morning, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake shook the east coast of Japan. The Japan Meteorological Agency issued tsunami warnings and evacuation orders soon after the quake hit, warning of possible 10-foot waves. The quake...

New, 1 comment

This smart device sniffed my morning breath to check for gum disease

by Rachel Becker Nov 19, 2016, 11:00am EST

The human mouth is a disgusting place, capable of emitting awful smells. Viruses, fungi, and possibly more than 1,000 species of bacteria live inside this dark, moist orifice. Nestled into the crevices between your gums and teeth, these microbes...

New, 5 comments

Inside Sansar, the VR successor to Second Life

by @thedextriarchy Nov 18, 2016, 2:36pm EST

The door is bright red, perched at the top of a mossy stone staircase in the middle of a floating island. When I approach, a mysterious tune begins emanating from it, as if playing from the other side. Right now, it’s just a simple prop, and there...

New, 4 comments

Daydream Nation

by @thedextriarchy Nov 18, 2016, 1:47pm EST

It’s a couple of weeks before the Daydream View headset launches, and at Google’s Mountain View headquarters, the team has filled a room with pieces of its past. The tables are littered with fabric swatches, molded foam shells, and things that...

New, 20 comments

What’s next for Pantsuit Nation, the pro-Clinton Facebook group with over 3 million members?

by Kaitlyn Tiffany Nov 18, 2016, 1:22pm EST

In Hillary Clinton’s concession speech last Wednesday, she thanked supporters, activists, community leaders — and called upon the members of secret Facebook groups to speak out. “I want everybody coming out from behind that,” she said. “And make...

New, 53 comments

One patient’s blood might hold a new weapon against HIV

by Rachel Becker Nov 17, 2016, 5:31pm EST

The key to developing a new drug to fight HIV may lie in the blood of a patient whose immune system can control the infection, a new study says. Scientists discovered proteins in the patient’s blood that blocked the virus from infecting immune...

New, 2 comments

What does Congress want from smart helmets, HoloLens, and Pokémon Go?

by @thedextriarchy Nov 17, 2016, 3:39pm EST

Yesterday afternoon, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation met with representatives from the world of augmented reality for the first Congressional hearing on the industry. That included general counsel from the...

New, 2 comments

Plants can be engineered to help fight the effects of climate change

by @chengela Nov 17, 2016, 2:00pm EST

Good news for those despairing at our rapidly warming planet: we can supercharge plants to help fight the effects of climate change. Scientists have found two ways to make plants better at turning carbon dioxide into energy — and these techniques...

Facebook won’t call itself a media company. What, exactly, is Facebook?

by Catherine Buni Nov 16, 2016, 4:25pm EST

In the days leading up to and following this election, Facebook has been called lots of things — "a website," "an internet company," "a major player in the media universe," "a strange new class of media outlet," a "tech behemoth," a "cesspool of...

New, 20 comments

This temporary tattoo can listen to your heart

by Rachel Becker Nov 16, 2016, 4:15pm EST

A new stick-on wearable sensor uses the symphony of internal rumblings, whooshing, gurglings, and cracklings to help doctors diagnose different conditions. And this souped-up, miniaturized stethoscope could one day be a way for clinicians to...

New, 1 comment

A White House position could cost Peter Thiel more than he’s willing to give up

by @russellbrandom Nov 16, 2016, 12:26pm EST

One week after the election, President-elect Trump’s White House staff is still being formed, but one familiar name has already surfaced: Peter Thiel. The PayPal co-founder has become one of the most controversial figures in Silicon Valley, thanks...

New, 33 comments

Report
Tech

Facing a Trump administration, NYC may push its immigrant data kill switch

by Colin Lecher Nov 15, 2016, 2:37pm EST

In 2015, New York City launched a municipal identification program with the goal of giving some of the city’s most vulnerable residents access to services that require an ID. Mayor Bill de Blasio gave the plan vocal support, saying the card...

