The two largest social networks are becoming more similar, as they borrow each other’s features, and search for profit.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Facebook and Twitter Are Converging
Cryptographers Have an Ethics Problem
Mathematicians and computer scientists are involved in enabling wide intrusions on individual privacy.
Code breaker: A statue of mathematician Alan Turning working on the Enigma Machine.
Last week, I visited the MIT computer science department looking for a very famous cryptographer. As I made my way through the warren of offices, I noticed a poster taped to the wall—the kind put up to inform or inspire students. It was the code of ethics of the Association for Computing Machinery, the world’s largest professional association of computer scientists.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Academics Launch Fake Social Network to Get an Inside Look at Chinese Censorship
New research shows China’s online censorship relies on a competitive market where companies vie to offer the best speech-suppressing technology and services.
When Smartphones Do a Doctor’s Job
A simple, cheap way to measure eyesight may face resistance.
Vitor Pamplona isn’t a doctor. He’s not even an optician. He can’t write you a prescription for glasses, or sell you a pair. Still, he’s pretty sure he’s going to disrupt the $75 billion global eye-care market.
At EyeNetra, the startup he cofounded, goofy curiosities like plastic eyeballs line the shelves, and a 3-D printing machine whirs in the background. It’s printing out prototypes of a device that will attach to your smartphone and, in a minute or two, tell you what kind of eyeglasses you need.
Twitter Plans to Go Public
Twitter is the next giant social network with plans to cash in.
Twitter today said it had officially submitted paperwork for a planned public offering of stock. The company disclosed that it had filed the documents via a Tweet at 6 p.m.
A Twitter IPO could be the most anticipated technology stock offering since Facebook went public in May 2012, and things could get just as complicated.
Facebook’s stock sagged, then clawed back up, as the company grappled with whether it could successfully advertise on mobile devices (see “How Facebook Slew the Mobile Monster”). Facebook is worth $108 billion today.
How Cell Phones Are Transforming Health Care in Africa
Mobile communications can help bridge a huge knowledge gap and reimagine healthcare across Africa.
Since 2000, when the number of cell phone subscriptions in Africa outstripped landlines, the enthusiasm with which people across the continent have embraced this technology has been unparalleled. Nigeria alone has gone from a nation of just 30,000 cell subscriptions in 2000 to more than 140 million today, or roughly 87 percent penetration. Given how vast Africa is and the entrepreneurial nature of its people, perhaps that’s not so surprising. But what is unexpected is the life-saving role these handsets are beginning to play in helping to bridge gaps in our knowledge.
First Self-Assembling Diamond Quantum Devices Unveiled
The ability to self-assemble quantum components on the nanometre scale could revolutionise the future of computing
One of the great goals of applied physics is to make quantum information processing a robust and common technique. To achieve this, physicists will need a simple way of storing and manipulating quantum information, preferably at room temperature.
There is no shortage of possible quantum storage devices but one sits head and shoulders above most others: a nitrogen atom that has replaced a carbon atom in a diamond lattice, an arrangement known as a nitrogen-vacancy centre.
Patients Take Control of Their Health Care Online
Patients are collaborating for better health — and, just maybe, radically reduced health-care costs.
Not long ago, Sean Ahrens managed flare-ups of his Crohn’s disease—abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea—by calling his doctor and waiting a month for an appointment, only to face an inconclusive array of possible prescriptions. Today, he can call on 4,210 fellow patients in 66 countries who collaborate online to learn which treatments—drugs, diets, acupuncture, meditation, even do-it-yourself infusions of intestinal parasites —bring the most relief.
Technology Is Wiping Out Companies Faster than Ever
The lifespan of great corporations is getting shorter and shorter.
That’s a sign of just how fast computing is changing. But technological change may also be shortening the lifespan of all great companies. (Also off the Dow Jones list today are Bank of America and Alcoa. The new additions are Nike, Visa, and Goldman Sachs.)
Apple Needs a New Category to Reinvent
The new iPhones suggest Apple’s ability to innovate is waning. Can it find a new category of gadget to reshape?
Apple created the current culture of product unveilings and updates as big-deal events. Changes big and bitty were met with wonder. Past iPhones earned headlines with both blockbuster features like the arrival of voice-responsive personal assistant Siri and smaller ones such as the arrival of a cut-and-paste feature (I was one of those spreading the word.) By comparison, the latest release feels much more subdued.
Low-Power Transistors May Boost Wearable Computer Battery Life
Small, portable devices could get new stamina thanks to a transistor design that can cut a computer chip’s power consumption in half.
A new way of designing chips could solve one of the biggest problems facing wearable computers such as Google Glass and the Samsung smart watch—their batteries generally have to be recharged every day.
