Libraries and other archives of physical culture have been struggling for decades to preserve diverse media — from paper to eight-track tape recordings — for future generations. Scientists are falling behind the curve in protecting digital data, threatening the ability to mine new findings from existing data or validate research analyses. Johns Hopkins University cosmologist Alex Szalay and Jim Gray of Microsoft, who was lost at sea in 2007, spent much of the past decade discussing challenges posed by data files that will soon approach the petabyte (1015 — or quadrillion — ...

Simulating new materials could help in building them — but only quantum simulators could fully model reality. A team reports a first step in realizing quantum simulation.

Finding videos on the web can still be a hit-or-miss proposition.

By analyzing brain activity, computers can tell what word is on your mind.

Defeating computer worms that mutate will take some smart defense strategies.

Thanks to an immense calculation that worked out every possible game position, computers can now play a flawless game of checkers and force a draw every time. (p. 36)

A new algorithm might make online driving directions more accurate. (p. 285)