When Karen Bass, a Congresswoman from Los Angeles, emerged in late July as a serious contender to be Joe Biden’s running mate, interest in her Wikipedia page exploded. By that time, the entry had grown to 4,000 words, been worked over by more than 50 different editors, and drew a weekly readership of 360,000. During…
America’s solar farms have a bird problem. Utility companies have been finding bird carcasses littering the ground at their facilities for years, a strange and unexpected consequence of the national solar boom. No one was quite sure why this was happening, but it was clearly a problem for a type of energy that was billed…
The pandemic disease Covid-19 does much more to the human body than a typical respiratory virus. In addition to neurological problems ranging from a loss of sense of smell to outright seizures, surprising gastrointestinal symptoms and kidney damage, and a potentially fatal haywire immune response, the disease also messes with a person’s blood. The sickest…
“What type of Trip are you taking?” The question appears on a phone screen, atop a soft-focus illustration of a dusky, Polynesian-seeming landscape. You could type in meditation or breathwork, or label it with a shorthand wink, like a mushroom emoji. The next question asks, “How far are you looking to go?” You choose “moderate”—you’re…
Bill Gates was already one of the world’s richest people, the cofounder of Microsoft and architect of our modern computing experience, and a hugely influential philanthropist. This year he gained a new title: soothsayer. In a now famous TED talk back in 2015, Gates warned that the biggest calamity of our time would not be…
People say, “Oh, that Henry is a crazy type.” But they don’t mean it in a bad way. Because MicroUnity’s Henry Massalin is not just crazy – he may be the ultimate nerd genius.We’re sitting in a coffee shop in Sunnyvale, California. It’s late. I’ve had a few beers, and my dinner date has downed…
It sounds like a sci-fi movie: pitting an artificial intelligence against human pilots. (In fact, it’s definitely been done already.)Sadly, DARPA will no longer hold an in-person event for its third and final AlphaDogfight Trial. It’ll happen virtually, instead, with participants and viewers watching online as AI algorithms control simulated F-16 fighter planes in aerial…
Home News Gaming (Image credit: Zak S) The Xbox Series S is real, at least as far as the leaked packaging for the Xbox Series X controller is concerned.We’ve been able to get a look at this thanks to Twitter user Zak S, who claims in the thread of tweets announcing his discovery that he…
Stereo headphone inventor Koss last month sued Apple, alleging infringement of five patents on wireless headphones. The lawsuit targets both AirPods and Beats wireless headphones. Apple is now hitting back with a six-point countersuit. Five of the counts ask for a court to rule that Apple has not infringed each of the five patents listed in the original…
A flagship artificial intelligence system designed to predict gun and knife violence in the UK before it happens had serious flaws that made it unusable, local police have admitted. The error led to large drops in accuracy, and the system was ultimately rejected by all of the experts reviewing it for ethical problems. WIRED UKThis…