The novel design comes from SuVolta, which has been working since 2006 to dramatically improve the energy efficiency of transistors, the fundamental component of computer chips. The company has received $62 million in venture funding. At at the industry conference Hot Chips in California last month, SuVolta showed results from an experiment in which its technology was used to make a version of an existing chip. SuVolta’s version consumed half the power of the original while running at the same speed. It could operate 35 percent faster than the conventional chip if consuming the same power.
NSA Leak Leaves Crypto-Math Intact but Highlights Known Workarounds
New details of the NSA’s capabilities suggest encryption can still
be trusted. But more effort is needed to fix problems with how it is
used.
However, cryptography experts tell MIT Technology Review that a close reading of last week’s report suggests the NSA has not broken the underlying mathematical operations that are used to cloak online banking or e-mail.
Instead, the agency appears to rely on a variety of attacks on the software used to deploy those cryptographic algorithms and the humans and organizations using that software. Those strategies, revealed in documents leaked by Edward Snowden, came as no surprise to computer security researchers, given that the NSA’s mission includes the pursuit of America’s most technologically capable enemies.
This Doctor Will Save You Money
Eric Topol is on a mission to get health care out of the mess it’s in.
I visited cardiologist Eric Topol at the Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, California, one day this summer. He’d had a busy morning seeing patients and, by about noon, was claiming to have already saved the medical system thousands of dollars using his iPhone and a pocket-sized ultrasound machine. Then he pointed to the stethoscope in his pocket and said he hasn’t used it in three years. “I should just throw it out,” he said. “This is basically a worthless icon of medicine.”
How Window Glass Is Getting Smarter
A material that selectively blocks heat and light could finally make it practical to add smart windows to buildings.
Heliotrope Technologies, an early-stage startup currently incubating at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, may have found the key to delivering the first cost-effective “smart window.” The company has developed a relatively inexpensive glass composite with the unprecedented capacity to selectively block the sun’s heat-producing infrared radiation as well as visible light. Buildings equipped with such glass could be more energy-efficient.
The company recently announced that it would begin sending samples to large glass manufacturers to “evaluate its potential for commercial and residential buildings.” It aims to produce its first product within three years.
How Microsoft Might Benefit from the Nokia Deal
If it can cleverly blend hardware and software in new ways, reach new markets, and take advantage of Nokia’s patent portfolio, Microsoft’s billions could be well spent.
The Costly Paradox of Health-Care Technology
In every industry but one, technology makes things better and cheaper. Why is it that innovation increases the cost of health care?
As an economist who studies health care, I find it hard to know whether to welcome or fear new technology. Surgeons can replace a heart valve with a plastic and metal one that unfolds once threaded through arteries—repairs that used to be made by cracking open the chest. Customized cancer drugs hold the promise of making fatal diseases treatable. At the same time, it’s depressingly common to hear projections of fiscal Armageddon as health-care spending drags the U.S. federal government into debt and wipes out any wage growth for the average American. Even a recent slowdown in spending growth simply postpones the inevitable date when Medicare goes bankrupt.
Mapping the Bitcoin Economy Could Reveal Users’ Identities
Analyzing the public traces left by every bitcoin transaction could allow law enforcement to identify many users of a currency often assumed to offer anonymity.
The new research, from a team at University of California, San Diego, comes at a time when investment in the bitcoin economy is booming (see “Bitcoin Hits the Big Time”), and as it is being scrutinized by U.S. authorities. In 2013, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has seized a total of $5 million from Mt Gox, the largest exchange where people go to convert between bitcoins and conventional currencies. Last month, New York’s financial regulator subpoenaed 22 companies to gather information about their dealings with Bitcoin.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Is Samsung’s Galaxy Gear the First Truly Smart Watch?
Samsung’s new smart watch may be the most polished effort yet—but that doesn’t mean it’ll be a hit.
At events held simultaneously in Berlin and New York, Samsung announced three new products, including a smart watch that marks the company’s first foray into wearable computing.
Along with the watch, called the Galaxy Gear, Samsung executives announced an oversized 5.5-inch smartphone (or “phablet”)—the Galaxy Note 3—and a tablet called the Galaxy Note 10.1. All three devices will be available in 149 countries beginning on September 25.
Intel’s Laser Chips Could Make Data Centers Run Better
Silicon chips with optical technology allow a new form of superfast data connection.
Intel hopes to make computing far more efficient by introducing a technology that replaces conventional copper data cables with faster optical data links. The breakthrough required Intel to fit lasers and other optical components onto silicon chips, which usually deal only with electronic signals.
First Trial of Crowdsourced Grading for Computer Science Homework
One of the most time-consuming aspects of teaching is grading homework assignments. So here’s an interesting crowdsourcing tool from Luca de Alfaro and Michael Shavlovsky at the University of California Santa Cruz that switches the burden from the teacher to the students themselves.
The new tool is called CrowdGrader and it is available at http://www.crowdgrader.org/.
