Tag Archives: Technology

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Apr 22

Facial recognition tech didn’t help find bombing suspects

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Tom

If you’ve ever seen a cop show on TV you’ve probably seen examples of software that can magically take a photo of someone and search image databases to find all about them. Unfortunately, it doesn’t necessarily work that way in … Read More →

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Feb 14

Declassified: America’s Secret Flying Saucer

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Tom

Believe it or don’t, the US actually built and flew a flying saucer in the 1950s. Technically, it was built by a Canadian aerospace company, Avro, but it did fly. Sort of. It never achieved stability in the air, and … Read More →

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Jan 23

The Inside Story Of Siri’s Origins

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Tom

Siri is the iPhone’s voice-activated/voice-enabled “personal assistant”. But the story of how Siri was originally developed is more than just about the iPhone or even Apple. I don’t use Siri much on my iPhone, so I’m not really familiar with … Read More →

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Nov 05

Why Revolution Can’t Come to North Korea

Posted on November 5, 2012 by Tom

Why Revolution Can’t Come to North Korea. If you woke up in North Korea tomorrow possessed by the desire to overthrow Kim Jong Un, your revolution would be over before it began. On a basic practical level, you would find … Read More →

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Jul 03

Microsoft’s Lost Decade

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Tom

Vanity Fair received an amazing level of access to Microsoft’s internal documents along with dozens of employees to publish Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Executive E-mails and Cannibalistic Culture That Felled a Tech Giant. While Steve Ballmer’s picture leads the article, … Read More →

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Jun 03

Dissecting the old modem dial-up sound

Posted on June 3, 2012 by Tom

Alexis Madrigal has done an analysis of the dial-up modem sound, in case you wondered what it all meant. This post assumes you have an idea what the terms “modem” or “dial-up” mean. If not, nothing to see here, move … Read More →

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