electronics

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so it could also lead to better and cheaper electronics and solar cells. Sapphire, or crystalline aluminum oxide, is made in nature

Because of its scratch-proof properties, it has long been used for making LEDS, sensors on missiles,

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Whereas flash memory stores bits of information in the form of charge in transistors RRAM stores bits using resistance.

helping to further increase the amount of information that can be packed onto a single chip. RRAM can also operate a hundred times faster than flash.

which serve as electrodes. A voltage is applied, causing the metal to migrate into the holes,

forming an electrical connection between the electrodes. Finally, the researchers apply another voltage, causing a tiny break to form in the metal inside the pores,

so it should be easier to integrate the memory storage with other electronics on a chip.

Samsung, for instance, is making a version that could eventually have as many as 24 layers. But the individual memory units on a flash chip require three connections,

which makes forming multiple layers of memory difficult and expensive. The new RRAM design only requires two connections.

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This way-finding application might be a perfect fit for the smart watches that Samsung

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Mobile technologies, sensors, genome sequencing, and advances in analytic software now make it possible to capture vast amounts of information about our individual makeup and the environment around us.

The business opportunity in making sense of that dataotentially $300 billion to $450 billion a year, according to consultants Mckinsey & Companys driving well-established companies like Apple, Qualcomm,

as well as the corporate venture funds of Google, Samsung, Merck, and others, have invested more than $3 billion in health-care information technology since the beginning of 2013 rapid acceleration from previous years, according to data from Mercom Capital Group.

and other sensors to assess the behavior of people with mental illnesses such as depression. Are they calling loved ones,

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and hopes to sell them to manufacturers of wearable electronics, medical devices, smart labels, and environmental sensors.

The company approach is meant to make the batteries safe for on-body applications, while their small size and flexibility will allow for product designs that would have been impossible with bulkier lithium-based batteries.

the batteries can deliver enough current for low-power wireless communications sensors, distinguishing them from other types of thin batteries.

branch-like structures that can grow from one electrode to the other, shorting the battery.

The company also recently began working on a project funded by the U s. military to make batteries for sensors that would monitor the health status of soldiers.

Other potential applications include powering smart labels with sensors for tracking food and packages n

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It boasts blue-chip customers including General electric Procter & gamble and Schneider Electric but it faces blistering competition from EMC Syncplicity and Citrix Sharefile as well as Microsoft Onedrive Google Drive and a host of others.

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Each one focuses light onto 29 megapixel chip. The dome is designed so that the fields of view of each of the small telescopes overlap to cover around 10,000 square degrees of sky simultaneously

The small telescopes themselves are simplessentially camera lenses sitting on top of CCD chips. Law and co have been experimenting with Canon 50mm and 85mm F/1. 2 lenses.

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such as keylogging to collect passwords or eavesdropping through the infected computer microphone. The most effective method to protect data against cyber-spying is to process confidential information on dedicated computers that are connected not to the Internet.

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The result is the 3dtouch a thimble-like device that sits on the end of a finger equipped with a 3d accelerometer a 3d magnetometer and 3d gyroscope.

That allows the data from each sensor to be compared and combined to produce a far more precise estimate of orientation than a single measurement alone.

In addition the 3dtouch has an optical flow sensor that measures the movement of the device against a two-dimensional surface exactly like that inside an ordinary mouse.

which combines the data from all the sensors. The fused data is streamed then to a conventional laptop.

And they say they know what modifications could easily improve it such as a more reliable optical sensor.

A Wearable 3d Input device With An Optical Sensor And A 9-DOF Inertial Measurement Uni U

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#Google Makes Its Search engine a Remote control for Some Mobile Apps Getting stuff done using a smartphone often involves swiping through a jumble of icons looking for just the right app then navigating within it to find what you want.

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capture free over-the-air TV broadcasts on tiny antennas in data centersne antenna per customernd send that content over the Internet to individual subscribers,

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which is currently the only company to have approved an FDA tomosynthesis system in the U s. General electric sells a system in Europe).

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Technology honed at Dartmouth uses four pairs of electrodes around the wrist. Electrical resistance between the electrodes turns out to be a biometric:

it is unique to individuals, depending on their body composition, flesh thickness, and bone size. After the device measures the correct levels of resistance,

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The Sharp device relies on the ability to make high-quality nanometers-thick layers of semiconducting materials (such as gallium arsenide)

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and they use copper rather than silver electrodes to save costs. Higher efficiency can yield big savings on installation costs

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#How LEDS Are Set to Revolutionize Hi-tech Greenhouse Farming It won't come as a surprise to discover that consumers all over the developed world are increasingly demanding seasonal vegetables all year round even

One obvious answer is to convert greenhouses from the traditional incandescent lighting usually high pressure sodium lamps to more energy-efficient LEDS.

but the industry has been slow to make this change because of the high initial cost of LEDS.

