Your powers of attention: fooled! Attention is, by definition, limited. And that’s usually a good thing. If you’re searching for a lost earring on the floor, you want to ignore anything that’s not small and shiny. When talking to someone at a party, your mind helpfully tunes out all of the other…

From the November 2014 issue of Inc. magazine

Dubai’s coastal expansion over time on Google Earth (via Google ) Since its debut, Google Earth has been a kind of a double-edged sword. It’s a stupefying modern marvel, more or less indispensable to those who use it. Even a decade after its release, the idea that we have the ability to navigate…

Based on my experience meeting hundreds of startup founders and VCs in both San Francisco and New York, few professionals in America’s tech hubs have owned an Android phone or believe in the opportunity of the platform. Meanwhile, the growth and prevalence of Android around the globe shows that…

At first they thought it was asthma. The fighter squadron’s 37-year-old commander suddenly started refusing to fly at high altitudes because of mysterious breathing problems. He also struggled to control feelings of wrath toward his coworkers, and that made him hyperventilate. It was only later that…

In mid-June, months before pro-democracy protesters lined Hong Kong thoroughfares with their umbrellas, activists sat in front of PCs spreading their message across the web in hope of galvanising passive onlookers into action. Sick of an interfering Chinese government, activists were gearing up for…

NATO has criticised Russian "aggression" after a column of 32 Russian tanks entered Ukraine. The convoy of 32 tanks, 16 howitzer cannons and 30 trucks of troops and equipment crossed the border into the rebel-controlled Luhansk region. Ukraine's military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said in a televised…

I've been publishing to my Amazon.com internal blog since May 10th, 2004. During that time I've unintentionally developed my own blogging style, and I've learned a thing or two about writing blogs. I figured I'd pass along some thoughts about blogging in the hope that it's useful. Why Blog? This is…

During Expedition 40 in the summer of 2014, NASA astronauts Steve Swanson and Reid Wiseman — along with European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst — explored the phenomenon of water surface tension in microgravity on the International Space Station. The crew "submerged" a sealed GoPro camera…

Bloomberg Need help? Contact us We've detected unusual activity from your computer network To continue, please click the box below to let us know you're not a robot. Why did this happen? Please make sure your browser supports JavaScript and cookies and that you are not blocking them from loading.…

Never miss a talk! SUBSCRIBE to the TEDx channel: http://bit.ly/1FAg8hB This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. The Ugly Indian is an anonymous collective that does not talk to media, wants no publicity and works with the motto - Only Work No Talk.…

A federal appeals court panel in Ohio upheld four states' bans on gay marriage Thursday, setting the stage for the Supreme Court to rule finally on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. The ruling by the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals is the first by a federal appellate court to formally…

What's the point of a computer in a hermit country sealed off from the internet? What use can a smartphone be if the smartest uses are blocked? And why would anyone learn computer coding in a country closed off from the world-wide-web? These are the conundrums at the core of the puzzle about…

The Sea Of Crises A sumo wrestling tournament. A failed coup ending in seppuku. A search for a forgotten man. How one writer’s trip to Japan became a journey through oblivion. A sumo wrestling tournament. A failed coup ending in seppuku. A search for a forgotten man. How one writer’s trip to Japan…

Participants in an ethical hacking contest at a Swiss security conference in Geneva in March. So-called bug bounty programs are becoming very popular in Silicon Valley's high-tech sector. Salvatore Di Nolfi/EPA/Landov Somewhere around the world, someone is trying to breach the security system of a…

Time is simple and well understood, right? Well, in a physical sense, it’s fairly well understood, but not at all simple. Cutting edge research into atomic clock technology promises an uncertainty of about a second over an interval of several billion years. This is plenty accurate enough to expose…

British spies have been granted the authority to secretly eavesdrop on legally privileged attorney-client communications, according to newly released documents. On Thursday, a series of previously classified policies confirmed for the first time that the U.K.’s top surveillance agency Government…

Ken McClain figured the National Football League was preparing to screw his clients. Question was, just how badly? A Kansas City-based attorney, McClain represents two dozen former professional football players in their mid-30s to 60s whom he says suffer from depression, impulsivity, and other…

