Communications

Need to turn up your air conditioner or turn down your TV? Just swing your arm through the air

How the dream of a perfectly cognizant computer continues to break our hearts

Let your smartphone to decode the world for you

Different-shaped beams could be used to increase fiber-optic capacity, thereby easing online congestion

CEO Dick Costolo says companies should report when governments ask them for user data

In hopes of encouraging a reduction in nuclear stockpiles, researchers have proposed a new method to verify nuclear disarmament without revealing classified information

Can quality of urban life be boiled down to a formula?

Spammers deploy malware to hijack unwary machines and use them as purveyors of junk messaging. Read this last installment about how the history of the Internet coincides with the history of spam

New car systems allow sending or receiving electronic messages using hands-free devices, but they are still major distractions to driving. Karen Hopkin reports

Porous barriers to various forms of electronic intrusion are traversed by either menial human labor or automated botnets. Read about this carnival of oddities in the third excerpt of a chapter on the riveting history of spam

A metadata expert reveals the sobering implications of personal data collection by governments and companies