Author Archive

Robinson Meyer

Staff writer

Robinson Meyer
Robinson Meyer is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of the newsletter The Weekly Planet, and the co-founder of the COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic.
Digital Government

Why the Pandemic Experts Failed

We're still thinking about the pandemic data in wrong ways.

Digital Government

What Spy-Satellite Companies Can Teach NASA About Climate Change

The space agency is exploring what three Earth-observation start-ups can teach it about the planet.

Emerging Tech

Google’s New Tool to Fight Climate Change

The company will begin estimating local carbon pollution from cities around the world.

Policy

The Tech Industry Is Fighting Trump—and Mostly Losing

Legal opposition and strongly worded remarks could not defeat the president’s travel ban.

Emerging Tech

Someone Flew a Drone Too Close to a Wildfire, Again

Firefighters in Colorado had to ground their aircraft for an hour.

Digital Government

Scott Pruitt’s New Rule Could Completely Transform the EPA

It would not only undermine 30 years of clean-air regulations, but radically restrict what science the agency is allowed to use.

Emerging Tech

Mark Zuckerberg Says He’s Not Resigning

In an interview, the Facebook CEO tells The Atlantic he’s not walking away from the company, but he is looking for outside expertise.

Digital Government

Facebook's Ideological Imperialism

Andrew Bosworth’s memo may seem insidious, but its logic used to be very popular.

Emerging Tech

Shrugging Toward Doomsday

Experts warn that the world is now as dangerous as it was at the height of the Cold War. Many Americans already know it.

Digital Government

Could Facebook Have Caught Its 'Jew Hater' Ad Targeting?

“Facebook can monitor the things it does that make it money.”

Digital Government

Can the U.S. Government Seize an Anti-Trump Website's Visitor Logs?

The Department of Justice is seeking the 1.3 million IP addresses that accessed a website advertising Inauguration Day protests.

Digital Government

Why an Anti-Fascist Short Film Is Going Viral

“I’ve heard this kind of talk before, but I never expected to hear it in America.”

Digital Government

2016 Was Hot, Weird, and Unprecedented, Says NOAA

Five lessons from the agency’s report on the year’s record-breaking weather

Modernization

Your Smartphone Reduces Your Brainpower, Even If It's Just Sitting There

A silent, powered-off phone can still distract the most dependent users.

Digital Government

What Steve Bannon Wants to Do to Google

The White House strategist reportedly wants to treat tech giants as public utilities, an idea that some Democrats also support.

Digital Government

A Visual Search Engine for the Entire Planet

Descartes Labs lets you point-and-hop between features in China and the United States.

Digital Government

Google Remakes Satellite Business, By Leaving It

A startup says a 50-trillion-pixel image of Earth, refreshed daily, is coming later this year.