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I was idly scanning a press release in my inbox the other day stating that the National Academy of Sciences planned to honor 17 individuals in 2010 for their "extraordinary scientific achievements in the areas of biology, chemistry, geology, astronomy and psychology." Five of the recipients were wom...
The technology and consumer electronics markets are awash with companies that seem to be barely meeting expectations or are, like Sony, Sun and Yahoo, on and off death watch. They aren't alone; the relatively new Obama administration seems to also be failing, and the latest State of the Union addr...
The more I see devices like the new Apple iPad, the more I come to appreciate Steven Spielberg's 2002 sci-fi spectacular "Minority Report." It was the first thing I thought of when I saw video of the company's newest "magical" creation and executives demonstrating its New York Times app. The app sea...
The Personalized Medicine World Conference in Silicon Valley last week showcased huge opportunities for new advances in medicine and personalized health. What remained unclear was who will take the lead, what techniques or products will win, and whether the medical establishment will go along or st...
This is an Apple launch week, which means we'll be on pins and needles until we actually know what Steve Jobs is going to have on stage in San Francisco. While there is a lot of drama with any big Apple announcement, there is substantially more with this one, including the unprecedented number of le...
One might guess that a computer scientist who is touted as a pioneer of virtual reality would be a fan of that whole social media thing. After all, Jaron Lanier works as a genius-in-residence of sorts at Microsoft, which is one of several big companies pushing cloud computing, the technological inno...
Have you ever tried to work when you're really sick? I don't mean a little cough or sniffles. I'm talking about a genuine, drag-out, "can't get out of bed" illness -- the kind where it hurts to stand up, let alone go into the office. I hate to admit it, but I've gone to work in that condition -- you...
Last week, I spoke about how CES was back, and I gave some of the highlights. However, there always are discussions and trends going on behind the scenes, almost-invisible products, and impressions that take a while to form that can be even more interesting. There was one keynote that came close to ...
In 13 years of covering technology, I've evolved into the journalistic equivalent of Blanche DuBois; I've always depended on the kindness of analysts. Whether they were securities analysts working for the big Wall Street firms or technology analysts toiling for the major research companies targeting...
I was at CES last week, and the magic was clearly back in this show. In the past couple of years, CES has been dominated by one device -- making it more like a one-product waste of time. Two years ago, everyone was talking about the iPhone, making many of us wonder if we were at the wrong event. Las...
The cavernous halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center during any Consumer Electronics Show, and the endless rows of exhibitor's booths hawking edgy technology products, can remind you of the final shot of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" -- which is itself, of course, an homage to the last sequence from "...
Each of the last five decades in technology was defined largely by the decisions of one of the major vendors: the 1970s by AT&T; the 80s by IBM; the 90s by Microsoft; and the 2000s by Apple. Google is the favorite for defining the 2010s, or teen decade -- and that's a good focus for discussion a...
From a technology perspective, this decade -- with Apple and Google being exceptions -- sucked. There were some interesting things that happened that set us up for the teen decade, though, and that fuel anticipation for the 20s, which a hundred years ago, was actually a decade of wonder and exciteme...
This is the question that is floating around this year. What is strange is that people act like the anticipated Apple device is made of fairy gold and powered by gnome breath. It will do everything and anything you want because we all know it is surrounded and protected by Steve Jobs' now-famous rea...
"Avatar" could indeed light the way to fresh, uncharted territory for filmmaking and entertainment thanks to its groundbreaking special effects and 3-D technologies -- but that's not necessarily a good thing. The best way to explain that is to go see writer-director James Cameron's new blockbuster i...