- In a Data Deluge, Companies Seek to Fill a New Role
A job invented in Silicon Valley is going mainstream as more industries try to gain an edge from big data.
The job description “data scientist” didn’t exist five years ago. No one advertised for an expert in data science, and you couldn’t go to school to specialize in the field. Today, companies are fighting to recruit these specialists, courses on how to become one are popping up at many universities, and the Harvard Business Review even proclaimed that data scientist is the “sexiest” job of the 21st century.
- What 5G Will Be: Crazy-Fast Wireless Tested in New York City
Samsung’s technology for ultrafast data speeds currently requires a truckload of equipment.
The world’s biggest cell-phone maker, Samsung, caused a stir last week by announcing an ultrafast wireless technology that it unofficially dubbed “5G.” And the technology has, in fact, been tested on the streets of New York.
- The Phosphorous Atom Quantum Computing Machine
An Australian team unveils the fundamental building block of a scalable quantum computer that could be embedded in today’s silicon chips.
Back in the late 90s, a physicist in Australia put forward a design for a quantum computer. Bruce Kane suggested that phosphorus atoms embedded in silicon would be the ideal way to store and manipulate quantum information.
- How Apple Avoids Taxes through R&D Spending
In Washington, CEO Tim Cook defended Apple’s R&D cost-sharing arrangements.
Apple CEO Tim Cook came under fire in Washington today at a U.S. Senate hearing focused on the elaborate strategies Apple used to avoid paying tens of billions of dollars in corporate taxes.
- What Will Hackers Do with the New Kinect?
Upgraded robot vision will be just one of the uses for the new version of Microsoft’s gesture control camera.
Microsoft announced a new version of the Xbox One today, and with it an improved and essentially reinvented version of Kinect, the company’s body- and gesture-control sensor. That bodes well for Xbox gamers, but also for the community of hackers that have found so many original uses for the first Kinect, from robot vision to 3-D doodling (see “Hackers Take the Kinect to New Levels”). It seems likely that a new wave of Kinect hacking activity will begin as soon as the new device becomes available.
- Playing the Odds on Tornado Warnings
Pinpoint predictions are a long way off, but taking daily odds into account might help make the public more alert.
The devastation in Moore, Oklahoma, shows the limits of sensing, modeling, and warning technologies. While some technologies promise somewhat more accurate hurricane tracks and thus sharper evacuation orders (see “A Model for Hurricane Evacuation”), tornado warnings are another story altogether (see “The Limits of Tornado Predictions”).
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