One day in November, a product strategist we’ll call Michelle (not her real name), logged into her LinkedIn account and switched her gender to male. She also changed her name to Michael, she told ...

In a world run by computers, there is one algorithm that stands above all the rest. It powers search engines, encrypts your data, guides rockets, runs simulations, and makes the modern digital ...

Tor has announced improved encryption and security for the circuit traffic by replacing the old tor1 relay encryption algorithm with a new design called Counter Galois Onion (CGO). One reason behind ...

All of modern mathematics is built on the foundation of set theory, the study of how to organize abstract collections of objects. But in general, research mathematicians don’t need to think about it ...

Designed to accelerate advances in medicine and other fields, the tech giant’s quantum algorithm runs 13,000 times as fast as software written for a traditional supercomputer. A quantum computer at ...

Kevin Hartz tends to be first through the door. In 2001, he co-founded Xoom, back when sending money across borders meant standing in line at Western Union. In 2013, it went public, and in 2015, ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. If you want to solve a tricky problem, it often helps to get organized. You might, for example, break the problem into pieces and tackle ...

Children often surprise us with their natural problem-solving skills. A new study shows that they can discover efficient algorithms on their own. Researchers Huiwen Alex Yang, Bill D. Thompson, and ...

Social media algorithms are pushing unsolicited pornographic content into children’s feeds, according to a report by the Children’s Commissioner. The data was collected prior to the implementation of ...

When Manasi Mishra began studying computer science, she envisioned a future writing code for major tech companies, not rolling burritos. But the recent Purdue University graduate has been unable to ...

Psychological testing has come a long way from Freud’s theories of the unconscious to today’s AI-powered assessments and biometric sensors. What began as a search to understand the mind has evolved ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. One July afternoon in 2024, Ryan Williams set out to prove himself wrong. Two months had passed since he’d hit upon a startling ...