Scientific American: Technology

Changing Car Culture Can Benefit Our Health and Our Planet

The Editors — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 14:00:00 GMT

We need to rethink the American love affair with the automobile and redesign cities to reduce car pollution

Why Writing by Hand Is Better for Memory and Learning

Charlotte Hu — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 20:45:00 GMT

Engaging the fine motor system to produce letters by hand has positive effects on learning and memory

Scientists Are Putting ChatGPT Brains Inside Robot Bodies. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

David Berreby — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 16:00:00 GMT

The effort to give robots AI brains is revealing big practical challenges—and bigger ethical concerns

The Sophisticated Threads behind a Hat That Senses Traffic Lights

Payal Dhar — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 13:30:00 GMT

A new technique to make electronic fibers could help solve wearable technology’s flexibility problem

What Apple's New Vision Pro Headset Might Do to Our Brain

Lauren Leffer — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 12:00:00 GMT

The release of Apple’s mixed-reality headset raises questions about hours spent in a virtual replacement of our world

Electric Vehicles Aren't Ready for Extreme Heat and Cold. Here's How to Fix Them

Molly Glick — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 13:30:00 GMT

New materials would help the cars of the future survive cold snaps and other climate disruptions

How AI Bots Could Sabotage 2024 Elections around the World

Charlotte Hu — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 14:00:00 GMT

AI-generated disinformation will target voters on a near-daily basis in more than 50 countries, according to a new analysis

Cybercrime Security Gap Leaves People Who Aren't Proficient in English Poorly Protected

Fawn Ngo, The Conversation US — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 13:00:00 GMT

Our research finds that language is often a barrier for people dealing with cybercrime issues and that it’s important to close this security gap

Tougher AI Policies Could Protect Taylor Swift--And Everyone Else--From Deepfakes

Brian Contreras — Thu, 08 Feb 2024 18:30:00 GMT

In January Taylor Swift became the latest high-profile target of nonconsensual deepfake images. It’s time for regulations that ban this kind of abusive AI content, cyberadvocates say

Europe's New AI Rules Could Go Global--Here's What That Will Mean

Chris Stokel-Walker — Wed, 07 Feb 2024 15:00:00 GMT

A leaked draft of the European Union’s upcoming AI Act has experts discussing where the regulations may fall short

Even ChatGPT Says ChatGPT Is Racially Biased

Craig Piers — Wed, 07 Feb 2024 13:00:00 GMT

When asked, ChatGPT declared that its training material—the language we humans use every day—was to blame for potential bias in stories it generated

New AI Circuitry That Mimics Human Brains Makes Models Smarter

Anna Mattson — Wed, 07 Feb 2024 12:30:00 GMT

A new kind of transistor allows AI hardware to remember and process information more like the human brain does

AI Unravels Ancient Roman Scroll Charred By Volcano

Jo Marchant, Nature magazine — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 18:00:00 GMT

AI helps decipher the text of a 2,000-year-old scroll burned at Pompeii

We Need Cybersecurity in Space to Protect Satellites

Sylvester Kaczmarek — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Amid rising numbers of cyber threats, safeguarding our satellites is no longer optional but a necessity for global security and reliability

The Government's Former UFO Hunter Found Something More Concerning than Aliens

Daniel Vergano, Jeffery DelViscio — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 11:00:00 GMT

Sean Kirkpatrick looked into the skies and deep into government archives for extraterrestrials. What he found is, to him, more concerning than little green men.

Why Is Superconductivity Research Plagued by Controversy?

Dan Falk, Undark — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 15:00:00 GMT

A materials scientist unravels the hype around research on high-temperature superconductor research like LK-99

A Camera-Wearing Baby Taught an AI to Learn Words

Lauren Leffer — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 19:00:00 GMT

Most machine-learning models rely on mountains of data to replicate human text, but new research suggests the recipe for learning language might be simpler

Forgotten Electrical Engineer's Work Paved the Way for Radar Technology

Erica Huang, Katie Hafner, The Lost Women of Science Initiative — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 17:00:00 GMT

Sallie Pero Mead made major discoveries about how electromagnetic waves propagate that allowed objects to be detected at a distance

An Alliance Calling For More Open AI Should Heed Their Own Call

Wai Chee Dimock — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 13:30:00 GMT

The word “open” is often thrown around in describing AI transparency, but the companies and groups calling for it must themselves be open about their practices

AI's Climate Impacts May Hit Marginalized People Hardest

Thomas Frank, E&E News — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 21:45:00 GMT

A Brookings Institution report warns that energy-hungry artificial intelligence tech will worsen the climate crisis

Computers Sculpt Hopping Gelatinous Robots

Matthew Hutson — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 14:00:00 GMT

These bloblike bots have been optimized for speed

Will Quantum Computers Upend Cryptography as We Know It?

Jeffery DelViscio — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Experts are starting to plan for the moment when a quantum computer large enough to crack the backbone of the math that keeps things secret will be turned on.

These Numbers Look Random but Aren't, Mathematicians Prove

Christopher Lutsko — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 12:00:00 GMT

A new mathematical proof helps show whether a sequence of numbers is “pseudorandom”

AI Survey Exaggerates Apocalyptic Risks

Chris Stokel-Walker — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 13:00:00 GMT

A speculative survey about AI’s future may have been biased toward an alarmist perspective

AI Audio Deepfakes Are Quickly Outpacing Detection

Lauren Leffer — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 12:00:00 GMT

An alleged voice recording of racist remarks exemplifies the challenges of our new AI normal