On August 11, 1994, a man in Philadelphia sat down at a computer and bought a CD. The album was Sting’s Ten Summoner’s Tales, the price was $12.48 plus shipping, and the seller was a young company called NetMarket. Nothing about the object...
Read article
Computer viruses have a reputation for destruction. They can erase files, encrypt disks, steal passwords and make a computer unusable. But can malicious software cross the invisible boundary...
Read
Bluetooth is such an ordinary part of modern life that its name barely sounds strange anymore. We tap an icon and headphones connect to a phone, a keyboard finds a computer, or a car starts...
Read
Imagine stepping outside after a thunderstorm and discovering the road covered in frogs. Some are hopping. Others are lying in puddles or on rooftops. Witnesses insist they watched them fall...
Read
You see someone stretch their jaw, squeeze their eyes shut and take a long, involuntary breath. A few seconds later, your own mouth opens. Sometimes you do not even need to see the yawn: hea...
Read
A fish can be surrounded by water and still run out of oxygen. That sounds like a contradiction only because we tend to think of water itself as the thing fish breathe. It is not. Most fish...
Read
On November 20, 1969, Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean left the lunar surface and rejoined Richard Gordon in orbit. Their lunar module's ascent stage was no longer useful, so m...
Read
A bitcoin cannot be held in your hand. It does not represent a legal claim on a company, pay a dividend or give its owner a stream of rental income. There is no warehouse containing one bar...
Read
It is one of those rules that millions of Americans seem to remember learning without remembering who taught it: you cannot drive a car barefoot. Maybe a parent said it. Maybe a driving inst...
Read
A penguin standing on ice looks as though someone designed a bird with a torso, two feet and almost nothing in between. Its legs seem impossibly short, and when it starts walking, the famili...
Read