Technology / Computers

Impatient Futurist: Your Domestic Robot Servant Has Finally Arrived (in a Fashion)

All you need is $400,000 and the patience of Job. 05.21.2012

Our Wonderful Age of Abundance, in 9 Striking Infographics

Technology is driving us toward 
an era of exhilarating freedom,
 economic opportunity, and the profound gift of health. 04.24.2012

Fierce Old Warplane Has a New Mission: Flying Into the Hearts of Thunderstorms

Equipped with heavy armor and an impressively 
powerful cannon, the A-10 Thunderbolt was built to survive. 03.27.2012

3-D Printers Spit Out Fancy Food, Green Cars, and Replacement Bones

The list of the new technology's applications grows monthly. 03.26.2012

Impatient Futurist: Good News, Spock—We're Getting Closer to a Universal Translator

The rapid advancement of Google-style, statistical translation may help realize this long-time dream. 02.27.2012

Big Idea: Seeing Crime Before It Happens

Can remote sensors give us Minority Report-like powers to detect people who will soon break the law? 01.23.2012

#95: Computer Builds 
A Perfect Galaxy


Nature did it in 13 billion years. Computer does it in 9 months. 01.09.2012

#5: Social Media Stoke Unrest and Ignite 
Web-Rights Debate

When the explosion in social networking helped topple 
repressive regimes last year, governments worldwide took 
notice, stepping up efforts to limit public Internet access. 01.03.2012

#3: A Supercomputer Wins Jeopardy!

When IBM’s game-playing computer trounced two trivia experts, its victory was hailed as a landmark for intelligent machines. 
A Jeopardy! champ explains why the real winners were humans. 12.29.2011

#8: The Man Who Gave Us Less for More

Impatient Futurist columnist David H. Freedman 
examines the crushing success of Steve Jobs. 12.29.2011

#40: Computer Model 
Mimics Infant Cognition 


Babies may be able to help teach computers common sense. 12.29.2011

#50: The Net Watchman

Think of him as a cop with the world’s biggest beat: Security guru Jeff Moss is in charge of keeping the entire Internet stable, resilient, and safe. 12.29.2011

#71: Presenting the No-Focus Camera

New start-up's advance allows you to go from fuzzy to focused AFTER snapping a photo. 12.29.2011

#72: The Bird Watcher

Peter Vesterbacka on the secret to making the most popular, ridiculously addictive video game in history. 12.29.2011

Our Data, Ourselves

“Self-Tracking” enthusiasts collect 
data on every aspect of their lives. If digital navel-gazing goes mainstream, 
it could transform medicine.
 12.08.2011

Meet the Obscure, Useful Metals Lurking in Products All Around You

Without the rare earths, there would be no iPods and no hybrid cars. But who has even heard of erbium or ytterbium? 09.22.2011

The Brain: "I See," Said the Blind Man With an Artificial Retina

New ocular implants are already illuminating colors and shapes, and promise to become far better. 09.15.2011

How Information Became a Thing, and All Things Became Information

From alphabets to iPhones, humans have experimented with 
data storage for millennia. In the modern age, though, information 
is beginning to overwhelm the physical world. 09.14.2011

Darpa Challenge Inspires 4 Plans to Make Computers 40x More Efficient

We're not too far away from supercomputers that could use half a gigawatt—as much energy as a small city. So chip researchers are looking to make giant steps in getting processors' power consumption under control. 08.30.2011

The Internet May Soon Include All of the Things Around You

As wireless nodes become cheaper and more common, our electronic networks will expand to include many of the non-electronic things you really care about: your missing pants, a new shoelace, and the city’s best produce stand.
 08.22.2011

The Army's Bold Plan to Turn Soldiers Into Telepaths

The U.S. Army wants to allow soldiers to communicate just by thinking. 
The new science of synthetic telepathy could soon make that happen. 07.20.2011

When Astronomy Met Computer Science

Digital sky surveys and real-time telescopic 
observations are unleashing an unprecedented flood 
of information. Astronomers have recently created new tools to sift through all that data, which could contain answers 
to some of the greatest questions in cosmology. 07.19.2011

Weaving a New Web

Four leading computer-network scientists discuss how best to prepare the Internet in a promising but hard-to-predict future. 06.30.2011

Would You Trade Your Password for Candy? Why You Should Pay Attention to Cryptography

Modern codes protect bank accounts and email, but human error puts all that in danger, say experts on a World Science Festival panel. 06.07.2011

Visualized: America's Backup Drive

The official archive of the federal government has a big job: figuring out which parts of the 97.4-terabyte collection to try to preserve forever. As always, a picture makes things a lot easier. 05.27.2011

Are We Finally Ready for Self-Driving Cars?

