July 5, 2011, 8:21 PM CT

Optics in LEDs for lighting

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have been changing the way we see the world since the 1960s. Their usage in everyday life is pervasive and continues to increase thanks to the cutting-edge research being done in the field of optics. To highlight breakthroughs in LEDs, the editors of Energy Express, a bi-monthly supplement to Optics Express, the open-access journal of the Optical Society (OSA), today published a special Focus Issue on Optics in LEDs for Lighting. The issue is organized and edited by Guest Editors Jae-Hyun Ryou and Russell Dupuis of the Georgia Institute of Technology.

"The papers in this Focus Issue represent the outcome of state-of-the-art research and development by recognized experts in the field of LEDs, said Ryou. "These latest advances are truly exceptional and will prove to be invaluable to advancements in lighting technology".



Summary.



LEDs continue to prove themselves as the future in lighting, with applications in everything from vehicle headlights to stadium displays to video cameras. In addition to their current commercial applications, LEDs have opened up an era of solid-state lighting (SSL) with capabilities of emitting photons of either primary colors or white light. With their continuous improvements in luminous efficiency compared with conventional light sources, LEDs will lead to significant energy savings when used as a ubiquitous light source for general lighting applications. The papers in this Focus Issue feature state-of-the-art research and development that address the technical challenges and possible solutions for visible LEDs to be widely used in SSL, while also focusing on the major challenges linked to improving luminous efficiency and simultaneously delivering superb color quality at a reasonable cost......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

June 21, 2011, 11:27 PM CT

Putting a new spin on computing

In a recent publication in Physical Review Letters, physicists at the University of Arizona propose a way to translate the elusive magnetic spin of electrons into easily measurable electric signals. The finding is a key step in the development of computing based on spintronics, which doesn't rely on electron charge to digitize information.

Unlike conventional computing devices, which require electric charges to flow along a circuit, spintronics harnesses the magnetic properties of electrons rather than their electric charge to process and store information.

"Spintronics has the potential to overcome several shortcomings of conventional, charge-based computing. Microprocessors store information only as long as they are powered up, which is the reason computers take time to boot up and lose any data in their working memory if there is a loss of power," said Philippe Jacquod, an associate professor with joint appointments in the College of Optical Sciences and the department of physics at the College of Science, who published the research together with his postdoctoral assistant, Peter Stano.

"In addition, charge-based microprocessors are leaky, meaning they have to run an electric current all the time just to keep the data in their working memory at their right value," Jacquod added. "That's one reason why laptops get hot while they're working"......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

April 5, 2011, 11:04 PM CT

Cloud Computing

Cloud.CM is a cloud computing website for people of all ages and backgrounds. Using leading-edge technology they have created an online virtual desktop that can be accessed anytime and from anywhere. Users can use Cloud.CM to create, store, and share files while simultaneously collaborating with friends, family, and colleagues in a secured and safe environment. They provide additional multimedia and social networking tools that serve to round out the ultimate online experience and offer users an all-in-one solution to their everyday online needs.

Features Include: File Sharing and Storage, Text and Video Chat, Media Player, Productivity Suite (Used to View, Edit, and Create Word Docs, PPTs, and Excel Docs), Event Planner and Organizer (Groups and Calendar), and Profile Explorer (Social Networking App)

Cloud.CM may well change the way students collaborate online and interact with peers, TA's, and professors alike. It will do this by providing an online virtual environment that combines many of the online service amenities that already exist as distinct and independent platforms onto a safe and secure online environment.

Students can work in groups through video conferencing while sharing and updating files in real time. Cloud.CM also gives them the ability to engage each other by using various modes of communication, such as text chat, video chat, message boards, etc, which would then serve to provide a more complete collaboration environment.

Students will also be able to broadcast conversations between them and a person of their choosing and have other parties engage in that conversation, even members not a part of their cloud, in real time by posting a link of that broadcast to other social networking sites such as "FaceBook", "Twitter", or in the social networking application provided in Cloud.CM.

To round out the experience, the site also provides a media application to play music and videos, and also provides an avenue for students to remain in touch with professors as the students' progress in their chosen careers.

Today’s cloud hosting providers need to offer unprecedented reliability and service to lure enterprise businesses. Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

March 15, 2011, 10:30 PM CT

Better Memory Chips

Engineering scientists at the University of Michigan have found a way to improve the performance of ferroelectric materials, which have the potential to make memory devices with more storage capacity than magnetic hard drives and faster write speed and longer lifetimes than flash memory.

In ferroelectric memory the direction of molecules' electrical polarization serves as a 0 or a 1 bit. An electric field is used to flip the polarization, which is how data is stored.

