Every year more movies hit theaters than any sane person could ever hope to try to see. Yet we here at WIRED are crazy enough to try to see as many as we can. And in the process we often catch films that might fall under the radar (or just […]
The phrase "heat engine" might trigger some bad memories from your introductory thermodynamics course. But don't worry, I am going to show you the coolest heat engine you could possibly image—the . The basic idea behind a heat engine is to draw some useful energy out of a temperature difference. […]
There’s a moment in James Vlahos’ piece——that made me tear up the first time I read it. Vlahos has just finished a prototype of a chatbot that speaks much like his father, who’s dying of lung cancer. The system has been trained on hours and hours of recordings of the […]
2017 was an incredible year for videogames—a mixed bag of genre, style, and mood. The best titles ranged from sweeping adventures to tense shooters to meditations on the existential burden of life. Some of the games released this year will go on to be lauded as the most important, profound […]
For all the hype about , 2017 saw some notable strides in artificial intelligence. A bot called Libratus , for example. Out in the real world, machine learning is being put to use and widening access to . But have you talked to recently? Then you’ll know that despite the […]
In November, the San Francisco SPCA deployed a 5-foot-tall, 400-pound robot to patrol its campus. Not for muscle, mind you, but for surveillance. The SPCA, a large complex nestled in the northeast corner of the city's Mission neighborhood, has long dealt with vandalism, break-ins, and discarded needles in its surrounding […]
You have to be a hardcore avgeek to enjoy flying these days. People shuffling from one line to the next, shoes off, laptops out, passports checked, power failures, where’s the bar? But airlines, airport operators, and security staff, are turning to tech to ease the pain. Here are some of […]
If you're sick of hearing about net neutrality, we've got bad news: The issue's only going to get bigger. Now that the Federal Communications Commission has its rules banning internet service providers from blocking or discriminating against lawful content, the issue is heading for Congress. And if the activists who […]
This year, for the first time in my life, I’ll be hosting my family for the holidays. And to their deep disgruntlement, we’ll be celebrating it without a Christmas tree. No, this isn’t some principled stance against the yuletide-industrial complex or a personal front in the war on Christmas. I’m […]
Tech giants love to tout how good their computers are at identifying what’s depicted in a photograph. In 2015, deep learning algorithms designed by , and China’s superseded humans at the task, . This week, Facebook that its facial-recognition technology is now smart enough to identify a photo of you, […]