China's right: smartphones are a big reason Trump can't win a trade war

by @vladsavov Nov 15, 2016, 6:50am EST

Apple can't build an iPhone without China, but China can build hundreds of millions of devices approaching the iPhone's quality without Apple's help.

New, 80 comments

The FBI just got its hands on data that Twitter wouldn’t give the CIA

by @russellbrandom Nov 14, 2016, 5:30pm EST

The FBI has a new view into what’s happening on Twitter. Last week, the bureau hired Dataminr, a Twitter-linked analytics firm, to provide an “advanced alerting tool” to over 200 users. Twitter owns a 5 percent stake in Dataminr and provides it...

Report
Tech

Why GoPro's Karma drone came crashing down

by Ben Popper Nov 11, 2016, 10:45am EST

When GoPro launched its Karma drone earlier this year, it seemed like the perfect fit. The company was founded on action cameras, but had seen sales of its flagship Hero line sink since 2014. Over the same time period, the sale of camera drones to...

New, 25 comments

Suicide hotlines receive record number of calls after the election — many from LGBTQ people

by Rachel Becker Nov 11, 2016, 9:48am EST

Even before the votes were counted on Tuesday night, phone calls were pouring into suicide hotlines across the US in record numbers. Americans, including those in the LGBTQ community, were looking for help coping with feelings of anxiety,...

New, 43 comments

Donald Trump’s anti-immigration stance threatens the heart of American innovation

by @nickstatt Nov 11, 2016, 9:00am EST

President-elect Donald Trump is causing a stir in Silicon Valley. After riding the path to the White House in part thanks to his anti-immigration rhetoric, Trump is now casting a shadow over the tech industry’s use of high-skilled foreign labor....

New, 134 comments

YouTube VR is Daydream's killer app

by Ben Popper Nov 10, 2016, 9:02am EST

There is a thick fog drifting through the woods, obscuring everything more than few feet in front of my face. I can see a crooked sapling, and then behind me I hear the crunching of dry leaves. Turning, I spot several figures lurching slowly...

New, 18 comments

Are there more endangered bird species than we think?

by @chengela Nov 9, 2016, 2:00pm EST

Hundreds of bird species around the world are endangered even though they’re not classified as such, according to a new study. Using geographical data, scientists analyzed the habitats of certain birds and concluded that the International Union...

4chan may have brought down pro-Clinton phone lines the day before the election

by @russellbrandom Nov 8, 2016, 11:19am EST

Yesterday, as groups across the country hit the final stretch of their get-out-the-vote campaigns, workers at NextGen Climate noticed some problems with their automated dialer program. As the team started its morning hours, the program used to...

Poaching is on the rise — most illegal ivory comes from recently killed elephants

by @chengela Nov 7, 2016, 3:00pm EST

Almost all the world’s illegal ivory comes from elephants that have been recently killed, researchers say. The new study shows that seized ivory isn’t coming from old stockpiles, but from African elephants that have been poached less than three...

This last-minute voting-machine hack is drawing fire from security experts

by @russellbrandom Nov 7, 2016, 10:52am EST

Friday afternoon, US election officials got an unpleasant surprise. The security firm Cylance released a report disclosing a new attack on the popular Sequoia AVC Edge voting machine, potentially compromising both the machine’s public vote tally...

New, 7 comments

You can now calculate how much Arctic sea ice you’re destroying with your CO2 emissions

by Rachel Becker Nov 3, 2016, 2:10pm EDT

The carbon dioxide emissions I produce as an average American destroy about 650 square feet of Arctic sea ice every year. That’s according to a new study that directly links the amount of annual CO2 released in the atmosphere to the amount of...

What does marijuana legalization mean for stoned driving?

by @chengela Nov 3, 2016, 8:00am EDT

Cannabis is becoming more popular across the US. Four states have legalized recreational marijuana and five more, including California, will vote on the issue next Tuesday. This is good news for many, but there is one big downside: legal pot can...