These guys have compared the life-cycle costs of traditional high pressure sodium lamps against those of LEDS for greenhouse lighting.

They calculate that the cumulative cost of high pressure sodium lamps surpasses that of LEDS after just seven years

and that after 16 years the cumulative cost of high pressure sodium lamps is more than double the equivalent cost of LEDS.

Although high pressure sodium lamps are individually cheaper than LEDS they have to be changed every year compared to every 19 years for LEDS.

And of course LEDS use considerably less electricity wasting little as heat. But the most interesting part of Singh and co s analysis is in the potential of LEDS to change the way that vegetables are grown.

High pressure sodium lamps emit light across the entire visible part of the spectrum and well into the infrared where much energy is lost as heat.

By contrast LEDS can be adjusted to emit light in very specific parts of the spectrum. Plant physiologists have known long that chlorophyll absorbs mainly in the blue green

That s easy with LEDS of course but impossible with sodium lampsat the same time various researchers have shown that flowering

LEDS give farmers greater flexibility at a lower cost and a smaller environmental footprint. These are surely goals worth aiming for r

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Microsoft s Quantum Search for The next Transistor Microsoft is making a significant investment in creating a practical version of the basic component needed to build a quantum computer,

Speaking at MIT Technology Review Digital Summit event in San francisco, Peter Lee likened the effort to research at Bell labs in the 1940s that produced the silicon transistor,

the basis of all computing today. his is our attempt to find the analogous device to the transistor,

Just like a transistor in a conventional computer, a qubit can switch between states that represent either a 1 or 0 of digital data.

Those tools range from cloud simulation platforms for theoretical work to new types of electronics for use in the super-cooled temperatures of quantum hardware experiments.

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in order to make them more practical for people who have scarce bandwidth and pay high data rates, said Jay Parikh, head of infrastructure at Facebook, at MIT Technology Review Digital Summit event in San francisco today.

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what could be the perfect accompaniment way for ordinary headphones to create a realistic illusion of sound coming from specific locations in space.

I put on a pair of wireless headphones that made nearby objects suddenly burst into life. A voice appeared to emanate from a cardboard model of a portable radio.

I had sat down in front of a Kinect 3-D sensor and been turned briefly to the left and right.

To work properly, Tashev system also needs data on the position of the headphones as a person moves his head

provided by motion sensors and a watching camera. However, the kind of motion sensors used by virtual reality headset like the Oculus Rift could provide enough information.

Tashev system is a new twist on an old idea. It has long been known that the unique shape

The most accurate way is to use earplugs fitted with an array of microphones to record exactly what reaches a person ears

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One of the electrodes is made usually of carbon, which reacts with oxygen, forming carbon dioxide. The ceramic material Powell showed mehich is made of zirconium oxideeplaces the carbon electrode

and eliminates those emissions. Researchers have been trying to replace carbon for many years, but the molten salts have corroded the alternatives.

whether its ceramic electrodes hold up for as long as the company smaller-scale testing suggests they will.

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He does so by implanting electrodes into their brains to monitor neural activity. Now, as part of a sweeping $70 million program funded by the U s. military,

Researchers say they are making rapid improvements in electronics, including small, implantable computers. Under its program, Mass General will work with Draper Laboratories in Cambridge, Massachusetts,

The UCSF team is being supported by microelectronics and wireless researchers at UC Berkeley who have created several prototypes of miniaturized brain implants.

meaning electronic devices that alter feelings, perhaps under direct control of a patient thoughts and wishes. asically,

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Peloton system consists of radar sensors, a wireless communications system, and computers connected to each truck central computer.

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and already has the backing of some major electronics companies. For now, Wattup technology is still in the demo stage,

if they are connected to an external receiver, or slotted into a special protective case. Holmes plugs my iphone into a white device shaped like a smartphone atop a little stand.

Across the table, a briefcase-sized wireless energy transmitter sits on another tripod and a plug dangling from it is plugged into the wall.

He taps the app to tell the transmitter to find the devices and start the power-up process.

Its patents are at the heart of a new standard called Rezence that is supported by companies including Intel, Qualcomm, and Samsung.

Energous charging method uses a transmitter with lots of small antennas to send radio waves to a receiver connected to the gadget being charged.

