It's been an astonishing year, packed with technological wizardry. A computer has bested the top human minds on the Jeopardy! quiz show. Thousands upon thousands of mind-blowing apps ? not to mention Apple's super-smart, artificially intelligent Siri software ? have remade our relationships with our cellphones. And new developments in green technology have given us a glimpse of a future unburdened by fossil fuels. Most of these stories mark beginnings, meaning this list of our favourite stories of the year is more than a look back ? it's a reminder of all the exciting things yet to come.
Inside the race to crack the world's hardest puzzle
DARPA's crowdsourced efforts to reconstruct shredded documents ? which was solved two days early
Yacht attempts to smash sailing's 'sound barrier'
The Vestas Sailrocket 2 is based on an 40-year-old design but could be the first boat to ever sail at 60 knots
How innovative is Apple's new voice assistant, Siri?
Users of the new iPhone 4S can just speak to book restaurants or make appointments ? or adjust your thermostat. How has Apple done it?
Electric vehicles herald rise of the in-car app
The emergence of the electric car is leading to a suite of smartphone add-ons
Crowdsourced translations get the word out from Libya
With the Arab spring under way early this year, we wrote about techniques that blended machine translation and human crowdsourcing to help dissidents get their message out from behind the communications blackout imposed by the Gaddafi regime
Shock wave puts hybrid engines in a spin
A prototype engine that relies on shock waves could allow hybrid cars to boost their efficiency even further
Robot-only internet helps machines share secrets
The advent of a world wide web for robots will let automatons learn from each other's experiences ? a first step towards them working in the real world
3D printing: The world's first printed plane
The promise of 3D printing has finally taken off with the development of a drone that takes just a week to create
The cyberweapon that could take down the internet
A new form of attack would turn the internet against itself ? and would be extremely hard to repel
Better than human? What's next for Jeopardy! computer
A bright future awaits the Watson computer system now that it has shown it can compete with previous winners of the complicated US quiz
If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.
Have your say
Only subscribers may leave comments on this article. Please log in.
Only personal subscribers may leave comments on this article
Subscribe now to comment.
All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.
If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.
horton hears a who horton hears a who cotto margarito big daddy patrice oneal lsu game lsu game
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.