Category Archives: Technology

Singapore Plans to Make Itself a Mega Wi-Fi Hotspot

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According to reports, Singapore is in the process of launching a nationwide Wi-Fi network that will let users receive an network connection to the Internet from virtually anywhere. Chief executive officer for SingTel Bill Chang said that “at the end of the year, Singapore will be one mega hot spot.”

Singapore launched a program last year called the Intelligent Nation program which is aimed at turning the country into one of the world’s leading technology-focused nations. Singapore is focused on becoming a leader in communications technology, and from the looks of the nation-wide Wi-Fi network, Singapore is well on its way to becoming an example for other nations. Singapore says that the mega Wi-Fi network will be based on WiMAX, which is a high-speed, reliable and robust wireless standard being pushed by Intel and other companies.

dailytech

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Desktop Printing of Carbon Nanotube Patterns

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Using an off-the-shelf inkjet printer, a team of scientists has developed a simple technique for printing patterns of carbon nanotubes on paper and plastic surfaces. The method, which is described in the August 2006 issue of the journal Small, could lead to a new process for manufacturing a wide range of nanotube-based devices, from flexible electronics and conducting fabrics to sensors for detecting chemical agents.

Carbon nanotubes have enticed researchers since their discovery in 1991, offering an impressive combination of high strength, low weight, and excellent conductivity. But most current techniques to make nanotube-based devices require complex and expensive equipment. “Our results suggest new alternatives for fabricating nanotube patterns by simply printing the dissolved particles on paper or plastic surfaces,” said Robert Vajtai, a researcher with the Rensselaer Nanotechnology Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and corresponding author of the paper.

Vajtai and his colleagues at Rensselaer – along with a group of researchers led by Kriszti?n Kord?s and G?za T?th at the University of Oulu in Finland – have developed an approach that uses a commercial inkjet printer to deposit nanotubes onto various surfaces. They simply fill a conventional ink cartridge with a solution of carbon nanotubes dissolved in water, and then the printer produces a pattern just as if it was printing with normal ink. Because nanotubes are good conductors, the resulting images also are able to conduct electricity.

“Printed carbon nanotube structures could be useful in many ways,” Vajtai said. “Some potential applications based on their electrical conductivity include flexible electronics for displays, antennas, and batteries that can be integrated into paper or cloth.” Printing electronics on cloth could allow people to actually “wear” the battery for their laptop computer or the entire electronic system for their cell phone, according to Vajtai.

Physorg

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Brain-implant Enables Mind Over Matter

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A man paralyzed from the neck down by knife injuries sustained five years ago can now check his email, control a robot arm and even play computer games using the power of thought alone, according to John Donoghue of Brown University, who led the work reported in Nature.

Electrodes implanted in Matt Nagle’s brain measure the neural signals generated when he concentrates on trying to move one of his paralysed limbs. Software trained to recognize different patterns of neural activity then translates imagined gestures into the movement of an on-screen cursor or a robotic arm.

In the same issue of Nature, Krishna Shenoy and colleagues at Stanford University report a way to dramatically boost the efficiency of brain implants in monkeys. Using software that predicts the monkey’s intention from only the first few bursts of neural activity, the animals’ implants were able to function four times faster than normal—a rate that could enable a paralyzed person to type 15 words per minute.

new scientist

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Tropical Stonehenge May Have Been Found

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SAO PAULO, Brazil—A grouping of granite blocks along a grassy Amazon hilltop may be the vestiges of a centuries-old astronomical observatory _ a find archaeologists say indicates early rainforest inhabitants were more sophisticated than previously believed.

The 127 blocks, some as high as 9 feet tall, are spaced at regular intervals around the hill, like a crown 100 feet in diameter.

On the shortest day of the year _ Dec. 21 _ the shadow of one of the blocks, which is set at an angle, disappears.

“It is this block’s alignment with the winter solstice that leads us to believe the site was once an astronomical observatory,” said Mariana Petry Cabral, an archaeologist at the Amapa State Scientific and Technical Research Institute. “We may be also looking at the remnants of a sophisticated culture.”

Anthropologists have long known that local indigenous populations were acute observers of the stars and sun. But the discovery of a physical structure that appears to incorporate this knowledge suggests pre-Columbian Indians in the Amazon rainforest may have been more sophisticated than previously suspected.

