April 10, 2008, 8:13 PM CT

TeraGrid Computing Capacity

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a $65 million grant to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) to develop Kraken, a state of the art supercomputer. Kraken will enhance the computational power of the TeraGrid, the world's largest, most powerful and comprehensive distributed cyberinfrastructure for open scientific research.

"Like the gargantuan sea monsters Kraken, which inspired the naming of this supercomputer, the possibilities in scientific and engineering advances it enables are enormous, limited only by the confines of human imagination and vision beyond the frontiers of science," said NSF Director Arden L. Bement in a taped message that was played today at a luncheon in Knoxville.

Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen, UTK President John Petersen, Oak Ridge National Laboratory Director Thom Mason, and NSF's Office of Cyberinfrastructure Director Daniel Atkins attended the announcement ceremony.

"This $65 million NSF grant is not only the largest ever received by University of Tennessee, Knoxville; it is the largest research grant ever received by any university in the entire state of Tennessee," Bement said. "It enables an exciting new partnership between the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy through its Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the University of Tennessee and various partnering universities."......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

April 8, 2008, 10:19 PM CT

Step Toward Creating Quantum Computers

For now, full-fledged quantum computers are the stuff of science fiction - in last summer's blockbuster movie Transformers, the bad guys use quantum computing to break into the U.S. Army's secure files in just 10 seconds flat.

But Prem Kumar, the AT&T Professor of Information Technology in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the director of the Center for Photonic Communication and Computing, and his research group are one step closer to realizing that technology - though for far better purposes. The group recently demonstrated one of the basic building blocks for distributed quantum computing using entangled photons generated in optical fibers, and their research was reported in the April 4 edition of Physical Review Letters.

"Because it is done with fiber and the technology that is already globally deployed, we believe that it is a significant step in harnessing the power of quantum computers," Kumar says.

Quantum computing differs from classical computing in that a classical computer works by processing "bits" that exist in two states, either one or zero. Quantum computing uses quantum bits, or qubits, which, in addition to being one or zero can also be in a "superposition," which is both one and zero simultaneously. This is possible because qubits are quantum units like atoms, ions, or photons that operate under the rules of quantum mechanics instead of classical mechanics......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

April 7, 2008, 10:33 PM CT

Not-So-Digital Future of Digital Signal

It's possible, and in some cases, it's already happened. In any event, performing digital signal processing using organic and chemical materials without electrical currents could be the wave of the future - or so argue Sotirios Tsaftaris, research professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and Aggelos Katsaggelos, Ameritech Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, in their recently published "point of view" piece in the March 2008 edition of Proceedings of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.)

Digital signal processing uses mathematics and other techniques to manipulate signals like images (natural medical, and others) and sound waves after those signals have been converted to a digital form. This processing can enhance images and compress data for storage and transmission, and such processing chips are found in cell phones, iPods, and HD TVs.

But over the past 10 years, researchers and engineers around the world have experimented with performing signal processing using different materials. In their piece, Tsaftaris and Katsaggelos describe these experiments while stirring the engineering community towards "a possible not-so-electronic future" of digital signal processing.

For example, researchers and engineers have shown that certain chemicals, when mixed in a solution, don't react until light is projected through them. So if you project light through a transparency image, these chemicals can record the image. When the chemicals are stimulated by light and controlled by the acidity of the mixture, basic image transformations like contour enhancement can happen......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:55:10 GMT

Copy to 20 USB drives at once

What would you do if you had to copy a couple of hundred megs of data to 20 USB drives in under 5 minutes? That''s easy, right? But look at the constraint - you have only one PC. Now, that''s a toughie.

The Nexcopy USB duplicator allows you to copy as much as 250MB of data to 20 USB drives in one shot. In under 4 minutes. Now, who can beat that? For companies, this device can save much time and effort, for example, when duplicating official data on USB drives for distribution among employees. Or for a company marketing a new product during a promotional campaign.

This giant USB duplicator with equally giant possibilities sells at a pricey $1299.

Via OhGizmo. Posted by: Sarah      Read more     Source

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:38:34 GMT

Backscatter

Backscatter is a problem that arises when an email server receives bounced messages that come from remote site to a non-local recipient. In simple terms non-delivery reports or delivery status notifications are sent to a mail server that never originated the emails. Backscatter can be a big IT administrative headache, if it's not fixed it can bring down a server and spammers can use this to create a DoS style attack. Best way to prevent Backscatter to prevent bounces generated to non-local recipients, the bounces should be rejected during SMTP session. Mike at Message Partners emailed me about his recent experience with Backscatter and read his recent post at his blog. For more information please visit Backscatter FAQ at Spamlinks. If you've got ideas, suggestions, questions or other ways to control spam please let me know, by leaving a comment here. Posted by: Jayaprakash Kannoth      Read more     Source

April 3, 2008, 8:29 PM CT

Faster, cheaper technology for computers

A modern computer contains two different types of components: magnetic components, which perform memory functions, and semiconductor components, which perform logic operations. A University of Missouri researcher, as part of a multi-university research team, is working to combine these two functions in a single hybrid material. This new material would allow seamless integration of memory and logical functions and is expected to permit the design of devices that operate at much higher speeds and use considerably less power than current electronic devices.

