Writing

An anonymous Google software engineer’s 10-page fulmination against workplace diversity was leaked from internal company communications systems, including an internal version of Google+, the company’s social network, and another service that Gizmodo, which published the full memo, called an “internal meme network.” “I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due… read more

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are having a spat about whether or not artificial intelligence is going to kill us all. Musk, the chief of Tesla and SpaceX who has longstanding worries about the potentially apocalyptic future of AI, recently returned to that soapbox, making an appeal for proactive regulations on AI. “I keep sounding the alarm bell,” he told… read more

Last year I fell in love with a toaster. It looks like most others. A brushed, stainless-steel housing. Four slots, to accommodate the whole family’s bread-provisioning needs. It is alluring but modest, perched atop the counter on proud haunches. But at a time when industry promises disruptive innovation, Breville, the Australian manufacturer of my toaster, offers something truly new and… read more

There’s a paradox in technology. For something new to become widespread, familiar, and mass-market, it must create enough novelty and curiosity to draw people’s attention. But novelty alone is not enough to reach saturation. To permeate life, a technology must elicit more than novelty and curiosity in its users. It must become ordinary. It must recede into the background, where… read more

When I saw that Google had introduced a “Classic Papers” section of Google Scholar, its search tool for academic journals, I couldn’t help but stroke my chin professorially. What would make a paper a classic, especially for the search giant? In a blog post introducing the feature, Google software engineer Sean Henderson explains the company’s rationale. While some articles gain… read more

Weather always makes good news, but the role of climate change in altering weather, especially extreme weather, has made the subject a lightning rod for unease. A case in point this week: A heat wave is triggering record temperatures in the Southwest. American Airlines reported having canceled up to 50 flights at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor airport, where the temperature has… read more

Binky is an app that does everything an app is expected to do. It’s got posts. It’s got likes. It’s got comments. It’s got the infinitely scrolling timeline found in all social apps, from Facebook to Twitter, Instagram to Snapchat. I open it and start scrolling. Images of people, foods, and objects appear on and then vanish off the screen.… read more

All over town, the parking meters are disappearing. Drivers now pay at a central machine, or with an app. It’s so convenient I sometimes forget to pay entirely—and then suffer the much higher price of a parking ticket. The last time that happened, I wondered: Why can’t my car pay for its own parking automatically? It’s technically possible. Both my… read more

Dominic Tarr is a computer programmer who grew up on a remote farm in New Zealand. Down in the antipodes, isolation is even more isolating. Getting goods, people, and information to and from Australasia for families like Tarr’s has always been difficult. Bad, unreliable internet service is a particular challenge. Australia and New Zealand are first-world countries with third-world latency.… read more

There’s a new, dumb trend: the fidget spinner. It’s a toy like a top, but spun in the hand rather than on a surface. The user holds a pad at the center, and flicks one of three rounded blades. The spinner rotates around a bearing at the center. The light weight of the device and the low friction of the… read more