Technology

Economy

Silicon Valley Remembers Dave Goldberg, Who Died Unexpectedly

8:37am May 06, 2015

by Aarti Shahani

The CEO of SurveyMonkey was known for his generosity toward colleagues and for supporting the career of his wife, Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg. He died while vacationing with his family in Mexico.

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Kathmandu Living Labs' earthquake site collects data about conditions and needs. Each blue dot represents the number of reports of help wanted — medical, food, water or shelter — near Kathmandu.

World News

Virtual Volunteers Use Twitter And Facebook To Make Maps Of Nepal

5:15pm May 05, 2015

by David LaGesse

After the earthquake struck, they began using social media to find out the extent of the damage, who needs help — even where aid groups are setting up shop.

Jeopardy Know-it-All Ken Jennings reveals how losing to a supercomputer crushed his pride.

Arts

What Does Losing To A Computer Tell Us About Pride?

4:22pm May 05, 2015

by NPR/TED Staff

Ken Jennings has made a career of being the know-it-all. But then he challenged a supercomputer, Watson — and lost. Jennings explains how it felt to have a computer beat him and crush his pride.

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Writer Randall Munroe answers bizarre questions with math, like what would happen if a baseball pitcher threw a ball at 90 percent the speed of light?

Science
Arts

How Can Math Help You Imagine The Impossible?

11:02am May 05, 2015

by NPR/TED Staff

Writer Randall Munroe doesn't love math, but has made a career out of solving equations. By answering outlandish hypotheticals, he uses numbers as a playground for the imagination.

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"Decisions are made automatically by machines, increasingly without human supervision." - Kevin Slavin

Should We Be Wary of Algorithms?

11:01am May 05, 2015

by NPR/TED Staff

Our lives are, in part, governed by algorithms. Professor Kevin Slavin shows how these formulas can reshape finance, culture and physical environments, with potentially harmful consequences.

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Science

How Can Playing A Game Make You More Empathetic?

10:54am May 05, 2015

by NPR/TED Staff

Why is it so hard to feel empathy for strangers? Because we're stressed by them, says neuroscientist Jeff Mogil. His research suggests one way to reduce that stress: play Rock Band together.

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National

A Poker Battle Against A Computer

10:10am May 05, 2015

On this day in 1997, Garry Kasparov, the world's top chess player, played IBM's chess-playing supercomputer, Deep Blue — and lost. Now, poker players are trying something similar, and they're winning.

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SwiftKey analyzed more than a billion pieces of emoji data, organized by language and country. The poop emoji was most popular in Canada.

Canadians Love Poop, Americans Love Pizza: How Emojis Fare Worldwide

6:20pm May 04, 2015

by NPR Staff

A study analyzes more than a billion pieces of emoji data across 16 languages and regions to gauge how different nations communicate. Most emojis sent are happy faces and other positive symbols.

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In Budapest, Hungary, a man takes a photo with people dressed as their favorite Star Wars stormtroopers.

May The Fourth Be With You: 'Star Wars' Fans Celebrate A Faraway Galaxy

1:54pm May 04, 2015

by Bill Chappell

Yoda, Chewbacca and a phalanx of stormtroopers are all over the Internet today, as fans celebrate Star Wars Day — drawn from a pun on May 4. We've collected some of our favorite postings.

Sina Shahbazmohamadi places a 3-D printed copy of a recorder foot joint into a measuring device in a lab at the University of Connecticut's Center for Clean Energy Engineering.

3-D Printers Bring Historic Instruments Back To The Future

10:26am May 02, 2015

by Tom Verde

You just can't stick a modern mouthpiece on an antique saxophone and get the right sound. The answer could be in the lab.

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