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• Why Toyota and GM Are Pushing Fuel-Cell Cars to Market

  Falling costs are making fuel-cell vehicles look like a plausible alternative to conventional cars.

  Hydrogen-powered vehicles have been out of the spotlight for years, but they’re about to make a surprising comeback.  Toyota says it will unveil a hydrogen fuel-cell-powered sedan later this year that will go on sale in 2015; several other automakers, meanwhile, have announced partnerships to commercialize the technology (see “Ford, Daimler, and Nissan Commit to Fuel Cells”), including GM and Honda, which announced such a collaboration this week.

• How Military Counterinsurgency Software Is Being Adapted To Tackle Gang Violence in Mainland USA

  Analysts believe that insurgents in Afghanistan form similar networks to street gangs in the US. So the software for analysing these networks abroad ought to work just as well at home, say military researchers

  

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• How Military Counterinsurgency Software Is Being Adapted To Tackle Gang Violence in Mainland USA

  Analysts believe that insurgents in Afghanistan form similar networks to street gangs in the US. So the software for analysing these networks abroad ought to work just as well at home, say military researchers

  

• Using a Smartphone’s Eyes and Ears to Log Your Every Move

  New tricks will enable a life-logging app called Saga to figure out not only where you are, but what you’re doing.

  Many of us already record the places we go and things we do by using our smartphone to diligently snap photos and videos, and to update social media accounts. A company called ARO is building technology that automatically collects a more comprehensive, automatic record of your life.

• A Battery and a “Bionic” Ear: a Hint of 3-D Printing's Promise

  Laboratory advances hint at how additive manufacturing technology could change the way some electronic devices are made.

  Today’s 3-D printers can generally only build things out of one type of material—usually a plastic or, in certain expensive industrial versions of the machines, a metal. They can’t build objects with electronic, optical, or any kind of functions that require the integration of multiple materials. But recent advances in the research lab—including a 3-D printed battery and a bionic ear—suggest that this might soon change.

• A Second Artificial Retina Option for the E.U.

  A sight-restoring implant approved for sale in the European Union on Wednesday is the second artificial retina to become available in the region.

• The Word "Visionary" is Overused, But It Really Applied to This Man

  Back when computers were still just number-crunching machines, Douglas Engelbart foresaw their more powerful application in helping humans collaborate.

  One summer day in 2000, I was in the Silicon Valley offices of the computer peripherals maker Logitech for a demonstration of a gimmicky new mouse. It was only mildly interesting, until a soft-spoken older gentleman came into the room. It was Doug Englebart. Because he is credited with inventing the computer mouse, Logitech’s public-relations people were hoping he could help illustrate just how far the device had come since he conjured one out of a block of wood in the 1960s.

• How Energy Consumption Has Changed Since 1776

  The U.S. Energy Information Administration reviews big changes in energy use since the Declaration of Independence.

  It’s easy to forget just how recently we started using fossil fuels in large amounts. In honor of the July 4^th holiday, the U.S. Energy Information has produced a chart showing how rapidly the country shifted from using wood almost exclusively as an energy source to using first coal, then petroleum and natural gas.

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• A Proto-Liver Is Grown from Stem Cells

  A mixture of three cell types self-assembles into a liver bud that can be seen with the naked eye.

  In work that will raise hope that organs could be repaired or even grown from scratch using a patient’s own tissue as the raw material, Japanese researchers have created functioning liver tissue from stem cells and successfully transplanted them into mice.

• Google Glass Teaches Sergey Brin the Value of SnapChat

  Google cofounder Sergey Brin says the wearable computer Google Glass has taught him the value of communicating using only photos

  Can it be long before Google adds photo-based messaging to its wearable computer Google Glass? The New York Times reported this week that after recently snapping a photo of his food using Glass, Google cofounder Sergey Brin began to think about the value of sending messages that comprise only of photos:

• The Incredible Dark Matter Mystery: Why Astronomers Say it is Missing in Action

  Astrophysicists believe that our galaxy must be filled with more dark matter than ordinary matter. Now astronomers say they can find no evidence of dark matter’s gravitational influence on the planets. What gives?

