Monika Glennon has lived in Huntsville, Alabama, for the last 12 years. Other than a strong Polish accent, she fits a certain stereotype of the All-American life. She’s blonde. Her husband is a veteran Marine. Her two children, a boy and a girl, joined the military as adults. She … | Continue reading
Internal company documents from IBM show that medical experts working with the company’s Watson supercomputer found “multiple examples of unsafe and incorrect treatment recommendations” when using the software, according to a report from Stat News. | Continue reading
Amazon’s controversial face recognition software, called Rekognition, misidentified more than two dozen members of Congress as people arrested for crimes. The false identifications were made when the ACLU of Northern California tasked Rekognition with matching photos of all 535 m … | Continue reading
Windows 10, Microsoft’s current version of its operating has long tormented users with a hard-to-bypass policy of forced updates. It will soon try to take the edge off by using machine learning to determine whether a user is actually using a computer when it updates. | Continue reading
The Moon today is not habitable. It’s covered in potentially killer dust and seemingly dry as a bone. But though it seems wild to think, a new perspective wonders: What if the Moon used to be friendly to life? | Continue reading
The Black Hills mountain range, which stretches from South Dakota to Wyoming, is known for its lush forests, scenic waterfalls, and dense, intricate cave systems. But 150 million years ago, humongous, long-necked dinosaurs called sauropods roamed there—and scientists just identif … | Continue reading
As an Uber driver, you have to deal with low wages, an uncertain future, and the possibility of getting yelled at by the company’s billionaire founder. There’s also the more common issue of drunk people puking in your back seat. But a news report claims passengers in Miami are ge … | Continue reading
Dozens of defendants were sentenced to prison on a wealth of fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy charges relating to a complex call center scheme operating from India, the Department of Justice announced on Monday. A ring of scammers operating both in India and the U.S. coerc … | Continue reading
Professional astronomers are busy people. Some are mapping distant galaxies, others are listening for aliens, and more still are searching for habitable planets—which, it seems, we might one day need. But on occasion, they’re also called upon to do something that shouldn’t requir … | Continue reading
Earlier this year, scientists from Stanford University concluded that a strange skeleton known as the Atacama Mummy belonged to a human girl whose physical malformations were the result of several severe genetic mutations. A team of international experts is now questioning these … | Continue reading
Scientists made nanoparticles that spin around each other a billion times per second, the fastest mechanical rotation on record. They want to use these spinning particles to study the very fabric of spacetime. | Continue reading
Scientists are scrambling to find painkillers that can ease suffering without the addictive potential of opioids. One potential solution, a new study out Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine suggests, might involve creating modified versions of the common wrinkle treatment … | Continue reading
Many of us enjoy the odd glass of wine or beer, but every once in a while we like to throw down and get completely wasted. But for many Americans, these binge-drinking sessions aren’t as “every once in a while” as we’d like to believe. New research shows that nearly 20 percent of … | Continue reading
Over the past few years, there’s been a steady rise in the rate of Americans who die by suicide and drugs each year. But while much of the attention surrounding these deaths has focused on the opioid crisis, a new study out Wednesday in the BMJ highlights a different aspect of th … | Continue reading
In a new interview published today, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg goes long on a wide range of topics including selling data, taking holocaust deniers at their word, fake news, and one simple idea that’s crazy enough, it just might work. | Continue reading
Considering Android’s massive mobile market share, this was pretty much an inevitability. But today it finally happened for real: The EU slapped Google’s parent company Alphabet with a record fine of nearly $5.1 billion for violating European antitrust regulations. | Continue reading
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was anointed as the richest man in modern history this week, and he’s just a hair’s breadth away from being worth more than the entire Walmart dynasty. The original big-box retailer is feeling the pressure and is reportedly looking into launching it own … | Continue reading
Looks like Amazon Studios is getting into the role-playing business. It’s developing a sci-fi series based on Tales From The Loop, the crowd-funded art project from Simon Stålenhag that was also turned into a role-playing game. | Continue reading
The second day of a three-day strike by Amazon warehouse workers near Madrid coinciding with the e-commerce giant’s Prime Day promotion escalated significantly on Tuesday, with trade unions telling Spanish newspaper Público that police in riot gear had charged the strikers multip … | Continue reading
Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer, Brad Smith, called for federal regulation of face recognition in a new blog post on Friday. Half of all adults already have their face in a federal database, and vendors are supplying face recognition technology to schools, airports, … | Continue reading
The Herpetologists’ League rescinded its annual Distinguished Herpetologist award after winner Dick Vogt showed racy photos during his acceptance address. | Continue reading
To help us grok the immensity of the cosmos, the European Space Agency has released a remarkable image of space in which every point is an entire galaxy. If you didn’t feel insignificant before seeing this, you sure as hell will now. | Continue reading
Earlier today, a basketball-sized chunk of molten rock slammed into a tour boat off the coast of Hawaii, injuring 23 people and sending at least four to the hospital. The incident happened near the Kilauea volcano, which has been erupting since early May. | Continue reading
