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<p>What are human workers going to do when super-intelligent robots and computers are better than us at doing everything? That is one of the questions that a new study by Dr. Carl Frey and Dr. Michael Osborne of Oxford University sought to address, and what they concluded was that 47 percent of all U.S. jobs could be automated within the next 20 years. Considering the fact that the percentage of the U.S. population that is employed is already far lower than it was a decade ago, it is frightening to think that tens of millions more jobs could disappear due to technological advances over the next couple of decades. I have written extensively about how we are already losing millions of jobs to super cheap labor on the other side of the globe. What are middle class families going to do as technology also takes away huge numbers of our jobs at an ever increasing pace? We live during a period of history when knowledge is increasing an an exponential rate. In the past, when human workers were displaced by technology it also created new kinds of jobs that the world had never seen before. But what happens when the day arrives when computers and robots can do almost everything more cheaply and more efficiently than humans can?</p>

If you pressed Control-Alt-Delete to log on before reading this, Bill Gates says he's sorry. The Microsoft founder says the triple-key login should have been made easier, à la Apple's Macs, but that a designer insisted on the more complicated step. "We could have had a single button. But the guy who did the IBM keyboard design didn't want to give us our single button," Gates said Saturday during a question-and-answer session to launch a Harvard University fund-raising campaign. His comments have gained attention since a video of his Harvard Q&A was posted on YouTube on Tuesday....

We'll be uploading our entire MINDS to computers by 2045 and our bodies will be replaced by machines within 90 years, Google expert claims Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google, believes we will be able to upload our entire brains to computers within the next 32 years - an event known as singularity Our 'fragile' human body parts will be replaced by machines by the turn of the century And if these predictions comes true, it could make humans immortal In just over 30 years, humans will be able to upload their entire minds to computers and become digitally...

The hype around 3D Printing bothers Terry Wohlers, president of Wohlers Associates, a research consultancy focused on additive manufacturing and 3D printing. “It’s unsettling to read this oversimplification (of 3D printing technology) where you push a button and out pops a shiny new thing,” he says. The reality, of course, is different. 3D printed objects “pop out” only after a long design and (depending on object size) printing process. This disconnect bothered Wohlers so much that he wrote a post about it. Wohlers knows what he is talking about. The fifty-five-year-old former Colorado State University faculty member has been working...

I have seen several laptop models I like but they have Windows 8 installed. I need to stay with a Windows OS, but having read poor reviews, it appears Win 8 may become the next Vista. Is it that bad? I like Win 7 but it limits my selection. As always, any suggestions/input appreciated.

McConlogue approached Leo, a 36-year man who lives on the streets of lower Manhattan, on Thursday and gave him two options. The first was $100 in cash. The second option on the table was a laptop, three JavaScript books and two months of coding instruction from McConlogue. Soon, McConlogue will deliver him a Samsung Chromebook with 3G connectivity, three JavaScript books, a solar charger for the laptop and something to conceal the laptop in. He will spend an hour before work every morning teaching him the basics of software coding.

In case you haven’t noticed, 3D printers are all the rage these days. People are using 3D printers to print Aston Martin replicas, there’s a number of household items you “manufacture,” and even NASA’s bringing a 3D printer onto the International Space Station. But with all these 3D printables, you either need to download the code from a site like Thingiverse, or create the 3D code yourself with your printer’s included software. What if you want to print a replica of something that already exists without building the code yourself? MakerBot, one of the leading innovators in 3D printing, has...

The following image is a composite created by scanning the WH LFBC using Xerox WorkCentre 7655 upside down using the automatic feeder. The resulting file was opened in Preview, the image rotated 180 degrees and printed to PDF. The resulting PDF was opened in preview, the layers unlocked and moved to the side. In addition, a close up of the signature was ‘blown up’ to show how the background layer, not surprisingly, has filled in some of the white that resulted from the separation of the background and foreground layers. Note how for example the signature block is fully separated.

It doesn't matter if you're a saint or a frequent sinner, a sailor with a potty mouth or a monk who took a vow of silence. If you own a computer, then at some point you've belted out a line of obscenities that would make Andrew Dice Clay wince in astonishment. PCs have a way of bringing out the worst in us when things go wrong, and according to a recent nationwide survey conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Crucial in June 2013, some even tend to get physical. Out of over 2,000 U.S. adults ages 18 and older...

