New Atlas

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Extremism and fake news: The dark side of too much information

Rich Haridy December 10, 2018

An intriguing new study suggests that the recent acceleration in fringe extremism and misinformation is due to the mass proliferation of information we all have at our fingertips playing up on our limits for effectively processing information.

New research sheds light on how access to too much information is actually amplifying our bias

Science

Pro-vaccine facts only strengthen doubter's misconceptions

Rich Haridy August 7, 2017

In a world labeled as “post-truth”, where facts and scientific evidence have become subjective, some researchers are investigating how false beliefs are not only formed, but seemingly strengthened, when presented with contradictory evidence.

Why do some people believe in certain things even when faced with an overwhelming volume of ...

Physics

Chinese satellite shatters quantum teleportation distance record

Michael Irving June 15, 2017

Chinese scientists have smashed the quantum entanglement distance record. Transmitting information through entangled photons had previously only been possible to 100 km (62 mi), but using the Micius satellite launched in August, information has effectively been teleported 1,200 km (746 mi).

The Chiense satellite Micius has helped break the quantum teleportation distance record, transmitting entangled photons across ...

Physics

Corkscrew-shaped vortex lasers could keep Moore's Law kicking a little longer

Eric Mack July 29, 2016

A new study suggests that encoding information using corkscrew-shaped laser beams could help us keep pace with our ever-increasing data demands.

Telecommunications

Canary Watch tracks government requests for your information online

Heidi Hoopes February 4, 2015

Electronic Frontier Foundation and other information privacy advocates have created Canary Watch, a database of common online companies' acknowledgments that they have not been ordered by government entities to release private user information.

Canary Watch lets you know if a given website has been required to release user data ...

Around The Home

LaMetric lets you track what matters

Dave Parrack June 28, 2014

LaMetric is a customizable "smart ticker" designed to help navigate the daily information avalanche by delivering the specific information you need on one simple interface – from weather forecasts to stock prices to social media updates to account balances.

LaMetric is a customizable ticker able to display whatever is important to you personally

Robotics

"Tell me Dave" robot learns simply by people talking to it

Colin Jeffrey June 24, 2014

With the goal of developing a robot able to understand natural language commands, the Cornell University "Tell Me Dave" project is getting robots to learn complex tasks by seeing and doing, thereby continually learning without written software updates.

Cornell researchers have developed a robot that follows spoken instructions to learn new tasks

Science

Quantum black hole study opens bridge to another universe

Brian Dodson October 6, 2013

Researchers in Uruguay and in Louisiana have succeeded in forming a loop quantum gravity model of a quantum black hole. The result is that predictions of physics-ending singularities vanish, and are replaced by bridges to another universe.

Quantum black hole study finds bridge to another Universe (Image: Shutterstock)

Science

Sapphire disks could communicate with future generations 10 million years from now

Jonathan Fincher July 18, 2012

A sapphire disk etched in platinum could preserve information for future generations to decipher 10 million years from now.

Science

Study calculates humanity's information capacity – but we're still running second

Darren Quick February 13, 2011

A new study has estimated how much information there is in the world in terms of how much information humankind is able to store, communicate and compute.

A new study finds that, in 2007 humankind was able to store at least 256 exabytes ...