Your next battery
November 25, 2003
Scientists are scrambling to perfect the fuel cell as a methanol-powered source for energy-hungry laptops and other portable devices.
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Intel’s Tiny Hope for the Future
November 25, 2003
Intel is thinking even smaller: tiny sensor chips that network with each other — inside everything on earth.
It foresees networks consisting of thousands of motes, located wherever there’s a need for data collection, streaming real-time data to one another and to central servers.
The goal is to halve the size and price of a mote (a tiny sensor, transmitter and antenna to communicate with other motes) every… read more
Will December make or break the Internet?
November 25, 2003
The Internet sits at a crossroads. The World Summit on the Information Society, organized by the International Telecommunications Union, will bring together the heads of over 60 governments in Geneva on December 10 to 12.
The goal: wrest control from ICANN, which is backed by the U.S., Europe and English-speaking partners such as Australia.
New Machine Can Detect Drugs Like Dogs
November 25, 2003
Georgia Tech researchers have developed a machine that can instantly sniff out illegal drugs.
From a few feet away, the device can “smell” as little as one-trillionth of a gram. So far it’s only programmed to detect cocaine, but it could be developed to sniff out other drugs, anthrax, bombs, chemical agents and even cancerous cells.
Intel produces chips for next generation
November 25, 2003
Intel said it has produced chips with the 65-nanometer manufacturing process and will start to mass-manufacture chips on the process in 2005, a strong sign the company will continue to keep pace with Moore’s Law.
Reducing the size of the chip improves performance, reduces costs, and can potentially cut energy consumption. The 65-nanometer chips will contain strained silicon and a low-k (low capacitance) dielectric layer, which, in addition to… read more
The Muse Is in the Software
November 24, 2003
“Inventing is about catching the wave,” said Ray Kurzweil, who addressed a national convention of inventors in Philadelphia last Monday. “Most inventions fail not because the inventor can’t get them to work but because the invention comes at the wrong time.”
Kurzweil’s latest invention, with engineer John Keklak, is cybernetic poet, recently awarded patent No. 6,647,395. Like many of Kurzweil’s inventions, it’s based on pattern recognition.
How to foster innovation
November 24, 2003
With the pace of innovation doubling every decade, inventors should “target the world when the product is launched, not when the project is launched,” said Ray Kurzweil in a keynote speech at the recent 8th Annual Independent Inventors Conference in Philadelphia, presented by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Kurzweil offered several other tips to inventors. For example:
Intel charts new seas
November 24, 2003
Intel Corp. has made available its chip-making nanotechnology tools to cancer researchers to diagnose and study cancer.
Intel is building a room-sized machine called the Raman Bioanalyzer System at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. It beams lasers onto tiny medical samples to produce images of the molecules’ chemical structures.
The bioanalyzer also will have applications beyond cancer research for detecting single-molecule changes in any living… read more
Real-time movies of solid-to-liquid phase transitions
November 24, 2003
Chemists have captured atom-scale images of the melting process, revealing the first images of the transition of a solid into a liquid at the timescale of femtoseconds.
“Imagine being able to see atoms as they move in real time,” says Professor R. J. Dwayne Miller of the University of Toronto departments of Chemistry and Physics. “Chemistry and biology are fundamentally governed by changes in atomic structure. We now have… read more
UK debut for ‘blind’ mobile
November 24, 2003
The first mobile phone designed specifically for blind and partially sighted people will go on sale in Spain next week. A speech synthesizer reads everything that would normally appear on the screen and speaks the name or number of incoming callers.
Could I Get That Song in Elvis, Please?
November 24, 2003
Vocaloid software, due out in January from Yamaha, allows users to create synthesized songs in a life-like concert-quality voice.
To create the virtual performer’s “vocal font,” technicians record a singer performing as many as 60 pages of scripted phoneme articulations along with assorted pitches and techniques like glissandos and legatos.
The software may allow for “vocal reanimation” of celebrity singers, like Elvis.
Vocaloid could be used as… read more
Gene-Altering Revolution Nears the Pet Store: Glow-in-the-Dark Fish
November 24, 2003
A Texas company will soon start selling The GloFish, a genetically engineered zebra fish containing a gene from a sea coral that makes the fish bright red under normal light and fluorescent under ultraviolet light.
Meet Paro, the therapeutic robot seal
November 21, 2003
Prototypes of Paro, a stuffed animal seal robot, are being tested at nursing homes and with autistic and handicapped children.
Surface tactile sensors beneath its fur and whiskers trigger Paro to move and respond to petting: eyes open and close, flippers move. Just holding and stroking the critter has a calming effect.
Next Big Thing in Biotech: RNAi
November 21, 2003
A new tool that blocks disease-causing genes, RNA interference (RNAi), could lead the way for the next wave of blockbuster drugs in biotechnology.
Nano-transistor self-assembles using biology
November 21, 2003
A functional electronic nano-device has been manufactured using biological self-assembly for the first time. It harnesses the construction capabilities of DNA and the electronic properties of carbon nanotubes to create a self-assembling nano-transistor.
The team used proteins to allow carbon nanotubes to bind to specific sites on strands of DNA. They then turned the remainder of the DNA molecule into a conducting wire. The team has already connected two… read more