Ian Mackay has a home full of smart gadgets—from lights to fans to window shades—and runs them all from his iPhone and HomePods. “I use Apple technology for pretty much everything that I can,” he says. But even though he’s an Apple power user par excellence, he’s never had an Apple Watch. It hasn’t been for lack of interest. In 2008, a bicycle crash left Mackay paralyzed. Other than shrugging his shoulders, he can’t move his body from the n
You may have a rough idea of what an NFT is: a virtual document that conveys some ownership of a virtual good. As with their cousins, cryptocurrencies, NFTs have the potential to be quite valuable: If you bought the right NFT—say, a CryptoPunks or BoredApeYachtClub cartoon—at the right time, you could have made a fortune. With the recent crash of the crypto market, it appears that NFTs were just a bubble gone bust. While true on some level, that doesn’t mean the tech has no
When the draft of a Supreme Court decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked to the press, many of us who have been studying privacy for vulnerable individuals came to a troubling realization: The marginalized and vulnerable populations whose online risks have been the subject of our attention are likely to grow exponentially. These groups are poised to encompass all women of child-bearing age, regardless of how secure and how privileged they may have imagined themse
Christie Pitney is a certified nurse midwife who was working at a federally funded health center in California’s Central Valley when the pandemic struck. In those early months, several of her patients struggled to get abortions. Under normal circumstances, the closest abortion clinic is 45 minutes away, but during the pandemic, clinics around the country suffered staff shortages and canceled services. Patients were having trouble getting to clinics even when they were open.
This is part
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When the Federal Communications Commission voted to institute strong net neutrality rules in 2015, it was because millions of people from across the political spectrum spoke out. If there’s one thing everyone can agree on, it’s that cable and phone companies shouldn’t be able to screw us over more than they already do, or dictate which websites and apps we can use. When the Trump administration’s notorious FCC chairman Ajit Pai repealed those Obama-era protections in
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After the stunning fall of Terraform Lab’s Terra USD stablecoin sent shockwaves through the crypto markets that wiped out some $200 billion in wealth in just 24 hours, the public—and many government officials—are questioning just how “stable” these stablecoins really are. But Terra isn’t the first stablecoin to tumble. The idea behind stablecoins is that, unlike other forms of cryptocurrency which often have wildly fluctuating price
In December of 2020, Los Angeles-based photographer Sam Comen began photographing the essential workers of Los Angeles—from trauma nurses and grocery store cashiers to truckers and custodial staff—and documenting the toll that the pandemic would take on their lives. Reported during the pandemic’s relentless winter wave, Comen’s photographs laid bare the systemic inequalities that forced underpaid and overworked employees to shoulder an unthinkable burden. They also hi
A New York-based tech industry charity called 1K has gathered millions in donations to send directly to needy families in Ukraine. The charity says it’s raised more than $5 million from individuals, startups, and venture capitalists, all of which has provided financial assistance to some 5,000 Ukrainian families. 1K was founded by entrepreneur and VC Alex Iskold, who was born in the Ukraine, and Chrysi Philalithes, who runs digital outreach at the AIDS organization (RED). 1K works th