Technology

MIT creates remote-controlled zombie moths

adamg — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:29:13 +0000

Electronics Weekly reports researchers at MIT have managed to stuff an electrode into a moth that can be used to control the moth's behavior:

"This is a major advance," says insect neurobiologist Roy Ritzmann at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. DARPA hopes this kind of control will one day allow intelligence agencies to use insects to carry surveillance equipment and spy on unsuspecting enemies.

The article does not say if they are also experimenting with ill tempered sea bass.

Via BostInnovation.

Two Dorchester parks get WiFi

adamg — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 13:38:10 +0000

Ronan Park and Town Field now have WiFi, the city announces, adding they join Boston Common, Statler Park in Park Square, Christopher Columbus Park in the North End, and the clubhouses at George Wright Golf Course in Hyde Park and William Devine Golf Course in Franklin Park.

Sandwich chain doing its part to destroy the wallet industry

adamg — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:38:16 +0000

Street Fight interviews Mike Conley, director of marketing at Sebastians Cafe, which now has 2,200 people signed up for its phone-based payment and loyalty programs - customers use their phones rather than old-fashioned cash or credit cards to pay for lunch. Naturally, the chain started with its Kendall Square location first.

It's just an easier, great way to pay. I forgot my wallet one day, going into a meeting, and I was like: "Oh, crap. I can't pay for food. Oh, wait a minute. I have my phone. I have LevelUp." It's interesting that everyone is starting to realize how this is a very usable tool for payments.

Local technopreneurs ponder: Do you have to be an asshole to be a successful CEO?

adamg — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:04:08 +0000

Xconomy provides the roundup.

Venture capitalist: Cambridge is not Boston, dammit

adamg — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:37:16 +0000

Brad Feld, managing director at the venture-capital firm Foundry Group, says it's past time for Cambridge tech types to embrace their inner Cambridgeness (or maybe even their inner Kendallness) and stop using "Boston" to refer to themselves:

In my world view, the entrepreneurs drive the startup community. Focus on entrepreneurial population density and entrepreneurial density – and make sure your geographic region is small. Over time, linking the critical mass together in a larger region (e.g. Silicon Valley or Boston) is fine, but the real power comes from the startup communities with the largest [entrepreneurial density] in small physical regions which are big enough to have critical mass.

Ed. note: He lost me a bit when, after making his Cambridge argument, he wrote that the 128 and 495 tech belts are part of Boston. Um, what?

Who wants to build the first app to find food trucks in Boston and how to get to them by bike or T?

adamg — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:17:24 +0000

The state Department of Transportation and the city of Boston today announced a competition for applications that let users navigate between the T and the Hubway bike system and find the location of the nearest food trucks.

State and city officials are hoping the real-time MBTA and Hubway data, coupled with information about food trucks, will lead to the same sorts of applications that emerged after a similar competition in 2009, then based just on data for certain bus routes.

Officials announced three categories of apps: One that highlights "the transit connections" between the T and Hubway rental stations, one that best visualizes "A day in the life of the MBTA and New Balance Hubway" and "Bikes, Lunch and T" to highlight city food trucks.

Apps can be submitted through Feb. 24. Developers of the winning apps will get a CharlieCard LinkPass and Hubway membership good for one year and two free passes to upcoming food-truck festivals.

MIT prof thinks e-mail could save the postal service

adamg — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:10:47 +0000

The Tech reports an MIT professor thinks the USPS can reinvent and save itself - and the jobs of tens of thousands of workers - by getting into the field of e-mail management and helping companies deal with the never ceasing barrage of electronic messaging:

Ayyadurai believes the USPS can provide a service that will help companies become more efficient at managing their own email. Under his plan, the USPS can retrain workers it intends to lay off in order to support the proposed system and generate enough revenue to avoid bankruptcy. Though some email management systems outsource work to countries like India, Ayyadurai argues that the USPS is a trusted and reliable brand, and can do a better job.

Android users sue over software they say spies on them

adamg — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 12:31:01 +0000

Two users of Android mobile phones yesterday filed class-action lawsuits against the manufacturer of their phones and a software company that boasts it can track what Android users are doing even when their phones are in airplane mode.

Imagine a million billion tiny little robots swarming around your head

adamg — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:28:38 +0000

Harvard researchers are hard at work on ways to build and control massive swarms of tiny little robots. They're only up to about 1,000 insect-like "kilobots" at a time, the Crimson reports, but a swarming-algorithm researcher can dream:

The vision might be a million billion robots flying around, each of which has a little component of some building, and they just swarm around and pretty soon you'd have a building the way ants build an anthill. That's pretty far away from what's sitting in any research lab I know about. But the algorithm development is on the way.

Note that these researchers are different from the ones hard at work on octopus-like boneless robots.

Harvard researchers invent boneless robots

adamg — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 02:51:45 +0000

Pleasant dreams:

Freaky Boneless Robot Walks on Soft Legs.

3G, 4G, what's the diff?

adamg — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 13:24:10 +0000

Sounds like some salespeople at the Verizon store in Harvard Square need some training.

MIT does part to ensure Moore's Law not violated

adamg — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 14:39:37 +0000

Mass. High Tech reports researchers at MIT may have figured out the first step in building all-optical microchips - using garnet - which could mean faster computing.

Another e-mail deletion scandal as nobody in the State House can find any e-mail from Romney's administration

Kaz — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:06:33 +0000

As Mitt Romney has taken to the national public stage as a contender for the Republican presidential nomination, Deval Patrick's administration has been asked many times to provide e-mails from Romney's time as governor. The catch: they can't find any to hand out.

Romney's staff paid the state to take their hard drives with them in a move Romney's campaign is calling "a longtime executive branch practice". The server was wiped completely and the computers in the State House were even replaced. As a result the State House now has no electronic mail archive from anyone between 2002-2006.

Cafe venture in Cambridge

adamg — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 12:18:25 +0000

Welina Farah reviews the weekly Venture Cafe at the Cambridge Innovation Center, which serves as a sort of welcome party for Kendall Square's technopreneurs:

The overall feel of the Café is one that puts a kind of nervous college student walking into a room full of established women and men doing what she one day aspires to do- at ease. I look forward to the next time I have a chance to attend Venture Café.

MIThenge? Or MITgrange?

SwirlyGrrl — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 21:25:42 +0000

MIT's Infinite Corridor will be alligned with the sun tomorrow, on 11-11-11. The allignment happens a couple of times each year.

No word if the sun will be turned up to 11 for the event.