The Apple Watch had a lot of hopes pinned on it when it launched in 2015. Not only was the smartwatch the first proper device of the Tim Cook era at Apple, but as a new product category, the Apple Watch suggested the possibility of a post-iPhone future for a company that had come to …
In 1981, physicist Richard Feynman first theorized the creation of quantum computers that harnessed the principles of quantum physics to process calculations that would take standard computers millennia or longer to compute. Over the next four decades, however, research failed to advance significantly enough for the machines to have much impact on society. But breakthroughs …
“Don’t google your cancer,” the oncology nurse said to me as she drew my blood ahead of my first round of chemotherapy. It was 2006 and I was 17 years old. I was very confused by the emphasis she put on this advice. Still, I took the print-out of “safe” web addresses she gave me …
Recently Jon Stewart did a segment poking satire at the promises of AI highlighted by tech CEOs. I don’t think automating your toasters is the best way to show the potential of AI, as Jon did, but I do agree with the central premise of his argument that disruption caused by AI will be harnessed …
The iPad has always existed between things. In fact, it was originally pitched as existing in between the iPhone and Mac, capable of things both devices can do, but designed to be better at a few key tasks. From one angle, that made the iPad the antithesis of netbooks, pale imitations of notebook laptops Steve …
The viral series “Who TF Did I Marry?” set the internet on fire recently when TikTok user Tareasa “Reesa Teesa” Johnson revealed what happened when she married a man who turned out to be nothing like what he presented himself to be. The 50-part series details the lies her ex-husband, who she calls “Legion,” told …
Rolling up to the Carl’s Jr. a few blocks from my house, I was greeted with a line for the drive-thru. There’s a certain culture that forms only when a drive-thru is taking particularly long. Fast food veterans, people who are high, and your quarterly french fry enjoyers direct their confusion and anger at the …
This Valentine’s Day, lonely hearts have the option to look for love in romantic simulations. Tell your chatbot of choice what you like and it delivers, creating an emotional exchange so intoxicating that some users have reported falling in love with their virtual companions. Powered by the controversial artificial intelligence (AI) industry, companion chatbots seem …
We think of smartwatches as a distinct category of device, with their own software and hardware design concerns. For one, we wear them instead of carrying them in our pockets like a phone. They also have to be small enough to fit on a wrist in the first place. But can they really be meaningfully …
The beginning of a new year is a great time to imagine new possibilities, both for ourselves and for the world. And this year, as Sam Altman put it while accepting the 2023 Stephen Hawking Fellowship at Cambridge: “We stand on the threshold of a brave new world. It’s an exciting yet precarious place to …