Technology

Engelbart designed the mouse to replace the light pen as a pointing device.

How Douglas Engelbart Invented the Future

Two decades before the personal computer, a shy engineer unveiled the tools that would drive the tech revolution

How Augmented Reality Is Helping Raise Awareness About One of Armenia's Most Endangered Species

Belgium Ends Telegram Service After 171 Years

The end of Belgian telegrams isn’t the end of the service across the world, but it’s getting close

How 21st-Century Technology Is Shedding Light on a 2nd-Century Egyptian Painting

Researchers at UCLA and the National Gallery of Art have pioneered a technology that goes behind the scenes of a centuries-old artistic process

Shan Dou (from left), Jonathan Ajo-Franklin, and Nate Lindsey were on a Berkeley Lab team that, in collaboration with researchers from Stanford, used fiber optic cables for detecting earthquakes and other subsurface activity.

Could Fiber Optics Detect Earthquakes?

By monitoring every grumble, shiver and burp our planet makes, researchers hope to be more prepared to take action when things go awry

BB-8 is an “astromech droid” who first appeared in The Force Awakens.

What the Robots of Star Wars Tell Us About the Future of Human Work

The films' much-loved robots exist mostly to assist rather than replace humans—and like us, they are prone to errors

Millions of Migrating Red Crabs Are Coming to Google Street View

The crustaceans are making their brief annual appearance on Australia's Christmas Island

With a low cost attachment, Joshua Broder can upgrade a 2D ultrasound machine to 3D.

How a Wii Handset Inspired a Low-Cost 3D Ultrasound

After playing games with his son, a Duke physician invented a medical tool that could put ultrasound imaging in the hands of more doctors

The Ten Best Science Books of 2017

These books not only inspired awe and wonder—they helped us better understand the machinations of our world

The new softbots can lift an astonishing amount with the assistance of only air or water pressure.

This Artificial Muscle Can Lift 1,000 Times Its Own Weight

They were inspired by origami

Jony Ive

Why Jony Ive Is Apple's Design Genius

His work has become the seeds of a tech revolution that is rapidly changing our lives

Sousa around 1915, about a decade after he first decried "mechanical music."

John Philip Sousa Feared ‘The Menace of Mechanical Music’

Wonder what he’d say about Spotify

How a Ripped-Off Sequel of Don Quixote Predicted Piracy in the Digital Age

An anonymous writer's spinoff of Cervantes' masterpiece showed the peril and potential of new printing technology

“And bats with baby faces in the violet light / Whistled, and beat their wings”—T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

How a Deadly Flesh-Eating Fungus Helped Make Bats Cute Again

A silver lining to the worldwide epidemic of white nose syndrome: People like bats more now

Google Earth Leads to Discovery of 400 Stone "Gates" in Saudi Arabia

Amateur researchers first came across the rock structures in 2004. Four years later, after seeing them again on Google Earth, they decided to investigate

Virginia Tech, whose Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology (ICAT) was instrumental in bringing the festival to fruition, exhibited on Day 1 a cutting-edge robotic fabrication system.

These Collegiate Innovators Are at the Vanguard of Technology and Art

A massive three-day festival spotlights the achievements of the Atlantic Coast Conference

Using "visual fingerprints" in works of art, Smartify can quickly ID that painting you want to know more about

App Aims to be the "Shazam" of the Art Museum

With a database of 30 museums worldwide and growing, Smartify can use your phone camera to identify and explain works of art

The Sharp Rise and Steep Descent of AOL Instant Messenger

The free instant messaging service introduced millions to the joys of online communication, but it fell behind in the social media age

Kathy Niakan at work in the lab

Gene Editing of Embryos Gives Insight Into Basic Human Biology

A genetic tool allows researchers to disable a gene key to human development in a closely regulated experiment

Jim Naughten’s 2017 stereograph, The Toucans, mimics the look of a Victorian image.

Stereographs Were the Original Virtual Reality

The shocking power of immersing oneself in another world was all the buzz once before—about 150 years ago

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