TecTrends Monitor

The latest search technology innovation? Human intelligence. Last month I noted this article in the San Francisco Chronicle about a growing trend: Human filtering to improve information quality. The theme comes up again in an article that just crossed my desk, ‘Bing or Bust,’ by Benjamin Johnson in November’s Computers in Libraries.

Bing, says Johnson, has rediscovered categories. But his real point is not Bing versus Google. It is the continuing – and growing – relevance of traditional library skills such as classification and cataloging in cutting through the clutter to make sense of information. This is why at Information Sources a trained librarian assigns subject headings and maintains our proprietary thesaurus of metadata.

Now, on to November’s TecTrends Reporter on Innovations in Science and Technology. It covers the waterfront, as they used to say, summarizing 57 articles across the gamut of technologies. A few highlights:

• Much to Apple’s dismay, technically sophisticated Mac fans are making ‘Hackintosh’ computers by adapting cheap netbooks to run the Mac operating system. Apple may not be happy, reports Fast Company, but firms such as the major social sites have profited by letting their customers take the lead and following where they go.
• If you are like me, you take steel for granted as a mature, even ‘old’ technology. But I was wrong, says Industry Week. Innovations in materials science, from advanced steels to carbon fibers, have made lightweight vehicles 163 pounds lighter in just the last two years. It’s not your father’s Oldsmobile anymore, or even his steel.
• Quantum computing has weird properties, rooted in fundamental physics, that allow quantum computers to crack a code in minutes that would take a powerful conventional computer 50 million years. (!) And, reports Baseline, they are already being tested in the laboratory, with basic models to be offered for sale in the next year.
• Invisible ink has a long history, but according to The Economist there could be a big future for the opposite – ink that fades out after a set period of time. Potential applications would include transportation tickets, but no word on whether you can jot notes on your expired, and faded, bus transfer.
• Carbon nanotubes could bring back spring-powered devices, according to EE World. Nanotube springs may be competitive with batteries, storing 1000 times more power for their weight than steel springs like the one in a traditional wind-up clock.

You could Google “innovations in technology” and take your chances with the first few pages of 250,000 hits. Or you can let TecTrends Reporters be your wilderness guide. At Information Sources, we read the tech press because you don’t have time.