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in “the troll hunters” (page 50), a marketplace of ideas are mostly com- Adrian Chen writes, “Old-school hate is fortable with such a limited constraint. having a sort of renaissance online, and But others are not so comfort- in the countries thought to be furthest able (see “Q&A: Shanley Kane,” page beyond it. The anonymity provided by 26). Threats are seldom prosecuted, the Internet fosters communities where because words are slippery things and people can feed on each other’s hate.” anonymous trolls cannot be found eas- Chen reveals the scale of näthat ily. More, the harm principle is not (“Net hate”) in Sweden, a country known simply extended to harassing speech for its tolerance, where anonymous post- that seeks to oppress or silence minori- ers to websites nonetheless rage against ties and women. Activists would like to immigrants who (racists believe) are see a wider legal definition of harm, or destroying “Swedish culture.” As in broader intolerance for harassment. the United States and elsewhere in the Chen’s feature describes one con- world, Internet trolls in Sweden also troversial approach in Sweden, where persecute women, often just for the “a group of volunteer researchers called strange satisfaction of frightening them. Researchgruppen, or Research Group, Trolls must be moved by bitter has pioneered a form of activist jour- resentments they cannot otherwise nalism based on following the crumbs express and liberated by the heady unac- of data anonymous Internet trolls leave countability of anonymity. Harassing behind and unmasking them.” Research comments found on websites are sincere Group scraped the comments of a expressions of how a portion of human- right-wing publication named Avpix- ity really feels. Some people hate other lat, and matched the encrypted e-mail people, and technology amplifies the addresses of commenters against a data- expression of views that (at least since base of publicly available addresses. The the end of World War II) were mostly researchers gave the names of many of whispered in private or shouted at rallies Avpixlat’s most prolific commenters to of ineffectual political movements (see Expressen, a Swedish tabloid, which “Free Speech in the Era of Its Technolog- then reported that dozens of prominent ical Amplification,” March/April 2013). Swedes, including politicians from the But what can be done about trolling far-right Sweden Democrats, had posted in open societies like Sweden and the racist and sexist comments. Some politi- United States is a vexed question about cians and officials resigned. which citizens ardently disagree. Research Group’s public shaming Both the United States and Swe- of trolls was controversial in Sweden. den have set high bars for criminaliz- MIT Technology Review readers may ing speech: speech is presumptively free also feel troubled: they might want to unless it violates the “harm principle.” distinguish between real threats to indi- In America, speech can be banned if it is viduals and the expression of views that, a “real threat,” either because it consti- however reprehensible, have a tenuous tutes an incitement to hurt someone or connection to immediate harm. But the (as Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote data journalists of Research Group were in 2003) to protect people “from the fear responsible for an innovation: they put of violence” and “from the disruption a cost to trolling. By stripping away the that fear engenders.” Citizens who value cloak of anonymity, they demonstrated free speech and believe it necessary for that while speech is free, it is not always

democracy, individual expression, and without consequences. VITTIGUIDO

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Front Back 2 From the Editor BUSINESS REPORT 8 Feedback 59 Cities Get Smarter VIEWS How technology can make urban centers more efficient, 10 MOOCs’ Teachable Moment better places to live. How online education can help erase the skills gap. REVIEWS 10 Fixing Autism Research 68 For starters, we can stop Do MOOCs Actually Work? College survived. But online searching for a “cure.” courses are still worthwhile. 11 The World Needs Anonymity By Justin Pope It’s not always a bad idea to 72 keep your identity to yourself. The Aura Apps Do digital filters change the 12 On Creativity meaning of the “past”? A newly unearthed, previously By A. D. Coleman unpublished essay by science 79 fiction great Isaac Asimov. Google Glass Is Dead This wearable computer isn’t a hit, but the vision lives on. UPFRONT By Rachel Metz 15 An End-Around for Consumer Genetics DEMO The FDA has stymied 84 23andMe, but tests live on. Coal Plant Buries Its Own Greenhouse Gases 20 The Mystery of Autism Can coal be clean? Showing that carbon One problem: nobody agrees p. 84 sequestration can be done. on how to diagnose it. By Peter Fairley 21 Voice Recognition for the January / February 2015 Internet of Things 45 YEARS AGO Getting your thermostat to 88 recognize your voice. Education by Machine 28 | Can Japan Recapture Its Solar Power? When the teacher is a 22 Ultrasound Gets Small A lesson in the political vulnerability of renewable energy. computer, learning can get How a new chip could upend By Peter Fairley personalized. diagnostics. 24 Will a Breakthrough Solar 36 | Solving the Autism Puzzle ON THE COVER Technology See Daylight? A new approach to finding the genes behind autism A startup’s record-breaking shows promise. By Stephen S. Hall cells meet economic reality. 44 | Desalination out of Desperation Q+A Severe droughts are making researchers rethink how we 26 Shanley Kane can get fresh water. By David Talbot Is Silicon Valley hopelessly sexist? 50 | The Troll Hunters Illustration by R. Sikoryak Exposing thugs, bullies, and racists on the Internet seems based on Tintin in Tibet, like a good thing. Can it go too far? By Adrian Chen by Hergé, 1960 PHOTOGRAPH BY JENN ACKERMAN AND TIM GRUBER TIM AND ACKERMAN JENN BY PHOTOGRAPH

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Five Most Popular Stories MIT Technology Review Volume 117, Number 6

MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW VOL. 117 | NO. 6 TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM VOL. 117 | NO. 6

The Letting go of an MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW VOL. 117 | NO. 6 TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM VOL. 117 | NO. 6 obsession with net Q+A neutrality could free technologists to

classes of drugs or processes that could make online services Peter Thiel rejuvenate body parts. I also think that tenfold improvements might be possible in nuclear power. There are miniaturiza- Peter Thiel has been behind some prominent technologies: he cofounded Right Way tion technologies where you have much PayPal and was an early investor in such companies as Facebook and smaller containment structures, and tech- even better. LinkedIn. But he’s convinced that technological progress has been nologies for disposing of and reprocessing stagnant for decades. According to Thiel, developments in computers fuel that have been underexplored. and the Internet haven’t significantly improved our quality of life. In a new What are you doing to create this kind of book, he warns entrepreneurs that conventional business wisdom is technology? By George Anders preventing them and society as a whole from making major advances in Well, we invested in SpaceX [the private energy, health, and other areas where technology could make the world rocket company that has taken over some a better place—though he doesn’t offer detailed answers about how we launches for NASA] in 2008 after the first MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW might unlock such breakthroughs. (For a review of the book, see page 81.) rockets had blown up. The next one did VOL. 117 | NO. 6 TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM VOL. 117 | NO. 6 Thiel spoke to MIT Technology Review’s San Francisco bureau chief, Tom work. We invested in a few biotech companies, and we’ve been looking at medical Simonite, at the offices of his venture capital firm, Founders Fund. devices. These sectors where it’s a multi- year commitment are wildly out of fashion You claim that we haven’t had significant Some. Just not enough. That line is not among investors. At the same time, I do technological progress since around meant to be a critique of Twitter as a busi- think that there will continue to be inno- 1970. What about computing? ness. I think the company will eventually vation in information technology in the Progress in computers and the Inter - become profitable; the 2,000 people who decades ahead. About two-thirds of our net helps with communications, and it’s work there will be gainfully employed for work is there. enabled us to make things far more effi- decades to come. But its specific success f you’re like most people, your monthly smartphone bill is steep enough to make cient. On the other hand, most other fields may be symptomatic of a general failure. What companies would you say are to Fix of engineering have been bad things to go Even though it improves our lives in cer- taking on big problems? you shudder. As consumers’ appetite for connectivity keeps growing, the price into since the 1970s: nuclear engineer- tain ways, it is not enough to take our civi- Tesla is a really interesting example. Most The disparity between the of wireless service in the United States tops $130 a month in many households. ing, aero- and astronautical engineering, lization to the next level. of the components didn’t involve really chemical engineering, mechanical engi- great breakthroughs, but there was this Two years ago Mung Chiang, a professor of electrical engineering at Princeton, neering, even electrical engineering. We What kinds of technologies might ability to combine them. I think we’re are living in a material world, so that’s do that? generally too drawn to incremental point believed he could give customers more control. One simple adjustment would clear pretty big to miss out on. I don’t think There are all these areas where there solutions and very scared of complex the way for lots of mobile-phone users to get as much data as they already did, and we’re living in an incredibly fast techno- could be enormous innovation. We could operational problems like that. logical age. be finding cures to cancer or Alzheimer’s. The paradigmatic example for a large in some cases even more, on cheaper terms. Carriers could win, too, by nudging custom- I’m quite interested in enabling people company is Google. Within large compa- I The Founders Fund’s slogan takes a to live much longer. There’s an infor - nies, you often run into internal bureau- ers to reduce peak-period traffic, making some costly network upgrades unnecessary. swipe at Twitter: “We wanted flying cars; mation technology approach, where we cracy and the need to meet the quarterly “We thought we could increase the benefits for everyone,” Chiang recalls. instead we got 140 characters.” Haven’t optimize your nutrition and give instant results cycle. Google has done much less things like iPhones and online social net- feedback using mobile device technology. of that than other large companies. It

Chiang’s plan called for the wireless industry to offer its customers the same types works improved our quality of life? But I suspect that there are entire new looks like they’re making good progress KONRATH LASZLO ANDREAS of variable pricing that have brought new efficiencies to transportation and utilities. 24 25 rich and everyone else is Rates increase during peak periods, when congestion is at its worst; they decrease during slack periods. In the pre-smartphone era, it would have been impossible to advise users ahead of time about a zig or zag in their connectivity charges. Now, it would be the Internet straightforward to vary the price of online access depending on congestion and build an app that let bargain hunters shift their activities to cheaper periods, even on a minute- by-minute basis. When prices were high, consumers could put off non-urgent tasks like downloading Facebook posts to read later. Careful users could save a lot of money. Excited about the prospects, Chiang patented his key concepts. He dubbed his new larger than ever in the United Dorfman Matt by Illustration service GreenByte and formed a company, now known as DataMi, to build the neces- 28 29

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your post could get you in trouble, either now or years down the line. That bored Googler on Secret wouldn’t be likely to voice those thoughts online under his or her real name—even if doing so could MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW VOL. 117 | NO. 6 TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM VOL. 117 | NO. 6 be therapeutic or even lead to other job options. That’s why anonymous social apps like in much of Europe. Why? Whisper and Secret come as a relief. Yes, anonymity and self-disguise have always been available on the Web, from early chat Reviews rooms to newspaper and blog comment sections to the darkest corners of 4chan. And yes, commenters have often used that a cobbled lane from a restaurant called cloak of anonymity to say things that are meaner than anything they’d have the guts Noma. The lab is the brainchild of Rene Fun with Food to say to someone’s face. Redzepi, whose quest at Noma for new Here, though, the combination of Playful new cooking based on traditional methods flavors, whether from plants, fungi, lichen, anonymity, the simplicity of a focused and weird ingredients will supplant the industrial or animal by-products, has given rise to an app, and the intimacy of a smartphone techniques that dominated modernist cuisine. international obsession with foraging for screen makes sharing your deepest, dark- new, questionably edible ingredients. It’s est thoughts and commenting on others’ By Corby Kummer easy to parody the results. But up close, in strangely satisfying. The more I used these the sweeping, palatial kitchens of Noma, apps to confide, the more it felt like having a tiny confessional in the palm of my a floor above the restaurant, the patience, hand. Occasional trolls be damned, I got attention, and meticulous care with which hooked on the rush of comments and likes gnarled and ancient vegetables or half- that came with a juicy confession. Even if rotten weeds are treated is impressive, the people on the other end didn’t really as is the dedication of the international Confessional in know me, I felt that I could be honest with Technology ver since cooks began who was chef at the most famous modern- cast of apprentices who vie for a spot to them and get real sympathy. playing with the equip- ist restaurant of all, El Bulli in Catalonia, stage. A typical late afternoon might find the Palm of Your Hand ment of the food indus- Spain, and who chaired the advisory board stagiaires carefully lifting the skin off a Drinking with Strangers Sure, people say some nasty things in anonymous With Whisper, sharing is easy: you type try, chefs have felt of the Basque Culinary Center. Both labs highly concentrated duck stock—ordinar- apps, but the good far outweighs the bad. whatever you want and the app suggests compelled to join one were something more than test kitchens: ily a bubbly gray-white scum, but here a a photo based on your message—often one of two camps. The first they were places to try new techniques. shimmering golden-brown sheet, gleam- By Rachel Metz that doesn’t quite match the topic. Other believes any kitchen is The results found their way into new res- ing like mica—and topping it with home- people’s posts show up with several lines incomplete without a centrifuge, com- taurants, books, and a study center and (in pickled beech leaves, to be seasoned with want to quit Google,” the message on poster chimed in, saying things like: “I’ve of bold text and an image, risking sensory and Inequality Ebination steam-convection oven, and the case of the Basque Culinary Center) a lacto- fermented plum. my iPhone read. “It’s boring here.” been there a long time. Many jobs. The overload. Scrolling through Whisper is $6,000 vacuum-seal machine and immer- were shared with the industrial clients that The lab is more freewheeling and less “ Posted by an anonymous user in company no longer values initiative, and like looking at snippets from countless sion circulator to cook 22-hour eggs sous subsidized the enterprise. quiet. It, too, attracts young people from San Francisco to the confessional app promotion is very slow.” strangers’ diary entries, only here you’re ISecret, the message quickly gained atten- Many of us are addicted to sharing encouraged to respond. vide. The second camp takes pride in tell- The closest counterpart to these men around the world. But music blares as tion; after four days, it had received 78 status updates on Facebook, photos on Posts are visible to anyone using the ing you that all these gadgets, and ingre- in the United States is David Chang, a they work at laptops on one of two trestle comments, ranging from “just means Instagram, and thoughts on Twitter. But app, and many of the more popular ones dients like hydrocolloids and calcium hero to younger American cooks. His tables, or at the counters and stove. you’re not on the right project” to “I quit real, raw honesty is tricky online. It’s hard are searingly honest. On a recent day, a baths, are outlawed in their kitchens— Momofuku Group of restaurants subsi- (Unlike other labs, which often have only Google, and it was one of the best deci- to say what you really think when your quick look yielded “I just found out my

because gadgets and industrial powders dizes a separately staffed “culinary lab,” induction burners, this one includes an sions of my life.” At times, the original true identity is attached, especially if boyfriend was born a girl”; “My son is offi- BODE MAXIMILIAN have nothing to do with cooking. But now whose goal is to discover new compo - actual, working stove.) The young people that the equipment, ideas, and techniques nents. Chang and his cooks collaborate are as likely to hold advanced degrees in 78 of modernist cuisine have been around with mycobiologists and engi- biomedical science, flavor chem- more than a decade, a new generation of neers at MIT, Harvard, and Yale; istry, and geography as they are Illustration by Javier Jaén Javier by Illustration By David Rotman chefs declines to declare loyalty to either the purpose of that collabora- Nordic to be cooks. They want to make camp. To me, the most interesting cooks tion, in the words of Ryan Miller, Food Lab and grind koji, the fermented- today are not on the barricades but those product development chef at the rice base of sake, to use as a choc- Noma 53 eager to discover new flavors. They use lab, is to bridge the gap between Copenhagen, olate surrogate for a cake; or low-tech means like fermentation and “the way a cook learns something, Denmark anaerobically ferment plums cook over a stove. which is visual and tactile,” and individually encased in a lus- The really ambitious cooks—those a “conceptual understanding” of, say, the trous, thick shell of beeswax; or mummify who aspire to a place on the world culi- enzymatic microbial processes that make a deer leg to see if it will taste like Parma nary map—create those novel flavors at soy sauce or miso. ham; or ferment grasshoppers into a ver- food labs. sion of garum, the gamy fish sauce of the Until now, the two chefs most associ- Non-Nomative cooking ancients; or whip pig’s blood to mimic the ated with labs are linked to modernist cui- Then there is the Nordic Food Lab, foam structure of egg yolks for an ice Mummified deer leg, sine: Heston Blumenthal, at the Fat Duck, which can be found in a houseboat on cream that looks and tastes like chocolate

sealed in beeswax. TONNENSEN CHRIS OF COURTESY in Berkshire, England, and Ferran Adrià, a Copenhagen canal, a short walk down (blood cooks to the same shade of brown).

72 73

1 2 3 4 5 Technology and The Right Way to Fun with Food Q+A: Peter Thiel Confessional in the

Inequality Fix the Internet I’m by no means a foodie, Peter Thiel thinks incre- Palm of Your Hand MIT economist David Autor Big telecom argues that but I thought Corby mentalism can’t lead Being anonymous doesn’t is quoted as saying we their monopoly should be Kummer’s article on food to anything revolution- equal being honest. So would be hard pressed strengthened, which will experimentation was one ary. But di erent people besides the haters, trolls, to ﬁ nd a robot today. The then give them the secu- of the best I have read in doing incremental things and scammers, you’re self-serve gas pump, rity to make infrastructure MIT Technology Review. may very well be what is reading the online equiv- the answering machine, improvements. Mean- Ironic, though, that it needed. The Apollo pro- alent of the National the word processor, the while, they lobby behind comes in the context of gram would not have been Enquirer. —rykk.dekk self-checkout in the gro- the scenes to make it the “Inequality” issue. possible without incre- cery store, and the auto- illegal for cities to install Still, kudos to Denmark mental developments that Ten years ago, we were mated door opener are their own ﬁ ber networks. that it can maintain a still- happened decades ear- afraid of losing our online the “robots” that Autor is Clearly their interests are generous social welfare lier. The same is true of the privacy when our real not seeing. Each of these not aligned with consumer net and nurture world- Manhattan Project and his names became attached devices represents an interests. —SneedUrn beating designers and other examples. —acowan to our comments on Face- entry-level job that no lon- scientists, in which group book. Now we’re seeing ger exists. Net neutrality is not about I’d gladly include Noma’s Tech feeds the lowest companies created to —dennis.drew.737 fairness to corporations or Redzepi. —Cenk Sumen common denominator bring that anonymity back, startups. It is about letting because that’s where the and with that comes free- users have full control over Good story to read if money is. “Get in, make dom of expression, creativ- what they want to access you’re on a diet. $10 million, get out again.” ity, and honesty. That’s why via the Internet. —gubrud —Ken Stailey Isn’t that the dream of I’m all for companies like every Silicon Valley twenty- Whisper and Secret. something? —anonymole —lamoore

JF15_feedback.indd 8 12/4/14 2:19 PM Stay ahead of the technology What Does Technology The late 1990s was the last time the that matters Have to Do with Inequality? U.S. job market was at full employment, In “Technology and Inequality” (Novem- and the tight labor market compelled to your ber/December), David Rotman invokes employers to bid up wage offers to get and what economists call “skill-biased tech- keep the workers they needed to meet the business. nological change” as the answer to why robust demand that we haven’t seen since. wealth chasms have grown so deep in So getting back to full employment, and recent years. This leads him to the most restoring the bargaining clout that gives commonly cited remedy: more education. workers, must be at the top of any agenda There’s of course a lot to be said for designed to push back on inequality. this solution: the returns to education are Rotman mentions globalization only historically high, and many less advan- in passing, but it’s a much bigger deal taged households face growing barriers to than he lets on. We’ve run large trade higher education. The trouble is that the deficits in this country for over three data don’t support nearly as large a role decades. In doing so, we’ve exported mil- for technology as Rotman suggests. We’ve lions of good, middle-class jobs, largely in always had technological change in our manufacturing. Our policy makers have economy, and there’s no evidence it’s more done nothing in response. biased toward skill now than it was in the It’s not really the superstars—the past. Even as recently as the late 1990s, a Taylor Swifts of the world—who are driv- period of pervasive and diffuse computing up high-end inequality. It’s CEOs and erization, middle- and low-wage workers financial executives extracting “rents”— benefited from a strongly growing econ- incomes well beyond their productive omy and a uniquely tight labor market. contributions—from a broken system of Data-Driven Rotman believes that there are two corporate governance. Health Care main ways in which technology is driv- Jared Bernstein is a senior fellow at the Cen- ing inequality. First, he says computer- ter on Budget and Policy Priorities and a former New technologies promise ization has evolved in such a way as to economic advisor to Vice President Joe Biden. a ﬂ ood of molecular, raise both the cognitive demands that environmental, and

The feature, in fact, behavioral information employers make of their workers and the Reply from the editor: begins with the premise, described by the paychecks of the workers who can meet about patients. Will all that economist Thomas Piketty, that much of those demands. Second, he subscribes to data make medicine better? the wealth inequality is due to the unjustifi- the “winner-take-all,” or superstar, theory. ably high earnings of corporate executives.

The idea is that the Internet, in tandem But there are likely many factors in today’s

with its low marginal costs of reproduc- inequality. I’m not sure why Mr. Bernstein technologyreview.com/ mentions Taylor Swift, but it’s hard to be in ing and delivering information, has vastly Silicon Valley these days without noticing businessreports expanded markets for those with some- the tech “superstars” and their wealth. The

thing people want, whether it’s the next “winner-take-all” effect surely has something

killer app or the next Taylor Swift song. to do with it: can anyone name the No. 2 ver-

A real challenge for Rotman’s argu- sion of Twitter? ment is that all the new technology isn’t showing up in productivity growth. If robotics and AI, for example, are as big an CORRECTION: economic deal as his argument suggests, “Microsoft’s Quantum Mechanics” in the shouldn’t they be boosting output with November/December issue erroneously fewer inputs, the very definition of faster referred to a likeness of Thomas Edison productivity growth? Yet productivity in the foyer of Bell Labs. The bust is of growth has slowed in recent years. Alexander Graham Bell.

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this reason, we’re making the transition COMPUTING to an on-demand model that lets people What MOOCs engage with the content at their own pace. Finally, we need to educate people on Teach Us the value of this new type of credential. Online education offers one effective To complete a MOOC is a measure not way to close the skills gap. only of job-related skills but also of quali- ties like dedication and self-motivation. three years ago, several of us at stan- Fortunately, these criteria are gaining ford launched the first massive open credence—in a joint study by Duke Uni- online courses, or MOOCs. We wanted versity and RTI International, 73 percent to make the teaching of the world’s great of employers said that they would look universities accessible to anyone with an favorably on MOOC completion in the Internet connection. The company we hiring process. Many who have completed founded, Coursera, recently passed a mile- MOOCs have told us that they’ve gained Daphne Koller stone: 10 million enrolled learners. That tangible benefits, including new jobs, new makes it a good time to reflect on what responsibilities, and promotions. we’ve learned. The growing demand for alternative One early prediction about MOOCs learning resources is a by-product of the was that they would undermine or even ever-shifting skills gap. It’s also a signal replace the traditional college education— that a four-year degree is no longer suffi- an idea we at Coursera never endorsed (see cient for a lifelong career. MOOCs won’t “What Are MOOCs Good For?” page 68). be the only solution to these much greater And it hasn’t happened—only 15 per- issues, but they can be an important com- cent of our current learners are college ponent in transforming learning to better age. The other 85 percent fall largely into suit the needs of the 21st century. two categories. The first are adults looking to expand their horizons. The second— Daphne Koller is cofounder and president

nearly half of our learners—are working of Coursera. adults looking to build critical job skills for a better career. This shouldn’t surprise John Elder Robison anyone. The world around us is changing BIOMEDICINE rapidly, and many of the skills you need Fixing Autism today—data science, mobile apps, digital marketing—didn’t even exist a decade ago. Research How do we create an educational expe- We need to come to grips with what rience suited to this very different popula- autism really is. tion? First, we can share our knowledge about learner interests with our university autism researchers have published partners, who can experiment with new thousands of papers in recent years. With courses, new subject areas, and hands-on those numbers, you’d think we’d all be projects that align with problem-solving rejoicing over great progress. Yet many in real-world settings. people—especially autistic adults—are We also need to find the right deliv- frustrated by how little benefit has actu- ery method. Working adults have many ally materialized. Why? demands on their time; they have to struc- The simple answer is, we’re studying ture their learning around their lives, the wrong things. We’re sinking millions

Gabriella Coleman rather than the other way around. For into the search for a “cure,” even though FRIEDMAN ANDY

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we now know that autism is not a disease and sisters to do all we can to ensure their Anonymous speech may seem like the but rather a neurological difference, one security, safety, and comfort. spawn of recent technology, but in truth that cripples some of us while bringing a So how might this change in research there’s a long history of anonymity being few others extraordinary gifts. Most of us direction come about? For one thing, we used for a positive purpose. The Federal- live with a mix of exceptionality and dis- can put autistic people in charge. The fact ist Papers were originally published under ability. I know I do. is, researchers have treated autism as a a pseudonym. The Supreme Court has Research into the genetic and bio- childhood disability, when in fact it’s a repeatedly granted First Amendment pro- logical foundations of autism is surely lifelong difference. If childhood is a quar- tection to anonymous speech. worthwhile, but it’s a long-term game (see ter of the life span, then three-quarters of Imagine if everyone were forced to dis- “Solving the Autism Puzzle,” page 36). The the autistic population are adults. Doesn’t close their real identities online. We’d be time from discovery to deployment of an it make sense that some of us would want discouraging potential whistle-blowers. approved therapy is measured in decades, to take a role in shaping the course of We’d be discouraging anyone who wanted while the autism community needs help research that affects us? to voice an unpopular belief. Yes, anonym- right away. If you’re a researcher with an interest ity can engender antisocial behavior—but If we accept that autistic people are in autism—and you want to really make it can also provide a means of pushing neurologically different rather than sick, a difference—open a dialogue with autis- back against increased surveillance. the research goal changes from finding a tic people. Ask what they want and need, As an anthropologist, I’ve spent half a cure to helping us achieve our best qual- and listen. dozen years studying Anonymous, the col- ity of life. lective best known for its crusades against Here are some ways we can do that: John Elder Robison is a professor at the dictators and corporations. My studies of We can remediate the crippling con- College of William & Mary and the author this ragtag band of hackers and rabble- ditions that accompany autism. Anxiety, of Look Me in the Eye. rousers has revealed to me how important depression, seizure disorders, sleep dis- the prospect of anonymity remains. orders, and intestinal distress are the big The group’s ethic is partly indebted to ones, but there are more. WEB 4chan, a popular and subversive image We can help autistic people organize The World Needs board that enforced the name “Anony- their lives, manage their schedules, and mous” for all users, thus hatching the regulate themselves in the face of sensory Anonymity idea’s potential. One activist explained overload. Many of the things we ask for— There’s a noble imperative behind not the crucial role of 4chan in cementing “the like quiet spaces or calm lighting—are revealing who you are. primary ideal of Anonymous”: “The posts comforting to most anyone. But for us on 4chan have no names or any identifi- they are critical. anonymity is under attack. “it’s time able markers attached to them. The only We can offer engineering solutions to to end anonymous comments sections,” thing you are able to judge a post by is its the things autistic people can’t do natu- implored a recent op-ed in the Wash- content and nothing else.” rally. Some formerly nonverbal autistics ington Post. In the U.K., a parliamen- Why care about this, if you’re not an talk through handheld tablets, and make tary committee has argued for a “cultural activist? You should care because Anon- friends with computer assistants like Siri. shift” in favor of treating pseudonymous ymous functions as a social laboratory We’re now seeing machines that read comments as untrustworthy. There’s even where participants experiment with the expressions even when we can’t. Com- a popular Swedish TV show devoted to power, threat, and promise of anonymity puters can improve anyone’s quality of life, tracking down and publicly shaming peo- itself. Anonymous political acts are often but we stand to benefit more than most ple who post nasty anonymous comments portrayed as cowardly, but we can just as from applied technology. online (see “The Troll Hunters,” page 50). easily observe a noble imperative—ano- We can make life better for the autis- Anonymity’s value seems to be at a nymity displaces attention from the mes- tic people who have major cognitive and new low, and it’s happening against a senger to the message. functional challenges that today’s science backdrop of never-ending surveillance. can’t fix. We have a duty to make their If it’s not CCTV cameras watching our Gabriella Coleman is the author of Hacker, lives better through applied technology. every move, it’s companies and govern- Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many We owe it to our most disabled brothers ments harvesting our digital data. Faces of Anonymous.

