The adrenaline of a live show, the thrill of sharing air with a superstar performer and thousands of passionate fans, is difficult to replicate on a screen. But technology is trying. Images are getting sharper, speakers subtler and streaming faster. Viewers can customize and interact with real-time content while relaxing ...
Read More »Can Robots Help Get More Girls Into Science and Tech?
Here’s a depressing number for you: 12. Just 12 percent of engineers in the United States are women. In computing it’s a bit better, where women make up 26 percent of the workforce—but that number has actually fallen from 35 percent in 1990. The United States has a serious problem ...
Read More »To Court Workers, Japanese Firms Try Being More Gay-Friendly
TOKYO — Once a week, the Japanese insurance company where Shinsuke Nakamura works tries to enliven its morning staff meeting by having employees give personal presentations. The topics tend to be mostly innocuous: hobbies, pets or wine recommendations. Mr. Nakamura used his turn, though, to come out as gay. “There ...
Read More »Diana’s Legacy: A Reshaped Monarchy, a More Emotional U.K.
After the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, 20 years ago, London felt like a city on the verge of a revolution. Suddenly everything was up for grabs, even the monarchy itself. For a few crazy weeks, this most enduring of institutions looked as if it might actually implode under ...
Read More »Wells Fargo Review Finds 1.4 Million More Suspect Accounts
Nearly a year after Wells Fargo’s fraudulent account scandal burst into public view, the bank said it had turned up more than a million additional accounts that customers may not have authorized. The news set off a fresh wave of criticism from those frustrated by the bank’s slow pace in ...
Read More »More Than 1,000 Died in South Asia Floods This Summer
MUMBAI, India — More than 1,000 people have died in floods across South Asia this summer, and as sheets of incessant rain pummeled the vast region on Tuesday, worries grew that the death toll would rise along with the floodwaters. According to the United Nations, at least 41 million people ...
Read More »More Evidence Exxon Misled the Public About Climate Change
This story originally appeared on Mother Jones and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Two years ago, Inside Climate News and Los Angeles Times investigations found that while Exxon Mobil internally acknowledged that climate change is man-made and serious, it publicly manufactured doubt about the science. Exxon has been trying unsuccessfully to smother ...
Read More »Rush hour pollution may be more dangerous than you think
The first in-car measurements of exposure to pollutants that cause oxidative stress during rush hour commutes has turned up potentially alarming results. The levels of some forms of harmful particulate matter inside car cabins was found to be twice as high as previously believed. Most traffic pollution sensors are placed ...
Read More »Shareholders Demand More Drastic Shifts at Nestlé
Nestlé, the Swiss food giant that helps bring the world Stouffer’s frozen dinners, Kit Kat candy bars and even L’Oréal hair coloring, is feeling pressure to change its corporate recipe. Late on Sunday, the activist investor Daniel S. Loeb informed Nestlé that he had amassed about $ 3.5 billion of ...
Read More »Portugal Fires Kill More Than 60, Including Drivers Trapped in Cars
MADRID — A raging forest fire enveloped a stretch of road in central Portugal this weekend, killing more than 60 people, including at least 30 motorists who were trapped in their cars. The fire, which was still burning on Sunday afternoon, has brought “a dimension of human tragedy that we ...
Read More »