Big Data from Cheap Phones
Collecting and analyzing information from simple cell phones can provide surprising insights into how people move about and behave—and even help us understand the spread of diseases.
Communications
Friendly Machines
Making human-friendly robots is a pressing challenge and a big opportunity.
Data Sources
Mobile phones are great sources of data—but we must be careful about privacy.
Smart Watches
The designers of the Pebble watch realized that a mobile phone is more useful if you don’t have to take it out of your pocket.
Building a Picture of the Bomb Suspects through Social Network Analysis
Police can obtain huge quantities of social network data but must sort out the junk to glean useful information.
Death Test Reveals Strength of Social Interaction
Social ties between humans are stronger than those between fruit flies or ants but weaker than those between bees, according to a cheerful new ranking based on how quickly creatures die when they become isolated
A Smarter Algorithm Could Cut Energy Use in Data Centers by 35 Percent
Storing video and other files more intelligently reduces the demand on servers in a data center.
The First Facebook Phone: A Little Too Much Information
The HTC First, which features Facebook’s new Home interface, will appeal only to the most devoted of Facebook users.
Twitter Happiness Levels Soar As People Travel Further From Home
Happiness levels caputred by Tweets rise logarithmically with distance from our average location, say computer scientists studying Twitter sentiment
A Startup’s Nanowire Ink Lifts Solar Cell Efficiency
Sol Voltaics plans to make a nanowire-laden ink to boost solar panel efficiency using a rapid manufacturing process.
