James O'Toole

Verizon just announced a new program called "Smart Rewards" that offers customers credit card-style perks like discounts for shopping, travel and dining.

You accrue points through the program by doing things like signing onto the Verizon website, paying your bill online and participating in the company's trade-in program.

The catch? Smart Rewards participants have to sign up for Verizon Selects, a program through which Verizon collects data on your location, Web browsing and mobile app usage for marketing purposes. That data is used in Verizon's "Precision Market Insights" business, which combines information on phone activity with demographic data to generate reports for marketers.

Ray Kurzweil has made a name for himself in the past few decades as an inventor, futurist and best-selling author. Now, he's heading Google's artificial intelligence efforts. He's currently leading a team that's trying to develop artificial intelligence by modeling the functioning of the human brain.

Kurzweil ended up at Google in late 2012 after meeting with CEO Larry Page to give him an advance copy of his book, "How To Create A Mind." He was looking for an investment in a company he was planning to launch that would focus on reverse-engineering the brain.

Kurzweil is known for provocative statements about how technology will shape our future, and critics have accused him of being long on hype and short on substance.

Chattanooga (TN) may not be the first place that springs to mind when it comes to cutting-edge technology. But thanks to its ultra-high-speed Internet, the city has established itself as a center for innovation -- and an encouraging example for those frustrated with slow speeds and high costs from private broadband providers.

Chattanooga rolled out a fiber-optic network a few years ago that now offers speeds of up to 1000 Megabits per second, or 1 gigabit, for just $70 a month. A cheaper 100 Megabit plan costs $58 per month. Even the slower plan is still light-years ahead of the average US connection speed, which stood at 9.8 megabits per second as of late 2013, according to Akamai Technologies.

As federal officials find themselves at the center of controversy over net neutrality and the regulation of private Internet service providers like Comcast and Time Warner Cable, Chattanooga offers an alternative model for keeping people connected. A city-owned agency, the Electric Power Board, runs its own network, offering higher-speed service than any of its private-sector competitors can manage.

The Federal Communications Commission recognizes the potential of municipality-run broadband, saying in early 2014 that it will push for the repeal of state and local laws supported by the cable industry that make it harder for cities to set up their own networks.

Chattanooga officials say the network has helped spark a burgeoning local tech scene and the relocation of a number of businesses, drawn by both the fast Internet and the reliability offered by the smart grid.

The Web has been buzzing over news of a federal proposal that would allow the creation of "fast" and "slow" lanes online. As part of the plan, on which the Federal Communications Commission will vote, Internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon would be able to charge companies like Netflix and Amazon for faster access to customers.

The rules are still subject to change -- the FCC has to consider public comments and face scrutiny from lawmakers before they're finalized. But here are a few ways your Internet service could change if the fast lane plan is enacted: 1) Higher costs, 2) Slower speeds, 3) Prioritized content, and 4) Better service for some applications.

For all the amazing things smartphones can do, they're still not great at actual phone calls. Sprint's hoping to change that. The wireless carrier is rolling out new "HD Voice" technology to improve the quality of grainy cell-phone calls.

It's already available in a handful of cities, and should go nationwide by "mid-year," Sprint said.

Most people can hear within a range of ten octaves, but current cell phone calls span only four. That's why taking a call from an iPhone owner can sound like listening to someone through a set of tin cans.

High definition Voice expands a cell phone call's range to seven octaves. It also includes technology to eliminate background noise, giving voice calls a fuller, more natural sound. For the technology to work, both callers need to be Sprint customers using HD Voice-enabled phones.

The massive data centers that power services from Google, Facebook, IBM and other tech giants are big-time energy hogs. But researchers around the world are starting to turn them into an energy source.

In the United States, data centers are responsible for more than 2% of the country's electricity usage, according to researchers at Villanova University. If the global cloud computing industry were considered to be a single country, it would be the fifth-largest in the world in terms of energy consumption, according to Ed Turkel of Hewlett-Packard's Hyperscale Business Unit. Nearly half of the energy data centers consume goes to cooling the equipment using fans and other methods.

That's "just wasteful," said Jill Simmons, director of Seattle's Office of Sustainability and Environment. That's why the city of Seattle is working on a project to make use of the heat data centers produce. The city plans to route heat from two local data centers to to help warm 10 million square feet of building space in the surrounding area. The project is still in the conceptual phase, but Simmons said the city hopes to have it in motion "within the next year." The plan is to take the water that cools the data center and pipe it out to buildings nearby. The system will also rely on water heated by energy from sewer lines and electrical substations.

The ultra-slow Wi-Fi at your local coffee shop could soon be getting a big boost. Qualcomm announced plans for new technology that it says could triple Wi-Fi speeds in homes, offices and on public networks.

The company's new approach, which follows seven years of research, allows networks to transmit data to multiple groups of users simultaneously using algorithms that adapt on the fly to changes in usage. The technology is known as "MU-MIMO," which stands for "multi-user, multiple input, multiple output."

Qualcomm plans to sell MU-MIMO-enabled chips to manufacturers of wireless routers and access points, as well as to companies that make smartphones, tablets and other consumer electronics. When both the network and its users are employing the technology, Qualcomm claims it will boost speeds by two to three times.

"Using MU-MIMO is like using the carpool lane: the Wi-Fi Highway doesn't change, but grouping up with other users lets you go much faster while de-congesting the other lanes," the company said.