Information Technologies
Connecting the quantum dots
February 26, 2013 12:51 pm | News | CommentsRecent research offers a new spin on using nanoscale semiconductor structures to build faster computers and electronics. Literally. Researchers have revealed a new method that better preserves the units necessary to power lightning-fast electronics, known as qubits. Hole spins, rather than electron spins, can keep quantum bits in the same physical state up to 10 times longer than before, the report finds.
Hummingbird study challenges vortex consensus
February 26, 2013 11:28 am | by Iqbal Pittalwala, UC Riverside | News | CommentsAs of Monday, the Wikipedia entry for the hummingbird explains that the bird’s flight generates in its wake a single trail of vortices that helps the bird hover. But after conducting experiments with hummingbirds in the lab, researchers at the University of California, Riverside propose that the hovering hummingbird instead produces two trails of vortices—one under each wing per stroke—that help generate the aerodynamic forces required for the bird to power and control its flight.
An atlas of the human heart is drawn using statistics
February 26, 2013 10:17 am | News | CommentsResearchers at Pompeu Fabra University (Spain) have created a high resolution atlas of the heart with 3D images taken from 138 people. The study demonstrates that an average image of an organ along with its variations can be obtained for the purposes of comparing individual cases and differentiating healthy forms from pathologies.
Teaching robots lateral thinking
February 25, 2013 9:12 am | by Larry Hardesty, MIT News Office | News | CommentsMany commercial robotic arms perform what roboticists call "pick-and-place" tasks: The arm picks up an object in one location and places it in another. Usually, the objects are positioned so that the arm can easily grasp them; the appendage that does the grasping may even be tailored to the objects' shape. General-purpose household robots, however, would have to be able to manipulate objects of any shape, left in any location. And today, commercially available robots don't have anything like the dexterity of the human hand. Until now.
Has evolution given humans unique brain structures?
February 22, 2013 11:16 am | News | CommentsOur ancestors evolutionarily split from those of rhesus monkeys about 25 million years ago. Since then, brain areas have been added, have disappeared, or have changed in function. This raises the question: Has evolution given humans unique brain structures? Previous research has been inconclusive, but by combining different research methods, researchers in The Netherlands now say they have the first piece of evidence that could prove that humans have unique cortical brain networks.
College tests fingerprint purchasing technology
February 22, 2013 10:28 am | by Amber Hunt, Associated Press | News | CommentsFuturists have long proclaimed the coming of a cashless society, where dollar bills and plastic cards are replaced by fingerprint and retina scanners. What they probably didn't see coming was its debut not in Silicon Valley but at a small state college in remote western South Dakota. Two shops on the campus are performing one of the world's first experiments in “biocryptology”, a mix of biometrics—using physical traits for identification—and cryptology—the study of encoding private information.
Supercomputers journey to limits of spacetime
February 21, 2013 1:19 pm | News | CommentsResearchers have used the 3D simulation capabilities of the supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center to predict the formation of accretion disks and relativistic jets that warp and bend more than previously thought, shaped both by the extreme gravity of the black hole and by powerful magnetic forces generated by its spin. Their highly detailed models of the black hole environment contribute new knowledge to the field.
New imaging device is flexible, flat, and transparent
February 20, 2013 12:20 pm | News | CommentsA research team in Austria has developed an entirely new way of capturing images based on a flat, flexible, transparent, and potentially disposable polymer sheet. The new imager, which resembles a flexible plastic film, uses fluorescent particles to capture incoming light and channel a portion of it to an array of sensors framing the sheet. With no electronics or internal components, the imager’s elegant design makes it ideal for a new breed of imaging technologies.
Technique developed to scale up production of graphene microsupercapacitors
February 20, 2013 8:34 am | News | CommentsWhile the demand for ever-smaller electronic devices has spurred the miniaturization of a variety of technologies, one area has lagged behind in this downsizing revolution: energy storage units, such as batteries and capacitors. Now, a team from University of California, Los Angeles may have changed the game by developing a groundbreaking technique that uses a DVD burner to fabricate microscale graphene-based supercapacitors.
Future science: Using 3D worlds to visualize data
February 20, 2013 4:29 am | by CARLA K. JOHNSON - AP Medical Writer - Associated Press | News | CommentsTake a walk through a human brain? Fly over the surface of Mars? Computer scientists at the University of Illinois at Chicago are pushing science fiction closer to reality with a wraparound virtual world where a researcher wearing 3D glasses can do all that and more. In the system, known as CAVE2, a 8-foot-high screen encircles the viewer 320 degrees. A panorama of images springs from 72 stereoscopic liquid crystal display panels, conveying a dizzying sense of being able to touch what's not really there.
CDC app lets you solve disease outbreaks at home
February 19, 2013 2:34 pm | by MIKE STOBBE - AP Medical Writer - Associated Press | News | CommentsYou may not be a disease detective, but now you can play one at home. The nation's public health agency has released a free app for the iPad called "Solve the Outbreak." It allows users to run through fictional outbreaks and make decisions: Do you quarantine the village? Talk to people who are sick?
