Technology

Germany’s North and Baltic Seas are littered with munitions from the First and Second World Wars, such as shells—as shown here—once fired from German battleships.

A Massive Effort Is Underway to Rid the Baltic Sea of Sunken Bombs

The ocean became a dumping ground for weapons after Allied forces defeated the Nazis. Now a team of robots and divers is making the waters safer

Robotic kitchens aren’t on homemakers’ must-have lists yet, but they are starting to gain traction in restaurants.

Robots Are Coming to the Kitchen. What Does This Mean for Everyday Life?

Can automated restaurants still be community and cultural spaces, or will they become feeding stations for humans? These and other questions loom as new food tech reaches the market

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass waves an Olympic flag on her return from the closing ceremony of the Paris games on August 12, 2024.

Can a City Known for Its Freeways and Gridlock Deliver a Car-Free Olympics? Los Angeles Thinks So

To make good on its promise, the 2028 host city is in a four-year sprint to ready its public transportation for the onslaught of athletes, coaches and spectators

Namibia's brown hyenas live in small clans but often travel and hunt alone.

Artificial Intelligence Could Soon Match Footprints to the Animals That Made Them

Scientists are working on a machine learning tool that could turn anyone with a camera into an expert tracker

Every pound saved in a car’s weight matters, reducing fuel consumption in gas-powered cars or extending the range of electric vehicles.

Automakers Are Making New Steels for Stronger and Lighter Cars

Novel materials are hitting assembly lines with just the right properties to build cars that are both safer and more fuel-efficient

Technological advances have changed Olympic sports—including fencing, sprinting, distance running and pole vaulting.

From Sleek Swimsuits to Specialized Running Shoes, These Five Innovations Transformed the Olympics

Technology has advanced sports including fencing and pole vaulting

Women archers compete at the 1908 London Olympics.

The Paris Olympics

From Corsets to Singlets, the Olympics Have Driven the Evolution of Women's Sportswear

The bold choices of female athletes like Serena Williams have pushed brands, including Nike and Speedo, to produce better gear

In order to build ships strong and technically savvy enough to traverse through some of the most remote and challenging landscapes on Earth, several cruise companies borrowed designs from other parts of the shipping industry.

How a New Line of Expedition Ships Is Turning the Tides on Polar Seas

High-tech features are making treacherous ocean passages feel tame

Flow Club is a membership service that hosts dozens of online coworking sessions a day.

The Future of Mental Health

Can Virtual Coworking Platforms Make Us More Productive?

Membership services like Flow Club, Flown and Caveday offer online study halls complete with proctors and goal setting

A Spectra Physics Model A supermarket scanner—one of the first ten ever produced. A laser within the unit projects a beam onto a mirror that redirects it through the glass plate on the top.

The Supermarket Scanner Changed the Way We Buy Groceries Forever

Invented 50 years ago, the curious box deciphered an arcane kind of code to offer shoppers a trip into the future

This 2014 acrylic painting by Taralee Guild captures the glistening promise of a 1960s Airstream at Pismo Beach, California.

How the Airstream Hit the Open Road

This space-age sensation kicked the American road trip into high gear

The Old Lahaina Courthouse was destroyed in a wildfire on August 11, 2023.

University Students in Hawaii Use Cutting-Edge Technology to Digitally Restore Historic Buildings Damaged by Maui Wildfires

A new course at University of Hawaii at Manoa rethinks historic preservation, having enrollees design digital twins of notable structures so that people can experience them virtually

Two X-wing CAVs flew over the opening ceremony of an attraction at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Walt Disney World Resort in December 2019. 

How Engineers Created a Flying 'Star Wars' X-Wing

The starfighter-outfitted drone was the first remotely piloted aircraft of its kind and size approved by the Federal Aviation Administration for public demonstration

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There's More to That

How Artificial Intelligence Is Making 2,000-Year-Old Scrolls Readable Again

The innovative “Vesuvius Challenge” unlocked a mystery that had confounded archeologists for centuries

The cutter Douglas Munro and crew searching for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing activity—including high seas drift-net fishing

How A.I. Is Revolutionizing Marine Conservation

Driven by a childhood marked by war and environmental devastation, marine scientist Dyhia Belhabib developed an innovative technology to combat illegal fishing

"Change Your Game / Cambia tu juego" looks at scores of innovations that improve performance, ensure safety and more accurately score games.

From the JogBra to Gatorade to Breakaway Basketball Rims, Sports Are a Field for Invention

A new exhibition at the National Museum of American History aims to inspire the next generation of innovators

ArTreeficial is a solar-powered, self-cleaning, artificial-intelligence-driven “tree” that entices the spotted lanternfly and eliminates the bug using an electronic mesh.

This High Schooler Invented an A.I.-Powered Trap That Zaps Invasive Lanternflies

Using solar power, machine learning and her family’s patio umbrella, 18-year-old Selina Zhang created a synthetic tree that lures the destructive species

One potential tool to combat the growing affordable housing problem, which the National Low Income Housing Coalition says has grown to a need for more than 7 million homes, is 3D printing.

Can 3D Printing Help Address the Affordable Housing Crisis in the United States?

The construction is faster, cleaner and more affordable, but experts acknowledge some trial and error is needed

Gijon, an Aaron program that Cohen debuted in 2007, created jungle-like scenes—distinct from the figures created by the previous version of the software, Aaron KCAT.

The First A.I.-Generated Art Dates Back to the 1970s

A new show at the Whitney showcases the visionary who devised the art world’s first artificial intelligence

This prototype of the Mars Ingenuity helicopter achieved the first successful free flight under simulated Martian conditions (on Earth) in 2016.

Prototype for Mars Helicopter Will Soon Be on Display at National Air and Space Museum

The surprisingly long-serving Ingenuity ended its historic service after breaking a rotor

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