A unique experimental typewriter stored in a New York state basement for decades turned out to be a one-of-a-kind piece of communications history. According to an announcement from Stanford University, historians and one unsuspecting granddaughter have rediscovered the long-missing MingKwai machine. Earlier this year, Jennifer Felix and her husband were working to clean out her recently deceased grandfather's home when they came across a large, extremely heavy typewriting device. However, instead of a more traditional setup the contraption featured five rows of keys topped with Chinese characters. After reaching out for help online, Felix realized her grandfather had been the owner of the MingKwai--one man's innovative, if ultimately doomed, attempt to incorporate the Chinese language onto a mechanical typewriter.

Last week, MIT Technology Review published an excerpt from a new book, The Chinese Computer, which talks about how this problem was solved in China. After generations of work to sort Chinese characters, modify computer parts, and create keyboard apps that automatically predict the next character, it is finally possible for any Chinese speaker to use a QWERTY keyboard. It ends with a bigger question about what this all means: Why is it necessary for speakers of non-Latin languages to adapt modern technologies for their uses, and what do their efforts contribute to computing technologies? I talked to the book's author, Tom Mullaney, a professor of history at Stanford University. We ended up geeking out over keyboards, computers, the English-centric design that underlies everything about computing, and even how keyboards affect emerging technologies like virtual reality.

Alphabet Inc. pushed out two managers on its drone-delivery project amid infighting on its team, according to people familiar with the situation, casting the program's future in uncertainty and marking the latest setback for a Google sister company. Alphabet, Google's parent, has been developing delivery drones in its research arm since 2012 with the hopes of transforming logistics. But the drone project--dubbed Project Wing--has had a bumpy ride, with its original head departing in 2014. Alphabet last month pushed out the project's chief, Dave Vos, and its top commercial executive, Sean Mullaney, in large part because of conflict between the group's engineers and its commercial team, according to the people familiar with the matter. It also issued notices to several other Project Wing workers, giving them 90 days to find other positions within Alphabet, one former employee said.

Mullaney is the author of two forthcoming books on the Chinese typewriter and computer, and we discussed what he's learned while researching them. His argument is pretty fascinating to unpack because, at its heart, it is about more than China. It is about our relationship to computers, not just as physical objects but as conduits to intangible software. Typing English on a QWERTY computer keyboard, he says, "is about the most basic rudimentary way you can use a keyboard." You press the "a" key and "a" appears on your screen.