Washington Post

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VW Golf GTi Drives Itself

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German car giant Volkswagen has turned fiction into reality by unveiling a fully automatic car which really can drive itself – and at speeds of up to 150mph.

It can weave with tyres screeching around tricky bends and chicanes, and through tightly coned off tracks – without any help or intervention from a human.

The remarkable car is the VW Golf GTi ‘53 plus 1’ codenamed after the number ‘53’ which Herbie carried when racing in his big screen adventures.

The GTi has electronic ‘eyes’ that use radar and laser sensors in the grille to ‘read’ the road and send the details back to its computer brain. A sat-nav system tracks its exact position with pin-point precision to within an inch.

daily mail

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Your Thoughts Are Your Password

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What if you could one day unlock your door or access your bank account by simply “thinking” your password? Too far out? Perhaps not.

Researchers at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, are exploring the possibility of a biometric security device that will use a person’s thoughts to authenticate her or his identity.

Their idea of utilizing brain-wave signatures as “pass-thoughts” is based on the premise that brain waves are unique to each individual. Even when thinking of the same thing, the brain’s measurable electrical impulses vary slightly from person to person. Some researchers believe the difference might just be enough to create a system that allows you to log in with your thoughts.

A pass-thought could be anything from a snatch of song, the memory of your last birthday or even the image of your favorite painting. A more achievable alternative might present you with predetermined pictures, music or video clips, to which you would think “yes” or “no” while the machine monitors your brain activity.

wired

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Gamers May Soon Control Action With Thoughts

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Someday soon, video gamers may be able to use their heads, literally, to get better scores in their games.

At least two start-ups have developed technology that monitors a player’s brain waves and uses the signals to control the action in games. They hope it will enable game creators to immerse players in imaginary worlds that they can control with their thoughts instead of their hands.

San Jose’s NeuroSky has been testing prototypes of its system that uses a sensor-laden headband to monitor brain waves, and then uses the signals to control the interaction in video games. They hope that such games are just the beginning of a mind-machine interface with many different applications.

``Research on brain waves is well known,’’ said NeuroSky Chief Executive Stanley Yang. ``But we have worked on a way for detecting them with a low-cost technology and then interpreting what they mean. We think this will have broad applications.’’

mercurynews

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Japan Unveils the Fastest Train in the World

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East Japan Railway Co. unveiled the latest prototype of the next-generation bullet train, code-named “Fastech 360Z,” to the press on Wednesday at its rolling stock laboratory center near Sendai in northern Japan.

The six-car Fastech will aim to log the world’s fastest speed for wheeled trains at 360 kilometers (224 miles) per hour during a normal journey.

In comparison, France’s TGV (Train Grande Vitesse) ordinarily runs at 300 kph. However, the TGV still holds the world record for wheeled trains for hitting 515 kph (320 mph).

PhysOrg

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‘Truth Verifier’ for Russian airports

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MOSCOW, April 6 (UPI)—Russia plans to ramp up airport security by introducing lie detector screening for passengers.

The machine, known as the “truth verifier,” could be introduced at Domodedovo Airport this July, The Telegraph reports. Plans call for initial screening of air passengers who seem suspicious, with eventual expansion to all passengers.

Passengers must answer four questions. While the first is only name and address, the second—whether a passenger has ever lied to the authorities—is followed by specific questions about weapons and drugs. Those who fail the test will go to a cubicle for more thorough questioning.

To ensure that everyone goes through the machine, passengers are to remove shoes beforehand and will not get them back until they have passed.

“We can understand that something like this could be uncomfortable for some passengers, but it is a necessary step,” said Vladimir Kornilov, head of information technology at the Moscow airport.

