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13,779 articles from Technology Review Feed - Tech Review Top Stories
Blog - The Problem of Predicting Crowd Crush
Predicting when the crushing forces in crowds are likely to become dangerous is a task that looks beyond current techniques
Crowd control is a significant problem for organisers of major public events. Last month, 19 people died in a crush at a dance music event called the Love Parade in Germany when a crowd was channelled through a tunnel. In 2005, 350 died in a stampede during the annual...
SATURDAY 14. AUGUST 2010
Blog - Is Apple Getting Ready to Bring iTunes to the Web?
A job advert suggests the company is.
When Apple bought streaming music service Lala, speculation was that the company intended to work on a Web interface for iTunes. Lala's engineers would certainly have had the expertise, and the company had an interesting approach to the concept of owning songs--users could buy "web albums" which gave them unlimited streaming rights but no downloads or...
Blog - Point 'n' Shoot
The best of the rest from the Physics arXiv this week:
Video - Heartbeats at the Speed of Light
An optic fiber emitting infrared light from a diode laser has been placed just one millimeter away from the developing heart of a two-day old quail embryo. As the laser pulse changes its speed, the heart alters its beat to match. This system is the first time that the whole heart of a living animal has been paced with light--a method that could yield insight into the development of heart defects...
FRIDAY 13. AUGUST 2010
Blog - Software Upgrade Lets Android Phones Take Orders
New voice recognition features for everything from text messaging to music...
THURSDAY 12. AUGUST 2010
Blog - Building a Cloud out of Smart Phones
Google's MapReduce algorithm turnsa bunch of cell phones into a self-contained cloud computing environment....
Blog - The Danger Of Green Laser Pointers
Cheap green laser pointers can emit dangerous levels of infrared radiation, according to an investigation carried out by physicists in the US
Twenty years ago, a green laser would set you back $100,000 and occupy a good-sized dining room table. Today, you can buy a green laser pointer the size of a ball point pen for $15....
WEDNESDAY 11. AUGUST 2010
Blog - How Spammers Use Low-cost Labor to Solve CAPTCHAS
Workers in Russia, Southeast Asia, and China are paid a pittance to solve millions of CAPTCHAS.
What can only be described as an...
Blog - "Shape Changing" Flaps Improve Cruze Fuel-Economy
Flaps open and close to improve aerodynamics or air cooling as needed.
Sometimes it doesn't take much to improve fuel economy. As part of the run-up to the launch of its Chevy Cruze in the United States, GM is highlighting some of its features. One is a piece of pretty unimpressive technology. It's not an advanced battery chemistries or radical engine design, just a set of shutters that...
Blog - Origami Crease Pattern Design Proved NP-Hard
Origamists have long suspected their art is computationally hard. Now they've proved it...
Video - A New Way to Use the Sun’s Energy
Researchers at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California are testing a new type of device that can simultaneously convert both the light and the heat in the sun’s rays into electricity....
TUESDAY 3. AUGUST 2010
Blog - Biomechanical Problem of Shot Putting Finally Solved
For more than 30 years, sports scientists have puzzled over why the optimum angle of release for a shot put is not 45 degrees.
One of the stranger Olympic sports is the shot put, an event in which an athlete throws a grapefruit-sized sphere of metal as far as possible, using a strange throwing motion specified by the rules....
MONDAY 2. AUGUST 2010
Blog - Failed Diet? You Really Can Blame It on the Genes
A fruit fly study shows that genetics have a profound effect on how animals respond to diets.
A study of genetically diverse flies may help explain why
some people can eat a steady diet of junk food and stay skinny, while others
quickly gain weight. Researchers put 146 genetically distinct strains of fruit
flies on each of four different diets--a nutritionally balanced diet, a low
calorie...
Blog - Why Space Isn't Filled with White Holes
A new study explains why astronomers have never seen one of these weird objects.
Black holes are among the most exotic of astrophysical objects and consequently one of the most deeply studied. White holes, on the other hand, are largely ignored by astrophysicists. So it's time, therefore, to change the balance with some deeper theoretical development of the properties of these objects, says...
SUNDAY 1. AUGUST 2010
Blog - How to Locate a Web User with a Few Clicks
The information collected by many Web companies may not be as secure as users would like.
It's well-known that Google amasses large amounts of data about the people who uses its services. Though the company says it's careful to anonymize that data, and to safeguard what it collects, a talk given this week at Defcon, an underground hacker conference in Las Vegas, illustrated how...
SATURDAY 31. JULY 2010
Blog - Guns 'n' Roses
The best of the rest from the Physics arXiv:
FRIDAY 30. JULY 2010
Blog - Porsche to Make a Plug-in Hybrid
The company will start production of a high-performance concept car that reaches 198 mph and can get 78 mpg....
Blog - FDA Lets Human Embryonic Stem Cells Trials Resume
Geron will begin tests of its therapy for spinal cord injury. Advanced Cell Therapeutics hopes to follow with a stem cell treatment for blindness.
The Food and Drug Administration has cleared Geron, a stem cell
company based in Menlo Park, CA, to move forward with clinical tests of its experimental cell therapy for
spinal cord injury, which is derived from embryonic stem cells. The company,...
THURSDAY 29. JULY 2010
Blog - Real-Time Searches Lead to Real-Time Malware
Search results may increasingly be poisoned with links to malicious sites, a researcher says.
Searching for a hot news topic or buzzword can already lead an unsuspecting person to harmful malware. Recent articles are full of warnings about malware hidden in links that are supposedly about the World Cup or the Icelandic Volcano. Estimates have suggested that about 14 percent of traditional searches...
Blog - Get Ready for Steerable Photon Guns
Creating single photons is becoming straightforward. Now engineers have worked out how to steer the photons they produce with the flick of a switch.
Photon guns are important tools for engineers attempting to build the next generation of quantum communications gear....
WEDNESDAY 28. JULY 2010
Blog - Our Rotting Video-Game Heritage
Diverse technologies, missing or secret documentation, and hostile copyright laws threaten video-game preservation....
Blog - The Puzzle Of Sperm And Surface Attraction
A long standing problem of why sperm swim towards surfaces appears to have finally been solved
In 1963, the zoologist Lord Rothschild found that sperm cells in a drop of bull semen tended to distribute themselves in a specific non random way. For some reason, they were much more likely to be near the surface of the drop than near its centre....
Blog - Car Chargers Get Smart
A new touchscreen charging station is programmable and can use input from both users and utilities to get better electricity prices.
Yesterday at the Plug In conference in San Jose, CA,
technology company...
Video - A Smoother Street View
Microsoft's new toy allows for a more seamless walk down an online avenue....
TUESDAY 27. JULY 2010
Blog - GM Sets a Price for the Volt
At $41,000, the Volt will be more expensive than a competing electric vehicle from Nissan.
GM has...