Category: Tech News

• Other Interesting arXiv Papers (Week Ending 15 June 2013)

  The best of the rest from the Physics arXiv preprint server

  Whirling Skirts And Rotating Cones

• Building the Business Case for Energy Storage

  A novel software tool could make it far easier to bring new energy storage technologies to market.

  If we’re ever going to run the world on intermittent renewable energy, we’re going to need to change the power grid, making it smarter and more adaptable, extending transmission lines to connect far flung wind farms, and adding something that we only have a very small scale right now—the ability to store electricity generated when the sun is shining for use when it isn’t.

• Seven Must-Read Stories (Week Ending June 14, 2013)

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

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• Stories From Around the Web (Week Ending June 14, 2013)

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

  The Secret War
  This account of General Keith Alexander’s cyberwar efforts paints a valuable big picture.
  —Tom Simonite, IT editor

• The Secret to a Video-Game Phenomenon

  By eschewing grit and realism for creativity and simplicity, Minecraft shows how bedroom programmers can bypass publishers to create global hits.

  All video-game makers are minor gods. They are, after all, in the business of world creation. The game creator sets down the mountains and arranges the valleys in his or her world. The creator decides upon the sky’s hue, the water’s viscosity, the pitch of birdsong, and the force of gravity’s pull. The creator types “Let there be light” (or the C# equivalent) and there is light. The creator chooses how and when night falls and whether or not there will be a new dawn. The creator conjures how time works (linear, malleable, or something else entirely) and writes the strands of code that form the incumbent creatures’ DNA. Then, when everything is planned out, the creator clicks “RUN” to execute a Big Bang.

• Artificial Spleen Offers Hope for Faster Sepsis Diagnosis and Treatment

  Researchers are designing a “dialysis-like” machine that could identify and remove pathogens responsible for an often lethal blood infection.

  Taking advantage of recent advances in nanotechnology and microfluidics, researchers have made significant progress toward a device that could be used to rapidly remove pathogens from the blood of patients with sepsis, a potentially life-threatening condition that occurs when an infection is distributed throughout the body via the bloodstream.

• U.S. Supreme Court Says “Natural” Human Genes May Not Be Patented

  The decision should reduce uncertainty in the field of molecular diagnostics.

  The U.S. Supreme Court gave a mixed ruling on the issue of human gene patents on Thursday, deciding that while DNA found naturally cannot be patented, synthetically produced DNA can.

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• The Remarkable Properties of Mythological Social Networks

  The social network between characters in Homer’s Odyssey is remarkably similar to real social networks today. That suggests the story is based, at least in part, on real events, say researchers

  

• Mobile Summit 2013: See What You Missed

  MIT Technology Review’s first mobile-focused conference featured some big names and big news.

  Last night we wrapped up our first Mobile Summit, a two-day event dedicated to an incredibly important and exciting area of technological innovation.

• Brain Scans Predict Treatment Outcome in Depression Patients

  A biomarker could cut the trial-and-error of finding a patient’s best therapy.

  A brain scan could one day help doctors prescribe the best treatment to patients with major depressive disorder. In JAMA Psychiatry on Wednesday, researchers describe how a PET scan can reveal whether a patient will respond better to drugs or cognitive behavior therapy. This could have a “significant health and economic impact” the researchers note:  most patients of “this highly prevalent, disabling and costly illness” do not get the treatment best-suited to them at first.

• Camera Tweaks Should Boost Smartphone Battery Life

  Research could make persistent computer-vision more feasible, and improve your smartphone’s battery life.

  The digital cameras in smartphones, tablets, and devices like Google Glass are increasingly powerful and useful. But the more powerful they are, the more they drain battery life.

• Cheaper Ways to Capture Carbon Dioxide

  Techniques developed at MIT and Pacific Northwest National Lab could make it more affordable to burn fossil fuels without releasing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

  Capturing carbon dioxide from smokestacks and then storing it underground could make it possible to continue using fossil fuels without making such a large contribution to global warming. But the current method of capturing the carbon dioxide requires a lot of energy—it can lower the output of a power plant by a third and nearly double the cost of electricity.

• Virus That Evolved in the Lab Delivers Gene Therapy into the Retina

  From millions of random mutations, scientists identify a virus that could make gene therapy for inherited retinal diseases safer and more effective.

