Emerging Tech

Inside Google's Secret Drone-Delivery Program

For two years, the company has been working to build flying robots that can deliver products across a city in a minute or two.

Digital Government

Prepare to Be Shocked

Four predictions about how brain stimulation will make us smarter

Emerging Tech

Why Conservatives Might Be Left Out of the Next Wave of Tech

Only 4 percent of consistently conservative Americans want to live in cities, but urban environments are where the tech action is

Digital Government

How DARPA's Augmented Reality Software Works

Why is the military succeeding where Google Glass failed?

Digital Government

The Trick That Makes Google's Self-Driving Cars Work

Google is engaging in unprecedented, massive, ongoing data collection to transform intractable problems into solvable chores.

Digital Government

Computers See Your Face as a Child. Will They Recognize You as an Adult?

As facial recognition systems improve, they will get better at identifying people at different ages, even very young children.

Emerging Tech

CAPTCHAs Are Becoming Security Theater

Google doesn't need us to prove our humanity with distorted text anymore -- they can simulate it now.

Digital Government

In Defense of Google Flu Trends

If the system failed, it did so only in the outsize dreams of Big Data acolytes.

Emerging Tech

Man vs. Sea: The Quest for the Perfect Armor Is Nearly Complete

Slowly, humans are developing the ability to act like ourselves in the deep water.

Digital Government

Why Drugs Need Horseshoe Crab Blood for FDA Approval

Everyone who has had an injection in the U.S. has been protected by the blood of a forgettable sea creature.

Emerging Tech

This GIF Shows What Might Be Water Flowing on Mars

Thanks to seasonally warm temperatures and some iron-based anti-freeze.

Digital Government

Snipers Coordinated an Attack on the Power Grid, but Why?

A story seemingly stolen from the pages of a crime thriller, but far less comprehensible.

Emerging Tech

Introducing (1978!) Cellular Phone Service

Bell Labs explains Advanced Mobile Phone Service, available in a car near you.

Emerging Tech

Earth Resumes Surveillance of Mercury

After a two-month hiatus, the Messenger spacecraft has resumed sending home images of the sun's closest companion.

Digital Government

The Future of the Army: Fewer Soldiers, More Robots, More 'Lethality'

If Google is doing it, DARPA is also doing it, but with more lethality.

Emerging Tech

These Two Guys Tried to Rebuild a Cray Supercomputer

It wasn't easy, even though your iPhone is ten times faster than machines that used to be model nuclear weapons.

Emerging Tech

Where Do We Go From Here? 8 Hypotheses About Tech in 2014

The year ahead will be the beginning of a new cycle in the long story of humans and the tools they use.