Recommended From Around the Web (Week Ending August 9, 2013)
A roundup of the most interesting stories from other sites, collected by the staff at MIT Technology Review.
Tech Magnates Bet on Booker and His Future
All industries try to cozy up to rising political stars; this story illuminates the particular way that Silicon Valley does it.
Meet Vaclav Smil, the Canadian Polymath Whose Books Bill Gates Is Racing to Read
Vaclav Smil sounds like my kind of no-BS guy.
—Brian Bergstein, deputy editor
The East Is Grey
How China’s dual role as the world’s biggest polluter—and its biggest investor in green energy—will affect the global environment.
NSA: The Decision Problem
The meaning of the NSA’s signals intelligence when viewed through the prism of artificial intelligence, by George Dyson.
—Will Knight, online editor
Will Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley Finally Get It Right?
Step inside Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley’s decade-long obsession with making the world love location-based social networking.
—Tom Simonite, senior IT editor
SkyTruth, the Environment, and the Satellite Revolution
An exciting look at how aerial maps are changing the way we see the world.
—Aviva Hope Rutkin, editorial intern
Cultured Beef: Do We Really Need a $380,000 Burger Grown in Petri Dishes?
Researchers say lab-grown hamburger could be a more humane and environmentally friendly alternative to meat from slaughtered cattle, but as Scientific American reveals, producing petri-dish patties is too challenging for them to become a supermarket option anytime soon.
—Susan Young, biomedicine editor
Computer-Brain Interfaces Making Big Leaps
New York Times blogger takes a look at brain-computer interface advances.
Frosted Glass Effects—Why I Switched to Android after All These Years
What happens when a longtime Apple fanboy converts to Android.
3-D Printing the 19th Century
Ressurecting inventions from the past with 3-D printing.
—Antonio Regalado, senior business editor