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• Microsoft Thinks DRM Can Solve the Privacy Problem

  A leader at Microsoft proposes protecting personal data using technology once used to lock down music files.

  When sharing music online took off in the 1990s, many companies turned to digital rights management (DRM) software as a way to restrict what could be done with MP3s and other music files—only to give up after the approach proved ineffective and widely unpopular. Today Craig Mundie, senior advisor to the CEO at Microsoft, resurrected the idea, proposing that a form of DRM could be used to prevent personal data from being misused.

• Qualcomm to Build Neuro-Inspired Chips

  World’s largest smartphone chipmaker offers to custom-build very efficient neuro-inspired chips for phones, robots, and vision systems.

  The world’s largest smartphone chipmaker, Qualcomm, says it is ready to start helping partners manufacture a radically different kind of a chip—one that mimics the neural structures and processing methods found in the brain.

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• Data Discrimination Means the Poor May Experience a Different Internet

  A Microsoft researcher proposes “big data due process” so citizens can learn how data analytics were used against them.

  Data analytics are being used to implement a subtle form of discrimination, while anonymous data sets can be mined to reveal health data and other private information, a Microsoft researcher warned this morning at MIT Technology Review’s EmTech conference.

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• NSA’s Own Hardware Backdoors May Still Be a "Problem from Hell"

  Revelations that the NSA has compromised hardware for surveillance highlights the vulnerability of computer systems to such attacks.

  In 2011, General Michael Hayden, who had earlier been director of both the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency, described the idea of computer hardware with hidden “backdoors” planted by an enemy as “the problem from hell.” This month, news reports based on leaked documents said that the NSA itself has used that tactic, working with U.S. companies to insert secret backdoors into chips and other hardware to aid its surveillance efforts.

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• Can Oculus Rift Turn Virtual Wonder into Commercial Reality?

  Oculus Rift has heavyweight developer support, and millions of dollars of crowdsourced investment. But many of the old challenges to this new technology remain.

  “This technology is going to revolutionize the way we live, learn, work, and play.”

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• A Smartphone Charger That Sniffs for Malware

  Scanning a smartphone for malware with a charger offers more protection than security apps ever can.

  At the annual Black Hat security conference this summer, researchers demonstrated how it would be possible to add malware to an iPhone by connecting it to a modified charger. Now a mobile security startup is attempting to do the opposite, by selling a charger that can scan your smartphone for malware—and repair it, if necessary—while powering it up.

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• Genetically Modified Bacteria Produce 50 Percent More Fuel

  By changing the way certain organisms process sugar, UCLA researchers have shown how to produce more biofuel.

  Researchers at UCLA have opened a path to cheaper and cleaner biofuels by using genetic engineering to fundamentally change how certain organisms process sugar.

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• Graphene Could Make Data Centers and Supercomputers More Efficient

  New research suggests graphene could enable highly efficient optical communication in chips for data centers and supercomputers.

  Computer chips that use light, instead of electrons, to move data between electronic components and to other chips could be essential for more efficient supercomputers and data centers. Several industrial research labs are working toward such optical interconnects that rely on germanium to turn light into ones and zeros. But recent research suggests that graphene devices could be far better and cheaper.

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• Depth-Sensing Cameras Head to Mobile Devices

  Adding 3-D sensors to existing and future mobile devices will enable augmented-reality games, handheld 3-D scanning, and better photography.

  Just over a decade since cameras first appeared in cell phones, they remain one of the most used features of mobile devices, underpinning wildly popular and valuable companies such as Instagram and Snapchat. Now hardware that gives handheld computers 3-D vision may open up a new dimension to imaging apps, and enable new ways of using these devices. Early mobile apps that can scan the world in 3-D show potential for new forms of gaming, commerce, and photography.

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• When Will Gene Therapy Come to the U.S.?

  Several gene therapies are or will soon be in late-stage human trials. One of them could be the first to get FDA approval for sale in the U.S.

  Though many gene therapies have been tested in patients around the world in hopes of curing hereditary diseases, few governments have approved their sale, and none has been approved in the United States. That could change in coming years as several therapies enter advanced trials.

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• New IPCC Report Strengthens Certain of Climate Change

  The new climate report largely reaffirms scientists’ claims.

  The latest report from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that scientists are more certain than ever that humans are causing global warming, and that climate change will get worse if greenhouse gas levels continue to rise.

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