 Computing & Electronics
1 February 2012
Brain waves reveal mind's internal voice
Eavesdropping on the brain's internal monologs or communicating with locked-in patients may one day be a reality, as scientists learn how to decode the brain's electrical activity into audio signals. The technique reads electrical activity in a region of the human auditory system and then reconstructs the words...
4 January 2012
Virtual sky makes for happier workers
The European developers of a luminous ceiling that mimics the lighting of passing clouds say that their artificial skyscape creates a more pleasant office environment for workers...
17 December 2011
Software maps evolution of musical taste to predict hits
Predicting the popularity of a pop song could be achieved by using state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms, say UK computer scientists who have designed software to interpret the various musical factors that make a song a hit...
29 November 2011
Reality check for celebrity images proposed
Computer scientists have developed a program to automatically rank photographs based on the amount of retouching the picture has undergone. Use of the system by photo editors and advertisers would, the researchers say, help rein in skyrocketing rates of eating disorders and body dysmorphia...
19 October 2011
Clever vibrational hack turns iPhone into spyPhone
Researchers have demonstrated how a smartphone accelerometer (the sensor that detects the phone's orientation and movement) can sense nearby computer keyboard vibrations and decipher complete sentences with up to 80 percent accuracy...
26 September 2011
Videos reconstructed from brain scans
Using MRI brain scans, computational models and a large set of YouTube videos, researchers have demonstrated how people’s dynamic visual experiences can be reconstructed...
9 August 2011
Motion capture for everyone, anywhere, anytime
Current motion capture techniques use cameras to meticulously record the movements of actors inside studios, enabling those movements to be mapped onto digital models. Now, a new system which places the cameras on the actors themselves permits motion capture to occur almost anywhere...
8 July 2011
Harvested TV, radio signals power devices
Scientists using a novel printable ultra-wideband antenna have shown that the ambient electromagnetic waves from TV stations, radio stations, satellites and cell phones can be "harvested" and used to power a range of electronic devices...
7 July 2011
Cheap-and-cheerful pinhead camera doesn't need lens
A camera that fits on the head of a pin, contains no lenses or moving parts and costs pennies to make could revolutionize an array of scientific fields from surgery to robotics...
1 June 2011
Error tolerance could slash computer energy use
A clever computer programming framework that shuttles non-critical computational tasks to under-powered microprocessor areas could dramatically lower the energy needed to run computers...
6 May 2011
Schizophrenic computer models mental illness
A computer network that emulates schizophrenia is providing University of Texas at Austin researchers with important insights into the inner workings of schizophrenic brains...
5 May 2011
"Paperphone" prototype demonstrates bend gesture interface
Canadian researchers have developed a prototype flexible smartphone interface that allows users to interact with applications on the phone by bending and manipulating the display...
21 April 2011
Laser spark plug to give gas guzzlers new lease on life
The Japanese researchers behind an innovative laser spark plug system say it will improve fuel economy and reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides, the major components of smog...
31 March 2011
Electronic components made from human blood
Indian researchers have demonstrated a memristor made from human blood and are now planning the creation of other electronic components, such as transistors and capacitors, composed of human tissue...
28 March 2011
Electrical “wand” extinguishes fires
A 200-year-old observation that electricity can affect the shape of flames is being revisited with an experimental device that uses an electric field projected from a probe to rapidly suppress flames...
16 February 2011
Electro-magnetic pulse used to detonate IEDs
Composed mainly of plastic, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are notoriously hard to detect. But Colombian researchers believe they may have found a way to detonate them remotely using electromagnetic pulses...
15 February 2011
WiFi breakthrough: over-and-out for over-and-out
An obvious - but until now overlooked - engineering enhancement allows wireless signals to be sent and received simultaneously on a single channel, a breakthrough that will at least double the speed of existing wireless networks...
18 November 2010
DoD-funded study pooh-poohs rare earth shortage
At current consumption rates, known deposits of rare earth elements in the United States are sufficient for 1,300 years, according to the first-ever nationwide estimate of these elements by the U.S. Geological Survey...
17 November 2010
Chaos computing researcher touts new silicon "chaogate"
Seeking to exploit the vast pattern formation properties of chaotic systems, a team of chaos computing researchers has created a silicon alternative to the conventional computer logic gate - the "chaogate"...
4 November 2010
Holographic video transmitted via Ethernet
Researchers at the University of Arizona have developed a holographic system that can transmit a series of 3D images in near-real-time. The monochromatic system is limited to a refresh rate of 0.5 frames/second but the developers say it is a precursor to full-blown holographic videoconferencing...
8 September 2010
Words decoded from brain signals
In an early step toward letting severely paralyzed people speak with their thoughts, researchers have translated brain signals into words using two grids of 16 microelectrodes implanted beneath the skull but atop the brain...
