Seven Must-Read Stories (Week Ending May 16, 2015)

Another chance to catch the most interesting, and important, articles from the previous week on MIT Technology Review.

May 15, 2015

Baidu’s Artificial-Intelligence Supercomputer Beats Google at Image Recognition
A supercomputer specialized for the machine-learning technique known as deep learning could help software understand us better.
Can You Improve Your E-Mails by Analyzing Recipients’ Personalities?
Startup Crystal claims it can help you write better e-mails by mining recipients’ online data for clues to their personality.
Dropbox Follows the Money into Crowded Market for Business Tools
Dropbox, the provider of online data storage, is adding productivity features as it wades into the corporate market dominated by Microsoft and Google.
Silicon Chips That See Are Going to Make Your Smartphone Brilliant
Many gadgets will be able to understand images and video thanks to chips designed to run powerful artificial-intelligence algorithms.
Even Robots Now Have Their Own Virtual World
A highly realistic simulated world is proving vital to robotics researchers.
How Nanomaterials Can Help Make Fuel from Sunlight
Researchers say combining bacteria with nanoscale semiconductors opens a new path toward efficient artificial photosynthesis.
How History’s Greatest Chess Players Reveal the Secret Formula Behind Fame
The greatest chess players are significantly more famous than their not-so-great contemporaries, by a margin that leads to a fame-predicting formula.