In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M.

Neal Stephenson is best known as the author of science fiction novels such as SnowCrash and Anathem. But he does other things as well. Among them: He's assembled a team of scientists and engineers to figure out how to build a 20-kilometer-tall tower to use as a platform for launching rockets into space.

While interstellar travel presents huge challenges, it's "almost inevitable," according to a speaker at the Starship Century symposium here in San Diego.

The big announcement at the opening keynotes of IBM's 2013 Smarter Commerce Global Summit is that IBM is putting Watson into companies, and companies are putting Watson to work.

Catch up on the week with one simple serving of Friday File. We've pieced together 10 interesting news bites you may have missed and put them together in bite-size morsels.

Yahoo's reported $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr faces many obstacles. But it could be a big jolt of caffeine to help Yahoo wake up and work right.

The smartphone market reached a significant milestone, a breakthrough that may cause vendors to celebrate but could strain the capabilities of IT service desks.

A study of US ecommerce trends in the run up to Mother's Day points to what Jay Henderson, Global Strategy Director for IBM Smarter Commerce, called "a pretty seismic shift" in online shopping habits.