How Advanced Are We Earthlings? Here’s a Cosmic Yardstick
We really have come a long way from the cave, but how far can we still go? Is there a limit to our technological progress?

September 4, 2014 at 3:33PM
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How the Enormous Mirrors on the World’s Largest Telescope Are Made
The Giant Magellan Telescope is easily the most ambitious terrestrial astronomy program humanity’s ever devised. It has — quite literally — been built from the ground up by leveraging a brilliant, unique off-axis design and bleeding-edge fabrication techniques. And nowhere is that more apparent than in the telescope’s enormous mirror system.

September 4, 2014 at 3:33PM
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Did Dante Hall Bankrupt an Electronics Chain?
Legend has it that, in 2003, BrandSmart Midwest, an electronics and furniture retailer in the Kansas City region, ran a promotion based on an upcoming Chiefs game. If the opening kickoff of the October 5 game between Kansas City and Denver was returned for a touchdown, any purchase from the previous Friday or Saturday would be free.

September 4, 2014 at 2:21PM
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The Long And Stupid Quest To Improve The Baseball Cap
Truly great inventors can see problems where you or I wouldn’t. Consider the humble baseball cap. It hasn’t changed much in decades, and it hasn’t needed to; its functionality, comfort, and versatility lends itself to all kinds of athletic activity. It’s perfect, right?

Wrong! The average baseball cap is a nightmarish, seething, head-mounted sack of deficiencies, with a team logo on it.

September 4, 2014 at 10:56AM
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White House names Google’s Megan Smith the next Chief Technology Officer of the United States
The White House announced Thursday that it has named its next Chief Technology Officer. She is Megan Smith, a Google executive with decades of experience in Silicon Valley.

September 4, 2014 at 10:17AM
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Precognitive police
Predictive policing could help prevent crime. But do we want a future where computer oracles and spies track us from birth?

September 4, 2014 at 8:52AM
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A Prosthetic Leg That Plugs Directly Into The Skeleton
Flesh and titanium merge via a design inspired by deer antlers.

September 4, 2014 at 6:35AM
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Actual Telepathy Is One Step Closer to the Battlefield
Forget battlefield smartphones; the future of soldier-to-soldier communication may be electronic telepathy.

September 4, 2014 at 5:09AM
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Chattanooga’s Gig: how one city’s super-fast internet is driving a tech boom
The city is one of the only places on Earth with internet as fast as 1 gigabit per second – about 50 times faster than the U.S. average. Despite Big Cable’s attempt to block the Gig’s expansion plans, money keeps flowing into Chattanooga.

September 4, 2014 at 2:03AM
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The Next Big Thing You Missed: Startup Aims to Give Everyone the Mighty Shipping Power of Amazon
San Francisco startup Shyp believes that by offering up just one piece of that Amazonian process, it can give just about everyone the power of push-button shipping, creating a new kind of logistics layer for the world’s cities.

September 4, 2014 at 1:03AM
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