  A new delivery mechanism shuttles gene therapy deep into the eye’s retina to repair damaged light-sensing cells without requiring a surgeon to put a needle through this delicate tissue. The approach could make it substantially easier to treat inherited forms of eye disease with this approach.

• Mobile Summit 2013: More Apps May Soon Want to Know Where You Are

  Factual, a company that provides location data on places, thinks more apps could make use of its information.

  Many smartphone apps have terms and conditions that allow them to collect location data from users—whether or not those apps actually use that information to improve their service. That data could soon be used in some surprising ways, by music or photo apps, for example.

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• Quantum Invisibility Cloak Hides Objects from Reality

  Physicists have worked out how to cloak a region of space from the quantum world, thereby shielding it from reality itself

  

• How Technology Is Destroying Jobs

  Automation is eliminating the need for people in many jobs. We’ve survived such changes before, but this time it might be different: are we facing a future of stagnant income and worsening inequality?

  Given his calm and reasoned academic demeanor, it is easy to miss just how provocative Erik Brynjolfsson’s contention really is. ­Brynjolfsson, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and his collaborator and coauthor Andrew McAfee have been arguing for the last year and a half that impressive advances in computer technology—from improved industrial robotics to automated translation services—are largely behind the sluggish employment growth of the last 10 to 15 years. Even more ominous for workers, the MIT academics foresee dismal prospects for many types of jobs as these powerful new technologies are increasingly adopted not only in manufacturing, clerical, and retail work but in professions such as law, financial services, education, and medicine.

• Bitcoin Millionaires Become Investing Angels

  Early investors in Bitcoin got rich. Now they are the cryptocurrency’s most powerful gatekeepers.

  Every time you spend bitcoins to buy a drink at Evr, a swanky bar in midtown Manhattan that accepts the digital currency, you make its co-owner, Charlie Shrem, just a little bit richer.

• Google, Facebook and Microsoft Express Sudden, Renewed Interest in Surveillance Transparency

  The U.S. government should allow disclosure of how often NSA taps into user data, argue Facebook, Microsoft and Google

  Facebook, Google and Microsoft today made public calls on the U.S. government to allow them to reveal statistics on how much intelligence agencies tap into their data.

• Mobile Summit 2013: In Smart Watch Category, Pebble Still Awaits the Big Competition

  Pebble, the smart watch upstart, is charging ahead while computing giants mull their product plans.

  In April 2012, Eric Migicovsky launched a Kickstarter campaign for Pebble, the smart watch that went on to attract almost 70,000 backers and set the tone for an emerging product category that companies including Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Samsung are all likely to pursue. Despite all the buzz, he’s still waiting for the big competitors to show up.

• Mobile Summit 2013: Corning’s Gorilla Glass Is Coming to Cars Next

  The strong glass that is used in 1.5 billion consumer electronic devices worldwide could soon help make more fuel-efficient, quieter cars.

  Corning’s durable Gorilla Glass is used in the displays of iPhones and other mobile devices; it can be found in 1.5 billion electronic devices today. But the next market for the lightweight material might be literally larger: replacing some of the standard glass used on the windows of automobiles.

• Just Don’t Call it Big Data

  Why Google fears the totalitarian connotations of the buzzword big data.

  Spies with the U.S. National Security Agency are hoovering up huge amounts of digital data on Americans, including records of every phone call, and may have wide access to Internet traffic, too.

• Companies Complying with NSA’s PRISM May Face E.U. Lawsuits

  U.S. companies that pass data from European Union citizens to the NSA’s PRISM surveillance program could be breaching the E.U.’s data-protection laws.

  Internet companies that pass data to the National Security Agency under the PRISM program could face legal action in the European Union, say privacy regulators and experts there.

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• More Large-Scale Invisibility Cloaks, This Time From China and Beyond

  Big, cheap invisibility cloaks are suddenly beginning to emerge thanks to some simple optical short cuts that physicists have discovered

  

• The Strangeness of Facebook Home

  Facebook’s new interface for smartphones is at odds with how the world uses computers.

• Apple’s New Mobile OS Is All about Ive

  With its new mobile OS, Apple looks to longtime design head Jonathan Ive, and takes a few cues from competitors.

