Stories by Annalee Newitz
Taking in the new flick Chamber of Secrets is the perfect solution to all your problems because, as it turns out, nothing in the Harry Potter universe is quite what it seems.
Posted on Dec 3, 2002, Source: AlterNet
My favorite new example of authoritarian obfuscation has to be the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's new techno-surveillance system Total Information Awareness.
Posted on Nov 27, 2002, Source: AlterNet
I have always been in favor of cyborgs, of human bodies threaded through with technology, but my faith was shaken when my mother was dying.
Posted on Nov 20, 2002, Source: AlterNet
Darwinism's new poster boy, Steven Pinker, has a new version of Darwinism that dovetails nicely with current Republican models of social spending.
Posted on Nov 12, 2002, Source: AlterNet
Having billed myself as a "media nerd" for so long, I suppose it was inevitable that I'd eventually find myself in the only lab I've ever heard of whose principal area of investigation is simply "media" -- MIT Media Lab.
Posted on Nov 4, 2002, Source: AlterNet
The money was good, and Peter had started to see the lights of MIT at the end of this peculiar tunnel. But that was when he began getting the e-mails. Panic was making his circuit diagrams swim.
Posted on Oct 28, 2002, Source: AlterNet
I think I managed to catch the infamous Craig Venter off guard when I started grilling him about whether he might someday own my genetic data.
Posted on Oct 21, 2002, Source: AlterNet
This year's Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, held in one of Harvard's largest and most venerable theaters, had a theme: jargon.
Posted on Oct 15, 2002, Source: AlterNet
I've been assimilated. Resistance is futile and all that crap. I've started an online journal.
Posted on Oct 8, 2002, Source: AlterNet
In the name of security, George W. is about to act on his doctrine of preemptive strike, by squashing the future of scientific research.
Posted on Sep 23, 2002, Source: AlterNet
Two nascent technology projects celebrate freedom in new and innovative ways.
Posted on Sep 16, 2002, Source: AlterNet
A tour of MIT's complex computing infrastructure reveals a geek's paradise, complete with talking computers and even a Linux machine that can be worn like a jacket.
Posted on Sep 10, 2002, Source: AlterNet
Large Internet service providers like Earthlink may be hacking into mail servers for the purpose of building their email blocklists.
Posted on Sep 3, 2002, Source: AlterNet
In Cambridge, Mass., the one thing that terrorists may want to bring down isn't a particle accelerator, but an innocuous, flammable wafer factory. Go figure.
Posted on Aug 26, 2002, Source: AlterNet
The Extraterrestrial Sex Fetish book offers a glimpse at a twisted and obscene sci-fi future.
Posted on Aug 19, 2002, Source: AlterNet
Copyrights, patents and proprietary information -- from movies to expressed gene sequences -- will be available for a price on the dark net, the black e-market
Posted on Aug 13, 2002, Source: AlterNet
When does a robot turn human, and when does a human turn robot? The two entities converge more often than we'd like to think.
Posted on Aug 5, 2002, Source: AlterNet
A recent scientific study says women are "wired for emotion." It seems science is in the eye of the beholder, who generally turns out to be a raging sexist.
Posted on Jul 29, 2002, Source: AlterNet
The Terrorism Information and Prevention System makes me think this country is going Nazi.
Posted on Jul 23, 2002, Source: AlterNet
A newly developed area northwest of the campus called Technology Square@MIT occupies an odd geographical and institutional middle ground between academia and industry.
Posted on Jul 15, 2002, Source: AlterNet
Communities can't thrive if they never answer to the least reputable of their members. So, for now I'm waiting for a new community system, one whose wisdom will destroy reputations and replace them with something more meaningful.
Posted on Jul 8, 2002, Source: AlterNet
The next cool retro trend: dot-com kitsch that will remind us of the boom times -- sock puppets, glitter goo and mouse pads.
Posted on Jul 1, 2002, Source: AlterNet
If scientists ever develop a bionic brain, capitalists will ensure that the super brains operate the biotech equivalent of Microsoft Windows.
Posted on Jun 24, 2002, Source: AlterNet
A news story about a woman chopping off her boyfriend's buttocks provides inspiration and insight into streaming movie piracy, kitty reality shows and desktop graffiti.
Posted on Jun 17, 2002, Source: AlterNet
If we can create a machine whose reactions seem entirely human, do we need to waste our philosophical time wondering whether circuits can ever feel the way neurons do?
Posted on Jun 10, 2002, Source: AlterNet
I like to play a little game when online to avoid working; it's called "find the weirdest fanfic."
Posted on Jun 5, 2002, Source: AlterNet
VeriSign has often been sloppy about maintaining accurate information about the ownership of domain names -- sometimes handing off ownership quite literally at the drop of a fax.
Posted on May 30, 2002, Source: AlterNet
You thought the exploits of an angry geek were bad? Sure, a geek can mess with your computer. But a wonk, who obsesses over public policy, can destroy your world. Or fix it.
Posted on May 21, 2002, Source: AlterNet
It seems as if most laws intended to protect people from violence are just one more way that violence gets perpetrated.
Posted on May 15, 2002, Source: AlterNet
Bush and his friends in Congress want to make all forms of cloning a criminal offense punishable by $1 million in fines or up to 10 years in prison.
Posted on May 6, 2002, Source: AlterNet
All day she dreams about code, and only code.
Posted on Apr 30, 2002, Source: AlterNet
A number of companies have gotten fucked when their 'net logs reveal patterns of sexually abusive emails or porn surfing. So why do they keep those logs? To fuck employees in return.
Posted on Apr 22, 2002, Source: AlterNet
Digerati elders Kevin Kelly and Stuart Brand have launched the Long Bets Foundation, a project that hopes to hold "futurists" responsible for their predictions.
Posted on Apr 15, 2002, Source: AlterNet
Three online companies -- Yahoo!, Morpheus and KaZaa -- have all learned an important lesson from AOL is: give away free stuff and then treat your customers like shit.
Posted on Apr 9, 2002, Source: AlterNet
A depressing weekend at JavaOne, the annual Java-related industry orgy, proves that the glitz is truly gone from the tech biz.
Posted on Apr 1, 2002, Source: AlterNet
I'm learning UNIX, the oldest computer network operating system, and its a lot more like poetry than you might think.
Posted on Mar 26, 2002, Source: AlterNet
Since the days of computer-generated New Wave music, we have lost our irrational fear of computers, only to replaced it with something far stupider: unconditional love.
Posted on Mar 18, 2002, Source: AlterNet
New legislation would make it illegal for companies to sell software or hardware that isn't fitted out with copy-protection technology.
Posted on Mar 12, 2002, Source: AlterNet
Democratic communication has its downside. You get to hear exactly what people are really thinking, and sometimes that's way more information than you wanted.
Posted on Mar 5, 2002, Source: AlterNet
Blogs -- sites published constantly by anyone and everyone -- have turned me into a nervous person. Reading them makes me want to run around in circles squeaking like a beaver.
Posted on Feb 26, 2002, Source: AlterNet
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