Category: Tech News

• AI Supercomputer Built by Tapping Data Warehouses for Their Idle Computing Power

  Sentient claims to have assembled machine-learning muscle to rival Google by rounding up idle computers.

  Recent improvements in speech and image recognition have come as companies such as Google build bigger, more powerful systems of computers to run machine-learning software. Now a relative minnow, a private company called Sentient with only about 70 employees, says it can cheaply assemble even larger computing systems to power artificial-intelligence software.

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• Power Sector Finds a New Set of Customers: Cars

  Giving power companies the ability to invest in electric-vehicle charging infrastructure could bolster the EV market.

  Lawmakers in Washington state this month passed a bill that opens up the electric-vehicle charging sector to a group of players who have thus far been mostly absent: power utilities.

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• Fixing China’s Coal Problem

  China has rapidly cleaned up its coal plants. Now comes the hard part.

  When William Latta first came to China, in 2005, he intended to look for companies to acquire for the French power giant Alstom. He wound up creating his own.

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• Food Technology for All

  We may be heading toward a new food economy that’s more competitive and innovative.

  For years, the most important food technologies were all about scale. How could we feed a fast-growing population at less expense? By doing everything bigger: food grown on bigger farms was sold by ever-merging global food giants to grocery chains of superstore proportions.

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• Mobile Call Quality Gets a Long-Overdue Upgrade

  Wireless companies and a few ambitious startups are racing to make your cell-phone calls better.

  While apps have turned smartphones into digital Swiss Army knives that can do everything from tracking your heartbeat to hailing you a cab, the phone part of the smartphone hasn’t gotten much better over the years.

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• Firefox Maker Battles to Save the Internet—and Itself

  Mozilla helped an open Web flourish in the 2000s. Now it’s struggling to play a meaningful role on mobile devices.

  In Silicon Valley, most pioneers pursue big ideas and giant personal fortunes with equal zeal. Then there’s Mozilla, an innovation dynamo that refuses to get rich.

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• Internet of Farm Things

  Companies are competing to turn data into advice on how to farm better, and attracting investments from the likes of Google Ventures and Monsanto.

  For more on how technology is changing food, please read our upcoming Business Report, High-Tech Food Chain, this coming Tuesday.

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• Oculus Rift Hack Transfers Your Facial Expressions onto Your Avatar

  Facebook teams with researchers to transfer your smiles and frowns into virtual reality.

  Virtual reality is set to get a vital dash of social reality.

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• Leaderless Bitcoin Struggles to Make Its Most Crucial Decision

  Bitcoin’s most influential developer has proposed a controversial fix that would help it handle more transactions.

  In a test of Bitcoin’s ability to adapt to its own growing popularity, the Bitcoin community is facing a dilemma: how to change Bitcoin’s core software so that the growing volume of transactions doesn’t overwhelm the network. Some fear that the network, as it’s currently designed, could become overwhelmed as early as next year.

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• Single Cells Analyzed at Unprecedented Scale

  A microscopic quest to find out what we’re really made of.

  How many types of cells are there in the human body? Textbooks say a couple of hundred. But the true number is undoubtedly far larger.

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