NASA will be renting some cool wheels to drive around the moon. Space agency officials announced on Wednesday that they have hired three companies to come up with preliminary designs for vehicles to take NASA astronauts around the lunar south polar region in the coming years. After the astronauts return to Earth, these vehicles would…
Ford Motor on Thursday delayed the production of at least two new electric cars and said it would pivot to making more hybrids. Its decision was the latest sign that large automakers have been forced to rethink their strategy for electric vehicles because sales for those models are slowing. The shift by Ford and other…
In a TV commercial, Sister Monica Clare, a nun in northern New Jersey, walks through a church that’s bathed in sunlight and sits in a pew, crossing herself. Her message: TikTok is a force for good. “Because of TikTok, I’ve created a community where people can feel safe asking questions about spirituality,” she says in…
The internet, as anyone who works deep in its trenches will tell you, is not a smooth, well-oiled machine. It’s a messy patchwork that has been assembled over decades, and is held together with the digital equivalent of Scotch tape and bubble gum. Much of it relies on open-source software that is thanklessly maintained by…
On the east side of San Jose, Calif., there is an abuela who seems to have more grandchildren than she can count. “A lot of people see me and they hug me,” Mardonia Galeana, 89, said in Spanish. “I don’t even know them, but sometimes they ask me for a blessing on the street and…
When I temporarily switched from an iPhone to an Android phone last week, I was bracing for a world of hurt. I’ve owned only Apple phones ever since buying the first-generation iPhone in 2007. And, like many, I’ve bought other Apple products that pair nicely, including AirPods, an Apple Watch and an iPad. That type…
The estate of the comedian George Carlin reached a settlement on Monday with the makers of a podcast who had said they had used artificial intelligence to impersonate Mr. Carlin for a comedy special. As part of the agreement, the two podcast creators, Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen, agreed to permanently remove the comedy special…
Stick Nation was born last summer, during a hiking trip to Arches National Park in Utah. Boone Hogg, Logan Jugler and some friends were cracking jokes as they trekked toward Delicate Arch. From their free-associative silliness came the notion of reviewing a stick as you might a sculpture or valuable antique. Later, Mr. Hogg, 30,…
Stick Nation was born last summer, during a hiking trip to Arches National Park in Utah. Boone Hogg, Logan Jugler and some friends were cracking jokes as they trekked toward Delicate Arch. From their free-associative silliness came the notion of reviewing a stick as you might a sculpture or valuable antique. Later, Mr. Hogg, 30,…
For nearly 30 years, Oren Etzioni was among the most optimistic of artificial intelligence researchers. But in 2019 Dr. Etzioni, a University of Washington professor and founding chief executive of the Allen Institute for A.I., became one of the first researchers to warn that a new breed of A.I. would accelerate the spread of disinformation…