With his colleagues at U-M and collaborators from Cornell University, Penn State University, and University of Wisconsin, Madison, Xiaoqing Pan, a professor in the U-M Department of Materials Science and Engineering, has designed a material system that spontaneously forms small nano-size spirals of the electric polarization at controllable intervals, which could provide natural budding sites for the polarization switching and thus reduce the power needed to flip each bit.

"To change the state of a ferroelectric memory, you have to supply enough electric field to induce a small region to switch the polarization. With our material, such a nucleation process is not necessary," Pan said. "The nucleation sites are intrinsically there at the material interfaces".

To make this happen, the engineers layered a ferroelectric material on an insulator whose crystal lattices were closely matched. The polarization causes large electric fields at the ferroelectric surface that are responsible for the spontaneous formation of the budding sites, known as "vortex nanodomains"......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

February 7, 2011, 8:06 AM CT

Growing nanolasers on silicon

Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found a way to grow nanolasers directly onto a silicon surface, an achievement that could lead to a new class of faster, more efficient microprocessors, as well as to powerful biochemical sensors that use optoelectronic chips.

They describe their work in a paper to be published Feb. 6 in an advanced online issue of the journal Nature Photonics

"Our results impact a broad spectrum of scientific fields, including materials science, transistor technology, laser science, optoelectronics and optical physics," said the study's principal investigator, Connie Chang-Hasnain, UC Berkeley professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences.

The increasing performance demands of electronics have sent scientists in search of better ways to harness the inherent ability of light particles to carry far more data than electrical signals can. Optical interconnects are seen as a solution to overcoming the communications bottleneck within and between computer chips.

Because silicon, the material that forms the foundation of modern electronics, is extremely deficient at generating light, engineers have turned to another class of materials known as III-V (pronounced "three-five") semiconductors to create light-based components such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and lasers......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

January 25, 2011, 7:14 AM CT

A Practical Path to Superfast Computing

They said it could be done and now they've done it. What's more, they did it with a GRIN. A team of scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California, Berkeley, have carried out the first experimental demonstration of GRIN - for gradient index - plasmonics, a hybrid technology that opens the door to a wide range of exotic optics, including superfast computers based on light rather than electronic signals, ultra-powerful optical microscopes able to resolve DNA molecules with visible light, and "invisibility" carpet-cloaking devices.

Working with composites featuring a dielectric (non-conducting) material on a metal substrate, and "grey-scale" electron beam lithography, a standard method in the computer chip industry for patterning 3-D surface topographies, the scientists have fabricated highly efficient plasmonic versions of Luneburg and Eaton lenses. A Luneburg lens focuses light from all directions equally well, and an Eaton lens bends light 90 degrees from all incoming directions.

"This past year, we used computer simulations to demonstrate that with only moderate modifications of an isotropic dielectric material in a dielectric-metal composite, it would be possible to achieve practical transformation optics results," says Xiang Zhang, who led this research. "Our GRIN plasmonics technique provides a practical way for routing light at very small scales and producing efficient functional plasmonic devices"......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

January 10, 2011, 6:24 AM CT

Supercomputer unravels structures in DVD materials

Eventhough the storage of films and music on a DVD is part of our digital world, the physical basis of the storage mechanism is not understood in detail. In the current issue of the leading journal Nature Materials, scientists from J�lich, Finland, and Japan provide insight into the read and write processes in a DVD. This knowledge should enable improved storage materials to be developed. (DOI: 10.1038/NMAT2931).

Storage of information is done in a DVD in the form of microscopic bits (each less than 100 nanometres in size) in a thin layer of a polycrystalline alloy containing several elements. The bits can have a disordered, amorphous or an ordered, crystalline structure. The transition between the two phases lasts only a few nanoseconds and can be triggered by a laser pulse. Common alloys for storage materials such as DVD-RAMs or Blu-ray Discs contain germanium (Ge), antimony (Sb) und tellurium (Te) and are known as GST after the initials of the elements. The most popular alloys for DVD-RW are AIST alloys, which contain small amounts of silver (Ag) and indium (In) as well as antimony (Sb) and tellurium (Te).

"Both alloy families contain antimony and tellurium and appear to have much in common, but the phase change mechanisms are quite different", explains Dr. Robert Jones of Forschungszentrum J�lich, who has collaborated with an international team on the problem. In addition to experimental data and x-ray spectra from the Japanese synchrotron SPring-8, the world's most powerful x-ray source, the team used extensive simulations on the J�lich supercomputer JUGENE. The combination of experiment and simulations has enabled the structures of both phases to be determined for the first time and allowed the development of a model to explain the rapid phase change......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 04:12:39 GMT

The Chase

To build excitement around the 2nd Generation Intel Core i5 processor, Intel is launching an action-adventure video titled "The Chase." The spot demonstrates the performance capabilities of the new processors by creating an action-movie style chase sequence that takes place through a wide variety of program windows on a computer desktop.