Giovanni Vignale, MU physics professor in the College of Arts and Science and expert in condensed matter physics, says the primary goal of the research team, funded by a $6.5 million grant from the Department of Defense, is to explore new ways to integrate magnetism and magnetic materials with emerging electronic materials such as organic semiconductors. The research may lead to considerably more compact and energy-efficient devices. The processing costs for these hybrid materials are projected to be much less than those of traditional semiconductor chips, resulting in devices that should be less expensive to produce.

In this approach, the coupling between magnetic and non-magnetic components would occur via a magnetic field or flow of electron spin, which is the fundamental property of an electron and is responsible for most magnetic phenomena, Vignale said. The hybrid devices that we target would allow seamless integration of memory and logical function, high-speed optical communication and switching, and new sensor capabilities......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

April 1, 2008, 10:14 PM CT

Soccer robots compete for the title

Robot soccer is an ambitious high-tech competition for universities, research institutes and industry. Several major tournaments are planned for 2008, the biggest of which is the 'RoboCup German Open'. From April 21-25, over 80 teams of scientists from more than 15 countries are expected to face off in Hall 25 at the Hannover Messe. In a series of soccer matches in several leagues, they will be putting the latest technologies on display. The tournament is being organized and carried out by the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS in Sankt Augustin.

For a machine, a soccer match is a highly complex endeavor. Robots must be able to reliably recognize the ball, the sidelines and the goalposts in addition to distinguishing between their teammates and opponents. To this end, they are outfitted with all sorts of high-tech equipment: cameras and sensors scan the robots' surroundings, internal processors convert data to define game tactics and defense strategies, and innovative engines allow the automated players to sprint across the field and unexpectedly fake out their opponents.

There are now nine leagues, each of which has its own technological focus. In the middle-size league, robots get around on wheels. Four players and a goalkeeper compete for each team on a 20 x 14-meter pitch with standard soccer goals. They must be able to function completely independently and are equipped with internal camera systems that process information in real time. What's more, the robots can move up to two meters per second......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

April 1, 2008, 8:52 PM CT

Music File Compressed 1,000 Times Smaller than MP3

Scientists at the University of Rochester have digitally reproduced music in a file nearly 1,000 times smaller than a regular MP3 file.

The music, a 20-second clarinet solo, is encoded in less than a single kilobyte, and is made possible by two innovations: recreating in a computer both the real-world physics of a clarinet and the physics of a clarinet player.

The achievement, announced recently at the International Conference on Acoustics Speech and Signal Processing held in Las Vegas, is still not a flawless reproduction of an original performance, but the scientists say it's getting close.

"This is essentially a human-scale system of reproducing music," says Mark Bocko, professor of electrical and computer engineering and co-creator of the technology. "Humans can manipulate their tongue, breath, and fingers only so fast, so in theory we shouldn't really have to measure the music a number of thousands of times a second like we do on a CD. As a result, I think we may have found the absolute least amount of data needed to reproduce a piece of music."

In replaying the music, a computer literally reproduces the original performance based on everything it knows about clarinets and clarinet playing. Two of Bocko's doctoral students, Xiaoxiao Dong and Mark Sterling, worked with Bocko to measure every aspect of a clarinet that affects its sound-from the backpressure in the mouthpiece for every different fingering, to the way sound radiates from the instrument. They then built a computer model of the clarinet, and the result is a virtual instrument built entirely from the real-world acoustical measurements......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 00:40:30 GMT

Microsoft Open to Spammers?

That's what some folks are saying about Microsoft's new partnerships with LinkedIn, Tagged, Hi5, Bebo and Facebook. Calling it a new commitment to openness and data portability, the partnerships allow users of those sites to import their Windows Live contacts and vice versa. While this will make it easier for users to invited their contacts to the social networking service of their choice, it may also give spammers a new tool. I wouldn't be surprised to see a wave of fake invites from spammers. Microsoft claims this new tool is much safer than the old "screen scraping" technique. What do you think? Posted by: Sue Walsh      Read more     Source

March 27, 2008, 9:16 PM CT

Is Graphene the New Silicon?

Research results from University of Maryland physicists show that graphene, a new material that combines aspects of semiconductors and metals, could be a leading candidate to replace silicon in applications ranging from high-speed computer chips to biochemical sensors.

The research, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and published online in the journal Nature Nanotechnolgy, reveals that graphene conducts electricity at room temperature with less intrinsic resistance than any other known material.

"Graphene is one of the materials being considered as a potential replacement of silicon for future computing," said NSF Program Manager Charles Ying. "The recent results obtained by the University of Maryland researchers provide directions to achieve high-electron speed in graphene near room temperature, which is critically important for practical applications".

Intrinsic resistance results from the unavoidable lattice vibrations in a material when the temperature is greater than absolute zero. The intrinsic resistance determines a material's mobility, or the speed at which an electrons move when an electric field is applied to the material. The very high mobility of graphene makes it promising for applications in which transistors must switch extremely fast, such as in the processing of extremely high frequency signals. If other extrinsic factors that limit mobility in graphene, such as impurities and lattice vibrations in the substrate on which graphene sits, could be eliminated, the intrinsic mobility in graphene would be higher than any other known material, and more than 100 times higher than silicon......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source