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First all-optical nanowire switch

Representing data by bursts of light instead of electrons
September 10, 2012

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University of Pennsylvania researchers have made an important advance in photonics, creating the first all-optical photonic switch out of cadmium sulfide nanowires and combining these photonic switches into a logic gate, a fundamental component of computer chips that process information.

The research team’s innovation built upon their earlier research, which showed that their cadmium sulfide nanowires exhibited extremely strong light-matter coupling, making them especially efficient… read more

Topics: Computers/Infotech/UI | Electronics | Nanotech/Materials Science | Physics/Cosmology

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FBI launches face recognition project

The Next Generation Identification program will include a nationwide database of criminal faces and other biometric data
September 10, 2012

ngi_fbi

As part of an update to the national fingerprint database, the FBI has begun rolling out facial recognition to identify criminals, New Scientist reports.

It will form part of the bureau’s long-awaited, $1 billion Next Generation Identification (NGI) program, which will also add biometrics such as iris scans, DNA analysis, and voice identification to the toolkit. A handful of states began uploading their photos as… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Social Networking/Web/Education | Social/Ethical/Legal

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Reducing the cost of solar power with mobile robots

September 10, 2012

qbotix_qts

QBotix has developed a dual-axis tracking system that uses rugged, intelligent mobile robots to dynamically operate solar power plants and maximize energy output.

The QBotix Tracking System (QTS) increases energy production of ground-mounted solar power plants by up to 40 percent over existing fixed mount systems and lowers the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) by up to 20 percent,. the company claims.

QTS utilizes a pair of… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Energy

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Mining the blogosphere

Concordia NLP researchers develop tools that make sense of social media
September 10, 2012

Social-media

Can a computer “read” an online blog and understand it? Several Concordia University computer scientists believe so, and are helping get closer to that goal.

Leila Kosseim, project lead and associate professor in Concordia’s Computational Linguistics Laboratory, and  recently graduated doctoral student Shamima Mithun have developed a natural-language-processing system called BlogSum that allows an organization to pose a question and then… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Computers/Infotech/UI | Social Networking/Web/Education

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A crowdsourced artificial chat partner that’s smarter than Siri-style personal assistants

September 10, 2012

The Chorus system. User requests are forwarded to crowd workers, who then submit and vote on responses. Once sufficient agreement is reached, responses are made visible to users. The crowd’s working memory is updated by workers selecting lines from the conversation or summarizing important facts.

Personal assistants such as Apple’s Siri may be useful, but they are still far from matching the smarts and conversational skills of a real person.

Researchers at the University of Rochester have demonstrated a new, potentially better approach that creates a smart artificial chat partner from fleeting contributions from many crowdsourced workers, Technology Review reports.

When people talk to the new crowd-powered chat system,… read more

Topics: AI/Robotics | Social Networking/Web/Education

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Physicists solve uncertainty about uncertainty principle

September 10, 2012

uncertainty-12_09_07

The Heisenberg uncertainty principle is one of the cornerstones of quantum mechanics: it’s impossible to measure anything without disturbing it.

For instance, any attempt to measure a particle’s position must change its momentum.

But never mind all that. It’s wrong, University of Toronto physicists say they have just proven.

(This has important implications for quantum information and especially quantum cryptography, where it is fundamental to the security of certain protocols.)… read more

Topics: Physics/Cosmology | Quantum

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The Rapture of the Nerds by Stross, Doctorow published

September 9, 2012

rapture-nerds-cover

Science fiction author Charlie Stross announced Friday on his blog that The Rapture of the Nerds: A Tale of The Singularity, Posthumanity, and Awkward Social Situations, a new science fiction novel co-authored by Cory Doctorow, has been published by Tor Books.

The book is available now from Amazon and will soon be available for free download under a Creative… read more

Topics: Entertainment/New Media | Singularity/Futures

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‘NAFTA on Steroids’: secret agreements to censor the Internet

September 8, 2012

trans_pacific_partnership

Negotiators from the U.S. and eight other Pacific Rim countries are meeting at a seclude resort in Leesburg, Viriginia, working out deals in the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement that could hamper free speech on the Internet, Common Dreams reports.