The landlocked European duchy has been called a “magical fairyland” for brand-name corporations seeking to drastically reduce tax bills. Pepsi, IKEA, FedEx and 340 other international companies have secured secret deals from Luxembourg, allowing many of them to slash their global tax bills while…

(Photo via Ervins Strauhmanis) Update: Airbnb has responded to our request for comment, which we’ve included in full at the bottom of this story. Imagine you’re staying in an Airbnb, and you wake up in the morning to discover a discreet video camera. Has your host been recording you? Worse, what if…

Google is approaching hospitals and universities with a new pitch. Have genomes? Store them with us. The search giant’s first product for the DNA age is Google Genomics, a cloud computing service that it launched last March but went mostly unnoticed amid a barrage of high profile R&D announcements…

Nick Mehta Contributor “And we’ll never be royals (royals). It don’t run in our blood, That kind of luxe just ain’t for us. We crave a different kind of buzz.” It’s getting harder in the B2B world. That’s the bottom line. A board member of mine recently told me a story about the “good old days” of…

Benjamin Spall Oct 26, 2014 Two years ago I launched http://mymorningroutine.com with my co-founder Michael. Since then we’ve been lucky enough to publish 98 morning routines from inspiring individuals living all over the world. What’s your morning routine? Asking the same basic set of questions…

Terrorists have been able to use false copyright claims to obtain the personal details of their critics on YouTube , a German newspaper reports —and the critics have subsequently received death threats and had their details shared online. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ( DMCA ),…

Mike Bell doesn't like any of the smartwatches on the market. And that's not because they're missing an Intel chip inside. Bell, the 46-year-old engineer who runs Intel's New Devices Group, is bothered by the fact that most people's idea of a smartwatch seems to consist of shrinking a smartphone and…

As the Internet of Things becomes an actual thing, more steps are being counted, more sleep patterns are being logged, more activities are being app-ified. What isn’t appearing in the data is much common sense or ambition. Instead, developers continue flocking to a saturated market filled with…

Launa Hall is a teacher in Arlington, Va., and is working on a collection of essays about teaching. ‘Remember that activity when we all get in the closet and pretend we’re not even there, so our principal can’t find us?” I choose my words carefully as I prep my pre-kindergarten students for the…

Last night's episode of South Park was an ode to all things freemium, and as you might expect from the longrunning comedy show, they went in hard on the unethical free-to-play menace that has been plaguing video games for the past few years. I won't spoil much about the episode—which you can watch…

Energywise Telecom Internet With clean power and cold air, finding downsides to a data center boom in the North Atlantic is hard to do By Dave Levitan Photo: Verne Global Advertisement Past the bullet- and blast-resistant security station, through a two-door man-trap or two, and inside a few…

At the Faculty ofArts and Sciences (FAS) meeting on November 4, a rare standing-room-only crowdof professors expressed their disagreement—sometimes passionately—with tworecent University actions they associated with the central administration: •therevelation, in a question from the floor, that…

OPERATOR OF “SILK ROAD 2.0” WEBSITE CHARGED IN MANHATTAN FEDERAL COURTSilk Road 2.0, Launched in November 2013 After Its Predecessor Was Shut Down by Law Enforcement, Has Enabled Over 100,000 People to Buy and Sell Illegal Drugs Anonymously Over the Internet Preet Bharara, the United States…

The clearest ever image of planets forming around an infant star has been taken by the Alma radio telescope . In a vast disc of dust and gas, dark rings are clearly visible: gaps in the cloud, swept clear by brand new planets in orbit. The sun-like star at the centre, HL Tau, is less than a million…

Story highlights Doctor: Younger Ebola patients have a greater chance of survival The amount of viral load a victim contracts could affect how sick he or she gets The ability to rehydrate patients in critical (CNN) For a disease that kills more than half of its victims abroad, Ebola in the United…

A chart’s purpose is usually to help you properly interpret data. But sometimes, it does just the opposite. In the right (or wrong) hands, bar graphs and pie charts can become powerful agents of deception, tricking you into inferring trends that don’t exist, mistaking less for more, and missing…

It’s rare that a company can stay relatively secretive while raising a huge amount of funding, but Florida’s Magic Leap has managed that. The startup, led by CEO Rony Abovitz, announced today the close of its $542 million Series B, featuring investors led by Google, Inc., and including KPCB,…