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ferentiated among themselves. A great cross-connection that does not require COLLABORATION many people had read Malthus. Perhaps daring is performed at once by many and On Creativity some both studied species and read develops not as a “new idea,” but as a mere Malthus. But what you needed was some- “corollary of an old idea.” How do people get new ideas? one who studied species, read Malthus, and It is only afterward that a new idea presumably, the process of creativity, had the ability to make a cross-connection. seems reasonable. To begin with, it usually whatever it is, is essentially the same in That is the crucial point that is the seems unreasonable. It seems the height of all its branches and varieties, so that the rare characteristic that must be found. unreason to suppose the earth was round evolution of a new art form, a new gadget, Once the cross-connection is made, it instead of flat, or that it moved instead of a new scientific principle, all involve com- becomes obvious. Thomas H. Huxley is the sun, or that objects required a force mon factors. We are most interested in the supposed to have exclaimed after reading to stop them when in motion instead of “creation” of a new scientific principle or a On the Origin of Species, “How stupid of a force to keep them moving, and so on. new application of an old one, but we can me not to have thought of this.” A person willing to fly in the face of be general here. But why didn’t he think of it? The reason, authority, and common sense must One way of investigating the problem is history of human thought would make be a person of considerable self-assurance. to consider the great ideas of the past and it seem that there is difficulty in thinking Since he occurs only rarely, he must seem see just how they were generated. Unfor- of an idea even when all the facts are on eccentric (in at least that respect) to the tunately, the method of generation is never the table. Making the cross-connection rest of us. A person eccentric in one respect clear even to the “generators” themselves. requires a certain daring. It must, for any is often eccentric in others. But what if the same earth-shaking Consequently, the person who is most idea occurred to two men, simultaneously likely to get new ideas is a person of good and independently? Perhaps, the common background in the field of interest and one factors involved would be illuminating. who is unconventional in his habits. (To be Consider the theory of evolution by natu- a crackpot is not, however, enough in itself.) ral selection, independently created by Once you have the people you want, Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace. the next question is: Do you want to bring There is a great deal in common them together so that they may discuss the there. Both traveled to far places, observ- problem mutually, or should you inform ing strange species of plants and animals each of the problem and allow them to and the manner in which they varied from work in isolation? place to place. Both were keenly interested My feeling is that as far as creativity in finding an explanation for this, and is concerned, isolation is required. The both failed until each happened to read creative person is, in any case, continu- Malthus’s “Essay on Population.” ally working at it. His mind is shuffling his Both then saw how the notion of over- information at all times, even when he is population and weeding out (which Mal- not conscious of it. (The famous example thus had applied to human beings) would of Kekule working out the structure of fit into the doctrine of evolution by natural benzene in his sleep is well-known.) selection (if applied to species generally). The presence of others can only inhibit Obviously, then, what is needed is not this process, since creation is embarrassing. only people with a good background in a For every new good idea you have, there particular field, but also people capable of are a hundred, ten thousand foolish ones, making a connection between item 1 and which you naturally do not care to display. item 2 which might not ordinarily seem Nevertheless, a meeting of such peo- connected. ple may be desirable for reasons other Undoubtedly in the first half of the 19th than the act of creation itself. No two peo- century, a great many naturalists had stud- ple exactly duplicate each other’s mental

ied the manner in which species were dif- Isaac Asimov stores of items. One person may know A FRIEDMAN ANDY

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and not B, another may know B and not guess that no more than five would be expense, is to break into a cold sweat. In A, and either knowing A and B, both may wanted. A larger group might have a fact, the average scientist has enough pub- get the idea—though not necessarily at larger total supply of information, but lic conscience not to want to feel he is once or even soon. there would be the tension of waiting to doing this even if no one finds out. Furthermore, the information may not speak, which can be very frustrating. It I would suggest that members at a cer- only be of individual items A and B, but would probably be better to have a num- ebration session be given sinecure tasks even of combinations such as A-B, which ber of sessions at which the people attend- to do—short reports to write, or summa- in themselves are not significant. However, ing would vary, rather than one session ries of their conclusions, or brief answers if one person mentions the unusual com- including them all. (This would involve to suggested problems—and be paid for bination of A-B and another the unusual a certain repetition, but even repetition that, the payment being the fee that would combination A-C, it may well be that the is not in itself undesirable. It is not what ordinarily be paid for the cerebration ses- combination A-B-C, which neither has people say at these conferences, but what sion. The cerebration session would then thought of separately, may yield an answer. they inspire in each other later on.) be officially unpaid-for, and that, too, It seems to me, then, that the purpose For best purposes, there should be a would allow considerable relaxation. of cerebration sessions is not to think up feeling of informality. Joviality, the use of I do not think that cerebration sessions new ideas but to educate the participants can be left unguided. There must be some- in facts and fact combinations, in theories It seems necessary to me one in charge who plays a role equivalent to and vagrant thoughts. that people be willing to that of a psychoanalyst. A psychoanalyst, as But how to persuade creative people to I understand it, by asking the right ques- participate? First and foremost, there must sound foolish and listen to tions (and except for that interfering as lit- be ease, relaxation, and a general sense of others sound foolish. tle as possible), gets the patient himself to permissiveness. The world in general dis- discuss his past life in such a way as to elicit approves of creativity, and to be creative first names, joking, relaxed kidding are, I new understanding of it in his own eyes. in public is particularly bad. Even to spec- think, of the essence—not in themselves, In the same way, a session arbiter will ulate in public is rather worrisome. The but because they encourage a willingness have to sit there, stirring up the animals, individuals must, therefore, have the feel- to be involved in the folly of creativeness. asking the shrewd question, making the ing that the others won’t object. For this purpose I think a meeting in necessary comment, bringing them gen- If a single individual present is unsym- someone’s home or over a dinner table at tly back to the point. Since the arbiter will pathetic to the foolishness that would be some restaurant is perhaps more useful not know which question is shrewd, which bound to go on at such a session, the oth- than one in a conference room. comment necessary, and what the point is, ers would freeze. The unsympathetic indi- Probably more inhibiting than any- his will not be an easy job. vidual may be a gold mine of information, thing else is a feeling of responsibility. The As for “gadgets” designed to elicit cre- but the harm he does will more than com- great ideas of the ages have come from peo- ativity, I think these should arise out of the pensate for that. It seems necessary to me, ple who weren’t paid to have great ideas, bull sessions themselves. If thoroughly then, that all people at a session be will- but were paid to be teachers or patent relaxed, free of responsibility, discuss- ing to sound foolish and listen to others clerks or petty officials, or were not paid ing something of interest, and being by sound foolish. at all. The great ideas came as side issues. nature unconventional, the participants If a single individual present has a To feel guilty because one has not themselves will create devices to stimu- much greater reputation than the others, or earned one’s salary because one has not late discussion. is more articulate, or has a distinctly more had a great idea is the surest way, it seems commanding personality, he may well take to me, of making it certain that no great This previously unpublished 1959 essay over the conference and reduce the rest to idea will come in the next time either. by Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) was recently little more than passive obedience. The Yet your company is conducting discovered by a friend of the author. individual may himself be extremely use- this cerebration program on govern- Asimov wrote it when he was briefly part ful, but he might as well be put to work ment money. To think of congressmen or of a government-funded project tasked solo, for he is neutralizing the rest. the general public hearing about scien- with finding creative approaches for a The optimum number of the group tists fooling around, boondoggling, tell- missile defense system. It is published would probably not be very high. I should ing dirty jokes, perhaps, at government with the permission of Asimov Holdings.

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Untitled-1 1 12/1/14 5:41 PM MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM VOL. 118 | NO. 1 Upfront

How a Wiki Is Keeping Direct-to-Consumer Genetics Alive The FDA ordered 23andMe to stop selling its health tests. But for the intrepid, genome knowledge is still available.

By Antonio Regalado SOPHIA FOSTER-DIMINO SOPHIA

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hen Meg DeBoe services in the United States—and the next to get genetic facts without going through decided to tap possible targets for nervous regulators. a doctor. Now a question is whether Pro- her Christmas Promethease was created as a side proj- methease and sites like it could, or should, fund to order a ect by Greg Lennon, a geneticist based in be the next target of regulators. $99 consumer Maryland, and Mike Cariaso, a computer To Barbara Evans, a professor at the DNA test from programmer. It works by comparing a per- University of Houston Law Center, the 23andMe last son’s DNA data with entries in SNPedia, a idea that people can gather DNA from one year, she was disappointed: it arrived with sprawling public wiki on human genetics company and analyze it elsewhere is a sig- Wno information on what her genes said that the two created eight years ago and nificant legal development. Previously, the about her chance of developing Alzheimer’s run with the help of a few dozen volunteer same lab that tested you would be the one and heart disease. The report only delved editors. to tell you what the results meant. But DNA into her genetic genealogy, possible rela- Consumer DNA tests determine which information is essentially digital. “It’s going tives, and ethnic roots. common versions of the 23,000 human to be quite difficult to regulate,” Evans pre- That’s because just a month earlier, in genes make up your individual genotype. November 2013, the Food and Drug Admin- As science links these variants to disease Since the FDA blocked istration had cracked down on 23andMe. risk, the idea has been that genotypes could 23andMe’s reports, traffic The direct-to-consumer gene testing com- predict your chance of getting cancer or pany’s popular DNA health reports and heart disease, or losing your eyesight. But to gene-interpretation slick TV ads were illegal, it said, since they’d predicting risk is tricky. Most genes don’t sites has jumped. never been cleared by the agency. say anything decisive about you. And if But DeBoe, a blogger and author of chil- they do, you might well wish for a doctor at dicts. She believes services like Prometh- dren’s books, found a way to get the health your side when you find out. “I don’t believe ease could invoke free-speech arguments information she wanted anyway. Using a that this kind of risk assessment is mature and other legal defenses if regulators ever Web service called Promethease, she paid enough to be a consumer product yet,” says approached them. $5 to upload her raw 23andMe data. Within David Mittelman, chief scientific officer of MIT Technology Review tested several a few minutes she was looking into a report Gene by Gene, a genetic laboratory that interpretation-only sites using DNA data of with entries dividing her genes into “bad performs tests. anonymous donors posted publicly by the news” and “good news.” In barring 23andMe’s health reports, Personal Genome Project, a data-sharing As tens of thousands of others seek sim- the FDA also cited the danger that errone- initiative started by Harvard Medical ilar information about their genetic disposi- ous interpretations of gene data could lead School. All the sites quickly reported gene tion, they are loading their DNA data into someone to seek out unnecessary surgery or variants contained in the files, although the several little-known websites like Prometh- take a drug overdose. Critics of the decision number varied, from as few as 35 to as many ease that have become, by default, the larg- said it had more to do with questions about as 17,667 for Promethease. Some of the est purveyors of consumer genetic health whether consumers should have the right reports were also more detailed than others.

TO MARKET HP has put together a Frankenstein’s monster of a workstation Maker Machine by combining various computing, imaging, and interface technologies in one. HP’s Sprout, as it’s called, has a touch screen, a HP Sprout camera, infrared depth sensors, a projector, and a touch-sensitive whiteboard, as well as a conventional printer and scanner. It’s also COMPANY: designed to hook up to a 3-D printer, to streamline the process Hewlett-Packard of designing and prototyping objects. You might, for instance, PRICE: use the device to scan a product in 3-D and then use a stylus to $1,899 modify the digital scan once it is projected onto the workstation’s AVAILABILITY: touch-sensitive surface. After you’ve made your changes, you can Now print the new design on paper or as a 3-D model. COURTESY OF HEWLETT-PACKARD OF COURTESY

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Two of the sites appeared designed be for everybody,” he says. He didn’t want 3 QUESTIONS to steer users toward alternative medi- investors involved. As a result, their work cine. Genetic Genie, a free service that was overshadowed by 23andMe, which John Kelly raised $126 million and hired more than carries ads for vitamins, reported the few- The head of IBM Research est genes, in what it called a “detoxifica- a dozen PhD geneticists to curate its own hopes to commercialize tion profile.” LiveWello charged $19.95 gene lists. Its CEO, Anne Wojcicki, who technologies related to its and included more genes, as well as links is married to Google cofounder Sergey Watson computer. to scientific reports. That site, however, Brin, landed on magazine covers, and a directed users to get an “explanation” of board member predicted that her startup When did you realize the importance the results by contacting chiropractors, would “become the Google of personalized of the technology behind Watson? dieticians, and mind-body healers whose health care.” I’d always personally been fascinated telephone numbers it provided. It didn’t happen that way. And follow- with AI. But it was the learning The Promethease report was the most ing the FDA’s action to block 23andMe’s machine aspect that was impressive. detailed, although its clunky, bare-bones reports, traffic to interpretation-only We would take new questions to ask design is not easy to use. The information sites jumped. Interpretome, maintained the system, and it would answer, and is similar to that in 23andMe’s banned by Konrad Karczewski, a postdoctoral I remember sometimes it was like, “Oh “Personal Genome Service,” but there researcher at Massachusetts General Hos- my god, how did it do that?” That’s are differences. Promethease makes lit- pital, now has 80 to 100 visitors per day, when I realized this is much bigger tle effort to combine the genetic risks for twice as many as last year. Even more are than a Jeopardy! game machine. any disease into a single number. That heading to Promethease. Lennon says the makes the report more like a jumble of site averages between 50 and 500 reports How is that changing IBM Research? facts than a diagnosis. Lennon says this is per day, including a free version and a We’re betting billions of dollars, and intentional. He says 23andMe stepped on faster-running paid product. He won’t get a third of this division now is work- shaky scientific ground by trying to merge too specific about the numbers or say how ing on [related technology]. As we risks into one neat score. much money Promethease is earning. “We developed and built Watson, we “Everyone wants to sell a simple are somewhat shy about saying how much became convinced it was time for a answer: ‘Here is your risk.’ But we don’t business we are doing,” he says. huge leap forward. It became obvi- know how these things interact,” he That could be out of a desire ous that this wasn’t just some step says. At the same time, he believes not to rouse regulators. The forward in AI, but that a whole new the uncertain value of DNA informa- FDA has wide discretion to era was going to come about. That tion is not a reason to keep it away act but often chooses to ignore what we call “cognitive computing” is from laypeople. small-time operators that bend not only going to happen, it’s going to For now, consumers have to the rules, especially if they avoid completely transform industries. fend for themselves in a thicket of making overt health claims. But scientific information—and make Cariaso and Lennon can’t say What does that mean for other areas their own decisions about risks. they didn’t anticipate trouble. of IBM Research? To Lennon and Cariaso, the surge After all, they named their People who might’ve been working of interest in Promethease and software after Prometheus, the on old relational databases or some- SNPedia represents a triumph for titan who defied the gods by thing are now working on this. We’re a no-frills approach to genetics. In 2006, stealing fire from Mount Olympus and hiring every natural-language expert the same year 23andMe was founded, giving it to mankind. (According to myth, we can find, and we’ve already got they launched SNPedia as a site that he was later punished and chained to a some of the world’s best. The under- would let them—and anyone else—keep rock for eternity.) lying physics and materials, and the tabs on what science was learning about “Fire is knowledge of your own DNA,” devices to power this next generation each gene variant. Lennon says the site says Cariaso. “The gods are anyone who of systems, are of great interest to us. was modeled on Wikipedia. “That was would try to prevent me from knowing That is a grand challenge.

the promise of the genome, that it should about myself.” —Will Knight FOSTER-DIMINO SOPHIA ZHU; PING

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Untitled-1 1 12/8/14 2:51 PM MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW VOL. 118 | NO. 1 TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM Upfront

The Mystery of Autism One of the things that make autism disorders so perplexing (see the story on page 36) is that there are no universal criteria for diagnosis. That’s one reason the prevalence among children is all over the map.

Cases per 1,000 children

14.7

11.3 Iceland Sweden 1 in 758 (2001) 1 in 125 (2006) 9.0 Scotland 8.0 1 in 225 (2006) 6.7 6.6 United Kingdom Denmark S. Korea Japan 1 in 102 (2011) 1 in 1,389 (2002) 1 in 52 (2011) 1 in 55 (2008) United States Portugal 1 in 68 (2010) 1 in 599 (2007) Israel Iran 1 in 1,000 (2001) 1 in 1,597 (2012) Hong Kong Taiwan 1 in 621 (2008) 1 in 294 (2007)

2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010

Brazil Rising Rate 1 in 368 (2010) of Autism It’s not clear why U.S. preva- Australia lence doubled in a decade. 1 in 255 (2004) Much of the rise might have Argentina come from doctors seeing Worldwide 1 in 763 (2008) autism in children who previ- Diagnosis ously would have gotten Pediatricians’ assessment methods, social stigmas, and even cultural and linguistic practices that affect other diagnoses, such as children’s social development could help account for differences in rates of autism and other “pervasive mental retardation. developmental disorders,” a classification that includes Asperger’s syndrome.

Male-Female Ratio No one knows why there are disparities in autism rates even within countries, as seen in 11 states that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention monitors for developmental disabilities. Even with the variation in overall cases, one pattern holds: autism affects around four times as many boys as girls.

Cases per 1,000 children 35

0 Alabama Arizona Arkansas Colorado Georgia Maryland Missouri New North Utah Wisconsin U.S. total 3.6:1 4.2:1 4.3:1 3.6:1 4.6:1 4.8:1 4.7:1 Jersey Carolina 4.0:1 5.0:1 4.5:1

M:F 4.8:1 5.1:1 CONTROL DISEASE FOR CENTERS FROM PREVALENCE ON DATA SHUMAN; LUKE BY ILLUSTRATION RESEARCH AUTISM AL., ET ELSABBAGH AND PREVENTION AND

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The number of patents awarded to Steve Jobs since his death in 141 October 2011.

recognize, such as “Wake me up tomorrow at 6” or “Wake me up in 20 minutes,” and note what they want to accomplish through each command—in this case, set the alarm on a hypothetical voice- controlled smart watch. Wit.ai uses what it knows about language to figure out the different ways a command might be expressed. Then, when a user wants to set the alarm for a specific time, that person’s utterances are sent to a Wit.ai server, which analyzes the audio and sends struc- tured data back to the gadget—here, the instruction to set the alarm for the proper 1 in 55 (2008) date and time. Already, about 4,600 developers are using Wit.ai with things like mobile apps, robots, home automation, and wearable devices. Nick Mostowich, a student at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, is one of them. At a hackathon at his school, his team used Wit.ai to add voice control to a toaster and a microwave. Voice Recognition for the Mostowich says they quickly put together a set of commands and targets Internet of Things that could be mapped to a list of recipes on a remote server, so a user could say Wit.ai wants to give developers pendent developers don’t have the deep something like “Cook me some bacon” and the tools they need to make pockets required to create voice software the microwave would turn itself on, set to smartphones, wearables, and that continuously learns from mountains the right power level and time. of data. Voice-powered bacon-nuking aside, appliances heed your call. Wit.ai, based in Palo Alto, California, Wit.ai still has plenty of obstacles to over- By Rachel Metz is taking aim at the swiftly growing num- come. Like many similar systems that rely ber of devices with small displays, or no on the cloud, it’s not quick to respond, and t’s not unusual to find yourself talking screen at all, and at activities like driving it can’t work if you don’t have an Internet to an uncoöperative appliance or gad- and cooking, where you don’t want to look connection. Iget. Soon, though, some devices might at or touch a display. And while Wit.ai can be used with actually pay attention. The company is offering its product Spanish, French, German, Italian, and A startup called Wit.ai plans to make free to those who agree to share their user Swedish, it’s still far better in English. it easy for hardware makers and software data with the Wit.ai community. Collect- However, Lebrun believes that as more developers to add custom voice controls ing this data should help improve the data is added, non-English languages will to everything from Internet-connected accuracy of the system over time. “Every- improve. And he hopes to enable devel- thermostats to drones to smart watches. one will benefit from that,” cofounder and opers to use Wit.ai without needing an While big companies like Apple and CEO Alex Lebrun says. Internet connection. The system could Google have their own voice recognition With Wit.ai, developers type a few just occasionally check in with Wit.ai’s

JOHN MALTA JOHN technology, smaller companies and inde- plain-English commands they want it to servers to update its learning.

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semiconductor wafer, alongside circuits With $100 Million, Entrepreneur and processors. The devices are known as capacitive micromachined ultrasound Hopes to Overturn the Business transducers, or CMUTs. Most ultrasound machines use small of Medical Imaging piezoelectric crystals or ceramics to generate and receive sound waves. But these The goal of ultrasound on a Rothberg won’t say exactly how But- have to be carefully wired together and chip: for anyone to get terfly’s device will work, or what it will then attached via cables to a separate box a “window” into the body. look like. “The details will come out when to process the signals. Anyone who can we are on stage selling it. That’s in the integrate ultrasound elements directly By Antonio Regalado next 18 months,” he says. But he guaran- onto a computer chip could manufacture tees it will be small, cost a few hundred them cheaply in large batches and more ith a scanner the size of an dollars, connect to a phone, and be able easily create the type of arrays needed to iPhone, you could look inside to do things like detect breast cancer or produce 3-D images. Doctors use ultra- Wa person’s chest and see a vivid, visualize a fetus. sound more often than any other type of moving, 3-D image of what’s inside. Butterfly’s patent applications imaging test—for example, to view a baby That’s the goal of entrepreneur describe its aim as building compact, ver- during pregnancy, to find tumors in soft Jonathan Rothberg, who says he has satile new ultrasound scanners that can tissues like the liver, and, recently, to treat raised $100 million to create an imaging prostate cancer by heating up cells with device that’s nearly “as cheap as a stetho- sound waves. scope” and will “make doctors 100 times The idea for micromachined ultra- as effective.” According to patent docu- sound chips dates to 1994, when Butrus ments, the technology relies on a new Khuri-Yakub, a Stanford professor who kind of ultrasound chip. It could eventu- advises Rothberg’s company, built the ally lead to new ways to destroy cancer first one. But none has been a commer- cells with heat, or deliver information to cial success, despite a decade of interest by brain cells. companies including General Electric and Rothberg has a knack for matching Philips. That is because the chips haven’t semiconductor technology to problems functioned reliably and have proved dif- in biology. He started and sold two DNA- ficult to manufacture. sequencing companies, 454 Life Sciences “The vision for this product has been and Ion Torrent Systems, for more than around for many years. It remains to be $500 million. The profits have allowed seen whether someone can make it into him to ply the ocean on a 130-foot yacht Jonathan Rothberg a market-validated reality,” says Richard named Gene Machine and to indulge create 3-D images in real time. Hold the Przybyla, head of circuit design at Chirp high-concept hobbies like sequencing the scanner up to a person’s chest and you Microsystems, a startup in Berkeley, Cali- DNA of mathematical geniuses. would look through “what appears to be fornia, that’s developing ultrasound sys- The imaging system is being devel- a window” into the body, according to the tems that let computers recognize human oped by Butterfly Network, a three-year- documents. gestures. “Perhaps what was needed all old company that is the furthest advanced With the $100 million supplied by along is a large investment and a dedi- of several ventures Rothberg says will be Rothberg and investors, which include cated team.” coming out of 4Combinator, an incubator Stanford University and Germany’s Aeris Rothberg says he got interested in he has created to start and finance com- Capital, Butterfly appears to be placing ultrasound technology because his old- panies that combine medical sensors with the largest bet yet by any company on est daughter, now a college student, has a branch of artificial-intelligence science an emerging technology in which ultra- tuberous sclerosis. Symptoms of the dis-

called deep learning. sound emitters are etched directly onto a ease can include seizures and the develop- ALLEN RICHARD A.