The negotiations began in 2007 and have been carried through by the Obama administration and several Pacific nations under conditions of “extreme secrecy” without press, public, or policymaker oversight.

Leaked information… read more

Topics: Internet/Telecom | Social/Ethical/Legal

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New Kindle products light a fire

September 8, 2012

kindle-fire

Amazon has announced five new tablets, including an updated Kindle Fire for $159, a new e-reader called the Paperwhite for $119, and three models of the new Kindle Fire HD, all garnering widespread positive press reviews so far.

The Kindle Fire HD models feature slimmed down designs, improved displays, more powerful processors, and dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus optimization.

Their unique software features include “X-Ray,” which lets you easily… read more

Topics: Electronics | Entertainment/New Media

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A computational model of an anticancer nanoparticle

IBM's Blue Gene supercomputer uncovers a novel drug interaction site
September 7, 2012

ibm_nanoparticles_cancer

Researchers have used computational modeling to precisely simulate how a drug inhibits a target enzyme known to spur cancer’s spread, capturing the interaction at the quantum-mechanical level, Technology Review reports.

They hope their work will uncover a way to specifically inhibit members of a whole class of cancer-linked proteins without causing as many side effects as existing drugs.

The authors showed that a buckyball molecule, which… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Biotech | Nanotech/Materials Science | Physics/Cosmology

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Video Dial-a-Doctor seen easing shortage in rural US

September 7, 2012

(Credit: MDLive)

A half-dozen U.S. states are turning to telemedicine to address a shortage of doctors in rural areas, a gap the Obama administration has said is a serious health-care shortcoming, Bloomberg reports.

Medical provider Sentara Healthcare and MDLive, a remote technology developer, to provide remote care to more than 2 million people in the Southeast.

Ware County,… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Innovation/Entrepreneurship | Internet/Telecom | Social/Ethical/Legal

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Researchers identify biochemical functions for most of the human genome

New map finds genetic regulatory elements account for 80 percent of our DNA
September 7, 2012

encodeproject

Only about 1 percent of the human genome contains gene regions that code for proteins, raising the question of what the rest of the DNA is doing.

Scientists have now begun to discover the answer: About 80 percent of the genome is biochemically active, and likely involved in regulating the expression of nearby genes, according to a study from a large international team of researchers.

The… read more

Topics: Biotech

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Brainy beverage: study reveals how green tea boosts brain cell production to aid memory

September 7, 2012

Green tea leaves steeping in a gaiwan (credit: Wikimol/Wikimedia Commons)

It has long been believed that drinking green tea is good for the memory. Now Chinese researchers have discovered how the chemical properties of China’s favorite drink affect the generation of brain cells, providing benefits for memory and spatial learning.

The researchers, led by Professor Yun Bai from the Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China, focused on the organic chemical EGCG (epigallocatechin-3 gallate), the major polyphenol in green tea.… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Cognitive Science/Neuroscience

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Male birth control pill may be ready soon

September 7, 2012

control_jq1

Attention men: The day may be coming soon when you can take your own birth control pill with no side effects, according to a study done by a group of scientists that includes a Texas A&M University researcher.

Working on mice, the team found that a compound called JQ1 acts as an inhibitor to sperm production and also sperm mobility.

“Both of these are needed for… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity

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Are restrictions to scientific research costing lives?

September 6, 2012

CensorsOnCampusSep12Cover

In “Censors on Campus,” Index on Censorship magazine asks whether lives might be saved by making vital research freely available.

Some parts of Asia and Africa the fight against malaria is severely hampered because doctors and researchers are denied full access to the 3,000 articles published on the disease each year. At the same time, scientists living and working in developing countries are prevented from becoming global… read more

Topics: Biomed/Longevity | Social Networking/Web/Education | Social/Ethical/Legal | Survival/Defense

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