Archaeologists have uncovered the earliest evidence of bread-making at a site in northeastern Jordan. Dating back some 14,400 years, the discovery shows that ancient hunter-gatherers were making and eating bread 4,000 years before the Neolithic era and the introduction of agricul … | Continue reading
Bluetooth was never supposed to be called Bluetooth. Back in 1996, a consortium of companies—Intel, Ericsson, Nokia, and later IBM—decided to create a single wireless standard. Each company had been developing their own short-range radio technologies, but all the names they came … | Continue reading
If you’ve ever sat down to watch your Roku-powered TV and thought, “Boy I wish I had some Roku-powered speakers to enhance this experience,” you are in luck. The set-top box maker just announced a new set of speakers that work exclusively with Roku TV televisions. It’s kind of a … | Continue reading
Chinese authorities have busted what they said was one of the world’s largest online betting operations involving cryptocurrency, with over $1.5 billion in illicit bets allegedly on the line. | Continue reading
What started as a routine traffic stop has quickly escalated into a civil rights case in a Florida courtroom after a man was put behind bars this week for failing to unlock his phone. | Continue reading
Two US senators have some suspicions about smart TVs, and they’re asking the Federal Trade Commission to look into the data collection practices employed by TV manufacturers to see if the internet-connected devices are quietly sucking up information from unwitting consumers. | Continue reading
Left hand on A S D F? Good. Right hand on J K L and, for some reason, “;”? Congrats, you’re in home position! A thing basically every learned in their school’s computer lab and never used for the rest of their lives. Did you learn other things? Brag a little louder about going to … | Continue reading
You’re looking at the center of our galactic home, the Milky Way, as imaged by 64 radio telescopes in the South African wilderness. | Continue reading
An Ohio school district is gearing up for a surprising security upgrade for the new year: smart pepper spray. Beginning in the fall, schools in the Columbiana Exempted Village School District in Ohio will begin using devices called ‘Threat Extinguishers.’ Modeled after fire extin … | Continue reading
Police in Detroit are looking for two suspects who allegedly managed to hack a gas pump and steal over 600 gallons of gasoline, valued at about $1,800. The theft took place in the middle of the day and went on for about 90 minutes, with the gas station attendant unable to thwart … | Continue reading
The last two Blockbuster stores in Alaska are shutting their doors for good next week according to the Anchorage Daily News, which means there is just one remaining relic of the video rental giant still up and operating in the entire United States. | Continue reading
The FCC knows that Americans hate telecoms, and it’s doing everything it can to give us reason to hate them more. On Tuesday, a proposal to kneecap the informal complaint process at the agency sparked cries of anti-consumerism. Now, the rule changes have been approved—and formal … | Continue reading
A high-contrast, black-and-white image of your bones is an effective tool for spotting fractures or breaks. But after 120+ years, x-ray imaging is getting a remarkable update with 3D, full-color images that reveal far more than just the bones inside you. These images will improve … | Continue reading
Facebook is apologizing after its algorithms tagged 65,000 Russian users as “interested in treason.” Facebook algorithmically tags users based on their behavior, making it easier for advertisers to target people interested in specific topics. In this case, however, the tag “treas … | Continue reading
In the 1980s, scientists learned that all humans living today are descended from a woman, dubbed “Mitochondrial Eve,” who lived in Africa between 150,000 to 200,000 years ago. This discovery, along with other evidence, suggested humans evolved from a single ancestral population—a … | Continue reading
A team of scientists announced they have harvested hydrogen from water in microgravity—a proof-of-principle test that may one day lead to a way to acquire fuel or other resources during a long-distance, crewed space mission. | Continue reading
Eleven light-years from Earth, orbiting a dim red star, there’s an exoplanet called Ross 128b that, as we recently reported, has some the best prospects for life of any known distant world. New results may help astronomers figure out what the planet is made of—and they offer more … | Continue reading
San Francisco's Fire Department is one of the few left in the United States that still uses wooden ladders. Each is made by hand at a dedicated workshop. Some have been in rotation for nearly a century. We'll get to the why and how, but hang on: Wouldn't a wooden ladd … | Continue reading
Guys may loudly rule the dark corners of the internet and be considered the “computer nerds,” but according to a new paper from Cal Poly and North Carolina State University, it’s the ladies who are kicking ass and taking names when it comes to coding. | Continue reading
The skies aren’t big enough for everyone. On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit reversed a ruling from last year that found the FAA cannot regulate small drones used by hobbyists. New regulations are expected to come soon, which should please companies that are … | Continue reading
Contrary to earlier reports, Orlando police confirmed Monday they will renew a contract with Amazon to pilot its controversial face recognition software, Rekognition—a move that is sure to reignite concerns of privacy and civil liberties advocates who have pushed back against la … | Continue reading
Photographers already face an uphill battle in trying to preventing people from using their digital photos without permission. But Nvidia could make protecting photos online much harder with a new advancement in artificial intelligence that can automatically remove artifacts from … | Continue reading
The engineers at Citroën have apparently thrown almost 100 years of French design refinement out the window with a new product you don’t drive, but will improve your motoring experience. The carmaker’s new Seetroën glasses won’t win you any style points, but Citroën claims the gl … | Continue reading
A kid-sized submarine arrived in northern Thailand, just a few hours before the final four members of a youth soccer team and their coach were rescued from the flooded Tham Luang cave complex. Elon Musk, whose minions had built the sub out of SpaceX rocket materials for the sole … | Continue reading