  

• Silicon Valley Can’t Be Copied

  For 50 years, the experts have tried to figure out what makes Silicon Valley tick. The answer is people.

  By 1960, Silicon Valley had already captured the attention of the world as a teeming technology center. It had spawned the microwave electronics industry and set a pattern for industry-academic partnerships. French president Charles de Gaulle paid a visit and marveled at its sprawling research parks set amid farms and orchards south of San Francisco.

• Flexible Glass Could Make Tablets Lighter and Solar Power Cheaper

  NREL shows that Corning’s Willow glass can be used to make flexible solar cells that could be installed in place of roofing shingles.

  Researchers at the U.S. government’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory have built flexible solar cells using a thin and pliable kind of glass from Corning, the company that makes the glass that covers iPhone screens. The new solar cells could make rooftop solar power far cheaper.

• From Kickstarter to Best Buy: A Smart Watch's Journey

  The Pebble smart watch has risen from being reliant on crowd-funding to appearing on shelves at a mass-market retailer.

• 2013 Global Innovation Index

  The 2013 Global Innovation Index looks very similar to last year’s, but its ranking of the most efficient innovators features several new names.

  What makes a nation innovative? A series of factors that probably do not change much from year to year.

• Intel’s Justin Rattner on New Laser Chip Business

  Justin Rattner, who just stepped down as Intel CTO, discusses mobile computing and the future of Moore’s Law.

  Intel came to dominate computing by consistently beating others at packing transistors ever more densely onto chips for desktop computers and servers. Today, even as the PC market shrinks and the giant company struggles to convince phone and tablet makers to use its chips, Intel spends $10.1 billion on research annually. Justin Rattner, who has been the company’s CTO, recently met with Tom Simonite, MIT Technology Review’s senior IT editor, to argue that this investment will help Intel’s mobile chips overtake those of its competitors and create new businesses. Last Thursday, Rattner announced he was stepping down as Intel’s CTO to take personal leave. He plans to return to the company in a different position.

• Physicists Discover the Secret of Quantum Remote Control

  The ability to control one quantum particle by manipulating another somewhere else sounds like the stuff of science fiction. Now physicists say they know how to do it

   

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• The Anatomy of the Occupy Wall Street Movement on Twitter

  A study of the social network behind the Occupy movement shows that the most vocal participants were highly connected before the protests began but have now largely lost interest, say social network researchers

  

• Why Google Glass Is Just the Beginning

  In Google’s backyard, a startup has its eyes on glasses that offer more ways to interact with the digital world.

  While Google toils to perfect the head-worn mobile computer known as Google Glass, a startup located literally down the street from its Silicon Valley campus is hard at work on a similar system that it believes will let users touch and move virtual objects instead of just viewing them.

• Facial Analysis Software Spots Struggling Students

  A computer can learn to recognize, and respond intelligently to, users’ emotional state.

  Even a good teacher may not always be able to tell, at a glance, which students are quietly struggling and which need more of a challenge. Fortunately, laptops may soon come with enough emotional intelligence built in to do the job for them.

• In Innovation Quest, Regions Seek Critical Mass

  What’s the secret to becoming the next technology hot spot?

   

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• Other Interesting arXiv Papers (Week Ending 29 June 2013)

  The best of the rest from the Physics arXiv preprint server

  mpossibility of Spontaneously Rotating Time-Crystals: A No-Go Theorem

• Stories from Around the Web (Week Ending June 28, 2013)

  A roundup of the most interesting stories from other sites, collected by the staff at MIT Technology Review.

