Technology

With pandemic waning, state turns on system to let you know if you've come near somebody with Covid-19

By adamg - 6/17/21 - 11:41 am

Jon Masters reports the Commonwealth has enabled a system that is supposed to alert people with Android or Apple phones if they come within infecting distance of people who have reported being infected with Covid-19. Read more.

Needham-based tech publisher and consulting service sells for $1.3 billion

By adamg - 6/3/21 - 11:22 pm

Blackstone, a New York investment firm, announced today it's buying International Data Group from the Chinese company that had acquired it in 2017. IDG runs a market consulting service and a variety of Web sites focused on IT buyers and sellers, both in the US and abroad.

Lining up overnight along Memorial Drive because of a shortage that has nothing to do with Covid-19

By adamg - 6/3/21 - 9:10 am

People sleeping outside the Cambridge Micro Center

Shortly before 8 a.m., Carol Beggy spotted at least 60 people - and one dog - lined up outside the Cambridge Micro Center, waiting so they could rush in and snap up $600 graphics cards. Read more.

Changing of the guard: Seaport building that went up as an insurance-company headquarters to be retrofitted for life sciences

By adamg - 6/2/21 - 11:23 am

601 Congress St. From the BioMed filing.

A Kendall Square concern has filed plans with the BPDA to retrofit the curvy 14-story building at 601 Congress St., originally built as the US headquarters of a Canadian insurance company, as lab and office space for the red-hot life-sciences market in Boston. Read more.

Text messages stop being legally private the instant you send them, court rules

By adamg - 6/1/21 - 11:03 am

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that a man's text messages can be used against him in a criminal case because they were recovered from another man's phone. Read more.

Timothy Leary's dead, but Mass. General plans to study medicinal uses of one of the psychedelics he studied

By adamg - 4/23/21 - 1:04 pm

The Harvard Crimson reports Massachusetts General's new Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics will study whether psilocybin and Ecstasy could help with a variety of mental issues, starting with one common effect of depression and severe anxiety and with PTSD that is resistant to traditional treatments. Read more.

BPD looks to build ambitious public visualization site for crime data, but first it hopes to restore a simpler spreadsheet-like feed of the information

By adamg - 4/13/21 - 12:48 pm

Current look of the city police data portal

The current look of the Analyze Boston police data portal.

Boston Police have started looking at building a Web site that would let the public see data from arrests and other incidents in a variety of ways, including on maps.

But first, BPD Supt. James Hasson and city CIO David Elges said today, the city hopes to restore a long-standing data set of the information on the city's Analyze Boston public data portal. Read more.

Harvard researchers want to try to block the sun but are foiled by protests in Sweden

By adamg - 4/6/21 - 9:44 am

The Crimson reports Harvard researchers who hoped to release particles into the atmosphere to see if they could reduce the amount of sunshine hitting the earth were blocked by protests from the Saami Council, which represents Saami living in an area of Sweden where the tests were to be done.

The researchers are looking at sunlight blocking as a possible way to reduce global warming, not as a future plot of a James Bond movie.

It's not what you think: MIT researchers figure out how to recreate key part of mucus

By adamg - 3/31/21 - 11:14 am

MIT News reports have created synthetic mucins - the key ingredient of mucus - which could lead to new antibacterial treatments, because it turns out that, more than just being messy, mucus can help fend off the microorganisms. Read more.

Defender of sex with minors back on board at local software group

By adamg - 3/24/21 - 10:08 pm

Richard "RMS" Stallman announced he's back on the board of directors of the Free Software Foundation, 18 months after he resigned in a hailstorm of controversy over comments suggesting Jeffrey Epstein's underage victims were "entirely willing." Read more.

MBTA says it wants to find out why one of its brand-spanking-new Orange Line trains derailed at Wellington today; in the meantime, riders will get buses instead

By adamg - 3/16/21 - 5:27 pm

The T has issued a statement on the derailment in the area where workers were supposedly making track improvements at Wellington today: Read more.

MIT researchers develop X-ray vision

By adamg - 3/2/21 - 11:26 am

MIT reports some of its researchers have figured out how to use X rays to virtually unravel and even read centuries-old letters that were carefully folded and "locked" in the days before envelopes were invented and offered some measure of privacy. Read more.

Biotech developer reaches deal to buy South End office building under construction, seeks to change it into life-sciences labs

By adamg - 2/22/21 - 8:49 pm

Rendering of 321 Harrison Ave.

A Kendall Square company that builds life-sciences labs has an agreement to buy an existing office building at 1000 Washington St. and a second office building under construction next door at 321 Harrison Ave., across from the Ink Block in the South End, and is seeking BPDA approval to convert the eight new floors of space for use as life-sciences labs. Read more.

MIT researchers find potentially useful feature of one thin carbon layer on top of another; Harvard researchers say 'Hold our beer'

By adamg - 2/8/21 - 5:12 pm

Researchers at MIT report they've discovered that two sheets of graphene - an incredibly thin carbon hexagonal lattice - one layered atop the other, create an unusual "ferroelectric" property that could lead to "neuromorphic computing," which "could usher in new, faster information-processing paradigms." Read more.

Winthrop under cyberattack: Officials say hackers are blasting town Internet provider, disrupting remote education

By adamg - 2/5/21 - 10:38 am

Winthrop School Superintendent Lisa Howard says state and federal investigators have joined local police in looking at who might be attacking Winthrop's Internet provider and making it difficult for students to participate in remote learning in recent days. In e-mail to parents yesterday afternoon, she wrote: Read more.

Election roundup: Wu calls for city broadband; Campbell calls for Mass/Cass cabinet chief

By adamg - 2/2/21 - 9:50 pm

First, a programming note: Tomorrow at noon, the City Council holds a regular Wednesday meeting - at which councilors may decide whether to try to bypass a special election for mayor should Marty Walsh decamp for Washington before March 5. Read more.

MIT researchers follow a gut feeling

By adamg - 1/5/21 - 9:30 am

MIT News reports on efforts at the Institute to study the human microbiome - all the zillions of microorganisms that cohabit in your body - to see if there are ways to improve human health. One example: Microorganisms living in the digestive tract have been linked to several diseases, including Type 2 diabetes, several cancers and Alzheimer's.

Why Norwood? Moderna explains.