Google isn't the only company working on truly automated automobiles. Robot cars will reduce accidents, ease congestion, and keep others from interfering with my 
excellent driving—especially if we can get the bad drivers into them. 05.23.2011

Who's Smarter, a Human or a Computer? Round 9: Jeopardy

As IBM's supercomputer prepares to face off against Jeopardy champions tonight, we count the ways that humans can still out-think our computational creations—for now. 02.14.2011

Far Out: The Most Psychedelic Images in Science

Scientists know you don't need psychedelic drugs to make mind-blowing psychedelic images: Fractals, particle collisions, computer simulations, and sunspots will do the job just fine. 01.27.2011

Video Games That Make the World Better

Many new video games are interactive, educational, and enriching. And they might even improve your gas mileage. 01.10.2011

Become a Human Seismograph

Crowdsourcing gives geologists valuable new data. 01.08.2011

Future Tech: A Car Smart Enough to *Prevent* Traffic Jams

Better nav systems could get us to our destinations faster, and make our roads a smarter system. 12.26.2010

The 100 Top Science Stories of 2010

Every year DISCOVER sorts through the scientific accomplishments of the past 12 months, and assembles a list of the coolest experiments, most brilliant discoveries, and most world-changing events. As you page through the countdown to the #1 science story, we think you'll come to the same conclusion we did: 2010 was quite a year. 12.16.2010

Discover Interview: Alarming Tales of International Hacking from a Cyber-Terrorism Czar

Spies and hackers know only too well about the security loopholes that riddle the Internet—and maybe even the guts of our computers. Former presidential advisor Richard Clarke has ideas for how we can prepare for the new world of virtual combat. 11.08.2010

What Is This? Discover's Server Room?

Hint: First it flopped. Then it megaflopped. 08.10.2010

Our Brightest Hopes for Keeping Up With Moore's Law

Scientists are trying out strange technological tricks to make computer chips tinier and more powerful. 03.01.2010

Discover Interview: The Man Who Builds Brains

Using computer processors that behave like neurons in the neocortex, Henry Markram is inching closer to building a simulated human brain—a truly conscious machine. 02.05.2010

#23: Computer Learns to Reason Like Isaac Newton

Data-heavy phenomena like gene regulation may be too complicated for human scientists to pin down. 01.25.2010

#34: Computers Go Quantum

Researchers create the first quantum computer on a silicon chip. Making it more powerful will be even harder. 01.25.2010

Your Digital Privacy? It May Already Be an Illusion

Between all the scraps of info about you online, players in business, politics, and government may know a lot more about you than you'd think. 01.08.2010

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Computer Hacking

What's the connection between Steve Wozniak, the Pope, and Henry Kissinger? That's right, it's hacking. 01.05.2010

#68: Computer Program Cracks Cipher That Stumped Thomas Jefferson

A twist and some dummy letters camouflaged words that Jefferson would have easily recognized: the Preamble to the Declaration. 12.26.2009

Brain-Like Chip May Solve Computers' Big Problem: Energy

The future of computing may depend on embracing the chaos that defines human thinking. 11.06.2009

Think Tech: The Best Gadgets to Buy This Month

Devices that are smart, green, portable, and super tough 10.01.2009

In the Race Between Optical and Magnetic Storage, We Win

DVD-size disks that hold 10 terabytes. Memory chips that remember even when the power's off. 09.22.2009

The Device That Will Keep Your Mini-Laptop From Melting

As computers get smaller, keeping them cool has become a major problem—until now. 09.01.2009

What is This? Spirograph 2.0?