YouTube link

(thanks Cora) Posted by: Gerard      Read more     Source

January 2, 2011, 10:13 PM CT

Replacing Cable Television Service with Satellite Internet

obody likes bills. And with the number of “must-need” services rising, thrifty consumers are looking for ways to consolidate services and shave off unnecessary expenses. One such move that more people are making is cutting out the cable bill and getting their entertainment fix via satellite internet. For some, it’s a savings of nearly $100 each month, which can add up pretty quickly in today’s economy. But how exactly is this done? Here are some ways consumers can replace traditional cable television service with satellite internet:

1. Streaming television shows. Major networks like ABC, NBC and FOX offer their newest television shows in the most current season for free online. If viewers don’t mind waiting, the latest sitcoms, dramas, and reality TV shows are typically posted on network sites like ABC.com or Hulu.com the very next day after they’re first aired.
2. Downloading premium content. For archived television seasons and movies, satellite internet consumers can access them readily through content providers like Amazon through the Video-on-Demand service, or Apple through iTunes. They’re available for purchase by full seasons or a la carte per episode, giving viewers the flexibility to pick and choose what to watch.
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Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

December 24, 2010, 1:23 PM CT

Better control of building blocks for quantum computer

Researchers from the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at Delft University of Technology and Eindhoven University of Technology have succeeded in controlling the building blocks of a future super-fast quantum computer. They are now able to manipulate these building blocks (qubits) with electrical rather than magnetic fields, as has been the common practice up till now. They have also been able to embed these qubits into semiconductor nanowires. The scientists' findings have been reported in the current issue of the science journal Nature (23 December).

Spin

A qubit is the building block of a possible, future quantum computer, which would far outstrip current computers in terms of speed. One way to make a qubit is to trap a single electron in semiconductor material. A qubit can, just like a normal computer bit, adopt the states '0' and '1'. This is achieved by using the spin of an electron, which is generated by spinning the electron on its axis. The electron can spin in two directions (representing the '0' state and the '1' state).

Electrical instead of magnetic.

Until now, the spin of an electron has been controlled by magnetic fields. However, these field are extremely difficult to generate on a chip. The electron spin in the qubits that are currently being generated by the Dutch researchers can be controlled by a charge or an electric field, rather than by magnetic fields. This form of control has major advantages, as Leo Kouwenhoven, scientist at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at TU Delft, points out: "These spin-orbit qubits combine the best of both worlds. They employ the advantages of both electronic control and information storage in the electron spin"......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

November 10, 2010, 8:35 PM CT

Is Satellite Internet for You?

With so many broadband choices available today, it can be overwhelming when selecting the best choice for you. Satellite internet is a great broadband choice, but it's not the best option for everyone. How do you know if Satellite's right for you? Here are a few questions that will help you decide:

1. Do you have access to a telephone line or a cable TV line? For those that aren’t plugged into these networks, satellite internet is the way to go. Satellite internet delivers internet access through over-the-air satellite waves, and therefore aren’t limited by the physical infrastructure the same way DSL, Cable, and even Fiber Optics broadband services are. That means, for those in remote parts of the world, or those that are in a mobile set-up (e.g. mobile home), satellite internet makes plenty of sense.
2. Do you have space for a satellite dish? Sounds obvious, but it’s necessary to have space to install an outdoor dish with a clear line-of-sight to the southern sky. If unsure, it might be worth it to consult with a provider’s technician on whether your set-up is optimal for satellite service before signing any agreement, especially for multi-story apartment or condominium units.
3. Do you live somewhere with inclement weather? On the flipside, the fact that satellite internet is not tied to a physical infrastructure means its subject to connectivity problems with moisture and precipitation in the atmosphere. Heavy storms may even cause prolonged periods of signal outages. It’s, therefore, important to take into consideration the normal weather patterns in and around your area.
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Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 05:13:27 GMT

Waterproof Shower Notebook

This Waterproof Shower Notebook is the perfect way to grab and hold those inspirational thoughts that seem to come only when you’re standing with a head full of suds and loofer in hand. Sure, you could keep a Sharpie for scribbling on the wall tiles, but why not show a bit more class and save on cleaning fluid for the maid? $12.99.