I have literally lost hundreds of pages, threads and posts this way.

Depressing news for those of us who appreciate great prices on computer gear and component parts. The Geeks website now displays a simple page explaining that all ordering has now ceased. Competition appears to be the overriding reason, and a general unwillingness to have been forced to this point is quite apparent. I, for one, will miss all the great deals they offer, and have offered for many years.

The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed. If the government is able to determine a person's password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user. Obtaining it also would aid in deciphering encrypted devices in situations where passwords are reused. "I've certainly seen them ask for passwords," said one Internet industry source who...

Forget hacking accounts, computers or mobile devices - security engineers from Indiana have managed to hack the software inside the Toyota Prius and Ford Escape. Using a laptop wirelessly connected to the car's electronics, Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek were able to remotely control the brakes, the accelerate, change the speedometer, switch the headlights on and off, tighten the seatbelts and even blast the horn. The project was funded by a grant from the U.S Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to highlight the security risks affecting modern-day cars. Miller, a security engineer at Twitter, and Valasek, Director of Security Intelligence...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - Google Inc. /quotes/zigman/93888/quotes/nls/goog GOOG -0.05% said a new Nexus 7 tablet will be priced at $229 for a 16 GB version; $269 for 32 GB and $349 for an LTE version. The 16 GB and 32 GB versions will be available next week

The latest innovation from the U.S. Defense Department’s research agency, DARPA, is a humanoid robot called Atlas that looks as if it could’ve walked straight off the set of the latest Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster. In fact, Atlas is designed to eventually take on some of the most dangerous and high-stakes jobs imaginable, such as tending to a nuclear reactor during a meltdown, shutting off a deep-water oil spill, or helping to put out a raging wildfire. And if Atlas proves itself at such daredevil tasks, then one of its descendants might one day be allowed to do something just as...

When a young Indian-American woman walked into the funky L.A. jewelry boutique Tarina Tarantino, store manager Lauren Twisselman thought she was just like any other customer. She didn't realize the woman was actress and writer Mindy Kaling. "I hadn't watched The Office," Twisselman says. Kaling both wrote and appeared in the NBC hit. This lack of recognition is precisely what the VIP-identification technology designed by NEC IT Solutions is supposed to prevent. The U.K.-based company already supplies similar software to security services to help identify terrorists and criminals. The ID technology works by analyzing footage of people's faces as they...

At the Inside 3D Printing conference in Chicago this week, Microsoft senior program manager Jesse McGatha provided a little context on the company’s June announcement that Windows 8.1 will support 3D printing. But while Microsoft says it wants to help eradicate the barriers to adoption for consumers, it’s really just setting itself up to capture the market if and when somebody else does. Microsoft’s initial announcement in late June explained that Windows 8.1 will provide plug-and-play support for 3D printers, the ability to read different file formats, and support for third-party apps that manage the printers. But at the conference,...

The dawn of Software as a Subscription is now upon us. You have to pay $30 a month, or $240 a year, for the privilege of using the latest Photoshop version, called Photoshop CC. Or, if you want to use the full Adobe suite, you’ll pay $600 a year.

Four things you might have thought you knew, but which might not be true, as brought to you by the geek section of Real Clear Politics. I found at least three of them directly relevant to me, and the fourth one is doubtless of interest (or at least a subject of heated debate) for many of the rest of you. How many of these things are true and how many are just inaccurate popular perception?The first one is that the desktop PC is dead. The headlines couldn’t be more final. “The Death of the PC Has Not Been Exaggerated” reads...

Douglas Engelbart, whose invention of the mouse transformed the way people interact with computers, has died. Engelbart died Tuesday night at his home in Atherton, California, SRI International -- the research institute where he once worked -- said in a statement. He was 88. "Doug's legacy is immense — anyone in the world who uses a mouse or enjoys the productive benefits of a personal computer is indebted to him," Curtis R. Carlson, SRI's president and CEO, said in a written statement. Decades ago, Engelbart came up with the idea we now know as a mouse. His first prototype, which...