Hint: It represents a best-selling piece of literature. 08.24.2009

3-D Scanning: How to Put the Real World Into Your Computer

The recent imaging of two 300-million-year-old proto-spiders was just the tip of the iceberg: Here are 12 new scanning technologies that are bringing amazing 3-D images into Hollywood, medical care—and home PCs. 08.12.2009

In the Future, Doing Science Is Like Blogging

Fiction from Bruce Sterling: "If you can read a popular-science publication (and enjoy it), then you most likely have enough brainpower to help us make massive scientific breakthroughs..." 08.10.2009

Professor Roboto: Putting Science on Autopilot

Artificial intelligence is becoming ever better at doing science, from archaeology to physics to genetics. 07.13.2009

Life After Silicon—How Graphene Could Revolutionize Electronics

Will the next generation of computers, phones, and even energy storage be built on a form of carbon? 05.19.2009

How to Make a Digital Display That Rolls Like a Magazine

Computer screens of the future may wrap around your finger. Here’s an inside look at how HP makes their prototype model. 05.14.2009

Pixels by the Yard: HP Prints Flexible Screens Like Newsprint

A flexible computer screen—one that you can roll up and stick in your pocket—is coming closer to reality. 05.13.2009

Bringing Dead-Tree Misfits Into the Digital World

A new Fujitsu scanner merges business cards, receipts, and other important pieces of paper with the rest of your data. 04.27.2009

Visual Science: The Achilles Heel on Michelangelo's David: His Shin

3-D scanning shows where the statue is most stressed—and where it will probably fail. 04.23.2009

3 Great Uses of Twitter, According to Cofounder Jack Dorsey

1) Throwing parties 2) Lifeline during a terrorist attack 3) Staying connected with mom 04.22.2009

78 Exabytes of Facebook, Porn, and More

The big numbers behind Internet use in the U.S. 04.19.2009

Twitter's Greatest Hits—and Greatest Misses

Microblogging has captured the world's attention. But it can do as much harm as good. 04.17.2009

Forget Megapixels: Here Comes the Gigapixel Sky Camera

The Pan-Starrs-1 telescope will scan the skies for asteroids and comets that could wipe out life on Earth. 04.03.2009

Which Brain Games Will Help Your Brain the Most?

Hint: You can play some of the best games right here on DISCOVERmagazine.com. 03.24.2009

How Can You Tell If Your IM Buddy Is Really a Machine?

Hint: Ask it about Sarah Palin. 03.23.2009

The New Weapon Against ID Theft: Lasers

A new technology uses lasers to generate random numbers and encrypt your credit card transactions. 02.17.2009

Prepare for Truly Mobile WiFi

Microsoft's ViFi project uses smarter networking to eliminate Internet outages during travel. 01.28.2009

Gadgets that Can Save Your (Digital) Life

New technology can make your mail, music, and photos nearly indestructible. 01.27.2009

How Google Is Making Us Smarter

Humans are "natural-born cyborgs," and the Internet is our giant "extended mind." 01.15.2009

#48: Cyber Attacks May Be Connected With Real War

As tensions with Russia mounted, Georgia got slammed by hackers. 12.13.2008

#51: Physicists Build the World’s Smallest Transistor

The tiny device measures an astonishing 10 atoms by 1 atom. 12.12.2008

#65: Long-Prophesied Circuit Element Could Revolutionize Computing

Instant booting and decreased power consumption may soon be realities with the new "memristor." 12.10.2008

#100: This Animal Has the Strongest Bite on Earth

A bite from the biggest great white sharks leaves nearly every other species—both alive and extinct—in the dust. 12.04.2008

20 Best Brains Under 40

Young innovators are changing everything from theoretical mathematics to cancer therapy. 11.20.2008

The "Father of the Internet" Would Rather You Call Him "Vint"

Vinton Cerf played an instrumental role in creating the digital age—though he insists he wasn't alone. 11.14.2008

Is It Time to Chuck the Internet and Start Over?

