Armies of zombie computers caused a lot of mayhem in 2018. In January, one cluster of infected, connected machines attacked the three biggest banks in the Netherlands. The attack crippled computer systems and left customers uncertain about their money. In February, a website for computer programmers, called Github, was knocked offline by a network of […]
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Pedestrians in downtown Miami one weekday last November might have noticed something unusual about the blue Ford Fusions threading their way through the city’s congested streets. An odd-looking array of cameras and sensors sat atop each car’s roof. And inside, the person in the driver’s seat almost never touched the steering wheel. Unlike the conventional
Can self-driving cars make roads safer and less congested? Read More »
Tech experts have long championed quantum computers as the next generation of machine, promising to solve big problems in lightning-fast time, but the delicate chips exist in only a handful of labs. In the race to build the largest one yet, Google shot ahead in March when it unveiled Bristlecone, a 72-qubit device with low
Quantum computing gets its “Hello World” moment. Read More »
Inspiration often comes from unusual sources. Nelson Sepúlveda knows this firsthand. He got his big idea for a new source of power simply by looking out the window at the right time. Sepúlveda is an engineer at Michigan State University in East Lansing. He studies materials that can be used to build tiny electronic devices.
What powers these electronics? We do! Read More »
ONCE A MONTH, 40-year-old Kristen Kilmer drives nearly 400 miles from her home in Spearfish, South Dakota, to the Avera Cancer Institute in Sioux Falls. On some mornings, she leaves as early as 1:30 a.m. after kissing her sleeping 11-year-old daughter goodbye. Without traffic or inclement weather, it’s a six-hour haul from one side of the
Searching Blood for Cancer Clues Read More »
Many smartphone apps don’t cost anything to download and use. But don’t be fooled: There’s still a price. “Your privacy is what’s paying for it,” says Brian Krupp. He’s a computer engineer at Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio. Behind the scenes, he says, apps are “leaky.” They may deliberately collect more data than they
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Forget reality: In virtual reality, you can be whomever and wherever you want. VR makes the unreal real, using computer software and hardware that responds to our body’s movements to immerse us in a convincing alternate existence. There’s plenty of space to roam. VR places can be huge. In Second Life, an early pioneer of virtual
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One winter morning in 2015, as he left for work from his home in Silver Spring, Md., Jonathan Margulies pushed the button on his remote to close his garage door. Nothing happened. He tried again. Nothing. The motor was shot. He ended up replacing it with a “smart” opener that not only lifted and lowered
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With round lenses set in super-thick frames, these new eyeglasses look like they belong on a cartoon character. But what they lack in style, they make up for in smart design. Their lenses are made of glycerin — a thick, colorless liquid — encased in clear rubber. And without effort, they will focus on whatever
Auto-focus eyeglasses rely on liquid lenses Read More »
A 94Fifty looks like an ordinary basketball. You can inflate, dribble, pass, shoot, swoosh and slam-dunk it. But there’s more going on than meets the fingers. During play, the ball records how hard and fast a person dribbles and throws. It also measures the arc of a shot. It sends the data to a user’s
The Internet of Things wants to link all facets of our world Read More »