  For Apple, there’s a lot riding on iOS 7, the newest version of its mobile software and the first refresh overseen by veteran industrial design head Jonathan Ive. To satisfy as many people as possible, it seems, Apple took inspiration from several different sources—including competitors.

• Corning’s Gorilla Glass Is Coming to Cars Next

  The strong glass that is used in 1.5 billion consumer electronic devices worldwide could soon help make more fuel-efficient, quieter cars.

  Corning’s durable Gorilla Glass is used in the displays of iPhones and other mobile devices; it can be found in 1.5 billion electronic devices today. But the next market for the lightweight material might be literally larger: replacing some of the standard glass used on the windows of automobiles.

• EIA Says Worldwide Shale Oil And Gas Potential Is Huge

  A surge in oil and gas production from shale rock has transformed energy in the United States, helping reverse declines in oil production and prompting a massive shift from coal to natural gas electricity production that has led to a significant drop in carbon dioxide emissions (since burning coal releases more carbon dioxide than burning natural gas). A new report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration lends support to the idea that a similar transformation could take place outside the United States. 

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• China Reveals First Space-Based Quantum Communications Experiment

  The “Chinese Quantum Science Satellite” will launch in 2016 and aim to make China the first space-faring nation with quantum communication capability

  

• Other People's Breakthrough Technologies

  Another take on the biggest innovations to pay attention to.

  Putting together this publication’s annual 10 Breakthrough Technologies list, which comes out each spring, is a long and involved process. So I’m exceedingly curious about what other people come up with when they take on roughly the same question, which is “what are the most important technologies to watch in the coming years?” One such report is now out from researchers with the McKinsey consulting company who identify 12 technologies that they think will be the most “disruptive” over the next decade.

• The Avatar Will See You Now

  Medical centers are testing new, friendly ways to reduce the need for office visits by extending their reach into patients’ homes.

  Most patients who enter the gym of the San Mateo Medical Center in California are there to work with physical therapists. But a few who had knee replacements are being coached by a digital avatar instead.

• Google Irks Developers with Ruling on Facial-Recognition Apps

  Developers complain that by banning facial recognition for Glass, Google is hindering doctors, police, and others.

  The popular rap on Google Glass facial-recognition technology is that it’s a tool for creeps and stalkers. But Google’s decision to ban both facial-recognition and voiceprint technology from its high-tech eyewear also puts the brakes on promising services, like those that could help medical staff rapidly retrieve patient records.

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• Other Interesting arXiv Papers (Week Ending 8 June 2013)

  The best of the rest from the Physics arXiv preprint server

  Big Pharma, Little Science? A Bibliometric Perspective On Big Pharma’s R&D Decline

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• Google, Facebook Founders Express Fears Over NSA Access to Verizon Data

  The founders of Google and Facebook say the NSA’s access to Verizon call records is too broad.

  In online posts today the leaders of Google and Facebook both said they didn’t know anything about the National Security Agency using a program called PRISM to access their users’ data. While neither Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg nor Google’s Larry Page did anything to explain what data they provided to the NSA via other means, they both clearly registered concerns over the tactics the agency was revealed this week to have used to get phone-record data from Verizon customers.

• NSA Data-Scooping: A Coming Backlash in Europe?

  The same big U.S. Internet companies that reportedly handed over data wholesale to the NSA have been promising compliance with tough EU privacy standards.

  Most European nations have long had stronger privacy laws than those in the United States. As a result U.S. Internet companies doing business there–incluiding Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, and AOL–have signed on to so-called “safe harbor” principles, promising a European level of privacy protection. Now, of course, it appears they’ve also been providing gobs of data about some overseas customers to the U.S. National Security Agency (see “NSA Surveillance Reflects a Broader Interpretation of the Patriot Act”).

• NSA Surveillance Reflects a Broader Interpretation of the Patriot Act

  Privacy advocates have warned for years about the kinds of surveillance revelations that were aired this week.

  Of the two big U.S. government surveillance projects that came to light this week, the one that might seem less startling—the fact that the National Security Agency gathers Verizon’s U.S. call records—troubled privacy activists more than the report that the NSA can get user data such as e-mails and photographs held by Internet companies including Google and Facebook.

