Recommended from Around the Web (Week ending December 20, 2015)

The First Person to Hack the iPhone Built a Self-Driving Car. In His Garage
Crazy story from Bloomberg about how a guy built his own self-driving car at home.
—Rachel Metz, Senior Editor, Mobile

U.S. Navy Recruits Gut Microbes to Fight Obesity and Disease
A look at some basic military-supported research aimed at creating a “smart” E. coli that can sense chemical disturbances in the gut and then deliver drugs to head off a variety of related disorders.
—Mike Orcutt, Associate Editor

Through the Looking Glass
A profile of 2014 Innovator Under 35 Manu Prakash asks what a $1 microscope is good for.
—Linda Lowenthal, Copy Chief

In Who Do We Trust? How Privilege Plays Out in Security and Privacy Online
An interesting perspective on computer security. The author argues that some of the best privacy practices are costly to implement or known primarily to people in technical circles. As a result, she says, “marginalized people, including women and people of color, are disproportionately impacted by Internet-related crimes, harassment and invasion of privacy.”
—Brian Bergstein, Executive Editor

SynTouch Is Giving Robots the Ability to Feel Textures Like Humans Do
Now robots can like fuzzy bunnies too.
—J. Juniper Friedman, Associate Web Producer

Please Don’t Shut Down the Internet, Donald Trump
A nice piece explains Donald Trump’s seemingly deranged comments regarding “shutting down” the Internet, and why the idea won’t work.
—Will Knight, Senior Editor, AI

In a Self-Serve World, Start-Ups Find Value in Human Helpers
Farhad Manjoo on the enduring value of human expertise, and the startups that are bucking recent history by making it central to their products.
—Will Knight

OpenAI Won’t Benefit Humanity Without Data-Sharing
A thoughtful piece in the Guardian points out that there’s more to making artificial intelligence more egalitarian than releasing algorithms.
—Will Knight