  ISSUE 81: The Revolution Will Be Solarized
  The name says it all: the Sunbelt of the United States ought to be ideal for solar power. Slowly the South is getting on board.
  —Brian Bergstein, deputy editor

• 700,000-Year-Old Horse Genome Pushes Limits of DNA Survival

  Genetic material suitable for sequencing could persist for as many as one million years, predict scientists.

  Small pieces of a horse’s foot bone that were frozen for approximately 700,000 years in the Yukon Territory of Canada have yielded the oldest genome sequence of any species to date.

• Seven Must-Read Stories (Week Ending June 28, 2013)

  Another chance to catch the most interesting, and important, articles from the previous week on MIT Technology Review.

• The Future of Solar and Wind Powered Shipping

  Solar and wind power could reduce fossil fuel consumption in shipping.

   

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• Renewables Sources of Electricity Are Coming Into Their Own

  The International Energy Agency predicts that by 2016 more electricity will come from renewables than from natural gas.

  Wind and solar power keep getting cheaper, and that’s encouraging their adoption even as government subsidies falter, a new report from the International Energy Agency concludes. In just a few years, more power will come from renewables than from natural gas, the report said.

• Will Obama’s Climate Policy Spur New Energy Technologies?

  The impact of proposed carbon-emissions regulations on energy innovation could be small without direct R&D funding.

  This week, when President Obama announced his new plan to address climate change largely through new regulations on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, he sang the praises of technological progress, arguing that in the past, regulations spurred innovation that in turn helped the economy (see “Obama Orders EPA to Regulate Power Plants in Wide-Ranging Climate Plan”).

• Marc Andreessen: Too Many Startups Is a Good Thing

  Accelerators are churning out too many startups, but it’s a good thing, Andreessen Horowitz cofounder says.

  Startup accelerators like Y Combinator (see “The Startup Whisperer”) and 500 Startups are creating too many companies vying for investment dollars, and they can’t all survive, but that’s a good thing, according to Marc Andreessen, cofounder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and of the early Web browser company Netscape Communications.

• The "Startup Whisperer" Tells VCs Not to Expect Such Big Stakes

  Y Combinator founder Paul Graham says venture capitalists should listen to entrepreneurs’ complaints.

  Paul Graham, founder of the influential startup accelerator Y Combinator, gave some advice to venture investors at an event in San Francisco this morning: if you want to find the best opportunities for investing, start listening to what founders are complaining about.

• Startup Plans Constellation of Tiny Monitoring Satellites

  A San Francisco company called Planet Labs aims to launch 28 mini-satellites that will provide frequent snapshots of Earth.

  A San Francisco–based company called Planet Labs announced plans yesterday to launch 28 mini-satellites in a ring around Earth as early as December of this year. The company aims to provide frequent snapshots of the planet, allowing users to track changes—from traffic jams to deforestation—in close to real time.

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• Xerox PARC Tackles Online Dating's Biggest Conundrum

  When you read the profile of a potential partner, how do you know it’s true? Researchers at Xerox PARC think they have the answer

  

• The Internet of Cars Is Approaching a Crossroads

  Wireless vehicle networks could make driving safer and more efficient, but the cost of deployment will be significant.

  The phrase “vehicle-to-vehicle communications” might currently mean little more than a few choice words hurled through an open car window. In a few years, however, it could be synonymous with technology that makes driving safer, less polluting, and certainly less antagonistic.

• Siri’s Creators Demonstrate an Assistant That Takes the Initiative

  An SRI project aims to build a powerful predictive assistant for office workers.

  In a small, dark, room off a long hallway within a sprawling complex of buildings in Silicon Valley, an array of massive flat-panel displays and video cameras track Grit Denker’s every move. Denker, a senior computer scientist at the nonprofit R&D institute SRI, is showing off Bright, an intelligent assistant that could someday know what information you need before you even ask.

• Crowding into Biotech’s Densest Supercluster

  Boston may overtake Silicon Valley at the top of the biotech heap.

