The search for a habitable second Earth

Contact with extraterrestrial life would be an epochal event. Even the discovery of a simple alien organism would be transformative, giving us unprecedented insight into how life forms on Earth and other planets. Yet, there's exactly zero proof that...

Your mall will basically have to be psychic to survive

Repeat after me: Shopping is therapy. Whether you believe it or not, the rush some of us get from buying a new dress or gadget can be cathartic. And in the not-too-distant future, real-world shopping will get so seamless that it could feel like the s...

Listening to starlight: Our ongoing search for alien intelligence

Six hours a day, seven days a week, for four straight months. That's how long radio astronomer Frank D. Drake pointed the 26-meter telescope at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) research facility in Green Bank, West Virginia, towards th...

The Long Now: Planning for a future 10,000 years away

In an age of self-driving cars, virtual reality worlds and artificial intelligence, some would say the future is already here. Technology moves at such breakneck speeds that companies in Silicon Valley often have product roadmaps that stretch five to...

Fashion and technology will inevitably become one

There's no denying that the technology world is obsessed with fashion. Amazon, Apple and Google, three of the biggest names in tech, are all trying to carve their own path into the fashion space. Apple's doing so with fancy smartwatches, Amazon with...

We’re not getting Luke Skywalker’s prosthetics any time soon

In 1937, robot hobbyist "Bill" Griffith P. Taylor of Toronto invented the world's first industrial robot. It was a crude machine, dubbed the Robot Gargantua by its creator. The crane-like device was powered by a single electric motor and controlled v...

We’re not getting Luke Skywalker’s prosthetics any time soon

In 1937, robot hobbyist "Bill" Griffith P. Taylor of Toronto invented the world's first industrial robot. It was a crude machine, dubbed the Robot Gargantua by its creator. The crane-like device was powered by a single electric motor and controlled v...