Apple announced its smartwatch this week. But how does it compare to the smartwatches by Motorola, Samsung and LG? Read more…
Little Brother: how technology is transforming advertising
Technology is radically changing the advertising business, with profound consequences for both consumers and companies. Read more…
Microsoft to drop Nokia, Windows Phone brands
Microsoft may be phasing out usage of both “Nokia” and “Windows Phone” in its advertising and marketing materials as soon as this holiday season. Read more…
Musk: three opportunities that will better humanity
From advanced rockets to electric cars, who wouldn’t like to know where entrepreneur Elon Musk finds his big ideas? These are the big ideas that have guided the career of SpaceX’s and Tesla Motors’ CEO. Read more…
Is artificial intelligence a threat?
When the world ends, it may not be by fire or ice or an evil robot overlord. Our demise may come at the hands of a superintelligence that just wants more paperclips. So says Nick Bostrom, a philosopher who founded and directs the Future of Humanity Institute, in the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford. He created the “paperclip maximiser” thought experiment to expose flaws in how we conceive of superintelligence. Read more…
How many megapixels does a camera really need?
Technology moves fast, and with it, the increasingly relevant question: can my smartphone replace my camera? The answer may lie in the megapixels. When I consider that my current iPhone has far more megapixels than my first DSLR did, it’s an easy illustration of the shifting parameters. But with the number of megapixels going higher and higher, at what point do they stop being useful and just become a number for show? Read more…
On death and iPods: a requiem
Have you ever loved a car? Maybe it was an old truck you drove for hundreds of thousands of miles, or maybe it was your very first car, where you had your very first beer and your very first kiss. Maybe some day it’ll be old enough that you’ll get thumbs-ups from cool kids as you putter down the street in your charmingly vintage car. This is not the case with gadgets — even though, for many of us, our old gadgets were way more important than our old cars. Read more…
Who are big data’s big winners? You might be surprised
For those of you still scratching your head over the ins-and-outs of Hive, Spark and Pig, don’t bother. There’s a race on to make complex big data technology like Hadoop easy for the lay user, and it has the added benefit of making you rich. Read more…
Tim Cook talks iCloud hack, iPhone 6
This week, Charlie Rose aired the first half of his two-part interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook. It was a wide-ranging conversation covering Apple’s current products and problems, the future of the company, and (of course) the loss of Steve Jobs. Read more…
All-electric racing: Formula E’s thrilling debut
Plenty of expert passing, some extremely close calls, and one spectacular crash in the final turn. Perhaps the most impressive thing about the very first Formula E race is how much it looked like the new sport belongs in the world of auto racing. The evenly matched electric cars put on a mostly dazzling show around a very tight course on the streets of Beijing, and Formula 1 test driver Lucas Di Grassi became the first ever winner in the series. Read more…
Darpa grant to further develop Soft Exosuit
A biologically inspired smart suit that fits under clothing and could help soldiers walk farther, tire less easily, and carry heavy loads more safely has been given a boost that could be as much as US$2,9m. Read more…