MyAppleMenu | Tomorrow | Reader | Singapore
You are here in the archive: The Tomorrow Weblog > 2009 > October
Claire Cain Miller, New York Times
Eventually, online shoppers might simply need to enter their cellphone number to pay for a purchase. Two online payment start-ups, Zong and Obopay, have taken a step closer to making that a reality. Tweet
Ashlee Vance, New York Times
Mouse brain enthusiasts can finally relax. They finally have a place of their very own to hang out, swap stories and share information. Tweet
Lisa Zyga, PhysOrg.com
The ability to store and retrieve data is an important component of today's computers, as well as other modern electronic devices such as cell phones, video game consoles, and camcorders. Since their invention in the 1950s, magnetic-based hard disk drives (HDDs) have been the primary method of nonvolatile storage. However, researchers are currently developing several new and promising nonvolatile memory (NVM) technologies, but for one of them to replace HDDs within the next decade, it will be a challenge. Tweet
Lucas Mearian, Computerworld
Engineers have created a new fingernail-sized chip that can hold a terabyte of data -- 50 times the capacity of today's best silicon-based chip technologies. Tweet
Katherine Boehret, Walt Mossberg
This week, I tested a tool called Goby (pronounced go-be), www.goby.com, which works as an activity search engine to help you find things to do. It tries to be simple enough so that you can get some ideas and start doing the things you want to do rather than wasting hours in front of the computer. Tweet
Rafe Needleman, CNET News
In a wide-ranging interview at the Web 2.0 Summit, Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, announced a low-cost and very portable ultrasound scanner called the Vscan. Tweet
Farhad Manjoo, Slate Magazine
How does the music-identifying app Shazam work its magic? Tweet
Rob Walker, New York Times
On first listen, some things grab you for their off-kilter novelty. Like the story of a company that has hired a bunch of “musicologists,” who sit at computers and listen to songs, one at a time, rating them element by element, separating out what sometimes comes to hundreds of data points for a three-minute tune. The company, an Internet radio service called Pandora, is convinced that by pouring this information through a computer into an algorithm, it can guide you, the listener, to music that you like. The premise is that your favorite songs can be stripped to parts and reverse-engineered. Tweet
Dean Takahashi, VentureBeat Tweet
Motoko Rich, New York Times
Eager to attract digitally savvy patrons and capitalize on the growing popularity of electronic readers, public libraries across the country are expanding collections of books that reside on servers rather than shelves. Tweet
Jason Cross, PC World
The Wi-Fi Alliance, that governing body that argues for years about, eventually ratifies, and certifies official Wi-Fi specification, is about to make the peer-to-peer connected world a bit easier. Tweet
Daniel Terdiman, CNET News
Workers stuck in the world's largest refugee camp are being given a chance to wield a mouse and keyboard as tools for digging their way out of poverty, and in the process, are helping out a series of small American companies looking to be more profitable. Tweet
Kate Galbraith, New York Times
Some of the largest opportunities lie in the way data centers are kept cool. Tweet
Steve Lohr, New York Times
Local governments, like many businesses, are struggling with a data glut. Agencies collect huge amounts of information about topics as diverse as building permits, potholes, Medicaid cases and foster-child placements. Technology, according to computer experts and government officials, can be a powerful tool to mine vast troves of government data for insights to streamline services and guide policy. Tweet
Erica Ogg, CNET News Tweet
Brooke Crothers, New York Times
There are a lot of reasons for going optical, the most obvious being speed: data can be delivered faster on optical cable than on current metal-based cables. Light Peak can carry data at 10 gigabits per second in both directions simultaneously, and Intel expects it will reach 100 gigabits per second in the next decade. Tweet
Mary Tripsas, New York Times Tweet
Motoko Rich, New York Times
In the age of the iPhone, Kindle and YouTube, the notion of the book is becoming increasingly elastic as publishers mash together text, video and Web features in a scramble to keep readers interested in an archaic form of entertainment. Tweet
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.