Tiny 3D Printer for home

at the Vienna University of Technology, a printing device has now been developed, which is much smaller, lighter and cheaper than ordinary 3D-printers. With this kind of printer, everyone could produce small, taylor-made 3D-objects at home, using building plans from the internet – and this could save money for expensive custom-built spare parts. It’s also Read more about Tiny 3D Printer for home[…]

Ultrafast quantum computer closer: Ten billion bits of entanglement achieved in silicon

Scientists from Oxford University have made a significant step towards an ultrafast quantum computer by successfully generating 10 billion bits of quantum entanglement in silicon for the first time — entanglement is the key ingredient that promises to make quantum computers far more powerful than conventional computing devices. via Ultrafast quantum computer closer: Ten billion Read more about Ultrafast quantum computer closer: Ten billion bits of entanglement achieved in silicon[…]

Probability microcips

The electrical signals inside Lyric’s chips represent probabilities, instead of 1s and 0s. While the transistors of conventional chips are arranged into components called digital NAND gates, which can be used to implement all possible digital logic functions, those in a probability processor make building blocks known as Bayesian NAND gates. Bayesian probability is a Read more about Probability microcips[…]

Dupont 50″ printed OLED screen

Dupont has managed to print out a 50″ OLED screen, which tests say should be reliable for around 12 years, in 2 minutes time. This should speed up the production and implementation of OLED, as well as make it quite a bit cheaper. Technology Review: New Inks Could Mean Cheaper OLED Screens.

Why computers suck at maths

This article explores why computers can’t do floating point maths, which is what makes Excel and all those online calculators such lousy mathematicians – basically because computers are binary, they can’t calculate anything after a decimal point, so the workaround is to put the number including the decimal point in a register of a certain Read more about Why computers suck at maths[…]

Fixing stuff goes faster with AR

Using Augmented Reality goggles, powered on an Android platform, marines are able to maintain their vehicles 46% faster than using a laptop with technical manuals. The AR system provides label names to each object, shows a 3D model of the tool you need and gives instructions for specifica tasks overlaid on the camera view of Read more about Fixing stuff goes faster with AR[…]

Evolving swarm intelligence in robots

The Lausanne university in Switserland has moved from the software to the reality: they’ve managed to get robots to evolve and learn behaviours, as well as the behaviour to decieve and cooperate through communication (flashing lights) and movement. It’ s a very interesting experiment, showing that robots are getting smarter every day and are now Read more about Evolving swarm intelligence in robots[…]

Melting memory chips in mass production : Nature News

Samsung Electronics announced this week that it has begun mass production of a new kind of memory chip that stores information by melting and freezing tiny crystals. Known as phase-change memory (PCM) … Unlike conventional memory, which involves moving electrons around a chip, PCM data would literally be frozen in place, even when the machine Read more about Melting memory chips in mass production : Nature News[…]

South Africa’s Telkom: faster internet via carrier pigeon

A South African IT firm sent a carrier pigeon 50 miles with a datacard attached to it’s leg. The pigeon was faster than the internet, which after 2 hours had only completed 4% of the transfer. This was in protest at the sucky internet connection available through Telkom. Pigeon transfers data faster than South Africa’s Read more about South Africa’s Telkom: faster internet via carrier pigeon[…]

DataSlide reinvents hard drive

DataSlide’s Hard Rectangular Drive (HRD) does not use read-write heads moving across the recording surface of a spinning hard disk drive (HDD). Instead an ultra-thin, 2-dimensional array of 64 read-write heads, operating in parallel, is positioned above an piezo-electric-driven oscillating rectangular recording surface, and delivers 160,000 random IOPS with a 500MB/sec transfer rate. via DataSlide Read more about DataSlide reinvents hard drive[…]

Ice air con system aims for cool on the cheap

The idea is to use cheap off-peak energy at night to freeze a tank of water or “distributed energy storage system” then use that great block of ice to cool your data centre in the daytime. Refrigerant would circulate from the tank to the Data Aire equipment eliminating the need to run the energy-intensive compressor Read more about Ice air con system aims for cool on the cheap[…]

Pre Recovery Tool Leaks Out, Including webOS Root Image(!)

It’s only been a few days since the Palm Pre was released, but one of the biggest breakthroughs for the outside-the-system developer community may have just been made. With this, people can probably tell how the OS hooks into the hardware, which will allow them to hook in themselves – something Palm itself has been Read more about Pre Recovery Tool Leaks Out, Including webOS Root Image(!)[…]