In early July, in Germany’s historic Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, academics and analysts from a wide range of disciplines gathered to participate in a research symposium on climate engineering. The fledgling field—only some of those present at the conference even consider climate engineering to be their primary research interest—has steadily been picking up … Read more
The press has recently been awash in stories of worker robots of ever-increasing ability making human labor obsolete. Is it true that we are approaching a future of a mechanized workforce where humans need not apply? Experts’ opinions on the future of technological development vary spectacularly, as do views on the nature and magnitude of … Read more
Graduation caps had been tossed in the air, diplomas handed out, and students released for the summer. But for the IT department in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the work was just beginning. LAUSD’s cafeteria management system, which helps order food for schools and manages meal account data for over 640,000 students, needed … Read more
The most exciting point of Panos Toullis’s work involved a late night of caffeine-powered data-hacking, when Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt sauntered into the room, nudged him on the shoulder and said something to the effect of, “You know, you guys are doing something new and innovative and something that people will be repeating over and over again from now on.” To … Read more
Dreamy acrylic landscapes splashed on cloth canvases and boldly printed tablecloths hang on the walls and across the doorway, tinting the already dim shack’s interior a curious shade of amber. Around the small stall’s narrow corridor, all the surfaces and every square inch of floor space are crammed with a kaleidoscopic collection of crafts: decorative … Read more
Editor’s Note: This piece is a response to a New York Times op-ed written by Gerard Alexander on Aug. 7th. If you ask Jon Stewart, he will tell you: he is biased. He is certainly liberal (in the American sense) and has admitted to holding some socialist beliefs. If he lived across the Atlantic, Stewart would … Read more
In spite of recent legal troubles, six-year-old on-demand transportation network Uber is valued at a staggering $50 billion. Vice Media’s $2.5 billion valuation technically makes it worth more than The New York Times. And it’s only been two years since Evan Spiegel wisely turned down Facebook’s whopping $3 billion acquisition offer for Snapchat– the messaging … Read more
During Thursday’s primetime GOP debate, not all of the candidates received equal airtime. This much was obvious to viewers, and also makes sense; there is substantially more audience interest in poll-leader Donald Trump than in ninth-place Chris Christie. But the differences among the candidates were both more substantial and less correlated with polling averages than one … Read more
The first time I heard a PSY song was probably sometime in middle school, during a family gathering where my cousins and I were lounging around the couch. The oldest one, two months my senior, pulled out his phone, and, as we waited for YouTube to finish buffering, promised us that it would be crazy—the … Read more
The first time I heard a PSY song was probably sometime in middle school, during a family gathering where my cousins and I were lounging around the couch. The oldest, two months my senior, pulled out his phone, and, as we waited for YouTube to finish buffering, promised us that it would be crazy—the kind … Read more