13 July 2010
Acoustic fabric functions as speaker and microphone
MIT researchers have announced a new milestone on the path to functional-fiber fabrics: acoustic threads that can both detect and produce sound. Applications touted include clothes that function as sensitive microphones, for capturing speech or monitoring bodily functions...
5 May 2010
Depth-of-field irrelevant with omni-focus camera
Based on an entirely new distance-mapping principle, the omni-focus lensing system delivers automatic real-time focus of both near and far field images, simultaneously, in high resolution...
26 April 2010
International team claim organic computing breakthrough
A research team from Japan and the US has replicated the problem-solving actions of neurons in an organic molecular layer that they say is massively parallel and self-healing - the first time such a brain-like circuit has been created...
19 March 2010
Checkout clerk's days numbered as printable RFID tags become a reality
Using nanotube transistors, researchers have developed a three-step process to print single-bit RFID tags - including the antenna, electrodes and dielectric layers - onto flexible plastic. The team is now working on 16-bit tags that would hold more information as well as being printable on paper...
10 March 2010
Matrix turns opaque materials transparent
Experiments conducted by European researchers have shown that it's possible to focus light through opaque materials and detect objects hidden behind them...
15 February 2010
Multiplexing technique promises quantum leap in camera performance
Researchers have developed a way of capturing high-resolution still images alongside very high-speed video - a technology based on multiple exposures that effectively turns the camera's single CCD image sensor into hundreds of virtual cameras...
15 October 2009
Nanotronics within reach with creation of molecule-sized diode
Diodes are critical components in electronic circuits and US researchers have now found a way to create them the size of a single molecule...
28 September 2009
Exciton-based circuitry promises leap in computer speed
Physicists have successfully created super-fast integrated circuits using "excitons" - pairs of negatively charged electrons and positively charged "holes"...
17 August 2009
Recording studios may morph into museums
The impact of computing and the Internet on recorded music sales is well documented, but one British researcher has been looking at the other side of the coin – the impact of new technology on recording studios, businesses which are now teetering on the edge of irrelevance and bankruptcy...
24 July 2009
Germans getting horny over natural disasters
German researchers have applied for a patent covering a technology which allows the horns of thousands of parked cars to be activated simultaneously in case of an impending disaster...
16 June 2009
Novel material could revolutionize electronics
At room temperatures, bismuth telluride - which can be fabricated using existing semiconductor technologies - behaves as a topological insulator, allowing electrons on its surface to travel with no loss of energy...
4 June 2009
Biologically inspired, ultra-broadband chip could enable "cognitive" radio
A radio chip modeled on the human inner ear can efficiently process a broad spectrum of signals including cell phone, wireless Internet, radio and television; an achievement that could usher in what the developers call "cognitive" radio...
6 April 2009
Racetrack computer memory "within 10 years," say researchers
A new kind of computer memory, called "racetrack" memory, looks set to replace the hard disk as the standard method of storing information on home computers. It promises to be 100 times cheaper than flash memory and has no moving parts – instead, it is the information which moves...
12 March 2009
"Spin battery" provides novel electrical storage
Researchers have developed a "spin battery," a battery that is charged by applying a large magnetic field to nano-magnets in a device called a magnetic tunnel junction...
16 January 2009
Researchers show off next generation cloaking device
Duke University engineers have produced a new type of metamaterial cloaking device which is significantly more sophisticated at cloaking in a broad range of frequencies...
30 October 2008
Quake detection gets cheap and cheerful
In the same vein as the SETI@home project, the Quake Catcher Network aims to operate a massive seismic event detection network using the sudden-motion sensors that are incorporated into laptop computers to prevent hard disk damage...
7 October 2008
Visible light data network under development
The next generation of wireless communications technology will use visible light instead of radio waves, with data piggybacking on interior lighting systems which researchers say will offer both greater speed and better security than today's radio networks...
23 September 2008
GPS open to attack, say researchers
The global positioning system (GPS) has become a vital component in the infrastructure of the developed world, which makes it an attractive target for groups that might want to derail the large number of businesses and organizations that rely on it. And although the U.S. government addressed the issue of GPS spoofing in a 2003 report detailing seven "countermeasures" against such an attack, researchers from Cornell University say that such countermeasures would not have successfully guarded against their new spoofing method...
13 May 2008
Cell Phones More Expensive Than Hubble Space Comms
A British space scientist has calculated that cell phone texting is at least four times more expensive than receiving scientific data from the Hubble Space Telescope...
18 April 2008
Smallest Transistor Created With Graphene
UK researchers have used the world's thinnest material, graphene, to create the world's smallest transistor, one atom thick and ten atoms wide...
