Tech News

In its early years, information theory was dominated by research on error-correcting codes: How do you encode information so as to guarantee its faithful transmission, even in the presence of the corrupting influences engineers call "noise"? Recently, one of the most intriguing developments in information theory has been a different kind of coding, called network coding, in which the question is how to encode information in order to maximize the capacity of a network as a whole. For information theorists, it was natural to ask how these two types of coding might be combined: If you want to both minimize error and maximize capacity, which kind of coding do you apply where, and when do you do the decoding?

For those who study earthquakes, one major challenge has been trying to understand all the physics of a fault -- both during an earthquake and at times of "rest" -- in order to know more about how a particular region may behave in the future. Now, researchers have developed the first computer model of an earthquake-producing fault segment that reproduces the available observations of both the fault's seismic and aseismic behavior.

Apple will continue to ride consumerization to the enterprise. The iPhone and iPad will do well. The Mac won't, says an analyst.

Be it a matter of perspective or different terminology, the Federal Government's IT reform plan is not meeting its expectations.

Hewlett-Packard, the world's largest maker of personal computers, is to cut 27,000 jobs by the end of 2014.

A giant touchscreen patient aids surgical operations

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

In the old days, people robbed stagecoaches and knocked off armored trucks. Now they're knocking off servers. - Richard Power