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The cost per megawatt-hour, in the European Union, of solar power according to a recent analysis, compared with $115 for nuclear, $102 for $127 offshore wind, $50 for coal and natural gas, and $10 for hydropower.

ment of dangerous cysts in the kidneys. In detailed you could read the letters and QUOTED 2011 he underwrote an effort in Cincinnati numbers on it. They’d taken the image to test whether high-intensity ultrasound using a prototype chip. “The ultrasound “The notion that—with pulses could destroy the kidney tumors by [industry] is basically back in the 1970s. hundreds of thousands heating them. GE and Siemens are building on old con- of coders around What Rothberg saw led him to concepts,” says Charvat. With chip manufac- clude there was room for improvement. turing and a few new ideas from radar, he the world—no one is The setup—an MRI machine to see says, “we can image faster, with a wider going to give software the tumors and an ultrasound probe to field of view, and go from millimeter to consciousness is not heat them—cost millions of dollars, but micrometer resolution.” credible.” it wasn’t particularly fast. It was more Ultrasound works by shooting out — Martine Rothblatt, chief executive of United like a “laser printer that takes eight days sound and then capturing the echo. It can Therapeutics and author of Virtually Human: The to print and looks like my kids drew it also create beams of focused energy—and Promise—and the Peril—of Digital Immortality in crayon,” he says. “I set out to make a chip-based devices could eventually lead super-low-cost version of this $6 million to new systems for killing tumor cells. machine, to make it 1,000 times cheaper, Small devices might also be used as a way 1,000 times faster, and a hundred times to feed information to the brain (it was “It seems purely more precise.” recently discovered that neurons can be speculative, as if Rothberg claims Butterfly’s technology activated with ultrasonic waves). someone has drawn has a “secret sauce” he won’t reveal. But it Rothberg says his first goal will be to a cartoon and said they may have as much to do with clever device market an imaging system cheap enough to be used even in the poorest corners of are going to fly to Mars The vision for this product the world. He says the system will depend with it.” has been around for many heavily on software, including techniques — Ian Hutchinson, professor of nuclear science developed by artificial-intelligence and engineering at MIT, on Lockheed Martin’s years. It remains to be seen researchers, to comb through banks of claims that it has a promising way to reliably gen- if someone can market it. images and extract key features that will erate electricity from fusion automate diagnoses. and circuit design as with overcoming the “We want it to work like ‘panorama’ on physical limits and manufacturing prob- an iPhone,” he says, referring to a smart- “For some people the lems that CMUT technology has faced phone function that steers a picture taker effect is really profound. so far. One reason to think so is that the to pan across a vista and automatically company’s cofounder, Nevada Sánchez, assembles a composite image. But in addi- Within minutes, they’re previously helped cosmologists design tion to recognizing objects—body parts, in feeling significantly a much cheaper radio telescope with a the case of a fetal exam—and helping the different, in a way that is signal-processing trick called a butterfly user locate them, Rothberg says the sys- as powerful as anything I network—the origin of the startup’s name. tem would reach preliminary diagnostic could imagine short of a Also working with the company is Greg conclusions with the aid of pattern-finding Charvat, who previously worked at MIT’s software. narcotic.” Lincoln Laboratory to develop radar that “When I have thousands of these — Marom Bikson, a professor at City College can see human bodies even through thick images, I think it will become better than a of New York, who has tested a “mood-altering” brain stimulation device developed by a stone walls. human in saying ‘Does this kid have Down company called Thync During a visit to 4Combinator’s syndrome, or a cleft lip?’ And when people headquarters, inside a marina in Guil- are pressed for time, it will be superhu- ford, Connecticut, Charvat and Sánchez man,” says Rothberg. “I will make a tech- showed me a picture of a penny so nician able to do this work.”

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it could use a version of its technology to Will a Breakthrough Solar make a novel kind of solar cell that, some believe, could convert half the energy in Technology See the Light of Day? sunlight into electricity—an efficiency about three times better than conven- A startup that might have a Semprius, a startup based in Durham, tional solar cells offer. record-breaking solar cell is in North Carolina, claims that the next gen- Yet for all the promise of the technol- danger of going out of business. eration of this power unit will make solar ogy, Semprius is in a tough spot. For its power the cheapest option for utilities technology to be cost-effective, it must By Kevin Bullis installing new power plants. With fields scale up the production of its solar cells of over 1,000 of these devices, utilities significantly. Right now it can make he power unit is a rectangular slab would produce electricity at less than enough solar units to produce six mega- about the size of a movie screen. five cents per kilowatt-hour. That is even watts of power per year, but it needs to get TIt’s mounted on a thick steel post cheaper than the output of a new natural- to at least 200 megawatts. The company and equipped with a tracking mechanism gas plant. is raising $40 million in hopes of doing that continuously points it at the sun. The The technology originated in the lab this. Its current investors say they’ll con- slab is made of over 100,000 small lenses of John Rogers, a professor at the Uni- tribute, and for now they’re lending the and an equal number of even smaller solar versity of Illinois. Semprius has raised company money to keep it in business, cells, each as big as the tip of a ballpoint $45 million from investors including Sie- but they won’t do so forever. Semprius pen. And it is part of one of the most effi- mens and has set records for solar-cell needs a new investor soon. Otherwise, it cient solar-power devices ever made. efficiency. This year it demonstrated that could go under.

A new kind of gene sequenc- molecule is drawn through TO MARKET ing instrument has been reach- a tiny pore in a membrane. Gene Reader ing scientific labs over the Changes in electrical current past few months. Whereas are used to read off the chain Mini-ION other commercial sequenc- of genetic letters: A, G, C, and COMPANY: ing machines cost millions, are T. Today’s fastest sequenc- Oxford Nanopore the size of refrigerators, and ers decode DNA after it’s require jugs of pricey chemi- been shredded into tiny bits, PRICE: cals, it is four inches long and just 150 letters at a time. Mini- $1,000 gets its power from a USB port ION should make it easier for AVAILABILITY: on a computer. The device researchers to reassemble a Now measures DNA directly as the genome. DANIEL ZENDER; COURTESY OF OXFORD NANOPORE TECHNOLOGIES NANOPORE OXFORD OF COURTESY ZENDER; DANIEL

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This predicament has become a famil- makes it possible to make arrays of solar mens, “what we saw is a way to get to very iar one for solar startups. Founded in cells that are far smaller and thinner than low costs of electricity.” But 15 months 2005, Semprius took part in a wave of the ones that had been used in concen- after Siemens invested, things fell apart. venture capital investments a couple of trated photovoltaics. For the concentrat- Huge investments in conventional silicon years later that funded hundreds of new ing technology to work, the solar cells solar power, especially in China, had low- solar companies. It’s one of only a few need to be picked up and arranged in an ered costs of production—and flooded the of those companies still standing. Many array so they can be paired with an array market with cheap solar panels. Dozens of the others failed or were acquired for of lenses—and that’s where the rubber of promising solar startups failed and the pennies on the dollar. Investors lost more stamp comes in. It can pick up and trans- projected market for concentrated pho- than $1 billion. The resulting backlash has tovoltaics shrank, convincing Siemens to made it difficult for any solar company, Semprius’s predicament get out of the business. regardless of its merits, to get the invest- has become a familiar Making matters worse for Semprius, ment it needs to prove its technology. conventional silicon solar panels still have “In 2007, venture capitalists were one for solar startups that room to become significantly cheaper and throwing money at solar companies,” need money to scale up. more efficient. New ways of manufactur- says Scott Burroughs, Semprius’s chief ing silicon wafers, the most expensive part technology officer. “All you’d have to have fer thousands of the tiny solar cells at of a solar cell, could cut wafer costs in half is ‘solar’ in your name—or at least start once without breaking them, changing or better. And new designs are edging up with the letter S. Now it’s the exact oppo- the economics. the efficiencies of solar cells. site. Instead of throwing money at com- Small cells require only small amounts But silicon-based solar power is not panies, they’re not even considering one of material, so they can be made of expen- yet there, and that’s the opportunity for if it’s associated with solar.” sive types of semiconductors that are far Semprius. The U.S. Energy Information That raises a disturbing possibility— more efficient than silicon. They also dis- Administration estimates that new solar might a breakthrough technology that sipate heat well and can operate under power plants will produce power at just could make solar power truly competitive very concentrated sunlight. under 15 cents per kilowatt-hour—far never see the light of day? These advantages, and some clever higher than the 6.5 cents per kilowatt-hour Unlike many earlier solar startups that lens designs, allowed Semprius to break for natural-gas power. If Semprius is right gambled on developing entirely new man- a solar-power efficiency record in 2012. that it will soon have technology to make ufacturing equipment, Semprius mostly More recently, it demon- solar panels capable of pro- uses inexpensive, off-the-shelf equip- strated that the rubber ducing electricity at around ment, some of it from the LED industry. stamps could quickly and five cents per kilowatt- At its pilot factory in Henderson, North accurately stack cells made hour, its technology could Carolina, the company’s key technology of different semiconduc- be attractive to those plan- can be found inside two glass-enclosed tors on top of each other. ning new power plants. “No devices, each not much bigger than an Researchers have wanted invention is required—just office copier. At the end of a robot arm is to do this for some time, good, solid engineering,” a rubber stamp embossed with a pattern since it would allow them Burroughs says. that makes Semprius’s high-efficiency, to match semiconductor So Semprius continues low-cost solar power possible. materials to various parts its search for a new inves- The stamp, developed in Rogers’s of the solar spectrum. Some wavelengths tor to scale up its technology, pursuing lab, allows Semprius to improve upon a of light would be absorbed by one mate- leads in China and Mexico, says Bur- type of solar power called concentrated rial, the rest would pass to the semicon- roughs. Meanwhile, the existing investors photovoltaics, which has been around ductors below, and so on. are keeping the company going, but “not for decades. The idea is that you can Siemens acquired its stake in Sem- because we’re into giving charitable gifts,” increase the amount of energy a solar cell prius in 2011. After a detailed examina- says Clinton Bybee, a venture capitalist at gathers by putting lenses over the cell tion of its technology, says Thomas Mart, Arch Venture Partners. “We believe this

DANIEL ZENDER DANIEL to focus light into it. Semprius’s stamp the global head of solar activities at Sie- could be very big.”

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not getting hired, and we are not getting Shanley Kane promoted, and we are being systemati- cally driven out of the industry. Shanley Kane heads one of the most interesting new publications that cover technology: Model View Culture, a quarterly journal and website How often are women not given the that offers a remorseless feminist critique of Silicon Valley. The derisive credit that they deserve for the creation of a company? point of view taken by the publication was honestly won: Kane worked When they are hired into early roles at for five years in operations, technical marketing, and developer relations the company, people from marginalized at several infrastructure companies. Frustrated by the unexamined groups—including women—don’t get the assumptions of her industry and irritated by the incompetence of same amount of stock, and they are not her managers, she began blogging about technology culture and given the titles. And many times they’re management dysfunction, which led her to found Model View Culture. She not brought into the company until later stages of a company’s development, so spoke to MIT Technology Review’s editor in chief, Jason Pontin. they miss out on the opportunity to be part of the founding team. We particularly Silicon Valley imagines itself open to any- Obviously, programmers are important, see underrepresentation of black found- one with talent, but its companies are but a very common dysfunction, particu- ers. And in general, we give too much often more homogeneous in composition larly at technology startups, is privileging credit to individual white male founders than other corporations. Why is that? programmers. When you don’t value other when companies are comprised of many The Valley has bought into the idea of skills, your engineering team becomes people who have [devoted] their lives to itself as a meritocracy: a world of self- very entitled and even abusive of other [making] their organizations work. starting, bootstrapping geniuses so much parts of the company. Really important better and smarter than anyone else in functions, like marketing, sales, business Have you seen signs of improvement at the world that they deserve wildly dis- development, finance, and legal, become all in some of these issues that you write proportionate opportunities for wealth underfunded and underresourced. We about? and power. The problem is that this is often end up with companies with great I’m not one to be optimistic about these the exact opposite of what Silicon Val- technology that are nonetheless dying things, but if pressed I can come up with a ley actually is: a sexist and racist wealth because they could not execute from a few examples. We are getting codes of con- distribution mechanism that relies on nontechnical standpoint. duct at events, and while that seems like a cronyism, corruption, and exclusion to superficial thing, it does reflect awareness function. Why are there relatively few women in that our events are places where people the tech industry? Is it a so-called pipe- are having bad experiences, where there You think technology companies take a line problem, in that not enough women is inequality and sometimes very serious kind of perverse pride in being unprofes- train as programmers and engineers? Or abuse. Another thing I have seen over the sionally managed. is it because women leave the industry? past two years is that there is a lot more The technology industry sees itself as in Obviously the pipeline is a huge issue. But social-media organization and activism, rebellion against corporate America: not too often, our industry focuses on early which is helping to change the way people corrupt, not buttoned-up, not empty. In stages of the pipeline that they have no view tech and its problems. The final thing fact, a tech company can be as corrupt, control over. You see venture capitalists that’s good is that this year the Rainbow soulless, and empty as any corporation, talk about the need to get more 10-year- PUSH Coalition did a ton of work to get but being unprofessional helps us main- old girls into programming, and that’s technology companies to share all their tain the belief that we are somehow dif- so far removed from their direct sphere diversity data, which is forcing a lot of ferent from Wall Street. of influence. Meanwhile, there is attri- these issues into the open. There’s not any tion in every stage of the career path of excuse for pretending that we don’t know. Technologists love to celebrate the women once they get into the industry. hacker and the programmer. What roles Over 50 percent of women will leave by Describe Silicon Valley in one word. are undervalued by the industry? the halfway point in their careers. We are Maybe I’ll go with “corrupt.”

JF15_qa.indd 26 12/9/14 2:17 PM Open Innovations Forum 2014 3,968 Forum participants, including: 2,921 participants from 64 regions of the Rus- sian Federation and 1,047 participants from 71 Messages from Forum Keynote Speakers foreign countries Arkady Dvorkovich, Deputy Prime Minister of 738 representatives of startup teams the Russian Federation: «Countries can only ensure their competitiveness 40 embassies through brisk technological advancement. «Open Innovations» not only has shown what had Russia Over 100 Russian and foreign universities achieved in the sphere of innovations recently, and research institutes but has also become a unique platform for face-to-face communication between experts, 9 universities from the top of the Times Higher entrepreneurs and representatives of development Education World University Rankings 2014-2015 institutes from different states». 476 experts in innovation from 29 countries Zhores Alferov, RAS Academician, Nobel laureate in physics 2000:

30 investment funds «Growth of civilization is defined by science. Scientific research lays foundation for new 22 companies listed in Fortune Global 500 technology. New technological boom should be primarily expected at the confluence of biology, 35 companies listed in Forbes’ Global 2000 physics and chemistry». Leading Companies 2014 223 events of the business program of the Fo- rum and Expo Joe Liu, Vice President, Research & Development International & Asia Pacific, 3M: 497 one-on-one meetings on the venue of the Forum «If we do not move forward, we move backward. If we do not implement innovations, if the process of creative disruption and constant reshaping does not happen inside the company, if the company Open Innovations Expo 2014 does not create anything inside itself – then we begin to fall behind». 13000 м2 exhibition area

16 770 visitors Wan Gang, Minister of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China: 490 companies from 17 countries «Cooperation between Russia and China have 18 collective expositions of Russian regions expanded and improved by many different forms. This enables us to make even bigger contribution 240 м2 collective exposition of the People’s to the scientific-technological development of Republic of China (partner country of the Forum our countries and creates even more favorable and Expo) environment for their innovative development».

More than 3000 students of Moscow colleges Bertrand Piccard and universities Chairman and Pilot of Solar Impulse: Over 2000 students from 85 schools of Moscow «I don’t think that electric bulb was invented by and Moscow region chandlers. Narrow specialization often hinders creation. Innovations should be born outside systems. 13 collective expositions of Russian institutes for Working at the confluence of different technologies development and professional associations inspires creativity and refusal to old approaches and convictions. Building horizontal communications is 88 events of the Exhibition’s business program needed in order to achieve the result».

We will be glad to see you in Moscow in October 2015! Follow updates on the website www.forinnovations.org

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The way the Land of the Rising Sun built and lost its By Peter Fairley dominance in photovoltaics shows just how vulnerable renewables remain to changing politics and national policies. Can Japan Recapture Its Solar Power?

It’s 38 °C on the Atsumi Peninsula southwest of Tokyo: a the earthquake and nuclear disaster at Tokyo Electric Power deadly heat wave has been gripping much of Japan late this Company’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on March summer. Inside the offices of a newly built power plant oper- 11, 2011, as “Three-Eleven.” Radioactive contamination forced ated by the plastics company Mitsui Chemicals, the AC is more than 100,000 people to evacuate and terrified millions blasting. Outside, 215,000 solar panels are converting the blis- more. It also sent a shock wave through Japan’s already fragile tering sunlight into 50 megawatts of electricity for the local manufacturing sector, which is the country’s second-largest grid. Three 118-meter-high wind turbines erected at the site employer and accounts for 18 percent of its economy. add six megawatts of generation capacity to back up the solar Eleven of Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors shut down on the panels during the winter. day of the earthquake. One year later every reactor in Japan Mitsui’s plant is just one of thousands of renewable-power was out of service; each had to be upgraded to meet height- installations under way as Japan confronts its third summer ened safety standards and then get in a queue for inspections. in a row without use of the nuclear reactors that had delivered During my visit this summer, Japan was still without nuclear

almost 30 percent of its electricity. In Japan people refer to power, and only aggressive energy conservation kept the lights KIUCHI TATSURO

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Sanyo Electric’s so-called Solar Ark, built in 2001 during the heyday of the country’s initial solar boom, was designed to generate 630 kilowatts of power, making it one of the world’s largest solar facilities. It boasts 5,046 solar panels.

on. Meanwhile, the country was using so much more imported turbines. By moving fast, Mitsui and its six partners qualified fossil fuel that electricity prices were up by about 20 percent for 2012 feed-in tariffs that promised industrial-scale solar for homes and 30 percent for businesses, according to Japan’s facilities 40 yen (35 cents) per kilowatt-hour generated for Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI). 20 years. At that price, says Shin Fukuda, the former nuclear The post-Fukushima energy crisis, however, has fueled engineer who runs Mitsui’s energy and environment business, hopes for the country’s renewable-power industry, particu- the consortium should earn back its investment in 10 years larly its solar businesses. As one of his last moves before leav- and collect substantial profits from the renewable facility for at ing office in the summer of 2011, Prime Minister Naoto Kan least another decade. established potentially lucrative feed-in tariffs to stimulate Overnight, Japan has become the world’s hottest solar the installation of solar, wind, and other forms of renewable market: in less than two years after Fukushima melted down, energy. Feed-in tariffs set a premium rate at which utilities the country more than doubled its solar generating capacity. must purchase power generated from such sources. According to METI, developers installed nearly 10 gigawatts of The government incentive is what motivated Mitsui to renewable generating capacity through the end of April 2014, finally make use of land originally purchased for an automo- including 9.6 gigawatts of photovoltaics. (The nuclear reactors tive plastics factory that was never built because carmakers at Fukushima Daiichi had 4.7 gigawatts of capacity; overall, moved manufacturing operations overseas. The site had sat the country has around 290 gigawatts of installed electricity- idle for 21 years before Mitsui assembled a consortium to help generating capacity.) Three-quarters of the new solar capacity

finance a $180 million investment in solar panels and wind was in large-scale installations such as Mitsui’s. POLARIS

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An image from Japanese television captures smoke rising after a hydrogen explosion at Fukushima Daiichi’s unit 3 on March 14, 2011, days after the initial earthquake. Following the Fukushima disaster, all the country’s nuclear reactors were shut down.

Yet this explosion of solar capacity marks a bittersweet tri- utilities exerted their political muscle to favor nuclear power. umph for Japan’s solar-panel manufacturers, which had led And despite resurging consumer demand for solar power and the design of photovoltaics in the 1980s and launched the strong public disdain for nuclear, the same thing could hap- global solar industry in the 1990s. Bitter because most of the pen again. Will a country with few fossil-fuel resources and millions of panels being installed are imports made outside the bleak memories of the Fukushima disaster take advantage of country. Even some Japanese manufacturers, including early its technical expertise to recapture its position as a leading market leader Sharp, have taken to buying panels produced producer of photovoltaics, or will it turn away from renewable abroad and selling them in Japan. energy once more? How Japan—once the world’s most advanced semiconductor producer and a pioneer in using that technology to Riches manufacture photovoltaic cells—gave away its solar industry Longer than three football fields and over 37 meters tall, the is a story of national insecurity, monopoly power, and money- Solar Ark is clearly visible from the Tokkaido Shinkansen driven politics. It is also a tale with important lessons for those as the bullet train crosses central Japan. The structure, cov- who believe that the strength of renewable technologies will ered with photovoltaic panels, looks like a temple of energy provide sufficient incentives for countries to transform their from another era—a time when Japan owned the solar-power energy habits. industry. Sanyo erected the Ark in 2001, arraying on it 5,046 In Japan, for most of the 2000s, impressive advances in solar panels capable of generating 630 kilowatts of pollution-

AP IMAGES AP photovoltaics were ignored because the country’s powerful free electricity.

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The era that gave rise to this feat began with the energy crises of the 1970s, when spiking global petroleum prices pum- A Parallel History meled Japan’s export-driven manufacturing economy. The country harnessed its dominance in the production of elec- SOLAR NUCLEAR tronic semiconductor chips to pursue alternatives for cleaner, safer power in photovoltaics. And unlike other countries, such 1961: Sharp makes a pro- 1966: Japan’s first com- as the United States, it stuck with the resulting solar develop- totype transistor radio that mercial nuclear power ment programs even when oil prices dropped in the 1980s. uses solar cells. reactor, a 160-megawatt unit, begins operating. Between 1985 and 2007, Japanese researchers filed for more 1963: Japan installs a than twice as many patents in solar technologies as rival U.S. 242-watt solar array, the 1971: TEPCO’s first nuclear and European inventors combined. Companies like Sharp, world’s largest, on a light- reactor, a 460-megawatt Sanyo Electric, Panasonic, and Kyocera became the clear lead- house. light-water reactor, begins operations in Fukushima. ers in solar technology. Japanese producers began ramping 1976: Sharp sells the first up sales and solar installations in the 1990s. By 2001 total calculators with solar cells. 1995: TEPCO’s nuclear solar-power output in Japan was 500 times higher than it had power reaches one billion 1980: Sanyo produces the megawatt-hours. been a decade earlier—a decade in which U.S. solar generation first solar cells from thin edged up by a meager 15 percent. films of amorphous silicon. 1997: TEPCO completes Then it all came crashing to a halt a decade ago as the the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa country staked its future on nuclear power. 1991: Kyocera installs plant, with a capacity of Japan’s first grid-con- 8.2 gigawatts. The government’s nuclear plans were ambitious: by the nected solar plant. time Fukushima Daiichi melted down, they would call for 14 2002: The government’s additional reactors by 2030, which would have nearly doubled 1992: Sharp reports record 10-year plan calls for the nuclear generation to account for 50 percent of Japan’s power efficiency of 22 percent addition of nine to 12 new for solar cells suitable for reactors by 2011. supply. Meanwhile, photovoltaic sales in Japan declined dur- mass production. ing the mid-2000s, and by 2007 Japanese producers had 2011: Nuclear power, gen- ceded global market leadership to U.S., Chinese, and European 1994: Japanese producers erated at over 50 reactors, manufacturers. In just a few years, the country had gone from commercialize residential accounts for 30 percent of the country’s electricity. industry leader to has-been. solar modules. What turned Japan away from the sun was a pernicious 1998: Kyocera becomes 2011: In the aftermath of blend of perception, culture, and politics. Nuclear power had the world’s largest pro- the Fukushima accident, an aura of strength, while energy based on intermittent renew- ducer of solar cells. many of the country’s reactors are shut down. able power sources looked weak and unreliable—an impres- 2001: Sanyo builds a sion encouraged by the country’s politically powerful utilities. 630-kilowatt “solar ark.” 2012: The last operating Though Japan has numerous locations that are ideal for wind reactor, the Tomari plant in and solar power, power companies convinced the public that 2004: Government ends Hokkaido, is shut down. rebate for residential roof- Reactors at the Oi plant energy choices were limited. “We are really severely of the top solar panels. restart two months later. mind-set that we lack resources and that Japan has to depend on imported fuel,” says Mika Ohbayashi, director of the Tokyo- 2012: Feed-in tariff pro- 2013: Oi plant shuts down for maintenance, leav- based Japan Renewable Energy Foundation. vides incentives for renewable power. ing Japan without nuclear The utilities’ view was colored by self-interest. Japan’s 10 power. utilities were (and remain) vertical monopolies. Each controls 2013: Kyocera starts up a power generation, transmission, and distribution in its respec- 70-megawatt solar plant, 2014: Officials approve restart of the Sendai tive region, and its grids are designed to deliver electricity the largest in Japan. nuclear power plant, the from centralized power plants—including large nuclear reac- 2014: Panasonic reports first since more stringent tors. They lack, by design, the interconnections that facilitate a silicon solar cell with post-Fukushima safety the safe use of variable power generation. In most industrial- record-breaking efficiency. regulations. ized countries, governments have broken up the monopolies in power markets, freeing operators of transmission grids to

