Story Archives of 'Technology'

Most of the country employs an electronic prescription registry, where doctors and pharmacists can learn instantly which prescriptions you have, who wrote them, and where and how often they get filled. Many in medicine and law enforcement say these registries significantly reduce prescription drug abuse, but New Hampshire is one of the few states that has resisted, as libertarians and other privacy advocates say government has no business collecting and sharing such deeply personal information. We’ll look at the debate and see if a prescription drug registry could be on its way to New Hampshire.

Guests

• Neal Kurk, Republican state representative from Weare
• TBA

Some eye-opening inventions could be headed our way soon. New technologies often take their cues from the human brain and the human body. In the same way early aviation tinkerers studied the wings of birds, many of today’s top researchers look in the mirror for inspiration.

Artificial intelligence aims to recreate the ways human think, robots imitate the way we move, and right now, in labs across the world, inventors are looking at our five senses to create new tools and gadgets.

Eric Griffith wrote about some of the most cutting edge of these developments for PC Magazine.

Today on Word of Mouth, techno overload. Yes, technology has changed the speed and way we conduct business. But not everyone would say it’s become easier. With hundreds of unopened e-mails in the inbox, pop-up notices, RSS feeds, and text messages and phone calls competing for our attention, the tools designed for effiency are leaving us more distracted and less productive. Technology giants Intel, Google, IBM and others combined efforts to form a new non-profit organization called the Information Overload Research Group.

We’re joined by Matt Richtel, who reported on the digital deluge for The New York Times. He’s also the author of the conspiracy thriller Hooked, which deals with distraction and information addiction in the digital age.

We're also joined by Alex Wright, a writer and information architect who has led projects for The New York Times, Harvard University, IBM and others. His new book is Glut: Mastering Information through the Ages. Wright’s thorough tracking of the interaction between people and information illustrates that we are not the first generation to be caught up in "information overload." He says we are only now beginning to understand the information ecology that surrounds us.

(Photo by Sybren Stüvel)

Diamonds have been symbols of wealth and power for millenia. But the 20th-century diamond industry has been tarnished with a stiff fine for price-fixing, and with conflict. Diamond wealth supported the rise of Hitler, South African apartheid, and rebel armies who killed and maimed thousands in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Congo.

A composite of the latter conflicts was fictionalized in the 2006 film "Blood Diamond." An international agreement to screen out conflict diamonds now governs the industry. But now a new threat, lab-grown diamonds, are practically indistinguishable from the real thing.

The South-Africa based DeBeers launched their "A Diamond is Forever" slogan in 1948 and established the association between diamonds and love. The lab-grown diamond company Apollo Diamond’s slogan is "A Diamond is For Everyone" - clearly a shot across the bow.

Ulrich Boser wrote about synthetic, or cultured, diamonds for Smithsonian Magazine, and he joins Word of Mouth to tell us how the natural diamond industry is fighting back.

(Photo by Steve Jurvetson)

Stories of computer hackers stealing our personal information – or careless companies accidentally losing it – are among the downsides to living in the information age. Earlier this spring, 4.2 million Hannaford’s shoppers were told their bank accounts may be at risk if they’d recently swiped their cards at the checkout line.

Your credit card number is one thing, but who would willingly put their medical information at risk? Google, Microsoft, and WebMD are hoping you will. All three are launching online services that allow people to upload, store, and manage all their medical records online.

The companies say it’s a great way to give patients more power over their healthcare. But privacy and security concerns are not far behind. Martha Bebinger is a reporter at pubic radio station WBUR in Boston, and she’s been following the story.

(Photo by Taran Rampersad)