Anonymous Location Data Pinpoints People

You already know that your smartphone apps gather your location data and sell it. We’ve also all been told it’s anonymous—but as the New York Times reports, it’s so personal that while there’s no name attached, there is a life under a microscope for all to see. The Times reviewed data from over a million phones in the New York area. Their takeaways, conveyed beautifully …

We Live In Douglas Engelbart’s 1968 Vision of the Future

On 9 December 1968, Stanford Research Institute engineer Douglas Engelbart presented at a computer conference in San Francisco. Here, in what is now referred to as the “mother of all demos,” Engelbart asked “If in your office, you as an intellectual worker were supplied with a computer display, backed up by a computer that was alive for you all day, and was instantly responsible—responsive—to every action you had, how …

Test Drive: 2019 Audi e-tron

Why it matters that their first production electric vehicle looks and feels like the car you're used to driving

The idea that the near-future will be radically different from the present might be false. Yes, we’ll see progress and innovation, however broad acceptance of new technologies only really occurs when they’re delivered in a familiar format, and only when these semi-cloaked new technologies are widely distributed is there the true opportunity for paradigm change. Whether it was the first TV programs offering the ability …