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build those interconnections, but Japan’s utilities have bucked near the kitchen, can run the family’s AC/heat pumps, first- the deregulation trend. The interconnection problem is further floor lighting, and refrigerator for about two days. compounded by an artifact: two AC frequencies that split the Panasonic’s solar hopes rest on a technology invented country’s electrical system in half. Eastern Japan operates at by researchers at Sanyo in the 1990s and acquired by Pana- 50 hertz, while western Japan uses 60-hertz power—a barrier sonic four years ago when the corporations merged. The solar cells combine conventional crystalline-silicon and thin-film amorphous-silicon technologies to achieve relatively high efficiency in converting sunlight to electricity. Called HIT, for het- What turned Japan erojunction with intrinsic thin layer, the hybrid technology has become a mainstay of the company’s solar strategy. away from the sun Shingo Okamoto, a materials scientist who spent his career at Sanyo Electric before becoming director of solar R&D for was a pernicious blend Panasonic’s EcoSolutions business group, says the panels are earning premium pricing in domestic sales because they proof perception, culture, duce far more electricity from a given rooftop than the cheaper polycrystalline panels that dominate the market. Assuming and politics. that each household consumes electricity at the Japanese average of 1,400 kilowatt-hours per year during daylight hours, he says, a household with the Panasonic system will have 52 that proved crippling in 2011, in the immediate aftermath of percent more surplus power to return to the grid than a home the Fukushima disaster, when a suddenly underpowered Tokyo with an ordinary solar system. could access little of Osaka’s surplus power. Residential power in Japan is pricey—at 24.33 yen (20 Asked why Japan chose not to push solar power aggres- cents) per kilowatt-hour in 2013, it was nearly double the U.S. sively when it dominated the global industry, former prime average. And given that electricity prices are “sure to keep minister Kan told me he puts the blame squarely on the coun- going up,” says Okamoto, the most efficient rooftop photo- try’s utilities: “The reason is very clear. The electric power voltaic systems will have a strong advantage. When we met companies, the people who wanted to promote nuclear power, in July at Panasonic’s Shiga plant, east of Kyoto, the plant were opposed.” had just started shipping its newest and most powerful panel design. The advances behind the panel, which uses cells with Revival an efficiency of 22.5 percent, include a light-scattering film on In a subdivision spreading over reclaimed land in the bay in the backside to enhance light absorption. Assembly lines were Ashiya, a city between Osaka and Kobe, a 400-unit residential running 24 hours a day to keep up with domestic demand. development called Smart City Shio-Ashiya (“Salty-Ashiya”) is Further advances are in the pipeline. In April, Okamoto’s taking shape, the brainchild of the Panasonic subsidiary group produced a silicon solar cell that reached 25.6 percent PanaHome. On a Sunday in July, solar panels atop each of the efficiency, breaking a 15-year-old world record of 25.0 percent. 50 houses built to date are pumping surplus power into the Though the record was set in the lab using a prototype device, local grid, and PanaHome salespeople are selling a couple with Okamoto predicts that the group will ultimately be able to pro- toddlers on the homes’ energy benefits and earthquake resistance. duce commercial cells whose efficiency is within a few percent- Shio-Ashiya’s two-story homes include geothermal heat- age points of crystalline silicon’s theoretical limit, 29 percent. ing and cooling and other green design features to minimize power consumption, while the high-efficiency rooftop solar Repowering panels maximize power generation. The surplus power should, Across the coastal mountains from the smashed reactors at according to PanaHome saleswoman Saho Watanabe, earn Fukushima Daiichi and the contaminated landscape they cre- residents roughly 100,000 yen ($825) each year. Watanabe ated, one of the world’s most advanced facilities dedicated to touts another feature, which should be invaluable when the renewable-energy R&D is gearing up. The $100 million com- grid goes down—say, in an earthquake or typhoon. She opens a plex opened in April in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture’s cupboard in the dining room of a model home to reveal a lith- commercial center, and pulls together previously disparate ium battery that, working with an energy management system research by Japan’s science and technology agencies. The insti-

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tute is not here by accident. It’s an explicit commitment to the Projections by the Japan Photovoltaic Energy Association, emotionally and economically devastated region. a Tokyo-based trade group, suggest that annual solar installa- The verdant prefecture north of Tokyo remains depopulated tions will peak this year just shy of seven gigawatts. The group after the earthquake, tsunami, and meltdowns of March 2011. predicts that total installed solar capacity in Japan will reach Many of the more than 100,000 residents rendered homeless 102 gigawatts by 2030, which would be enough to meet only by the disasters will never return. Replacing lost residents and a small fraction of the country’s electricity needs. Moderate businesses in an area known for radioactive contamination is deployment of wind power would provide some additional not easy. Solar-powered radioactivity monitors in Koriyama electricity. But Japan needs far more. While Japanese consum- show that the air is safe, but 100 kilometers to the east, Tokyo ers and industry have cut power demand since 2011, utilities Electric Power Company (TEPCO) still struggles to keep con- covered most of the nuclear shortfall by ramping up combus- tamination from polluting both groundwater and the sea. tion of imported natural gas, petroleum, and coal. Fossil fuels The Koriyama R&D facility boasts state-of-the-art labs accounted for some 89 percent of Japan’s electricity generation for crystallizing, slicing, and patterning silicon wafers, and its in 2012. As a result, its total greenhouse-gas emissions were 7 production line can churn out up to 360 wafers an hour. Out- percent higher that year than in 2010. side, a variety of photovoltaics are being tested, along with a The prospects for renewable power could get worse. To modest-sized wind turbine and a large grid-connected battery. hedge against the possibility that they may be unable to Its most ambitious program is directed by Makoto Konagai, restart nuclear reactors, utilities are building a new genera- one of Japan’s most celebrated solar scientists, who has moved tion of coal-fired power stations. By Ohbayashi’s count, some to Koriyama from the Tokyo Institute of Technology. His goal 13 gigawatts of new coal-fired power generation are now in is to smash through the theoretical efficiency limit of silicon development. cells, demonstrating rates of 30 percent by 2016 and up to 40 Meanwhile, the relatively high cost of Japan’s solar power percent by 2021. It is an ambitious plan, but three large manu- threatens to incite a backlash against renewable energy, facturers, including Panasonic, have signed on. encouraged by the pro-nuclear utilities. “There is no doubt While some other researchers seek more efficient alterna- that with the current photovoltaics, power generation is expen- tives to silicon, which accounts for 90 percent of current solar sive,” says Okamoto, expressing his personal viewpoint rather production, Konagai seeks to redesign the silicon cell from top than Panasonic’s. He fears negative reactions from ratepayers, to bottom. One of his teams, for example, is developing a cast- whose rising power bills pay the tariffs that fund photovoltaic ing method to produce higher-quality silicon ingots. Another systems on rooftops and at power plants like Mitsui Chemi- team is rethinking the way semiconductor structures are pat- cals’: “If we continue to expand our business with the current terned to turn silicon wafers into cells: Konagai’s plan is to level of costs, we may have objections.” etch or build vertical structures just a few nanometers across, What’s more, the old politics that favor nuclear power seem almost 100,000 times narrower than the silicon wafer itself. If to be returning. Though opinion polls consistently show that his simulations are good, the resulting nanowires or nanowalls a majority of Japanese oppose restarting the utilities’ idled will alter the electrical behavior of the silicon within, boosting reactors, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vows to restart those its potential to absorb light and gather electrical charge. deemed safe by Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority. In July In June 2011, Fukushima’s previously pro-nuclear gover- the agency issued the first such certification, to a pair of reac- nor, Yuhei Sato, declared that Fukushima should pin its future tors on the southern island of Kyushu—even though offsite on renewable energy. Community activists initiated dozens emergency control centers mandated after Fukushima have of projects across the prefecture, and in 2012 it set a goal of yet to be completed and the reactors are dangerously close increasing renewable energy from 22 percent to 100 percent of to an active volcano. Iodine pills were quickly distributed to its power supply by 2040. the reactors’ neighbors, and the precedent-setting restart is The cold reality of Japan’s energy predicament, however, expected soon, after getting the green light from the local gov- is that such bold ambitions are likely to fall short. The type of ernor and the plant’s host city, Satsumasendai, whose economy solar expansion that can be expected from feed-in tariffs alone is crippled without the jobs, tax dollars, and business that the isn’t likely to meet the prefecture’s goals—or even to replace plant provides. the power that Japan’s nuclear fleet once delivered. And politi- At the same time, utilities are delaying grid connections to cal and economic forces don’t seem to favor policies that would renewable developments or imposing grid-upgrade fees that expand renewables more dramatically. render renewable projects infeasible. The pushback is hitting

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Workers watched in October as a crane lifted a section of a radiation shroud that had been placed over a reactor at Fukushima after the earthquake. Lifting the cover exposed the debris inside the destroyed building for the first time since 2011.

wind power hardest. Japan’s meager market for wind turbines optimized to deliver the cheapest and cleanest power available has actually slowed since Fukushima. in real time. This summer METI launched a committee to manage Reëngineering the grid to accommodate massive flows of the implementation of new energy policies. One topic: recent renewables such as wind and solar is a potentially expensive efforts by utilities and the government to restrain further solar route for Japan. However, it’s not necessarily more costly than installations. Ohbayashi says METI is backpedaling because it the path back to nuclear that the current government and the misjudged the commercial potential of renewables and their utilities are charting. Factoring in the cost of insurance against potential impact on the utilities. Says Ohbayashi, “They didn’t accidents and upgrades to prevent them could double the cost foresee the explosive growth of photovoltaics.” of nuclear energy. The Japanese government has plans to radically over- As former prime minister Naoto Kan told me, the disas- haul the country’s balkanized wholesale market and power ter at Fukushima Daiichi has forever altered the economics of grid, preparing for a future in which producers compete for nuclear power. “In the past, nuclear power was said to be able the right to deliver power. In that scenario, renewable energy to supply power at a very cheap cost, but we know now that is could thrive. not correct,” he said. “That calculation assumed that no acci- The most critical step, however, is still years away: forc- dents could occur. Now we know they can.” ing the vertically integrated utilities to “unbundle” their power generation and transmission businesses. Unbundling is essen- Peter Fairley is a contributing editor for MIT Technology

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN; GETTY IMAGES SHIMBUN; ASAHI THE tial to create a level playing field for producers and a system Review.

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For years scientists have struggled to find the causes of By Stephen S. Hall autism by looking for genes shared by families prone to the disorder. Now researchers taking a new approach have begun to unlock its secrets. Solving the Autism Puzzle

His name was David. He was 10 years old and, to put it bluntly, compellingly weird—especially in the buttoned-down, groomed normality of suburban Long Island in the early 1960s. At the time, Michael Wigler was a ninth-grade student in Garden City, and he liked to hang out at the home of his girlfriend. That’s where he encountered David, her younger brother. Half a century later, he still can’t get the boy out of his mind. “He was just like from another planet—it was like meeting an alien,” says Wigler, who ended up a little further east on Long Island as a geneticist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. “He was so different from anybody I had ever met before. First of all, he threw his arms about a lot. And then he moved his head around a lot and would never look at you when he talked to you. And he had an uncanny knowledge of baseball statistics. And I just thought, you know, ‘Boy, this guy is really different. I mean, he’s not just a little different. He’s very different.’” In the 1950s and 1960s, children like David were pretty much anomalies without a name. Long after becoming a prominent cancer researcher, Wigler would mention him to colleagues, students, postdocs, writers, almost anyone. As one of those postdocs later recalled, “At the time, autism existed; they just didn’t call it autism, so Mike didn’t know this kid had that particular disorder.” Nonetheless, Wigler had become fascinated by the biological mystery that might explain such aberrant behavior. “I think it’s probably what got me interested in genetics,” he says. Wigler, now 67, indeed devoted his career to genetics, establishing a reputation as one of the most original and productive thinkers in cancer research. So it was a bit of a surprise when, about 10 years ago, he jumped into autism research. Even more surprising has been what he and a few other mav- erick geneticists began to find. One of the things Wigler had seen in cancer is that the disease usually arises because of spontaneous mutations. Rather

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Noah Erenberg, Little Boy, 2008

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Top: Nicole Appel, Vintage Tools, 2013; bottom: David Barth, Vogels (Birds), 2008 ARTS PURE VISION OF COURTESY APPEL GALLERY; LUCK GOOD THE OF COURTESY ERENBERG

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than lurking in the population for generations and passing Publishing Errors from ancestors to descendants, as in classic Mendelian ill- It shouldn’t be surprising that the genetics of autism make for nesses like Huntington’s disease, these noninherited mutations an extremely difficult puzzle. After all, autism disorders cover a popped up in one generation. They were fresh new changes in spectrum characterized by everything from atypical yet highly the DNA—de novo mutations, in the jargon of geneticists. As a functional behavior to severe intellectual disability—a jumble cancer researcher, Wigler developed new techniques for iden- of excitation and withdrawal, stunning intellectual capacity tifying them, and that led to another surprise. Some of these and severe mental disability, kinetic explosions of movement new mutations were often stunningly complex—not just little and repetitive actions, and other symptoms seen to varying typos in the DNA, but enormous chunks of duplicated or miss- degrees in different people. And yet much current research is ing text, which often created unstable, mistake-prone regions in chromosomes. All that—the memory of David, his successes in understanding cancer genetics, and the resulting realization that Earlier efforts to find a focus on inheritance might miss some of the most significant disease-causing genes—served as background when, in autism’s genetic causes the spring of 2003, Wigler received a phone call from James Simons, a wealthy hedge fund manager and cofounder (with were a total failure. his wife) of the Simons Foundation, whose daughter had been diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. The foundation had received a grant proposal for a research project, and predicated on the belief that the tiniest aberration at the level Simons asked Wigler if he would be willing to evaluate it. of genes, in the wrong place at the wrong time in development, The researchers had proposed hunting for autism genes can produce the kinds of aberrant behavior that are the hall- using conventional methods to look for inherited mutations mark of autism: social awkwardness and repetitive thinking passed down through families. Wigler didn’t mince his words. and actions. “I thought they were looking the wrong way,” he says now. “And Since the disorder was first described in 1943, by Leo I didn’t want to see all this wasted effort.” Kanner of Johns Hopkins, people have been vexed by its com- Wigler, still fascinated by the boy he’d met some 40 years plex and paradoxical nature. Researchers have put forward a earlier, threw his own hat in the ring. “Autism?” he recalls tell- series of hypotheses that have not survived scientific scrutiny, ing Simons. “Autism? I want to work on autism.” attributing it to everything from emotionally remote mothers Beginning with a paper in Science in 2007 and culminating to ingredients in childhood vaccines. Genetics had always been with a report published in Nature last October, Wigler’s group an obvious route to explore, because it was known that autism and its collaborators have written a dramatically different often runs in families. So researchers have spent years gather- story about the genetic origins of autism spectrum disorders— ing data on affected families and looking for suspicious muta- a story so unexpected and “out of left field,” as Wigler puts it, tions passed down from parent to child. that many other genetic researchers refused to believe it at Geneticists pored over genomes in search of small shared first. Wigler and his colleagues have shown that many cases of errors in the DNA that were seen frequently enough to autism seem to arise from rare de novo mutations—new wrin- explain the disorder. But overall, these attempts were consis- kles in the fabric of DNA that are not inherited in the tradi- tently uninformative; to use Wigler’s characterization, they tional way but arise as last-minute glitches during the process were “worthless.” Though the search turned up a few common in which a parent’s sperm or egg cells form. genetic variants found in people with autism, each of these Importantly, these rare mutations exert big effects on neu- variants has only an insignificant effect. The effort to find rological development and function. Wigler’s methods have the genetic causes of autism by this strategy was “a total fail- allowed researchers to zero in on numerous genes that are ure,” says Gerald Fischbach, scientific director of the Simons damaged in people with autism and begin to classify subtypes Foundation. according to the genes involved. And they have begun to take That was precisely the point that Wigler made to James the next step: using the specific genes as clues, they are work- Simons when the foundation sought his advice. Wigler wanted ing to identify critical pathways that may shed light on how the to take the opposite approach: look for new mutations that

ERENBERG COURTESY OF THE GOOD LUCK GALLERY; APPEL COURTESY OF PURE VISION ARTS PURE VISION OF COURTESY APPEL GALLERY; LUCK GOOD THE OF COURTESY ERENBERG disorder works and suggest possible therapies. were not shared by parents and children. Although extremely

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rare, these mutations were often very disruptive, creating dev- implicate new mutations in cancer, a disease that often results astating effects in a single generation; identifying them would from genetic insults to a person’s DNA over a lifetime. It was be a much more effective way to discern which genes are espe- quite another to suggest that de novo mutations played a cially important in autism. So Wigler urged the Simons Foun- major role in diseases that develop early in life. But scientists dation to find families in which only one child had autism, led by Wigler and a few others, including Evan Eichler at the while the parents and siblings did not. Thanks to their can- University of Washington, had begun to find that the genome cer research, he and his colleagues had already developed the itself was not what previous researchers had envisioned. technology to spot newly arising mutations, and it looked like While the Human Genome Project had presented genomic a more powerful way to identify key autism-related genes, too. DNA as a single thread of letters (the “sequence”), and Wigler’s move into autism came at an important juncture researchers had then catalogued variations consisting primar- in the biology of development disorders. It was one thing to ily of thousands of small differences of a letter or two, “new school” geneticists were finding oddities: huge duplications, gaping holes, and vast tracts of repetitive segments, known collectively as copy number variants. “Let’s suppose you buy Different Perspectives a book,” Wigler says. “We’re used to getting books where the Some individuals with autism and other developmen- cover’s on right, the pages are in order, and they tell a continu- tal disorders are accomplished artists, creating work ous story. But imagine a publisher that duplicated his pages, that illuminates their way of seeing the world. In this dropped some pages, changed the order of the pages. That’s feature, we showcase five. what happens in the human genome. That’s copy number variation.” Noah Erenberg has been exhibiting his work for over This form of mutation turns out to appear with surpris- 20 years. On the site promoting his art, he says, “I ing frequency in the human genetic text. Wigler’s group first paint and draw because it makes me feel wonderful. glimpsed the phenomenon in cancer cells, but his hunch was I like to work outside and look around my neighbor- that similar “publishing” errors might also play a role in dis- hood at the trees, the ocean and the surfers.” He is eases like autism. Sure enough, when the researchers exam- represented by Good Luck Gallery in Los Angeles. ined the genomes of people with autism, they often found weird, large-scale duplications or deletions of DNA—muta- Nicole Appel is an artist in Queens, New York. On the tions not present in the mother or father. The fact that they site of Pure Vision Arts, a gallery that supports artists were not inherited strongly suggested that they were recent with autism and other disabilities, is a selection of her corruptions of the genetic text, almost certainly arising in the detailed pieces that often feature cultural icons and sperm or egg cells of the parents. expressive images of people and animals. As more families participated in the research, and as technologies for identifying mutations improved, this body of work David Barth’s Tumblr.com site says that Asperger’s painted a new picture of the genetics of autism (indeed, the syndrome “causes him to conceive the world in his genetics of neurocognitive disorders more generally), con- own unique way.” Barth, who was born in Rotterdam, firming that de novo mutations and copy number variations Netherlands, in 1998, has won prizes for his drawings account for many cases of the disorder. And these mutations and has had several exhibitions of his work. seem to be especially prevalent in genes that affect neurological development and cognition. Jessica Park is a painter in Williamstown, Massachu- In October, Wigler’s group—with collaborators including setts. A 2008 book called Exploring Nirvana: The Art Eichler at the University of Washington and Matthew State at of Jessica Park documents her life and art. the University of California, San Francisco—identified up to 300 genes potentially related to autism. Twenty-seven of them Jeroen Pomp, who uses colored pencil on paper, has confer a significantly heightened risk when disrupted by these had several exhibitions at the Galerie Atelier Heren- rare new mutations. Each specific de novo mutation is rare plaats in Rotterdam. enough to be found in less than 1 percent of the autism population, but collectively they may account for 50 percent of all

cases of autism, says the Simons Foundation’s Fischbach. ARTS PURE VISION OF COURTESY

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Jessica Park, The Duke University Chapel, 1993

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Jeroen Pomp, Dieren en Planten (Animals and Plants), 2010

Some of these genes are active in the earliest weeks of pre- ate how plastic the genome is, in the sense of how much new natal brain development; others kick into gear after birth. mutation there is. The genome is mutating, evolving con- Some affect the function of synapses, the junctions between stantly, and there’s a steady influx of new mutations in the nerve cells; others affect the way DNA is packaged (and acti- population. Every child born has roughly 60 new changes in vated) within cells. One gene, CHD8, previously linked by their DNA sequence, and [one in] every 50 children born have Eichler’s group to children with a severe form of autism, has at least one large rearrangement. This is a really significant also been linked to schizophrenia and intellectual disability. contributor to developmental disorders.” Subtypes of autism seem to be associated with mutations in Another surprising discovery is that certain regions of certain genes, which may begin to explain such long-standing the human genome seem especially prone to disruption. Not mysteries as why some cases of autism produce severe symp- only do some of these genetic “hot spots” seem to be linked to toms while others cause more modest behavioral tics. many forms of autism, but some of them have a deep and sig- The findings also provide insight into just why autism is nificant evolutionary history. If you trace them back in time, so common. “Let me highlight a critical point, and one of the as Evan Eichler’s laboratory has begun to do, you can begin to biggest insights to come from the genetics of autism,” says glimpse the emergence of precisely the traits that distinguish Jonathan Sebat, a professor at the University of California, San humans from all other animals. “It’s kind of a crazy idea,” Diego, who previously worked in Wigler’s lab and helped to Eichler says, “but it’s like autism is the price we pay for having

reveal this new genetic landscape. “We did not fully appreci- an evolved human species.” HERENPLAATS ATELIER GALERIE OF COURTESY

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Copy number variations in one specific hot spot on the short findings may in turn point to gene-specific interventions some- arm of chromosome 16, for example, have been associated with day. The long-range hope is that as more rare mutations asso- autism. By comparing the DNA of chimpanzees, orangutans, ciated with autism are uncovered, the affected genes will tend a Neanderthal, and a Denisovan (another archaic human) to converge in ways that suggest molecular pathways critical to with the genomes of more than 2,500 contemporary humans, neurological development and function. including many with autism, Xander Nuttle, a member of Researchers are quick to point out that de novo mutations Eichler’s group, has been able to watch this area on the chromo- are only part of the autism story. Scientists continue to hunt some undergo dramatic changes through evolutionary history. for inherited mutations and common variations that may also At a meeting of the American Society of Human Genet- play important roles. But by using de novo mutations to spot- ics last fall, Nuttle reported that this mutation-prone region, light some of the genes involved, Wigler and others have pro- which contains more than two dozen genes related to neuro- vided renewed hope for the field. cognitive function, lies adjacent to an intriguing gene known Indeed, though Wigler concedes that there is “a long way to as BOLA2 that seems to promote instability. Nonhuman pri- go” before genetic findings translate into useful medicines, he mates have at most two copies of the gene; Neanderthals have sees therapeutic possibilities in the very nature of those muta- two; contemporary humans have anywhere from three to 14, tions. “Because the kids that have autism have one bad gene and the multiple copies of the gene appear in virtually every and one good gene, I think there should be ways of getting that sample the researchers have looked at. This suggests that the good gene to be more active, and probably reversing things,” extra copies of the BOLA2 gene, which predispose people to he says. neurodevelopmental disorders like autism, must also confer The genetic findings also suggest that even more dramatic some genetic benefit to the human species. Otherwise, evolu- (and ethically provocative) forms of therapy may be possible tionary pressure would have scrubbed the duplications out of in the more distant future. “For many of the genes that we the genome. In other words, the same duplications that can now think are important for autism, the genes are essentially lead to autism may also create what Eichler calls genetic “nurs- [active] at eight to 16 weeks of development,” says Eichler. “So eries” in which new gene variants arise that enhance cognition you have to not only make a diagnosis early, but some people or some other human trait. argue that you have to intervene early in order to make a big “The evolutionary twist on this whole story,” says Eichler, difference.” And because many of the genes in question are also “is that our genome is really set up to fail, in the sense that related to intelligence, Wigler says, it will be tempting to har- we’re prone to delete and duplicate. The flip side of it is that ness emerging technologies like prenatal genome analysis and that selective disadvantage is offset by the emergence of novel precise new gene-editing tools as part of broader interventions genes that have conferred an advantage to us cognitively.” in cognitive development. “It’s a little dangerous to tap into it,” he adds, “because we’re getting to designer babies and the Gat- Diagnosing Hope taca world. The autism world does bring us face to face with Despite the recent advances in autism genetics, there hasn’t some science fiction stuff.” been much difference at the treatment level. Thomas Insel, As urgently as Wigler wants to understand the puzzle of director of the National Institute of Mental Health, put the autism, even he abides by certain limitations on his curiosity. new findings in perspective in an interview with a reporter Asked if he had ever been tempted to reconnect with David, from the Simons Foundation at the Society for Neuroscience the autistic boy who inspired his original interest in the dis- meeting last November. “This has been an incredible period ease, he practically recoiled. “No,” he said quickly. “That would of discovery,” said Insel, “but families are looking for interven- be intruding.” But he still can’t stop talking about his old girl- tions, not papers.” friend’s brother with something like awe. “It wasn’t like he As genetic researchers identify more genes involved in was trying to be different, you know? He wasn’t,” he said. “If autism, they are beginning to classify autism cases accord- anything, he was probably doing the opposite. But he was just ing to their association with particular mutations. Eichler’s really different. And it was an amazing thing.” team, for example, recently gathered a group of patients with a mutation in the CHD8 gene. And “lo and behold,” Eichler says, Stephen S. Hall, a science writer based in New York, teaches science the individuals shared many symptoms: 73 percent, for exam- communication and journalism at New York University. His last ple, had severe gastrointestinal problems (CHD8, the research- story for MIT Technology Review was “Neuroscience’s New Tool- ers subsequently discovered, is also active in the gut). Such box,” in July/August 2014.

