At this point, most of us feel we couldn't live without our smartphones. With texting, email, and hundreds of apps available, smartphones rarely leave the palm of our hands. And this dependence is enabled by addictive apps and feedback mechanisms called intermittent variable rewards.
Cody Gough is an editor and podcast host at Curiosity.com. He explains how developers have engineered apps so that they give consumers rewards every time the app is visited. This increases engagement frequency and time. In the new age of advertising, consumer time is money.
Gough offers tips to kick cellphone addiction. He recommends charging your phone in a different room and avoiding mindless scrolling when possible. He also suggests keeping other tech and toys handy for downtime. Packing a book or Kindle for your commute will prevent mindless Twitter scrolling.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates still fondly remembers the catalytic computer code he wrote 50 years ago that opened up a new frontier in technology.
A company that specializes in early wildfire detection has developed a new, AI-based drone.
The trend highlighted ethical concerns about artificial intelligence tools trained on copyrighted creative works.
The charismatic founder of a startup company that claimed to be revolutionizing the way college students apply for financial aid, was convicted on Friday.
A federal judge has ruled that The New York Times and other newspapers can proceed with a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft.
A magazine journalist’s account of being added to a group chat of U.S. national security officials has raised questions about the Signal app.
The next time you get a call about an upcoming medical appointment you may not be talking to a human. Hospitals are increasingly using AI assistants.
Schools are turning to AI-powered surveillance technology to monitor students on school-issued devices like laptops and tablets. But there are risks.
Hours after a series of outages that left X unavailable to thousands of users, Elon Musk is claiming that the social media platform is being targeted in a “massive cyberattack." Musk said on a post Monday that the attacker is either a large, coordinated group or a country. Complaints about outages spiked Monday at 6 a.m. Eastern and again at 10 a.m, with more than 40,000 users reporting no access to the platform, according to the tracking website Downdetector.com. A sustained outage appeared to begin just after noon Eastern.
The World Video Game Hall of Fame has revealed its 12 finalists for 2025. Members of the public have a week to vote for their favorites online.