• Stories from Around the Web (Week Ending June 7, 2013)

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

  The Great VC Coin Rush: At the Bitcoin Convention
  There has been lots of coverage, from us and others, about the potential importance of bitcoins. Even so I enjoyed how this piece got into the culture of bitcoin.
  —Brian Bergstein, deputy editor

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• The World as Free-Fire Zone

  How drones made it easy for Americans to kill a particular person anywhere on the planet.

  Editor’s Note: This story relies upon anonymous sources who could not have spoken on the record without prosecution or other serious repercussions. The author revealed their identities to MIT Technology Review.

• Contact Lens Computer: Like Google Glass, without the Glasses

  Soft contact lenses could display information to the wearer and provide continuous medical monitoring.

  For those who find Google Glass indiscreet, electronic contact lenses that outfit the user’s cornea with a display may one day provide an alternative. Built by researchers at several institutions, including two research arms of Samsung, the lenses use new nanomaterials to solve some of the problems that have made contact-lens displays less than practical.

• Seven Must-Read Stories (Week Ending June 7, 2013)

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

• Facebook to Refresh Ads In Effort to Boost Their Relevance

  Facebook is simplifying its ad formats, which could mean less annoying targeted ads are in the offing.

• A Global Alliance for Sharing Genomic Data

  A common framework for analyzing and sharing genomic information could speed medical progress.

  Nearly 70 organizations in research, health care, and disease advocacy have agreed to take part in a global alliance dedicated to standardizing and sharing genomic and clinical data.

• Correlation Is Main Concern Over Data Verizon Gives NSA

  What the NSA can do with Verizon’s data on phone calls depends on the other sources it can be combined with.

  One of the most interesting things about the data on phone calls being provided to the NSA by Verizon on its business customers, as revealed by the Guardian last night, is what it doesn’t include.

• Researchers, Using Light to Activate Neurons, Make Mice Obsessive-, or Not

  Mind-control optogenetics experiments in mice give new clarity to the neural circuitry that underlines repetitive behaviors.

  Two teams of researchers have pinpointed some of the neural circuitry that underlies compulsive grooming behaviors. The discoveries, reported in Science on Thursday, could guide new treatments for people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, autism, and other conditions that exhibit symptoms of repetitive and compulsive actions.

• Former FCC Chairman: Let’s Test an Emergency Ad Hoc Network in Boston

  Outgoing FCC chairman, Harvard scholar make a pitch for private networks to aid public safety.

  As the Boston Marathon bombings unfolded, thousands of anxious people in the region pulled out their mobile phones to connect with friends and family—and found that calls couldn’t be placed or received. Rumors that officials had shut down these mobile networks for security reasons weren’t true. The system was simply overloaded at a time when people needed it most.

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• A Password So Secret, You Don’t Consciously Know It

  Researchers work to develop passwords so secret that only your unconscious mind knows them.

  Some efforts to replace traditional letter-and-number passwords rely on gestures, wearable devices, or biometrics. An approach in the works from research-and-development company SRI International and Stanford and Northwestern takes a different tack: passwords that you know but don’t know you know.

• Human-Scale Invisibility Cloak Unveiled

  Researchers demonstrate an invisibility cloak that can be scaled to almost any size and say it could be used to hide orbiting satellites

  

• Can “Infinite Variation” Be Mass-Produced Using 3-D Printing?

  Shapeways looks to software to bring down production costs and time to market in its 3-D printing factory in New York City.

  The East River waterfront of Queens, New York, once was a busy manufacturing hub. Pepsi had a bottling plant there, Swingline produced staplers, and Eagle Electric made circuits and switches.

• Even with Cord-Cutting and the Web, the TV Audience is Massive

  Although we have more ways to entertain ourselves than ever, it’s proving hard to unseat television as the most popular mass medium.

• Thinking of Running an Open Innovation Contest? Think Again.

  Open competitions can help find an optimal solution to a well-understood problem, but they are a poor way to innovate.

  Open innovation contests are gaining popularity with companies. The thinking is that since not all the smart people work for your company, and technology is developing so rapidly, why not hold a contest to get the best minds competing to innovate for you? While 99 percent of the entries will fail, those entries aren’t on your company’s income statement. And when that 1 percent succeeds by pulling off a true breakthrough, then your company will be the big winner.

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