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Severe droughts are forcing researchers to rethink how Desalination out technology can increase the supply of fresh water.

of Desperation By David Talbot

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Even in drought-stricken California, San Diego stands out. It gets less rain than parched Los Angeles or Fresno. The region has less groundwater than many other parts of the state. And more than 80 percent of water for homes and businesses is imported from sources that are increasingly stressed. The Colo- rado River is so overtaxed that it rarely reaches the sea; water originating in the Sacramento River delta, more than 400 miles north, was rationed by state officials this year, cutting off some farmers in California’s Central Valley from their main source of irrigation. San Diego County, hot, dry, and increasingly popu- lous, offers a preview of where much of the world is headed. So too does a recent decision by the county government: it is building the largest seawater desalination plant in the Western Hemi- sphere, at a cost of $1 billion. The massive project, in Carlsbad, teems with nearly 500 workers in yellow hard hats. When it’s done next year, it will take in more than 100 million gallons of Pacific Ocean water daily and produce 54 million gallons of fresh, drinkable water. While this adds up to just 10 percent of the county’s water delivery needs, it will, crucially, be reliable and drought-proof—a hedge against potentially worse times ahead. The county is betting on a combination of modern engineering and decades-old desalination technology. A pipe trench under construction leads to a nearby lagoon inlet; 18 house-size concrete tanks await loads of sand and charcoal to treat the salt water before it is ready for desalination; pressurizers lead to a stainless-steel pipe one meter in diameter. This final piece of gleaming hardware will convey water under high pressure into 2,000 fiberglass tubes, where it will be squeezed through semi- permeable polymer membranes. What gets through will be fresh water, leaving brine behind. The process is called reverse osmosis (RO), and it’s the mainstay of large-scale desalination facilities around the world. As water is forced through the membrane, the polymer allows the water molecules to pass while blocking the salts and other inor- ganic impurities. Global desalination output has tripled since 2000: 16,000 plants are up and running around the world, and the pace of construction is expected to increase while the technology continues to improve. Carlsbad, for example, has been outfitted with state-of-the art commercial membranes and advanced pressure-recovery systems. But the plants remain costly to build and operate. Seawater desalination, in fact, is one of the most expensive sources of fresh water. The water sells—depending on site conditions—for between $1,000 and $2,500 per acre-foot (the amount used by two five-person U.S. households per year). Carlsbad’s product will sell for around $2,000, which is 80 percent more than the county pays for treated water from outside the area. One reason is the huge amount of energy required to push water through the membranes. And Carlsbad, like most desalination plants, is being built with extra pumps, treatment

HARRY CAMPBELL HARRY capacity, and membrane tubes, the better to guarantee uptime.

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“Because it is a critical asset for the region, there is a tremendous But it’s a system under great stress. California’s persistent lack amount of redundancy to give high reliability,” says Jonathan of precipitation means 80 percent of the state is now in “extreme” Loveland, vice president at Poseidon Water, the owner of the or “exceptional” drought, forcing water restrictions in urban areas plant. “If any piece fails, something else will pick up the slack.” and cutoffs to some farmers. The results are plain to see: tracts Already, some 700 million people worldwide suffer from of parched farmland lie newly abandoned; road signs flash warn- water scarcity, but that number is expected to swell to 1.8 billion ings of “extreme drought”; signs plead “Water = Jobs.” Accord- in just 10 years. Some countries, like Israel, already rely heav- ing to a recent study by the University of California, Davis, the ily on desalination; more will follow suit. In many places, “we drought inflicted $1.5 billion in agricultural losses in 2014 alone. are already at the limit of renewable water resources, and yet we The Israeli-born Cohen explains that despite these pressures, continue to grow,” says John Lienhard, a mechanical engineer desalination hasn’t fundamentally changed since the 1980s. The and director of the Center for Clean Water and Clean Energy at time it takes to plan for big projects (Carlsbad took 14 years) MIT. “On top of that we have global warming, with hotter and makes it hard for investors to expect much payoff from new tech- drier conditions in many areas, which will potentially further nologies, and U.S. federal research funding has gone to other pri- reduce the amount of renewable water available.” While conser- orities. Besides, it’s been possible to recycle or conserve water so vation and recycling will help, you can’t recycle what you don’t that expensive desalination has been less necessary. The flip side have. “As coastal cities grow,” he says, “the value of seawater of this, Cohen says, is that desalination is now in a position to be desalination is going to increase rapidly, and it’s likely we will see transformed by the same kinds of sensing, automation, and algo- widespread adoption.” rithm-controlled processes that are remaking other industries. I Against this grim backdrop, there is some good news. In would soon see what he was talking about. short, desalination is ripe for technological improvement. A As the late-October sun set, long shadows cast the crusty combination of sensor-driven optimization and automation, plus ground in high relief. We exited I-5, drove nine miles, and new types of membranes, could eventually allow for desalination turned right on a hard-packed dirt lane between pistachio trees. plants that are half the size and use commensurately less energy. It was dusk, and the beams from headlights disappeared into Among other benefits, small, mobile desalination units could the flat desert nothingness. Yet when I opened the window, I be used in agricultural regions hundreds of miles away from the caught a whiff of something that smelled vaguely like the salty ocean, where demand for water is great and growing. air at the coast. The headlights exposed the culprit: a pipe vom- iting a brew of much-reused agricultural runoff. It had started Smart Water in the Sacramento delta as fresh water. But it got progressively

Every two weeks, Yoram Cohen, a chemical engineer who heads more concentrated by evaporation in the aqueduct system, and the Water Technology Research Center at the University of still more so as it was applied to crops, picked up minerals in the California, Los Angeles, hits the road for the drought-blasted ground, and was applied to crops again. It was now almost as San Joaquin Valley. Part of the state’s vast agricultural midsec- saline as seawater, and contaminated with a range of minerals tion that grows much of the country’s produce, the region has and fertilizers as well. suffered badly. Last year, 2014, was the third straight drought Cohen led me to a nearby trailer inhabited by two graduate year—at a time when demand for water has reached an all-time students and a vast collection of tanks, pipes, valves, tubes, and high. I joined Cohen for a recent outing: a car ride from his labs computers. It was a totally automated system, able to use any of at UCLA to the small valley town of Firebaugh, in one of the the brackish or polluted stuff Firebaugh’s farmers produce and hardest-hit agricultural regions in the state. Along I-5, the high- generate 30,000 drinkable gallons per day. A computer screen way that connects the cities of California’s southern coast with displayed a real-time black-and-white image that looked like its central valley, we saw vast water-engineering edifices built a lunar landscape. It was a shot from a piece of the polyamide in the 1950s, including four vast pipes traversing the Tehachapi membrane at the center of the process. The image revealed a few Mountains and the cement-lined California Aqueduct, which white chunks: the beginning of mineral scaling, a bane of mem- cuts a serpentine path through the valley floor. The state’s water branes. Image analysis software can detect this happening, and system—devoted roughly 80 percent to agriculture and 20 per- an algorithm can direct a valve to open and dispense an anti- cent to cities—is still conveying water pumped all the way from scaling solution into the system—keeping ahead of the problem. the Sacramento River delta through the 444-mile California Other sensors and control systems can drive tweaks to avert other Aqueduct. The water infrastructure made Southern California fouling problems, changing the pressure or the dosage of chemi- DATA ON ENERGY REQUIREMENTS FROM THE UNITED NATIONS WORLD WATER DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2014 REPORT DEVELOPMENT WATER WORLD NATIONS UNITED THE FROM REQUIREMENTS ENERGY ON DATA what it is today. cal additives used for pretreatment. TALBOT; DAVID BY PHOTO CENTER; MITIGATION DROUGHT NATIONAL THE FROM DROUGHT ON DATA

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State of Drought

2011 2012 2013 2014

Drought Severity D0: Abnormally dry D1: Moderate drought D2: Severe drought D3: Extreme drought D4: Exceptional drought

The drought in California has been an important factor prompting a recon- is the worst in 1,200 years. Research by the University of Minnesota and the sideration of the need for seawater desalination. Though the state frequently Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution examined the tree rings from ancient lacks precipitation, a recent estimate suggests that the 2012–2014 drought blue oaks to calculate the historical severity of today’s drought.

Energy required by existing plants to produce safe drinking water from various sources (kilowatt-hours per cubic meter). ) 3 ) 3 0.87 kWh/m 0.87 ) ) 3 ) 3 3 2.5 kWh/m – (0.48 kWh/m (0.48 (0.37 kWh/m (0.37 (2.58–8.5 kWh/m

Still under construction, the desalination plant in Carlsbad, California, will be the largest Wastewater treatment (0.62– treatment Wastewater Seawater Seawater Wastewater reuse (1.0 reuse Wastewater Groundwater Groundwater such facility in the United States. Awaiting installation at the facility are stainless-steel tur- or river Lake DATA ON ENERGY REQUIREMENTS FROM THE UNITED NATIONS WORLD WATER DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2014 REPORT DEVELOPMENT WATER WORLD NATIONS UNITED THE FROM REQUIREMENTS ENERGY ON DATA DATA ON DROUGHT FROM THE NATIONAL DROUGHT MITIGATION CENTER; PHOTO BY DAVID TALBOT; TALBOT; DAVID BY PHOTO CENTER; MITIGATION DROUGHT NATIONAL THE FROM DROUGHT ON DATA bine pumps, wrapped in protective Mylar, that will be used to pump the clean water.

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Cohen reached for a plastic tube and twisted a small tap. at MIT showed that graphene membranes could cut the energy Clear water drooled out; he held his hand out to capture some, used in reverse osmosis by 15 to 46 percent. Even better, the high lifted it to his mouth, drank a bit, and rubbed the rest on his face. permeability could mean that far less surface area is needed to get “If we can figure out a car that does not require a driver, why can’t the job done, so the entire plant could be half the size. we figure out how to run an RO plant without operators?” he said. So far Karnik has fabricated a one-square-centimeter gra- The savings could be significant: automated systems such as phene membrane, punched holes in it, and shown that it can these could probably save between one-third and one-half the selectively hold back certain ions. But he’s not yet shown it can costs of conventional desalination plants, Cohen says. But more actually desalinate seawater, even on a lab bench. And once he or another group achieves that, the next challenge is to reliably make miles of membrane materials with consistent features. Karnik is optimistic that he’ll get there, but he says it will be years It takes a lot of energy before graphene membranes are ready. Existing membrane materials might get better thanks to to push water through other nanoengineering approaches. In a small section of the Fire- baugh trailer, Cohen is running an experiment with a membrane the membranes. of his group’s own devising. A base layer is made of polyamide. But then he adds a layer of tentacle-like brushes made of poly- mers that are hydrophilic, which means they attract water. Early than that, a trailer-sized unit—able to adapt to different sites and research suggests these hybrid membranes may be far better at conditions by the hour—could simply roll around and help farm- resisting fouling, because the brushes—which he likens to kelp ers get fresh water no matter what they start with. swaying on an undersea rock—discourage things from sticking. This could mean less downtime, fewer replacements, and faster Magic Membranes throughput. But Cohen, taking a swig of his ditch water, urges Even if systems get smarter, reverse osmosis is still an energy realism. “People have this fixation that somehow there will be a hog. Carlsbad will consume more than 35 megawatts of electric- magic membrane that will reduce the cost of desalination to next ity (which could power around 30,000 homes), for an annual bill to none, and I think that is a little bit misleading,” he says. of $30 million. About two-thirds of that will go to the water pres- For now in California’s coastal municipalities, seawater is still sure needed to make the technology work. (The other third will the option of last resort, after conservation, recycling, and even go mostly to pumping the water 10 miles uphill to a reservoir, as treating and reusing sewage. While many are weighing desalina- well as to pretreatment and intake pumping.) Carlsbad’s own- tion, the city most likely to follow in San Diego’s footsteps is Santa ers estimate that the plant will consume 2.8 kilowatt-hours per Barbara. That’s because it already built an RO plant in the early cubic meter for desalination alone. Some small reverse-osmosis 1990s after a five-year drought, only to quickly shut it down when systems, using differently configured processes (running water a couple of years of good winter rains refilled reservoirs. The city in batches rather than pumping continuously), are hitting 1.5 to recently moved to start funding an expensive rehabilitation of the 1.7 kilowatt-hours, says Lienhard. But the technology hasn’t been site so that it can be reactivated if needed. Other municipalities proved at larger scales. have decided it’s too expensive or environmentally problematic What’s the problem? It takes a lot of work to push water (the facilities inevitably kill fish eggs and other marine life, unless through the membranes—pressure that translates into high intake pipes are buried beneath sand at great cost). energy usage. Those relatively thick polyamide membranes, But that assessment might get turned on its head. Water though far from ideal, are the best we’ve got right now. But a captured in reservoirs or pumped from faraway deltas is getting few groups are trying to come up with more efficient materi- more expensive—and such alternatives come with their own envi- als. At MIT, mechanical engineer Rohit Karnik’s team is build- ronmental costs. As sources dry up and competition for water ing membranes a single atom thick, to help water molecules just mounts from businesses, farmers, and cities, we will inevitably pop through. The researchers blast graphene with ion beams and turn to seawater and other salty sources. It might not be a great bathe it in chemicals to etch pores less than a nanometer across. solution, but the bottom line is that we are left with fewer and In theory, an essentially two-dimensional membrane like fewer choices in a water-starved world. this one provides the least possible resistance. Computer models by Jeffrey Grossman’s materials science and engineering group David Talbot is chief correspondent for MIT Technology Review.

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Journalists and researchers wade into ugly corners By Adrian Chen of the Internet to expose racists, thugs, and bullies. Have they gone too far? The Troll Hunters

We’ve come up with the menacing term “troll” for someone smart suit jacket, gleaming bald head, and TV-trained bari- who spreads hate and does other horrible things anonymously tone. Aschberg’s research team had linked the man to a on the Internet. Internet trolls are unsettling not just because months-long campaign of harassment against a teenage girl of the things they say but for the mystery they represent: what born with a shrunken hand. After meeting her online, the troll kind of person could be so vile? One afternoon this fall, the tormented her obsessively, leaving insulting comments about Swedish journalist Robert Aschberg sat on a patio outside a her hand on her Instagram page, barraging her with Facebook drab apartment building in a suburb of Stockholm, face to messages, even sending her taunts through the mail. face with an Internet troll, trying to answer this question. The Aschberg had come to the man’s home with a television crew troll turned out to be a quiet, skinny man in his 30s, wearing to confront him, but now he denied everything. “Have you regret- a hoodie and a dirty baseball cap—a sorry foil to Aschberg’s ted what you’ve done?” Aschberg asked, handing the man a page

Martin Fredriksson in a Stockholm underground station in November. Photographs by Anders Lindén.

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of Facebook messages the victim had received from an account ters communities where people can feed on each other’s hate linked to him. The man shook his head. “I haven’t written any- without consequence. They can easily form into mobs and ter- thing,” he said. “I didn’t have a profile then. It was hacked.” rify victims. Individual trolls can hide behind dozens of screen This was the first time Aschberg had encountered an out- names to multiply their effect. And attempts to curb online right denial since he had started exposing Internet trolls on hate must always contend with the long-standing ideals that his television show Trolljägarna (Troll Hunter). Usually he imagine the Internet’s main purpose as offering unfettered just shoots them his signature glare—honed over decades as space for free speech and marginalized ideas. The struggle a muckraking TV journalist and famous for its ability to bore against hate online is so urgent and difficult that the law pro- right through sex creeps, stalkers, and corrupt politicians— fessor Danielle Citron, in her new book Hate Crimes in Cyber- and they spill their guts. But the glare had met its match. After space, calls the Internet “the next battleground for civil rights.” 10 minutes of fruitless back and forth on the patio, Aschberg That Sweden has so much hate to combat is surprising. ended the interview. “Some advice from someone who’s been It’s developed a reputation not only as a bastion of liberal- around for a while,” he said wearily. “Lay low on the Internet ism and feminism but as a sort of digital utopia, where Nordic with this sort of stuff.” The man still shook his head: “But I geeks while away long winter nights sharing movies and music haven’t done any of that.” over impossibly fast broadband connections. Sweden boasts “He’s a pathological liar,” Aschberg grumbled in the car a 95 percent Internet penetration rate, the fourth-highest in afterward. But he wasn’t particularly concerned. The goal the world, according to the International Telecommunication of Troll Hunter is not to rid the Internet of every troll. “The Union. Its thriving tech industry has produced iconic brands agenda is to raise hell about all the hate on the Net,” he says. like Spotify and Minecraft. A political movement born in Swe- “To start a discussion.” Back at the Troll Hunter office, a white- den, the Pirate Party, is based on the idea that the Internet is a board organized Aschberg’s agenda. Dossiers on other trolls force for peace and prosperity. But Sweden’s Internet also has were tacked up in two rows: a pair of teens who anonymously a disturbing underbelly. It burst into view with the so-called slander their high school classmates on Instagram, a politi- “Instagram riot” of 2012, when hundreds of angry teenagers cian who runs a racist website, a male law student who stole descended on a Gothenburg high school, calling for the head the identity of a young woman to entice another man into an of a girl who spread sexual slander about fellow students on online relationship. In a sign of the issue’s resonance in Swe- Instagram. The more banal everyday harassment faced by den, a pithy neologism has been coined to encompass all these women on the Internet was documented in a much-discussed 2013 TV special called Men Who Net Hate Women, a play on the Swedish title of the first book of Stieg Larsson’s block- buster Millennium trilogy. Hate is having a sort of Internet hatred is a problem anywhere a significant part of life is lived online. But the problem is sharpened by Sweden’s renaissance online, even cultural and legal commitment to free expression, according to Mårten Schultz, a law professor at Stockholm University in the countries thought and a regular guest on Troll Hunter, where he discusses the legal issues surrounding each case. Swedes tend to approach to be beyond it. näthat as the unpleasant but unavoidable side effect of having the liberty to say what you wish. Proposed legislation to combat online harassment is met with strong resistance from free forms of online nastiness: näthat (“Net hate”). Troll Hunter, speech and Internet rights activists. which has become a minor hit for its brash tackling of näthat, What’s more, Sweden’s liberal freedom-of-information laws is currently filming its second season. offer easy access to personal information about nearly anyone, It is generally no longer acceptable in public life to hurl including people’s personal identity numbers, their addresses, slurs at women or minorities, to rally around the idea that even their taxable income. That can make online harassment some humans are inherently worth less than others, or to ter- uniquely invasive. “The government publicly disseminates a lot rorize vulnerable people. But old-school hate is having a sort of information you wouldn’t be able to get outside of Scandina- of renaissance online, and in the countries thought to be fur- via,” Schultz says. “We have quite weak protection of privacy in thest beyond it. The anonymity provided by the Internet fos- Sweden.”

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Yet the rich information ecosystem that empowers Internet board, has known Fredriksson for years and jokes that he is a trolls also makes Sweden a perfect stalking ground for those brilliant researcher and an excellent journalist, but “you can’t who want to expose them. In addition to Aschberg, a group have him in furnished rooms.” The extreme sparseness of the of volunteer researchers called Researchgruppen, or Research office bore him out. One of the only decorations was a Spice Group, has pioneered a form of activist journalism based on Girls poster. following the crumbs of data anonymous Internet trolls leave Fredriksson hunched over his computer’s dual screens and behind and unmasking them. In its largest troll hunt, Research logged in to the intranet he had created to coördinate Research Group scraped the comments section of the right-wing online Group’s unmasking of Avpixlat users. Research Group typically works in a decentralized manner, with members pursuing their own projects and collaborating with others when needed. The group currently has 10 members, all volunteers, including a The same information psychology graduate student, a couple of journalism students, a grade school librarian, a writer for an online IT trade pub- ecosystem that aids lication, and a porter in a hospital. The little organizing that occurs typically happens in Internet relay chat rooms and on trolls also makes it easier a wiki. But analyzing the Avpixlat database, which contained three million comments and over 55,000 accounts, required a to expose them. centralized, systematized process. An image on the main page of the intranet pokes fun at the immensity of the task. Two horses have their heads stuck in a haystack. “Find anything?” publication Avpixlat and obtained a huge database of its com- asks one. “Nope,” says the other. ments and user information. Starting with this data, members Research Group was founded during the exhaustive pro- meticulously identified many of Avpixlat’s most prolific com- cess of unmasking a particularly frightening Internet troll. menters and then turned the names over to Expressen, one of That episode began in 2005, when Fredriksson and his close Sweden’s two major tabloids. In December 2013, Expressen friend Mathias Wåg learned that an anonymous person was revealed in a series of front-page stories that dozens of promi- requesting public information about Wåg from the govern- nent Swedes had posted racist, sexist, and otherwise hateful ment. As a return address, the requester used a post office box comments under pseudonyms on Avpixlat, including a number in Stockholm. That kept Fredriksson and Wåg in the dark at of politicians and officials from the ascendant far-right Sweden first. But the next year, they obtained a copy of a prison maga- Democrats. It was one of the biggest scoops of the year. The zine in which a notorious neo-Nazi named Hampus Hellekant, Sweden Democrats, which have their roots in Sweden’s neo- who was in prison for murdering a union organizer, had listed Nazi movement, have long attempted to distance themselves the same post office box. In 2007, after Hellekant was released, from their racist past, adopting a more respectable rhetoric of pseudonymous posts began to appear on Swedish neo-Nazi protecting “Swedish culture.” But here were their members and forums and websites, soliciting information about Wåg and supporters casting doubt on the Holocaust and calling Mus- other leftist activists. lim immigrants “locusts.” A number of politicians and officials For three years, Fredriksson and some like-minded inves- were forced to resign. Expressen released a short documentary tigators tracked Hellekant’s every move, online and off. “He of its reporters acting as troll hunters, knocking on doors and was functioning more or less as the intelligence service for the confronting Avpixlat commenters with their own words. Nazi movement,” Fredriksson says. Their counterintelligence operation involved a mix of traditional journalistic techniques Make the Unknown Known and innovative data analysis. One unlikely breakthrough came Martin Fredriksson is a cofounder of Research Group and its courtesy of Hellekant’s habit of illegally parking his car all de facto leader. He is a lanky 34-year-old with close-cropped over Stockholm. Fredriksson’s team requested parking ticket hair and a quietly intense demeanor, though he is prone to records from the city. They were able to match the car’s loca- outbursts on Twitter that hint at his past as a militant anti tion on certain days with time and GPS metadata on image racism activist. I met Fredriksson at the tiny one-room office filesHellekant posted under a pseudonym. In 2009 they sold of Piscatus, the public records service for journalists that he the story of Hellekant’s post-prison activities to a leftist news- oversees as his day job. Robert Aschberg, the chair of Piscatus’s paper, and Research Group was born.

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Since then, its members have investigated the men’s rights been,” Fredriksson says. He says he eventually came to believe movement, Swedish police tactics, and various right-wing that violence is wrong, and today his weapon of choice is infor- groups. Until the Avpixlat story they had mostly published mation, not his fists. He is more interested in understanding their findings quietly on their website or partnered with small hate than destroying it, although he wouldn’t mind if one led left-wing news organizations. “The official story is that we pick to the other. Research Group challenges the traditional divide subjects about democracy and equality,” says Fredriksson. “But between activism and journalism: it is guided by the values of the real reason is that we just have special interests—we just its members, many of whom come from leftist circles. In the try to focus on stuff that interests us as people.” early 2000s, Fredriksson was heavily involved in Sweden’s free By the time Research Group came together, Fredriksson’s culture movement, which abhorred copyright laws, embraced interest in Nazi hunting and talent for investigative report- piracy, and coded the first version of the legendary Pirate Bay’s ing had landed him a job with Aschberg. Fredriksson had BitTorrent tracker. Whenever Research Group is in the news, scraped data from a mobile payment platform with woe- critics seize on its members’ leftist ties to discredit them as fully inadequate security in order to investigate the donors to agenda-driven propagandists. But their methods are meticu- a neo-Nazi website. He also happened to get the records of lous, and their facts are undeniable. “Our history will always be scores of users who had made payments to Internet porn sites. there,” says Fredriksson. “People will always say, ‘Oh, 10 years Aschberg used the data on his show Insider, Sweden’s answer ago you did that.’ Whereas I live in the now. The only way for to NBC’s Dateline, where he exposed government officials who me to build credibility is to just publish valid stuff again and had bought Internet porn on their official cell phones. Then again, and hope I’m not wrong.” he hired Fredriksson as a researcher on Insider: he functioned However, his idiosyncratic background sometimes leads as the technical brains behind many of Aschberg’s confronta- him from the path of traditional journalistic inquiry into tions. Today Fredriksson does not work for Troll Hunter, and murky ethical territory. “I like to pick up stones and see what’s the show has no formal connection to Research Group. But under them,” he says. “I like to go wherever I want to go and Fredriksson’s legacy is clear in the technical detective work just look at stuff.” that the show often uses to expose its targets. The mass unmasking of Avpixlat commenters in 2013 Fredriksson might accurately be called a “data journalist,” was an accidental consequence of this curiosity. Avpixlat is as his specialty is teasing stories from huge spools of infor- an influential voice in Sweden’s growing right-wing populist mation. But the bland term doesn’t do justice to his guer- movement, which is driven by a xenophobic panic that Mus- rilla methods, which can make the pursuit of information as lim immigrants and Roma are destroying the country. The thrilling as the hunt for a serial killer in a crime novel. When site fixates on spreading stories of rapes and murders com- Fredriksson gets interested in a project, he seizes it obsessively. mitted by immigrants, which it contends are being covered up Aschberg speaks of him in awe, as a potent but alien force. by the liberal establishment. (“Avpixlat” means “de-pixelate,” “He’s very special,” he says. “He’s one of those guys who can sit as in un-censoring an image that’s been digitally obscured.) for 24 hours and drink sodas and just work.” Initially, Fredriksson wanted to study how it functioned as a Fredriksson is a member of a generation of Swedes known source of näthat. Avpixlat, and especially its unruly comments as “Generation 64,” who grew up tinkering with Commodore section, has become notorious as a launching pad for rampag- 64s in the 1980s and went on to revolutionize Sweden’s IT ing online mobs. “They provoke, they incite people to harass industry. His upbringing also coincided with the rise of a politicians and journalists,” says Annika Hamrud, a journal- neo-Nazi movement in the 1990s, when he was a teenage ist who has written extensively about the Swedish right wing. punk rocker. He and his friends constantly clashed with a When the site picked up the story of how a shop owner in a gang of skinheads in his small hometown in southern Swe- small town put up a sign welcoming Syrian refugees to Swe- den. “I was very interested in politics. I came to the conclu- den, she explains, he was bombarded with online abuse. Wåg, sion that if I wanted to do politics I’d have to deal with the Fredriksson’s friend and colleague, calls Avpixlat “the finger Nazi threat in some way,” he says. He joined the controver- that points the mob where to go.” Fredriksson’s idea was to cre- sial leftist group Antifascistisk Aktion (AFA), which openly ate a database of Avpixlat comments in order to investigate endorses the use of violence against neo-Nazis. In 2006 he how its cybermobs mobilized. Avpixlat uses the popular com- was sentenced to community service for beating a man dur- menting platform Disqus, which is also used by mainstream ing a fight between a group of neo-Nazis and antiracists. “He publications in Sweden and around the world. Fredriksson

said it was me. It actually wasn’t, but it just as well could have planned to scrape Disqus comments from Avpixlat and as TV STRIX DRG OF COURTESY 4 AND 3 IMAGES GROUP; RESEARCH OF COURTESY 5 AND 2 IMAGES EXPRESSEN.SE;

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1. 2.

