Computers

Teaching computers to assess the emotional tone of a piece of writing—a task called sentiment analysis—is becoming more widely used as researchers, companies and even mental health professionals delve into people’s social media musings for insights.

How Algorithms Discern Our Mood From What We Write Online

While sentiment analysis is far from perfect, it distills meaning from huge amounts of data—and could one day even monitor mental health

Picture of the top and bottom sides of the chips with integrated microfluidic cooling, next to the miniaturized power converter

A New System for Cooling Down Computers Could Revolutionize the Pace of Innovation

A Swiss team has created tiny, fluid-filled channels in microchips to spirit away heat and save energy

As the researcher taps the page, numbers appear on screen.

With a Simple Piece of Paper, Engineers Create Self-Powered, Wireless Keyboard

Scientists at Purdue University have found a way to make a piece of paper digitally interactive

Two sociable weaver birds being recognized by a new artificial intelligence-powered software.

This A.I. Can Recognize Individual Birds of the Same Species

Humans can’t reliably tell birds of the same species apart, limiting our ability to study their behavior, but the new A.I. is 90 percent accurate

Facial reconstruction of a Scandinavian hunter-gatherer who was buried with a wooden stake at the base of his skull

See the Face of a Man Whose Skull Was Mounted on a Stake 8,000 Years Ago

A forensic artist used 3-D scans of the hunter-gatherer's cranium to envision what he may have looked like in life

NASA is asking volunteers to help label photographs of the Martian surface to help the Curiosity rover avoid obstacles like loose sand.

You Can Help Teach the Curiosity Rover to Drive on Mars

The rover isn’t quite eight years old, but NASA thinks it’s time that Curiosity becomes more independent

Video visits with doctors and other health-care workers saw a sharp uptick as the COVID-19 pandemic took off.

Is COVID-19 the Tipping Point for Telemedicine?

Sheltering in place has pushed virtual health care into the mainstream, making us wonder if we'll ever go back to waiting rooms

Some maintain that two spaces between sentences make paragraphs easier to read; others vehemently disagree.

Why Microsoft Word Now Considers Two Spaces After a Period an Error

Traditionalist "two-spacers" can still disable the function

In this photo taken on March 6, 2020, primary school teacher Billy Yeung records a video lesson for his students, who have had their classes suspended due to coronavirus, in his empty classroom in Hong Kong.

What Happened When Hong Kong's Schools Went Virtual to Combat the Spread of Coronavirus

A temporary solution during months-long school shutdowns, the online classrooms may be an experiment the rest of the world can learn from

Inventor Alex Kipman's Grand Vision for How Holograms Will Change Our Lives

The designer behind Microsoft's HoloLens 2 predicts a future driven by augmented reality

AlphaStar, playing as the StarCraft race Protoss, in green, dealing with flying units from the Zerg players with a combination of powerful anti-air units. The AI program mastered all three races in the game, Protoss, Terran and Zerg.

A.I. Mastered Backgammon, Chess and Go. Now It Takes On StarCraft II

DeepMind's AlphaStar learns the complex strategy video game, which has trillions and trillions of possible moves conducted in real time

Netflix's animated series, Carmen Sandiego, just released its second season.

How a Generation Became Obsessed With Tracking Down Carmen Sandiego

The globe-trotting thief of the popular 1985 computer game is back at it in a second season of an animated Netflix series

John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino

Development of the Lithium-Ion Battery Earns Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The award honors three scientists whose contributions led to the rechargeable battery that makes our modern world possible

Susan Kare designed pictorial symbols that enabled non-technical users to operate a computer, a great contrast to previous screens with “command line” interfaces that required knowing code.

How Susan Kare Designed User-Friendly Icons for the First Macintosh

The graphic designer is receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award from Cooper Hewitt for her recognizable computer icons, typefaces and graphics

Expression Mirror (detail) by Zachary Lieberman

Here’s Why A.I. Can’t Be Taken at Face Value

Cooper Hewitt’s new show drills down into the inherent biases lurking within computer intelligence systems

Alan Turing Will Be the New Face of Britain’s £50 Note

Persecuted at the end of his life, the British mathematician and code-breaker is now widely admired as a father of computer science

John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz, the creators of BASIC.

New Hampshire Is First State to Install Highway Marker to Computer Programming

The roadside sign is dedicated to BASIC, a computer programming language developed at Dartmouth College in 1964

A.I. Is Learning Teamwork by Dominating in Multiplayer Video Games

Google's DeepMind labs trained bots play a virtual version of capture the flag, showing them how to work as a unit

The laptop is infected with six viruses: WannaCry, BlackEnergy, ILOVEYOU, MyDoom, SoBig and DarkTequila.

A Laptop Infected With the World’s Most Dangerous Viruses Sold for $1.3 Million

The computer is a work of art designed to provide a physical manifestation of abstract digital threats

Women were involved with the computing field from its earliest days.

The Gendered History of Human Computers

It's ironic that women today must fight for equality in Silicon Valley. After all, their math skills helped launch the digital age

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