Some robots, including from Boston Dynamics, are already doing warehouse work. Do you expect to see that humanoid workforce growing in the coming years? Warehouse work is one of the great applications at the moment because there’s such a need for people. Employers are really frustrated with the difficulty of getting humans and training them… Continue reading The Man Who Made Robots Dance Now Wants Them to Think for Themselves
Author: Wired Magazine
A Gel Injected Into the Scrotum Could Be the Next Male Contraceptive
The purpose of the current trial is to assess the gel’s safety and longevity, not how well it prevents pregnancy. Participants were asked to use a back-up form of birth control while being enrolled in the trial. The gel is designed to dissolve at the end of its lifetime, so the men will be followed… Continue reading A Gel Injected Into the Scrotum Could Be the Next Male Contraceptive
10 Best Deals on Fitness Trackers and Smartwatches
Another new year, another bombardment of fitness and health resolutions (plus expensive monthly gym subscriptions). Don’t let your commitment to a year of renewed health fizzle like day-old champagne. A fitness tracker or smartwatch certainly can be a helpful tool in monitoring your health, whether it’s for tracking steps, your workouts, or even heart rate… Continue reading 10 Best Deals on Fitness Trackers and Smartwatches
Forget Growth. Optimize for Resilience
Fleming believed that growth has natural limits. Things grow to maturity—kids into adults, saplings into trees, startups into full-fledged companies—but growth beyond that point is, in his words, a “pathology” and an “affliction.” The bigger and more productive an economy gets, he argued, the more resources it needs to burn to maintain its own infrastructure.… Continue reading Forget Growth. Optimize for Resilience
This Ultrasound Bra Could Detect Cancer Sooner
In 2015, Canan Dağdeviren was working as a postdoc at MIT when she learned that her aunt, Fatma, had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Dağdeviren, whose work focused on building flexible devices that could capture biometric data, flew to the Netherlands to be with her relative in those last moments. At… Continue reading This Ultrasound Bra Could Detect Cancer Sooner
Sex, Drugs, and AI Mickey Mouse
On January 1, Mike Neville gave Midjourney the following prompt: “Steamboat Willie drawn in a vintage Disney style, black and white. He is dripping all over with white gel.” There’s no polite way to describe what this prompt conjured from the AI image generator. It looks, very much, like Mickey Mouse is drenched in ejaculate.… Continue reading Sex, Drugs, and AI Mickey Mouse
Women in the US Are Now Stockpiling Abortion Pills
When access to reproductive health care is threatened in the United States, a growing number of women stock up on abortion medications to keep on hand in case they need the pills in the future, new research shows. A study analyzed 48,404 requests for “advance provision” abortion medications made to Aid Access, an Austria-based nonprofit… Continue reading Women in the US Are Now Stockpiling Abortion Pills
To Own the Future, Read Shakespeare
many times a year, as if on a hidden schedule, some tech person, often venture-capital-adjacent, types out a thought on social media like “The only thing liberal arts majors are good for is scrubbing floors while I punch them” and hits Send. Then the poetry people respond—often a little late, in need of haircuts—with earnest… Continue reading To Own the Future, Read Shakespeare
These Rogue Worlds Upend the Theory of How Planets Form
“We know from direct imaging searches of young stars that very few stars have giant planets in [wide] orbits,” Bate said. “It is difficult to accept that there were many large planetary systems in Orion to disrupt.” Rogue Objects Abound At this point, many researchers suspect there’s more than one way to make these strange in-between… Continue reading These Rogue Worlds Upend the Theory of How Planets Form
20 Things That Made the World a Better Place in 2023
It’s been hard recently to think about anything other than the wars and humanitarian crises raging around the world. Climate change has left its mark in what was almost certainly the hottest year in human history—there were unprecedented heat waves, intensified forest fires, torrential rain, and floods like those in Libya that caused devastation after… Continue reading 20 Things That Made the World a Better Place in 2023