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Inventing Postscript, the Tech That Took the Pain out of Printing

Cars That Think

This story is as much about luck and guts as about matters of principle and brilliant software engineering. Still, this story is as much about luck and guts as about matters of principle and brilliant software engineering. Thereupon the typical PARC engineer would simplify the image.

Design 105
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We Don’t Need a Jetsons Future, Just a Sustainable One

Cars That Think

Where everyone had access to preventative health care that was both personalized and less invasive? What we need is something called cozy futurism, a concept I first encountered while reading a blog post by software engineer Jose Luis Ricón Fernández de la Puente. What about reducing pollution in urban and poor communities?

Future 115
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Hi-fi, Radio, and Retro: The DIY Projects Spectrum Readers Love

Cars That Think

Far and away our most popular article in the last five years has been “ Build Your Own Professional-Grade Audio Amp on the Sort of Cheap ” (November 2018). A third of the top 15 articles relate to wireless and radio tech, with one concerning a home-brew radio telescope (October 2019).

DIY 77
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Just Calm Down About GPT-4 Already

Cars That Think

It’s a textbook example of the mixture of amazement and, especially, anxiety that often accompanies a tech triumph. Brooks, who is now working on his third robotics startup, Robust.AI , has written hundreds of articles and half a dozen books and was featured in the motion picture Fast, Cheap & Out of Control.

Personal 145
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Who Really Invented the Thumb Drive?

Cars That Think

Personal computers in the late 1980s began incorporating CD-ROM drives, but initially these could read only from prerecorded disks and could not store user-generated data. Computer users badly needed a cheap, high-capacity, reliable, portable storage device. Flash memory became cheap and robust enough for consumer use by 1995.

Singapore 144
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What Robotics Experts Think of Tesla’s Optimus Robot

Cars That Think

After a year of speculation based on little more than a person in a robot suit combined with some optimistic assertions made by Tesla CEO Elon Musk , many roboticists tuned in to the event livestream (or attended in person) to see what Tesla’s approach to humanoid robotics would turn out to be. Research Specialist, MIT Media Lab.

Boston 145
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Opinion: The Bentley Crash in New York is Scrambling Brains

The Truth About Cars

What caught my eye was Krok highlighting this bit: “Why would an automaker manufacture a car with so much engine power that it requires an eight-speed transmission?” It’s all about keeping your engine in the right rev range the situation, and having more gears helps do that, which can allow for better performance and fuel economy.

Bentley 108