The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Imagine a town with two widget merchants. Customers prefer cheaper widgets, so the merchants must compete to set the lowest price.

Quantum computers are coming. And when they arrive, they are going to upend the way we protect sensitive data. Unlike classical computers, quantum computers harness quantum mechanical effects — like ...

Alphabet Inc.’s Google ran an algorithm on its “Willow” quantum-computing chip that can be repeated on similar platforms and outperform classical supercomputers, a breakthrough it said clears a path ...

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 ...

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 ...

In an era dominated by social media, misinformation has become an all too familiar foe, infiltrating our feeds and sowing seeds of doubt and confusion. With more than half of social media users across ...

Is it really possible to make current graphics cards from AMD’s Radeon RX and Nvidia’s GeForce RTX series with just one click? Yes, it’s possible, and quite simple, as I will demonstrate in this ...

Every time a new slang word gets coined on the Internet, linguist Adam Aleksic is thrilled. “It’s definitely good for me in that I stay in business,” says Aleksic, who studies the origins of words and ...

You’re at the checkout screen after an online shopping spree, ready to enter your credit card number. You type it in and instantly see a red error message ...

Ever wondered how social media platforms decide how to fill our feeds? They use algorithms, of course, but how do these algorithms work? A series of corporate leaks over the past few years provides a ...

Quantum computers still can’t do much. Almost every time researchers have found something the high-tech machines should one day excel at, a classical algorithm comes along that can do it just as well ...

Your antivirus will protect you from many online threats, but no antivirus is perfect. Truth is, your PC can still be hacked even if you’re using reputable security software with a solid track record.