“A broken phone or corrupted drive can mean the loss of work, evidence, art, or the last traces of the dead. But sometimes data-recovery experts can summon lost files from the void.”
memory
Posted inFeature
The Memory Maker
OpenAI’s Sora allowed you to deepfake yourself. Users started to remember things that never happened.
Posted inEditor's Pick
One Step Removed from Ash
“I am still afraid of forgetting. There is much I have already forgotten.”
Posted inFeature
Uncanny Testimony
As the last Holocaust survivors approach the end of their lives, an AI scholar grapples with technology that promises to freeze them in time.
Posted inEditor's Pick
When Dementia Steals the Imagination of a Children’s Book Writer
“Robert Munsch wrote ‘The Paper Bag Princess,’ ‘Love You Forever’ and other classics by performing them over and over for kids. But his stories are slipping away.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
What I Inherited from My Criminal Great-Grandparents
“In working through the Winter case files, I often felt pinpricks of déjà vu: an exact turn of phrase, an absurdly specific expenditure.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Active Recall
“As of his sixth birthday next month, he will have 2,462 seconds, his entire life compressed as I wanted to remember it, into approximately 41 minutes.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Death, Divorce, and the Magic of Kitchen Objects: How to Find Hope in Loss
“As they pass through different hands, cooking utensils can magically connect us to loved ones who are no longer with us.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Losing My Dad in Installments
“Back then, it felt easier to say goodbye to each part of him as they left.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Losers Keepers
“Better to imagine some subterranean Gollum crooning over my memories than to accept them being lost completely.”