Science and Technology

Every smartphone has an expiration date. There comes that day when software updates stop arriving and you start missing out on new apps and security protections. With most phones, this happened after just three years. But things are finally starting to change. The new number is seven. I first noticed this change when I reviewed Google's $700 Pixel 8 smartphone in October. Google told me that it was committed to providing software updates for the phone for seven years, compared to the previous three years for the Pixels, because it was the right thing to do. I was skeptical that…

What are some examples of open source software? Some of the most popular software systems are open source, such as Linux, the operating system on which Google's Android mobile system was built. Among the best-known open source products is Firefox, the free downloadable Web browser created by the Mozilla Foundation. So, what is the open and closed debate and how does it relate to artificial intelligence? Tech companies like Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic have spent billions of dollars creating “closed,” or proprietary, AI systems. People who don't work for these companies can't see or tinker with the underlying source code,…

Connected media - Related media Memory, Now and Five Years Ago Chris Nilan is a quintessential Bostonian of a certain time and demographic, the kind they make movies about: A tough, working-class hockey player of Irish descent, hundreds, if not thousands, of local kids yearned to be just like him. He was born on Feb. 9, 1958, at the Faulkner Hospital in West Roxbury, Mass., the son of Henry and Leslie Nilan, a hard-working, blue collar couple who raised their four children in a strict household. Chris still found his way into scraps as a kid, and soon discovered he…

Linked media - Linked media As Sports reporters began other newsroom roles — and, in some cases, roles at The Athletic — Times Insider took a look back at the newsroom’s history. The New York Times Sports has hosted a host of distinguished columnists – including Arthur Daley, Red Smith, Dave Anderson and Selena Roberts – as well as reporters such as Alan Schwarz, whose reporting on the deadly effects of concussions in the National Football League led to the reforms at all levels of the game. Here are five times Times sportswriters and columnists went the extra mile for…

Connected media - Linked media Grote was “a tough catcher who pushed his teammates to throw harder, who could assault reporters and official scorers,” sports columnist George Vecsey of the New York Times wrote in 1981. He quoted Grote as saying, “I had a red neck. I was red all over.” Gerald Wayne Grote was born on October 6, 1942 in San Antonio, Texas. He was the eldest of three children of Clarence and Leila Rittmann Grote. In high school he pitched, caught and played third base, then enrolled at nearby Trinity University. Del Baker, a former Major League catcher,…