Back in July 2013, a few weeks after Edward Snowden’s revelations about internet and mobile-phone surveillance began, I wrote a column that began: “Repeat after me: Edward Snowden is not the story. The story is what he has revealed about the hidden w ...

Last week was the first ever National Adjunct Walkout Day, a grassroots protest to push for fair pay and better working conditions. Protests and teach-ins took place on as many as 100 campuses nationwide, prompting at least one university to create a ...

Imagine a source of electrical power that uses water for fuel, produces byproducts that are totally safe and releases no air pollution. Then imagine that once it's up and running, it'll be so portable that an entire power plant could fit in ...

Net neutrality won at the FCC, but soon it'll be headed to court.

The Internet erupted in an energetic debate yesterday about whether an ugly dress was blue and black or white and gold, with celebrities from Anna Kendrick (white) to Taylor Swift (black) weighing in. (For the record, I’m with Taylor – never a bad ca ...

Two people have been killed by shelling in east Ukraine as isolated clashes rattled a shaky truce with pro-Russian rebels and observers warned the country was at a “crossroads”. Photographer Sergiy Nikolayev from Ukrainian daily Segodnya died after g ...

Street magic at its breast.

It's arguably the most expensive and technically complex piece of headgear ever produced and before any Royal Australian Air Force pilot steps into the cockpit of the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) jet, they will need to be fitted with a cu ...

It's not news that reruns of Friends aren't what cable TV really wants you to be watching. Networks make money by showing ads, and for years those networks have been looking for ways to pack in more and more quick spots to get you to buy Ch ...

You can say anything on Yik Yak, as long as it’s not a competing app’s name. The anonymous app has quietly built a system that downvotes any mentions of several other apps for college kids including Fade, Sneek, and Unseen until no one can see them.

The ‘Internet of Things’ is a buzzword that gets thrown around a lot by startups and internet professionals, but it’s rare that a system connects more than one or two devices at once. Creating a network of vehicles that are all connected to the inter ...

Snapchat Inc. is seeking a new round of funding that would value the company as high as $19 billion, a person with knowledge of the matter said, making it the third-most valuable venture-backed company in the world.

The mayor of Shawinigan, Que. is admitting his council caved to "irrational fears" Tuesday when it refused to rezone an industrial park in order to allow a mosque to open. Michel Angers said Friday city councilors were flooded with phone ca ...

In late 2013, an A.T.M. in Kiev started dispensing cash at seemingly random times of day. No one had put in a card or touched a button. Cameras showed that the piles of money had been swept up by customers who appeared lucky to be there at the right ...

A group of respected physicians has stepped forward to challenge the common assertion that obesity can be easily fixed by diet and exercise. For most of the nation's 79 million adults and 13 million kids who are obese, the "eat less, move m ...

Financially literate people like to complain that buying lottery tickets is among the silliest decisions a person could make. And it is true that the odds of winning anything substantial, let alone the estimated $500 million that could be given away ...

A dark pattern is a user interface carefully crafted to trick users into doing things they might not otherwise do, such as buying insurance with their purchase or signing up for recurring bills. Normally when you think of “bad design,” you think of t ...

Spot is a four-legged robot designed for indoor and outdoor operation. It is electrically powered and hydraulically actuated. Spot has a sensor head that helps it navigate and negotiate rough terrain. Spot weighs about 160 lbs.

It’s Friday afternoon, and the funky, open floor office of Treehouse LLC, a fast-growing tech company, is empty. The lights are off. Rows of computers are silent. The food in the well-stocked pantry, the ping-pong table and video-game consoles untouc ...

The photo above was taken by Sarah Scurr on November 6, 2006, while Scurr was aboard a cruise ship near Chile's Northern Patagonian Ice Field. The photo below was taken by Marisol Ortiz Elfeldt on the same day, from the same ship, and looks near ...