The basic idea is straightforward. De Alfaro and Shavlovsky’s website allows students to submit their homework and then redistributes it to their peers for assessment. Each student receives five pieces of anonymous work to grade.
NASA Moonshot Will Test Laser Communications
NASA launches a moon satellite this week that will test ultrafast optical data transmission.
A new communications technology slated for launch by NASA this Friday will provide a record-smashing 600 megabits-per-second downloads. The resulting probe will orbit the moon and send communications back to Earth via lasers.
The plan hints at how lasers could give a boost to terrestrial Internet coverage, too. Within a few years, commercial Internet satellite services are expected to use optical connections—instead of today’s radio links—providing far greater bandwidth. A Virginia startup, Laser Light Communications, is in the early stages of designing such a system and hopes to launch a fleet of 12 satellites in four years.
Samsung Smart Watch May Have a Long Way to Go
A sketch of a Samsung Galaxy Gear smart watch prototype viewed and then drawn by VentureBeat. Tech blog VentureBeat got an early look at Samsung’s anticipated Galaxy Gear smart watch, which is slated to be unveiled tomorrow at the IFA consumer electronics trade show in Berlin. If the device the gadget maker shows off is similar to that prototype, the battle for smart watch supremacy will be far from over.
The Numbers in the Microsoft-Nokia Deal Are Telling
The price of the deal stood out the most in today’s news that Microsoft is spending 5.4 billion euros ($7.2 billion) to buy Nokia’s devices business, license its patents, and provide financing to the company. Because just a day earlier, Verizon announced it would pay Vodafone $130 billion for the 45 percent of Verizon Wireless that it didn’t already own. In other words, although Nokia touches many more lives (it probably will sell more than 200 million phones this year, while Verizon Wireless has 100 million customers in the U.S.), it’s worth about 1/40th of Verizon Wireless.
Technology: The Cure for Rising Healthcare Costs?
In a financially stretched healthcare market, medical technology is sometimes seen as an expensive luxury. But use of the RIGHT technology can actually cut the overall cost of medical treatment and improve patient outcomes. You might be wondering how…
We live longer now, and we are more sedentary, so chronic diseases such as diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and Alzheimer’s are on the rise. These long-term degenerative diseases place a high cost burden on our healthcare systems. The sooner doctors can detect, treat, and/or prevent these conditions in patients, the more they can reduce this burden. This presents exciting opportunities for medtech companies to demonstrate R&D ingenuity.
Sensors Could Make Electric-Car Batteries Smaller and Cheaper
ARPA-E says better sensors and controls could allow automakers to cut battery size by 20 to 50 percent.
Electric-vehicle battery packs could shrink 20 to 30 percent, and make electric vehicles more affordable, if new sensors were developed to monitor the cells in a pack, according to the U.S. government’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E). The agency says such sensors could have an even greater effect on hybrid gas-electric vehicle batteries, causing them to shrink by half.
Better sensors could tell what’s happening inside each of the hundreds of cells that make up an electric vehicle’s battery pack, allowing automakers to safely store more energy in them. A $30 million ARPA-E program that’s been underway for about a year is seeking to develop the necessary technology.
Leap Motion’s Struggles Reveal Problems with 3-D Interfaces
It may take years for 3-D gesture-control to catch on with consumers and app developers.
Hype surrounding Leap Motion, an $80 3-D gesture-control gadget touted for its exceptional finger-tracking accuracy, reached fever pitch in the weeks before its July launch. Hundreds of thousands of people ordered the device ahead of its release, and a flashy demo video on YouTube was viewed millions of times.
Yet after one month and a raft of “meh” product reviews citing problems like difficulty controlling apps and tired arms, the sardine-can-sized gadget—which connects to a computer’s USB port and tracks the movement of your hands and fingers as they move above its sensor—seems to have lost its steam.
Are Driverless Cars Really Just Around the Corner?
The speculation about driverless cars took a few questionable turns this week.
Turbo boosting: Sadly, K.I.T.T. is not yet ready for production.The hype surrounding autonomous vehicles shifted up a gear recently, first with claims that Google could develop its own autonomous taxis, and then with Nissan’s promise to sell an autonomous vehicle by 2020. While I hate to rain on anyone’s parade, autonomous or otherwise, I think these two stories should be taken with heavy dose of road salt.
The first story builds on a report in the German newspaper Aktuelle Nachirchten suggesting Google is working with auto-component companies, including Continental AG and Magna International. Google may well be considering all possibilities, but I think it’s quite unlikely it will attempt to build its own cars. That would be a colossal undertaking, even for such an ambitious company; and it’s experience with electronics hardware hardly seems like sufficient preparation for a leap into the immensely complex and high-risk world of automotive manufacturing.
