Tech

"Space travel presents its own unique challenges to the Jewish astronaut: How can one procure kosher space food, as well as all the other necessities of Jewish life? How does one face Jerusalem when praying in orbit?"

A human mission to Mars would be more than a visit. The astronauts would be up in space for a considerable amount of time. That might mean having kids in Zero-G.

"On its face, voting by phone makes sense. Nearly ninety-five per cent of American adults own mobile phones, and rely on them for all sorts of secure transactions."

"The “Kmart” group on the photo-sharing website Flickr has amassed a staggering twenty-five thousand photos of its subject, a struggling American discount store."

Elizabeth Warren's DNA test, which she used to prove her own Native American heritage, has stirred a controversy about identity and genetics. But how accurate are DNA tests anyway?

"Recently my son visited a Holocaust Museum where a program called New Dimensions in Testimony provided a hologram of an Auschwitz survivor. The unreal man would answer any question the children asked about the horrors of history. "

“Google engineer triggered self-driving car accident that went unreported.”

“When we die now, we leave a multitude of digital relics behind. Can we grieve properly for those we love when the dead remain with us?”

“The solution is so simple it’s almost laughable: just make our clouds a little more reflective, so they reflect more of the sun’s light, and thus reduce our heat.”

"New techniques that dig more deeply into genetic databases may soon make the anonymity of their customers’ DNA impossible to safeguard."

“Across the technology industry, rank-and-file employees are demanding greater insight into how their companies are deploying the technology that they built.”

“Today, Alexa is a humble servant. Very soon, she could be much more—a teacher, a therapist, a confidant, an informant.”

“More than a decade into era of prevalent social networks & smartphones, people still can’t make informed choices about how to safely conduct their lives online.”

Feeling overwhelmed by the deluge of content coming at you from screens? Now you can block it all out IRL.

“The attack by Chinese spies reached almost 30 U.S. companies, including Amazon and Apple…”

“Although FEMA maintains that the alerts will only be used for mega-disasters, the infrastructure is now in place for it to, down the line, be used in other, more totalitarian ways.”

“Using a mobile app as a form of contraception raises questions: What do we expect it to do? How reliable should it be, and what’s required of the user to make it effective?”

“Facebook has proven over and over again that it prioritizes its own product agenda over the safety and privacy of its users…”

Instagram’s founders have left the company in Mark Zuckerberg’s hands. Will he ruin it?

“Body cameras that automatically activate in response to the sound of gunfire could forever change people's expectations about public spaces.”

People like to blame social media for turning Americans into oversharing narcissists – but maybe technology isn’t at fault. Maybe this is who we are, and who we've always been.

Amazon's new line of hardware makes one thing clear. From glancing at the clock to cooking in the microwave to driving in your car, Amazon wants to be with you absolutely everywhere you go.

"As Seen On TV" gadgets like the "sock slider" or a banana peeler are often mocked for being useless wastes of plastic. But for some individuals with disabilities, these gadgets make all the difference.

“To be alive and online in our time is to feel at once incensed and stultified by the onrush of information, helpless against the rising tide of bad news and worse opinions.”

The effects of screen-time on human wellbeing may not be entirely known, but new data suggests that addictive games like Fortnite could be responsible for destroying marriages.

“Flying is a harrowing test of nerve, and at the same time utterly mundane, and that mundanity is the foundation on which developer Hosni Auji built Flight Simulator.”

When it comes to tech, the youth market is generally considered the most appealing for developers and marketers, but Apple’s new offerings are going after Baby Boomers instead.

“What HBO’s new documentary “Swiped” and Lifetime’s scripted drama “You” tell us about the perils of living online.”

Is “shadow-banning” a threat to free speech? Conservatives think that Twitter’s shadow-banning practices are being weaponized against them, but this may be little more than a conspiracy theory.

Silicon Valley’s super-rich are using their massive wealth to prepare for doomsday. If the apocalypse comes, they’ll just hop on their jets and head to their bunkers in New Zealand.