  Is Boston going to pass Silicon Valley as the ground zero for the biotechnology industry? Some people think it might.

• Today's Phones and Tablets Will Die Out Like the PC

  The mobile computers killing the PC will themselves be replaced as computing becomes embedded into the world around us.

  The personal computer is dying. Its place in our lives as the primary means of computing will soon end. Mobile computing—the cell phone in your pocket or the tablet in your purse—has been a great bridging technology, connecting the familiar past to a formative future. But mobile is not the destination. In many ways mobile devices belong more to the dying PC model than to the real future of computing.

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• Fairy Circle Mystery Solved By Computational Modelling

  The explanation of the mysterious barren circles that form in the middle of fertile grasslands hints that similar circles may show up in other systems, say complexity scientists

  

• Six Percent of Free Android Apps Hide Intrusive Adware

  Security company Lookout starts a campaign to “eradicate” the many apps that pester users with intrusive ads

  As mobile computers have become more common, criminals have begun to explore ways to profit from exploiting them (see “Clues Malware Moving from PC to Phones”). However, figures released today by mobile security company Lookout indicate that people are more likely to fall victim to what it calls “adware” than classic criminal malware.

• Obama Orders EPA to Regulate Power Plants in Wide-Ranging Climate Plan

  The president presents a plan to use the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

  On a hot day in Washington, DC, President Obama rolled up his sleeves and dabbed his forehead while describing the dangers of climate change and laying out a plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, in large part by regulating carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. The plan also includes actions to help communities prepare for the effects of climate change, as well as measures to promote coöperation with other countries on reducing emissions around the world.

• Rain-Dodging Headlights Can Now Handle Snow

  Last year we reported that researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Intel had developed a prototype headlight that could avoid lighting up raindrops, giving a driver a clearer view of the road ahead (see “Smart Headlights See Through Rain and Snow”). That team has now developed a version able to cope with wind-blown snowflakes, too, and tested it during a snowstorm in Pittsburgh.

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• Lensless Camera Takes Multiple-View Pictures

  A new class of imaging device from Bell Labs can take more than one view of a scene at the same time or use the same data to create a single high-resolution image

  

• Study Shows Many iPhone Apps Defy Apple’s Privacy Advice

  Researchers say that over a third of iPhone apps still access a device’s unique identifier.

  In 2011, Apple advised that iPhone and iPad apps should stop logging the unique identifiers of users’ devices, a practice that can be exploited to build up profiles for ad-targeting purposes. But a new study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, suggests that many apps still do so.

• The App Craze Branches into Forestry

  A startup has developed software and smartphone tools for cataloguing the trees in forests.

  In a small office near Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just across from Starbucks, is a small startup with a big idea for balancing biodiversity with business. SilviaTerra has developed better ways to identify and quantify the trees in forests, using smartphones and satellite imagery. The company’s goal is to help landowners, conservation groups, and timber companies manage their inventory and preserve valuable natural habitats.

• What to Look for in the President’s Climate Address

  Obama will propose a climate plan, but his options are limited without congressional support.

  President Obama is expected to announce a series of measures to reduce carbon emissions, help the United States prepare for the impact of climate change, and facilitate international coöperation on dealing with the problem. The recommendations will mark the administration’s most significant policy moves since the comprehensive energy legislation passed by the House in 2009 failed in the Senate.

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• Researchers ID Thousands of Organic Materials for Use in Solar Cells

  Using computers to virtually test new molecules could lead to new types of solar cells.

  Using donated computing power and drawing on the theory of quantum mechanics, Harvard researchers have computationally screened 2.3 million organic molecules for properties relevant to photovoltaic applications and then organized them into a searchable, sortable database. The new library, which was released to the public today, will help guide the search for new organic photovoltaic materials.

• First Evidence Of Iranian Internet Throttling as a Form of Censorship

  Internet security expert publishes first evidence that Iran uses internet throttling to prevent the spread of information during periods of public unrest

  

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