Expanding today's overcrowded Web is like building a skyscraper on a pile of styrofoam. 11.07.2008

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Elections

Humans have a record of screwing up democracy, but we aren't the only species getting in on the act. 11.03.2008

Want an Easy Way to Control Your Gadgets? Talk to Them.

AT&T's Watson leads a pack of new gadgets that understand spoken instructions. 10.17.2008

Rock-a-Pedia

A new open-source atlas could keep you from falling into a sinkhole and help settle the great Arctic land grab. 10.03.2008

An Essential, Concise History of the LHC, 2002–2008

DISCOVER's been all over the Large Hadron Collider since it was just a big hole in the ground. 09.10.2008

Want to Know Which Electronics Suck? Ask Your Computer.

A new program mines user reviews to create the ultimate computer-generated critique. 09.07.2008

Forecasting the Future May Be a Matter of Fun and Games

A new online game uses crowdsourcing to find out how to save humans from extinction. 09.05.2008

Protecting Your Vote With Invisible Ink

A new voting system uses the Internet, cryptography, and "magic" ink to ensure that everyone's vote is counted. 09.04.2008

What Invisible Things Are in the Surfaces You Touch and Air You Breathe?

A DISCOVER editor delves into the unseen forces that affect our lives. 08.29.2008

Oldsters' New Fountain of Youth: Video Games

Some specially tailored games seem to help preserve mental fitness. 08.27.2008

Vernor Vinge

A science fiction giant reveals his reading list. 08.18.2008

A Look at the World's First Computer

The Victorian-age machine is finally up and running. 08.13.2008

Turbulence: How to Visualize the Invisible

You can feel turbulence with your hand, but to see it really well you need some kick-ass computers. Hold on to your seats. 08.13.2008

A GPS to Augment Your Entire Reality

Your cell phone will provide the important linkage between the real world and the digital universe. 08.11.2008

The Science of Sniffing Out Liars

An interrogation expert spills his secrets. 07.28.2008

When Computers Meld With Our Minds

Futurist Vernor Vinge predicts a world of techno-human superbeings. 07.25.2008

Can You Spot the Chinese Nuclear Sub?

Widely available satellite imagery is making governments around the world awfully nervous. 07.21.2008

Will Your iPod Turn on You?

Jonathan Zittrain says closed systems are endangering the Internet—and us. 07.07.2008

IBM May Have the Key to Wireless Hi-Def Video

New hi-tech chips put wireless communications on steroids. 06.26.2008

Hands-On at the Nation's Largest Robot Skunk Works

New bots will explore everything from Mars to your mouth—and perform surgery. 05.08.2008

One Hundred Movies on Just One Disk

Holographic digital storage will let consumers store a DVD library on a single disk. 05.08.2008

Think Tech: The Future of Electronic Displays

Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are thin, bright, and energy-thrifty. 04.22.2008

The Sim That Saves People from Each Other

Computer modeling shows how to keep crowds from turning deadly. 03.03.2008

The Sim That Saves People from Each Other

Preventing disaster in an unruly world. 03.03.2008

Computers See Diseases Written All Over Your Face

Analysis of facial features can reveal genetic disorders. 02.27.2008

The Latest Weapon Against Global Warming: Your Fridge

Smart appliances react to the grid to prevent blackouts—and pollution. 02.11.2008

14 Best Ways to Use Your Computer’s Spare Time

Between YouTube videos, your processor can search for a cure for AIDS. 02.06.2008

Long Live Closed-Source Software!

There's a reason the iPhone doesn't come with Linux. 12.11.2007

Scientist of the Year Notable: Hans Rosling

His mission: To enlist hard data in the global war on poverty and disease. 12.06.2007

This Man Wants To Control the Internet

And you should let him... 10.25.2007

Space-Faring Fungus Hats and Synthetic Biology

If the science moves like Moore's law, get ready for bio-freakiness. 10.22.2007

NASA's 6 Best Earth-Based Research Projects

Ultrafast scramjets, mach-10 wind tunnels, cockpit displays that see through clouds... 10.17.2007

The Emoticon Turns 25

“I think they humanize what is otherwise a cold medium,” says the rune's creator. 10.16.2007

Are We Trapped in God's Video Game?

