PROFILE
FROM Steve Lohr
Smart Fabrics Imagine if your shirt could cool or warm you depending on the temperature. Or if it could tell if you’re having a heart attack and call an ambulance. Hi-tech clothes -- fabrics embedded with sensors and GPS -- could be on shelves soon. The first Smart Fabrics Summit is taking place in Washington today. We hear the details.
Will Big Data and Big Money Mean Big Trouble? The so-called "Year of Big Data" has produced uses and potential abuses of gathering more information than anyone ever imagined before. What is this a vast, new industry? What are the benefits and the dangers, especially to consumers who use the Internet?
Will Big Data and Big Money Mean Big Trouble? Big Data -- the accumulation of massive amounts of information just for its own sake -- is the revenge of the nerds, a booming generator of money and power. New kinds of faster, cheaper hardware and software are providing a level of data never imagined before, including facts about human behavior. If that means more efficient sales of products to people want them, does it also mean identify theft and credit card fraud? If consumers are worried, why do they pour their personal data into Facebook and Twitter? What are the broader applications of Big Data?
Recommended
Human Rights in the era of Donald Trump President Trump’s UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley, said today the US might pull out of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council. Serious violators of human rights are members of the Council itself–and a US resignation could make things worse. Later on today’s show, now that he’s into his second term, comedian turned US Senator Al Franken is telling jokes again.
Replacing Obamacare: Now you see it… now you don’t As the Senate deliberates replacing Obmacare, health coverage for millions of people is at stake. There've been no public hearings, and a draft measure won't be made public. Is the House version so unpopular that that Senate is hiding a version that looks much the same?