Computing & Electronics



17 October 2014

Mis-synced music proves to be a powerful enhancement for TV ads


It turns out that offsetting the music soundtrack of TV adverts by an imperceptible amount makes the adverts significantly more memorable in viewers' minds. The researcher who made the discovery says that the principles of "dynamic attending theory" and "neural oscillations" are behind the counter-intuitive finding...

5 May 2015

Centimeter-accurate GPS system could radically transform mobile devices


Centimeter-accurate positioning systems are already used in surveying and mapping, but the antennas these systems employ are too large and costly for use in mobile devices. Now, however, scientists have devised a powerful and sensitive software-defined GPS receiver that can extract centimeter accuracies from the inexpensive antennas found in mobile devices...

15 April 2015

Prototype video camera requires no power


Columbia University researchers have developed the first video camera to be fully self-powered - its pixels not only measuring the incident light, but also converting it into electric power...

3 June 2014

Laser sensor busts drunk drivers from outside car


Most health and law enforcement agencies would agree that the effective early detection of drivers under the influence of alcohol would significantly reduce the number of fatal car accidents. To date, this has been only been possible by stopping individual vehicles and requiring the driver to breath into a device that measures the alcohol content of the driver's breath. Now, however, researchers in Poland have shown that a simple laser device can measure alcohol vapor levels in a moving vehicle...

4 February 2014

Stock prices can be predicted, say math researchers


A new mathematical analysis challenges the generally held belief that stock prices cannot be predicted. The authors of the new study say that that there is a window of predictability once a stock price escapes the confines of the bid-ask spread...

28 December 2013

Eye reflections identify those behind the camera


A new study shows that the high resolution images produced by modern digital cameras can be used to identify the photographer and other individuals positioned behind the camera. The researchers say that images retrieved from corneal reflections could be especially important when the images record criminal activity, such as hostage taking or child sex abuse...

20 December 2013

Radical new data compression method delivers significant gains in quality and speed over existing techniques


To create an entirely new way to compress data, UCLA researchers drew inspiration from physics and the arts. The technique, dubbed "anamorphic stretch transform," works by stretching and warping the data using a newly developed mathematical function that operates in both the analog and digital domains...

11 December 2013

Hipster or Goth? Software algorithm identifies your urban tribe


Social networks like Facebook may soon be able to tell which urban tribe you belong to. Computer scientists are developing an algorithm that uses group pictures to determine whether you're a hipster, Goth, biker, or surfer. So far, the algorithm is about 5 times more accurate than chance, but the researchers think they can get it to perform at least as well as a human...

20 November 2013

Anomalous ferroelectric behavior could point way to brain-like computing


Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory say their observations of unexpected behaviors in ferroelectric materials lend support to the concept of "memcomputing," an emergent computing paradigm in which information storage and processing occur on the same physical platform...

13 November 2013

Decoded smartphone movements reveal transport mode


Planes trains, and automobiles - scientists in Finland have worked out how to use accelerometer data from smartphones to reveal which mode of transport a subject is using...

1 November 2013

Synaptic transistor learns while it computes


Harvard scientists say they have created a new type of transistor that mimics the behavior of the human brain's synapses. The device, they believe, could usher in a new kind of artificial intelligence: one embedded not in software, but in the very hardware of the computer itself...

30 October 2013

Boffins say Internet 2.0 doesn't need servers


British computer scientists say their revolutionary new Internet architecture could make the Internet more "social" by eliminating the need to connect to servers and enabling all content to be shared more efficiently...

24 October 2013

Researchers expose Google's massive network expansion


Google has dramatically increased the number of sites around the world from which it serves client queries, say researchers who accidentally discovered a massive repurposing of existing infrastructure to change the way that Google processes web searches...

7 October 2013

Touch-feedback out of thin air


Using focused ultrasound radiation, scientists have created a human-computer interface that provides haptic (touch) feedback above a computer screen without having to touch or hold any device...

17 September 2013

Smartphone microscope can see a single virus


A smartphone-based microscope attachment developed at UCLA is sensitive enough to discern viruses and nanoparticles, allowing sophisticated biomedical testing in places where laboratory facilities are not available...

27 August 2013

Researchers demo human brain-to-brain interface


University of Washington researchers say they have created the first non-invasive human-to-human brain interface, with one researcher able to send a brain signal via the Internet to control the hand motions of a fellow researcher...

