Daniel Rourke /stream

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I've poked fun at these lazy op-eds before and, indeed, it must be tempting to retreat into the safe conceptual territory of "The Internet is fake!" when a juicy story of…

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To understand why it's worth building an almost 200-year-old mechanical computer, it's necessary to first understand what a computer is. Although Babbage's analytical engine is entirely mechanical, it has the same…

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This month, Art Forum published a very timely, and beautifully written essay by Claire Bishop entitled, Digital Divide: on contemporary Art and New Media“. In it, Bishop analyses the contemporary art-world’s…

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In 1977, NASA sent 115 images – the so-called ‘Golden Record’ – into space on board the Voyager space probe. They also included greetings in 55 different languages and a number…

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This rocky hill in Ebihens, France, is, well, just that -- a rocky hill in Ebihens, France. But to pretty much any human observer, the assemblage of meaningless angles takes on…

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For medical researchers and biochemists, simulation software will vastly speed the early stages of screening for new compounds. And for molecular biologists, models that are of sufficient accuracy will yield new…

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We take it for granted that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a safe endeavor. Seriously, what could possibly go wrong with passively searching for interstellar radio signals? Unfortunately, the…

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Letting microchips make a few mistakes here and there could make them much faster and more energy-efficient. Managing the probability of errors and limiting where they occur can ensure that the…

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The first step on this trip is mental. We need to begin by no longer treating the Internet like a ghost. It's made of more metal, plastic, and fiber than you…

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To err is human; to err in digital culture is design. In the glitches, inefficiencies, and errors that ergonomics and usability engineering strive to surmount, Peter Krapp identifies creative reservoirs of…

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The History of Art is filled with forgeries, but are there fakes in digital art fields made from creative cut-and-pastes, collaborative works and infinite works? We approached four people who, pondering…

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Publication used to mean preservation but it no longer does. Let me explain. When a print book is published its metadata is literally attached to its content. The author and title,…

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I've poked fun at these lazy op-eds before and, indeed, it must be tempting to retreat into the safe conceptual territory of "The Internet is fake!" when a juicy story of…

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Writing in the early 1990s, Susan Stewart observed that “with the advent of film, interpretation has been replaced by watching … Here we see the increasing historical tendency toward the self-sufficient…

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To understand why it's worth building an almost 200-year-old mechanical computer, it's necessary to first understand what a computer is. Although Babbage's analytical engine is entirely mechanical, it has the same…

Bookmark

Digital information is accumulating at an astounding rate, straining our ability to store and archive it. DNA is among the most dense and stable information media known. The development of new…

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In 1977, NASA sent 115 images – the so-called ‘Golden Record’ – into space on board the Voyager space probe. They also included greetings in 55 different languages and a number…

Bookmark

This rocky hill in Ebihens, France, is, well, just that -- a rocky hill in Ebihens, France. But to pretty much any human observer, the assemblage of meaningless angles takes on…

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For the most part, the biological metaphor has long been just that — a simplifying analogy rather than a blueprint for how to do computing. Engineering, not biology, guided the pursuit…

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We take it for granted that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a safe endeavor. Seriously, what could possibly go wrong with passively searching for interstellar radio signals? Unfortunately, the…

Bookmark

Letting microchips make a few mistakes here and there could make them much faster and more energy-efficient. Managing the probability of errors and limiting where they occur can ensure that the…

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Last Wednesday, with relatively little fanfare, Google introduced a new technology called Google Knowledge Graph. Type in “François Hollande,” and you are offered a capsule history (with links) to his children,…

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To err is human; to err in digital culture is design. In the glitches, inefficiencies, and errors that ergonomics and usability engineering strive to surmount, Peter Krapp identifies creative reservoirs of…

Bookmark

Publication used to mean preservation but it no longer does. Let me explain. When a print book is published its metadata is literally attached to its content. The author and title,…

Bookmark

The debate about the nature of time and its passage is a long and venerable one. The issues addressed by pre-Socratic philosophers such as Heraclitus and Parmenides about whether time 'flows'…