Tech News

We have all heard of the smartphone and any day now, most of us will have one. Not far behind: The smart home. Scientists say it won't be long before our homes act as "intelligent agents" that use sensors and software to anticipate our needs and tend to tasks that improve our health, energy efficiency, even social media.

Researchers have developed a computer program that has tracked the manner in which different forms of dementia spread within a human brain. They say their mathematical model can be used to predict where and approximately when an individual patient's brain will suffer from the spread, neuron to neuron, of "prion-like" toxic proteins -- a process they say underlies all forms of dementia.

Facebook options trading is set to begin on May 29, less than two weeks after the company is expected to go public, according to the ISE. Other U.S.-based exchanges will likely join up later.

Bottom line: The smartphone race will look dramatically different a year from now. A shakeout is on the horizon.

Flipboard, the popular social news magazine, starts integrating audio into its app for Apple's hand-held devices.

Spencer Kelly advises on the huge range of wireless printers available in the shops.

I am not out to destroy Microsoft, that would be a completely unintended side effect. - Linus Torvalds

I regularly read Internet user groups filled with messages from people trying to solve software incompatibility problems that, in terms of complexity, make the U.S. Tax Code look like Dr. Seuss. - Dave Barry