You are driving along a country road, full of love for humanity but unaware that a 40-ton milk tanker is about to lumber out of a hidden side turning, just around the next corner. Your car knows, though. Sensors have identified its size and shape and predicted its course and speed. On-board computers have calculated an avoidance strategy – a quick burst of acceleration and a directional tweak.
Without any human intervention, the car speeds up slightly, the steering twitches slightly and the lorry pulls out with a couple of inches …

Apple Inc. is refining its plans to annex the living room into its entertainment empire.
On Wednesday, Apple unveiled a smaller, cheaper version of Apple TV, which connects to a high-definition television and can show rented movies and TV shows from Apple’s own service, plus content from Netflix, photos on Flickr, YouTube clips and more.
The new $99 gadget marks a slight improvement over Apple’s first television set-top box, which went on sale in 2007. The original Apple TV had to sync with a computer, a concept most consumers weren’t ready for, …

3M Co., the conglomerate whose products range from Post-Its to respirators, computer arms and films for LCD TV screens, is trying to expand into the security market by buying Cogent Inc. for about $943 million.
Cogent develops automated systems that read finger and palm prints, and it makes iris and face recognition systems used by government, law enforcement and border patrol agencies.
Cogent’s board of directors already has agreed to the deal and is recommending that shareholders accept it. 3M said Monday it will pay $10.50 per share for Cogent, or nearly …

As the world’s biggest maker of computer chips, Intel Corp. can’t afford to ignore its huge blind spot in mobile phones.
Eighty percent of today’s personal computers use Intel processors. But Intel is absent in smart phones, which are threatening PCs as gateways to the Internet. One reason is that Intel still doesn’t have good ways to design chips to use less power, so Intel’s products drain batteries more quickly — something smart-phone makers won’t tolerate.
The dynamic has put Intel at risk of missing out on the next great opportunity for …

A new study theorizes that the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago by at least two meteorite strikes rather than one.
Scientists previously thought that a huge meteorite impact occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out the dinosaurs in one fell swoop.
New evidence, however, suggests that a second impact occurred in the Ukraine, according to a BBC News report on Friday.
The study findings were published in the journal Geology by a team lead by Professor David Jolley of Aberdeen University.
The idea that a meteorite impact killed the dinosaurs …