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IS
THE
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SAFE?
IT HAD BETTER BE—WE ALL WORK THERE. p36
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Smarter technology for a Smarter Planet:
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4 TECHNOLOGY REVIEW JANUARY/FEBRUARY 20104
meter display, wireless USB hard drive, solar-powered back-pack, and more.
■ www.technologyreview.com/pong Watch a Pong kit being put together.
Q&A
24 Mike Lynch The cofounder and CEO of Autonomy explains how to teach computers that Nicole Kidman is not a cosmic ball of gas. By Jason Pontin
■ www.technologyreview.com/mikelynch Watch an interview with Mike Lynch.
PHOTO ESSAY
26 The Lithium RushIn the Bolivian Andes lies a vast salt fl at that may shape the future of transportation. By Antonio Regalado
■ www.technologyreview.com/lithium See additional images from the Salar de Uyuni.
BRIEFING
59–69
New Media We assess the technologies that are destroying old ways of doing business and look into what will be left when the dust settles.
■ www.technologyreview.com/briefi ng/media Explore information and analysis on 20 new-media companies.
REVIEWS
70 Shoveling Water Why does it take so long to com-mercialize new technologies? By David Rotman
■ www.technologyreview.com/microfl uidicsExplore IPVision’s patent map showing progress in microfl uidics.
73 True MatchHow does the algorithm behind the dating service Match.com suggest potential mates? By Emily Gould
75 The Future of Human Spacefl ightAstronauts: close to extinction? By Jeff Foust
8 Contributors10 Letters12 From the Editor
NOTEBOOKS
14 Integrating the CloudsThe next step in cloud comput-ing is to link different systems. By Vinton Cerf
14 Why Geoengineering?We should study the costs and consequences of solar radiation management. By M. Granger Morgan
15 The New News“Journalism” and “the media” are not synonymous. By Jay Rosen
TO MARKET
17–22
Technology Commercialized Intel reader, molecular- gastronomy kit, make-your-own DNA ink, Rock phone, smart-
CONTENTS VOL UME 113 , NUMBE R 1
36 Security in the EtherInformation technology’s next grand challenge will be to secure the cloud—and prove we can trust it. By DAVID TALB OT
■ www.technologyreview.com/cloudsecurity Watch experts discuss security issues raised by cloud computing.
44 Trading Shares in MillisecondsHigh-speed automated buying and selling of fi nancial shares dominates the market. Will it lead to the next fi nancial meltdown? By BRYANT U R STA DT
■ www.technologyreview.com/highspeedtrading Watch an interview with Manoj Narang, founder and head of Tradeworx.
50 The Geoengineering GambitAs climate policy stalls, scientists and policy experts consider desperate plans to cool the earth. By KEVIN BU LLI S
■ www.technologyreview.com/geoengineering See scientists explain the pros and cons of geoengineering methods.
COVER
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78 How to Photograph the EarthPhotos from near space for less than $150. By Erica Naone
■ www.technologyreview.com/icarusSee the photographic equipment take fl ight.
DEMO
80 Nervy Repair JobA new method stretches living nerves to grow resilient transplants. By Kristina Grifantini
■ www.technologyreview.com/demoSee how nerves are stretched in the lab.
FROM THE LABS
84 Biomedicine85 Materials 86 Information Technology
35 YEARS AGO IN TR
88 A Change in the WeatherRainmaking efforts during the Vietnam W ar prompted an international ban. By Matt Mahoney
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March 31, 2010Nominations close
Winners must be under
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Past honorees include:
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2004
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2008
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CONTRIBUTORS8 TECHNOLOGY REVIEW JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010
BRYANT URSTADT
examines the fast-
paced automated trad-
ing of stock, a growing
trend that critics say is
making the fi nancial
system more unstable
(“Trading Shares in Mil-
liseconds,” p. 44). “I fi rst
got interested in high-
frequency trading in
the summer of 2008,”
says Urstadt. “Funds
were collapsing, banks
were teetering, and
stocks were in an end-
less nosedive, but there
was one odd excep-
tion: secretive funds,
all traded entirely by
algorithms, were going
in the opposite direc-
tion, making absolutely
huge returns. Some
were even having their
best year ever. No one
seemed to know how
they were able to go
so far up when every-
one else was crashing.
That Manoj Narang so
graciously explained
exactly how funds like
his worked was the
kind of luck a writer
wakes up every morn-
ing hoping for.” Urstadt
is a regular writer for
Harper’s. He has previ-
ously written for TR,
New York, and Outside.
JEFF FOUST reviews
the debate over the ben-
efi ts of human space-
fl ight (“The Future of
Human Spacefl ight,” p.
75). “We’re at a cross-
roads,” he says. “In about
a year, the space shuttle
will be retired, and we’ll
have several years where
we will not be able to
launch humans into
space. This raises a ques-
tion: why spend billions
of taxpayer dollars a year
on human spacefl ight at
all? A lot of the rationales
that have been used in
the past—science, tech-
nology spinof s, inter-
national prestige—don’t
seem sui cient today. A
panel commissioned
by the White House
decided that the ultimate
goal for human space-
fl ight should be to allow
for eventual human
expansion into the solar
system. With this goal,
steps NASA should
take become clear: for
example, supporting the
development of com-
mercial systems to do
routine tasks.” Foust
is a senior analyst and
project manager with
Futron in Bethesda, MD,
where he studies trends
for domestic and foreign
commercial, civil, and
military launch indus-
tries. He is the editor and
publisher of the Space
Review and maintains
the space news aggrega-
tor Spacetoday.net and
the policy blog Space
Politics.
ANTONIO
REGALADO writes this
issue’s photo essay on
Bolivia’s vast, untapped
deposit of lithium, the
key ingredient in the bat-
teries that power electric
vehicles (“The Lithium
Rush,” p. 26). “Bolivia has
a populist socialist gov-
ernment along the lines
of Hugo Chavez’s Vene-
zuela, in which domina-
tion of information fl ow
is a major goal of the gov-
ernment,” says Regalado.
“The government sees
itself as the true repre-
sentative of a suppressed
indigenous population.
We will see whether their
rhetoric about seizing
the country’s resources
for the state achieves
syncretism with the
capitalist models of
investment most capable
of extracting those
resources, including
lithium.” Regalado is a
freelance reporter living
in São Paulo, where he
writes about slum music,
armored cars, and other
local phenomena . Previ-
ously, he was a science
reporter at the Wall Street
Journal and an editor at
Technology Review cover-
ing biomedicine.
NOAH FRIEDMAN-
RUDOVSKY is a free-
lance photojournalist
who shot the photo
essay. “On the salt fl ats,
you fi nd yourself in a
sea of pure white that
extends to the hori-
zon,” he says. “Workers
at the lithium pilot plant
work 20-day shifts at this
remote spot, wearing
ski masks, sunglasses,
and overalls, covering
every inch of their skin
from the sun. They seem
connected to the ambi-
tious project that hopes
to convert the lithium
deposit into social ben-
efi ts for Bolivia’s poor.”
Friedman-Rudovsky
photographs stories in
Bolivia and across Latin
America. His coverage
appears regularly in the
New York Times, and his
photos have been pub-
lished in the New Yorker,
Der Spiegel, Paris Match,
and the New York Times
Magazine.
CONTRIBUTORS