Apple, Google and Amazon Join Forces for More Connected Smart-Homes

A new coalition (which officially launches this year) between Apple, Google, Amazon and the Zigbee Alliance will result in most new devices being compatible with each aforementioned brands’ smart-home products. Setting an official standard for how products should coexist and connect will “make it easier both for consumers to build their ideal smart-home environment and also for manufacturers to develop new products.” That means one …

Italian Vogue’s Sustainable January 2020 Issue

After Vogue editors across many international editions declared that the magazine would do its best to “preserve our planet for future generations,” Italian Vogue cut photo shoots—and photos—for its January 2020 issue. In a letter to readers, editor Emanuele Farneti details the embarrassingly long list of people, supplies, and trips needed to complete an issue: “One hundred and fifty people involved. About twenty flights and …

Researcher Invents New Field to Study Life Found in Smoke

As flames still burn from another year of disastrous fires, Leda Kobziar (of the University of Idaho) works to grow a new field of study, Pyroaerobiology, that surveys life found in the puffs of smoke emitted from forest fires. Not only bacteria, fungi, and archaea flourish here, but allergens and viruses, too. When the ashen clouds rise and permeate faraway places, so do the things …