In the ever-expanding contest between artificial intelligence and the ordinary human mind, you can chalk up another one for the computer. Scientists have developed a computer system with sophisticated pattern recognition abilities that performed much better than humans in differentiating between people experiencing genuine pain ...
Better known for producing poverty and political mayhem, the Western Hemisphere's least developed country has made a surprising entry into the high-tech world with its own Android tablet. Sandwiched between textile factories in a Port-au-Prince industrial park next to a slum, a Haitian-founded company has ...
Computers 'to top humans by 2029'
Computers will be cleverer than humans by 2029, according to Ray Kurzweil, Google's director of engineering. The entrepreneur and futurist has predicted that in 15 years, computers will be more intelligent than we are and will be able to understand what we say, learn from ...
At last, Yale surrenders to technology
Yale University ran up the white flag last week in its battle to keep twin seniors Peter Xu and Harry Yu from creating an easier-to-use and more informative version of its online course catalog. As the school's real battle was against technological change, defeat ...
2013 was an amazing year in tech
If you go by the headlines, the iPhone 5S and Google Glass were the big technology stories of 2013, and Twitter's IPO was the event of the year. The coverage of Glass focused mostly on its privacy implications — not its ability to change ...
Discussions are under way to determine whether Japan should have the ability to counter foreign cyberattacks and what its constitutional limits might be.
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have created a digital database of infectious-disease cases dating back 125 years, a treasure trove of information that could help scientists and public health officials better understand how to fight the spread of deadly afflictions. The searchable database, outlined ...
It's been an amazing month for Bitcoin, the decentralized payment network that got a surprisingly positive reception last week at a pair of Senate hearings. At the start of this month, one Bitcoin traded for just a bit more than $200. By midmonth, it had ...
Suspicious of NSA spying, Microsoft eyes encryption
Microsoft is moving toward a major new effort to encrypt its Internet traffic amid fears that the National Security Agency may have broken into its global communications links, people familiar with the emerging plans said. Suspicions at Microsoft, while building for several months, sharpened in ...
Teenagers deserting Facebook as mom and dad join social network
Facebook made a startling admission in its earnings announcement this month: it was seeing a "decrease in daily users, specifically among teens." In other words, teenagers are still on Facebook; they're just not using it as much as they did. It was a landmark ...
