The Supreme Court has produced many memorable moments in its 231-year history, but today was surely the first time a toilet audibly flushed in the background during oral arguments. Such is the reality of conducting Supreme Court business during the coronavirus pandemic. This week, for the first time ever, the Supreme Court began holding oral…
Nearly two years ago, wireless-speaker-maker Sonos released a $400 soundbar that quickly became one of the company’s most popular products. The speaker, called Sonos Beam, addressed a few converging trends at the time. It was an easy way to improve the crappy sound coming out of our ever-shrinking flatscreen TVs, it incorporated voice control into…
In my recent advising conversations over Zoom, 12 first-year undergraduates scattered across several states shared their challenges with remote learning: feelings of isolation, flickering attention, and engagement fatigue. Usually, these meetings happen in the formality of my Nassau Hall office at the top of a 200-year-old stone staircase. The change of frame was illuminating. As…
A Pulitzer Prize–winning newspaper editor who published the documents leaked by Edward Snowden. A Nobel Peace Prize laureate. A former federal judge who has argued 15 cases before the Supreme Court. A witness before the House Judiciary Committee arguing for the impeachment of President Trump. The former prime minister of Denmark, who once jumped out…
Open source software has the potential to be very secure. Unlike proprietary code that can only be accessed directly by its own developers, anyone can vet open source projects to spot flaws and bugs. In practice, though, being open source is no panacea. Now, code repository GitHub is rolling out new tools for its GitHub…
As countries around the world rush to build smartphone apps that can help track the spread of Covid-19, privacy advocates have cautioned that those systems could, if implemented badly, result in a dangerous mix of health data and digital surveillance. India’s new contact tracing app may serve as a lesson in those privacy pitfalls: Security…
If any automaker has made its name synonymous with safety, it’s Volvo. The Swedish outfit’s marketing department deserves some credit there, for sure, but they’ve got good stuff to work with. Over the decades, Volvo has led the industry with three-point seat belts, rear-facing child seats, blind-spot monitoring systems, and more. Now it’s once again…
Today, Microsoft unveiled the newest products in its Surface line of computers and accessories. There’s a new Surface Go, Surface Book, and a couple headphone options, including Microsoft’s first wireless earbuds. “This is a strange time to be launching products,” Microsoft corporate vice president Robin Seiler said in a briefing late last week.No doubt. The…
In 2033, the Gordita Crunch is sold virtually by fast food goliath Nokia Taco Bell. Mega-airline corporation Frontier Spirit United offers 30-minute flights from New York to Los Angeles with the option of Economy Minus. The most popular reality show is Baby Botox—which is exactly what it sounds like. Vape lung is a chronic disease.…
During a normal May, Jill Anderson would be loading a U-Haul with supplies, saying goodbye to her family, and driving west from her home in Athens, Georgia, to an abandoned silver mining town high in the Colorado Rockies. That’s where Anderson, a genetic ecologist studying climate change, and dozens of other researchers gather each summer…
