Ideas

The Sneaky Genius of Facebook's New Preventative Health Tool

The feature looks likely to fill gaps in care—and to further draw users into Facebook’s ecosystem.

Emerging Tech

Did Body Cameras Backfire?

Body cameras were supposed to fix a broken system. What happened?

Emerging Tech

The Endless Aerial Surveillance of the Border

New reports suggest that drone activity at the southern border is spreading to nearby cities, erasing the line between police procedures and immigration enforcement.

Digital Government

The World Wants Less Tech. Amazon Gives It More.

The world’s largest online retailer is diving headfirst into the techlash.

Ideas

Algorithms Are People

The secret sauce of search engines gives tech companies an abundance of plausible deniability.

Cybersecurity

Why Hong Kongers Are Toppling Lampposts

For protesters, claims of Chinese surveillance are politically useful, even when they can’t be proved.

Artificial Intelligence

People Are Starting to Realize How Voice Assistants Actually Work

The secrecy surrounding AI products makes even basic information about them a scandal.

Ideas

FaceApp Is Everyone’s Problem

It feels good to call out people for being duped by the Russian app, but the individualist framing of privacy is the bigger culprit.

Artificial Intelligence

The AI That Could Help Curb Youth Suicide

For many reasons, parents and teachers may fail to intervene when they spot LGBTQ teens in trouble. Can Google help?

Emerging Tech

ICE and the Ever-Widening Surveillance Dragnet

ICE agents have used facial-recognition technology on state driver’s-license photos, turning a public database into a de facto criminal database.

Emerging Tech

You No Longer Own Your Face

Students were recorded for research—and then became part of a data set that lives forever online, potentially accessible to anyone.

Artificial Intelligence

The AI Supply Chain Runs on Ignorance

Tech companies often fail to tell users how their data will be employed. Sometimes, the firms can’t even anticipate it themselves.

Artificial Intelligence

Why the New Zealand Shooting Video Keeps Circulating

Teaching AI to filter out banned content isn’t the solution advocates hoped for—or the one Silicon Valley promised.

Digital Government

Your Health Data Are a Gold Mine for Advertisers

In the hospital and at home, illness data can be lucrative.

Emerging Tech

The Microphones That May Be Hidden in Your Home

The controversy around Google’s Nest home-security devices shows that consumers never really know what their personal technology is capable of.

Emerging Tech

The Quiet Ways Automation Is Remaking Service Work

Workers may not be replaced by robots anytime soon, but they’ll likely face shorter hours, lower pay, and stolen time.

Emerging Tech

The City of the Future Is a Data-Collection Machine

In Toronto, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, hopes to create the sensor-filled metropolis of tomorrow.

Emerging Tech

The Next Data Mine Is Your Bedroom

Google wants to scan your clothing and listen to you brush your teeth. Welcome home.