Fernando "Corby" Corbató, an MIT professor emeritus whose work in the 1960s on time-sharing systems broke important ground in democratizing the use of computers, died on Friday, July 12, at his home in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Decades before the existence of concepts like cybersecurity and the cloud, Corbató led the development of one of the world's first operating systems. His "Compatible Time-Sharing System" (CTSS) allowed multiple people to use a computer at the same time, greatly increasing the speed at which programmers could work. It's also widely credited as the first computer system to use passwords. After CTSS Corbató led a time-sharing effort called Multics, which directly inspired operating systems like Linux and laid the foundation for many aspects of modern computing.

Speech recognition tools are changing the way people work and live their lives, bringing assistants like Alexa into their daily routines and transcribing meetings more accurately than a human could. When it comes to policing, speech recognition tools can help uniformed officers and detectives with critical note-taking and even possibly help prevent life-threatening situations. ZDNet spoke with Mark Geremia of Nuance Communications and Chief Joseph Solomon of the Methuen, Mass. Police Department to talk about the way police work is evolving thanks to voice recognition, cloud computing and other new technologies. The Methuen PD is one of the police departments now using Dragon Law Enforcement, Nuance's voice recognition product designed specifically for first responders.

Robots are attractive to pharmaceutical companies because they're "relentless…they never stop," says Peter Harris, chief executive of HighRes Biosolutions, a Beverly, Mass.,-based company that supplies automated systems for pharmaceutical clients. The software that controls the machines "is able to keep track of many more things in parallel than a human." Lilly recently put $90 million into a new 300,000-square-foot research center in San Diego, where robots are helping to speed up the pace of scientific discovery. In one installation, four glass-enclosed robotic arms grow cells, isolate DNA, and place samples into roughly postcard-sized plastic "plates" that resemble miniature muffin trays. They also shuttle these between various equipment, like measuring machines and incubators, said Dan Skovronsky, president of Lilly's research labs.

USA TODAY Tech columnist Kim Komando explains how to keep your devices from listening to what you say. This Monday, June 19, 2017, photo shows Facebook launched on an iPhone, in North Andover, Mass. Yes, voice technology is amazing. You can ask your phone a question. You can talk to your speaker system and even book an Uber.

A nine-year-old boy is facing juvenile charges after an Amazon Echo device recorded his voice during a break-in. An unnamed child is facing charges of breaking and entering and larceny after his neighbor told police her iPhone, phone charger and cash were stolen from her apartment on Tuesday. Authorities in Gloucester, Massachusetts, were able to identify the boy through a voice recording captured by Amazon's Alexa which was sent to the woman's phone. A boy, nine, is facing charges after a break-in on Tuesday in Gloucester, Massachusetts. A neighbor was able to identify him through a voice recording by Amazon's Alexa (file photo) Police said the boy confessed to entering the woman's home on Arthur Street three separate times and taking the stolen items.

A UPS drone as it takes a three-mile test flight over open ocean outside of Boston. The test was one of a series of tests to show unmanned aerial vehicles can safely be used for deliveries in the United States. The drone was built by CyPhy, a Danvers, Mass.-based drone and technology company. A UPS drone took a three mile trip over open ocean outside of Salem, Mass. The test was meant to simulate delivery of urgently needed medicine from Beverly, Mass. to Children's Island, which is home to a YMCA day camp.

Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Virginia AT&T's Merrimack Valley Works The US Army Laboratory Command's (Richmond, VA) has developed an (North Andover, MA) has developed Human Engineering Laboratory expert system to classify, evaluate the Expert Capacity and Material (Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD) has and process medical claims. The system, System (XCAM), an expert system awarded a $2.4 million contract to called MedScreen, reportedly which simplifies forecast evaluations Carnegie Group (Pittsburgh, PA) to can process up to 500 claims in 45 for a manufacturing operation The continue work on a knowledge-based minutes, an operation that used to system automates the analysis of logistics planning system. The system take several days to complete. The IBM (Armonk, NY) and Dragon Systems NRM has been successfully deployed ICL (Birmingham, England) has completed (Newton, MA) have jointly in a number of Australian banks, as a pilot test of an intelligent developed VoiceType, a speech recognition well as a food storage and distribution system for field service diagnosing system based on elements of center. ICL used a laptop-based allows hands-free typing.