Technology

Despite decades of green certifications, better material sourcing, and the use of more sustainable materials such as mass timber, the built environment is still responsible for a third of global emissions worldwide. According to a 2024 UN report, the building sector has fallen “significantly behind on progress” toward becoming more sustainable. Changing the way we…

When the US Food and Drug Administration approved over-the-counter hearing-aid software for Apple’s AirPods Pro in September 2024, with a device price point right around $200, I was excited. I have mild to medium hearing loss and tinnitus, and my everyday programmed hearing aids cost just over $2,000—a lower-cost option I chose after my audiologist…

On a Sunday morning in a Midwestern megachurch, worshippers step through sliding glass doors into a bustling lobby—unaware they’ve just passed through a gauntlet of biometric surveillance. High-speed cameras snap multiple face “probes” per second, isolating eyes, noses, and mouths before passing the results to a local neural network that distills these images into digital…

In 1943, while the world’s brightest physicists split atoms for the Manhattan Project, the American psychologist B.F. Skinner led his own secret government project to win World War II.  Skinner did not aim to build a new class of larger, more destructive weapons. Rather, he wanted to make conventional bombs more precise. The idea struck…