Researchers Grow 3-D Human Brain Tissues
Researchers have grown brain tissue with distinct regions that mimic different functional structures of the developing brain.
Scientists at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology in Vienna, Austria, have grown three-dimensional human brain tissues from stem cells. The tissues form discrete structures that are seen in the developing brain.
The Vienna researchers found that immature brain cells derived from stem cells self-organize into brain-like tissues in the right culture conditions. The “cerebral organoids,” as the researchers call them, grew to about four millimeters in size and could survive as long as 10 months. For decades, scientists have been able to take cells from animals including humans and grow them in a petri dish, but for the most part this has been done in two dimensions, with the cells grown in a thin layer in petri dishes. But in recent years, researchers have advanced tissue culture techniques so that three-dimensional brain tissue can grow in the lab. The new report from the Austrian team demonstrates that allowing immature brain cells to self-organize yields some of the largest and most complex lab-grown brain tissue, with distinct subregions and signs of functional neurons.
A Wearable Computer More Powerful than Glass, and Even More Awkward
A startup that makes 3-D glasses stands out, in part, by including Steve Mann on its team.
The company, Meta, is building computerized headwear that can overlay interactive 3-D content onto the real world. While the device is bulky, Meta hopes to eventually slim it down into a sleek, light pair of normal-looking glasses that could be used in all kinds of virtual activities, from gaming to product design. The company, which was founded by Meron Gribetz and Ben Sand, counts Mann as its chief scientist. One of Mann’s graduate students, Ray Lo, serves as chief technical officer. The company just completed a stint with Y Combinator, the successful startup accelerator based in Mountain View, California.
The Coming Wave of Security Startups
Our growing computer security problems will create many new companies.
Unlike other looming technical problems that require innovation to address, cybersecurity never gets solved. The challenges of circuit miniaturization, graphical computing, database management, network routing, server virtualization, and similarly mammoth technical problems eventually wane as we tame their complexity. Cybersecurity is a never-ending Tom and Jerry cartoon. Like antibiotic-resistant bacteria, attackers adapt to our defenses and render them obsolete.
Hacked Feature Phone Can Block Other People’s Calls
Swapping software can give one GSM phone the power to prevent incoming calls and text messages from reaching other phones nearby.
The attack involves modifying a phone’s embedded software so that it can trick the network out of delivering incoming calls or SMS messages to the intended recipients. In theory, one phone could block service to all subscribers served by base stations within a network coverage area known as a location area, says Jean-Pierre Seifert, who heads a telecommunications security research group at the Technical University of Berlin. Seifert and colleagues presented a paper on the technique at the Usenix Security Symposium in Washington, D.C., last week. An online video demonstrates the attack in action.
A Look Back as Microsoft’s CEO Prepares to Depart
Microsoft had some big product successes and a number of flops under Steve Ballmer.
Ballmer, 57, who came to Microsoft in 1980 as its first business manager, was the first CEO after founder Bill Gates left the post in 2000.
In his 13 years at the helm, Ballmer has led some smash-hit products and a number of flops, ranging from computer operating systems to gesture-control gaming hardware (see “Q&A: Steve Ballmer”). The following is a list of some notable successes and failures.
Is Google Eyeing NFL Programming?
If Google claimed ownership of comprehensive Sunday football coverage, Google Fiber – and TV dongles – would be an even better deal
Virtual Tour Guide May Be Killer App for Google Glass
A Glass version of Google’s Field Trip app looks like the first good use case for the head-mounted computer.
An image from a Field Trip promotional video shows how the app might look to a Google Glass user.
Google has released a Google Glass version of its free iPhone and Android app Field Trip, which acts as a tour guide by offering location-based alerts to teach you about things you may be passing, such as historic sites. While I’ve always been intrigued by Google Glass and the benefits it may bring users (on-the-fly directions, searches, Web surfing, etc), this is the first application I’ve seen for which it really does make more sense to wear a head-mounted gadget rather than simply looking at a smartphone.
I wrote about Field Trip for MIT Technology Review after the app’s release late last year (see “Should You Go on Google’s Field Trip?”), and was impressed by its accuracy, ease of use, and customization, as well as its potential as a future home for targeted ads that are actually useful. It wasn’t that awesome to keep looking at my phone while using it, though–I’d much rather learn interesting details about, say, the Willie Mays statue in front of AT&T Park, while actually looking at (or at least in the direction of) it.
Why Some Are Turning to Sound for Mobile Payments and More
Startups are using sound waves to let mobile gadgets transfer data quickly and efficiently.
The new app, called Way2ride, is free for iPhone and Android from the payment service company VeriFone, which already provides payment processing systems for more than half of the city’s 13,000 yellow cabs. VeriFone recently acquired the underlying technology, called Zoosh, from a startup called Naratte (see “Ultrasound App Lets Almost Any Phone Pay”).
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