Seven Must-Read Stories (Week Ending August 8, 2015)

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

August 7, 2015

Teach Your Robot to Do the Dishes
Adaptive, responsive strategies let humans think they’re in charge when working on mundane tasks with robots.
Got Sleep Problems? Try Tracking Your Rest with Radar.
A research project called DoppleSleep can tell how well you’re sleeping without getting in the way.
Tech’s Enduring Great-Man Myth
The idea that particular individuals drive history has long been discredited. Yet it persists in the tech industry, obscuring some of the fundamental factors in innovation.
The Seemingly Unfixable Crack in the Internet’s Backbone
Attacking the Internet’s core infrastructure to intercept Web traffic at mass scale is easier than it should be.
Teaching Machines to Understand Us
A reincarnation of one of the oldest ideas in artificial intelligence could finally make it possible to truly converse with our computers. And Facebook has a chance to make it happen first.
Mainframe Computers That Handle Our Most Sensitive Data Are Open to Internet Attacks
Mainframe computers have handled our most precious data since the 1960s, but they’re being put online without adequate security.
Smart Windows Just Got Cooler
A new kind of window glass can selectively block visible sunlight as well as heat-producing invisible light.