Although quantum computing is a nascent field, there are plenty of key moments that defined it over the last few decades as scientists strive to create machines that can solve impossible problems.

Researchers got a better look at the thoughts of chatbots, amateurs learned exactly how complicated simple systems can be, and quantum computers passed an essential milestone. The end of 2024 seems a ...

C. 2500 BCE: Sumerian abacus -- c. 700 BC: Scytale -- c. 150: Antikythera mechanism -- c. 60: Programmable robot -- c. 850: "On Deciphering Cryptographic Messages" -- c. 1470: Cipher disk -- 1613: ...

Joseph Weizenbaum realized that programs like his Eliza chatbot could "induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal ...

The computer has traditionally been a woman. Before the invention of the electronic computer, the word “computer” meant a female worker who was part of a team with many other workers doing hundreds of ...

In 1979, two M.I.T. computer-science alumni and a Harvard Business School graduate launched a new piece of computer software for the Apple II machine, an early home computer. Called VisiCalc, short ...

On Oct. 3, 1950, three scientists at Bell Labs in New Jersey received a U.S. patent for what would become one of the most important inventions of the 20th century — the transistor. John Bardeen, ...

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI received his first computer at the age of eight. He studied computer science at Stanford University, but dropped out after one year to co-found Loopt, a social networking ...