The Bonkers Tech That Detects Lightning 6,000 Miles Away

Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesIf lightning strikes a few hundred miles from the North Pole, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Yes, because there’s a global array of sensors that’s always listening, pinpointing lightning strikes in time and space from as far away as 6,000 miles.This past weekend the North…

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How Facebook Catches Bugs in Its 100 Million Lines of Code

Facebook doesn't have the most stellar privacy and security track record, especially given that many of its notable gaffes were avoidable. But with billions of users and a gargantuan platform to defend, it's not easy to catch every flaw in the company's 100 million lines of code. So four years ago, Facebook engineers began building…

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Depth of Field: Where Is Jay-Z Taking the NFL?

In the National Football League's kingdom of stunted progress, what you see is not always what you get. For decades the NFL has tried to scrub difficult political and social discourse from its brand. This has meant keeping the games going even as the league faced everything from domestic abuse cases to brain injuries. But…

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AI Algorithms Need FDA-Style Drug Trials

Imagine a couple of caffeine-addled biochemistry majors late at night in their dorm kitchen cooking up a new medicine that proves remarkably effective at soothing colds but inadvertently causes permanent behavioral changes. Those who ingest it become radically politicized and shout uncontrollably in casual conversation. Still, the concoction sells to billions of people. This sounds…

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Our Favorite Laptops, From MacBooks to Chromebooks

These are our favorite Windows Notebooks, MacBooks, and Chromebooks.Buying any laptop is a big decision: You may end up using it for years before buying another, and there are many makes, models, and chip configurations to choose from. Lucky for you, we’ve tried out many of the new models in the past year. These are…

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Catch Rockets With a Helicopter? Yep, That’s the Plan

Rocket Lab and other space outfits are hoping to catch their spent boosters midair in a bid to make launches cheaper and faster.Rocket LabIn the span of just four years, reusable rockets have gone from never-been-done to almost routine, at least at SpaceX. Blue Origin was the first to land a rocket booster, in 2015,…

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Apple is suing Corellium

Apple is suing virtualization software company Corellium, according to documents filed today in Florida. Corellium allows customers to create and interact with virtual iOS devices — a software iPhone, for…

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