The Switch: This new Tesla battery will power your home, and maybe the electric grid too

Today's technology and tech policy news  •  Thu., Feb. 12, 2015 View in your Web browser

This new Tesla battery will power your home, and maybe the electric grid too Tesla is working on a battery that can power your home and even help large-scale utilities store energy more efficiently, according to company chief executive Elon Musk.On an investor call Wednesday, Musk said the designs for a home or business battery are already complete and will likely be unveiled to the public "in the next month or two." Production could be as little as six months away, he added.  Read full article »

Facebook asks companies to share information on cyber threats

Facebook has created a test platform for companies to share data about cyberattacks and improve communication among security teams, the company said this week. The new site, called ThreatExchange, is based on Facebook’s internal software to catalog and understand threats, known as ThreatData.   Read full article »

Innovations: Google’s robotic dog gets Internet sympathy

We’ll start with a quick backstory for those who aren’t up on the above joke. Monday Boston Dynamics — which Google acquired during its infamous robot shopping spree of 2013 —  released a video of its latest creation. That would be Spot, a 160-pound electric robot with an uncanny ability to balance. Boston Dynamics demonstrated this in its viral video with a serious of .    Read full article »

Want to save money on your energy bill? There’s a game for that

The quest to get Americans to cut down their energy use is becoming a lot less dreary and preachy — and a lot more fun.The reason? A trend called “gamification,” in which academic researchers and utility companies alike are trying to tap into our social side — and the power of entertainment — to get people to cut back on use and lower their bills.  Read full article »

Innovations: Automated Insights, the guys with ‘robots’ writing stories, acquired by owner of Stats, LLC

Mark this down as another win for the automation and artificial intelligence movements.Automated Insights, an eight-year-old start-up that’s drawn attention for its powerful natural language generating platform, has been acquired by Vista Equity Partners, which owns Stats, LLC. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.  Read full article »

Innovations: One giant step for lunar innovation

Maybe plans for the commercial exploration of the moon aren’t so far-fetched after all. The FAA, in a carefully worded policy statement, has essentially outlined a scenario by which a U.S.-based company — Bigelow Aerospace — could stake future claims to lunar property. That could be huge.  Read full article »

The Switchboard: Hatch to renew e-mail privacy bill Published every weekday, the Switchboard is your morning helping of hand-picked stories from the Switch team.Smartphone theft drops in London, two U.S. cities as anti-theft 'kill switches' installed “The number of stolen iPhones dropped by 40 percent in San Francisco and 25 percent in New York in the 12 months after Apple Inc. added a kill switch to its devices in September 2013,” Reuters reports.  Read full article »

Facebook will now let you manage what happens to your account after you die

Facebook has announced that it will grant users more control over what happens to their Facebook pages after they die. Starting Thursday, users should see a new option pop up in their security settings that will let them choose whether they want to pass their information and account management over to someone else when the time comes.  Read full article »

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