Production process doubles speed, efficiency of flexible electronics
February 19, 2013 10:44 am | News | CommentsStretched-out clothing might not be a great practice for laundry day, but in the case of microprocessor manufacture, stretching out the atomic structure of the silicon in the critical components of a device can be a good way to increase a processor's performance.
Chip cleans up common flaws in amateur photographs
February 19, 2013 8:28 am | by Helen Knight, MIT News correspondent | News | CommentsYour smartphone snapshots could be instantly converted into professional-looking photographs with just the touch of a button, thanks to a processor chip developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The chip can perform tasks such as creating more realistic or enhanced lighting in a shot without destroying the scene's ambience, in just a fraction of a second. The technology could be integrated with any smartphone, tablet computer, or digital camera.
Professor brings access to previously untapped higher frequency bandwidth
February 19, 2013 8:26 am | News | CommentsSociety's increasing technology use and data consumption is causing an information bottleneck, congesting airwave frequencies and sending engineers searching for access to higher capacity bandwidths. Until now, no technology has existed to tap into and successfully use these frequencies, which span 30 to 100 GHz.
Organic electronics: Better contact between carbon compounds and metals
February 18, 2013 9:00 am | News | CommentsA recurring problem in organic electronics technology has been the difficulty in establishing good electrical contact between the active organic layer and metal electrodes. Organic molecules are frequently used for this purpose, but, until recent research at the Helmholtz Center in Germany unraveled this mystery, it was practically impossible to accurately predict which molecules performed well on the job.
Researchers propose breakthrough architecture for quantum computers
February 15, 2013 1:19 pm | News | CommentsA team of researchers in Canada has proposed a new computational model that may become the architecture for a scalable quantum computer. They say the model should use multi-particle quantum walks for universal computation. In a multi-particle quantum walk, particles live on the vertices of a graph and can move between vertices joined by an edge. Furthermore, nearby particles can interact with each other.
Researchers invent “acoustic-assisted” magnetic information storage
February 14, 2013 2:29 pm | News | CommentsElectrical engineers at Oregon State University have discovered a way to use high-frequency sound waves to enhance the magnetic storage of data, offering a new approach to improve the data storage capabilities of a multitude of electronic devices around the world.
Team creates MRI for the nanoscale
February 14, 2013 11:59 am | News | CommentsMagnetic resonance imaging (MRI) reveals details of living tissues, diseased organs and tumors inside the body without x-rays or surgery. What if the same technology could peer down to the level of atoms? Physicists in New York and Germany have worked together to make this type of nanoscale MRI possible. To do this, researchers used the tiny imperfections in diamond crystals known as nitrogen-vacancy centers.
Quantum information joined to quantum storage
February 14, 2013 10:38 am | News | CommentsPhysicists in Finland have successfully connected a superconducting quantum bit, or qubit, with a micrometer-sized drum head. With this invention they have transferred information from the qubit to the resonator and back again. This work represents the first step towards creating exotic mechanical quantum states which can preserve the qubit’s information (as a vibration) for a longer period of time.
Spider skin image takes top prize in FEI’s nanoscale image contest
February 13, 2013 5:20 pm | News | CommentsMicroscope manufacturer FEI Company this week announced that Maria Carbajo from the Universidad de Extemadura, Spain, is the winner of the FEI Image Contest for her “Spider Skin” image. The image was obtained using an FEI Quanta DualBeam scanning electron microscope.
Sandia awards information technology contracts to three firms
February 13, 2013 2:14 pm | News | CommentsSandia National Laboratories has issued three information technology (IT) contracts totaling $353 million over a potential term of seven years. The awards streamline IT contracting at the laboratories.
Engineers show feasibility of superfast materials
February 13, 2013 1:44 pm | News | CommentsUniversity of Utah engineers demonstrated it is feasible to build the first organic materials that conduct electricity on their edges, but act as an insulator inside. These materials, called organic topological insulators, could shuttle information at the speed of light in quantum computers and other high-speed electronic devices.
Metamaterials provide active control of slow-light devices
February 13, 2013 10:49 am | News | CommentsWireless communications and optical computing could soon get a significant boost in speed, thanks to “slow light” and specialized metamaterials through which it travels. Researchers have made the first demonstration of rapidly switching on and off “slow light” in specially designed materials at room temperature. This work opens the possibility to design novel, chip-scale, ultrafast devices for applications in terahertz wireless communications and all-optical computing.
KAIST develops wireless power transfer tech for high capacity transit
February 13, 2013 9:51 am | News | CommentsEngineers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the Korea Railroad Research Institute have designed a wireless technology that can be applied to high capacity transportation systems such as railways, harbor freight, and airport transportation, and logistics. The technology supplies 60 kHz and 180 kW of power remotely to transport vehicles at a stable, constant rate.
Self-assembled biological filaments form 3D microelectronics
February 12, 2013 1:24 pm | News | CommentsThe size of electronic components is reaching a physical limit. While 3D assembly can reduce bulk, the challenge is in manufacturing these complex electrical connections. Biologists and physicists in France have recently developed a system of self-assembled connections using actin filaments for 3D microelectronic structures. Once the actin filaments become conductors, they join the various components of a system together.
