2019 June

How the iPhone Helped Save the Planet

The more than 2 billion iPhones sold since Apple first launched it exactly 12 years ago have done a lot of good for their owners, but it seems like they’ve been bad news for the planet. Building that many devices requires a lot of metal, plastic, glass, and other natural resources. Some of them, including […]

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Taser Maker Says It Won't Use Facial Recognition in Bodycams

Axon, creator of the Taser, did something unusual for a technology company last year. The Arizona corporation convened an ethics board of external experts to offer guidance on potential downsides of its technology. Tom Simonite covers artificial intelligence for WIRED. Thursday, that group published a report recommending that the company not deploy facial recognition technology […]

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The Infrastructure Mess Causing Countless Internet Outages

In a weeks-long stretch in 2014, hackers stole thousands of dollars a day in cryptocurrency from owners. In 2017, internet outages cropped up around the United States for hours. Last year, Google Cloud suffered hours of disruptions. Earlier this month, a large swath of European mobile data was rerouted through the state-backed China Telecom. And […]

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8 Essential Books in the Queer Comics Canon

More than a decade ago, when Batwoman was reimagined as a gay character, it was a big deal. She was a woman in comics who dated and danced with other women, experienced heartbreak, and went through many of the mundanities of relationships that queer people aren't often afforded in mainstream media. Katherine "Kate" Kane was […]

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NASA Will Send a Helicopter to Hunt for Life on Saturn's Biggest Moon

On Wednesday, NASA announced it will send a spacecraft to the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon and one of the leading candidates for finding extraterrestrial microbial life in our solar system. The Dragonfly mission will involve a small, drone-like rotorcraft lander that will be able to fly in small hops across Titan’s surface, covering […]

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YouTube Is Giving You More Control Over Video Recommendations

YouTube has been at the center of a long series of scandals in recent years, many concerning one of its main features: the recommendation algorithm. The software encourages users to watch one video after another, which are served up on a menu labeled “Up Next.” Dubbed the “great radicalizer,” the algorithm has been accused by […]

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One Boy’s Dream Vacation to See Giant Construction Equipment

Every three years, the global construction industry gathers in Munich for Bauma, the biggest trade fair in the world—more than 150 acres of exhibition space devoted to cutting-edge cranes, backhoes, diggers, and mining equipment. It spills out of the Munich Convention Center’s 18 halls and into most of the surrounding parking areas. It attracts 620,000 […]

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How to Watch the First 2020 Democratic Primary Debate

Summer is here, and so is the first Democratic debate of the 2020 election season. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the Democrats have fielded a historically large group of candidates this election cycle. To accommodate them all—or at least the top 20—in a semi-reasonable fashion, the Democratic National Committee and its broadcast […]

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Wayfair Employees Are Walking Out. Here's Why

A group of workers at the ecommerce company Wayfair staged a walkout in Boston Wednesday afternoon to protest the company’s sale of furniture to a government contractor that manages detention centers amid an ongoing humanitarian crisis at the southern border. Click Here: watford fc shirt The walkout is taking place in Copley Square, near Wayfair’s […]

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YouTube Is Giving You More Control Over Video Recommendations

YouTube has been at the center of a long series of scandals in recent years, many concerning one of its main features: the recommendation algorithm. The software encourages users to watch one video after another, which are served up on a menu labeled “Up Next.” Dubbed the “great radicalizer,” the algorithm has been accused by […]

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