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The soft job market has a silver lining: Productivity is up, and that helps the economy grow

Sep 26, 2024
We're making and doing more stuff in fewer hours.
Investment in advanced manufacturing is one reason productivity has increased in the U.S. Above, a fiber-optic manufacturing facility in North Carolina.
Travis Dove for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Demand for smartphones is down, even with the lure of new technology

Sep 19, 2024
Early pre-order and shipment data indicates demand is not that strong for the iPhone 16. Smartphone sales overall have fallen in the U.S.
The first iteration of Apple's iPhone on display in 2007. In the early years of smartphones, some consumers were getting new phones every two years.
David Paul Morris/Getty Images

Inside China's "superchip" black market

Aug 29, 2024
Powerful computer chips are sold in Shenzhen markets despite U.S. restrictions on exports, says Ana Swanson of the New York Times.
An electronics store in a Shenzhen tech market, where vendors are selling some restricted NVIDIA superchips.
Jade Gao/AFP via Getty Images

Senate advances bills that boost privacy and safety for kids

Jul 26, 2024
The legislation would force tech companies to do more to prevent harm. Subscribe to get the "Make Me Smart" newsletter every Friday!
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Tech and media companies are ditching user totals from their growth reports. Why now?

Jul 23, 2024
Instead, companies are opting to report other metrics of growth.
Some experts believe media companies are no longer reporting user totals to avoid potential doubt for future company growth.
Anna Barclay/Getty Images

Silicon Valley is feeling the AI boom on the ground

Jul 22, 2024
Real estate prices are getting unreal, thanks to the ripples of Nvidia's success.
San Francisco and much of the Bay Area real estate market are seeing a wave of luxury buying by tech workers who are cashing in their lucrative stock holdings.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Why tech billionaires are now flocking to Donald Trump

Jul 19, 2024
The flood of big tech names coming out publicly for Trump and the GOP is a sharp departure from Silicon Valley’s past political practices.
Support for Republicans from figures like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel comes in part from a strong libertarian, hands-off-my-business ideology, experts say.
Chip Somodevilla/ Getty Images

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A tour of "emotionally intelligent" AI

Jul 16, 2024
Creators say the new AI is capable of inferring users' emotions, but some experts are wary of the dangers of adaptive AI.
Hume AI believes its AI voice product, which can recognize 48 human emotions, could be put to use as a personalized virtual assistant.
Ilya Lukichev/Getty Images

The precision agriculture revolution is coming, just slowly

Jul 4, 2024
Since the 1990s, precision agriculture has promised to revolutionize farming, by giving growers granular information about what’s happening with the crops in their fields and new technology to actually put that data to good use. But the new developments in precision ag have yet to fully transform farming.
Electrical engineer Cody Hyman prepares for a test of Impossible Sensing’s prototype soil sensor. The machine is designed to be mounted to the back of a planter and can measure soil composition in real time using a powerful laser.
Eric Schmid/STLPR

When an accessibility mapping app went viral, success came with a cost

Jun 11, 2024
Roll Mobility, an app for mapping accessibility infrastructure and linking disabled communities, went viral. Now the team needs to raise funds.
A viral video boosted the popularity of an accessibility app called Roll Mobility. Now the company needs to raise funds to build its operation, said co-founder Joe Foster.
Philippe Lopez/AFP via Getty Images)