EETimes – Parrot, is a “universal receiver” that can link with any mobile phone. Parrot, based here, has developed what Seydoux describes as “a counterpart to a smartphone” that enhances voice quality for hands-free car phones while improving audio acoustics. A voice recognition feature provides access to the smartphone’s address book. Parrot’s AR.Drone 2.0 captures …
Register UK – The Aries chip has 217 million gates and Cray has chosen Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp as the foundry to build it, and uses its 40 nanometer processes for etching. Cray has used IBM as a foundry in the past for interconnect chips, but being rivals in the supercomputer racket, Cray is no …
Science 2.0 – In October, Basic Books released Regenesis by Harvard Medical School Geneticist George Church and science writer Ed Regis. Their successful collaboration interestingly resulted from the pair having the same literary agent. In Regenesis the authors ask, “What should we do?” How can we balance economic growth and a sustainable environment? How can …
Samsung shipped more than twice as many smartphones as Apple Inc. in the third quarter, as the South Korean company dramatically expanded its lead over its U.S. rival, according to ABI Research. Worldwide handset shipments decreased 1.9% YoY to 387.3 million units in Q3 2012, according to new data from market intelligence firm ABI Research. …
Geneticists have long been able to edit individual genes, but using a technique called MAGE/CAGE mass rewriting DNA is possible, turning the entire genome of a bacterium into an “editable and evolvable template”. MAGE and CAGE were described in Discover Magazine and is described in the George Church and Ed Regis book Regenesis Their success …
World Nuclear News – Plans to enable residents to rebuild their lives in certain evacuation zones around the damaged Fukushima Daiichi plant have been announced by Japan’s Reconstruction Agency. In addition to decontamination work and the restoration of infrastructure, the ten-year plan calls for the creation of jobs in the area. The ‘Grand Plan’ released …
Integrated circuits, which are in everything from coffeemakers to computers and are patterned from perfectly crystalline silicon, are quite thin — but Cornell researchers think they can push thin-film boundaries to the single-atom level. Their materials of choice are graphene, single atom-thick sheets of repeating carbon atoms, and hexagonal boron nitride, similarly thin sheets of …
Brain-computer interfaces are at the cutting edge for treatment of neurological and psychological disorder, including Parkinson’s, epilepsy, and depression. Among the most promising advance is deep brain stimulation (DBS) — a method in which a silicon chip implanted under the skin ejects high frequency currents that are transferred to the brain through implanted electrodes that …
MIT engineers have developed a fuel cell that runs on the same sugar that powers human cells: glucose. This glucose fuel cell could be used to drive highly efficient brain implants of the future, which could help paralyzed patients move their arms and legs again. The fuel cell, described in the June 12 edition of …
1. Annals of the New York Academy of Science – Full cost accounting for the life cycle of coal (2011) Each stage in the life cycle of coal—extraction, transport, processing, and combustion—generates a waste stream and carries multiple hazards for health and the environment. These costs are external to the coal industry and are thus …
BBC News – An injection of stem cells given alongside a kidney transplant could remove the need for a lifetime of drugs to suppress the immune system Early tests of the technique at US hospitals were successful in a small number of patients. The journal Science Translational Medicine reports how the majority no longer need …