Today’s Tech Sightings: Qatar Uses 3-D Printers to ‘Desert-proof’ World Cup Stadiums Scientists at Qatar University are experimenting with 3-D-printed models of football stadiums to address concerns about summer heat when the country hosts the 2022 World Cup tournament. The researchers hope to test the durability of the models against summer heat and sand and […]
Qatar 3-D-prints World Cup Stadiums; Google’s ‘Autism Glass’ Project
Facebook, India Battle Over Free Internet; China’s Tech Transformation
Today’s Tech Sightings: Battle Over Facebook’s Free Basics Internet Service Intensifies in India India’s net neutrality activists are on the war path as Facebook launches a new app that offers free internet service to users of the Reliance network in six Indian states. Save the Internet (STI) members argue that there are many ways to […]
Mobile vs. PCs; ‘Chucky’ the Teddy Bear; Smartphone Cold Wars
Today’s Tech Sightings: Mobile Isn’t Killing the Desktop Internet The PC is dead? No, wait, it’s not dead – yet. Pundits have been going on for years about how mobile is killing the desktop PC and how people are increasingly using their mobile phones to get online. But according to comScore, mobile use might not […]
Tech Sightings, October 15, 2014
Study Confirms First Case of Google Glass Addiction A U.S. serviceman who recently checked himself into a substance abuse rehabilitation program for alcohol addiction started displaying withdrawal behavior after he was stripped of his Google Glass. After wearing Glass for 18 hours a day for two months, withdrawal symptoms included feeling irritable and lacking focus, […]
Tech Sightings, October 2, 2014
Twitter Wants MIT to Make Sense of Your Tweets Social media giant Twitter is offering MIT $10 million and a five-year commitment to back the creation of the Laboratory for Social Machines. The aim is to access real-time tweets, old and new, and develop technologies that can distinguish patterns across social media and digital content. If […]
Tech Sightings, September 4, 2014
Apple Chastised for Unsafe Working Conditions in Supplier Factory Labor rights and advocacy groups say a Suqian, China factory owned by Catcher Technology was found to be in “serious health and safety, environmental, and human rights violations.” The factory produces iPad and iPhone parts. Singapore Hospital Pilots Telehealth for Heart Patients Singapore’s Changi General Hospital […]
Tech Sightings, May 20, 2014
What is Tech Doing to Children’s Brains? Thousands of UK children are being recruited for the Study of Cognition, Adolescents and Mobile Phones, or SCAMP – the world’s largest study on the impact mobile phones have on memory and attention span. The project will examine whether mobiles and other wireless devices affect children’s ability to […]
Wearable Devices Raise Privacy Concerns
Wearable devices such as Fitbit or Google Glass are raising concerns over their data recording features. And while some are finding a niche in sports, health and other professional sectors, privacy advocates say there are serious implications associated with many of these devices that should have been taken into account during their development. “Some of […]
Tech Sightings, April 24, 2014
Big Tech Companies Offer Millions to Help With Heartbleed Crisis Amazon.com, Cisco Systems, Facebook, Google, IBM, Intel Corp and Microsoft are among the world’s biggest technology companies that have agreed to donate millions of dollars to set up a group to fund improvements in open source programs like OpenSSL, the software whose “Heartbleed” vulnerability has […]