Science and Technology

When Chelsia Potts took her 10-year-old daughter to a psychologist for an evaluation for autism spectrum disorder, she decided, almost as an afterthought, to get tested herself. The results were surprising: Like her daughter, Ms. Potts was diagnosed with autism. At 35, Ms. Potts thought she was dealing with anxiety or something else. A first-generation college graduate, she had earned a Ph.D. in education and become a high-level administrator at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. After seeing a psychologist, she had to figure out how this diagnosis would affect her work life. “I was confused at first and kept it…

Ted Sarandos, 59, co-CEO of Netflix, worked his way up through the now-defunct DVD industry before jumping straight to Netflix when the company was still renting DVDs by mail. Mike Hopkins, 55, head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, was immersed in digital as CEO of Hulu, the pioneering streaming service owned by Disney, Fox and NBCU, before joining Sony as head of its TV unit in 2017. He joined Amazon in 2020 and reports to the company’s CEO, Andy Jassy, ​​56, who has no professional experience in entertainment. Over the past five months, The New York Times has…

Seventeen years ago, Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, a revolutionary device that combined an iPod, a telephone, and an Internet browser in one. At $500, it was expensive, but its innovation justified the cost, despite some initial flaws. Fast forward to today, and my experience with Apple’s new $3,500 Vision Pro headset has been less than stellar. This ski-goggle-style virtual reality headset aims to merge the physical and digital worlds. Apple bills it as a “space computer” designed for work, entertainment, and play. Without an advance review unit from Apple, I purchased the Vision Pro myself. With essential add-ons like…

In Japan, engineers are working to create robots that can mimic human expressions, particularly smiles. They developed a face mask using human skin cells, which they attached to robots using a new technique that hides the bond and is flexible enough to form expressions such as a grimace or a slight smile. The look is a mix between the disturbing Hannibal Lecter mask and the claymation character Gumby. However, scientists believe that these prototypes could lead to more advanced robots. These robots would have a durable, elastic outer layer that protects the machine while making it more human-like. The “skin…

On Tuesday, Nvidia leapfrogged two of the tech industry's most storied names to become the world's most valuable public company, according to data from S&P Global. Its rise has been fueled by the boom in generative artificial intelligence and growing demand for the company's chips – known as graphics processing units, or GPUs – that have made it possible to create artificial intelligence systems. Nvidia's rise is among the fastest in the history of the market. Just two years ago, the company's market valuation exceeded $400 billion. Now, in the space of a year, it has gone from $1 trillion…