1. The Expressen home page when the paper published the Avpixlat scoop, unmasking prominent Swedes.

2. Members of Research Group.

3. With evidence in hand, Aschberg confronts a troll on his show.

4. A publicity shot for Troll Hunter.

5. A neo-Nazi rally in Linköping, Sweden, in 2005.

4. 5.

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many other Swedish websites as possible. He would then com- “Anonymity online is possible, but it’s frail,” he says. He clicked pare the handles of commenters on mainstream websites with on one Avpixlat user who had used his account to complain a those on Avpixlat. The extent of the overlap would suggest how lot about Muslims. He entered the user’s e-mail address into dominant Avpixlat users were throughout the Web, and how Google and found that the man had listed the address and his responsible they were for the general proliferation of näthat. full name on the roster of his local boating club: “There he is.” Fredriksson hacked together a simple script and began If users’ e-mail addresses didn’t suffice, a researcher would to scrape Avpixlat’s comments using Disqus’s public API (the begin wading through their comments, which sometimes application programming interface, which lets online services numbered in the thousands, to glean clues to their identity. share data). As he built his database, he noticed something odd. Research Group toiled away for 10 months on the Avpixlat Along with each username and its associated comments, he was data, eventually identifying around 6,000 commenters, of capturing a string of encrypted data. He recognized the string whom only a handful were ever publicly named. A few months as the result of a cryptographic function known as an MD5 into the research, Fredriksson approached Expressen, whose hash, which had been applied to every e-mail address that com- investigative reporting on the Swedish far right he admired. menters used to register their accounts. (The e-mail addresses The newspaper bought the story. were included to support a third-party service called Gravatar.) Fredriksson realized he could figure out Avpixlat commenters’ Payback e-mail addresses, even though they were encrypted, by applying Research Group was so focused on analyzing the database the MD5 hash function to a list of known addresses and cross- that it did not seriously consider what the public fallout from referencing the results with the hashes in the Avpixlat data- the revelations might be. When the story came out, it sparked base. He tested this theory on a comment he’d made on Avpixlat with his own Disqus account. He encrypted his e-mail address and searched the Avpixlat database for the resulting hash. He found his comment. “By that time I knew I had stumbled on something which the newspapers would be very interested in,” he says. He kept his scrapers running on Avpixlat and other websites that used Disqus, including American sites like CNN, eventually assembling a database of 30 million comments. But the goal was no longer a general survey of näthat. He wanted to answer an even more fundamental question: who are the real people behind Avpixlat’s hateful comments? “It had been like this great unknown for many years,” Fredriksson says. “It was this huge blank spot on the map that we could just fill out. Make the unknown known.” In order to begin the process of unmasking Avpixlat’s users, Research Group needed a huge list of e-mail addresses to check against the Avpixlat commenter database, especially those of people whose participation in a racist right-wing website would be newsworthy. Sweden’s liberal public-records laws proved invaluable again. Research Group filed public information requests and collected thousands of e-mail addresses of parliament members, judges, and other government officials. For good measure, Fredriksson threw in a list of a few million e-mail addresses he’d found floating around on the Web. All told, Research Group assembled a list of more than 200 million addresses—more than 20 times the population of Sweden—to check against the database of 55,000 Avpixlat accounts. Fredriksson gives lectures about online research, and he has found it’s easier to unmask people than many believe. Fredriksson says people who spread hatred don’t deserve anonymity.

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a firestorm. Angry Internet users, who saw the exposé as an in Sweden. Some even suggested that Expressen had helped assault on freedom of speech, began to distribute addresses the Sweden Democrats by making them seem like victims. of Research Group members as payback, a favored tactic of Fredriksson says he’s simply happy to have helped push their online intimidation known as “doxxing.” A Research Group public persona a little closer to what he believes they stand for in their heart of hearts: the ugly id that’s visible in Avpixlat’s comments sections every day. “I say, well, we just showed that they are racist, and people are apparently liking that,” he says. “I like to pick up stones “So, good for them.” Research Group is currently deep into researching its next and see what’s under project, which is based on a huge database belonging to Flash- back, Sweden’s largest general-interest forum. At a recent them,” Fredriksson says. gathering, Research Group members spent six hours working through a list that Fredriksson provided of 100 e-mail addresses belonging to high-ranking military members, to see member named My Vingren moved from her apartment after whether they had posted anything interesting on the site. They strange men visited one night. The address of Fredriksson’s found only one—a man who had apparently confessed to hir- parents was circulated. Debate about the ethics of the story ing prostitutes, although this was unlikely to rise to the level of raged, and even political opponents of the Sweden Democrats newsworthiness their publishing partner was looking for. voiced reservations. Particularly egregious to some critics was Exposing Flashback users could prove to be even more that while many of Expressen’s targets were politicians, some explosive than outing Avpixlat commenters. Flashback users were private citizens, including businesspeople and a professor. do not talk mainly about their hatred of immigrants (though “I was this close to having a stress reaction,” Fredriksson says. some do) but about their love lives, video games, cooking, poli- Fredriksson stands by Research Group’s work on the data- tics, drug habits—the whole spectrum of human interest. Last base. He does not believe anonymity should be protected if it’s summer, Fredriksson sparked an online outcry when some- used to spread hate. “I think there are legitimate causes for one asked on Twitter if Research Group had the database and anonymity,” he says. “But I think the Internet is a wonderful he replied in the affirmative. When asked why, he brusquely thing—I’ve been part of spreading culture among the masses— responded, “Because we can.” and personally, I get pissed off when the Internet is abused by The tweet was controversial even within Research Group, some people.” Still, he’s ambivalent about Expressen’s expo- and Fredriksson later tried to clarify that the team would be sure of private citizens. Research Group left it up to Expres- mining the database for näthat. But many Flashback users sen to choose what to report. If it had been his choice, he says, probably weren’t mollified. Research Group had “bragged he would only have exposed politicians. “It could have been a about having stuff that would jeopardize vulnerable people’s much stronger story if they had stuck to public figures,” he says. secrets,” says Jack Werner, a journalist who covers online Research Group emerged from the furor slightly shell- culture for the Swedish daily Metro and is a longtime Flash- shocked but proud, with a newfound reputation as a reputable back user. “It was not very ethical but rather quite blunt and journalistic force. A few months later, the Swedish Association childish.” Anna Troberg, the leader of Sweden’s Pirate Party, of Investigative Journalists gave the group and Expressen an denounced Research Group as “glorified vigilantes.” award for the scoop. This past September, Expressen published Fredriksson wouldn’t tell me much about the project, a new series based on the data, exposing more Sweden Demo- except that it would be similar to the Avpixlat story in focus- crats. One had called a black man a chimpanzee, while another ing mainly on official misdeeds. He says Flashback users can had suggested that Muslims were genetically predisposed to rest assured that Research Group is not interested in exposing violence. For these stories, Research Group was nominated for anyone’s medical issues. “If they posted in the sex or drugs or the Stora Journalistpriset, Sweden’s most prestigious journal- health sections, then it’s just not interesting to us,” he says. “If ism prize. they post in other parts of Flashback, where they put up slan- The stories came out a week before Sweden’s general elec- der about other people? It’s interesting to look at that.” tion and had, by all appearances, no effect on the outcome. In fact, the Sweden Democrats won 13 percent of the vote, dou- Adrian Chen is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in bling their previous result to become the third-largest party New York, Wired, and the New York Times.

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BUSINESS REPORT The Big Question Data-Toting Cops

Tianjin: China′s Future City

Smart Cities Will Take Many Forms

Car Technology to Invigorate Cities

Booming Lagos, Smart City

Find additional material for this report Cities Get at technologyreview.com/business Smarter Urban centers will add 2.5 billion residents over the next 35 years. Can technology help them cope?

The Big Question Cities Find Rewards in Cheap Technologies

Mobile apps, sensors, and other technologies help cities handle growing challenges.

● Cities around the globe, whether rich or poor, are in the midst of a technology experiment. Urban planners are pulling data from inexpensive sensors mounted on traffic lights and park benches, and from mobile apps on citizens’ smartphones, to analyze how their cities really operate. They hope the data will reveal how to run their cities better and improve urban life. City leaders and technology experts say that managing the growing challenges of cities well and affordably will be close to impossible without smart technology. Fifty-four percent of humanity lives in urban centers, and almost all of the world’s projected population growth

VIKTOR HACHMANG VIKTOR over the next three decades will

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take place in cities, including many very on the environment and offer high-tech City Hall. Since then the office has rolled poor cities. Because of their density and conveniences such as solar-powered air- out City Worker, which helps municipal often-strained infrastructure, cities have conditioning and pneumatic waste dis- employees track their daily tasks and an outsize impact on the environment, posal systems instead of garbage trucks. report progress to their bosses and to cit- consuming two-thirds of the globe’s Meanwhile, established cities are taking izens. Pilot programs are testing mobile energy and contributing a large share a much more incremental, less ambitious, parking ticket payments, smart parking of its greenhouse-gas emissions. Urban and perhaps more workable approach, meters, pothole reporting, and sensors in water systems are leaky. Pollution levels often benefiting from relatively inexpen- streets that would alert drivers to open are often extreme. sive and flexible digital technologies. parking spaces. But cities also contribute most of the Since its launch in 2010, the Mayor’s City Worker is the reason why, one world’s economic production. Thirty per- Office of New Urban Mechanics in Bos- sunny September afternoon, John cent of the world’s economy and most of ton has focused on small-scale initiatives Schallmo was taking a picture of an empty its innovation are concentrated in just that exploit technology and data, aiming brick sidewalk on his Android phone. 100 cities. Can technology help manage to pull people into a practice it calls “par- Schallmo, a 30-year Boston city employee, rapid population expansion while also ticipatory urbanism.” was in the brownstone-lined South End to nurturing cities’ all-important role as an The office’s first project was Citizens document the cleanup of a pile of crum- economic driver? That’s the big question Connect, a digital hotline that allows peo- pled papers and plastic bags. The mess at the heart of this Business Report. ple to use their smartphones to report had been reported through Citizens Con- Selling answers to that question has trash, graffiti, and service problems to nect, and with the trash cleaned up, the become a big business. IBM, Cisco, Hita- chi, Siemens, and others have taken aim at this market, publicizing successful exam- The Big Get Bigger ples of cities that have used their technol- Mega-cities often lag technologically ogy to tackle the challenges of parking, traffic, transportation, weather, energy TOKYO 86.3% use, water management, and policing. Cit- 2020 Population ies already spend a billion dollars a year DELHI 15.1% on these systems, and that’s expected to grow to $12 billion a year or more in the SHANGHAI 45.8% next 10 years. Tokyo's population 2013 pop To justify this kind of outlay, urban MEXICO CITY 43.5% is expected to decrease technologists will have to move past the SÃO PAULO 51.6% test projects that dominate discussions today. Instead, they’ll have to solve some MUMBAI 15.1% 2013 Pop. w internet of the profound and growing problems of urban living. Cities leaning in that direc- OSAKA 86.3% tion are using various technologies to ease parking, measure traffic, and save water BEIJING 45.8% (see “Sensing Santander”), reduce rates of violent crime (see “Data-Toting Cops”), NEW YORK 84.2% and prepare for ever more severe weather CAIRO 49.6% patterns. There are lessons to be learned, too, DHAKA 6.5% from cities whose grandiose technological ideas have fallen short, like the eco-city KARACHI 10.9% 2013 population initiative of Tianjin, China (see “China’s 2013 population Future City”), which has few residents BUENOS AIRES 59.9% using the Internet, despite great technology and deep gov- by country ernment support. CALCUTTA 15.1% Projected 2030 The streets are similarly largely empty population in the experimental high-tech cities of ISTANBUL 46.3% Songdo, South Korea; Masdar City, Abu 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 Dhabi; and Paredes, Portugal, which are

being designed to have minimal impact POPULATION (IN MILLIONS) AFFAIRS; SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC OF DEPARTMENT NATIONS UNITED SOURCES: UNION TELECOMMUNICATION INTERNATIONAL

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photo evidence would be sent to the per- vard economist Edward Glaeser, author of spread adoption of analytics that predict son who had notified the city, proof that he The Triumph of the City, argues that fol- crime in close to real time, identifying tar- or she had made a difference. The photo lowing a century of technological innova- get areas to within 250,000 square feet. would go, too, into a series of departmen- tions that made distance less important, Bigger data sets, commercially available tal maps tracking crew locations, pothole from the automobile to video games, tech- analytics and forecasting software, and reports, and other problems. nology has more recently begun to boost faster computers are driving the improve- Technology has had its failures in Bos- ment, say the Rand Corporation’s John ton. A text version of Citizens Connect Hollywood and Walt Perry, authors of a was a dud. And registering potholes and 2013 report on the trend. trash may seem relatively mundane, even 66% Critics like the Electronic Frontier Proportion of energy consumed by cities futile, in streets that are marred by bro- Foundation, however, fear that such proj- ken pavement and litter. But Nigel Jacob ects will promote racial profiling, and and Chris Osgood, directors of the Office cities by creating a more “idea-intensive skeptics like Maria Haberfeld, a profes- of New Urban Mechanics, say these small and complicated world.” As social beings, sor of criminal justice at John Jay College, steps build greater trust between the pub- we tackle these challenges especially well think they are as likely to move crime a lic and government, creating a platform in close proximity to one another. Tech- few blocks away as they are to prevent it. to take on bigger challenges in education nology is “moving us toward an economy Some big departments, like the Los and housing. that very much rewards intelligence and Angeles Police Department, simply base In the developing world, where most innovation,” says Glaeser, “and that moves predictions on data about past crime loca- of the urban growth has come in recent us in the direction of urbanization.” tions and time and type of crime, says years, mobile technologies offer a cost- —Nanette Byrnes UCLA anthropologist Jeff Brantingham, effective way of managing environmental who is also cofounder of PredPol, the and civic challenges that figure to worsen company that helped design the LAPD’s (see “Booming Lagos, Smart City”). Technologies software. At the other extreme is Chicago, In India, where the urban population which has gone as far as using data to pre- is predicted to increase from 31 percent dict whether specific potential criminals of the total to 38 percent by 2026, Prime Data-Toting may be involved in violence. Fort Lauder- Minister Narendra Modi plans to invest dale takes a middle path: it uses crime his- $1.2 billion in 100 new and retrofitted Cops tory but factors in details such as events smart cities. But in the western textile that are expected to draw crowds, and city of Surat, population five million, rel- Twenty years after it first surfaced, even the likely impact of weather. atively inexpensive technology is making data-driven police work is getting more The analytics aren’t good enough to the greatest difference. A flood warning pervasive but remains controversial. say a specific store will be hit on Tuesday, system uses temperature, rainfall, wind but they can predict a 70 percent chance speed, and other data captured by new ● Mornings at 7:00, Wade Brabble has of burglaries in one area, or a 40 percent automated weather stations, combined decisions to make. So in the last year, he chance of muggings somewhere else. with information from river gauges, satel- has come to rely upon a computer-gener- The approach seems to work—but lites, and other sources, to create models ated forecast of where crime will happen as with any experiment in a living city, of the nearby Tapti River and Ukai reser- on his day shift as a police lieutenant in it’s hard to be certain why crime is down. voir. It cost less than $500,000 to set up, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Depending on In Fort Lauderdale, crimes like murder, plus some land donated by the city, but the the report, which comes out of a system robbery, larceny, and sexual assault fell 6 system was able to warn citizens two days built in a year-old partnership with IBM, percent in the first eight months of 2014. before floods struck during the 2013 rainy he’ll move his 15 patrol officers around, Assistant police chief Michael Gregory season, giving them time to buy groceries telling some to focus on hot spots while says that in addition to the computer ana- and drive to high ground. A second proj- assigning routine calls to everyone else. “I lytics, the department has implemented ect, connecting health workers around the base a lot of it on numbers,” he says. tactics such as distributing anti-theft kits region to centralized data via the Internet Twenty years after the New York in a burglary-prone neighborhood. and SMS, has helped the health depart- Police Department pioneered the idea In Chicago, violent crime was down ment predict outbreaks of malaria, viral with a program called CompStat, com- 13 percent year over year as of October, hepatitis, dengue fever, and leptospirosis puterized crime analysis is moving to a and the number of murders could be the and take action to prevent their spread. new level. Back then, the innovation was lowest since 1965. Chicago’s “hot people” Technology is not just a tool cities can a map tracking past crimes, which higher- strategy was based on a list of the 400 use to manage their tremendous growth; ups used to hold district commanders Chicagoans, all with arrest records and it’s a big part of what’s driving it, too. Har- accountable. Now the push is for wide- connections to known criminals,

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pumps capable of pumping 42.1 cubic Chicago Crime Scene meters of water per second divert the rain- Technology has helped lower crime water to artificial wetlands. MOTORMOTOR VEHICLEHere, VEHICLE on a THEFT piece THEFT of land about one- Motor vehicle half the size of Manhattan, is one of Chi- theft THEFTTHEFTna’s first attempts at sustainable urban Theft development. It aims to address two of BURGLARYBURGLARYChina’s most pressing challenges: the TOTAL TOTAL Burglary CRIMES CRIMES Aggravated rapid population migration stressing battery AGGRAVATEDAGGRAVATED BATTERY BATTERY 69,217 46,216 the country’s already-large cities, and Robbery its growing pollution and environmen- ROBBERYROBBERYtal problems. The national government Sexual assault CRIMINALCRIMINALhas praised SEXUAL SEXUAL the project ASSAULT(CSA) ASSAULT(CSA) as a success, but Murder only 20,000 people have moved in, a frac- MURDERMURDERtion of the 350,000 the city is designed to 2011 2014 house by 2020. The Eco-City project, a collaboration that a computer model identified as most more decision support built in may be of China and Singapore, is located on the at risk of becoming either a perpetrator or deployed as well, putting more data into eastern border of Tianjin, a manufactur- a victim of violence, though it can’t pre- the hands of officers using mobile devices ing city of nearly 15 million people. Total dict which. and in-car computers in the field. One investment has not been disclosed, but Since 2013, people on the list have thing that won’t change: controversy project officials say that as of 2012, 40 bil- been getting personal visits from local over what kinds of data are relevant, and lion yuan ($6.5 billion) had been invested cops—usually the head of their pre- politically acceptable, to include in crime in fixed assets. Tianjin is one of four cities cinct, according to Commander Jona- forecasting. —Tim Mullaney directly governed by China’s central gov- than Lewin, head of the department’s ernment, and the Eco-City is located in its public-safet y information technology first “comprehensive reform and innova- unit. They’re handed a letter that explains Case Study tion area,” a designation associated with the consequences of breaking the law and favorable investment and trade policies. offers social services. The hot 400 are as If it succeeds, Tianjin Eco-City would much as 500 times more likely than aver- China’s become a model. The country has 171 cit- age to be involved in a crime, Lewin says, ies with populations over one million, and and most of the data used to build the list Future City its total urban population is projected to has to do with the level of connectedness rise to about one billion by 2030. By that to criminals: “It does not—repeat, not— China has put political muscle and time, close to 70 percent of China’s popu- include gender or race.” There have been technology into Tianjin Eco-City. lation will be living in urban areas. China’s some problems, including reports that cities can be difficult places to live. Bei- minor offenders were listed. Soon the list ● Strolling along sidewalks shaded by jing’s smog has become internationally will be weighted by probation history, out- plane trees, one might take Tianjin Eco- famous. Water is an issue too. According standing warrants, and record of narcotics City for just another of the many residen- to China’s Ministry of Environmental Pro- and weapon possession. tial areas sprouting up all over China. But tection, 57 percent of the groundwater in Los Angeles eschews modeling aimed on closer inspection, this place is differ- at identifying specific criminals, and ent. The roadside trash cans are covered Brantingham warns that nothing in pre- with solar photovoltaic panels so they dictive policing generates enough prob- can light up at night; free electric buses $6.5 billion Investment in Eco-City infrastructure able cause for a search warrant or justifies connect different districts; the drainage a stop-and-frisk. In the end, even the best wells for storm water are all embedded systems can’t entirely replace human in the curbs. 198 cities tested in 2012 was rated either judgment.“It takes a little time for people There are less obvious features, too. “bad” or “extremely bad.” to get out of the mind-set that it’s a cure- The pavement is laid with pervious sand The goals set for the Eco-City include all,” Brabble says. bricks for efficient drainage, and the water zero net loss of natural wetlands, a recy- Video and social networks like Twit- supply is designed to minimize leakage. cling rate of at least 60 percent, and a ter are increasingly sources of data for Rainwater and wastewater are collected minimum of 12 square meters of pub-

analysis, and in time, systems with separately, and 18 submersible axial flow lic green space per capita. Six years after JOURNAL QIUSHI DEPARTMENT; POLICE CHICAGO SOURCES:

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ground breaking, planners say they have planet will have a phone, and anybody achieved most of those goals, though Q&A who lives in a city will have a smartphone. Liu Xu, director of the ecological and We’re going to have billions of still rela- environmental monitoring center at the tively poor people walking around with Eco-City’s administrative committee, Smart Cities networked supercomputers in their pock- acknowledges “temporary deviations” ets. There’s been research that’s shown from the standards set for ambient air Will Take that mobile-phone service has a pretty quality, which he attributes to the impact detectable impact on GDP in poor coun- of the surrounding environment. Many Forms tries. Smartphone technology—all the ser- The Eco-City’s small population is vices that can be delivered over it—I think a worrisome sign, however, says Bao Technology can make cities increasingly will have an even more significant impact. Cunkuan, a professor of environmental machine-like or more social and science and engineering at Fudan Univer- creative, says author Anthony What does a city taken over by comput- sity. By building an eco-city from scratch, Townsend. Both models can work. ers—or perhaps smartphones—look like? Bao says, “more often than not, we build A city that’s taken over by computers a city that is disconnected from the reality ● In cities across the world, mayors, designed by a big technology company is and without the human element.” urban planners, citizens, and, increas- going to look like a machine. It’s going to Other than the lunch rush of Eco-City ingly, tech companies are using power- be highly automated, highly centralized, managers, the only crowds on the quiet ful new devices and programs to create and very efficient. It may not be a lot of streets form when parents pick up the smart cities, where transportation sys- fun, it may not be terribly respectful of our 2,300 students at the area’s kindergartens tems, energy grids, and public services desire for privacy, it may not be very resil- and schools. can be monitored and manipulated in real ient. On the other hand, we could design It was the schools, not the environmental programs, that convinced 38-year- old Fan Hongqin to move to the Eco-City a year ago. Her daughter is in second Cities are “basically taking the long-term vision they’ve already grade at a school with an emphasis on developed about what they want their city to be and trying to figure foreign languages. The city encourages out how technology can be in service of that vision.” enrollment by offering free school bus ser- —Anthony Townsend vice, free meals, and monthly subsidies of 1,000 yuan ($163) for apartment-owning parents of kindergartners. “The environ- time. We should be careful about how we cities that have a very decentralized, very ment here is more livable; that’s true,” enable ubiquitous computing to change redundant kind of infrastructure where said Fan, shortly after school pick-up one and control our cities, cautions Anthony the services that we create using sensors September afternoon. But the location is Townsend, a senior research scientist at and displays and all these digital tech- inconvenient. Even to buy clothes, Fan the Rudin Center for Transportation Pol- nologies are trying to achieve objectives says, she must travel into other sections icy and Management at New York Uni- that are more in line with increasing social of Tianjin. The city center is an hour away. versity and author of Smart Cities: Big interaction, increasing sustainable behav- The Eco-City is clearly a big environ- Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a iors, reinforcing the development of cul- mental improvement from what sat on New Utopia. As a researcher, Townsend ture, creativity, and wellness. So there are this land before: a one-square-mile waste- has studied how cities apply technology very different possible outcomes. It’s really water reservoir. Containing mercury and for the past 20 years. He spoke with jour- up to the choices we make. DDT, it had lost all its ecological func- nalist Nate Berg for the Business Report. tions following years of heavy pollution Smart cities are being pushed by big tech- by industry. Restoration cost one billion The world’s urban population is expected nology companies. Your book explores yuan ($163 million). “What used to be to nearly double by 2050, to more than six these efforts but also highlights some barren saline and alkaline wasteland has billion people. What role can technology bottom-up approaches to making our cit- now been transformed into an emerging play in easing this transformation? ies smarter. Which offers a better way of new green city,” says Ho Tong Yen, CEO I think the most interesting role is in managing the modern city? of the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City enabling the livelihood of a large number A very promising development is we’re Investment and Development Company. of those six billion people, particularly in seeing mayors and other civic leaders take “We are not just a lofty plan but an actual, the developing world. Smartphones are on the challenge of figuring out what the emerging city,” he adds. “We are for real.” the technology that I think is the most vision of the smart city should be and —Yiting Sun important. Pretty much everybody on the how to draw on all of the differ-

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ent resources that can provide technical probably wouldn’t work in New York or you’re probably not going to see that in expertise and innovations that will allow São Paulo, where the expectations about Nairobi or Johannesburg or Lagos. And it to happen. This is why I’m so interested what success looks like and what a healthy I think that’s where you’re going to see a now in how cities are making long-term community is are totally di erent. Cities lot more reliance on the kinds of devices technology plans, because they’re basi- aren’t uniform. The thing about digital that consumers are able to provide them- cally taking the long-term vision they’ve technology is it’s incredibly ﬂ exible and selves. We already see this in transpor- already developed about what they want modular. So it’s really exciting to see all tation planning, where great strides are their city to be and trying to ﬁ gure out of the di erent combinations of parts that being made in understanding travel pat- how technology can be in service of that people can throw together to create often terns in some of the poorest cities on earth vision. highly localized services that let people because we’re able to see it in the mobile- experience the city in di erent ways. phone data. Transportation is among Are we expecting unrealistic things from the top barriers to managing a success- the ways technology can a ect our cities? So even if Singapore creates a great smart ful city in the developing world. It’s the I think there are di erent kinds of utopias. city, we shouldn’t necessarily export those thing you have to get right if you’re going The utopia of a perfectly controlled, per- ideas wholesale to other cities. to be able to do anything else, and we’ve fectly e cient, safe smart city may work in That command-and-control model is very just deployed [in mobile phones] the best a place like Singapore, and in fact they’re expensive. Singapore can do it because transportation sensing network in the his- well on their way to building that. But it Singapore is a very wealthy country. But tory of mankind, completely by accident.

