I recently saw some comments under a YouTube video asking why we don’t postpone going into space until we’ve solved our problems on Earth (which would be a pretty long postponement). This is a question people have asked for decades, … Continue reading
A February 23 article by Caroline Criado-Perez in The Guardian points out that across a vast range of things, from medical research to the design of tools, vehicles, and buildings, the implicit assumption has long been that the average person … Continue reading
Here are a couple of videos from a visual effects artist at the YouTube channel Corridor (formerly Corridor Digital), which features a series of frequently excellent short films. This comes from their secondary channel Corridor Crew, with behind-the-scenes making-of stuff … Continue reading
Filmmaker Brady Haran visits the archive of The Associated Press in London and finds old newsreels of driverless tractors from 1958 and driverless cars from 1972-73. Then there’s the creepy Billy the Beacon, a rather creepy robot for teaching British … Continue reading
My cell phone connects with my car via Bluetooth so I can make and receive phone calls in my car without taking my hands off the steering wheel. I rarely do it, though, because of what I’ve read about credible … Continue reading
From Rhett and Link, the folks at the web talk show Good Mythical Morning, a song in the style of Bruno Mars written by artificial intelligence. It’s not that bad! Link: https://youtu.be/iW4ex4SCFBc by … Continue reading
Update 2018 February 7: The launch was successful in every respect but one: The middle of the three booster rockets failed to land on the floating platform as intended because one of the required engine firings didn’t happen. Interestingly, the … Continue reading
How did I not know about this before? Just over ten years ago the Japanese company Crypton Future Media released computer software that can be used to generate a female singing voice, originally in Japanese and later in English and … Continue reading
Net neutrality is a policy that requires Internet service providers to treat all traffic equally. ISPs would prefer to be able to make free money by letting giant corporations pay to slow down access to competitors’ websites (or refrain from … Continue reading
President Obama today awards the Medal of Freedom to Margaret Hamilton, not the late actress famous for playing the Wicked Witch of the West but a pioneering computer scientist who programmed computers for the Apollo missions to the Moon and … Continue reading