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Collage of Venky Harinarayan, Jezz Bezos, and the patent for a “hybrid machine/human computing arrangement”.

Untold History of AI: How Amazon's Mechanical Turkers Got Squeezed Inside the Machine

22 Apr

Photo-illustration of the exterior of St. George’s Hospital Medical School with text relating to the case.

Untold History of AI: Algorithmic Bias Was Born in the 1980s

15 Apr

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Photo-illustration showing JCR Licklider at a desk with text from his1960 paper entitled “Man-Machine Symbiosis” in the image.

Untold History of AI: The DARPA Dreamer Who Aimed for Cyborg Intelligence

8 Apr

Photograph of the IBM System 360.

Building the System/360 Mainframe Nearly Destroyed IBM

5 Apr

Photograph of Alan Turing with the words Add 34957 to 70764, (Pause about 30 seconds and then give as answer), 105621.

Untold History of AI: Why Alan Turing Wanted AI Agents to Make Mistakes

1 Apr

Features

Illustration: Chris Malbon

How Programmable Calculators and a Sci-Fi Story Brought Soviet Teens Into the Digital Age

27 Sep 2018

Photo: IBM

Hans Peter Luhn and the Birth of the Hashing Algorithm

30 Jan 2018

Illustration by Jude Buffum

The Improbable Origins of PowerPoint

31 Oct 2017

Opening photo for this feature article.

Alan Turing: How His Universal Machine Became a Musical Instrument

26 Oct 2017

TI 994

The Texas Instruments 99/4: World’s First 16-Bit Home Computer

22 Jun 2017

TMS9900 chip

The Inside Story of Texas Instruments’ Biggest Blunder: The TMS9900 Microprocessor

22 Jun 2017

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In the 1970s, the CIA developed a tiny camera that turned homing pigeons into spies.

Consider the Pigeon, a Surprisingly Capable Technology

29 Mar

Photo of the replica ground-radar display.

The Imperial War Museum Replicates a WWII Bomber’s H2S Radar Display

28 Mar

Marlyn Wescoff and Ruth Lichterman were two of the female programmers of ENIAC.

Untold History of AI: Invisible Women Programmed America's First Electronic Computer

25 Mar

Collage illustration of The Turk, with a background of the Difference Engine, and Charles Babbage looking on.

Untold History of AI: When Charles Babbage Played Chess With the Original Mechanical Turk

18 Mar

Photo: Science & Society Picture Library/Getty Images

This 1850s Medical Device Was Said to Cure Toothache, Gangrene, and Ennui

28 Feb

photo of pink princess phone

In 1959, AT&T Discovered There Was a Market for a Lady’s Phone

31 Jan

The Amiga computer.

Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame: The Gadgets You Loved Most

29 Jan

Schematic showing the complete details for the electronics in the SIGSALY converter reconstruction

SIGSALY Analog-to-Digital Converter Construction and Debugging

25 Jan

Photo: Jon D. Paul

Rebuilding a Piece of the First Digital Voice Scrambler

25 Jan

Photo: Mark Richards/Computer History Museum

Coded for Cuteness: How the Furby Conquered Hearts and Minds

2 Jan

Photo: Daniel Hannaby

Log On Like It’s 1985: A Fragment of Minitel Returns

18 Dec 2018

Paul Saffo (left), Erika Gregory, Ben Rattray, and Erika Woolsey discuss how Doug Englebart's approach of using technology to augment human capabilities can be used to address today's toughest problems.

“What Would Doug Engelbart Do?” Ask Organizers of a Silicon Valley Event

14 Dec 2018

Beatles pinball machine from Stern Pinball.

In Retail’s Shift to Online, The Winner is… Pinball?

4 Dec 2018

Photo: American Philosophical Society

Ben Franklin’s Other Great Electrical Discovery: Turkey Tenderization

30 Nov 2018

The vintage IBM 1401 at the Computer History Museum.

What Does It Take to Keep a Classic Mainframe Alive?

2 Nov 2018

Photo: Ingenium

From World War II Radar to Microwave Popcorn, the Cavity Magnetron Was There

31 Oct 2018

Photo-illustration: Stuart Bradford

November 1918: The First World War Ends

25 Oct 2018

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Apple Cofounder Steve Wozniak on Smart Watches, Motivating Engineers, Siri, and More

19 Oct 2018

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