15 August 2013

No power source needed for new wireless communications technique


A new wireless communications technique - using what researchers call "ambient backscatter" - allows devices to communicate and exchange information with each other by reflecting (or absorbing) existing radio and television signals...

6 August 2013

3D images generated from single lens


Researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering have developed a way for photographers and microscopists to create a 3D image through a single lens, without moving the camera...

24 July 2013

Magnetic wand provides three dimensions of smartphone interaction


A magnetic wand that makes use of the magnetometers built into most smartphones and tablets adds a third dimension to device interaction, heralding a new generation of innovative games and applications...

6 June 2013

Kinect-like gesture recognition leveraged from standard WiFi signals


In a clever use of Doppler frequency shifts, computer scientists have shown it's possible to use the existing WiFi signals around us to detect specific movements without needing sensors on the human body or cameras...

4 April 2013

Quantum tricks turbocharge magnetic storage


Researchers have found a new way to switch magnetism that is at least 1,000 times faster than current methods used in magnetic memory technologies...

12 March 2013

Facebook Likes reveal surprisingly accurate intimate personal information


Surprisingly accurate estimates of users' race, age, IQ, sexuality, personality type, substance use and political views can be inferred from automated analysis of only their Facebook Likes - information that is publicly available by default...

28 February 2013

Conjoined rat brains demonstrate thought transference over the Internet


Duke University researchers have electronically linked the brains of pairs of rats for the first time, enabling the rodents to communicate directly and solve simple behavioral puzzles while the two animals were thousands of miles apart...

26 February 2013

Stretchy battery can bend and twist


A team of scientists from Northwestern University and the University of Illinois are the first to demonstrate a stretchable lithium-ion battery - a flexible, wirelessly charged device that could power a range of innovative, stretchable electronic devices...

20 February 2013

New imaging device is flexible, flat, transparent, and disposable


An Austrian research team has developed an entirely new way of capturing images based on a flat, flexible, transparent, and potentially disposable polymer sheet...

11 February 2013

Bio-computer combines DNA memory and cellular logic gates


MIT scientists have created genetic circuits in bacterial cells that not only perform logic functions, but also remember the results, which are encoded in the cell's DNA and passed on for dozens of generations...

17 September 2012

Cheap USB ultrasound ready for developing world


A USB ultrasound device about the size of a computer mouse that can be manufactured for as little as $50 will save the lives of hundreds of thousands of women and children, say its developers...

25 July 2012

Cell phone scanner diagnoses anemia


Designed for use in the developing world, a low-cost screening device connected to a cell phone could prevent the anemia-related deaths of 600,000 newborns every year...

9 July 2012

E-waste should be managed as a resource, say sustainability experts


Electronic waste now contains "deposits" of gold and silver 40-50 times richer than ores mined from the ground, but less than 15 percent of the precious metals used in computers, phones and tablets are recovered...

2 July 2012

Vacuum tube tech could save Moore's Law


To run integrated circuits at faster and faster speeds, scientists are proposing a new spin on an old method: a change from the use of silicon electronics back to vacuum technology for electron transport - a shift they believe would overcome a significant stumbling block in the development of faster and more efficient computers...

21 May 2012

First inexact computer chip aimed at developing world


Moving from theory to reality, US researchers have unveiled the first inexact computer chip. Error checking on the chip is only enforced for applications that require absolute accuracy which makes the chip efficient enough to power iPad-like devices that run entirely from solar power...

4 April 2012

Facebook study reveals social media gender traits


A new European study into Facebook usage reports that women, but not men, feel less happy and less content with their lives the longer they spend on Facebook...

28 March 2012

Software detects lies by analyzing eye movements


A computer program that analyzes eye movements is better at identifying deceitful people than expert human interrogators...

21 March 2012

Laser camera peers around corners


Using ordinary walls, doors or floors as reflective surfaces, MIT researchers have built a camera that produces recognizable 3-D images from outside the camera's line of sight...

8 March 2012

QWERTY effect creates lovable words


An intriguing new study shows there is a link between the meaning of words and the letters they are composed of - a relationship the researchers have called the QWERTY effect...

22 February 2012

GPS location systems under increasing attack


A monitoring group in the UK has detected dozens of GPS jamming incidents as well as the first case of GPS spoofing being used to "trick" navigation systems. They warn of looming chaos in transportation systems and financial networks...

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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