History indicates that major technological changes can take about half a century to go from the first lab drawings to society. Alan Turing first proposed the Turing machine, laying the foundations of computation, in 1936; the first general-purpose “Turing-complete” system was built in 1945, and “The Computer” was only named “Machine of the Year” by Time in 1982, about half a century later.

Your own voice will likely become the most significant focus for food retailers and restaurants in the immediate future. Voice searches are increasingly becoming the norm. A recent study suggests that more than 50 percent of all online searches will be voice-activated by 2020.

In the wake of the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes of Boeing 737 Max planes, people are thinking about how much of their air travel is handled by software and automated systems—as opposed to the friendly pilots sitting in the cockpit.

Whether you love or hate his work, Andy Warhol eating a Whopper for 45 seconds during one of the most expensive ad slots in television this year was astonishing.

In Steven Spielberg’s 2018 film, Ready Player One, based on the 2011 book by Ernest Cline, people enter an immersive world of virtual reality called the OASIS. What was most gripping about the futuristic tech in this sci-fi movie was not the VR goggles, which don’t seem so far off from the headsets currently sold by Oculus, HTC, and others.

In August 2011, a can of Great Value peas joined the nonperishables in my pantry, one of several panic purchases as Hurricane Irene barreled toward my home on the northeast U.S. coast. But the emergency passed, and the can, with its unassuming blue-on-white outline font, remains on my shelf seven years later.

Its continued presence raises a dilemma in the form of a clearly legible stamp: “BEST BY 12/31/14.” Should I toss it? Can canned peas go bad? How would I know if they had?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is widely acknowledged as a crucial aspect of what is broadly referred to as Industry 4.0. Although no one knows yet how AI will be incorporated into the next phase of the Industrial Revolution, most agree that it will allow greater connectivity between people, machines, and information technology, allowing manufacturers to better optimize processes and predict problems.

A new measurement approach proposed by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) could lead to a better way to calibrate computed tomography (CT) scanners, potentially streamlining patient treatment by improving communication among doctors. 

Often the words “collaboration,” “coordination,” and “cooperation” are used to describe effective teamwork. But they are not the same, and when we use these words interchangeably, we dilute their meaning and diminish the potential for creating powerful, collaborative workplaces.

A research team led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has created a nanoscale “playground” on a chip that simulates the formation of exotic magnetic particles called monopoles. The study—published recently in Science Advances—could unlock the secrets to ever-smaller, more powerful memory devices, microelectronics, and next-generation hard drives that employ the power of magnetic spin to store data.