 Brilliant ideas are never again forgotten, just use the hang strap to store our Waterproof Shower Notebook on your shower head for easy access! Our Waterproof Shower Notebook and pencil has 80 tear out, no smudge pages so you can take your ideas away with you! Think waterproof multi tasking! Use it under water, around water, near water, it doesn’t matter – it’s 100% waterproof and loves to get wet! Posted by: Redferret      Read more     Source

October 15, 2010, 6:52 AM CT

Tech Solutions Start With Pattern Recognition

Buy something online, enter your credit card number and mailing address. Simple. Then you come to the box with the CAPTCHA, the Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart. Here, the website attempts to confirm that you're a human, not some robot about to commit a cybercrime. You dutifully copy down the warped, watery-looking letters.

Incorrect. Another captcha appears. You try again. Also incorrect. A third captcha appears. You start rethinking your purchase.

University at Buffalo computer scientist Venu Govindaraju, who, along with his UB colleagues, pioneered machine recognition of human handwriting, believes that this annoying 21st-century problem has a decidedly old-fashioned solution: handwriting.

"Here at UB's Center for Unified Biometrics, we're the only ones who have proposed and thoroughly studied handwritten captchas," says Govindaraju. "Our perspective is that humans are good at reading handwriting, machines are not. It comes naturally to humans. But computer researchers typically consider handwriting a hopeless case, until someone comes along and shows them that it isn't".

Govindaraju should know. Research he and his UB colleagues conducted in the 1990s helped the U.S. Postal Service establish the first machines that could read handwritten addresses, a feat that a number of at the time -- particularly in industry -- said simply could not be done. In 1996, after years of research, the UB research enabled the USPS to be able to start machine-reading of handwritten addresses, boosting efficiency and saving the agency millions of dollars each year......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

September 19, 2010, 9:27 PM CT

Netbooks Versus the Competition

Sometimes, in life, the answers are very apparent, but that is not always the case. The matter of choosing the gear to outfit your office is not always as easily settled as one might think. Is it best to go with a PC or a Mac? Can I really afford the price associated with some of these models? What about the printer? Is the thought of printing the number of pages required in my office really practical given the cost of ink cartridges?

These are the sorts of questions that can arise when trying to make those initial decisions to build an office, or even the decisions regarding replacement of the out of date goods of yesteryear. Another question that many are finding themselves asking today is "Notebook, netbook, or tablet?" Consider this article for information to make that decision easier.

What are my options?
Buying a computer today is nothing like what it was ten years ago. First of all, walking out of the store with a computer might only mean carrying a small, traditional plastic bag. After all, many of the tablets and even some notebooks are so thin and light weight today that they could easily fit in a woman's purse and be carried without the person even feeling the added weight. Added to that, however, is the furthered agony of decision making. No longer is it as simple as choosing between five or ten desktop models in the local electronics store. Instead one is faced with a number of options for portable computing, including netbooks, notebooks, and the tablet. Most are familiar with all that a notebook (aka laptop) can do, so consider these evaluations of how the others stack up.

The newest thing in computer land is the tablet. These low cost, light weight handy devices are perfect for those looking for a secondary computer, or those who wish only to use the computer for photos, music, games, and email. They do have the internet as well, and a number of fun, functional, and funky applications, but they also have a couple major drawbacks. The first is that there is not yet a real functional version of traditional word processing and spreadsheet softwares that work on the tablet. Surely that will change in the near future, but as of now, that it something that one should not expect to accomplish on the tablet. Even Google Docs and Microsoft's online versions of word processing are not where they need to be to make this device functional in that way. The second major flaw is printing. You are not going to easily find ink cartridges that will work with these mini computers. This is going to change in the very near future as wireless printing has started to become a possibility, but you will still be limited when compared to the other computers that offer a wide variety of printer from ink cartridge or toner, wired or wireless, all-in-one or single function.

Netbooks, similarly, are newer to the market and have a number of advantages and disadvantages as compared to the more traditional notebook. These are not going to feature many of the added perks of a traditional computer, such as the DVD/CD drive and extended keyboards. However, the ultra-mini models, are light weight and easily carted from one venue to another, where they can be flipped open to do most everything that a traditional laptop can do, taking up a fraction of the space. The best part is, that unlike the tablet, these USB supporting mini pads are able to work with nearly every printer on the market, which means that you, like the rest of the computer world will also have another decision to make. Which brand? Which model? Ink cartridge or toner? Manufacturer's ink or third party? Posted by: Joslyn      Read more         Source

September 16, 2010, 8:42 AM CT

A computer may drive your car someday

Navigating our way down the street is something most of us take for granted; we seem to recognize cars, other people, trees and lampposts instantaneously and without much thought. In fact, visually interpreting our environment as quickly as we do is an astonishing feat requiring an enormous number of computations-which is just one reason that coming up with a computer-driven system that can mimic the human brain in visually recognizing objects has proven so difficult.

