In the streets of New York, few things give you away as a tourist as obviously as tilting your head to take in the city’s upper limits. But when the red, yellow, and blue helicopter appeared in the skies over Manhattan’s southern tip, even the most jaded of native urbanites could be excused for risking […]
Read MoreBen Berman thinks there's a problem with the way we date. Not in real life—he's happily engaged, thank you very much—but online. He's watched too many friends joylessly swipe through apps, seeing the same profiles over and over, without any luck in finding love. The algorithms that power those apps seem to have problems, too, […]
Read MoreFor much of the past decade, Airbnb and New York City have been embroiled in a high-profile feud. Airbnb wants legitimacy in its biggest market. City officials want to limit home-sharing platforms, which they argue exacerbate the city’s housing crisis and pose safety risks by allowing people to transform homes into illegal hotels. Click Here: […]
Read MoreLast week, Mona Lisa smiled. A big, wide smile, followed by what appeared to be a laugh and the silent mouthing of words that could only be an answer to the mystery that had beguiled her viewers for centuries. A great many people were unnerved. Gregory Barber covers cryptocurrency, blockchain, and artificial intelligence for WIRED. […]
Read MoreThe Memorial Day weekend begins on a dire note for constitutional protections. On Thursday, the US government indicted Wikileaks founder Julian Assange for violating the Espionage Act. This is the first time in modern history that the US has charged the publisher of sensitive materials rather than the person who leaked it. The charges stunned […]
Read MoreThis week we’re putting galaxies at center stage. There’s plenty of room; by now you may have heard that our universe is expanding, and will continue to move outward for all of time, until there isn’t any more time. But: In its early days, before the universe began expanding, it was much more compact. Massive […]
Read MoreUS wireless carriers like T-Mobile and Verizon go out of their way to make expensive smartphones seem affordable. Why not buy a $1,000 Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus if you only have to pay $0 down and $30 a month for it? Whether you pay it at once or in 24 installments, you’re still blowing hundreds […]
Read MoreA little over half a century ago, chaos started spilling out of a famous experiment. It came not from a petri dish, a beaker or an astronomical observatory, but from the vacuum tubes and diodes of a Royal McBee LGP-30. This “desk” computer—it was the size of a desk—weighed some 800 pounds and sounded like […]
Read MorePassword managers are the vegetables of the internet. We know they're good for us, but most of us are happier snacking on the password equivalent of junk food. For seven years running that's been "123456" and "password"—the two most commonly used passwords on the web. The problem is, most of us don't know what makes […]
Read MoreMan, it's been a long week. Does anyone even remember it started with former White House counsel Don McGahn defying a Congressional subpoena at this point? Or that New York State had effectively closed a legal loophole that would allow them to charge people President Trump pardoned on a federal level? Does anyone recall the […]
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