SENSING SANTANDER Spain’s “smart” city

One beneﬁ ciary of an ¤8.67 million ($11 million) European Commission project, Santander, a city of 190,000, has created a sophisticated network of nodes, sensors, and network infrastructure to constantly measure air quality, weather, trafﬁ c, and other parameters.

PARKING ENVIRONMENT LIGHTING TRAFFIC SOUND IRRIGATION To reduce driver More than 2,000 Sensors embedded Sensors under Sensors are Sensors at four frustration and sensors measure in lampposts the pavement building a sound parks record emissions from noise, light, in parks sense at the city's map to help thousands of idling cars, 400 temperature, and pedestrians and entrances track the city comply observations ferromagnetic the carbon in the reduce lighting trafﬁ c volume and with E.U. noise about the humidity, sensors, buried in air, helping the city when nobody is location, and the regulations. temperature, and public parking lots, obey regulations around. speed of cars. moisture in the track open parking on noise and air soil each day, spots. quality. enabling the city to

conserve water. BERG DEN VAN MICHIEL

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ogy required to network cars wirelessly funded project called the Safety Pilot Emerging Technologies needs to be worked out. And at its R&D Study that collected data from nearly facility in Warren, GM is testing what’s 3,000 vehicles fitted with wireless com- likely to be the first generation of car-to- munications equipment. The results sug- Car-Based car communications. gested that wireless communications Hariharan Krishnan, a GM technical could prevent more than 500,000 acci- Technology fellow, took me for a spin around cam- dents and 1,000 deaths each year on U.S. pus in a luxurious but otherwise normal- roads, and the National Highway Traf- That Could looking Cadillac. As we approached fic Safety Administration announced in an intersection, one of Krishnan’s col- August that it would begin drawing up Invigorate Cities leagues accelerated toward us from the rules to mandate the technology in new left in another car. The second vehicle was vehicles. U.S. carmakers are leading the obscured from view by an inconveniently Some car companies are a step ahead. development of vehicle communications located bush, but a few seconds before In September, GM announced that in technology, and it could be a boon to impact, red lights flashed on the Cadillac’s 2017 it will begin selling the first car in city planners. dashboard, the front seats buzzed a warn- the U.S. equipped with car-to-car coming, and Krishnan hit the brakes. While munication as a safety feature. ● As declines go, Detroit’s has been some high-end cars are already equipped The opportunities for connecting spectacular. So it’s a little strange to dis- with automated braking systems that these vehicles to city infrastructure can be cover—just a short drive north of down- town, past countless deserted office blocks and homes—something that could help The real benefits will come if cities use this data to guide decisions make cities safer, more energy-efficient, about traffic management and long-term planning. and generally more pleasant to live in. In Warren, Michigan, General Motors is testing technology that lets cars transmit and receive useful information wirelessly rely on cameras, radar, or other sensors, found a 45-minute drive west of Detroit, across several hundred meters. GM’s wireless system has a longer range, in the city of Ann Arbor, where research- Well before fully automated vehicles and it can see hazards around corners or ers from the University of Michigan are like Google’s self-driving car hit the roads, behind obstructions. “You can see that I experimenting with transmitters added so-called vehicle-to-vehicle communica- was completely blinded,” Krishnan said as to roadsides and built into infrastructure tions should improve road safety by warn- the other car flew by. “The technology is such as traffic lights. At one point during drivers of an impending collision or uniquely positioned to help in these blind- ing a demo, the display warned the driver alerting them to treacherous road condi- side collisions.” that he was approaching a sharp curve too tions ahead. The technology should also Both cars were equipped with wire- quickly; at another it showed when the complement greater vehicle automation, less transmitters and receivers that relay traffic light ahead was about to change. providing a clearer picture of surround- position, speed, direction of travel, and The real benefits of these systems will ings than onboard sensors alone and let- other information to nearby vehicles 10 come if cities use this data to guide deci- ting automated vehicles coördinate their times per second. The equipment uses sions about traffic management and long- actions. Eventually, connected vehicles a frequency allocated in part for car- term planning. And for many, connecting should also benefit cities, acting as mobile to-car communications by the Federal vehicles and infrastructure will create a sensors within vital transportation arter- Communications Commission, and all vastly more intelligent traffic system. ies and helping prevent accidents, control data is encrypted. A computer stashed But car-to-car communication could congestion, and reduce energy use. in the trunk of our vehicle recognized an prove tricky for cities. The addition of Over time, the information gathered impending collision and automatically such technology to city infrastructure is from connected cars could even reveal sounded the alarm. The setup could help unlikely to be mandated, leaving it up to urban patterns to guide policy makers and in other situations—preventing rear- local governments to decide whether they planners. City planners armed with huge endings, for example, by warning that a can afford the cost. amounts of traffic-flow data could more car ahead has hit the brakes. It might also Alexei Pozdnoukhov, director of the easily identify problem intersections, for warn of ice on the road ahead, based on Smart Cities Research Center at the Uni- instance, or pinpoint the ideal spot for a other vehicles’ braking information. versity of California, Berkeley, says that in new bus stop. Earlier this year the University of the end, it might be more cost-effective for Before cities can realize the benefits of Michigan’s Transportation Research Insti- cities to try to use smartphones to track connected vehicles, however, the technol- tute concluded a two-year, government- drivers’ movements. —Will Knight

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cies to analyze the city’s transportation The Eko Atlantic project is key to the Case Study systems. Lagos traffi c jams are epic. The city’s regeneration. It is a planned district drive to the airport from Victoria Island, being constructed on land reclaimed from home to the city’s embassies, top hotels, the Atlantic Ocean. Upon completion, the Booming Lagos, and biggest businesses, takes only 45 min- new island will house 250,000 residents utes at night, but someone with an 11 a.m. and a daily fl ow of 100,000 commuters. Smart City fl ight will need to leave before 6 a.m. when Sand reclamation and the building of the traffi c locks. One area of IBM’s focus a seawall, sometimes referred to as the An African mega-city bets on was the expansion of transportation ser- Great Wall of Lagos, are set to be com- technology and its native entrepreneurs vices using the city’s myriad waterways, pleted by 2018. All infrastructure work is to meet the many challenges of its which already carry more than 170,000 to be done by 2020, according to David population boom. commuters a day but could carry many Frame, managing director of South Ener- more if transport systems were optimized gyx Nigeria Limited, the developers and ● For Lagos, Nigeria, Africa’s biggest on the basis of cloud computing, analyt- city planners of Eko Atlantic. city, any push to become a smart city will ics, and mobile data. Analytics technology Lagos has a strong technology startup have to adapt to constant—and often applied to data stored in the cloud could scene that should help the city as it unplanned—growth. predict water traffi c, streamlining traffi c evolves. Its CcHUB, where technologists, Its challenges are epic. The United fl ow. That would then feed into cell-phone social entrepreneurs, and investors gather Nations predicts that Lagos’s popula- updates for commuters about the best to create solutions to Nigeria’s social prob- tion—which the U.N. estimates at 12.6 times to travel and how long their trip is lems, compares well with similar spaces in million today, though other estimates are likely to take. other parts of Africa and in Europe. as high as 22 million—will almost double The project was part of IBM’s Smarter Still, basic challenges remain. Elec- between now and 2030, greatly adding Cities Challenge initiative, a three-year, tricity is not delivered consistently, and for to demands on already strained services. 100-city, $50 million competitive grant. every paying customer, there are countless Can this city, where the poorest live One private-sector initiative is IBM’s work others who illegally piggyback on utilities. in fetid floating slums, absorb another with Virtual Streets, a Nigerian startup, Vandalism and theft of critical network 12 million souls? “Keeping up with the using cognitive computing systems to infrastructure are endemic. Moreover, state’s growing appetite for services and provide location-based services to people while mobile-phone penetration in Lagos resources is a Herculean and continu- in Nigerian cities. Using data from geo- is high, smartphones have been slow to ous process,” acknowledges Lagos state graphic information systems, traffi c cam- take hold. Hitendra Naik, director of governor Babatunde Raji Fashola. “The need to deploy innovative approaches that address civic challenges in Lagos state has Since Hurricane Sandy, computer models have taken never been greater, and technology is the on the tricky task of predicting storms. key to the future.” As Lagos lays out its vision for becom- See how they work, plus dispatches from Barcelona, ing a smarter city, international IT com- Amsterdam, and Jakarta and the rest of our report on panies are vying for its business, betting cities, at technologyreview.com/business. that technology and data will be the keys to its evolution. Mobile phones, extraor- dinarily popular on the African continent, eras, and phones from subscribers, Virtual innovation for Intel Sub- Saharan and are expected to lead the way. Streets gives subscribers real-time traffi c South Africa, says one promising develop- Uyi Stewart, chief scientist of IBM’s data paid for by location-based ads for ment is local initiatives that have helped Africa Research Lab, calls the city “one local businesses. companies lay down new fi ber-optic lines of Africa’s economic and demographic “There is already ample data avail- in return for connecting or subsidizing powerhouses” but argues that it won’t able in Lagos,” says IBM’s Stewart. “Cell rates to local schools. Another popular successfully manage its growth without phones, social media, traffic cameras, initiative uses data capture and analysis IT, including mobile and cloud technol- global positioning systems, banks, and to let people submit applications for a ogy, social media, and business analytics. retail stores are all producing terabytes vehicle license electronically, then walk IBM launched a new innovation center in of big data loaded with potential insight into a bank to print it off —a quicker and Lagos earlier this year, part of a broader about how the city works and how its citi- simpler alternative to chaotic queues at investment in Africa. zens move around within it.” The chal- government offi ces with a waiting time of Last year a six-person IBM team spent lenge is fi guring out how to actually use weeks or even months.

a month working with government agen- all that information. —Monty Munford HACHMANG VIKTOR

JF15_business_print.indd 66 11/21/14 10:47 AM Special opportunitieS at the Summit

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dence that MOOCs can expand access and What Are MOOCs reduce costs in some corners of higher education. Good For? Meanwhile, options for online courses continue to multiply, especially for curi- Online courses may not be changing colleges ous people who aren’t necessarily seek- as their boosters claimed they would, but they ing a credential. For-profit Coursera can prove valuable in surprising ways. and edX, the nonprofit consortium led by Harvard and MIT, are up to nearly By Justin Pope 13 million users and more than 1,200 courses between them. Khan Academy, which began as a series of YouTube videos, is making online instruction a more widely used tool in classrooms around the world. All this activity is beginning to generate interesting data about what MOOCs few years ago, the most there and at other institutions rushing to actually do. In September, MIT physicist enthusiastic advocates incorporate MOOCs began pushing back, David Pritchard and other researchers of MOOCs believed rejecting the notion that online courses published a study of Mechanics ReView, that these “massive could replace the nuanced work of profes- an online course he teaches that is based open online courses” sors in classrooms. The tiny completion on an on-campus course of the same stood poised to over- rates for most MOOCs drew increas- name. The authors found that the MOOC turn the century-old ing attention. Thrun himself was generally effective at com- model of higher education. Their inter- became disillusioned, and he municating difficult material— Aactive technology promised to deliver lowered Udacity’s ambitions “Learning in an Newtonian mechanics—even top-tier teaching from institutions like from educating the masses to Introductory to students who weren’t MIT Physics MOOC: Harvard, Stanford, and MIT, not just to providing corporate training. All Cohorts Learn caliber. In fact, the students a few hundred students in a lecture hall But all the while, a great Equally, Including who started the online course on ivy-draped campuses, but free via the age of experimentation has an On-Campus knowing the least about phys- Internet to thousands or even millions been developing. Although Class” ics showed the same relative around the world. At long last, there some on-campus trials have The International improvement on tests as much Review of Research appeared to be a solution to the problem gone nowhere, others have in Open and stronger students. “They may of “scaling up” higher education: if it were shown modest success (includ- Distance Learning have started with an F and delivered more efficiently, the relentless ing a later iteration at San Jose September 2014 finished with an F,” Pritchard cost increases might finally be rolled State). In 2013, Georgia Tech says, “but they rose with the back. Some wondered whether MOOCs announced a first-of-its-kind Online master’s whole class.” program in would merely transform the existing all-MOOC master’s program computer science Pritchard still questions system or blow it up entirely. Computer in computer science that, at Georgia Tech, the effects MOOCs will have; scientist Sebastian Thrun, cofounder of $6,600, would cost just a frac- Udacity, and AT&T for one thing, he doesn’t see the MOOC provider Udacity, predicted tion as much as its on-campus how they can have a sustain- that in 50 years, 10 institutions would counterpart. About 1,400 students have able business model on their own. But be responsible for delivering higher enrolled. It’s not clear how well such pro- that doesn’t mean MOOCs are merely education. grams can be replicated in other fields, another overhyped technology. Ideas Then came the backlash. A high- or whether the job market will reward about what they offer, and whom they profile experiment to use MOOCs ta San graduates with this particular Georgia might help, are evolving as rapidly as the Jose State University foundered. Faculty Tech degree. But the program offers evi- MOOCs themselves.

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Valuable snippets to a well-taught course. On their own, allowing students to spend as much time One thing worth reconsidering is MOOCs’ MOOCs are hardly more likely than text- on each segment as they need. famously high dropout rates. A widely books to re-create a quality college edu- The paying Harvard students decide cited figure is that 90 percent of stu- cation in all its dimensions. for themselves whether to attend the lec- dents don’t finish their courses; a study tures or just catch them online. “I would at Penn determined that the number was Justifying tuition like to think there’s a nontrivial psycho- 96 percent. When Harvard and MIT announced logical upside to the shared experience,” Pritchard, for one, calls the focus the creation of edX, they said a major he says, but it’s up to them. Instead of on initial registrants misguided. Most goal was to jump-start innovative teach- necessarily having all 800 students attend who sign up for a class aren’t serious ing to their own students. That got little each lecture, “I would rather have 400 students; they’re window shoppers who attention, at least beyond Cambridge, students who want to be there,” he adds. but there are signs it is Besides, “we’re nearing the point where happening. Many of the it’s a superior educational experience, “We’re nearing the point where it’s a technologies central to as far as the lectures are concerned, to superior educational experience, as MOOCs, built around engage with them online.” far as the lectures are concerned, to interactivity and assess- If that’s true, it’s a terrifying but use- engage with them online,” says a Harvard ment, can be useful tools ful prod for traditional universities. At for students on campus, MIT, the edX experiment has been “a professor. If that’s true, traditional says MIT’s director of huge stimulus,” says Pritchard. Across universities will have to show that most digital learning, Sanjay higher education, “it’s making everybody of the other things they offer on campus Sarma. MIT students sit up and answer the following ques- can’t be replaced by technology. can’t get credit for tak- tion: ‘How can I justify charging students ing even MIT-produced $45,000 a year to attend large lectures MOOCs, but they still when they can find better exemplars on face no cost barrier to trying a lecture use MOOC tools in their courses. Two- the Internet?’” or two. Half of the people in the Penn thirds have taken a traditional course that In Malan’s course at Harvard (where study dropped out before the first class. uses the edX software platform. tuition, fees, room, and board actually Of 17,000 who signed up for Pritchard’s Down Massachusetts Avenue, Har- run $58,607 this year), part of the answer MOOC, only about 10 percent made it as vard computer scientist David Malan is that even if the academic standard is far as the second assignment. But more says his campus has also seen “a marked identical, the full experience is not. The than half of those earned a certificate of uptick” in conversations about reinvent- Harvard students get course sections completion. ing teaching. Malan’s Introduction to and recitations with just a few students, For some people, especially adults Computer Science course captures many a 90-minute weekly recap of the mate- in search of continuing education, even of these currents. The on-campus ver- rial, and office hours four nights a week dropping out of a MOOC may well be sion is Harvard’s most popular, with (the class essentially takes over a dining a kind of victory—over an old model of around 800 students. The MOOC ver- hall). The on-campus course is almost credit-hours and semester-long courses sion has about 350,000 registrants from cinematic in its production scale, with that makes no sense for them. If they want around the world, ranging from preteens a staff of 100. To assist orders of mag- to see whether they’d be interested in a to 80-year-olds. Both versions use sophis- nitude more students in the MOOC, topic, or just want snippets of material, ticated, overlapping learning resources, five staff members wade into discussion why should they pay for, and sit through, from lecture videos to assessments. Their forums, along with student and alumni an entire 12-week syllabus? academic standards are the same. volunteers. For all the hype, MOOCs are really Malan began videotaping lectures in And of course, students not just at just content—the latest iteration of 1999, but he says the tools of the MOOC Harvard but at hundreds of other uni- the textbook. And just like a book on a bring a new dimension to his teaching. versities get much more than that. They library shelf, they can be useful to a curi- For example, lectures that typically take get a credential that is necessary for ous passerby thumbing through a few an entire class period can be broken up many types of employment, plus access pages—or they can be the centerpiece online into shorter, more focused units, to alumni networks and mentorship.

JF15_review.pope.indd 70 12/9/14 3:27 PM REVIEWS TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM

Wonder and Inspiration Delivered — Since 1942 Wonder and Inspiration Delivered — Since 1942

That’s why MOOCs shouldn’t necessar- seventh,” he says. His new project is an ily threaten colleges: if established insti- Advanced Placement physics course for tutions make judicious use of learning high school students. By narrowing the technology where it demonstrably helps target audience—high school students students, they gain credibility to insist who believe they’re ready to take AP phys- that most of what else they o er on cam- ics are likely to start within a fairly tight pus is a qualitatively different experi- band of knowledge—he thinks he can USB Polygraph Kit #3153478 ...... $399 ence—one that technology can’t replace. teach more e ectively than would be pos- Captures data digitally with free sible in a more diverse MOOC. downloadable software (PC or Mac). Teaching teachers Indeed, for all the focus on the role of Education researchers are still just begin- MOOCs in higher education, they might ning to mine all the data that MOOCs have a significant role to play in high generate about how students respond to schools and below. Teachers are already LCD Digital the material. Researchers like Pritchard a big audience (a study of 11 MOOCs Microscope II can track every step of every student offered by MIT last spring found that #3153164 $199 95. through a MOOC; he says that for him nearly 28 percent of enrollees were for- 3.5” touchscreen with to study his traditional students that mer or active teachers). This is partic- built-in 5 MP camera. way, “they’d have to carry a head-cam ularly promising because teachers pass 24-7.” Eventually, such data should yield what they learn on to their own students: insights about the best ways to present, when they make use of edX and other sequence, and assess particular subjects. resources in their classrooms, they mul- Desktop Spectronomy Kit Kevin Carey, who has researched MOOCs tiply the e ect. As Coursera moves explic- #3153423 as director of education policy at the New itly into teacher training, its classes could $49 95. America Foundation, points out that have as much impact by reaching a few Plug into your PC & use open today’s MOOCs haven’t even begun to hundred teachers as they would with source software and website to make serious use of artifi cial intelligence thousands of other students. collect spectra. to personalize courses according to each MOOCs alone can’t meet the oversized expectations of early boosters like Thrun— For all the focus on the role of MOOCs who themselves echoed Levitation in higher education, they might have a would-be reformers over Lamp signifi cant role to play in high schools the decades who looked #3153253 and below. Nearly 28 percent of enrollees to radio, television, and $149 95. Revolving lamp in one group of online classes were the mail to democratize shade actually learning (see “The Cri- levitates more than current or former teachers. 3cm above its base. sis in Higher Education,” November/ December student’s strengths and weaknesses (a 2012). For better or worse, traditional methods of higher education showed surprise considering that pioneers like iPhone Thrun and Coursera’s Daphne Koller remarkable persistence as those models Monocular came from AI backgrounds). emerged. Yes, this time might be di erent. #3152975 . . .$26 . 95 Yet while MOOCs’ huge enroll- But if MOOCs do prove revolutionary, it Take video or pics through ments are fantastic for running educa- will be because educational institutions this monocluar that connects to your iPhone 4/4s/5. tional experiments, it makes them hard have fi nally fi gured out how to use them. to teach. Pritchard’s MOOC represents a much wider range of abilities than his Justin Pope, a former higher-education on-campus class at MIT. “It’s like we’re reporter for the Associated Press, is chief of 1-800-818-4955 trying to teach from second grade up to sta at Longwood University in Virginia. SCIENTIFICSONLINE.COM

EdSci Tech Review 1113.indd 1 11/25/13 3:27 PM

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Auras: There’s an App for That A variety of new digital filters will make a photograph look vintage. The inauthenticity of the effect is irrelevant: it’s enough to evoke an audience’s sense of the past.

