New Scientist – The muscle suit is one of a series of cybernetic exoskeletons developed by Hiroshi Kobayashi’s team at the Tokyo University of Science in Japan. Scheduled for commercial release early next year, the wearable robot takes two forms: one augmenting the arms and back that is aimed at areas of commerce where heavy …
The basic form factor of solar modules hasn’t changed in decades – they remain heavy, rectangular, glass-covered entities that impose expensive handling and mounting requirements. What if we could abandon this form-factor limitation and open the door to entirely new ways to innovate on form factor? The ideal technology would be free of the confines …
Economist – China is rapidly modernising its armed forces is not in doubt, though there is disagreement about what the true spending figure is. China’s defence budget has almost certainly experienced double digit growth for two decades. According to SIPRI, a research institute, annual defence spending rose from over $30 billion in 2000 to almost …
The Carnival of nuclear energy 98 is up at Idaho Samizdat Neutron Economy – the EPA issued its first-ever regulation on carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants, limiting emissions to 1000 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour of electricity produced. Given the fact that the average coal plant vastly exceeds this limit (weighing in around …
The lab of Rice University chemist James Tour has developed transparent, flexible memories using silicon oxide as the active component. Tour revealed today in a talk at the national meeting and exposition of the American Chemical Society in San Diego that the new type of memory could combine with the likes of transparent electrodes developed …
In a new MIT study, researchers used optogenetics to show that memories really do reside in very specific brain cells, and that simply activating a tiny fraction of brain cells can recall an entire memory — explaining, for example, how Marcel Proust could recapitulate his childhood from the aroma of a once-beloved madeleine cookie. “We …
Kevin Jianjun Tu is a senior associate in the Carnegie Energy and Climate Program, where he leads Carnegie’s work on China’s energy and climate policies. He also worked in China 1995-2001 in large China natural gas and petroleum companies. His analysis is that China should go slow on approving new nuclear reactors. China’s 2020 nuclear …
In this 46 minute video, Nvidia’s Steve Keckler describes the evolutionary path of GPU computing and where it’s heading on the road to Exascale computing. Keckler is part of the team working on the Echelon research project, which is looking into technologies that will eventually enable an Exaflop computer to operate at under 20 Megawatts. …
A single fiber-optic can light up computer screens. This innovation put in place by L.E.S.S., a recently formed spin-off of EPFL, brings energy savings of 30% while boosting processors. “Slim as a hair, powerful as 100 LEDs”: the advantages of this technology have the allure of a slogan. “Currently, half the consumption of energy in …
Arxiv- Prisoners of their own device: Trojan attacks on device-independent quantum cryptography (7 pages) Device-independent cryptographic schemes aim to guarantee security to users based only on the output statistics of any components used, and without the need to verify their internal functionality. Since this would protect users against untrustworthy or incompetent manufacturers, sabotage or device …
There is a seven page transcript about Newt Gingrich talking about his passion for space and colonizing the moon. We did a movie called A City upon a Hill and we had Buzz Aldrin in the movie, and he is so convincing, and he said you have to realize the only person who had gone …