R&D 100 Awards Honor Innovation at Its Best
Protein spectrometers, smart windows, software modeling systems, x-ray
cargo inspection systems, aircraft deicers, and many, many more are included in
this year’s technology elite from the most innovative and brilliant minds in research.
The editors of R&D Magazine are proud to announce the winners of the 42nd
Annual R&D 100 Awards—products and technologies brought to the marketplace
over the past year that are recognized for their technological significance. This
year's winners join the ranks of more than 6,000 (including joint developers)
past winning organizations—all of which can be found in our searchable archive
at www.rdmag.com/rd100ach.
Selection of the 2004 R&D 100 winners is a sophisticated process, lasting
nearly a full year,a and involving a panel of almost 50 independent technical
experts who lend their expertise in evaluating the details of the product entries
compared to other existing products and technologies. This year's winners should
be particularly proud of their accomplishments to be selected by our esteemed
judging panel.
Winners will be recognized at a Black Tie Awards Ceremony in the Grand Ballroom
of Chicago's Navy Pier on Oct. 14th. This gala event includes a product technology
exhibition, cocktail reception, and awards banquet. This year's event is also
scheduled to include the co-hosting of a U.S. Dept. of Energy-sponsored "What's
Next" Conference—an event focused on encouraging students to become more
involved in science and engineering careers.
This year's R&D 100 winners include representatives from North America, Europe,
and Asia; from industry, government, and academia; and from every aspect of where
technology has demonstrated that it can improve the quality of life. The winning
products on the following pages cover the full range of science and technology,
from instrumentation to consumer products, and from process enhancements to environmental
abatement systems.
The editors are proud to recognize this year's winners. We invite you to join
this illustrious group of scientists and engineers in next year's 2005 R&D
100 Awards Competition—it's never too early to enter, see our web site for
more details.
On-the-Spot Inspection
While security at U.S. airports have benefited from an infusion of new and
advanced technologies, U.S. seaports and border crossings continue to lag
behind, leaving virtual holes in our nation's security. This can be particularly
distressing when one considers that almost 90% of all international cargo
is shipped through the country's seaports. Developers at ARACOR, Sunnyvale,
Calif., have created a response to this need with the Eagle Mobile Cargo
Inspection System. The system is a fully mobile platform, capable of traveling
from point to point in crowded seaports and border crossing areas.
Key to its design is an embedded 6 MV linear accelerator, enabling the Eagle
to produce the high-energy x-rays necessary to penetrate dense volumes.
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 Trials have proven the
system's ability to scan 6-m cargo containers in less than 30 sec and penetrate
nearly 350 mm of steel—twice the level achieved by leading gamma ray
platforms. A self-contained inspector cab further allows enforcement agents
the added advantage to instantaneously survey resulting images with a spatial
resolution of 5mm, with the added capability of sending image files via
a wireless network.
Based on its operational experience to date, the Eagle has shown to be effective
in surveying approximately 98% of all cargo containers. Already agencies
such as the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection have adopted this
technology, with countries such as Jamaica following suit.
>>More info: www.aracor.com |
No More Pencils, No
More Books
 Combine old-fashioned
paperwork with information systems and the result is the D-Pen: Digital
Pen Solution, developed by a team from Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo, Anoto AB, Lund,
Sweden, and Eiichi Hadano at Hitachi Computer Peripherals Co., Ltd., Kanagawa,
Japan. This device converts analog information, such as handwritten characters
and drawings, into digital information while enabling an interface with
other IT devices. The D-Pen can instantly and digitally capture data written
on special paper, including scribbled sketches on memo pads, and then store
this information into memory. The information stored can then easily be
transferred to personal computers or other IT devices—even mobile
phones.
A tiny camera registers movement across the grid surface of specially patterned
paper and stores it as series of map coordinates. Since the pen keeps coordinate
records of handwritten data, the user can start writing on one form, go
to another, and then come back to the first form. The D-Pen can store personal
writing style and its memory capacity is equivalent to about 40 pages. Unlike
tablet PCs, users can be comfortable writing on the familiar paper medium.
The USB 1.2/2.0-enabled digital pen weighs 38 g, comes with 1 MB of memory,
and operates on a polymer lithium ion battery, which delivers a continuous
recording time of two hours on a single recharge. The lifespan of the digital
pen is about three years, assuming use for three hours a day.
Currently used in hospitals for recording patients’ health records
and medical prescriptions, other uses include delivery and receipt processing,
accident and claim forms, order-taking sheets at restaurants, and utility
maintenance/safety-check sheets. In schools, the pens could be part of online
and distance learning, achievement tests, and student-paper grading; personal
use could be similar to a keeping a PDA, with personal information easily
transferable to a computer.
>>More info: www.hitachi.com |
Welcome to the Fashion Revolution
 A customized fit is the
basis behind a new technology, which aims to revolutionize the fashion industry
and make those five venerable words—”It just doesn’t fit
right!”—to disappear. The Intellifit System: Millimeter
Wave Holographic Body Scanner for Custom Fitting Apparel, conceived
by researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Wash.,
and commercialized by Intellifit Corp., Philadelphia, Pa., is a first-of-its
kind cylindrical holographic imaging technology capable of performing a
360° body scan in less than 10 sec. The system surveys the clothes conscious
with non-harmful radio waves, which are captured by transceivers and digitally
processed to obtain a 3-D image of the body, with an accuracy of 1 cm or
less. On average, more than 200,000 data points are collected to create
a user’s profile. This information is then processed against Intellifit’s
sizing solutions database, which compares a customer’s measurements
to a range of specifications given by retailers to determine the best-fitting
sizes and apparel brands for the individual.
Moreover, it may also be used as a tool for manufacturers to develop better-fitting,
off-the-rack clothing and to ultimately aid retailers in buying, stocking,
and selling the most appropriate apparel for their clientele. But its biggest
advantage, developers point out, remains its flexibility to allow customers
to remain fully clothed during the scanning process, differentiating it
from conventional body scanners and opening the door to its use in mainstream
department stores. Applications even extend beyond the apparel industry
and into airport security. Let the revolution begin....
>>More info: www.pnl.gov |
Small Dots Have Large Impact
A number of bio-imaging tools, such as fluorescent organic dyes, for looking
inside living cells have been available for years. However, these dyes have
a limited timeframe in which they can be used—generally a few minutes
or seconds—and are not usable in living cells.
Marcel Bruchez, a principal scientist at Quantum Dot Corp., Hayward, Calif.,
led a team of researchers to develop Qdot Nanocrystals, molecular-scale
fluorescent crystals that illuminate biological materials for life science
researchers, drug discovery, and medical diagnostics. Qdot products take
advantage of the quantum confinement effect predicted by quantum mechanical
theory to fluoresce brightly when excited by a laser light source.
Coated with antibodies or other biomolecules, Qdots can bond with and illuminate
the individual biological targets of a researcher’s |
 choice, such as genes,
nucleic acids, proteins, small molecules, and cancer cells. The brightness
of the Qdots even allows researchers to clearly see a pig’s lymph
nodes glowing underneath the animal’s skin.
Qdots also have been used to image the dynamics of single receptor molecules,
showing for the first time how these receptors move in and out of the cell
synapse. In this study, the products could be used for up to 40 minutes
of continuous imaging, while conventional dyes are useful for only a few
seconds. Qdots can also be used to simultaneously detect up to six proteins.
>>More info: www.qdots.com |
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