data

Cool the Government Got Hacked and Millions of People are Compromised

Gabrielle Bluestone · 06/04/15 06:30PM

The beauty of building up a wealth of confidential data you really don’t want anyone accessing is that it’s all in one place when, say, Chinese hackers decide they want to look at it. Such is the case with today’s “massive” federal data breach, the AP reports.

How Much Do Drugs Cost In Your City? Take the Great American Drug Survey

Jordan Sargent · 02/05/15 11:05AM

Narcotics have been a fabric of life on this continent for thousands of years. A huge number of academic studies, undertaken by the government and institutions of higher learning, have attempted to plumb the depths of that usage. Now, we join that noble pursuit, with the most important drug question of all: How much do drugs cost in your city? And can you even get good stuff?

How Big Data Is Failing Us

Vann R. Newkirk II · 09/25/14 02:00PM

Big Data: The phrase conjures up images of nerdy techno-alchemists finessing valuable information about the universe with complicated and expensive computers. It is that, yes—but it's also a necessary progression in technological evolution, a term for any complex analysis of large databases that would have been impossible using older technology. The potential benefits of its use are enormous, and the uses vary widely as the information collected about us grows exponentially and the ability to process it grows in tandem.

Rap Does Not Cause Crime

Hamilton Nolan · 09/05/14 01:05PM

Do crime rates and rap lyrics about crime rates rise and fall in tandem?

College Towns Are Pits of Income Inequality

Hamilton Nolan · 04/23/14 03:50PM

Interesting little tidbit for all good liberals to chew over: a list of the U.S. cities with the very worst income inequality includes an inordinate number of university towns.

Big Data Company Pays Insultingly Small Amount For Our Personal Info

Adrian Chen · 11/26/13 01:04PM

We hear a lot about how valuable our personal information in the age of social networking. There are all these tools to help us calculate how much our Twitter account is "worth" and movements to get Facebook to pay for our data. But, it turns out, our personal information is just worth pennies to the largest data-collection companies.

Television's Greatest Robots: A Video Timeline

Anderson Evans · 11/09/10 11:30AM

Bask in the glory of man's metallic monstrosities! Sing the body electromagnetic! Feel the magnificence of network android denizens from Japan's cartoon contraptions to limey British borgs! These are television's most iconic artificial citizens, and you must watch them now!

The War for Your Personal Data Heats Up

Adrian Chen · 11/05/10 02:11PM

Self-esteem flagging a bit? Think about this: Two of the world's biggestl tech companies are desperately fighting over your trivial personal information. Google just cut Facebook off from accessing some of its data because Facebook isn't sharing back.