Technology

Tropical Storm Barry could affect the environment of the Gulf coast and Lower Mississippi Valley in numerous ways, from accelerating runoff of farmland nutrients to toppling trees and damaging wildlife habitat and fisheries, scientists say. But the extent of the damage — and whether it will be at least partially offset by benefits such as […]

Officials began to clean up a massive oil spill Friday that dumped nearly 800,000 gallons of oil and water into a California canyon, making it larger — if less devastating — than the state’s last two major oil spills. The newly revealed spill has been flowing off and on since May and has again stopped,

They literally don’t see it coming. “Clear-air turbulence,” which evidently jolted an Air Canada flight Thursday over the Pacific Ocean, strikes almost literally out of the blue, with no visible warning in the sky ahead. An aircraft’s radar can’t spot it coming either. But passengers can certainly feel it. Some on the Air Canada flight

The early work done in computing at M.I.T., in which Dr. Corbató played a central role, helped confer legitimacy on computer science as a field of inquiry. “It was really the beginning of the computer science community,” he said. In the WGBH interview, Dr. Corbató showed that he could type commands on the modified typewriter

Volkswagen will invest $2.6 billion into a Pittsburgh autonomous vehicle company that’s mostly owned by Ford as the automakers who were once rivals deepen their partnership to develop driverless and electric vehicles in an ultra-competitive landscape. The two automakers will become equal owners of Argo AI, and they plan to put autonomous vehicles on the

The Federal Trade Commission voted this week to fine Facebook about $5 billion for mishandling users’ personal information, according to two people briefed on the vote, in what would be a landmark settlement that signals a newly aggressive stance by regulators toward the country’s most powerful technology companies. The agency approved the settlement in a

The FTC has voted to approve a fine of about $5 billion for Facebook over privacy violations, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. The report cited an unnamed person familiar with the matter. Facebook declined to comment; the FTC did not immediately respond to messages for comment. The Journal said the 3-2 vote broke along

SEATTLE — A federal judge ruled on Friday that Amazon did not unduly influence the shape of one of the largest technology contracts in the Pentagon’s history, setting the stage for the Department of Defense to choose between Amazon and Microsoft for the $10 billion project. Oracle had alleged that Amazon and the Defense Department

In 1964, Stanley Kubrick, on the recommendation of the science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, bought a telescope. “He got this Questar and he attached one of his cameras to it,” remembers Katharina Kubrick, the filmmaker’s stepdaughter. “On a night where there was a lunar eclipse, he dragged us all out onto the balcony and we

A federal judge is dismissing allegations that bidding for a $10 billion cloud computing contract with the Pentagon was rigged to favor Amazon. Friday’s ruling dismissing Oracle’s claims clears the Defense Department to award the contract to one of two finalists: Amazon or Microsoft. Oracle and IBM were eliminated during an earlier round, but Oracle