Computers

IBM Watson Makes Things Elementary, Indeed

The cognitive computing system makes for an ideal sidekick—in museums, kitchens, hospitals and classrooms

Claude Monet’s Water Lilies at the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris, France

Computers Are Learning About Art Faster than Art Historians

An algorithm took just a few months to draw connections between artists that scholars have been working on for years

Laptops of the Future May Not Have Space Bars

A recent Google patent points to a time when trackpads replace the trusty key

This track pad fits on your thumbnail, and can be customized with nail stickers.

This Tiny Trackpad Fits on a Fingernail

But why would you actually want one?

MIT Researchers Think They Can Spot Early Signs of Parkinson's in the Way People Type

By monitoring how long we hold down keystrokes, it may be possible to detect neurological diseases years before other symptoms appear

Meet Your New Favorite Font

Haas Unica, Helvetica’s long-lost sibling, is back after 30 years in obscurity

High Schoolers Might Code Rather Than Speak French

But proponents of foreign language schooling aren’t pleased

Using millions of images and machine learning, Orbital Insight is able to estimate global oil surplus, weeks ahead of traditional estimates, by analyzing the shadows on the floating lids of oil tanks.

A Startup Wants to Track Everything From Shoppers to Corn Yields Using Satellite Imagery

Orbital Insight, founded by a NASA and Google veteran, is quick to predict crop failures and estimate the current global oil surplus

The great Charles Dickens may one day come to the aid of the creators of bad password.

Trouble Remembering Passwords? Charles Dickens May Be Able Help

A programmer has devised a creative “password generation scheme” using <i>A Tale of Two Cities</i>

Could Your Browser Make You a Better Employee?

The answer could be yes…if you use Firefox or Chrome

A computer that passes the new test would be able to say which people in this scene from Pushkar, India, are carrying objects and which are riding bikes

Now the Turing Test Goes Visual

A proposed test would have computer programs not only pick out what is in a photo but what is happening

Each Librii site will include an anchor building for housing collections, an e-hub with computers and an agora equipped with WiFi.

Building Libraries Along Fiber-Optic Lines in Sub-Saharan Africa

The Washington, D.C.-based startup, Librii, is rethinking what a library looks like

This robot, made of drinking straws, teaches kids how to hack.

A Kit to Make Robots Out of Drinking Straws and Other Wild Ideas That Just Got Funded

Perhaps a three-dimensional paper mount of an animal is just what your living room needs

Xerox founder Joe Wilson with the 914, which could make copies up to 9 by 14 inches.

How the Photocopier Changed the Way We Worked—and Played

Decades before 3-D printers brought manufacturing closer to home, copiers transformed offices, politics and art

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A Man With ALS Says "I Love You" to His Wife for the First Time in 15 Years

A new invention from Not Impossible Labs allows Don Moir to script an audible love letter

Physarum polycephalum in the wild, sans piano

A Scientist And a Slime Mold Are Set To Play a Duet

The blob-like creatures’ movements inspired a composer to create a way for slime mold to play the piano

Jean Valentine, a former Bombe machine operator, shows a drum of the machine in Bletchley Park Museum in Bletchley, England.

Women Were Key to WWII Code-Breaking at Bletchley Park

Female operators and mathematicians play a greater role in the history of computers and code-breaking than most realize

The scales on Fragment C divide the year by days and signs of the zodiac.

Decoding the Antikythera Mechanism, the First Computer

Hidden inscriptions offer new clues to the origins of a mysterious astronomical mechanism

Social media may be more relaxing than anticipated.

Social Media Is Not Making You a Ball of Stress

But perhaps unsurprisingly, Facebook and Twitter can cause stress to spread when bad things happen to friends and family

Your Computer Knows You Better Than Your Mom

Why machines can predict your personality more accurately than your family or friends

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