Category: Tech

In Georgia, primary election chaos highlights a voting system deeply flawed

06.23.20.

Georgia experienced major problems with its voting processes during a primary election earlier in June. People waited in line up to eight hours to cast ballots, and poll workers struggled with new machines on which they hadn’t been trained due to the pandemic. What do Georgia’s election issues mean for other state primaries — and…
Read More
How blockchain technology could revolutionize the art market

09.16.19.

The technology underpinning blockchain is a powerful decentralizing network architecture that could revolutionize many industries. Now, some artists are leveraging blockchain to help guarantee the authenticity of their work — and ensure that they get paid. PBS NewsHour science correspondent Miles O’Brien reports on how digital documentation is putting power back into artists’ hands, even…
Read More
Why ‘deepfake’ videos are becoming more difficult to detect

06.13.19.

Sophisticated and inaccurate altered videos known as “deepfakes” are causing alarm in the digital realm. The highly realistic manipulated videos are the subject of a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Thursday. As PBS NewsHour science correspondent Miles O’Brien reports, the accelerating speed of computers and advances in machine learning make deepfakes ever more difficult to…
Read More
How cutting-edge engineering borrows nature’s innovations

02.07.19.

In the never-ending hunt for new designs that jump, pump, or run faster and better, scientists are finding inspiration in nature. The field of biomimicry blurs boundaries between living things — like the butterfly’s proboscis or the flea’s powerful legs — and the inanimate to spur new problem-solving technologies. PBS NewsHour science correspondent Miles O’Brien…
Read More
Want to learn about junk news? Here’s all our award-winning reporting.

12.20.18.

UPDATE 6/13/19: This series won a 2019 Mirror Award for Best Story on Social Media in the Crosshairs, tied with a BuzzFeed News series focusing on the same topic. After the 2016 U.S. presidential election, it became clear to a lot of people, including me, that the issue of fake news on the internet merited…
Read More
The challenge of robots and artificial intelligence, a retrospective – with AI pioneer Marvin Minsky

12.17.18.

Help us improve this podcast: take our short survey. Marvin Minsky is often regarded as the father of modern AI, but when Miles visited him in 2010, Minsky wasn’t a proud father. In fact, Minsky was disappointed with the lack of progress in the field and had reservations about its future. Unfortunately, Minsky is no…
Read More