By A. D. Coleman

n 1977, at the International Cen- were printed and artificially aged by the When you make digital images your- ter of Photography in New York, the photographer, who had worked for some self, with your cell phone or tablet or digi- late American photographer William years in the studio of a photo restorer cam, a wide and relentlessly multiplying DeLappa exhibited a series of black- and learned all the tricks of that trade. variety of existing websites and down- Iand-white images entitled “The Portraits The series was a virtuoso display of sub- loadable apps enable you to artificially age of Violet and Al.” Revolving around the versively self-effacing craft; DeLappa’s those pictures—to purposefully “distress” title characters, it appeared to be a collec- mastery of materials and processes was them, as an antiques dealer would say. tion of several dozen photographs made evident in his ability to duplicate convinc- These tools represent a noteworthy shift in by different people from the late 1940s ingly a remarkable range of vernacular our cultural relationship to the credibility through the early ’60s. Most were snap- imagery. of the photographic image. shots, though one looked like an ID pic- At the time, it struck most In his 1936 essay “The Work ture made for some official purpose. people as merely eccentric; “The Portraits of of Art in the Age of Its Mechan- The images described a considerable besides me, few critics took Violet and Al,” by ical Reproducibility,” Walter span of time. Violet and Al met and mar- notice of it. Today it seems William DeLappa Benjamin famously proposed,

ried during his post–World War II mili- unintentionally prophetic. Instagram “That which withers in the tary service; they made friends, visited Yet at the same time it has age of mechanical reproduc- relatives, celebrated Christmas, and aged, lost all its potency as provoca- Hipstamatic tion is the aura of the work of remaining childless. Hairstyles, fashions, tion—because with images cre- art.” For Benjamin, that “aura” modes of interior decorating, automo- ated and transmitted digitally, Vintage Scene combined all aspects of an

bile design, and architecture changed. everyone can easily do what Retro Camera Plus artwork’s physical presence, DeLappa’s gelatin-silver prints seemed to DeLappa achieved so labori- ranging from the singular, add up to a typical, even archetypal, white ously in analog form. AgingBooth unduplicable characteristics of middle-class American family album. No its original crafting through the one would have thought to question the Distressed images Lomography nicks and patinas that evinced authenticity of those pictures because For some years, we’ve had its passage through time and their fidelity to a set of conventional pho- access to applications that can repair dig- its life in the material world. Production tographic cues certified them. ital scans of old analog images showing of machine-made multiples—of artworks, Yet they were all fakes—made over signs of damage, whether from dirt and Benjamin’s main subject, but implicitly of the course of a year in the early ’70s, at creases or overall fading. With these tools everything else, from furniture to kitchen interior and exterior locations selected by you can make your old photos look new. utensils—eliminated the artisanal unique- DeLappa, using props and costumes he At the same time, if you spend time ness of handmade artifacts, he argued. provided and enacted by friends and rela- online looking at selfies, or view cell-phone Meanwhile, the interchangeability of all tives he cast in various roles. The images photos posted on sites like Flickr, Tumblr, instances of the machine-made multiple or Pinterest, or subscribe to many Twitter drained the possibility of resonance from feeds, or visit the blogs of photographers any single one. A variety of Instagram’s filters (opposite) can be added to photos and adjusted to replicate both professional and amateur, you’ll If Benjamin had it right, then your the look of vintage prints like those made by the have noticed that a great many new digi- local antique store wouldn’t charge you Polaroid SX-70, Kodachrome, or a photo booth. tal images look old. hundreds of dollars for a usable but less

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than perfect version of your grandpar- of an old black-and-white Motorola, and not entirely without fondness, the aural ents’ post–World War II formica kitchen you’ve got a TV show that could have run experience of the occasional pop or hiss on table and naugahyde chairs. A mint- right after The Honeymooners. the records in my library. And I listen reg- condition Mickey Mouse lunchbox from As communication technologies obso- ularly to a digital playlist I’ve downloaded 1954 wouldn’t go for anything on eBay. lesce, they become auratic—capable of of obscure jazz records from the 1930s And, hauling out the family album when triggering our sense of the passage of time and ’40s, ripped by some devotee from you visit, your mother wouldn’t unfold as represented by those now outmoded 78s without much subsequent cleaning ever so carefully the yellowed newspa- tools and, even more important, convey- up. Part of the ambience, and the sensory per clipping celebrating your victory in ing the reliquary aspect of the encod- pleasure, comes from those extraneous, the spelling bee, or run her fingers lov- ing media that delivered the content of certainly unintended snaps and crackles. those times. You may I also sometimes listen to the Crash A facsimile of aura, it turned out, could find the actual devices Test Dummies’ song “God Shuffled His function as a flavoring. Given the ever deployed as décor in Feet,” an entirely digital recording that more sophisticated toolkit of simulation, period-themed restau- includes the surface noise of an analog rants, but few people record as one of its sonic elements. They it now takes the expertise of a (aside from dedicated signify in differently nuanced ways, but connoisseur to tell the difference collectors) wax nostal- they trigger the same physical memory of between authentic and artificial aura. gic over the last cen- listening to recorded sound up through tury’s film and slide my early 50s, and if you isolated the sur- ingly across the faded photo of her long- projectors, still cameras, radios, TV sets, face noises I couldn’t tell one aural expe- deceased childhood dog. and hi-fi rigs—compared with the multi- rience from the other. (There are apps for Walter Benjamin was wrong. Aura tudes who recall fondly the experience of this, too, such as Vinyl—the Real Record does not adhere to particular types of sitting in the classic movie theater, or their Player and VinylLove.) objects created in specific ways. Rather, living rooms or bedrooms or basement rec For some time to come there will still humans attribute aura to anything that rooms, watching or listening to whatever be collectors of old shellac and vinyl, and has emotional resonance: a patiently content they cherished as filtered through audiophiles who succumb to the lure of hand-carved medieval altarpiece, to be those delivery systems. those formats will continue to subsidize sure, but also the desiccated wonton I Almost immediately, Hollywood (and the production of new limited-edition once saw at the Smithsonian in an exhi- Madison Avenue) learned to replicate recordings on vinyl even if the same con- bition of archaeological discoveries from those effects convincingly, giving us the tent is distributed digitally. Some musi- mainland China, a weathered copper sizzle of aura, as it were, while dispensing cians still prefer to record on analog ashtray from the 1933 Chicago World’s entirely with the steak of authenticity. A equipment. Similarly, there’s a healthy Fair, or a World Series home-run baseball facsimile of aura, it turned out, could func- market for photographic prints made with caught in the grandstand of Kansas City’s tion as a flavoring. Given the ever more the standard gelatin-silver and color “wet” Kauffman Stadium this past fall. sophisticated toolkit of simulation, it now or “chemical” methods, and even a thriving In the electronic age—the golden era takes the expertise of a connoisseur to tell revival of the earlier alternative processes: of 20th-century radio, film, and televi- the difference between authentic and arti- platinum, cyanotype, tintype, ambrotype, sion—we received convincing evidence ficial aura. daguerreotype, each with its own distinc- that synthetic aura would suffice to evoke Most people don’t care. The digital tive look and feel. Not to mention Lomog- an audience’s sense of connection to the revolution has made the addition of syn- raphy, whose devotees make negatives past. Tint a contemporary film scene thetic aura into little more than an option with variants of a small, cheap Russian sepia, and the viewer time-trips back to on a menu, like the “Ken Burns effect” in 35-millimeter camera. The photograph, the decades just before or after the end iMovie. Take, for example, the sound of created by a simple machine and (at least of the 19th century. Add a bit of artificial surface noise on a shellac or vinyl ana- nominally) infinitely reproducible, exem- static and a megaphone’s harshness to a log recording. I no longer play the 45s, plified for Benjamin “the contemporary recorded voice-over, and you’re listening 78s, and 33 rpm LPs I own, relying decay of the aura.” The booming market to a Depression-period news broadcast. instead on (preferably lossless) digital in “vernacular photography,” with collec- COURTESY CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART OF MUSEUM CLEVELAND COURTESY Induce the flicker, scrolling, and distortion files imported into iTunes. But I recall, tions of snapshots entering museums for 1973); (C. AL" AND VIOLET OF PORTRAITS "THE (1943–2006), FROM DELAPPA © WILLIAM

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This portrait of Violet from “The Portraits of Violet and Al” is the first in a portfolio of 28 photos by William DeLappa.

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The use of apps to exhibition and preservation, surely gain- It’s logical, then, that when introduced to alter digital images says that thesis. So does the flood of apps digital imaging, we’d use it to replicate the represents a yearning for the auratization of digital images. You look of analog photos. for the visual look of can make your selfie look like a Polaroid But the vast majority of people who earlier, analog forms of photography. SX-70 print, a bright, saturated 1950s make digital images steadily, alter them Kodachrome image, a 1940s photo-booth in various ways, publish them online, portrait, a worn snapshot that someone and exchange them with others via social carried in her wallet for decades. Indeed, media don’t strike me as mired in the past you can capture any of dozens if not hun- or needing the reassurance of some skeuo- dreds of ways that analog photographs, morphic link to their analog roots in order especially those made by amateurs, used to feel at ease with the digital present. to look in their heyday. Most of them have tenuous analog roots at We can perhaps find in this the ten- best. They come from an overwhelmingly dency toward what Marshall McLuhan younger demographic, of which the retro- called our rearview-mirror relationship to hipster and steampunk cohorts constitute new media: the first thing we tend to do only subsections. An increasing number of with them is to mimic what they replace. them have grown up with digital imaging JESSIE WENDER (@JMWENDER) WENDER JESSIE

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as the primary form of picture-making in which manufactures present-day equiva- parable options in more sophisticated, their lives. Many have never held a film lents of various Polaroid films, including high-end image management apps like camera or exposed a negative, much less the film packs for SX-70 cameras, would Photoshop) let you indulge your wildest developed negatives and made prints. be more popular. Instead, it represents a anachronistic impulses. They don’t faux-SX-70 their latest digital yearning for the visual look of those ear- In fact, by using any of these in combi- image because it reminds them of the SX- lier, analog forms of the medium, which nation with the app AgingBooth, you can 70s they, or even their parents, once used; has become a signifier in itself. generate images that go both backward they do it because it lends that image a These apps and sites, in effect, and forward in time. AgingBooth func- certain atmosphere. And they’ll do the enhance digital images with an ersatz ver- tions something like the kiosk devised by next one as a video, and turn it into an sion of Benjamin’s aura, so that anyone photographer Nancy Burson, who starting animated gif, a purely digital form. can layer any image with the digital sim- in 1976, in collaboration with several pro- ulation of its passage through time. Aura grammers from MIT, developed the first Synthetic age thus becomes a synthetic additive. Free or software algorithms making it possible to This usage of apps to alter digital images inexpensive apps such as Instagram, Hip- approximate how individuals would look doesn’t represent a haptic nostalgia for the stamatic, Vintage Scene, Retro Camera as they grew older. tactile encounter with the photograph as Plus, Reflex, Pic Grunger,ShakeI tPhoto, In 1990, Burson and crew exhibited an object. If it did, the Impossible Project, and Pinhole HD (not to mention the com- an interactive version of the Age Machine

JF15_review.coleman.indd 77 12/5/14 3:01 PM REVIEWS Stay ahead of the technology that matters to your business. they had been developing throughout the 1980s; you sat down in a kiosk fac- ing a monochrome monitor, hit a but- ton, and voila!—the program added 25 years to your current appearance, in what Burson called a “prediction.” You couldn’t save that file, or send it anywhere, or even print it out. But I had a chance to try it at the Arles Photo Festi- val in 2000 (by which point the machine had become a vintage object in itself), and the experience, even if momentary, proved powerful.

Analog photography as we knew it allowed skilled practitioners to blend fact and fiction. Digital imaging gives those powers to the amateur picture-maker.

AgingBooth lets you make such images at any increment you select, not Breakthrough Factories just 25 years; you can save those fi les and Manufacturing’s pivotal role in nurturing innovation is then do as you will with them. This means being recognized from China to California. Where— that you can make a portrait of yourself as you may have evolved by 2050—and then, and how—is it being done best? using the above-mentioned Vintage Scene (which can make your photos look as if they were taken in di erent eras, going all the way back to the birth of photography), you can see how you’d have appeared as an octogenarian in 1850. Analog photog- technologyreview.com/ raphy as we knew it in its fi rst 150 years businessreports allowed skilled practitioners to blend fact and fi ction. Digital imaging gives those powers to the most amateur picture- maker. As a result, photography’s service as a vehicle for fantasy now stands alongside its function as a recording system and may supersede it. We have just begun to adjust our cultural assumptions about the photograph to keep up.

A. D. Coleman is an internationally known critic of photography and photo-based art.

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wo and a half years after Sergey Google Glass Is Dead; Brin unveiled Google Glass with a group of skydivers jump- Long Live Smart Glasses ing from a zeppelin above San TFrancisco, the computer you wear on your Even though hardly anyone wants today’s head-worn computers, the technology is sure to march on. face is falling to its death. It’s still not a finished consumer product. It’s not even

By Rachel Metz close to being something people yearn KEBBI YANN

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for, at least not beyond the Glass Explor- you’d want to have that thing on your face, Researchers inspired by these pros- ers who each paid $1,500 for early access. in the way of normal social interaction. pects—and companies that make wear- Although Google says it’s still commit- Glass does a handful of things—it can take able devices for niche applications—are ted to Glass, several companies, including videos, give you turn-by-turn directions, going to keep plugging away in hopes Twitter, have stopped working on apps for make phone calls, or search the Web—but of getting to a point where the technol- it. Babak Parviz, the creator of Glass, left it doesn’t do any of them all that well. It ogy blends into the glasses themselves, Google in July for a job as a vice presi- might have succeeded while looking weird rather than sitting so obviously atop them. dent at Amazon, where he’s looking into if it let you do amazing things (the forth- So imagine that in a few years someone new areas of technology. Even some of the coming Oculus Rift virtual-reality head- comes out with smart glasses that are early adopters are getting weary of the set looks goofy, but people will eagerly pretty much unnoticeable. They have a put it on). Or it might tiny display in the lenses; the electronics Intriguing possibilities remain. A device have found more fans and battery are neatly concealed in the that could sense what you were doing at even if it didn’t do all frame. They’re operated easily with a few a given moment and serve up relevant that much—as long as fairly inconspicuous touch gestures, eye it looked unobtrusive. movements, and, when appropriate, voice information into your field of view could However, I can commands. be incredibly useful as a memory aid and see how smart glasses This version of the technology productivity enhancer. will improve on both wouldn’t automatically irk people around counts. The idea that you. And surely that would inspire soft- device. “I found that it was not very use- Glass represents—allowing you to ingest ware developers to have another try at ful for very much, and it tended to disturb digital information at a glance—remains creating applications that finally deliver people around me that I have this thing,” powerful. Even though I gave up on wear- the information-rich lifestyle Starner calls says James Katz, the director of emerging ing Google Glass pretty quickly, I did find a “killer existence.” media studies at Boston University’s Col- it helpful in situations where I wanted lege of Communication. to be online yet didn’t want to be inter- Blending in A lot of this is Google’s fault. Rather rupted—while cooking or cycling, for There are several ways the technology can than spending years developing Glass in instance. I could easily look at the list be streamlined significantly. secret, Google trotted it out as an early of ingredients in a recipe by tilting my There’s no ignoring the prism-like “beta” product that was somewhat func- head upward, or shift my eyes to check my display on the current version of Google tional but finicky and literally in your face. speed on a descent. A display in your line Glass. It juts out from the frame and sits It hoped that software developers would of sight can make for a better navigational just above your eyeball. When the dis- come up with killer applications and that tool or real-time language-translation play is on, other people can’t fail to see the people wearing it would act as evan- assistant than a smartphone. the bright little mirror image gelists. Presumably, the strategy has led And far more intriguing of what you’re looking at. Even to some priceless insights for the next ver- possibilities remain. A device Google when the display is turned off, sion—Google’s online Glass forum brims that could sense what you were rendering the prism a clear Lumiode with questions and feature requests from doing at a given moment and block in front of your right eye, early users. But as Katz noted, it caused serve up relevant information Innovega it’s impossible to forget about. a social backlash. The “explorers” have into your field of view could be For a device like this to have a become widely known as “glassholes.” incredibly useful as a memory Perpetua Power chance, it will need a display Why? The reasons are telling, and they aid and productivity enhancer. that is much more discreet. help us understand where the technology Those kinds of applications are always One solution may be something like could go next. cited by wearable-computing die-hards what’s in the works at Lumiode, a startup Glass didn’t fail only because it looks like Thad Starner, a Georgia Tech pro- that uses LEDs to create microdisplays. weird. Another big misstep was the aspect fessor and Glass technical lead who has Typically, LEDs serve as the light source that Katz mentioned first. Glass annoyed been making and wearing these kinds of at the rear of a display, and the light other people largely because of its lack gadgets since 1993. (See my Q&A with passes through filters to form the pix- of utility: no one could understand why Starner in July/August 2013.) els that together create images. Lumiode

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eschews the filters. Instead, it uses indi- A more radical approach to cutting national Consumer Electronics Show in vidual LEDs as pixels by adding a layer down on smart glasses’ bulk may be to Las Vegas. The glasses looked a lot like of transistors to control how they emit simply take the lens needed to magnify normal—albeit dorky—sunglasses, and light. Lumiode founder and CEO Vincent what’s on the display out of the glasses chief executive Steve Willey says the com- Lee says the technology could yield tiny and bring it closer to the eye. A company pany is developing a consumer contact displays that are 10 times brighter and called Innovega is doing this by develop- lens. It plans to seek approval from the more energy-efficient than other display ing contact lenses with a tiny bump that U.S. Food and Drug Administration in technologies. That could make it easier to serves as a microscope for content that can 2015. integrate a display into regular-looking be streamed from the inside of a pair of Even if displays can be made practi- glasses, cut down on clunky batteries, glasses. The lenses do nothing when you’re cally invisible and much more energy- and make the glasses work better out- looking at the world around you, but when efficient, smart glasses will need battery doors, too. media is streamed toward your eyes from technologies that can hold up to a full day Lumiode is now focused on perfect- a projector or display panels built into of usage and eliminate the bulging batter- ing the process of fabricating the layer of glasses, it passes through the bump on ies currently connected to Glass. transistors atop the LEDs without ruin- each contact and comes into focus just in That probably will require a combi- ing the lights. Lee says the obtrusiveness front of the eye. This offers the benefit of nation of breakthroughs. Software must of a Lumiode display that’s built into a showing content to both eyes—and it can be optimized to use power more frugally pair of smart glasses will depend on a few stay in focus as you move them. (already, the Glass team has made prog- factors, including the optics used in the Innovega showed off an early pro- ress in this regard). And something like glasses. Eventually, he says, it could fit totype of its technology, streaming the thin, flexible, printed rechargeable into the frame. high-definition content, at the 2014 Inter- batteries made by the startup Imprint

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Finding technical and management talent for software, financial services, and other technology-driven companies

Paul Edelman, ’78 [email protected]

Rick Kunin, ’79 Energy could be contained in the frames. display comes down to giving them cool [email protected] These zinc-based batteries would elimi- frames and colors to choose from. She said nate some of the bulk typically associated the prospect of having more fashionable For confidential consideration, send your resume to [email protected]. with lithium-ion batteries, which require options “sounds kind of banal in a way” We love working with fellow MIT alums. protective layers because they are sensi- but is even more important than minia- tive to oxygen. turizing the technology. www.edeltech.com In addition, some sort of power har- “If you can pick the frame that you 508-947-5300 vesting could replenish the batteries would normally pick and that you’re throughout the day. A company called normally comfortable with, it’s going to Perpetua Power is working on technology look more like you,” said Olsson, who Events that uses body heat to produce electricity; wore a matte black Glass during our in theory, your smart glasses could extend conversation. EmTech Singapore their battery life with tiny thermoelectric I didn’t expect Olsson to speak ill of January 27–28, 2015 generators on places that touch your skin, Glass; she works for Google, after all, and Marina Bay Sands, Singapore such as the bridge or temple. For now, as is true for a number of people at the www.emtechsingapore.com though, Perpetua’s module is much too company, Glass is her baby. She has man- MIT Technology Review Innovation big: one by two centimeters. And each aged to bring it miles from where it was Congress (In Conjunction with E-world) one can generate only a bit of the power when she started at Google in 2011: a pro- February 11-12, 2015 you’d need to run even a fitness-tracking totype she described as a scuba mask with Essen, Germany wristband. Perpetua’s bracelet-like proto- a phone attached to it and cables run- http://www.e-world-essen.com/en/ types include eight to 10 modules. ning to a backpack. But it’s wrong to say home/ that stylish frames matter terribly much SXSW Fashion backward when it comes to luring more users. It’s March 13-22, 2015 Google has tried hard to make Glass more a reminder that Google got it all back- Austin, TX fashionable. It formed a partnership with wards: after failing to give people very http://sxsw.com/ the world’s largest eyeglass maker, Luxot- good reasons to wear computers on their EmTech China tica Group, whose brands include Ray- faces, it failed to see that the devices could March 22-23, 2015 not possibly appeal to most people. Styl- Beijing, China Though it remains ish frames can’t fix that; they will make a www.technologyreview.com/events awkward, Glass is already difference only after the technology dis- solves into them. EmTech Digital miles from where it was in I agreed with Olsson on one big point: June 1-2, 2015 2011, when it was like a San Francisco, CA it’s a numbers game. The more people out www.technologyreview.com/emtech/ scuba mask with a phone there who are wearing these things, the digital/15/ and cables attached to it. more normal it will seem, she reasons. Indeed, even regular glasses, which have BIO International Convention Ban and Oakley. (Intel is also working been around in various forms for over 700 June 15-18, 2015 Philadelphia, PA with Luxottica on a smart-glass proj- years, didn’t become fashionable until the http://convention.bio.org/ ect.) It cozied up to designer Diane von last century. Furstenberg, who designed a Glass frame The difference, though, is that glasses EmTech MIT and aviator-style shades that come in hues perform a valuable function. When a pair October 6-8, 2015 like “shiny lagoon” and “rose gold flash.” of smart glasses do too, their sense of style Cambridge, MA Speaking on the sidelines of a Google- might actually matter. www.emtechmit.com hosted design conference in San Francisco in November, Isabelle Olsson, the lead Rachel Metz, MIT Technology Review’s designer for Glass, said that while Google senior editor for mobile technology, wrote To place your event, program or recruitment ad in MIT Technology Review’s is always trying to make Glass as sleek as about anonymity apps in the November/ Professional Resources, please contact possible, getting people to wear a head-up December issue. [email protected].

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The Boundary Dam power station.

A Coal Plant That Buries Its Greenhouse Gases The first commercial power plant to use carbon capture and sequestration shows the potential of a crucial technology.

By Peter Fairley Photographs by Jenn Ackerman and Tim Gruber

boundary dam, a power plant in estevan, saskatchewan, is the first commercial coal-fired plant to capture carbon dioxide from its emissions, compress the gas, and bury it under- 2 ground. The plant demonstrates that so-called carbon capture and storage (CCS) can work at a large scale—a crucial achieve- 1 Coal from a nearby amines, which ment given that CCS could play a significant role worldwide strip mine is pul- absorb 90 percent in reducing the greenhouse-gas emissions that contribute to verized for burning. of the carbon diox- climate change. ide. The rest vents 2 Ductwork (bottom from the facility. Right now only two other CCS power-plant projects are left) carries flue under construction, both of them in the United States. That’s gas to an adjacent 3 The carbon-rich because CCS carries a hefty price tag: SaskPower invested $1 carbon capture amine solution billion to equip one of the four generators at its Boundary facility. There, it (RAC) is piped Dam site for carbon capture. What’s more, the process reduces bubbles through to a heater that a 52-meter-high removes CO2; the the 160-megawatt plant’s electricity output by about 20 per- column filled with a lean solution (LAC) cent, meaning it may cost SaskPower more per kilowatt-hour solution containing is piped back to to run CCS than the 12 cents it gets for selling the electricity. chemicals called repeat the process.

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4 Cooling water trav- 5 The carbon diox- els through the ide is turned into green pipes into a supercritical a chamber that liquid inside this helps cool carbon 15-megawatt dioxide as part compressor. of a compression Approximately process. 3,000 tons of carbon dioxide is captured and compressed every day.

3 5

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6 A gauge at the 7 Most of the carbon 8 At the SaskPower CCS plant indi- dioxide travels 65 site, a wellhead cates the flow rate kilometers to an oil- delivers carbon of carbon dioxide. field (shown here), dioxide to its rest- where it’s injected ing place, a saline to help boost aquifer 3.4 kilome- production. But ters underground. some is injected at SaskP ower’s site.

SaskPower makes up for this in large part by selling much of of a local buyer for carbon dioxide, makes SaskPower ’s effort the captured carbon dioxide to the Calgary-based oil producer somewhat unusual. What might be needed elsewhere is a way Cenovus, which uses it to boost output from its maturing oil for utilities to pass along CCS costs to customers, just as many wells nearby. do now to pay for renewable energy sources. Another approach CCS should get cheaper over time. The Intergovernmental would be to tax carbon dioxide emissions, creating an incentive Panel on Climate Change, the panel of climate scientists con- to bury the gas instead. vened by the United Nations, projects that technology upgrades The technology must also be proven to work over the long and economies of scale should reduce the price of adding CCS to term. SaskPower buries some gas in a saline aquifer on its site. coal plants to just one-third of what SaskPower spent at Bound- To make sure it stays put, the company has installed above- ary Dam. If so, CCS-equipped coal plants could deliver electric- ground gas sensors plus a seismic sensing array to track sub- ity more cheaply than some other low-carbon sources, including surface movement. offshore wind power and large solar farms. The United Nations climate panel says similar technol- SaskPower says that with the lessons it’s learned so far, it ogy must be installed at all 7,000 existing coal power plants could now build a similar CCS project for $200 million less, and worldwide by 2050 to keep warming below 2 ˚C, a widely cited that it may soon go forward with CCS at two other aging coal threshold for avoiding severe climate change. Meanwhile, new generators at Boundary Dam. It also hopes to help other power coal plants are still being built, especially in China and India. companies develop expertise in the technology. With coal plants expected to provide one-quarter of the world’s Still, coal plants around the world generally have little incen- energy supply in 2040, SaskPower could help test the feasi- tive to follow suit. In SaskPower’s case, Canadian regulations bility and safety of burying billions of tons of carbon dioxide

helped force the company’s hand; that fact, plus the availability emissions. ENERGY CENOVUS OF COURTESY 7 IMAGE

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ad.full.subscribe.indd 26 8/5/13 12:19 PM MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW VOL. 118 | NO. 1 TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM 45 Years Ago

Teaching the Many, Rather than the Few Four decades before the MOOC, a 1970 essay anticipates the potential boon of an education by computer.

One of my greatest frustrations as a teacher has been my inability to meet simultaneously the needs of all my students. Students differ greatly from one another, not only in their intellectual capabilities: some pro- ceed from the general to the specific; others from the specific to the general; some refuse to pay attention to details before they have acquired an overall view, while others cannot see the for- est before having examined each tree. Individual instruction is the ideal answer; however, the necessary number of qualified teachers is just not available. Computers, if properly used, may provide a way out. Computer-aided instruction is often misleadingly described as ‘replacing teachers with computers.’ This interpretation implies mechanizing, rather than personalizing, education. Instead, we should strive for an interaction between teacher and student through the medium of a computer system. The goal is to make it possible for a teacher to provide individual guidance to many students instead of a few. We may envision computer-aided instruction operating as follows: Each student uses the material stored in the computer system, learning and answering questions, under control of a program appropriate to his needs. The teacher monitors progress, and modifies the control program for each student as needed. If a student encounters difficulties, the teacher is called to give personal assistance through his own computer terminal. This opportunity hinges on bringing the power of computers to the service of the individual, a significant departure from the attitudes and trends that prevail today.”

Excerpted from “Computers in Human Society: For Good or Ill?” by MIT professor Robert M. Fano, from the March 1970 Technology Review.

MIT Technology Review (ISSN 1099-274X), January/February 2015 Issue, Reg. U.S. Patent Office, is published bimonthly by MIT Technology Review, 1 Main St. Suite 13, Cambridge, MA 02142-1517. Entire contents ©2015. The editors seek diverse views, and authors’ opinions do not represent the official policies of their institutions or those of MIT. Periodicals postage paid at Boston, MA, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: send address changes to MIT Technology Review, Subscriber Services, PO Box 5001, Big Sandy, TX 75755, or via the Internet at www.technologyreview.com/customerservice. Basic subscription rates: $41.94 per year within the United States; in all other countries, US$54. Publication Mail Agreement Number 40621028. Send undeliverable Canadian copies to PO Box 1051 Fort Erie, ON L2A 6C7. Printed in U.S.A. Audited by the Alliance for Audited Media

JF15_tkyears.indd 88 11/21/14 10:48 AM bose.indd 1 12/10/14 4:14 PM Secure, embedded processing solutions for the Internet of tomorrow.

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