Communications
Microtransistor prototypes map the mind
April 12, 2013 9:42 am | by Blaine Friedlander, Cornell University | News | Comments
To make better mind maps, a group of French scientists—building on prototypes developed at the Cornell University NanoScale Science and Technology Facility—have produced the world’s first microscopic, organic transistors that can amplify and record signals from within the brain itself.
Google begins launching Internet-beaming balloons
June 17, 2013 2:54 pm | by Martha Mendoza and Nick Perry, Associated Press | News | Comments
Eighteen months in the works, the top-secret project was announced Saturday in New...
Researchers reveal next-generation emergency response technology
June 13, 2013 5:07 pm | News | Comments
Americans are accustomed to calling 9-1-1 to get help in an emergency. A research team...
With brain-computer interface, tasks become as simple as waving a hand
June 11, 2013 6:07 pm | by Michelle Ma, University of Washington | News | Comments
Small electrodes placed on or inside the brain allow patients to interact with...
Can you feel me now?
June 14, 2013 7:31 am | by Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office | News | CommentsIn the near future, a buzz in your belt or a pulse from your jacket may give you instructions on how to navigate your surroundings. Think of it as tactile Morse code: vibrations from a wearable, GPS-linked device that tell you to turn right or left, or stop, depending on the pattern of pulses you feel.
Is Big Data turning government into 'Big Brother?'
June 7, 2013 3:08 am | by MICHAEL LIEDTKE - AP Technology Writer - Associated Press | News | CommentsWith every phone call they make and every Web excursion they take, people are leaving a digital trail of revealing data that can be tracked. The revelations that the National Security Agency is perusing millions of U.S. customer phone records at Verizon Communications and snooping on the digital communications stored by nine Internet services illustrate how aggressively personal data is being collected and analyzed.
Metamaterial flexible sheets could transform optics
June 6, 2013 8:38 am | News | CommentsNew ultrathin, planar, lightweight and broadband polarimetric photonic devices and optics could result from recent research by a team of Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists. The advances would boost security screening systems, infrared thermal cameras, energy harvesting and radar systems.
“Temporal cloaking” could bring more secure optical communications
June 5, 2013 12:08 pm | News | CommentsPurdue Univ. researchers have demonstrated a method for "temporal cloaking" of optical communications, representing a potential tool to thwart would-be eavesdroppers and improve security for telecommunications. While the previous research in temporal cloaking required the use of a complex, ultrafast-pulsing "femtosecond" laser, the researchers achieved the feat using off-the-shelf equipment.
Simple wavelength detector could speed data communications
June 5, 2013 7:40 am | News | CommentsResearchers at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford Univ. have created a new device, smaller than a grain of rice, that could streamline optical data communications. It can directly identify the wavelength of light that hits it, and should scale down to the even tinier dimensions needed for multichannel optical data receivers on future generations of computer chips.
Improving the safety of the nation's blood supply
June 3, 2013 12:23 pm | News | CommentsA six-year collaboration between industry and the University of Wisconsin-Madison RFID Lab has achieved a major milestone with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearing the first RFID-enabled solution to improve the safety and efficiency of the nation's blood supply.
Nanoantennas help improve infrared sensing
May 20, 2013 7:52 am | News | CommentsA team of University of Pennsylvania engineers has used a pattern of nanoantennas to develop a new way of turning infrared light into mechanical action, opening the door to more sensitive infrared cameras and more compact chemical analysis techniques.
Cells must use their brakes moderately for effective speed control
May 15, 2013 11:34 am | News | CommentsAll living cells have a regulatory system similar to what can be found in today's smartphones. Just like our phones process a large amount of information that we feed them, cells continuously process information about their outer and inner environment. Researchers have recently modeled how cells regulate this processing function.
Making frequency-hopping radios practical
May 15, 2013 7:45 am | by Larry Hardesty, MIT News Office | News | CommentsThe way in which radio spectrum is currently allocated to different wireless technologies can lead to gross inefficiencies. Cognitive radio serves as a solution. Different proposals for cognitive radio place different emphases on hardware and software, but the chief component of many hardware approaches is a bank of filters that can isolate any frequency in a wide band. Researchers have developed a new method for manufacturing such filters.
Temporal filtering technique improves solid-state single photon sources
May 9, 2013 3:21 pm | News | CommentsAn international collaboration led by researchers at NIST has demonstrated a novel temporal filtering approach that improves the performance of triggered single photon sources based on solid-state quantum emitters. The technique is compatible with a broad class of photon sources, and is expected to provide significant improvements in areas important for applications in photonic quantum information science.
Transfer of ultraprecise time signals over a wireless optical channel
May 2, 2013 8:18 am | News | CommentsBy bouncing eye-safe laser pulses off a mirror on a hillside, researchers at NIST have transferred ultraprecise time signals through open air with unprecedented precision equivalent to the "ticking" of the world's best next-generation atomic clocks. The demonstration shows how next-generation atomic clocks at different locations could be linked wirelessly to improve distribution of time and frequency information.
Study: People may welcome talking tissue boxes
May 1, 2013 9:55 am | News | CommentsAccording to researchers from Penn State University, who presented their findings at the 2013 Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Paris today, people who have embraced computers and smart phones are likely to give their blessing other smart objects, like talking tissue boxes or tweeting refrigerators. Their tests involved the use of actual talking, interacting objects.
