Technology

In A Twist, Tech Companies Are Outsourcing Computer Work To ... Humans

2:41pm July 06, 2015

A new trend is sweeping the tech world: hiring real people. NPR's Arun Rath talks to Wired reporter Julia Greenberg about why tech giants are learning to trust human instinct instead of algorithms.

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This is a calculated flood map for the city of St. Louis. Water depth goes from deep (dark blue) to shallow (white, light blue). Floodwater can come from the Illinois, Upper Mississippi and Missouri rivers, as well as from heavy local precipitation.

Flood Maps Can Get Much Sharper With A Little Supercomputing Oomph

2:36pm July 06, 2015

by Joe Palca

Entrepreneurs are turning to Oak Ridge National Lab's supercomputer to make all sorts of things, including maps that are much more accurate in predicting how a neighborhood will fare in a flood.

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Cardboard Google goggles whisk viewers into a virtual reality world.

You Haven't Left The Building But Your Brain's On A Virtual Reality Trip

7:03am July 05, 2015

by Linda Poon

You can now experience the aftermath of Nepal's earthquake or get a sense of what it's like to be in a refugee camp without leaving home. Will that make you more likely to donate to a cause?

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Forensics Lab Director Ken Goddard holds a wood sample used in the lab's forensic work in Ashland, Ore.

Wildlife Forensics Lab Uses Tech To Sniff, Identify Illegal Wood

11:04am July 04, 2015

by Jes Burns

International timber trafficking is an estimated $100 billion business. A lab that usually focuses on endangered animal cases is using a sophisticated machine to identify contraband wood shipments.

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Pilot In Solar-Powered Plane Sets Aviation Record

3:58pm July 03, 2015

by Scott Neuman

André Borschberg, flying Solar Impulse 2, set a new record of 120 hours in the cockpit on a journey from Japan to Hawaii.

Former Swiss pilot Yves Rossy, known as Jetman, is the first person to fly a jet-fitted wing.

World News

Ever Dream You Could Fly? 'Jetman' Has. Let Him Tell You About It

10:38am July 03, 2015

by Alyssa Edes

Yves Rossy flies like Superman. But instead of a cape, he uses 7-foot-long wings and four engines. "You are like in a parallel world that normally doesn't exist," he says. "It's beautiful."

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A woman in Yatta, Kenya, explains how to make clean water using a car battery and just the right mixture of salt and water.

How Salt + Car Battery = Clean Water

7:27pm July 02, 2015

by Jessie Rack

A clever device uses technology developed by the military to make chlorine quickly and cheaply. The goal is to give schools and hospitals around the world an easy way to purify water.

About 90 percent of America's soybeans are genetically modified.

White House: We Have A Beef With GMO Regulations

6:13pm July 02, 2015

by Dan Charles

The White House has ordered a review of the government's system for regulating products of biotechnology, including genetically modified crops. That system has been controversial from the start.

Arturo Martinez watches his wife, Aurora Martinez, put on makeup in their San Rafael, Calif., home. She has Alzheimer's.

Can Technology Ease The Burden Of Caring For People With Dementia?

3:38pm July 01, 2015

by Amy Standen

Things like activity trackers and sensors might make it easier to keep people with dementia safe and help caregivers. Researchers are going to test that idea in the real world.

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National

Somebody Is Cutting Internet Cables In California

2:13pm July 01, 2015

by Brian Naylor

There have been at least 11 attacks in the San Francisco Bay Area in the past year, according to the FBI. The most recent occurred Tuesday and disrupted service as far north as Seattle.