A custom-built programmable 3D printer can create materials with some the properties of living tissues, Oxford University scientists have demonstrated.
The new type of material consists of tens of thousands of picoliter connected water droplets encapsulated within lipid films, which can perform some of the functions of the cells inside our bodies.
These printed “droplet networks” might be interfaced with tissues, used as tissue… read more
3M and IBM announced that the two companies plan to jointly develop the first adhesives that can be used to package semiconductors into densely stacked silicon “towers,” making it possible to build, for the first time, commercial microprocessors composed of layers of up to 100 separate chips.
Such stacking would allow for dramatically higher levels of integration for information technology and consumer electronics applications. Processors could… read more
3M plans to launch its handheld MPro110 mini projector on September 30 for $359, with VGA and composite video inputs.
New iPhone apps let anyone use an existing photo as the basis for an artistic illustration, with tools like virtual bushes and pencils to apply to your photos, and various paper and canvas textures.
The week’s much-discussed New Yorker cover used the advanced Brushes app:
Promising medical devices being research presented at the DARPATech conference include the Trauma Pod (goal: stabilize the patient as quickly as possible), Deep Bleeder Acoustic Coagulation (high-intensity focused ultrasound, triggering coagulation in injured blood vessels within 30 seconds), Simplified Automated Ventilator, and the Revolutionizing Prosthetics program.
Scientists from Spectrolab, Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing, have recently published their research on the fabrication of solar cells that surpass the 40% efficiency milestone—the highest efficiency achieved for any photovoltaic device.
At the TED conference in Los Angeles, architect and computer scientist Skylar Tibbits showed how the process allows objects to self-assemble, BBC News reports.
It could be used to install objects in hard-to-reach places such as underground water pipes, he suggested.
It might also herald an age of self-assembling furniture, said experts.
Smart materials
“We’re proposing that the fourth dimension is time… read more
Cellphones capable of transmitting data at a gigabit per second have been demonstrated by NTT DoCoMo in Japan.
In experiments, prototype phones were used to view 32 high definition video streams, while travelling in an automobile at 20 kilometers per hour.
Multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) multiplexing was also used to send data via various routes across a network to further increase data capacity.
RFID, Web services, greater use of 3D displays, and the use of graphics processors for computation are among the hot technologies to watch for in 2007.
The John Templeton Foundation has awarded a three-year, $5 million grant to John Martin Fischer, distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, to undertake a rigorous examination of a wide range of issues related to immortality.
“People have been thinking about immortality throughout history. We have a deep human need to figure out what happens to us after death,”… read more
Growing human organs to ease the deadly shortages facing patients desperate for transplants. Deploying organic molecules to store a million times more data than silicon can. Harnessing the unused processing power on your desktop to attack gigantic computational problems, from genetic analysis to spotting hidden customer trends. Massively expanding the data capacity of optical networks to turbocharge the information superhighway. Modifying plants to grow cheap, lifesaving vaccines.
The editors… read more
Five technologies that could change the world are three-D printing to allow designers and engineers to get new products to market faster, biosimulation to speed development of more effective new drugs, autonomic computing (computers smart enough to configure themselves), Internet-like “distributed generation” power networks placed closer to where the power is actually being used, and smart tags to allow products to be tracked through the distribution network.
1. Don’t touch your eyes, mouth and nose.
2. Wash your hands with soap and water.
3. Use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
4. Cover your nose and mouth.
5. Consider buying an N95 respirator.
The StreetScooter, a $7,000 electric vehicle (EV) with a 74 mph top speed and an 80-mile range, have been developed by a collaboration among more than 50 auto parts suppliers, tech companies and software developers, Autopia Wired reports.
It’s a modular vehicle, with parts that can be added, removed, and reused depending on customer preference.
StreetScooter will be available in Germany in the spring of 2013,… read more
Astronomers have discovered more than 50 new exoplanets orbiting nearby stars, including sixteen super-Earths (planets with a mass between one and ten times that of the Earth).
They used the HARPS spectrograph on the 3.6-metre telescope at ESO‘s La Silla Observatory in Chile, the world’s most successful planet finder.
One of the recently announced newly discovered planets, HD 85512 b, is estimated… read more