Category: Tech News

• 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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• Other Interesting arXiv Papers (Week Ending 22 June 2013)

  The best of the rest from the Physics arXiv preprint server

  An Overview of the Research on Texture Based Plant Leaf Classification

• Stories from Around the Web (Week Ending June 21, 2013)

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

  How Junk Food Can End Obesity
  An interesting take on how science is engineering healthy junk food—and a counterargument to the glorification of natural foods laden with fat and salt—in The Atlantic’s cover story by David H. Freedman.
  —David Rotman, editor

• Musk Sells Crowd On the Future of Electric Vehicles With Battery Swapping

  Battery swapping is fast, but the economics are still uncertain.

  For a dose of how Elon Musk is selling the vision of electric vehicles, check out this video of the new Tesla swapping station in action (see “Why Tesla Thinks It Can Make Battery Swapping Work”). In the video–which was taken at a gathering of mainly Model S owners in LA–a Tesla Model S pulls up on stage, and an automated system removes its depleted battery and replaces it with a fully-charged one. Meanwhile a video runs in the background of someone refueling a gas powered car. The battery swap is finished faster than the refueling. Indeed, while the gas-powered car continues to fill up, another Model S drives on stage and has its battery replaced.

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• What Tech Is Next for the Solar Industry?

  Solar manufacturers are eager to implement several new technologies that could make solar power cheaper, and the panels easier to make.

  Solar panel installations continue to grow quickly, but the solar panel manufacturing industry is in the doldrums because supply far exceeds demand (see “Why We Need More Solar Companies to Fail”). The poor market may be slowing innovation, but advances continue; judging by the mood this week at the IEEE Photovoltaics Specialists Conference in Tampa, Florida, people in the industry remain optimistic about its long-term prospects.

• Instagram Becomes Instavideo

  In a race to stay relevant and keep up with newcomers, Instagram releases its own video feature.

  On Thursday, Instagram cofounder Kevin Systrom announced an update that will allow users to shoot and share 15-second videos composed of one or more clips.

• A Detailed 3-D Atlas of a Human Brain

  Scientists have imaged the anatomy of an entire human brain at unprecedented resolution.

  A new resource will allow scientists to explore the anatomy of a single brain in three dimensions at far greater detail than before, a possibility its creators hope will guide the quest to map brain activity in humans. The resource, dubbed the BigBrain, was created as part of the European Human Brain Project and is freely available online for scientists to use.

• Seven Must-Read Stories (Week Ending June 21, 2013)

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

• Why a 3-D Printer Giant Just Bought MakerBot

  MakerBot founder Bre Pettis, the poster child for mainstream 3-D printing, merges his company with an industrial printing giant.

  The Brooklyn-based 3-D printer startup MakerBot Industries just got a little less hip, since announcing yesterday that it had sold for $403 million in stock to Stratasys. The public company, founded in 1989 and based in Minnesota and Israel, is one of the two large manufacturers of expensive, industrial machines. It competes with 3D Systems, which already has a consumer 3D printer line.

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• Demographers Discover The Fundamental Law Governing the Growth of Cities

  The discovery of a law governing the growth of cities means that future urban populations can now be forecast in advance

  

• African Entrepreneurs Deflate Google’s Internet Balloon Idea

  Kenyan tech leaders say the high-flying Internet balloons may not be a realistic networking solution for their continent.

  Google’s latest pet project, called Loon, is meant to deliver the Internet to new parts of the world via solar-powered balloons soaring through the stratosphere. Yet some technologists in Africa say the project may be unrealistic as a competitive networking solution for their continent.

• Nanotube Probe Gives a Single Neuron’s View of Brain Activity

  A thin probe of carbon nanotubes can measure small electrical changes inside a neuron.

  A tiny spear made of carbon nanotubes can probe the internal electrical activity of a single neuron, giving researchers a more refined look at how brain cells respond to signals from their neighboring cells. Probing the brain at this resolution could be vital to efforts to understand and map its function in new detail (see “Why Obama’s Brain-Mapping Project Matters”).

• Why Tesla Thinks It Can Make Battery Swapping Work

  Tesla is set to announce a way to make recharging its electric vehicles faster than filling up a gas tank.

  Tomorrow Tesla Motors will announce a way to charge its Model S electric vehicle faster than a conventional car’s gas tank can be filled—by swapping a depleted battery for a fully charged one.

• Is Facebook Reading Status Updates to Co-opt Comment Threads?

  Facebook may be going a step too far by adding unsolicited gift card suggestions to people’s status updates.

  A friend of mine is leaving her job and starting a fantastic new one, and so she announced it on Facebook. The likes and comments piled up, but there was also something else I noticed when I saw her post in my News Feed. Right above the comments and below the likes was a nudge from Facebook to “surprise” my friend with a gift.

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• Music Festivals, Bluetooth Monitoring and the Behavior of Crowds

  The unexpected behaviour of crowds at one of Europe’s largest music festivals should help organisers plan future events, say researchers

  

• AT&T Tests Public Phone Charging Stations

  Wireless carrier AT&T is rolling out free gadget-charging stations all over NYC.

• Google Says Secret Intelligence Court Restricts Its Right to Free Speech

  Google is demanding that a secret intelligence court allow it to share some details about surveillance requests for user data.

  Last week, negative press in the wake of recent leaks about NSA surveillance prompted Facebook, Google, and Microsoft to politely ask the U.S. government to be allowed to share broad statistics on their legally required role in such activities.