UPI via Fark

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Cyber-race

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By Jerry Kang

Abstract


To date, most inquiries into race and cyberspace have focused on the “digital divide” – whether racial minorities have access to advanced computing-communication technologies. This paper asks a more fundamental question: Can cyberspace change the way that race functions in American society? Professor Jerry Kang starts his analysis with a social-cognitive account of American racial mechanics that centers the role of racial schemas. These schemas consist of racial categories, rules of racial mapping that place individuals into these categories, and racial meanings associated with each category. He argues that cyberspace can disrupt racial schemas because it alters the architecture of both identity presentation (enabling racial anonymity and pseudonymity) and social interaction (enabling increased interracial interactions). Thus, cyberspace presents society with three design options: abolition, which challenges racial mapping by promoting racial anonymity; integration, which reforms racial meanings by promoting interracial social interaction; and transmutation, which disrupts the very notion of fixed racial categories by promoting racial pseudonymity (or “cyber-passing”). After analyzing each option’s merits, Professor Kang concludes that society need not adopt a single, uniform design strategy for all of cyberspace. Instead, society can embrace a policy of digital diversification, which explicitly zones different cyber spaces according to different racial environments. For example, most market places could be zoned abolition, whereas most social spaces could be zoned integration. By encouraging a diversified policy portfolio, society can exploit synergies created by flexible zoning while avoiding policy lock-in. Although cyberspace is no panacea for the racial conflicts and inequality that persist, it offers new possibilities for furthering racial justice that should not be wasted.

Social Sciences Research Network

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Aging Japan builds robot to look after elderly

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TOKYO (AFP) – A Japanese-led research team said it had made a seeing, hearing and smelling robot that can carry human beings and is aimed at helping care for the country’s growing number of elderly.

Government-backed research institute Riken said the 158-centimeter (five-foot) RI-MAN humanoid can already carry a doll weighing 12 kilograms (26 pounds) and could be capable of bearing 70 kilograms within five years.

“We’re hoping that through future study it will eventually be able to care for elderly people or work in rehabilitation,” said Toshiharu Mukai, one of the research team leaders.

Covered by five millimeters (0.2 inches) soft silicone, RI-MAN is equipped with sensors that show it a body’s weight and position.

The 100-kilogram (220-pound) robot can also distinguish eight different kinds of smells, can tell which direction a voice is coming from and uses powers of sight to follow a human face.

“In the future, we would like to develop a capacity to detect a human’s health condition through his breath,” Mukai said.

Japan is bracing for a major increase in needs for elderly care due to a declining birth rate and a population that is among the world’s longest living.

The population declined in 2005 for the first time since World War II as more young people put off starting families.

Yahoo!

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Software Helps Develop Hunches

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Eric Bonabeau, founder of Icosystem, has introduced “the hunch engine,” software designed to enhance and refine human intuition.

When the user starts the hunch engine he or she is presented with a seed—a starting point—and a set of mutations. The user selects mutations that look promising, and the application uses that selection to generate another set of mutations, continuing in that fashion until the user is satisfied with what they see.

One of its first applications is a filter for images that allows a naive user to improve digital photos without understanding complex tools like Adobe Photoshop, by choosing from mutations of the picture to make it better.

wired

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More Easy Fusion Technology

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Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a tabletop accelerator that produces nuclear fusion at room temperature, providing confirmation of an earlier experiment conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), while offering substantial improvements over the original design.

The device, which uses two opposing crystals to generate a powerful electric field, could potentially lead to a portable, battery-operated neutron generator for a variety of applications, from non-destructive testing to detecting explosives and scanning luggage at airports. The new results are described in the Feb. 10 issue of Physical Review Letters.

“Our study shows that ‘crystal fusion’ is a mature technology with considerable commercial potential,” says Yaron Danon, associate professor of mechanical, aerospace, and nuclear engineering at Rensselaer. “This new device is simpler and less expensive than the previous version, and it has the potential to produce even more neutrons.”

The device is essentially a tabletop particle accelerator. At its heart are two opposing “pyroelectric” crystals that create a strong electric field when heated or cooled. The device is filled with deuterium gas — a more massive cousin of hydrogen with an extra neutron in its nucleus. The electric field rips electrons from the gas, creating deuterium ions and accelerating them into a deuterium target on one of the crystals. When the particles smash into the target, neutrons are emitted, which is the telltale sign that nuclear fusion has occurred, according to Danon.

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3d Plasma Display

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The Japanese National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) announced an exciting breakthrough in optoelectronics — a working three dimensional display. The display does not rely on any sort of optical illusion or disorientation. Instead, infrared lasers are aligned to converge and create small amounts of plasma. The plasma acts as a floating “dot” on top of the laser grid.

The infrared laser pulses across several reflectors so that 100 dots can be created per second. The initial reports from AIST are a little light on details, but it appears as though the plasma dots can be drawn up to several meters away from the laser source. It also appears as though the device needs a vapor source with specific electron/ion content in order to generate the dots.

DailyTech