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IS

THE

CLOUD

SAFE?

IT HAD BETTER BE—WE ALL WORK THERE. p36

MIT NEWS

PRESIDENT

OBAMA’S

VISITpM12

THE GEOENGINEERING GAMBITp50

Smarter technology for a Smarter Planet:

How to manage thousands of things you can’t touch.

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Let’s build a smarter planet. ibm.com/virtualize

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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

Photograph by John Lawrence/ Travelpix Ltd/Getty Images

WWW.TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM

HACK

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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26

March 31, 2010Nominations close

Winners must be under

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2004

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2008

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Paid for by the Government of Ontario.

Otherwise known

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i n v e s t i n o n t a r i o . c o m / t a l e n t

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