Technology

A water drop and ripples

William Shatner’s becoming an actual rocket man.

By Justin Katz | September 25, 2021 |

Jeff Bezos has recruited Star Trek legend William Shatner to give PR for his personal space program a boost.  Well, I’ll take any excuse to revisit this classic performance:

A water drop and ripples

Sure does seem Big Tech supports fascism wherever it can be found.

By Justin Katz | September 22, 2021 |

Somehow, this seems at odds with the strong hand Big Tech has brought to bear against people it claims are trying to undermine elections in the United States: Following Russia’s demand that Apple and Google remove the tactical voting app, and then threats of fines, Apple and Google have dropped the “Smart Voting” app in…

Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt's Facebook page

As in Woonsocket, we’re going to have to figure out the lines of public transparency.

By Justin Katz | August 6, 2021 |

Two Woonsocket residents are suing Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt with the help of the ACLU for deleting their posts on and blocking them from her Facebook page: Greg Duhamel said he was banned last November when he made a post challenging Woonsocket Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt’s attempt to claim credit for the building of a skate park.…

SpaceX launch

Billionaires’ toys are an encouraging advance, not a travesty of privilege.

By Justin Katz | July 12, 2021 |

In a time of cultivated resentment (and leaving as a separate question whether something in our system is unjustly permitting individuals to collect monopolistic billions), we should take this as a leading edge toward the future: Two billionaires are putting everything on the line this month to ride their own rockets into space. It’s intended…

Google computer start screen

Artificial intelligence could lock in an infant ideology born of hate, and it can happen to students, too.

By Justin Katz | June 18, 2021 |

A central concern about the development of artificial intelligence is that it will depend so heavily (at least for its starting point) on the input of the people who created it.  A Daily Wire article by Luke Rosiak about social-justice turmoil in the Google “Ethical AI” team provides a detail of just how short-sighted a launch…

A man flies with a jetpack

Any chance these will be commercially available before I’m too fragile to use them?

By Justin Katz | June 1, 2021 |

I have to be honest, when I was a kid seeing footage of Michael Jackson exiting a concert using a jetpack, I kind of expected them to be readily available by now. Seeing video of the latest version of that technology on Euro News, I’m still that kid… only now my window of opportunity is…

An aerial photograph of the U.S. at night.

High-speed internet is an asset Rhode Island should build on.

By Justin Katz | May 4, 2021 |

Obviously, those of us who choose to live in Rhode Island feel the state has a lot to recommend it, even as we’re perpetually frustrated by its flaws.  While making decisions for the future, we should build on our strengths.  Explicitly noting it as a reason to move to the state, TechRepublic’s N.F. Mendoza reports…