CNET
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Commentary: Maps, games and videos all look better on the big screen.
Stephen Shankland
(He/Him)
- Head of Content, Commonwealth Fusion Systems
California
As seen in:
LinkedIn,
Medium,
MSN,
MSN Canada,
MSN Money Canada,
BBC,
MSN Philippines,
CBS News,
CNET,
KPIX-TV (San Francisco, CA)
and
Covers:
science, digital photography, academic research, broadband, web browsers, html, javascript, android, processors, google, programming, technology, industry standards, wireless, USB
Head of Content at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a company commercializing fusion energy: clean, safe, affordable, secure. Former sci-tech journalist.
Stephen Shankland’s Journalist Portfolio
View as a gridThe Secret Life of the 500+ Cables That Run the Internet
CNET
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Laced across the cold depths of the world's oceans is a network of multimillion-dollar cables, which have become the vital connections of our online lives.
Unlocking Fusion Power Would Revolutionize Energy. But Can We Make It Work?
CNET
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Scientists and startups are edging closer to realizing a decades-old dream.
Intel's chip recovery plan could restore US manufacturing prowess
CNET
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The chipmaker's come-from-behind strategy is risky and will take years, even with government subsidies.
What it's like taking 151-megapixel photos with a camera that costs more than a Tesla
CNET
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Imagine you're scrambling down a steep canyon in Utah, tripod balanced across your shoulder, to shoot one of those nice photos of layered sandstone. Now imagine the camera gear in your backpack is worth almost $100,000. Better not slip. I experienced that anxiety this summer while testing the 151-megapixel Phase One XT Camera System.
Two decades of tech evolution made me fall in love with mountain biking again
CNET
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Call it a silver lining of the cloud: I've rediscovered the passion I had for mountain biking in the 1980s and 1990s. And holy moly -- technology changes mean it's almost a different sport.
You can help biology researchers understand how California tide pools are changing
CNET
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I spent a day — and part of the night — learning about nudibranchs and citizen science as I waded through tidepools south of San Francisco.
Google quantum computer leaves old-school supercomputer in the dust
CNET
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A Google quantum computer has far outpaced ordinary computing technology, an achievement called quantum supremacy that's an important milestone for a revolutionary way of processing data. Google disclosed the results in the journal Nature on Wednesday. The achievement came after more than a decade of work at Google, including the use of its own quantum computing chip, called Sycamore.
How Google's robo-cars mean the end of driving as we know it
CNET
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Three years after first showing the world what it was up to -- rolling out a Toyota Prius with laser-scanning hardware awkwardly perched on the roof -- Google is moving its big idea out of the lab and into the real world.
review: Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Extender 1.4X
CNET
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Maybe money can buy you happiness after all. I'm very impressed with Canon's hulking but versatile supertelephoto, the EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Extender 1.4x. If what makes you happy is sharp-focus shots of skittish wildlife, racing motorcycles, and air show jets, this lens delivers. But its price tag -- $11,800 -- means only professionals and the best-funded hobbyists will get the chance to buy that happiness. The lens' tremendously useful trick is a built-in 1.4x telephoto extender that, with the flip of a lever, changes it from a 200-400mm f4 lens into a 280-560mm f5.6 lens.
Moore's Law: The rule that really matters in tech
CNET
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In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore foresaw an inexorable rise in chip power that eventually delivered the computer to your pocket. While long in the tooth, Moore's prediction still has plenty of life in it. Here's why.
How Google is becoming an extension of your mind
CNET
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commentary Google could have us all headed for a mind-blowing future -- if the company can back away from targeted advertising and better help users manage their personal information. -- SAN FRANCISCO -- It's time to think of Google as much more than just a search engine, and that should both excite and spook you. Search remains critical to the company's financial and technological future, but Google also is using the search business' cash to transform itself into something much broader than just a place to point your browser when asking for directions on the Internet.
Moving to IPv6: Now for the hard part (FAQ)
CNET
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Today, the last current-generation Internet addresses were divvied up at the highest level. Here's a look at what happens next in rebuilding the Net with the newer IPv6. Today is the beginning of the end of the Internet as we know it. That's because the rules that govern how data is sent across the Net, a standard called Internet Protocol version 4, just became significantly more obsolete. The central Net authorities just handed out the last batches of IPv4 addresses at a ceremony today in Florida, beginning the cascade of scarcity that eventually will mean the computing industry must make the painful transition to the newer but incompatible IPv6.
Large Hadron Collider: Touring the physics frontier
CNET
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There are two kinds of physicists in the world, broadly speaking: those with the equation-covered blackboards, and those with the scales, thermometers, and pressure gauges. The theoretical physicists have had the upper hand for years, but something new has begun tilting the balance toward the experimentalists: the Large Hadron Collider. This mammoth, $8 billion particle accelerator is housed in a ring 27km in circumference bored about 100 meters beneath a somewhat pastoral valley west of Geneva and operated by a multinational nuclear physics organization called CERN, which was founded in 1954.
Growing pains afflict HTML5 standardization
CNET
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Emotional disagreements between two groups are disrupting the creation of the high-profile standard at the heart of the next-generation Web. Listening to marketing messages from companies such as Apple and Google, one might think HTML5, the next-generation Web page standard, is ready to take the Net by storm. But the words of those producing the specification show an HTML governance process that can be stormy, fractious, and far from settled down. The World Wide Web Consortium's return to HTML standardization after years of absence has produced tensions with the more informal Web Hypertext Application Working Group (WHATWG) that shouldered the HTML burden during that absence.
How These 24-Ton Bricks Could Fix a Huge Renewable Energy Problem
CNET
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This startup could solve a core issue with renewable energy.
Camera Comparison: Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra vs. Apple iPhone 14 Pro
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Samsung's telephoto cameras open up creative possibilities the iPhone can't match.