The transmitter uses Bluetooth to scan for nearby gadgets that are authorized to receive a charge.

the transmitter directs radio waves toward the receiver, which collects them and converts their energy to DC power so it can charge the phone.

The transmitter and receivers Energous brings to my office can send power to two devices that require less than 10 watts of power at a distance of up to 15 feet;

The company expects the first products using its technologyuch as smartphone cases that can deliver wireless power to the deviceso be shown off by partner companies at the International Consumer electronics Show in Las vegas next January

though the transmitter for charging things probably would cost around $300. To make things sleeker

and the company is having its first transmitter and receiver chips manufactured. Energous faces plenty of challenges, though.

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The 20-millimeter-long cuff positions a set of electrodes on a region of the nerve that the team determined would specifically stimulate the changes in blood pressure.

which a surgeon would gently wrap the electrodes around the nerve. The device would then be connected to a capsule containing the pulse generator

which would be implanted under the chest muscle through an incision in the left armpit. The whole surgery should take an hour

The president-elect of the American Society of Hypertension John Bisognano says the work is an impressive and promising application of recent advances in miniaturized electronics and microsurgery.

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or whether crash sensors on the bumpers have been triggered, potentially allowing ads pegged to incidents on the road. t could be had you just a little fender bender,

such as thermostats or home automation systems, could also allow for creative new ads. Kiip hasn announced yet any partnerships that that might provide that data, though.

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Cochlear implants use up to 22 platinum electrodes to stimulate the auditory nerve; the devices make a tremendous difference for people

So there a physical gap between these atrophied neurons and the electrodes in the cochlear implant.

and electrodes should make it possible to use weaker electrical stimulation, opening up the possibility of stimulating multiple parts of the auditory nerve at once, using more electrodes,

and improving the overall quality of sound. Peptides called neurotrophins can encourage regeneration of the neurons in the auditory nerve.

distributed electrodes of the cochlear implant could be used to achieve the effect. Housley group used deafened guinea pigs

they applied an electroporation voltage using the electrodes. The process, which took only a few seconds during surgery,

Robert Shepherd, director of the Bionics Institute, a nonprofit medical research center in Melbourne, Australia, says electrode-directed gene therapy could improve other kinds of neural interfaces. herever wee applying electrodes,

to test the electrode and gene therapy combination in a clinical trial i

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#Increasingly, Robots of All Sizes Are Human Workmates Most industrial robots are far less friendly than the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner,

New sensors and software allow these machines to predict collisions and avoid them as humans go about their work.

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Big companies like General electric are developing factory-monitoring software platforms. Yet Freeboard stands out among the various platforms because t the easiest to use, says Venkatesh Prasad, group and technical leader for vehicle design and infotronics at Ford motor.

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Electronics manufacturing giant Wistron has modified now equipment at one of its factories in China to produce touch-screen panels with the shape-shifting technology inside.

Wistron is one of the world largest electronics manufacturers; it made devices for brands including Blackberry, Apple, and Acer.

He says the two companies have begun working on the design of products and prototypes for carriers, electronics brands, and retailers.

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and Electronics Someone glancing through the door of Annjoe Wong-Foy lab at SRI International might think his equipment is infested by ants.

Wong-Foy, a senior research engineer at SRI, has built an army of magnetically steered workers to test the idea that icrorobotscould be a better way to assemble electronics components,

The robots can work with glass, metal wood, and electronic components. In one demonstration they made a carbon truss structure with wires

and colored LEDS mixed in to serve as the lab Christmas tree. e can scale to many more robots at low cost,

Many electronic components are the right size to be handled by his microrobots, he says, and teams of them might prove a good way to lay them out onto circuit boards.

SRI wants to create a version of the microrobot system that could be sold to other research labs

Helping to make circuit boards in small batches for prototyping new electronic devices is one possible application.

Hobbyists and small companies working on electronics hardware today make few prototype circuit boards due to the time it takes to assemble them by hand

that industry often uses manual assembly to put them together. n the field of optical electronics people have not found a good way to integrate indium phosphide lasers with silicon components,

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and graphite electrodes at a plant that also makes graphite for tires and other applications.

The electrolytes and electrodes are packaged then into cells at a plant dedicated to cell making,

Raw materials, processed into electrodes, electrolytes, containers and other parts, go in one end; complete battery packs come out the other.

