Link About It: This Week’s Picks

The origin story of Monopoly, an advanced map of Mars and a new reason to avoid going out in our weekly look at the web

1. How Income Inequality Led to the Creation of Monopoly While Monopoly may be the world’s best-known board game, the story behind its creation has long been shrouded in mystery—until now. A man named Charles Darrow is usually the one credited as the game’s inventor, but as it turns out, a typist named Lizzie Magie originally came up with Monopoly as a way to teach …

Smart Intersections and the Death of Traffic Lights

Researchers from MIT, the Swiss Institute of Technology and the Italian National Research Council have collaborated to design a smart intersection that would drastically reduce traffic. Called “Light Traffic,” the concept would allow autonomous cars to smoothly flow through an intersection by automatically adjusting speeds and distances of approaching vehicles, so that none would need to completely stop. In doing so, congestion, wait times, and …

Apple Unveils Liam: iPhone Destroyer

Alongside a new four-inch iPhone model, a smaller iPad Pro and an affordable Apple Watch, Apple took to the stage today to announce its latest creation: Liam, a robot specifically built to disassemble iPhones. Liam is part of Apple’s ongoing commitment to eco-friendly practices and helps part-out recycled iPhones after they’ve run their course. See Liam in action at Tech Crunch