Atlas, the humanoid robot that dazzled followers for more than a decade with its outdoor running, awkward dancing and acrobatic back flips, has powered down. In other words, it is retiring. On Wednesday, Boston Dynamics, the company that created it, announced the arrival of the next generation of humanoid robots — a fully electric robot … Read more
Consumers have grown accustomed to the prospect that their personal data, such as email addresses, social contacts, browsing history and genetic ancestry, are being collected and often resold by the apps and the digital services they use. With the advent of consumer neurotechnologies, the data being collected is becoming ever more intimate. One headband serves … Read more
Facing criticism that it is overly beholden to Elon Musk, Tesla’s board of directors said on Wednesday that it would essentially give him everything he wanted, including the biggest pay package in corporate history. If setbacks in court and the car market have induced any soul searching among Tesla’s board, there was no sign of … Read more
For decades, the United States has fashioned itself the champion of an open internet, arguing that the web should be largely unregulated and that digital data should flow around the globe unhindered by borders. The government has argued against internet censorship abroad and even funded software that lets people in autocratic states get around online … Read more
In a time when the headlines are dominated by wars and a divisive presidential campaign, the magazine-world rivalry between The Atlantic and The New Yorker doesn’t amount to much. So you might have missed it when, on April 2, The Atlantic beat The New Yorker in three big categories at the 2024 National Magazine Awards. … Read more
“Have an abortion with me,” a single mother from Brooklyn named Sunni says as she twirls around her kitchen to light jazzy piano, before walking TikTok viewers through the steps she took to end her pregnancy at home. With states expanding restrictions on abortion and the issue likely to be at the forefront of the … Read more
What would you do if you permanently lost all the photos, notes and other files on your phone? If you have a backup system in place, you’d likely know what to do next: Restore it all to a new phone. But if you haven’t thought about it, fear not: The backup process has become so … Read more
After her second child was born, Chelsea Becker took an unpaid, yearlong leave from her full-time job as a flight attendant. After watching a video on TikTok, she found a side hustle: training artificial intelligence models for a website called Data Annotation Tech. For a few hours every day, Ms. Becker, 33, who lives in … Read more
Computers seem methodical, deliberate and utterly predictable. But they can also behave in ways that are completely random. As researchers build increasingly powerful machines, one key question is: What role will randomness play? On Wednesday, the Association for Computing Machinery, the world’s largest society of computing professionals, announced that this year’s Turing Award will go … Read more
On a recent afternoon, I held a bagel in front of me and said: “Look and tell me if this is healthy.” A monotone voice responded that the bagel was unhealthy because it was high in carbohydrates, which could contribute to weight gain. I wasn’t talking to a tech bro obsessed with the ketogenic diet. … Read more