Now Eugenio Culurciello of Yale's School of Engineering & Applied Science has developed a supercomputer based on the human visual system that operates much more quickly and efficiently than ever before. Dubbed NeuFlow, the system takes its inspiration from the mammalian visual system, mimicking its neural network to quickly interpret the world around it. Culurciello presented the results Sept. 15 at the High Performance Embedded Computing (HPEC) workshop in Boston, Mass.

The system uses complex vision algorithms developed by Yann LeCun at New York University to run large neural networks for synthetic vision applications. One idea-the one Culurciello and LeCun are focusing on, is a system that would allow cars to drive themselves. In order to be able to recognize the various objects encountered on the road-such as other cars, people, stoplights, sidewalks, not to mention the road itself-NeuFlow processes tens of megapixel images in real time......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

September 11, 2010, 9:26 AM CT

New Pathsfor a Stressed-Out Internet

The San Diego Supercomputer Center and Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) at the University of California, San Diego, in a collaboration with scientists from Universitat de Barcelona in Spain and the University of Cyprus, have created the first geometric "atlas" of the Internet as part of a project to prevent our most ubiquitous form of communication from collapsing within the next decade or so.

In a paper published this week in Nature Communications, CAIDA researcher Dmitri Krioukov, along with Marián Boguñá (Universitat de Barcelona) and Fragkiskos Papadopoulos (University of Cyprus), describe how they discovered a latent hyperbolic, or negatively curved, space hidden beneath the Internet's topology, leading them to devise a method to create an Internet map using hyperbolic geometry. In their paper, Sustaining the Internet with Hyperbolic Mapping, the scientists say such a map would lead to a more robust Internet routing architecture because it simplifies path-finding throughout the network.

"We compare routing in the Internet today to using a hypothetical road atlas, which is really just a long encoded list of road intersections and connections that would require drivers to pore through each line to plot a course to their destination without using any geographical, or geometrical, information which helps us navigate through the space in real life," said Krioukov, principal investigator of the project......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

September 8, 2010, 11:06 PM CT

Google Android Net Books - The next generation PCs?

Net books have always been the enviable gadgets, which gives us the ability stay connected while we are on the move. They are quite appealing and fashionable at the same time. They have grown more in popularity after the release of wireless Internet broadband through the USB ports.

The advent of 3G technology gives us the power to have full fledged wireless broadband connections on portable devices, without having to rely only on the Wi-Fi zones.

The manufacturing companies are introducing some of the most sophisticated net books to meet the requirement of every individual, be it for official purposes or for the gaming purposes.

PC tablet net books are slowly but steadily eating up into the PC market. The hype created over the release of Apple's Ipad has brought about a lot of awareness on this technology. The gadget freaks are lining up to get their hands on some of the latest devices that are being introduced into the market.

Google does not want to be left behind by either, plus their Android operating system will work as their main advantage.

Laptops and notebooks are a little on the expensive side when compared to the personal computers, but the net books are more on the cheaper side, and won’t have you seeking for mortgage advice to pay for them with the price ranges starting from just $150.00.

Now Google has gone one step ahead by introducing their operating system on mobile devices other than the mobile phones. They have also introduced Android OS on the PC Tablet net books now. The devices are exceptionally good and the scopes for using the apps are plenty.

In this article, I will provide you with the information on Android powered net books, particularly the ones that are 7in and 8in.

Some of their main features are:

• Web browsing with Google Chrome
• Webmail services like Hotmail
• PDF reader
• Office file processors for word, excel and PowerPoint files
• VOIP facilities to make free long distance calls
• Latest games
• Rotation screens to view from 4 sides
• More than 25 languages and lots more

The devices use Android 1.6 operating system, and they have the DDR2 RAM with speed of 128 MB. They are available both in 7in and 8in LCD screens.

These devices have a color resolution starting from 800 * 480 depending on the models. They provide an inbuilt hard drive space of 2GB. However, all their models are also compatible with the extended memory cards, with which you can enhance the storage buy 32 more GBs.

They are Wi-fi enabled with the latest certifications for network connectivity. The microphone is built-in, and you could also watch the streaming videos on YouTube.

The battery gives you a standby time of 4 hours and the working time of 2½ hours. I feel that this is very decent for a portable device which provides so many computing abilities. The weight of the devices very upon the models, and they are usually between 300g to 600g.

