Can Science Fiction Predict the Future of Technology?
Science fiction isn’t limited to predicting tech developments: It’s more broadly concerned with imagining possible futures, or alternative presents.
When Shoes Were Fit with X-Rays
Fluoroscopes were used in shoe stores from the mid-1920s to 1950s in North America and Europe -- even though the radiation risks of x-rays were well-known.
How the Brownie Camera Made Everyone a Photographer
Eastman Kodak used folklore to sell a modern technology, and ended up creating new communities and forms of expressions along the way.
Voyager 2 Heads into the Unknown
Forty-one years after its launch, Voyager 2 has officially crossed out of the solar system and into interstellar space. What has it discovered along the way?
To Cope with Digital Distraction, Embrace Digital Neurodiversity
The internet is changing our brains. Our columnist suggests that maybe this isn't such a bad thing.
Is Media Piracy a Form of White Privilege?
How users feel about illegal downloading may have a lot to do with privilege.
What to Do When Social Media Inspires Envy
In the case of envy, social media works in three closely related ways: by increasing proximity, by eliminating encapsulation and by rejecting concealment.
How Blackboards Transformed American Education
Looking at the history of U.S. education, Steven D. Krause argues that that most transformative piece of technology in the classroom was the blackboard.
What Gift-Giving Research Tells Us About Giving Tech Gadgets
Whatever the gift, it’s worth stopping to think about how much we really want to entangle our gift-giving with the digital realm.
What Star Trek: Discovery Can Tell Us About Tech and Social Progress
What makes Star Trek essential for any contemporary tech user is its role in helping us understand our relationship to technology.