Probably not. And no, he's not looking at your underwear. 10.15.2007

Google Taught Me How to Cut My Own Hair

In the Internet era, the most accessible information is the most valuable. 09.27.2007

Jaron's World: Can Computers Recognize Faces?

In at least one way, the smartest machines can't match a baby. 08.06.2007

William Gibson on the Past and Future

Somehow, cyberspace and the real world switched places. 07.30.2007

The Next Jump in Artificial Intelligence

Computer program is unbeatable at checkers. 07.19.2007

This is Your Brain on Video Games

Gaming sharpens thinking, social skills, and perception. 07.09.2007

Jaron’s World: Computer Evolution

Most software stinks. It should learn from robots and bacteria. 06.27.2007

David Brin Predicts the Future

Sci-fi author knew all about the Web, global warming, and more 06.07.2007

How Much Does The Internet Weigh?

Discover puts the online world on the scale. 05.29.2007

Jaron’s World: Virtual Horizon

VR in the real world may soon surpass the famous glove from Minority Report. 05.11.2007

How to Pinpoint a Pinniped

It's easy—stick a big radio transmitter on their heads. 05.04.2007

Quantum Leap

The future of super-fast computing appears on the horizon. 05.04.2007

I Chat, Therefore I Am...

Conversation between two robots drifts into flirtation and philosophy. 05.03.2007

Map: Welcome to the Blogosphere

Charting the network of jocks, gadget hounds, political junkies, and porn aficionados 04.20.2007

Mind Control

A paralyzed man can operate a computer mouse and even a prosthetic hand using a brain implant. 04.17.2007

Map: A World Full of Spam

Pinpointing the origin of 1 billion spam messages shows global spam hotspots. 03.19.2007

Jaron's World: Sex, Drugs, and the Internet

Does anonymity breed nastiness in the online world? 03.14.2007

Jaron's World: Morphing Messages

Describing ideas so subtle they are literally beyond words. 01.10.2007

Map: What Does the Internet Look Like?

Why China has as many IP addresses as an American university, which ISP should be called "Spamalot," and more. 10.30.2006

Jaron's World: The Murder of Mystery

How Silicon Valley joined the superstitious fringe as the enemy of open inquiry. 09.01.2006

Enigma: The Final Riddle

Cryptologists working to crack Nazi code. 08.01.2006

Discover Interview: Will Wright

The master of the computer god game tackles alien life and dreams up a world that would make Darwin drool. 08.01.2006

The Extreme Sport of Origami

A physicist's computer program produces the world's most complex paper sculptures. 07.29.2006

Emerging Technology: The Internet

The look of truly democratic media: rude, funny, creative, and fickle as fashion. 07.29.2006

The Extreme Sport of Origami

A physicist's computer program speeds the creation of stupefyingly complex paper sculptures. 07.29.2006

The Future of Terrorism

Neutron cameras versus smuggled nuclear bombs. Biodetectors versus bioengineered smallpox. Is technology making us safer—or more vulnerable? 07.25.2006

Map: Evolution Evolving

A very public online fracas 07.02.2006

Emerging Technology: Wi-Fi Networking

Wi-Fi networking could be the foundation of a new form of community. 06.25.2006

Jaron's World: The Soul of The Machine

Can a random collection of data be conscious? 06.25.2006

Sky Lights: Remote-Control Astronomy

View the cosmos on your computer 05.29.2006

Emerging Technology: Skype and Hype

If its Internet phone service is free, how does it make money? 05.29.2006

Blinded by Science

In praise of the bolder world of the first Internet 04.27.2006

The Next Big Quake

Engineers apply weather forecasting methods to earthquake prediction. 04.17.2006

Supercomputer vs Superflu

Statisticians simulate an avian flu outbreak. 04.10.2006

Brave New World

Online fantasy worlds put our democratic ideals to the test 04.02.2006

Emerging Technology

The great Internet search engine is still no match for the passion and expertise of a wise human being 01.17.2006

Emerging Technology

Ordinary people can solve communication problems much quicker than clueless government officials when catastrophes like hurricane Katrina strike 12.01.2005