If you are seeking more information on the Google Android powered net books and PC Netbook Tablets, you might want to check out the website, www.mondetech.com. They offer some excellent discount offers on some of the latest net books. Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

August 25, 2010, 7:16 AM CT

'Spintronics' for next-generation computers

Using powerful lasers, Hui Zhao, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas, and graduate student Lalani Werake have discovered a new way to recognize currents of spinning electrons within a semiconductor.

Their findings could lead the way to development of superior computers and electronics. Results from their work in KU's Ultrafast Laser Lab would be reported in the recent issue of Nature Physics, a leading peer-evaluated journal, and was posted online in early August.

Zhao and Werake research spin-based electronics, dubbed "spintronics."

"The goal is to replace everything - from computers to memory devices - to have higher performance and less energy consumption," said Zhao.

The KU investigator said that future advancements to microchips would require a different approach for transmitting the sequences of ones and zeros that make up digital information.

"We have been using the charge of the electron for several decades," said Zhao. "But right now the size of each device is just 30 to 50 nanometers, and you don't have a number of atoms remaining on that tiny scale. We can't continue that way anymore because we're hitting a fundamental limit".

Instead of using the presence or absence of electronic charges, spintronics relies on the direction of an electron's rotation to convey data......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

July 16, 2010, 7:09 AM CT

Small wires make big connections

University of Illinois engineers have developed a novel direct-writing method for manufacturing metal interconnects that could shrink integrated circuits and expand microelectronics.

Integrated chips are made by wiring multiple transistors and electronic components together to perform complex functions. The connections between chips and circuit boards traditionally are made from pre-fabricated metal wires that connect to a designated bonding pad on a chip.

"Integrated functions require a number of wire connections. It's tedious and time-consuming to make and increases cost," said Min-Feng Yu, a professor of mechanical science and engineering at Illinois.

In addition, the bonding pad for traditional wire bonds takes up a substantial area of space. As technology has moved toward smaller electronics, shrinking wiring has been a substantial obstacle. A number of microelectronic devices are much smaller than the mandatory 50-by-50 micron square bonding site, prohibiting integrated functions on the very small scale.

"There's no existing cost-effective technology that would allow you to wire-bond microstructures," said Yu, "so let's get rid of those wires, and instead, why not directly produce them on-site between the connection points?".

Yu and graduate student Jie Hu developed a direct-write technique that produces tiny pure metal wires much smaller in diameter than traditional wires and requiring two orders of magnitude less bonding area. In a paper appearing in the July 16 edition of Science, they demonstrate as a number of as 20 of their new wires bonded to a single standard bonding site......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

July 5, 2010, 2:51 PM CT

Asus Eee PC 2G Surf

The 'Asus EEE PC 2G Surf' is a sleek netbook designed by ASUS. They say it is Easy to learn, Easy to Work and Easy to play. The Eee stands for these three E qualities of this net book. The Asus Eee PC 2G Surf is manufactured by Pegatron Technology and developed by ASUSTek Computer Inc. This netbook measures 8.86 inch x 6.30 inch x 0.79-1.26 inch and weighs 2.0 lbs. There's a 4400 mAh Battery of 4-cell that comes with this netbook. There are three versions of this model and they are the 2G, 4G and 8G units. They are available in the following colors, black, white, pink, blue and green. This netbooks comes with a restore disk, driver disk (for Windows installs) and documentation. The Asus Eee PC 2G Surf can be purchased at a starting price of $299.

Specifications

Asus has always promoted the Eee netbook series to be easy to work, easy to learn and easy to play. It has 10/100 Ethernet and 802.11b/g wireless. It comes with a VGA port and an SD Card Slot that supports SDHC. The Celeron-M 800 MHz operates at 571 MHz. System memory of this Eee netbook is at 512MB. There's a flash memory reader slot whereby users can use an SD memory card to write or read. This netbook comes with a 4400 mAh 4-cell unit that can last for about 2.5 hours. The battery can be upgraded to a 5600 mAh which can last for about 3.5 hours......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

June 30, 2010, 6:41 AM CT

Barrier to faster integrated circuits

College Park, MD (June 29, 2010) -- Integrated circuits, which enable virtually every electronics gadget you use on a daily basis, are constantly being pushed by the semiconductor industry to become smaller, faster, and cheaper. As has happened a number of times in the past and will continue in the future, integrated circuit scaling is perpetually in danger of hitting a wall that must be maneuvered around.