Tracking gunfire with a smartphone
April 26, 2013 8:41 am | by David Salisbury, Vanderbilt University | News | CommentsYou are walking down the street with a friend. A shot is fired. The two of you duck behind the nearest cover and you pull out your smartphone. A map of the neighborhood pops up on its screen with a large red arrow pointing in the direction the shot came from. A team has made such a scenario possible by developing a system that transforms a smartphone into a shooter location system.
What did Alexander Graham Bell's voice sound like?
April 26, 2013 8:34 am | News | CommentsLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s sound-restoration experts have done it again. They’ve helped to digitally recover a 128-year-old recording of Alexander Graham Bell’s voice, enabling people to hear the famed inventor speak for the first time. The recording ends with Bell saying “in witness whereof, hear my voice, Alexander Graham Bell.”
Engineers generate world-record millimeter-wave output power from nanoscale CMOS
April 25, 2013 7:44 am | News | CommentsA team of electrical engineers from Columbia University has generated a record amount of power output—by a power of five—using silicon-based nanoscale CMOS technology for millimeter-wave power amplifiers. Power amplifiers are used in communications and sensor systems to boost power levels for reliable transmission of signals over long distances as required by the given application.
New keyboard developed for touchscreens
April 17, 2013 4:32 pm | News | CommentsA research team in Europe has created a new keyboard called KALQ that enables faster thumb-typing on touchscreen devices. They used computational optimization techniques in conjunction with a model of thumb movement to search among millions of potential layouts to find the best one. A study confirmed that users could type 34% faster than they could with a QWERTY layout.
System allows multitasking runners to read on a treadmill
April 16, 2013 10:03 am | News | CommentsNot many people can run and read at the same time, because the relative location of the eyes to the text is constantly changing. This forces the eyes to constantly adjust. At Purdue University, an industrial engineering professor has introduced a new innovation called ReadingMate, which adjusts text on a monitor to counteract the bobbing motion of a runner's head so that the text appears still.
Researchers develop tiny gradient chip
April 12, 2013 8:52 am | News | CommentsNanotechnologists at the University of Twente have developed a tiny chip that makes it easy to create micrometer-scale gradients. Gradients are gradual transitions in specific properties, such as acidity. This newly developed system can be used to efficiently measure the reaction kinetics of various chemical or biological reactions.
New software could alleviate wireless traffic
April 12, 2013 7:53 am | News | CommentsThe explosive popularity of wireless devices is increasingly clogging the airwaves, resulting in dropped calls, wasted bandwidth, and botched connections. New software, called GapSense, being developed at the University of Michigan works like a stoplight to control the traffic and dramatically reduce interference.
Researchers call for marine observation network
April 11, 2013 3:31 am | News | CommentsA comprehensive marine biodiversity observation network could be established with modest funding within five years, according to a recently published assessment from a team led by J. Emmett Duffy of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Such a network, they say, would fill major gaps in scientists' understanding of the global distribution of marine organisms.
ORNL microscopy uncovers “dancing” silicon atoms in graphene
April 3, 2013 4:17 pm | News | CommentsJumping silicon atoms are the stars of an atomic scale ballet featured in a new Nature Communications study from the U.S. Department of Energy(DOE)'s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The ORNL research team documented the atoms' unique behavior by first trapping groups of silicon atoms, known as clusters, in a single-atom-thick sheet of carbon called graphene.
Open Photonics, VTT collaborate on spectral engine technologies
April 3, 2013 3:09 pm | News | CommentsOrlando-based photonics technology acceleration company Open Photonics Inc. and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland have announced a partnership to accelerate the commercialization of VTT’s advanced Fabry-Perot visible and infrared spectroscopy and spectral imaging technologies.
Another step toward quantum computers: Using photons for memory
April 1, 2013 1:57 pm | News | CommentsScientists at Yale University have found a new way to manipulate microwave signals that could aid the long-term effort to develop a quantum computer, a powerful tool that would revolutionize information processing through unprecedented speed and power. The researchers created an artificial medium in which photons repel photons, allowing for efficient, non-destructive encoding and manipulation of quantum information.
Acoustic time delay device could reduce size, cost of phased-array systems
April 1, 2013 7:51 am | News | CommentsRadar systems today depend increasingly on phased-array antennas, an advanced design in which extensive grids of solid-state components direct signal beams electronically. Phased-array technology is replacing traditional electromechanical radar antennas because stationary solid-state electronics are faster, more precise, and more reliable than moving mechanical parts. Yet phased-array antennas, which require bulky supporting electronics, can be as large as older systems. To address this issue, a research team from the Georgia Institute of Technology has developed a novel device.
Scientists in Korea develop low-power 60 GHz RF chip for mobile devices
March 31, 2013 6:44 pm | News | CommentsAs a possible method for accelerating transmission of large data, researchers are studying the adoption of gigabits per second (Gbps) wireless communications operating over the 60 GHz radio frequency (RF) band. But mobile applications have not been developed yet because the 60 GHz RF circuit consumes hundreds of milliwatts of DC power. A new chip developed at KAIST in Korea, however, consumes as little 67 mW of power thanks to newly developed components.
