The Frankencameras use a host of clever algorithms to capture sequences of images and turn them into better photos.

ECONOMIST: Monitor

The technology, called RAID (redundant arrays of independent disks), involves clever algorithms for dealing out data among an assortment of hard-disk platters.

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The experience of feeling known coming not from lovers and mothers but from multi-national corporations with access to petabytes of data and clever statisticians able to craft clever algorithms will always be creep-inducing.

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But what is possible is to build many smaller dishes spaced a long way from one another, and to link them with clever computer algorithms so that they behave as if they were a single giant telescope.

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