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the technology and interface need to be almost as simple as an analog radio knob,

Sensors can ultimately help bring about semi-autonomous or fully autonomous cars (see ata Show Google Robot Cars Are Smoother, Safer Drivers Than You or I. Henry Tirri,

the amount of data vehicles produce. he car is already probably the densest sensor hub that an individual owns right now,

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enabling us to fit more electronics in a smaller space, "Hamedi said. A 3d structure enables storage of significantly more power in less space than is possible with conventional batteries,

"Three-dimensional, porous materials have been regarded as an obstacle to building electrodes. But we have proven that this is not a problem.

enabling us to fit more electronics in a smaller space, "Hamedi said. A 3d structure enables storage of significantly more power in less space than is possible with conventional batteries,

"Three-dimensional, porous materials have been regarded as an obstacle to building electrodes. But we have proven that this is not a problem.

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"We have not only created new analogs of erythromycin, but also developed a platform for using E coli to produce the drug,

leading, at the end of the assembly line, to more than 40 new analogs of erythromycin-three of which showed an ability to fight erythromycin-resistant bacteria in lab experiments."

"We have not only created new analogs of erythromycin, but also developed a platform for using E coli to produce the drug,

leading, at the end of the assembly line, to more than 40 new analogs of erythromycin-three of which showed an ability to fight erythromycin-resistant bacteria in lab experiments."

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Six sensors were fitted then to the foot sole of a lightweight prosthesis and linked to so-called stimulators inside the shaft where the stump sits."

the small sensor devices send signals to the brain.""In a healthy foot, skin receptors carry out this function

"The sensors tell the brain there is a foot and the wearer has the impression that it rolls off the ground when he walks.

Six sensors were fitted then to the foot sole of a lightweight prosthesis, and linked to so-called stimulators inside the shaft where the stump sits."

the small sensor devices send signals to the brain.""In a healthy foot, skin receptors carry out this function

"The sensors tell the brain there is a foot and the wearer has the impression that it rolls off the ground when he walks.

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#New sensor to detect cancer, HIV, hepatitis Researchers have developed a highly sensitive nanomechanical sensor that can detect cancerous tumours as well as viral disease markers for HIV,

hepatitis and herpes. Researchers from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) developed the ultracompact nanomechanical sensor for analysing the chemical composition of substances and detecting biological objects.

The sensor can detect viral disease markers, which appear when the immune system responds to incurable

or hard-to-cure diseases, including HIV, hepatitis, herpes, and many others. The sensor will also enable doctors to identify tumour markers,

whose presence in the body signals the emergence and growth of cancerous tumours. The highly sensitive sensor will allow for diagnosing diseases long before they can be detected by any other method,

which will pave the way for a new-generation of diagnostics, researchers said. Calculations done by the researchers,

Dmitry Fedyanin and Yury Stebunov, showed that the new sensor will combine high sensitivity with a comparative ease of production

and miniature dimensions, allowing it to be used in all portable devices, such as smartphones, wearable electronics, etc.

One chip, several millimetres in size, will be able to accommodate several thousand such sensors, configured to detect different particles or molecules,

more precisely, optomechanical chip.""We've been following the progress made in the development of micro

"So our goal was not only to achieve the high sensitivity of the sensor and make it compact,

but also make it scalable and compatible with standard microelectronics technologies, "researchers said d

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#New sensor to detect cancer, HIV Researchers have developed a highly sensitive nanomechanical sensor that can detect cancerous tumours as well as viral disease markers for HIV,

The sensor can detect viral disease markers, which appear when the immune system responds to incurable

or hard-to-cure diseases, including HIV, hepatitis, herpes, and many others. The sensor will also enable doctors to identify tumour markers,

whose presence in the body signals the emergence and growth of cancerous tumours. The highly sensitive sensor will allow for diagnosing diseases long before they can be detected by any other method

which will pave the way for a new-generation of diagnostics, researchers said. Calculations done by the researchers,

Dmitry Fedyanin and Yury Stebunov, showed that the new sensor will combine high sensitivity with a comparative ease of production

and miniature dimensions, allowing it to be used in all portable devices, such as smartphones, wearable electronics, etc.

One chip, several millimetres in size, will be able to accommodate several thousand such sensors, configured to detect different particles or molecules,

researchers said. The device, described in a study published in the journal Scientific Reports, is an optical or,

more precisely, optomechanical chip.""We've been following the progress made in the development of micro

"So our goal was not only to achieve the high sensitivity of the sensor and make it compact,

but also make it scalabile and compatibile with standard microelectronics technologies, "researchers said. MOSCOW: Researchers have developed a highly sensitive nanomechanical sensor that can detect cancerous tumours as well as viral disease markers for HIV,