wordpress-seo domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /var/www/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114What’s the point of all that data, anyway? It’s to make decisions.
Back in 1956, an engineer and a mathematician, William Fair and Earl Isaac, pooled $800 to start a company. Their idea: a score to handicap whether a borrower would repay a loan.
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Efforts are underway to make your smart toilet—and other connected devices—less vulnerable to hackers.
In late December, a researcher at enterprise security company Proofpoint noticed something strange: a security gateway was logging hundreds of thousands of malicious e-mails that were clearly being sent out by over 100,000 Linux-running devices, but they weren’t PCs. Rather, they were Internet-connected consumer gadgets including routers, TVs, multimedia centers, and even a fridge.
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In much of the world, the concept of “net neutrality” generates less public debate, given there’s no affordable Net in the first place.
Net neutrality—the idea that all Internet traffic should generally be treated equally—suffered a setback last week when a federal court struck down the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s latest regulatory effort (see “Net Neutrality Quashed: New Pricing Schemes, Throttling, and Business Models to Follow”).
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The company behind the Bittorrent protocol is working on software that can replicate most features of file-synching services without handing your data to cloud servers.
The debate over how much we should trust cloud companies with our data (see “NSA Spying Is Making Us Less Safe”) was reawakened last year after revelations that the National Security Agency routinely harvests data from Internet companies including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Facebook.
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By delivering gene therapies to patients before they go blind, doctors may be able to prevent the loss of many important light-detecting cells.
A new kind of gene therapy has reversed some vision loss in people born with a degenerative eye disease for which there is no existing treatment.
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A startup called Siluria thinks it’s solved a mystery that has stymied huge oil companies for decades.
At a pilot plant in Menlo Park, California, a technician pours white pellets into a steel tube and then taps it with a wrench to make sure they settle together. He closes the tube, and oxygen and methane—the main ingredient of natural gas—flow in. Seconds later, water and ethylene, the world’s largest commodity chemical, flow out. Another simple step converts the ethylene into gasoline.
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The ability to print retinal cells could lead to new therapies for retinal disorders such as macular degeneration.
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A new smartphone app from a Twitter cofounder makes it easy and fun to get your friends’ advice on everything from shopping to Chopin.
There are plenty of places to seek answers to questions, including search engines like Google and Q&A sites like Quora. Most recently, Jelly, a new startup created by Twitter cofounder Biz Stone, is squishing its way into the fray with a free smartphone app that lets you ask questions appended with images, and give answers to people in your extended social network.
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Smart home appliances could become more common thanks to efforts by major companies including Lowe’s and Staples to make gadgets compatible.
When I interviewed Tony Fadell, the inventor of the iPod and now CEO of Nest, two years ago, he told me that he started the company, which sells smart thermostats and alarms, because existing products for taking control of your home over the Internet were clunky and appealed only to the technically minded (see “Nest’s Control Freaks”). “Home automation is for single geeky guys. It’s not for families,” he said.
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Companies have figured out that a smart watch can’t just be functional; it has to look good, too.
When Intel CEO Brian Krzanich unveiled a smart watch during his keynote speech at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas on Monday, he brought his company level with Samsung and Qualcomm, both of which sell watches with sizeable color touch screens that are capable of running apps (see “Samsung’s Galaxy Gear” and “Review: Qualcomm’s Toq”).
Low-cost materials could make storing hours of power from a wind farm economically feasible.
Utilities would love to be able to store the power that wind farms generate at night—when no one wants it—and use it when demand is high during the day. But conventional battery technology is so expensive that it only makes economic sense to store a few minutes of electricity, enough to smooth out a few fluctuations from gusts of wind.
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