Technology

“If history is any guide, the next act of Jeff Bezos, the man who turned a crazy-at-the-time idea to sell books over the internet into a $1.67 trillion behemoth, could be more consequential than the last,” writes Margaret O'Mara, professor of history at the UW.

Miguel Morales, professor of physics, has authored a new series on quantum mechanics for a general audience.

The ability of companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Google to control what people see online is so potent, it is the subject of antitrust hearings. But the decision by Amazon to push Parler off its dominant cloud-computing service illustrates just how powerful its content-moderation capabilities are as well. Margaret O’Mara, professor of history at the UW, is quoted.

Twitter’s decision Friday to join Facebook in permanently suspending President Trump’s account underscored the fundamental role of social media in one of the most tumultuous periods in American history. If it feels strange and unusual, that’s because there’s no historical precedent, neither in media nor the presidency. Margaret O’Mara, professor of history at the UW, is interviewed on the GeekWire podcast.

Last year, Amazon surpassed Boeing as the state’s largest private employer, usurping a title the airplane manufacturer had likely held since the post-World War II era. The UW’s Margaret O’Mara, professor of history; Jeff Shulman, professor of marketing; and Andrew Hedden, associate director of the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies, are quoted.

In an era of quantum computing and self-driving cars, Sarah Stroup, professor of classics at the UW, teaches a class called "STEM in the Ancient World." [This is the second segment of "The Record"]

“Silicon Valley’s obituary has been written prematurely before; boom-and-bust cycles have defined the region’s economy for decades,” writes Margaret O’Mara, professor of history at the UW.

Frances McCue is a poet, writer, co-founder of nonprofit community writing center Hugo House and a teaching professor of English at the University of Washington. She reads a piece in a special installment of the GeekWire Podcast.

On Wednesday, several of Timnit Gebru's former colleagues wrote a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai asking that she be reinstated, saying her departure has "had a demoralizing effect on the whole of our team." Emily M. Bender, professor of linguistics at the UW, is quoted.

There’s no doubt that 2020 has been a strange year. So strange, in fact, that the idea of an obstacle-dodging, autonomous cyborg drone that uses a real live moth antenna to track down smells doesn’t sound too much like weird science fiction. That’s probably a good thing, too, because it’s something that researchers from the University of Washington have actually built. And they’ve called it "smellicopter," because … why the heck not? The UW's Melanie Anderson, a doctoral student of mechanical engineering, and Thomas Daniel, professor of biology, are quoted.

In the early days of modern computers, the Simulmatics Corporation manipulated technology to mine data, affect the news, and influence voter and consumer preferences. Sound familiar? The tech titans of today have formidable ancestors. Margaret O’Mara, professor of history at the UW, interviews Harvard University’s Jill Lepore.

Google’s decision to part ways with a prominent researcher laid bare divisions within the company’s artificial intelligence unit and subjected its leader, the lauded software engineer Jeff Dean, to widespread scorn. Emily M. Bender, professor of linguistics at the UW, is quoted.

Doctoral student in computer science and Jewish Studies Graduate Fellow Ben Lee created a powerful search tool of scanned historical newspaper pages.

Kevin Tahmoresi (PhD Chinese literature 2020) is interviewed about his interests in the intersection of technology with the humanities.

Margaret O’Mara, history professor, discusses Amazon's pandemic hiring spree.