Category: Tech News

• IBM Scientists Show Blueprints for Brain-like Computing

  IBM researchers unveil TrueNorth, a new computer architecture that imitates how a brain works.

  To create a computer as powerful as the human brain, perhaps we first need to build one that works more like a brain. Today, at the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks in Dallas, IBM researchers will unveil a radically new computer architecture designed to bring that goal within reach. Using simulations of enormous complexity, they show that the architecture, named TrueNorth, could lead to a new generation of machines that function more like biological brains.

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• How Tesla Is Driving Electric Car Innovation

  If you believe Tesla, affordable, long-range electric cars could be here sooner than many think.

  I recently took a test drive in one of Tesla’s luxurious Model S electric cars and toured its R&D labs, where it’s developing its battery and recharging technology. The experience left me believing that Tesla has an important edge over its competitors in the race to bring electric cars to the masses.

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• Motorola’s Moto X: Interface Innovation with a Learning Curve

  Several days with the Moto X reveal some ingenious new features and a few shortcomings.

  The Moto X, Motorola’s first phone conceived and designed since the company’s acquisition by Google, doesn’t boast as many main processor cores or camera megapixels as its rivals at the higher end of the smartphone spectrum. It does, however, allow its users lots of control via voice and gesture commands, which speed up and simplify common tasks like taking pictures, placing calls, or getting directions (see “Motorola Reveals First Google-Era Phone, the Moto X”).

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• Romancing the Phone

  Love and sex in the age of social media and mobile communication.

  Boy meets girl; they grow up and fall in love. But technology interferes and threatens to destroy their blissful coupledom. The destructive potential of communication technologies is at the heart of Stephanie Jones’s self-published romance novel Dreams and Misunderstandings. Two childhood sweethearts, Rick and Jessie, use text messages, phone calls, and e-mail to manage the distance between them as Jessie attends college on the East Coast of the United States and Rick moves between Great Britain and the American West. Shortly before a summer reunion, their technological ties fail when Jessie is hospitalized after a traumatic attack. During her recovery, she loses access to her mobile phone, computer, and e-mail account. As a result, the lovers do not reunite and spend years apart, both thinking they have been deserted.

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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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