Tech News

Researchers who applied computer analysis to a database of movie scripts think they may have found the secret to a memorable movie line - use familiar sentence structure but incorporate distinctive words or phrases, and make general statements that could apply elsewhere.

Climate researchers are producing some of the fastest growing datasets in science. Five years ago, the amount of information generated for the Nobel Prize-winning United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report was 35 terabytes —- equivalent to the amount of text in 35 million books, occupying a bookshelf 248 miles (399 km) long. By 2014, when the next IPCC report is published, experts predict that 2 petabytes of data will have been generated for it—that's a 580 percent increase in data production. Because thousands of researchers around the world contribute to the generation and analysis of new data, a reliable, high-speed network is needed to transport the torrent of information. Fortunately, the Department of Energy's (DOE) ESnet (Energy Sciences Network) has laid the foundation for such a network -- not just for climate research, but for all data-intensive science.

Why should you pay for your porn instead of downloading it illegally? Because the consequences of doing so could be costly.

This is what consumerization in the enterprise looks like: communications company Polycom unveils a new, softer corporate identity.

A grid of 25,000 "invisibility cloaks" shows how to slow light down and spread out its constituent colours in an advance dubbed "trapping a rainbow".

High-definition (HD) cameras placed in cars are the latest idea to try to bring down the cost of insurance for young drivers.

Java is the most distressing thing to hit computing since MS-DOS. - Alan Kay

Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. - Edsger W. Dijkstra