Month: June 2019

In a maze of tunnels 900 feet beneath the Nevada desert, US nuclear weapons scientists have since the 1990s been intermittently agitating flecks of plutonium with chemical high explosives, carefully trying to push them to the brink of a chain reaction capable of yielding nuclear force. In a separate network of underground tunnels about 4,800…

Near the end of 2017, on a Dominican Republic beach with his family, Facebook executive David Marcus wrestled with a question he’d been pondering since his previous job as president of PayPal. How would you build the internet of money? A friction-free global digital currency would be a boon for the many people with mobile…

The flooding that devastated the Midwest this spring damaged infrastructure and prevented farmers from getting crops planted on time. Though scientists can’t say if one storm or one wet season is the result of climate change, so far this year’s heavy rains are a perfect illustration of what scientific models of climate change predict for…

For anyone who's ever wondered what they'd look like if they were made out of troll dolls, meet Daniel Rozin. "A lot of my pieces use light and shadow in order to create pixels," explains the artist, who's also an associate professor in the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Rozin's…

This story is part of a series on how we clean—from organizing your house to washing your tuchus. How many photos are on your phone right now? While you check, let me posit a guess: One zillion. Did I ballpark it? Thought so. The great modern convenience of carrying an excellent smartphone camera in your…

Scroll through Twitter and you'll find all manner of jokes about Alexa's on-demand shopping abilities. In response to internet drama: "Alexa, order me popcorn." In response to sad news: "Alexa, order me a box of tissues." In response to climate change: "Alexa, order us a new planet." Amazon's chatty bot, like its voice-assistant brethren, was…

There's a new scam getting after your Google Calendar, you can now control TVs with your eyes, and it's time to get your smorgasbord of cell phone photos organized. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less. Want to receive this two-minute roundup as an email every week day? Sign up…

In 1981, many of the world’s leading cosmologists gathered at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, a vestige of the coupled lineages of science and theology located in an elegant villa in the gardens of the Vatican. Stephen Hawking chose the august setting to present what he would later regard as his most important idea: a…

On the scale of security threats, hackers scanning poten­tial targets for vulnerabilities might seem to rank rather low. But when it's the same hackers who previously executed one of the most reckless cyberattacks in history—one that could have easily turned destructive or even lethal—that recon­nais­sance has a more foreboding edge. Especially when the target of…

This week was E3, the trade show where the biggest names in gaming debut their latest shiny products and software. On this week’s Gadget Lab podcast, WIRED’s Peter Rubin joins Mike, Arielle, and Lauren to discuss the latest developments in cloud computing, live-streaming services, and Fortnite as a social platform. And of course, it wouldn’t…