Category: Tech

Another day, another major data breach—and another article advising you to strengthen your passwords. These secret bits of information act as the keys to all of our important online accounts, from social networks to email inboxes to bank accounts. That’s why choosing strong passwords, and managing them well, is so...

Back in eighth grade, Nathaniel Mills grabbed some tools and sat down in his bedroom. A computer lay open in front of him, filled with components he had installed himself. It was time to add another part. “Building a computer is essentially LEGO for adults,” he says. This was back...

Experts love to say that meetings kill productivity. They certainly can, but they don’t have to. When you schedule only necessary meetings and make choosing a time and date painless, meetings are more productive. When you prepare an agenda in advance and assign someone to take notes, the content of...

Imagine if the swishing threads inside your jeans pocket could charge your cell phone. Picture sensors that don’t need batteries because they make their own power. Both and more may soon be possible, thanks to new piezoelectric materials and devices. Pressing, squashing or twisting such materials produces an electric charge....

Maya Ackerman just wanted to write a song. She tried for years — song after song. In the end, she didn’t like any of the tunes she wrote. “I didn’t have the gift, if you will,” she says. “All the melodies that came into my mind were so boring that...

The world today evolves around technology. In every sphere of life, we are succumbed into technological facets. Starting from the time we wake up with the ringing of alarm clock until we do our household chores and office works, we are roaming around the peripheries of technology. Our children are...

Smartphones, tablets, fitness trackers, headphones. Most of the electronic devices we use today are made of rigid metal, plastic and glass. But electronics don’t have to be, says Marina Sala de Medeiros. Consider her team’s new electronic keypad. It has no batteries. The user’s touch gives it all the power...

WHETHER YOUR COMPUTER runs Windows, macOS, or Chrome OS, you have options for how you log in. And your choice doesn’t only affect how convenient it is for you to get into your laptop or desktop; it also affects how easily someone else can gain access. These are the different login options that...

With the COVID-19 pandemic changing our very way of life, businesses are rethinking everything. More and more real estate professionals are working from home, which means while you once met with clients and colleagues face to face, you must now meet virtually. The good news is that platforms like Zoom...

With Google achieving a ‘quantum supremacy’ breakthrough, Honeywell building the world’s most powerful ion-trap quantum computer, and venture capitalists pouring millions into QC start-ups, the decade ahead could jump-start commercial quantum computing. Our world relies heavily on intractable encryption to protect everything from digital signatures, private emails and banking information....

Companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have proven to us that we can trust them with our personal data. Now, they say, it’s time to reward that trust by giving them complete control over our computers, toasters, and cars. Allow me to introduce you to “edge” computing. Edge is a...

Laboratory heads are deploying apps and software in innovative ways to build broad and diverse research groups. Doris Taylor knows the sting of being set apart as different. As a young, lesbian woman starting her career in regenerative-medicine research in the late 1980s, she was often excluded from faculty functions...

Wearing a headset to play a virtual-reality game is fun. As you move your head around, you can see the scene from different angles. You’re immersed in a fake environment that seems so real. But the power of VR may go well beyond entertainment. It just might help people who...

Windows Explorer for Windows 10 does a decent job. It’s certainly an improvement over what Windows Explorer used to be 10 years ago. But there are still a lot of features that could make it truly great. Thankfully, there are a few developers who’ve built Windows Explorer alternatives. A few...

Wi-Fi speed—you probably don’t think much about it until the movie you’re streaming crashes. Or your files won’t upload to the cloud. Or your web browser keeps spinning without loading the page you want. With millions of users connecting their mobile devices to Wi-Fi hotspots around the world, it’s no...

Wi-Fi 6 is the next-generation wireless standard that’s faster than 802.11ac. More than speed, it will provide better performance in congested areas, from stadiums to your own device-packed home. It’s coming in 2019. Update: Wi-Fi 6 certification began on September 16, 2019. That’s a big sign that hardware is on the way! For...