Most of the students that Mindy Bissett teaches in schools around Little Rock, Arkansas live along the poverty line in a limited world that often stops at the banks of the Arkansas River. So, the idea of becoming a NASA engineer can feel like science fiction. Yet, three times a week, Bissett guides third and fourth-grade students through lessons in rudimentary robotics, engineering design, and space science that has them attempting spacecraft models with Lego build kits featuring modest electron
At first, the horse that greeted press attendees at an Oct. 20 event at Mount Vernon looked decidedly analog. But as a Virginia Tech professor turned Mikey around, an unusual bit of technology came into view: a small box attached to a wrap around his tail. The use case involved poop. “We’re in the middle of the data revolution,” said Robin White, an assistant professor at Virginia Tech’s Department of Animal and Poultry Sciences and its Center for Advanced Innovation
From its centered task bar to its revamped Start and Quick Settings menus, the recently released Windows 11 includes some of the most obvious changes to the venerable operating system since Windows 8 launched nearly a decade ago. A response to the iPad, 2012’s Windows 8 sported Microsoft’s “Metro” user interface, with a Start screen of large, blinking Live Tiles and apps designed around touch-friendly controls and swipe gestures. These elements were grafted on top of
When Tinder debuted its interactive dating experience Swipe Night in 2019, Kyle Miller, the company’s VP of product, core experience, recognized the risk of wrapping Tinder’s primary function—creating matches among its millions of users, 10.4 million of which are paying customers as of parent company Match Group’s third-quarter earnings—in what could’ve been seen as a trendy gimmick under the discerning gaze of the platform’s core demo of Gen Z. K
If all goes as planned, by Saturday, November 6, over 180 million people around the world will be very aware that Arcane, a TV series based on the multiplayer, online game League of Legends, is launching on Netflix.
This mega-awareness won’t be so much the result of billboards and TV spots and social media posts about the show—though there have been those, too—rather, is what happens when a gaming company, in this case Riot Games, is able to tap into its ginormou
As Marvel embarks on the long-delayed, much-hyped U.S. launch of the Eternals, its latest franchise-within-a-franchise, a handful of Middle Eastern countries have announced a ban on the film. As of November 3, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar have ceased any plans for Eternals to screen in their theaters. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the move is due to the film’s widely touted depiction of Marvel’s first gay superhero and first onscreen same-sex kiss within the Marvel Cinema
For months now we’ve all been reading the data about the setbacks this pandemic has inflicted on women’s equality in the workplace. It’s now a well-worn narrative: “COVID-19 has driven millions of women out of the workforce”; “Coronavirus sent women’s progress backward”; “The pandemic has derailed working mothers.” Like many women in tech, I’ve been scared and concerned for the women I work alongside, invest in, and men
In the venture capital world, a relatively small group of firms have specialized in funding startups whose tech has applications in defense or intelligence. Lux Capital is one of these firms, and its cofounder Josh Wolfe has built an investment thesis around finding new technologies that could help the U.S. defend itself against threats such as drone swarms or armed satellites. For example, Lux was an early investor in Anduril, a firm started by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey to develop AI-driven
“Venture capital funding breaks records—and fuels bubble concerns.” Headlines like these abound these days. When reading the tech press, you would think that entrepreneurs are drowning in capital. But while this may be true in some sectors, the reality for the vast majority of founders throughout America is very different. The percentage of venture funding going to female-only founding teams has dropped to 2.2% in 2021. That’s the lowest it’s been in five years
On a recent tour of company headquarters, Gather founder and CEO Phillip Wang showed off some of the typical tech office attractions: plenty of conference rooms for private meetings, places to relax or have spontaneous conversations with coworkers, a secure area only unlockable by employees, and even a scenic roof deck. Some employees having a client meeting stopped to wave as we passed by. What made the tour unusual was that Wang and I weren’t in the same place, nor was he strolling thro