MIT Technology Review

MIT Technology Review is a magazine published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as The Technology Review, and was re-launched without the "The" in its name on April 23, 1998 under then publisher R. Bruce Journey. In September 2005, it underwent another transition under the current editor-in-chief and publisher, Jason Pontin, to a form resembling the historical magazine.

Before the 1998 re-launch, the editor stated that "nothing will be left of the old magazine except the name." It is therefore necessary to distinguish between the modern and the historical Technology Review. The historical magazine had been published by the MIT Alumni Association, was more closely aligned with the interests of MIT alumni, and had a more intellectual tone and much smaller public circulation. The magazine, billed from 1998 to 2005 as "MIT's Magazine of Innovation," and from 2005 onwards as simply "published by MIT", focused on new technology and how it is commercialized; was mass-marketed to the public; and was targeted at senior executives, researchers, financiers, and policymakers, as well as MIT alumni.

Swarm intelligence

Swarm intelligence (SI) is the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems, natural or artificial. The concept is employed in work on artificial intelligence. The expression was introduced by Gerardo Beni and Jing Wang in 1989, in the context of cellular robotic systems.

SI systems consist typically of a population of simple agents or boids interacting locally with one another and with their environment. The inspiration often comes from nature, especially biological systems. The agents follow very simple rules, and although there is no centralized control structure dictating how individual agents should behave, local, and to a certain degree random, interactions between such agents lead to the emergence of "intelligent" global behavior, unknown to the individual agents. Examples in natural systems of SI include ant colonies, bird flocking, animal herding, bacterial growth, fish schooling and microbial intelligence.

The application of swarm principles to robots is called swarm robotics, while 'swarm intelligence' refers to the more general set of algorithms. 'Swarm prediction' has been used in the context of forecasting problems.

Technology

Technology ("science of craft", from Greek τέχνη, techne, "art, skill, cunning of hand"; and -λογία, -logia) is the collection of techniques, skills, methods and processes used in the production of goods or services or in the accomplishment of objectives, such as scientific investigation. Technology can be the knowledge of techniques, processes, etc. or it can be embedded in machines, computers, devices and factories, which can be operated by individuals without detailed knowledge of the workings of such things.

The human species' use of technology began with the conversion of natural resources into simple tools. The prehistoric discovery of how to control fire and the later Neolithic Revolution increased the available sources of food and the invention of the wheel helped humans to travel in and control their environment. Developments in historic times, including the printing press, the telephone, and the Internet, have lessened physical barriers to communication and allowed humans to interact freely on a global scale. The steady progress of military technology has brought weapons of ever-increasing destructive power, from clubs to nuclear weapons.

Lexus ES

The Lexus ES is a series of compact, then mid-size, and later full-size luxury sedans sold by Lexus since 1989. Six generations of the sedan have been introduced to date, each offering V6 engines and the front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout. The first five generations of the ES were built on the Toyota Camry platform, with the sixth generation more closely related to the Avalon. Manual transmissions were offered until 1993, a lower-displacement inline-four engine became an option in Asian markets in 2010, and a gasoline-electric hybrid version was introduced in 2012. The ES was Lexus' only front-wheel drive vehicle until 1998, when the related Lexus RX was introduced, and the sedan occupied the entry-level luxury car segment of the Lexus lineup in North America and other regions until the debut of the Lexus IS in 1999. The ES name stands for "Executive Sedan". However, some Lexus importers use the backronymic name, "Elegant Sedan".

Introduced in 1989, the first-generation ES 250 was one of two vehicles in Lexus' debut lineup, the other being the flagship LS 400. The second-generation ES 300 debuted in 1991, followed by the third-generation ES 300 in 1996, and the fourth-generation ES 300/330 in 2001. The first- through fourth-generation sedans shared body styling elements with Japan-market Toyota sedans, and a domestic market equivalent, the Toyota Windom, was sold until the launch of the fifth-generation ES in 2006. The fifth-generation ES, featuring Lexus' own L-finesse body styling, debuted in early 2006 as a 2007 model. The sixth-generation ES debuted in the first half of 2012 as a 2013 model, and features increased cabin dimensions due to a longer wheelbase which is shared with the full-size Toyota Avalon.