How The Far-Right Helped To Create The Most Powerful Facial Recognition Technology
Clearview is the most powerful form of facial recognition technology ever created, according to the New York Times. With more than 3 billion photos scraped surreptitiously from social media profiles and websites, its image database is almost seven times the size of the FBI’s.
How The English Language Is Taking Over the Planet
English is everywhere, and everywhere, English dominates. From inauspicious beginnings on the edge of a minor European archipelago, it has grown to vast size and astonishing influence. Almost 400m people speak it as their first language; a billion more know it as a secondary tongue. Is there any point in resisting?
Going The Distance (And Beyond) To Catch Marathon Cheaters
Derek Murphy investigates runners whose times seem suspicious, which is what brought him to a 70-year-old doctor named Frank Meza. He’d run an exceptional time of 2 hours, 53 minutes that day, setting a record for the fastest marathon ever run by a man his age.
The Citizen Scientist Who Finds Killers From Her Couch
CeCe Moore has no scientific degree. Like other prominent figures in the genealogy community, she is self-taught. Moore is, in her own estimation, among the most experienced genetic genealogists in the world. Now she is using her genetic knowledge to expose murderers.
The Radical Plan To Save The Fastest Sinking City In The World
Many of our coastal cities are imperiled, but none have plotted an escape quite as audacious as Jakarta’s. President Joko Widodo plans to pick up and move the capital, along with 7 million people.
The Cab Ride That Nearly Killed Me Changed How I Think About Ride-Hailing Apps
Were ride-hailing companies doing enough to protect passengers from negligent drivers? Maybe Grab’s growth and its perceived triumph over Uber the day before my accident had come at a cost. Was it possible that, for all the convenience ride-hailing services offered, they were making cities less safe?
The Bizarre Bank Robbery That Shook An Arctic Town
As one of the northernmost settlements on earth, the Norwegian hamlet of Longyearbyen has become a magnet for adventurous souls looking to start a new life. But when an unsettling crime happened, it brought home a harsh reality: in the modern world, trouble always finds you.
The Last Days Of John Allen Chau
In the fall of 2018, the 26-year-old American missionary traveled to a remote speck of sand and jungle in the Indian Ocean, attempting to convert one of the planet’s last uncontacted tribes to Christianity. The islanders killed him, and Chau was pilloried around the world as a deluded Christian supremacist who deserved to die.
The Best Hike In Every American State
Alpine scrambles and beach-front strolls; multi-day singletrack adventures and quick urban escapes; soaring trees and rolling sand dunes—every state in the country has something to offer intrepid hikers.
Digital Technology Is Not To Blame For Our Hyperfast Lives
Life in the 21st century, we are told, is faster than ever. Time is scarce, the pace of everyday life is accelerating, and everyone complains about how busy they are. For all the smart tech, we still feel pressed for time. Are digital services the problem, or are we humans to blame?
How Governments Shut Down The Internet
Governments around the world are shutting down the internet, saying it’s needed to prevent protests or cheating on exams. But critics say blocking expression and access to information violates human rights. Here’s how internet shutdowns work.
Catch Me If You Can: The Global Pursuit of a Fugitive Ship
Authorities believe the STS-50 operated illegally for 10 years or so and looted up to $50-million worth of the fish. Interpol had issued a purple notice for the vessel. But the vessel’s owners and captain had been evading authorities for years with a typical bag of tricks
The Mob’s IT Department
How two technology consultants helped drug traffickers hack the Port of Antwerp. A story of two men who became pawns of a violent group through coercion and a series of very bad decisions.
There Is No Reason to Cross the U.S. by Train. But I Did It Anyway.
Tell your fellow Americans that you plan to cross the United States by train, and their reactions will range from amusement at your spellbinding eccentricity to naked horror that they, through some fatal social miscalculation, have become acquainted with a person who would plan to cross the United States by train.
The Brutal Rise Of El Mencho
A former Jalisco state policeman who once served three years in a U.S. prison for selling heroin, Mencho heads what many experts call Mexico’s fastest-growing, deadliest and, according to some, richest drug cartel – the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación, or CJNG.
The Preposterous Success Story Of America’s Pillow King
The tale of Mike Lindell begins in a crack house. The 47-year-old divorced father of four had run out of crack, again. He realized that abusing crack and running a business weren’t compatible in the long term and vowed to fulfill his dream of making “the world’s best pillow.”
Instagram, My Daughter, And Me
What Instagram has allowed me to do is to employ a kind of digital physics, to warp my experience of space and time in my favor. In the offline world, I spend precious hours with her and then she disappears. But online, she is with me again when I post, and then again each time I receive a notification.
How To Prepare Now For The Complete End Of The World
Some people now are considering what it means to live in a world that could be shut down by a pandemic. But some people are already living like this. Some do it because they just like it. Some do it because they think the end has, in fact, already begun to arrive.
Some people now are considering what it means to live in a world that could be shut down by a pandemic. But some people are already living like this. Some do it because they just like it. Some do it because they think the end has, in fact, already begun to arrive.
The New Generation Of Self-Created Utopias
The United States has been a laboratory for experiments in alternative living since its founding. As so-called intentional communities proliferate across the country, a subset of Americans is discovering the value of opting out of contemporary society.
Tech’s Most Controversial Startup Makes Drone-Killing Robots
Founded by Palmer Luckey and backed by Peter Thiel, Anduril is rekindling the connection between the American military and Silicon Valley. The company’s surveillance technology consists of large towers, packed with sensors, and small surveillance drones that can be set up to guard the perimeter.
How A Single Mom Created A Plastic Food-Storage Empire
The story of Tupperware is a story of innovation and reinvention: how a new kind of plastic, made from industrial waste material, ended up a symbol of female empowerment. The product ushered women into the workforce, encouraging them to make their own money, better their families, and win accolades and prizes.