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• The Electric Car Is Here to Stay

  The history of electric cars is long and full of false starts. But it looks like the latest wave won’t be turned back.

• Motorola Reveals First Google-Era Phone, the Moto X

  The Moto X lowers the emphasis on manual control in favor of always-on sensors built to respond to speech, gestures, and context.

  Google-owned Motorola unveiled the Moto X, its new flagship smartphone, in New York City today. The Moto X deëmphasizes manual control, hardware buttons, and the touch screen in favor of always-on sensors built to respond to speech, gestures, and context. And customers will be able to customize many features of the device when they order it.

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• Belkin Gadget Will Reveal How Much Energy Your Devices Use

  A project at Belkin could lead to itemized electric bills—showing how much juice your toaster or hair dryer uses.

  If you use a credit card or a cell phone, chances are you get a monthly statement detailing each purchase or call. This may soon expand to your utility bills, too: a project in the works at electronics company Belkin makes it possible to see how much electricity you’re spending on everything from the TV in your living room to the washing machine in your basement.

• NSA Chief Says U.S. Phone, Web Surveillance Sets “Standard for Other Countries”

  There are tight controls on the NSA’s access to U.S. phone records and data from U.S. Internet companies, the agency’s director says.

  The National Security Agency’s collection of phone records and Internet data from U.S. companies provides a model for other nations, the agency’s director, General Keith Alexander, said today at a prominent computer security conference in Las Vegas.

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• New Forms That Function Better

  Design software helps architects create grand projects with fanciful forms. It’s time to put the technology to better use.

  Since the unveiling of Frank Gehry’s titanium-skinned Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in 1997, we’ve grown accustomed to eye-popping architectural statements, whether in the complex geometry of Herzog & de Meuron’s Beijing National Stadium (also known as the “Bird’s Nest”) or in the precarious cantilevering of Zaha Hadid’s MAXXI National Museum in Rome. If it seems there’s some immensely complicated system being used to engineer these gravity-­defying arcs, ramps, and curves, that’s because there is. But that technology, known as parametric modeling, can do much more than facilitate the fantastic creations of Gehry, Hadid, and their ilk. Increasingly, parametric design is being used not just to make buildings more visually compelling but to precisely tune nearly every aspect of their performance, from acoustics to energy efficiency. It’s not as sexy an application, but it will become far more valuable to architecture and the way we live and work.

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• If Facebook Can Profit from Your Data, Why Can’t You?

  Reputation.com says it’s ready to unveil a place where people can offer personal information to marketers in return for discounts and other perks.

  It has become the Internet’s defining business model: free online services make their money by feeding on all the personal data generated by their users. Think Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn, and how they serve targeted ads based on your preferences and interests, or make deals to share collected data with other companies (see “What Facebook Knows”).

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• The Future of Graphics and Gaming

  See the best new ideas in computer graphics and interaction from last week’s Siggraph conference.

  Dazzling new techniques in computer graphics and provocative new ideas about interaction were shown off by researchers from academia and industry at the Siggraph conference in Anaheim, California, last week. 

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• An Armband Promises a Simpler Route to Gesture Control

  Can an armband that controls gestures by measuring muscle activity make it as a mainstream gadget?

  When it comes to gesture-control systems like Microsoft’s Kinect, some applications—like gaming—are obvious. Others—like controlling your window blinds—are less so.

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• Scientists Make Mice “Remember” Things That Didn’t Happen

  Researchers manipulate mouse neurons to create a false memory; the work could lead to a better understanding of how memories form.

  Scientists have created a false memory in mice by manipulating neurons that bear the memory of a place. The work further demonstrates just how unreliable memory can be. It also lays new ground for understanding the cell behavior and circuitry that controls memory, and could one day help researchers discover new ways to treat mental illnesses influenced by memory.

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• Rise of the More Human Robot

  Atlas is meant to assist in emergencies, but it could also inspire other machines to walk in our footsteps.

• The Paradox of Wearable Technologies

  Can wearable devices augment our activities without distracting us from the real world?

  Ever talk to someone at a party or conference reception only to discover that the person you are talking to is constantly scanning the room, looking this way and that, perhaps finding you boring, perhaps looking for someone more important? Doesn’t the person realize that you notice?

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• Douglas Engelbart’s Unfinished Revolution

  The pioneering Doug Engelbart invented things that transformed computing, but he also intended them to transform humans.

  Doug Engelbart knew that his obituaries would laud him as “Inventor of the Mouse.” I can see him smiling wistfully, ironically, at the thought. The mouse was such a small part of what Engelbart invented.

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• Look Before You Leap Motion

  Leap Motion’s low-cost gesture-control device is not as easy to use as you might think.

  For the past couple days, I’ve been gesticulating even more than normal—at times, subtly, at other times, wildly—while getting to know the latest in gesture-control technology: the Leap Motion controller.

• Electronic “Skin” Emits Light When Pressed

  Researchers unveil one of the most complex electronic systems ever built on plastic.

  A sheet of thin plastic that emits light with an intensity that precisely reflects the amount of pressure applied to its surface hints at a new breed of flexible computer interface. Its creators say future iterations of the interface could be used for robotics, car dashboards, mobile displays, or even “interactive wallpaper.”

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