Why satellite mega-constellations are a threat to the future of space

A recent Indian anti-satellite test was hazardous but plans for mass satellite launches by SpaceX and OneWeb could pose even greater risks in orbit.

The two key reasons the world can’t reverse climate emissions

New figures show we’re using more energy and still pumping out more emissions—so why aren’t we moving the dial?

The space mission to buy us vital extra hours before a solar storm strikes

The sun’s violent activity can shut down the power grid and knock out satellites. ESA’s Lagrange mission will be our early warning system.

Europe’s copyright dispute shows just how hard it is to fix the internet’s problems

The EU has just passed the Copyright Directive: now small sites and tech giants alike will have to deal with the fallout and recriminations.

It’s still 2017 for one crypto exchange

Binance is doing million-dollar ICOs when everyone else has given up. But there’s a catch.

Russia wants to cut itself off from the global internet. Here’s what that really means.

The plan is going to be tricky to pull off, both technically and politically, but the Kremlin has set its sights on self-sufficiency.

China’s Huawei has big ambitions to weaken the US grip on AI leadership

In spite of tensions with the US and its allies, Huawei is rapidly building a suite of AI offerings unmatched by any other company on the planet.

China’s CRISPR twins might have had their brains inadvertently enhanced

New research suggests that a controversial gene-editing experiment to make children resistant to HIV may also have enhanced their ability to learn and form memories.

The first privately funded trip to the moon is about to launch

After failing to claim the Lunar X Prize (which, to be fair, everyone did), the Israeli firm SpaceIL could have a rover on lunar soil in a little over a month.

The technology behind OpenAI’s fiction-writing, fake-news-spewing AI, explained

The language model can write like a human, but it doesn’t have a clue what it’s saying.

AI is reinventing the way we invent

The biggest impact of artificial intelligence will be to help humans make discoveries we couldn’t make on our own.

An AI is playing Pictionary to figure out how the world works

Forget Go or StarCraft—guessing the phrase behind a drawing will require machines to gain some understanding of the way concepts fit together in the real world.

This is how AI bias really happens—and why it’s so hard to fix

Bias can creep in at many stages of the deep-learning process, and the standard practices in computer science aren’t designed to detect it.

The DIY designer baby project funded with Bitcoin

Cryptocurrency, biohacking, and the fantastic plan for transgenic humans.

A new Harry Potter–themed cryptocurrency is like a more private version of Bitcoin

Grin, a strange new coin that runs on a technology called MimbleWimble, has captured the blockchain world’s imagination.

This robot can probably beat you at Jenga—thanks to its understanding of the world

Industrial machines could be trained to be less clumsy if we gave them a sense of touch and a better sense of real-world physics.

We analyzed 16,625 papers to figure out where AI is headed next

Our study of 25 years of artificial-intelligence research suggests the era of deep learning is coming to an end.

This Ikea kitchen might teach industrial robots to be less dumb and more helpful

Nvidia’s new robotics lab will see if robots can learn to fetch the ketchup, load the dishwasher, and—eventually—make a cake.

We could still prevent 1.5 ˚C of warming—but we almost certainly won’t

New research finds we’d need to immediately stop building fossil-fuel-burning vehicles, planes, and factories.

Hate lawyers? Can’t afford one? Blockchain smart contracts are here to help.

Mainstream online legal services are getting serious about using crypto to automate bits of what they do—and lower the bar to entry for us all.