Dockers’ Go Khakis promise to keep your legs stain-free using revolutionary nanotechnology.
“We couldn’t help thinking that Dockers might be using the word ‘nanotechnology’ more for marketing muscle than for true scientific purposes, so we called its customer service line to ask a few pointed questions….”
The Georgia Institute of Technology announced today that it has named Ralph Merkle, a co-inventor of public-key cryptography, which allows secure transactions over the Internet, as director of the Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC) and as Professor of Computing.
Merkle is known for his seminal contributions to information security and nanotechnology.
He was formerly principal fellow at Zyvex and before that, a research scientist at the Xerox… read more
Semiconductor industry representatives are considering the addition of wireless communications technologies to the 2003 International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors.
The extension recognizes the need to address the post-CMOS era, when CMOS runs out of gas in the 2010 to 2015 time frame.
Picosecond x-ray crystallography of a protein has been demonstrated for the first time, making possible picosecond-scale movies, such as one showing a mutant myoglobin molecule getting rid of a toxic carbon monoxide (CO) molecule.
The system uses 150-ps x-ray pulses from the European Synchrotron and Radiation Facility synchrotron.
Some nanotechnologists say that soon everyone could be reading off electronic paper.
Researchers are developing “personalized cognitive assistant” software with $7 million DARPA funding.
Users will be able to establish a degree of trust with this software, just as they do with human assistants or secretaries. It will have to learn enough of the nuances of human interaction that it will know, for instance, when the user can be interrupted.
A new patented electron-beam “micro-robot” technology was announced today by Technology Innovations and Innovation On Demand, which have been issued U.S. Patent No. 6,588,208, “Wireless Technique for Microactivation.”
The breakthrough idea was to use focused beams of electron-beam or laser energy to wirelessly heat shape memory alloy (SMA) material. This bends when heated, causing movement. By eliminating bulky batteries and wires, microactuators can now be… read more
BBN network engineer Chip Elliott is building what he hopes will be an unbreakable encryption machine, designed to harness subatomic particles to create a hacker-proof way to communicate over fiber-optic networks.
A system enabling Sony Corp’s AIBO robot pets to transmit images to mobile phones is being demonstrated at “Wireless Japan 2003.” It could be used for security purposes, enabling users to operate “house-sitting” AIBO robots from outside.
Scientists are developing ways to rapidly deliver medicine such as liquid insulin via the lungs.
Several types of “bionic eyes” are beginning to restore sight to the blind:
Fear of robots and other supposedly sentient technology is what motivated organizers to host ArtBots, held in New York City this past weekend. Exhibits included:
“There is no computer that has common sense,” says Marvin Minsky. “We’re only getting the kinds of things that are capable of making an airline reservation. No computer can look around a room and tell you about it.”
AI’s biggest deficiency right now: “The lack of people with an interest in commonsense reasoning for computers…it’s hard to get 10 capable people.”
Asked to “Pick one: Bill Joy or… read more
“There’s a scary lesson in these contests between the grandmaster and his soulless opponents. We are sharing our world with another species, one that gets smarter and more independent every year. Though some people scoff at the idea that machines could become autonomous, remember it wasn’t long ago that almost no one thought a computer would ever beat a human chess champion. Could we ever face anything akin to the… read more