8 April 2008
Organics Shaping Up As Next Wave In Digital Signal Processing
Performing digital signal processing using organic and chemical materials without electrical currents looks like being the wave of the future...
22 February 2008
New Institute Plans Exascale Computing
Sandia and Oak Ridge researchers are designing computers that will perform a million trillion calculations per second...
21 September 2007
Moore's Law No More?
Intel Corporation's co-founder Gordon Moore recently conceded that his law predicting the number of transistors on a computer chip to double every two years will soon no longer hold. But what will the demise of Moore's exponential transistor paradigm mean for computing in the future? Is this the end of the golden age of computing?
8 June 2007
Wireless Power Transfer Revisited
Nikola Tesla would be proud. An MIT team using strongly coupled magnetic resonance has lit a 60W light globe from across a room without wires...
21 May 2007
Getting A Handle On Spintronics
For the first time, engineers have demonstrated how the spin properties of electrons in silicon can be measured and controlled, a discovery that could dramatically advance the emerging field of spintronics...
5 March 2007
3-D Fabrication Goes Open Source
The high price of rapid prototyping systems has kept them out of reach of basement tinkerers, but that may change thanks to Fab@Home, a DIY open source 3-D fabricator that can be put together for US$2,300...
3 October 2006
Single Pixel Camera Snaps High-Res Images
Researchers have created a digital camera that uses a single-pixel sensor and hundreds-of-thousands of tiny mirrors to capture mega-pixel images...
18 August 2006
Radical Transistor Design Blasts Single Electrons Through Circuits
Computer engineers have thrown out the rulebook on transistor design and put together a prototype nano-scale transistor that works by "bouncing" individual electrons off deflectors, in something akin to a game of billiards...
1 August 2006
Magnetic Memory Research Attracts More Funding
Instead of using electrical charges to represent data; processors and memory chips made of revolutionary new materials would rely on magnetism...
19 July 2006
MIT Created Fiber Web Sees Everything
When shaped into a sphere, a new light detecting optical web can "see" the entire environment in which it resides...
18 July 2006
High Hopes For High Altitude Broadband
Broadband communications may be about to get a whole lot faster and cheaper, thanks to high-altitude platforms (HAPs) that can relay wireless and optical communications to remote areas...
28 June 2006
Engineers Come Up With Undetectable Radar System
A stealth radar system that uses emissions resembling random noise is virtually undetectable, say the engineers who invented it...
20 June 2006
Ray Guns In The Cinema: Camera Neutralizing Device Unveiled
A device that can stop both video and still digital cameras functioning in a given area could soon be put to use in cinemas and other venues where photography is unwanted...
13 March 2006
The Search For Rock
Once it’s loaded up with the spectral fingerprints of all Earth's minerals, a spectrometer similar to the tricorder used in Star Trek will be ready to boldly go where no spectrometer has gone before...
3 February 2006
Single Electron Switches New Silicon Transistor
International researchers have produced a silicon transistor that is switched on and off by the motion of an individual electron...
26 January 2006
Metals Shortage Looming
It isn’t only oil that’s running out. Researchers say that a lack of recycling, an insatiable demand from developing nations, and the short lifespan of modern products, mean that metals like zinc and copper may soon be in short supply...
13 September 2005
Magnetic Appeal Of Nano-Diamonds
Metal-free magnets made from nano-sized diamonds could have applications in everything from medicine to quantum computers...
16 August 2005
Shocking Results From Urine Tests
A battery that generates electricity from urine could revolutionize the production of biochips for disease detection...
1 April 2005
New Type Of Superconductor Emerges
Researchers have found that magnetic fluctuations appear to be responsible for what researchers call "unconventional superconductivity" in a compound called plutonium-cobalt-pentagallium...
1 October 2004
Mechanical Memory Set For Comeback
Retro mechanical storage technology used in the first computers is set to challenge today's electromagnetic data storage in terms of speed and data-density...
23 July 2004
Nano-Imprinting Promises Even Smaller Electronics
Scientists have achieved a breakthrough in the low-cost production of minute, high density electronic structures...
24 November 2003
DNA Creates Self-Assembling Nano-Transistor
Scientists are using biology to build electronic transistors that assemble themselves without human manipulation...
21 October 2002
Tiny Atomic Battery Developed
Researchers have built a microscopic device that could supply power for decades to remote sensors or implantable medical devices by drawing energy from a radioactive isotope...
5 September 2002
Atomic-Scale Memory Created
Scientists have created an atomic-scale memory using atoms of silicon in place of the 1s and 0s that computers use to store data...
13 June 2002
Single-Atom Transistor Created
Researchers have reached the smallest possible limit, creating a single-atom transistor by implanting a "designer" molecule between two wires to create a circuit...
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