Discover Dialogue: Geophysicist Didier Sornette

Is the United States economy sustainable? I don't believe it is.' 12.01.2005

Sky Lights

When it comes to astronomy, don't believe everything you see on the Web 11.22.2005

Emerging Technology

How to cut through the info blitz and actually get some work done 11.22.2005

Emerging Technology

Software upgrades promise to turn the Internet into a lush rain forest of information teeming with new life 10.24.2005

Data

Who knows what patterns lie in our growing mass of data? Topology does 10.24.2005

Microelectronics

Stop thinking transistors on chips and start thinking 'up' or 'down' electrons 10.24.2005

Big Blue to Build a Brain

Big Blue to Build a Brain 09.09.2005

Emerging Technology

Your social life will never be the same, thanks to a digital service called Dodgeball 09.09.2005

Emerging Technology

How to develop a photographic memory without even trying 08.06.2005

Emerging Technology

Let's just zoom down from a satellite to check on the kids in your backyard 06.05.2005

School of Flock

05.01.2005

Emerging Technology

If only publishers would let us cut, paste, forward, and even change their words 05.01.2005

X

Ooh La Loud 04.28.2005

Emerging Technology

Embrace the collective power of file sharing on the World Wide Web 03.31.2005

Emerging Technology

Grab your computer and strike up an electronic rock-and-roll band 02.06.2005

Testing Darwin

Digital organisms that breed thousands of times faster than common bacteria are beginning to shed light on some of the biggest unanswered questions of evolution 02.05.2005

Emerging Technology

This is not a dream: You can make a chunk of change by writing a Web log 01.02.2005

Emerging Technology

Digitizing patient records exposes you to prying eyes but could also save your life 12.03.2004

Christmas Captured

The Polar Express sets new genre in motion 11.22.2004

Emerging Technology

Let your PC join an army of several million others and save the world—while you sleep 08.02.2004

Discover Data

07.25.2004

Paper-View Movies

07.13.2004

Emerging Technology

Digital environmentalists devise a clever strategy for bankrupting junk mail purveyors 06.27.2004

The Cryptography of . . . Voting Machines

Electronic skullduggery could create greater confusion than hanging chads 05.29.2004

Emerging Technology

Microsoft discovers that software should be—surprise!—a thing of beauty. 05.29.2004

Emerging Technology

How the mighty Internet search engine's rankings of results can be manipulated 05.25.2004

Emerging Technology

How computer animators illuminate the evanescent complexity of the natural world 04.21.2004

World Wide Mind Meld

A new Web site offers cash for solutions to tricky scientific puzzles 04.08.2004

Digital Cache

A computer museum in Silicon Valley offers some perspective on the next new thing 03.28.2004

Physics

01.02.2004

Emerging Technology

Can the World Wide Web give ordinary people a shot at true populism? 01.02.2004

Emerging Technology

A revolutionary idea that could convert critics of these virtual worlds 12.03.2003

Do I Know You?

11.24.2003

Emerging Technology

A new headline service lets the readers collectively decide what's important 11.08.2003

Emerging Technology

A new Web site empowers citizens to track government officials' every move 10.01.2003

Emerging Technology

Hmmm: You pay several hundred dollars for word-processing software and they fill it full of commercials? 09.01.2003

Internet in a Can

09.01.2003

Emerging Technology

Are you ready for computers that speed up the process of evolution and teach themselves to think? 08.01.2003

Emerging Technology

How to assume a 3-D online identity that lets you put on a happy—or angry—face 07.01.2003

Emerging Technology

Are computers better qualified than humans to grade student essay exams? 06.01.2003

Emerging Technology

Imagine if SimCity wasn't just a game 05.01.2003

Spray-On Organs

05.01.2003

Emerging Technology

Pass your e-mail through some new software and the answer will become obvious 04.01.2003

Emerging Technology

Who needs musicians when computers can think like bees? 03.01.2003

Discover Roundtable: Will Computers Replace Engineers?

