Our in-house Know-It-Alls answer questions about your interactions with technology.Q: What is a coronavirus?Coronaviruses are a family of hundreds of viruses that can cause fever, respiratory problems, and sometimes gastrointestinal symptoms too. The 2019 novel coronavirus, which is probably why you’re reading this right now, is one of seven members of this family known to…
Despite its best damage-control efforts, Facebook is still dogged by its checkered past on data privacy. But at least some of the security mechanisms the company has put in place are catching problems—and helping them get fixed. Facebook said on Friday that in 2019 its bug bounty saw its largest number of accepted bugs since…
Hi again, it’s Steven Levy, WIRED’s editor at large, with edition two of the Plaintext newsletter. Thanks for all your great comments about last week’s debut.I got a lot of questions about how this winds up in your mailbox. Short answer: Subscribe to WIRED. If you’re reading this on our site, or someone passed it…
It’s no exaggeration to say that drones have changed the way we view the world. They’ve taken once difficult and expensive moviemaking techniques and made them accessible to anyone. Videos that once required a camera crew, expensive cranes, and hours of filming can now be done in minutes by the best drones with the tap…
The colorful tornado of violence, chaos, and glitter that is Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is arriving in theaters this weekend after a devastatingly long period of anticipation, leaving audiences shaken, stirred, and wanting more. While everyone waits to see if Margot Robbie’s Harley will return to the big…
We’re all feeling it, the massive and crushing daily reminder that climate change is already tearing apart ecosystems and flooding coastal cities and killing humans with extreme heat, among other ills. You’d be forgiven for feeling hopeless right now.But all is not lost. Take it from economist Mark Jaccard of Simon Fraser University in Canada,…
This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED digital director Brian Barrett joins us to talk about the app that derailed the Iowa caucus—and what it means for elections to come. Then, a conversation with WIRED staff writer Megan Molteni about how the spread of the coronavirus is claiming lives, disrupting the economy, and creating chaos in…
In late 2018, the tiny South Pacific island of Niue filed a lawsuit worth more than its entire economy. The case, which is under litigation in Stockholm, hinges on the rights to .nu, one of those country-specific extensions that appends a URL. Since 2013, that extension has been owned not by the Niuean government or…
Just before midnight on Sunday, a spacecraft will depart from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to the sun. Known as Solar Orbiter, this spacecraft will spend the next seven years dipping in and out of the extremely inhospitable environment around the sun. In the process, it will provide us with our first glimpse of…
Moving is always an upheaval, but imagine unpacking a U-Haul and settling into an eerie mansion where the laws of normal reality no longer apply. Key House, the setting of Netflix’s newest fantasy-horror offering, Locke & Key, is a place where magical keys produce breathy murmurs only children can hear, and, once found, open things…
