Consumer & Gadgets
Installing a backup power supply: Electrical engineers answer your questions
An inverter system will look something like this. Credit: Suranto W/Shutterstock South Africa's electricity utility Eskom has made it clear...
Super Bowl car ads sell Americans the idea that new tech will protect them
At the dawn of the car era, carmakers needed to allay fears that pedestrian lives were at risk. Credit: Library...
Future home havens: Australians likely to use more energy to stay in and save money
Credit: Shutterstock Soaring energy costs are a major factor in Australia's cost-of-living crisis. The conventional wisdom is people will reduce...
Researchers develop a new model to predict smartphone use during church services
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Smartphones are a ubiquitous part of daily life, always close by for a quick update or...
Add-on device makes home furnaces cleaner, safer and longer-lasting
ORNL's ultraclean condensing high-efficiency natural gas furnace features an affordable add-on technology that can remove more than 99.9% of acidic...
AirTag harassment victims unconvinced by Apple’s fixes
Apple's AirTag is a silver and white gadget about the size of a coin. Originally designed as a solution for...
OpenAI launches new tool to deter cheating on its own platform
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain ChatGPT—an artificial intelligence tool that can write essays, poems and emails on any subject with the...
How will ChatGPT change the way we think and work?
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Since its public launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has captured the world's attention, showing millions of...
First steps toward more climate-friendly streaming
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain In recent years, video streaming has increased significantly. While every German spent an average of 42...
Twitter’s new data fees leave scientists scrambling for funding—or cutting research
It’s now pay to play if you want access to Twitter’s data. Credit: The Conversation US, CC BY-ND Twitter is...
How a drone from a Tampa Walmart makes deliveries
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain On the edge of Tampa, bordering Pasco County, Matthew Credle prepared a drone to make deliveries...
Android phones sold to customers in China found to be loaded with apps that send user data to third parties
The ECDF of the number of dangerous permissions requested by each category of packages in each handset. Credit: arXiv (2023)....
Gadget industry tosses a wrench into ‘right to repair’ efforts
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain The "right to repair" movement is having a moment, but roadblocks remain. After Colorado and New...
Americans don’t understand what companies can do with their personal data—and that’s a problem
The vast majority (77%) of those surveyed would have received an F in most American classrooms (0-53% correct). Another 15%...
How to harness social influence for good
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Thanks to TikTok, Twitter, Instagram et al, we are living in the age of social influence....
Teenagers want interactive technology in museums, research finds
Credit: Pexels/Cottonbro Studio New research from the Interactive Technologies Institute (ITI) in Portugal has revealed that teenagers are not big...
In a world of limited resources, the future is low-tech—providing we make products more user-friendly
Prototyping of a self-built stove. Credit: Julien Lemaistre/Low-tech Lab Semiconductors for electric vehicles have been in short supply since 2020....
Bio-based plastics gain consumer favor over fossil fuels
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain When it comes to enhancing the sustainability of plastic beverage bottles, consumers are willing to pay...
The sharing economy can expose you to liability risks—here’s how to protect yourself
Credit: HTeam / Shutterstock Sharing platforms have become a regular part of our lives for travel and daily needs, especially...
How concerned should you be about AirTags?
AirTag. Credit: Wikimedia Commons. Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International. Creator: KKPCW I didn't even know what...
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Hackers scored data center logins for big corporations more than a year ago. Now they’re selling that information
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain In an episode that underscores the vulnerability of global computer networks, hackers got ahold of login...
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EDITOR'S PICK
Will ChatGPT replace human writers? A psychologist weighs in
Steven Pinker. Credit: Rebecca Goldstein Steven Pinker thinks ChatGPT is truly impressive—and will be even more so once it "stops...
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