NASA had a very busy—and productive—2023

It’s been a busy year for NASA—full of asteroid missions and collaborations with industry, other national space agencies, and the U.S. military. This year, space’s power to inspire and drive innovation reached all corners of the world.

Here’s our rundown of NASA’s greatest achievements of 2023.

OSIRIS-REx returns

It had been an incredibly long journey for the OSIRIS-REx capsule by the time it lan

As it tackles AI, Atlassian is asking big questions—and sharing them

Even if you’ve never touched any of Atlassian’s products, there’s a pretty good chance others in your organization—such as IT and customer service teams—use them every day. Best known for Jira, Confluence, and, my favorite, Trello, the Sydney-based company has a low profile but a big presence in collaborative enterprise software. Its products are instrumental to how many companies wrangle tasks, such as tracking support requests and managing projects. Over A

These were some of the most useful tools of 2023

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.

4 of my favorite 2023 tools

Oasis is an AI dictation app that changed the way I brainstorm. It’s now my favorite tool for thinking out loud and converting loose ideas into outlines and drafts.

  • How it works: Oasis records, transcribes, and summarizes my voice notes. It
Meet ElliQ, the tabletop AI ‘sidekick’ helping seniors cope with the loneliness epidemic

Joyce Loaiza lives alone, but when she returns to her apartment at a Florida senior community, the retired office worker often has a chat with a friendly female voice that asks about her day.

A few miles away, the same voice comforted 83-year-old Deanna Dezern when her friend died. In central New York, it plays games and music for 92-year-old Marie Broadbent, who is blind and in hospice, and in Washington state, it helps 83-year-old Jan Worrell make new friends.

The women

My 2024 tech resolutions: picking a Twitter replacement, holding out on EVs, and more

After all of the chaos that befell the tech sector in 2023—from Elon Musk’s militantly ignorant stewardship of the site formerly known as Twitter to the ongoing debate over whether AI poses a grave threat to humanity or just to humans’ jobs—2024 seems set to pick up right where we left off.

The AI theatrics aren’t going anywhere, nor are the crypto indictments or the erratic self-driving cars. And with the 2024 election looming, I don’t want

Blind and low-vision people have powerful technology but still face barriers to the digital world

Imagine that you have low vision and you’re completing an online job application using screen reader software.

You get through half the form and then come to a question with drop-down options the screen reader cannot access because the online form doesn’t conform to accessibility standards. You’re stuck. You can’t submit the application, and your time has been wasted.

Assistive technologies like screen readers go a long way toward closing the ga

This tiny island encapsulates Denmark’s success—and failure—at a clean energy transition

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News. It is republished with permission. Sign up for its newsletter here.

BORNHOLM, Denmark—On many maps of Denmark, the island of Bornholm appears as an inset box because it’s so far away from the rest of the country.

To get there from Copenhagen, travelers take a train to Malmö, Sweden, change to a smaller train, and then take a ferry. The island, known for granite cliffs and smoked fish, feels like a

California banned sales of flavored e-cigarettes in 2022, but stores are still selling them, a new study says

Californians—including minors—are still able to buy flavored electronic cigarettes online, even after the state’s much-publicized ban went into effect. That’s the key finding of my team’s new study, published in JAMA Network Open.

On Dec. 21, 2022, California enacted Senate Bill 793, which prohibited the sale of most flavored tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, to people of all ages. Hookahs, premium cigars, and loose-leaf tobacco w

Last-minute Christmas gift ideas have you losing hope? These retailers do express shipping

When it comes to holiday shopping, some people start squirreling gifts away mid-summer while others, well, others need the urgency of the deadline to embrace their inner elf. Honestly, there used to be one way that was inarguably the smarter option. However, the early shoppers aren’t the only ones holding the reindeers’ reins anymore.

In 2023, you’re less likely to find yourself cruising the grocery store aisle at midnight on Christmas Eve, hoping for a solid cr

U.S. water utilities were hacked after leaving their default passwords set to ‘1111,’ cybersecurity officials say

Providers of critical infrastructure in the United States are doing a sloppy job of defending against cyber intrusions, the National Security Council tells Fast Company, pointing to recent Iran-linked attacks on U.S. water utilities that exploited basic security lapses.

The security council tells Fast Company it’s also aware of recent intrusions by hackers linked to China’s military at American infrastructure entities that include water and energy utilities in multiple


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