Communications - MIT Technology Review

How DARPA Took On the Twitter Bot Menace with One Hand Behind Its Back

Thu, 28 Jan 2016 12:38:00 +0000

When DARPA ran a competition to find Twitter bots designed to influence online debates, it inspired a new generation of anti-bot strategies.

One of the more disturbing phenomena on Twitter is the proliferation of bots that generate tweets automatically in an attempt to spread spam, to make money illicitly through click fraud, and, most worryingly, to influence the discussion on topics such as terrorism and politics.

How One Intelligent Machine Learned to Recognize Human Emotions

Sat, 23 Jan 2016 20:40:00 +0000

Nobody knew how to identify people’s emotional states by looking at their brain waves. Then a machine learning algorithm stepped in.

When it comes to communication, humans are hugely sensitive to each other’s emotional states. Indeed, most people expect their emotional state to be taken into account by their correspondents. And when this happens, communication tends to be more effective.

How an AI Algorithm Learned to Write Political Speeches

Tue, 19 Jan 2016 18:49:00 +0000

Political speeches are often written for politicians by trusted aides and confidantes. Could an AI algorithm do as well?

“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
—John F. Kennedy, 1961

How Future Cars Will Predict Your Driving Maneuvers Before You Make Them

Fri, 15 Jan 2016 11:11:00 +0000

Prototype car safety systems are learning to watch the driver, as well as the road ahead, to predict future maneuvers more than three seconds before a driver makes them.

Buy a new car these days and the chances are that it will be fitted with an array of driver-assistance technologies. These can match the speed of a car ahead, manage lane changing safely, and even apply the brakes to help prevent a collision. So an interesting question is how much better these safety systems can become before the inevitable occurs and the car takes over completely.

Best of 2015: Data Mining Reveals the Extent of China’s Ghost Cities

Fri, 01 Jan 2016 05:00:00 +0000

Overdevelopment in China has created urban regions known as ghost cities that are more or less uninhabited. Nobody knew how bad the problem was until Baidu used its Big Data Lab to find out. From November …

In recent years, China has undergone a period of urban growth that is unprecedented in human history. The number of square kilometers devoted to urban living grew from 8,800 in 1984 to 41,000 in 2010. And that was just the start. China used more concrete between 2011 and 2013 than the U.S. used in the entire 20th century

Best of 2015: The Truth About Smartphone Apps That Secretly Connect to User Tracking and Ad Sites

Mon, 28 Dec 2015 05:00:00 +0000

Security researchers have developed an automated system for detecting Android apps that secretly connect to ad sites and user tracking sites. From May …

There are essentially two starkly different environments in which to download apps. The first is Apple’s app store, which carefully vets apps before allowing only those deemed fit to appear. The second is the Google Play store, which is more open because Google exercises a lighter touch in vetting apps, only excluding those that are obviously malicious.

Best of 2015: Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill

Thu, 24 Dec 2015 05:00:00 +0000

Self-driving cars are already cruising the streets. but before they can become widespread, carmakers must solve an impossible ethical dilemma of algorithmic morality. From October …

When it comes to automotive technology, self-driving cars are all the rage. Standard features on many ordinary cars include intelligent cruise control, parallel parking programs, and even automatic overtaking—features that allow you to sit back, albeit a little uneasily, and let a computer do the driving.

AI Machine Learns to Drive Using Crowdteaching

Mon, 21 Dec 2015 17:30:00 +0000

Some driving tasks are trivial for humans but hard for machines. Now researchers have developed a way for AI machines to learn from the crowd.

This has been the year of the AI machine, and it’s been a rapid change. Artificial intelligence has suddenly begun to match and even outperform humans in tasks where we’ve have always held the upper hand—face recognition, object recognition, language understanding and so on.

Seven Must-Read Stories (Week ending December 20, 2015)

Fri, 18 Dec 2015 14:00:00 +0000

Another chance to catch the most interesting and important articles from the previous week on MIT Technology Review.

Recommended from Around the Web (Week ending December 20, 2015)

Thu, 17 Dec 2015 22:38:00 +0000

A roundup of the most interesting stories from other sites, collected by the staff at MIT Technology Review.

The First Person to Hack the iPhone Built a Self-Driving Car. In His Garage
Crazy story from Bloomberg about how a guy built his own self-driving car at home.
—Rachel Metz, Senior Editor, Mobile

The Emerging Science of Urban Skylines

Mon, 14 Dec 2015 12:41:00 +0000

A city’s skyline provides a simple way to measure its energy efficiency, say urban scientists.

Seven Must-Read Stories (Week ending December 13, 2015)

Fri, 11 Dec 2015 14:00:00 +0000

Another chance to catch the most interesting and important articles from the previous week on MIT Technology Review.

Recommended from Around the Web (Week ending December 13, 2015)

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 23:10:00 +0000

A roundup of the most interesting stories from other sites, collected by the staff at MIT Technology Review.

Bitcoin’s Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Is Probably This Unknown Australian Genius
Who invented Bitcoin? Newsweek got it very wrong. Wired gets much closer to the truth, even if something is still not quite right.
—Brian Bergstein, Executive Editor

What Google and Facebook Can Do to Fight ISIS

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 14:50:00 +0000

Facebook intervenes to prevent suicide. How about to prevent radicalization? And let’s face it: Google and others make it easy to find videos of people being murdered.

When Hillary Clinton called on tech companies to help “disrupt” ISIS, major players like Facebook were quick to point out that they forbid terror-related content on their sites. That’s true. But there’s more they can do.

Junk-Eating Rocket Engine Could Clear Space Debris

Thu, 03 Dec 2015 13:50:00 +0000

The risks associated with space debris are rising. An efficient way to clear the skies of junk is desperately needed, and a team of Chinese engineers think they have the answer.

The Machine-Vision Algorithm for Analyzing Children’s Drawings

Thu, 19 Nov 2015 13:05:00 +0000

Psychologists believe that drawing is an important part of children’s cognitive development. So an objective analysis of these drawings could provide an important insight into this process, a task that machine vision is ideally suited to.

Studying the psychology of children and the way it changes as they develop is a difficult business. One idea is that drawing plays a crucial role in children’s cognitive development, so drawings ought to provide a window into these changes.

Seven Must-Read Stories (Week ending November 14, 2015)

Fri, 13 Nov 2015 14:00:00 +0000

Another chance to catch the most interesting and important articles from the previous week on MIT Technology Review.

Recommended from Around the Web (Week ending November 14, 2015)

Thu, 12 Nov 2015 21:45:00 +0000

A roundup of the most interesting stories from other sites, collected by the staff at MIT Technology Review.

The New Intimacy Economy
Recoiling from the smarm of social media, Leigh Alexander argues that the future will not bring a cold “tech dystopia” but rather “performative—maybe even excessive—intimacy.”
—Brian Bergstein, Executive Editor

Astrobiologists Revise the Chances of Finding Advanced ET Civilizations

Fri, 06 Nov 2015 19:02:00 +0000

A rapid increase in our knowledge of alien worlds has dramatically changed the way scientists are interpreting the famous Drake equation.

The Drake equation describes “N”: the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which radio communication might be possible. Its author, the astronomer Frank Drake, originally penned it as a discussion point for one of the first meetings about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence in the early 1960s.

Best Tweets from EmTech: Day 2

Tue, 03 Nov 2015 22:13:00 +0000

A small sampling of the Twitter conversation around the sessions and programming from the second day of our EmTech conference.