One Per Cent

Working with the Atlanta fire department, a team at the Georgia Institute of Technology has built an algorithm that predicts the risk of fire for the city's commercial property. Called Firebird, it uses crime statistics, fire permits and nearby liquor licences to flag high-risk buildings. A similar approach has also been used in New York. The number of pages in a closed book that can be read by a new computer imaging technique. Made by a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the system uses terahertz radiation to penetrate several layers of paper and detect what's printed on them All robots need a mother ship.