The Future of Virtual Sex
Neural comedy hour: optogenetics proposed as the future of virtual sex.
—Antonio Regalado, senior editor, biomedicine

White House. Red Chair. Obama Meets Swisher.
Q&A with President Obama on whether hacking is war, how encryption troubles law enforcement, and why he wants to try the Apple Watch.
—Kevin Bullis, senior editor, materials

Apple Really Seems to Be Building an Apple Car. That’s Not as Crazy as It Sounds.
Apple seems to be working on an iCar.
—Kevin Bullis

6 Reasons Why Apple Is Not Building a Car
Apple has recently hired engineers who are experts in automotive design and EV batteries, prompting speculation that it is planning to build a car. Here’s why that is unlikely.
—Mike Orcutt, research editor

Ten Billion-Dollar Ideas You’ve Never Heard Of
The Wall Street Journal finds that there are a lot of startups worth $1 billion these days, not all of them well known.
—Brian Bergstein, deputy editor

The New Science of Exhaustion
Chronic fatigue syndrome has been given a new name by the Institute of Medicine: systemic exertion intolerance disease. This often misunderstood ailment may finally get the attention it needs.
—J. Juniper Friedman, associate Web producer

White House Names DJ Patil as the First US Chief Data Scientist
The U.S. government just got its first chief data scientist, whose first task will be to investigate how big data can be used to fix health care.
—Tom Simonite, San Francisco bureau chief

The Shape of Things to Come
Long and insightful profile of Sir Jonathan Ive by Ian Parker.
—David Rotman, editor