Category: Technology

Early electric cars performed better in cities than internal combustion vehicles, but didn’t give riders the same illusion of freedom and masculine derring-do.

A journalist who reported on the accusations long before they went viral wonders, “What kind of profession am I in, where stories have no logical reason for unfolding?”

From exploding Ford Pintos to racist algorithms, all harmful technologies are a product of unethical design. Yet, like car companies in the ’70s, today’s tech companies would rather blame the user.

Digital labor is valuable even when we do it for free. Should we get paid?

The attention economy is killing us and the planet. Artist and writer Jenny Odell talks about why slowing down could be the only way to survive.

Robocalls are a scourge, and it’s only a matter of time before the technology learns to spoof your mother’s voice.

Seven schools in China have installed facial recognition technology in classrooms to monitor — and score — their students. At The Disconnect, Yujie Xue reports on this “intelligent education” initiative.

Maybe it’s time for an internet break… after you read this.

What happens when you ride an e-scooter out of the city limits — until its battery dies?

“The idea seems to be that we all live in the great database in the sky, occasionally summoning aliens with our minds.” Emily Harnett explores Silicon Valley’s appropriation of UFO culture.

Amid controversies and unethical practices, tech giants like Facebook and Google are no longer dream companies to work for.

As a result of Trump-era immigration policies, fewer highly skilled and educated legal immigrants — like 26-year-old Akirt Sridharan from India — are being hired by U.S. companies, despite their qualifications.

John and his mother Ann, who live in a house in Pretoria, South Africa, were two victims of faulty IP address mapping — and the U.S. government played a big role in the mess.

Lauren Hough recounts a decade of misadventures as a female cable tech in the DC Metro Area.

As competitors prank each other into account suspensions, the business of reinstating Amazon Marketplace businesses is booming.

We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in science and tech.

Is that not how the saying goes? Someone tell Amazon.

Is “mindfulness” not the cure for anxiety we thought it was? Dang, neoliberalism wrecks everything.

Elon Musk can’t wait to send humans to the Moon and Mars. But before we land ourselves on other worlds, we need to remember how we’ve treated our own.

What happens when a tool created by a bunch of developers in California becomes the main news source of a country 7,000 miles away? Nothing good.

If humans can’t decide, “the future of life will be decided at random.”

People share their feelings with Siri all the time. What’s scary is that Siri is really listening.

Tim Berners-Lee: “For people who want to make sure the Web serves humanity, we have to concern ourselves with what people are building on top of it.”

The precarious future of messaging apps.

The untold art of the fairytale comeback, brought to you by Nintendo.

What’s going on in Second Life? The same things that happen when any neighborhood is abandoned.

As passports give way to fingerprinting and retinal scans, our bodies themselves become tools to limit our free movement.

An important look at a dysfunctional industry, and a master class in profile writing.

To every man and woman their own Dorito.

If we want to liberate ourselves from the tech monopolies, we have to figure out what to do with our data.