As per Maxime Darnon, a researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research, in order to continue increasing the speed of integrated circuits, interconnect insulators will require an upgrade to porous, low-dielectric constant materials. Darnon and his colleagues discuss the details in the Journal of Applied Physics, which is published by the American Institute of Physics (AIP).

"The integration of a replacement, porous SiCOH (pSiCOH), however, poses serious problems such as an unacceptable 'roughening' that occurs during plasma processing," explains Darnon. "This is considered a 'showstopper' to faster integrated circuits at the moment, so a fundamental understanding of the roughening mechanisms that occur during the etch process of integrated circuit manufacturing is highly desirable to material designers and etch-process engineers.

Darnon's research team proposes a mechanism for the roughening of pSiCOH materials etched in a fluorocarbon-based plasma. They've shown that the problematic roughness results from a cracking of the denser top surface under ion bombardment, and that this roughness propagates through a slower etching of the dense top surface than the modified porous material beneath it. Perhaps more importantly, the team recommends ways to minimize this phenomenon so that the "showstopper" will only be a speedbump on the road to faster integrated circuits......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

May 21, 2010, 7:05 AM CT

How laptops can enhance learning

Despite the distraction potential of laptops in college classrooms, new research shows that they can actually increase students' engagement, attentiveness, participation and learning.

To achieve this, however, the instructor must set the right stage, says University of Michigan professor Perry Samson.

Samson is a professor in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences who has received honors for his educational technology work.

He has developed robust interactive student response system called LectureTools that utilizes students' laptops. A paper about how students report that LectureTools affected their learning is reported in the May edition of the journal Computers & Education.

"If you allow laptops in the classroom without a plan for how you'll use them, you can potentially invite disaster. It's unlikely that students will be so entranced by class material that they won't wander off to their favorite social networking sites," Samson said. "The key is to deliberately engage students through their computers. LectureTools does just that".

LectureTools is an interactive student response system and teaching module. Instructors at more than 400 colleges and universities have set up accounts to use it.

Samson recently surveyed close to 200 students who, over the past three semesters, have taken his Extreme Weather lecture course that utilized LectureTools. Students reported that while they did sometimes stray from in-class tasks, laptops with LectureTools made them feel more attentive, engaged and able to learn, compared with classes that don't use the system......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 13:00:33 GMT

Recover Lost Hard Drive Data

Here's the latest free hard drive data recovery program to be offered, and as always I advise you to maintain separate, removable media, to back up your precious digital photo files.

Of course the use of removable media for backup extends beyond your photo files and should include all files that you consider "must haves."

The "iCare", "Data Recovery 3.6" Software, is a bit more advanced than some past free offerings and deserves a look, especially since it's free.

Besides the usual data loss recovery feature "iCare's", "Data Recovery 3.6" Software allows you to recover deleted hard drive partitions, perform "deep scan recoveries" and "format recoveries."

Get your free iCare Data Recovery 3.6 Software before the offer is rescinded at midnight tonight.

Take a camera with you whenever possible, and look around, you'll find a picture somewhere.

Photo Source: www.giveawayoftheday.com Posted by: Karen      Read more     Source

March 12, 2010, 8:06 AM CT

Back to the future for computers

A presentation at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition/National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (OFC/NFOEC) in San Diego on March 24 will examine the technologies that will emerge in the next three to four years to power warehouse-scale computing data centers, upon which companies such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, and a number of more are increasingly relying.

The advent of distributed, massive-scale "cloud computing" today is something of a return to the early part of 1980s, when computing was of a different sort. Rather than individual desktop or laptop machines, which are the current norm, computers were commonly time-shared among multiple users working on "dumb" terminals connected to a central machineoften located in some remote corner of the building.

Cloud computing basically makes use of the Internet to connect remote users to massive, warehouse-scale data centers that house large networks of processors and memory for crunching and storing data. These warehouse data centers promise to lower computing costs by sharing resources and taking advantage of economies of scale, says Network Architect Cedric Lam of Google, and they will relieve users of the hassles of maintaining and upgrading equipment and backing up their data......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 03:43:08 GMT

World's first multitouch gaming laptop

The Battalion Touch Notebook is apparently the world’s first multi-touch gaming laptop computer. The rest of the spec seems fairly standard for a 15.6 inch laptop, so we’re wondering exactly what market really wants to swap the lean back ease of use you get with a mouse and keyboard for the hunched over finger stretching hassle that comes with multi-touch screen technology?

Sure it’s cool for mobile phones, but a notebook computer? Really? Anyhoo, those of you with an urge to smear your screens while scrolling down the eBay listings go ahead, knock yourself out. Cough up $999.00 first please.

