Will machines ever be as smart as humans? Intel CTO Justin Rattner thinks that someday, they might. He is mostly looking at cognitive enhancement and advanced robotics. Machine intelligence is constantly increasing due to laws of accelerating returns, “of which Moore’s Law is perhaps the best example.” “There will be a surprising amount of machines …
EEtimes reports that China’s Hauwei launching new HSPA+ (High Speed Packet Access Plus / 3G HSPA Evolution [HSPA+]) cellular system in 2010 that has 56 mbit/s download speeds. Huawei has already deployed over 10 commercial HSPA+ network contracts. In Asia Pacific, it has worked on a commercial 28Mbit/s HSPA+ network and, with operators including Japan …
Melanie Swan’s broader perspective blog has an update on genome sequencing Leading third-generation sequencing company Pacific Biosciences affirmed at the Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory Personal Genomes meeting September 14-17, 2009 that the company has 12 prototype instruments in operation and continues to be on track for ~$100 (“the cost of a nice dinner”) whole human …
1. Paralyzed rats (with severed spinal cords) given electrical stimulation on the skin by the spinal cord separation and a drug to enhance response to the electricity and were able to run on a treadmill. Balance is not restored so if this were to work on people, they would need a walking frame for balance. …
Testing done in the Bakken shale area found a “stacked play,” meaning one oil formation is on top of another, which could allow more oil to be recovered at a lower cost in a smaller area with less environmental damage, said Continental Resources Hamm said the testing showed two distinct formations. He said the Three …
Ultrahigh-density phase-change data storage without the use of heating in Nature Nanotechnology Non-volatile memories based on scanning probes offer very high data densities, but existing approaches require the probe to be heated, which increases the energy expenditure and complexity of fabrication. Here, we demonstrate the writing, reading and erasure of an ultrahigh-density array of nanoscopic …
The head of India’s Atomic Energy Commission, Anil Kakodkar, announced yesterday in Vienna a special version of the forthcoming Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) adapted to use low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel. The original design is fuelled by a mix of uranium-233 and plutonium bred from thorium using fast neutron power reactors earlier in a thorium …
PTB Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt has for the first time made graphene visible on gallium arsenide. Scientists of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) have now, with the aid of a special design, succeeded in making graphene visible on gallium arsenide. Previously it has only been possible on silicon oxide. Now that they are able to view with a …
Carl Zeiss, the world’s leading manufacturer of optical systems for chip fabrication, has now delivered a complete optical system for production-ready Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography (EUVL), a new technology for microchip fabrication. This optical system forms a core module of the first EUVL production system from the Dutch manufacturer and long-term partner to Carl Zeiss, ASML. …
These optical images of a multiple-domain vanadium oxide microwire taken at various temperatures show pure insulating (top) and pure metallic (bottom) phases and co-existing metallic/insulating phases (middle) as a result of strain engineering. (Image from Junqiao Wu) Berkeley Labs found that structural irregularities in correlated electron materials – a phenomenon known as “phase inhomogeneity” – …
Chris Phoenix looks at carbohydrate strands, a new molecular building block Cells in a multicellular organism are surrounded by a matrix of molecules called, appropriately enough, the extracellular matrix (ECM). The ECM is made up of protein and carbohydrate. It anchors the cells and provides structure to the organism. It also provides signaling for mobile …