• Laser Scanning Reveals New Parts of an Ancient Cambodian City

  LIDAR technology continues to reveal archeological evidence of urbanization

  Airborne laser scanning has revealed the remnants of a vast urban structure in the vicinity of Angkor Wat, a famous temple in Cambodia. The study, which will be published soon in the journal PNAS, follows a previous one that showed Angkor Wat to have been one of the world’s most complex preindustrial cities.

• Mobile Call Logs Can Reveal a Lot to the NSA

  Research shows how much the NSA could glean from call records, and why efforts to downplay the significance of such metadata are misleading.

  Of all the recent revelations about the National Security Agency’s sweeping surveillance activities, the collection of metadata from Verizon’s U.S. call records may be the most concerning (see “NSA Surveillance Reflects a Broader Interpretation of the Patriot Act”). Despite reassurances that the information collected is limited in its scope, academics who study such data say it could still reveal a great deal about the people being monitored.

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• High-Tech Cheetah Tracking Reveals the Cat’s Hunting Secret

  Research into wild animal locomotion could inform the design of future robots.

  Biologically inspired robots could prove useful for all sorts of tasks (see “Just What Soldiers Need: A Bigger Robotic Dog”). But the design of such robots has been limited by our understanding of animal locomotion. Now, thanks to tracking technology, this is changing, and more nimble-footed machines could soon follow.

• Materials Scientists Build Chlorophyll-Based Phototransistor

  Coat a layer of graphene with chlorophyll and you get a remarkably sensitive light-activated switch, say physicists.

   

• Going Under

  Study of anesthesia-induced brain-wave patterns could help doctors make sure patients don’t wake up during operations

  Since the mid-1800s, doctors have used drugs to induce general anesthesia in patients undergoing surgery. However, little is known about how these drugs create such a profound loss of consciousness.

• America's Petrochemical Landscape

  Beyond the drilling rigs, the fossil-fuel industry spreads far and wide across the land.

• Always Present

  The patient who transformed the science of memory

  Suzanne Corkin was a graduate student at McGill University when she met a young man named Henry Molaison in 1962. She spent several days giving him memory tests as she gathered data for her PhD thesis. But each day she had to reintroduce herself, as Molaison had almost completely lost the ability to form new memories.

• A Chocolate Maker’s 
Big Innovation

  In transforming the way cacao farmers supply manufacturers, a 
San Francisco startup is creating a superb product.

  You may have seen little squares of Tcho chocolate in their brightly colored wrappers decorated with futuristic parabolas of gold and silver. They’re easily found: Starbucks has sold them; Whole Foods sells them now.

• A Green Sahara

  Study finds ancient North Africa was much more lush than previously thought

  Today the Sahara is a vast desert spanning more than 3.5 million square miles in northern Africa. But as recently as 6,000 years ago it was a verdant landscape, with sprawling vegetation and numerous lakes. Ancient cave paintings in the region depict hippos in watering holes, and roving herds of elephants and giraffes—a vibrant contrast with today’s barren, inhospitable terrain.

• Greener Plastics

  Plastics have become synonymous with waste, but they can be made ­sustainably.

  There can be little doubt that plastic materials have dramatically improved everything from clothing to travel to communications to building. Some of the damage they have caused, however, is equally dramatic.

• Fast Break

  Metastatic cells move through tight spaces more quickly than ordinary cells

  Most cancer deaths are caused by metastatic tumors, which break free from the original cancer site and spread throughout the body. Many of the genetic changes that allow cells to become metastatic have been studied extensively, but it has been more difficult to study the physical changes that contribute to this process.

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• Green Chemists Synthesise Vanillin From Sawdust

  An environmentally-friendly way of making vanillin from the lignin in wood pulp could change the economics of this flavouring industry

  

• A Popular Ad Blocker Also Helps the Ad Industry

  Millions of people use the tool Ghostery to block online tracking technology—few realize that it feeds data to the ad industry.

  Whenever discussion starts about how to hide from the tracking code that follows users around the Web to serve them targeted ads, recommendations soon pile up for a browser add-on called Ghostery. It blocks tracking code, noticeably speeds up how quickly pages load as a result, and has roughly 19 million users. Yet few of those who advocate Ghostery as a way to escape the clutches of the online ad industry realize that the company behind it, Evidon, is in fact part of that selfsame industry.

• Repairing Bad Memories

  A neuroscientist who has anguished over the terrors in her own family’s history says people might erase the trauma from memories by taking a pill — or talking to a therapist at just the right time.

  It was a Saturday night at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, and the second-floor auditorium held an odd mix of gray-haired, cerebral Upper East Side types and young, scruffy downtown grad students in black denim. Up on the stage, neuroscientist Daniela Schiller, a riveting figure with her long, straight hair and impossibly erect posture, paused briefly from what she was doing to deliver a mini-lecture about memory.

• What Carbon Capture Can't Do

  New tech will lower the cost of carbon capture, but the sheer scale needed to reduce emissions prevent it from being a panacea.

  I’ve recently reported on a handful of ways that researchers are trying to lower the cost of capturing carbon dioxide, with the view to storing it underground or using it for something useful (see “Cheaper Ways to Capture Carbon Dioxide,” “Grasping for Ways to Capture Carbon Dioxide on the Cheap,” and “Fuel Cells Could Offer Cheap Carbon Dioxide Storage”).

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