Not long ago, men flew to the moon and plotted their course with slide rules, pencils, and graph paper. Now we live in such a complex age that not only do our lives depend on computers, but only computers can design computers 02.01.2003

Emerging Technology

Grab your Palm, plug in your GPS, and head for the 3-D Internet 02.01.2003

The Mathematics of . . . Artificial Speech

Two centuries of tinkering finally produce a sweet-talking machine 01.01.2003

Future Tech

Reverse-engineering the brain might finally lead to smarter computers 12.01.2002

Discover Roundtable

In an age when computers, not to mention calculators, can do just about any kind of math, is it more important to know how to get the answer than to know the math behind it? 10.01.2002

Welcome to Yucca Mountain

Where a computer model has determined it's safe for America to bury its nuclear garbage 09.01.2002

Flying Blind

The war in Afghanistan has exposed a new level of U.S. expertise in pilotless aircraft. Meet the Global Hawk. and prepare to hear a strange announcement on a future airline flight: This is your computer speaking . . . 08.01.2002

Internet2

A supercharged new network with true tele-presence puts the needs of science first 05.01.2002

Future Tech

The race is on to make unbreakable codes by tapping into the oddities of quantum physics 05.01.2002

Driving Simulator

Four hours' sleep last night, a glass of wine at the office party, an antihistamine for a stuffy nose, and here comes a car full of teens, head-on, drifting into your lane.(Be glad you're in the National Driving Simulator.) 04.01.2002

The Science of Surprise

Can complexity theory help us understand the real consequences of a convoluted event like September 11? 02.01.2002

Technology

Year In Science 01.13.2002

Future Tech

Engineers begin to tap into the power of electron spin 01.01.2002

Future Tech

Microchips and micromuscles could spell the end of one-size-fits-all medicine 12.01.2001

The World is

12.01.2001

What's Really Out There?

Astronomers use cyberspace to explore the outermost edges of the universe. 11.01.2001

The Future of Wireless

Discover Roundtable 10.01.2001

They Invented it

10.01.2001

Tomorrow's Computer

08.01.2001

Program Advisers/Evaluators

Discover Magazine Innovation Awards 07.01.2001

Winner - Entertainment

Mark Billinghurst; Research Associate, Human Interface 4 Laboratory, University of Washington; Seattle, Washington 07.01.2001

Winner - Electronics

Joseph M. Jacobson, PhD; Associate Professor, MIT Media Lab; Cambridge, Massachusetts 07.01.2001

Winner - Communications

Aharon Agranat, PhD; Founder & Director, Trellis Photonics; Columbia, Maryland 07.01.2001

Communications: Aharon Agranat

Discover Magazine Innovation Awards 07.01.2001

Electronics: Joseph M. Jacobson

Discover Magazine Innovation Awards 07.01.2001

Virtual You

That guy to the right of this headline is Dr. Sid, star of a major motion picture to be released this month. He's not real. No actor played his part. Which is all well and good until you realize that the people who made him could make a copy of you next 07.01.2001

Computers Will Save Us

The Future According to James Martin 06.01.2001

Radio Flyer

Can a tenacious lone inventor revolutionize wireless communications with a chip he invented in his garage? 05.01.2001

Future Tech

High-tech prison reform comes to America's state and federal inmates 05.01.2001

Works in Progress

Can custom-made video games help kids with attention deficit disorder? 03.01.2001

A Love Song for Napster

Imagine what could happen to democracy if the courts kill off this popular software 02.01.2001

Mechanics of Panic

02.01.2001

Machines that Think

Which of the following can computers now do better than humans? Write advanced software Design other machines Predict who will pay their bills Evolve and adapt All of the above and more 01.01.2001

Computers That Talk

If you hate using a keyboard to communicate with your PC, you're going to love the next revolution in technology 12.01.2000

Future Tech

Do children know a better computer when they see it? 12.01.2000

Book 'em, Database

12.01.2000

NonStick Computing

12.01.2000

The Future of the Internet

Hang tough, surfers: Here come adventures unimagined, dangers undreamed of, and a towering wave of chaos to test your nerve 11.01.2000

The Nug Cracker

11.01.2000

Future Tech

What's beyond silicon and fiber optics? Would you believe microprocessors with living brain tissue? 10.01.2000

