Archaeologists vs. Computers: A Study Tests Who’s Best at Sifting the Past
When it came to the tedious task of categorizing pottery fragments, a deep-learning model was found to be just as accurate, and far more efficient, as four human experts.
A study focused on the painstaking work of categorizing shards of Tusayan White Ware, a type of painted hand-formed pottery used in northeastern Arizona between 825 and 1300. Credit.Leszek Pawlowicz and Christian Downum/ Northern Arizona University
May 25, 2021, 9:55 a.m. ET
A key piece of an archaeologist’s job involves the tedious process of categorizing shards of pottery into subtypes. Ask archaeologists why they have put a fragment into a particular category and it’s often difficult for them to say what exactly had led them to that conclusion.
Going to the Moon via the Cloud
High-performance cloud computing has allowed start-ups to develop prototypes and run simulations including one to the moon that were previously done on supercomputers.
Credit.James Yang
This article is part of our new series,
, which examines how rapid advances in technology are transforming our lives.
Firefly Aerospace, a start-up based in the suburbs of Austin, Texas, is building a rocket to fly to the moon.
No, this isn’t a remake of “A Grand Day Out With Wallace and Gromit,” in which the animated duo go to the lunar surface on a search for cheese; it’s a real company. It’s also an example of how the ubiquitous availability of high-performance computing through the internet has unleashed a global wave of creativity. The “cloud,” that fuzzy euphemism for networks of massive computer farms that anyone can access with a laptop and a credit card, has put even the wildest dreams within reach of people with enough know-how.
Joel Chadabe, Explorer of Electronic Musicâs Frontier, Dies at 82
As both a composer and an advocate, Mr. Chadabe devoted himself to what one music critic called the âmarriage between humans and their computers.â
The composer Joel Chadabe during his tenure at the State University of New York at Albany, where he had been hired at 27 to run the university’s electronic music studio. “I took to it, I think, because for me it was the frontier,” he said.Credit.Luther Smith
May 25, 2021Updated 5:56 p.m. ET
Joel Chadabe, a composer who helped pioneer electronic music in the 1960s, later developing compositional software programs and founding the Electronic Music Foundation, an advocacy organization for electronic music, died on May 2 at his home in Albany, N.Y. He was 82.
Indian Police Visit Twitter Offices as Modi Goes on Pandemic Offense
The visit sent a clear message that India’s powerful ruling party is becoming increasingly upset with the company.
A billboard with a photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a message in Punjabi reading, “Why did you send our vaccines abroad?”Credit.Narinder Nanu/Agence France-Presse Getty Images
May 25, 2021, 3:39 p.m. ET
The officers from India’s elite antiterrorism police unit descended after dusk on the New Delhi offices of Twitter, with television news cameras in tow. Their mission: Start an argument over fake news.
The offices sat empty, closed amid India’s devastating coronavirus outbreak. And the police acknowledged that they were there to deliver nothing more legally binding than a notice disputing a warning label that Twitter had assigned to some tweets.
‘No One’s Ever Talked to Me About This Before’
Social media creators are helping women and people of color identify possible symptoms of A.D.H.D., a disorder most often diagnosed in white boys.
Rach Idowu runs a newsletter called Adulting With ADHD, in which she has described the difficulties she faced in receiving a diagnosis for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.Credit.Adama Jalloh for The New York Times
By Nicole Clark
May 24, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET
“When I was a kid, I had the sense things were more difficult for me,” Tiffany Bui recalled. It was hard for her to focus in school, and she was often forgetful. Throughout her life, she said, members of her family criticized these traits as faults.