Technology Review – Nearly 400 million Indians, mostly those living in rural communities, lack access to grid power. For many of them, simply charging a cell phone requires a long trip to a town with a recharging kiosk, and their homes are dimly lit by sooty kerosene-fueled lamps. Nikhil Jaisinghani and Brian Shaad cofounded Mera …
WSJ – Chongqing is at the center of experiments in a more inclusive approach to development. Chongqing is piloting innovations in property rights for farmers, and allowing rural migrants to access the urban pension, education, and health-care system. If successful, these experiments could catalyze a shift to more consumption-led growth, analysts say, because creating a …
With a 95 percent genomic similarity to humans, mice have long been used to learn about the genetic causes of human disease. Genetic mapping, is a long and difficult road, made more challenging by the 5% difference between the humans and lab mice. A new mice population will offer 1,000 genetic strains within a fixed …
Wall Street Journal – Doctors at Yale University here implanted in Angela’s chest in August a bioabsorbable tube that is designed to dissolve over time. The tube was seeded with cells, including stem cells, that had been harvested from Angela’s bone marrow. Since then, the doctors say, the tube has disappeared, leaving in its place …
Technology Review – a team at FermiLab in Batavia, Illinois, reveal that they have sent a digital message using a neutrino beam for the first time. These guys used an experiment called NuMI (NeUtrino beam at the Main Injector) to generate an intense beam of neutrinos. The beam consisted of about 25 pulses each separated …
Researchers at Chalmers have demonstrated that two stacked chips can be vertically interconnected with carbon nanotube vias through the chips. This new method improves possibilities for 3D integration of circuits, one of the most promising approaches for miniaturization and performance promotion of electronics. Three dimensional integration is a hot field within electronics since it offers …
New Scientist – SwingReader, from start-up tech firm UberSense, lets amateurs load videos of their own swing and compare it with footage of professional golfers to see where they are going wrong. In December, computer vision algorithms will be added to the app so that individual objects in the frame – such as the golf …
New high-precision tests carried out by the OPERA collaboration in Italy broadly confirm its claim, made in September, to have detected neutrinos travelling at faster than the speed of light. The collaboration today submitted its results to a journal, but some members continue to insist that further checks are needed before the result can be …
Several indicators point to the robotics industry being on an exponential growth path. Key enabling technologies, such as AI, energy storage, computer hardware, sensors, and actuators are steadily improving, and revenues are also increasing. Robots are now doing an increasing number of tasks that formerly could only by done by humans. Some are even starting …
1. Nvidia’s next generation graphics card (Kepler) will not be released until 2012. Kepler will be succeeding the Fermi architecture and use a 28 nm production process. Kepler cards will triple the dual-precision floating point performance of Fermi and hit up to 6 dp GFlops, while its successor Maxwell (scheduled for a 2013 release) is …
1. Germany is set to turn back to coal, gas and imports to fill the energy chasm left by its fast-track exit of nuclear power. Germany produced 140.6 terawatt hours (TWh) of nuclear power in 2010. Germany produced 102 TWh from renewable energy in 2010, and they are targeted to add 115 TWh by 2020. …