Cars that drop their users off and park themselves using an iPod touch video feed could come to market in the next decade.Many inventions we now take for granted, such as the typewriter and speech-to-text technology, were developed as assistive devices for the handicapped before revolutionizing the daily lives of everyone else.The same may be true for a new development from Arne Supp, Luis E. Navarro-Serment, and Aaron Steinfeld of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. The researchers have successfully tested a system that allows a car to park itself using remote video supervision via an iPod Touch. The purpose of the device isn't convenience, but enablement for handicapped individuals. [Read the full article]

Google's Chrome OS vision is perhaps best understood by examining the differences between Chrome OS and the operating systems commonly used today, says Sundar Pichai, the vice president of product management for Chrome OS (and the related Chrome Web browser). Those differences come from a single design decision about the relationship between a person and his computer, Pichai says."Operating systems today are centered on the idea that applications can be trusted to modify the system, and that users can be trusted to install applications that are trustworthy," he says, "it turns out those are bad assumptions."In contrast, Chrome OS assumes that applications and users can't be trusted. And it has just one application: the browser. [Read the full article]

Secure line: In an effort to foil hackers, a new app provides a second line of communications with a bank.Credit: DUO SecurityAs more people carry the devices, technology firms are creating better security checks for bank transactions.A simple phone call or text message could have saved Mark Patterson nearly $350,000. The money was stolen from his company's bank account last year by cybercriminals based in Eastern Europe. Patterson discovered the fraud six days after it had begun, when the bank sent notice that a fraudulent $9,000 transfer to an account in California had failed to complete.A startup security firm, DUO Security, hopes to offer a better way to secure banking transactions, by routing the information used to confirm a transaction through to a second device: a smart phone. The company has developed apps for a variety of smart phone platforms to create a separate channel between a bank and its customer to verify a transaction. [Read the full article]

Mapping the genome of a fetus from its mother's blood could mean less risky screening for prenatal diseases.A way of mapping the genome of an unborn child using DNA from the mother's blood shows potential for broad genetic testing without risk to the fetus. While the technique is too expensive to be put into practice now, the research is important because it shows that the fetus's entire genome is present in the mother's blood."I think this paper is a major landmark to eventually offering noninvasive testing to all pregnant women," says Arthur Beaudet, chairman of the department of molecular and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas. Beaudet, who was not involved in the study, is pursuing similar research, to develop a method of isolating fetal cells from maternal blood.The two most accurate prenatal tests for genetic abnormalities, such as Down syndrome, in use today are amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling. [Read the full article]