September 24, 2019
Why We Sometimes Distrust Technology
Residents of cities like Detroit are getting fed up with police surveillance technology, and don’t care whether it decreases crime. Several digital rights advocacy groups are also weighing in, calling for bans on government use of facial recognition…
August 17, 2019
Tiny Air Vehicles Roundup
Back when we were more optimistic about the effects of technology on society and everyday life, the joke was that if we don’t get jet packs, all that technology isn’t worth the effort. The joke facilitated the naming of a great Scottish indie group…
August 16, 2019
Big Data and the Final Frontier
It may not have been as entertaining as a Star Trek fan convention, but last February in Munich, the European Space Agency and a handful of other EU organizations hosted the Big Data from Space conference, where hundreds of papers were read on the…
July 25, 2019
No Debate Championship for Artificial Intelligence
It wasn’t a “roast” like Dan Robitzski of Futurism says it was, but in February, Harish Natarajan, a former championship college debater, won the audience vote over Project Debater, an IBM program designed to respond to its opponents in a debate and…
July 24, 2019
‘Weird Tech’ Roundup
“Anything that was in the world when you were born,” Douglas Adams wrote, “is normal and natural. Anything invented between when you were 15 and 35 is new and revolutionary and exciting, and you’ll probably get a career in it. Anything invented…