Beam Me Up, Barbie

09.01.2000

Future Tech

Soon you'll be able to reach out and touch someone on the internet 08.01.2000

Tower of Tetris

08.01.2000

Future Tech

06.01.2000

Gene-ius Computer

04.01.2000

DISCOVER Roundtable-The Startling Future of Computers

Connect to the Internet through a tiny telephone implanted in your head? 11.01.1999

The Future of Computers A Discover roundtable Discussion

Our guru panelists say you're headed toward a revolutionary new relationship with your PC.Ooops! What PC? Who needs a keyboard, a clunky old CPU, and a monitor when you can connect to the Internet through a tiny telephone implanted in your head? 11.01.1999

Nasa's Space Mutant

09.01.1999

Disposable Chips

Disposable Chips 07.01.1999

Who's Out There?

The search for intelligent life in outer space is going so well, scientists need a little help from you and your home computer 04.01.1999

Who's Out There?

The search for intelligent life in outer space needs a little help from you and your home computer. 04.01.1999

Silicon Valleys

02.01.1999

The Nuts and Bolts of Qubits, Part 2

The Nuts and Bolts of Qubits, Part 2 01.01.1999

The Nuts and Bolts of Qubits, Part 1

(If You Really Must Know) 01.01.1999

The Great Quantum Number Cruncher

If someone succeeds in building a quantum computer--and the odds of that look better every day--the information age may never be the same. 01.01.1999

The Fiscal Frontier

Over the past three millennia, money has had many incarnations, but none--most likely--as strange as what is yet to come. We asked a group of thinkers to cast their eyes toward the future and describe what they envision. 10.01.1998

A Touch of Science

From a lab in San Diego comes a mix of science and sculpture that lets even microbiologists lay hands on their subjects. 06.01.1998

Evolving A Conscious Machine

Some computer scientists think that by letting chips build themselves, the chips will turn out to be stunninglyefficient, complex, effective, and weird—kind of like our brains. 06.01.1998

The Year in Science: Technology 1997

A Packet of Chips 01.01.1998

A Tragic Echo

11.01.1997

Truth, Beauty, and the Virtual Machine

With each passing day our fabulous software creations--our virtual machines--grow more complex, more powerful, and more unwieldy. They will never carry us to a golden future unless we start to craft them with beauty as well as brawn. 09.01.1997

Chocolate Tech

08.01.1997

The Star Machine

When a team of astrophysicists wanted to simulate a moderate-size star cluster, they figured the world's fastest computer could help. And so it could, they learned, give 3,000 years for calculating. So these computer neophytes did the natural thing. They built an even faster computer. 06.01.1997

Virtual Gorillas

04.01.1997

The Curse of QWERTY

O typewriter? Quit your torture! 04.01.1997

Beauty and Magnets

03.01.1997

Deeper Blue?

01.01.1997

Cube Tube

12.01.1996

Artificial Genius

Computers don't suffer, are perfectly nonjudgmental, and utterly undemanding when it comes to aesthetics. Yet soon they might teach us a thing or two about how to paint a picture, write a poem, or compose a song. 10.01.1996

Silicon Gambit

06.01.1996

Trust Me, I'm Your Software

All very complex computer programs will, at some time, fail. How often? No one knows; the programs are too complex to test. So where should we use them? How about in planes, nuclear power plants, weaponry... 05.01.1996

Heart of Iron

01.01.1996

A Face of One's Own

As any newborn baby knows, no two faces are alike. Now, finally, a computer knows this, too. 12.01.1995

The Best Computer in All Possible Worlds

The problem with computers today, says David Deutsch, is that they are all stuck in a single universe. He thinks it's time to call out the quantum mechanics. 10.01.1995

Reinventing the PC

09.01.1995

A Wearable Computer

02.01.1994

Venus Exposed

Computer wizardry has turned raw data into stunning pictures of our sister planet. But do they show the real thing? 12.01.1993

Tutor by Computer

09.01.1993

The Body Electric

New computer models reveal patterns that spring back from the heart. 02.01.1993

Fire in the Sky

Supercomputers and new observational technology are helping astronomers unlock the sun's most stubborn secrets. 08.01.1992