 Experience a new dimension of interactive gaming, media organization, and content creation with the Battalion Touch series. Featuring a full multi-touch screen, the Battalion Touch series allows you to interact with your system in new ways and take full advantage of the built-in multi-touch capabilities of Windows 7. With the growing popularity of the multi-touch interactive platform, the Battalion Touch series provides the capabilities to support the increasing number of multi-touch optimized game and software titles. Posted by: Redferret      Read more     Source

December 30, 2009, 8:14 AM CT

Moving Video to "Captcha" Robot Hackers

We see the popular "captcha" security mechanism often - wavy letters websites ask us to type into a box. It's used by web pages and newsletter sign-up forms to prevent computer robots from hacking into servers and databases. But these codes, which are becoming increasingly complicated for an average person to use, are not immune to security holes.

A research project led by Prof. Danny Cohen-Or of Tel Aviv University's Blavatnik School of Computer Sciences demonstrates how a new kind of video captcha code appears to be harder to outsmart. The foundation of the work, presented at a recent SIGGRAPH conference, is really pure research, says Prof. Cohen-Or, but it opens the door so security scientists can think a little differently.

"Humans have a very special skill that computer bots have still not been able to master," says Prof. Cohen-Or. "We can see what's called an 'emergence image' - an object on a computer screen that becomes recognizable only when it's moving - and identify this image in a matter of seconds. While a person can't 'see' the image as a stationary object on a mottled background, it becomes part of our gestalt as it moves, allowing us to recognize and process it".



A truly "emerging" technology

In the new research paper, co-authored with colleagues in Taiwan, Saudi Arabia and India, Prof. Cohen-Or describes a synthesis technique that generates pictures of 3-D objects, like a running man or a flying airplane. This technique, he says, will allow security developers to generate an infinite number of moving "emergence" images that will be virtually impossible for any computer algorithm to decode......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

December 24, 2009, 7:13 AM CT

Do computers understand art?

A team of scientists from the University of Girona and the Max Planck Institute in Gera number of has shown that some mathematical algorithms provide clues about the artistic style of a painting. The composition of colours or certain aesthetic measurements can already be quantified by a computer, but machines are still far from being able to interpret art in the way that people do.

How does one place an artwork in a particular artistic period? This is the question raised by researchers from the Laboratory of Graphics and Image in the University of Girona and the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, in Gera number of. The scientists have shown that certain artificial vision algorithms mean a computer can be programmed to "understand" an image and differentiate between artistic styles based on low-level pictorial information. Human classification strategies, however, include medium and high-level concepts.

Low-level pictorial information encompasses aspects such as brush thickness, the type of material and the composition of the palette of colours. Medium-level information differentiates between certain objects and scenes appearing in a picture, as well as the type of painting (landscape, portrait, still life, etc.). High-level information takes into account the historical context and knowledge of the artists and artistic trends......... Posted by: Ethan      Read more         Source

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 04:57:51 GMT

How to Make Your Computer Live Longer

© psd


Sometime I think losing a laptop is almost as traumatic as losing a pet. You spend so much time and effort getting to know what it, trying new things. You waste hours of your life playing with it. It even follows you around.

Okay, so I might be pushing the analogy, but the truth is, most of us don"t have the money to get a new laptop every 6 months. We"d like to keep the one we have alive and running for as long as possible.

So here are a few useful little tips that might extend the life your computer. Don"t worry, you probably already know them, but reminders never hurt anyone:

1. Shut it Down: This may sound simple but many of us just close the lid, turn of the monitor or set it to sleep mode. Completely shutting your computer down will keep it from overheating and leaking memory. Think of your computer like your brain, it can"t function without a good night"s sleep.

2. Defrag!: Again, another simple "duh" moment. Defrag your computer. Most PCs will even let you set up a regular defrag schedule once a week. Cleaning up your files on a regular basis will also keep your computer functioning at optimal speed.

3. Keep it Clean: During your regularly scheduled defrag, go ahead and run a scan for viruses, spyware, malware, all that bad stuff you can pick on the internet. Find a good program to keep your PC"s health good.

4. Don"t Drop It: Look, be nice to your laptops. Keep them in safe places, don"t expose them to weird temperatures and be sure not to eat or drink near them if possible. Also pets. I lost a laptop a few years ago to a cat pouncing on and then hairballing all over my keys, it broke my screen and something gross seeped into the circuitry. Trust me, helping your computer and your pets avoid each other is a good idea.

These might not be the most enlightening tips, but they"ll go along way in keeping your computer chugging along for an extra year or so.

Do you have tips for adding an extra life to your laptop? Posted by: Doreen      Read more     Source