What if, at the start of every month, you received in your mailbox a check from the federal government that you could do with as you please? No strings attached, just cash for you and your family. This regular infusion to your bank account could range anywhere from a few hundred dollars to maybe even... Continue Reading →

THE CASSINI SPACECRAFT SPENT 13 YEARS ORBITING SATURN. IT REVEALED THE PLANET AND ITS RINGS IN STRIKING DETAIL, FOUND LIQUID AROUND EVERY CORNER, AND INVIGORATED THE IDEA THAT ALIEN LIFE NOT ONLY EXISTS, BUT COULD BE RIGHT ON OUR DOORSTEP. A strange device sits on the end table, a few dozen vertical light strips around... Continue Reading →

SpotMini, the robotic dog and social media sensation, is looking for a job. Boston Dynamics, the company behind the cybernetic canine, excels at two things: designing cool robots, and making viral videos of them in action. SpotMini has racked up an impressive 30 million YouTube views in just a few years, and a photo of... Continue Reading →

LAST YEAR, THE Japanese company SoftBank opened a cell phone store in Tokyo and staffed it entirely with sales associates named Pepper. This wasn’t as hard as it sounds, since all the Peppers were robots. Humanoid robots, to be more precise, which SoftBank describes as “kindly, endearing, and surprising.” Each Pepper is equipped with three... Continue Reading →

Compared to the amount of paid time off afforded to workers in other countries, American employees are woefully undercompensated. In fact, the U.S. is the only advanced economy that doesn't guarantee its workers any paid vacation time. And as a result, a quarter of the country's private-sector workers don't receive any time off at all,... Continue Reading →

Daydreaming may indicate intelligence and creativity, according to new research. “People with efficient brains may have too much brain capacity to stop their minds from wandering,” says Eric Schumacher, an associate psychology professor from Georgia Tech and coauthor of a new study. Schumacher and his students and colleagues, including lead coauthor Christine Godwin, measured the... Continue Reading →

DARPA, the Pentagon's mad science wing, is revolutionizing how ground vehicles move across rough terrain. Its latest breakthrough: round tires that transform into triangular tank tracks in two seconds, without the vehicle needing to come to a stop. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrQrJ57J9eE The three things that matter most for tanks are firepower, protection, and mobility. A combat vehicle... Continue Reading →

A recent press release introducing the 2018 version of their well-known hype chart contained a powerful and unsettling headline. Gartner Identifies Five Emerging Technology Trends That Will Blur the Line Between Human and Machine I had to read it a couple of times. And as you dig a bit deeper into the document, you find... Continue Reading →

From the invention of hoes, scythes and ploughs to the introduction of tractors, innovation is at the heart of agriculture. Today, a number of digital technologies — from autonomous robots that pick fruit to subterranean farms — are helping transform the industry. As technology develops, it's only natural that the sector will change and adapt.... Continue Reading →

For blood transfusions to be safe, the donor and patient blood types must match. Now researchers at the University of British Columbia have identified a new, more powerful group of enzymes that can turn any type of blood into the universally usable type O—expanding the pool of potential blood donors and making blood matching safer... Continue Reading →