Better-than-binary multi-level memory Source: Magnetic memory boffins unveil six-state storage design They arrange three magnetic ellipses in a very small space. They are calling it MRAM.

Backblaze has released new data from its hard drive reliability survey. Seagate has recovered dramatically since BB pulled their 3TB drives, but HGST leads the pack in minimum failure rates. Source: Backblaze releases billion-hour hard drive reliability report | ExtremeTech

This HTML 5 applet has loads of circuit elements you can use to set up a circuit and see in animated form how the current is running, measure the voltage, amperage and resistance at any point. Very nice to predesign your electronics. Source: Circuit Simulator Applet

“There is a best time to buy notebooks, and it is exactly when you think it is, between the last week in July and the first three weeks in August, when the back-to-school merchandising frenzy is in full force,” said Analyst Stephen Baker, who studies laptop pricing and sales for the NPD Group, a market Read more about The Best Time to Buy a Laptop[…]

oneM2M is the global standards initiative that covers requirements, architecture, API specifications, security solutions and interoperability for Machine-to-Machine and IoT technologies. oneM2M was formed in 2012 and consists of eight of the world’s preeminent standards development organizations: ARIB (Japan), ATIS (North America), CCSA (China), ETSI (Europe), TIA (North America), TSDSI (India), TTA (Korea), and TTC Read more about Newly updated global Internet of Things standards from oneM2M will enable interconnection across devices and applications[…]

But in the case of the biocomputer, the city is a chip measuring about 1.5 cm square in which channels have been etched. Instead of the electrons that are propelled by an electrical charge and move around within a traditional microchip, short strings of proteins (which the researchers call biological agents) travel around the circuit Read more about McGill University models a biological computer chip using proteins instead of electric charges[…]

Harvard researchers have designed a new type of foldable material that is versatile, tunable and self actuated. It can change size, volume and shape; it can fold flat to withstand the weight of an elephant without breaking, and pop right back up to prepare for the next task. Source: A foldable material that can change Read more about A foldable material that can change size, volume and shape[…]

We integrate the elasticity and plasticity into a single polymer network. Rational molecular design allows these two opposite behaviors to be realized at different temperature ranges without any overlap Source: Shape memory polymer network with thermally distinct elasticity and plasticity Basically you can save different shapes and recover to those different shapes hundreds of times.

Haven’t they learned from Apple? Closing your system makes users run for more open products. Not a good idea, Philips, I’m not buying this anymore! De laatste firmware-update voor de Philips Hue bridge brengt een onaangekondigde wijziging. Slimme lampen van andere fabrikanten kunnen niet langer gekoppeld Source: Philips Hue wordt een gesloten systeem

Using Arduino

The researchers based the new process on a combination of two existing techniques. Using the stamping technique ‘Substrate Conformal Imprint Lithography’, which originates from a collaboration between Philips and AMOLF, they stamped a pattern in a thin layer of plastic on top of a glass substrate. The result looks much like a nanoscale landscape: a Read more about Physicists make transparent conductors by means of stamping and growing[…]

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/czur-scanner-build-your-own-digital-library#/

Source: In this zero-index material — made of silicon pillar arrays embedded in a polymer matrix and clad in gold film — there is no phase advance. Instead zero-index material creates a constant phase, stretching out in infinitely long wavelengths.

The WEpods will run from Wageningen to Ede in a pilot. WEpods

These guys have launched a wildly succesfull kickstarter to produce what is basically a large touchpad. You can print 3D overlays which magnetically lock into place. Programming new overlays shouldn’t be too tough. It’s sensitive enough to detect paint brushes. Now let’s hope it can be a keyboard with the pinch and zoom and multifinger Read more about The Sensel Morph – finally a replacement Fingerworks Touchstream![…]

3 Ports USB 3.0 Hub with RJ45 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet Converter LAN Wired Network Adapter for Laptops, Ultrabooks and Tablet PCs with USB Ports Source: Amazon.com: [3-Port USB 3.0 + 1-Port RJ45] iClever IC-HR004 3 Ports USB 3.0 Hub with RJ45 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet Converter LAN Wired Network Adapter for Laptops, Ultrabooks and Tablet PCs Read more about 3 Ports USB 3.0 Hub with RJ45 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet Converter LAN Wired Network Adapter for anything with USB Ports[…]

Bij online veilinghuis Catawiki kunt u elke week meebieden op meer dan 12.000 bijzondere en unieke objecten in de meer dan 100 wekelijkse veilingen. Source: Catawiki – Veilinghuis en catalogus voor verzamelaars

Redesigning a laptop with the black rubberised outside, using the old style, non-chicklet keyboard, with red dot and forward and back buttons next to the arrow keys – all the best they got rid of after the 520, but then thin and powerful! Hope they also consider a serial port on it, as well as Read more about Lenovo considers re-using their best design[…]

A group of chemists and engineers who work with nanotechnology published a paper this month in Nature Nanotechnology about an ultra-fine mesh that can merge into the brain to create what appears to be a seamless interface between machine and biological circuitry. Called “mesh electronics,” the device is so thin and supple that it can Read more about Scientists Just Invented the Neural Lace[…]

This is the last ThinkPad with the old keyboard, before they introduced the chicklet style. Of course, the backlighting they got with the new keyboard of the T530 was nice, and the replacement of the page up / pagedown / escape keys was debated, but the spacing between the keys and the lower quality was Read more about lenovo thinkpad t520 – last of the master laptops[…]

The technique required the men to have their lower arms amputated and fitted with a robotic replacement which responds to electrical impulses when the muscles contract in the same way as a real hand. “In effect, brachial plexus avulsion injuries represent an inner amputation, irreversibly separating the hand from neural control,” said Professor Oskar Aszmann, Read more about Star Wars-style ‘bionic hand’ fitted to first patients[…]

Myo – Gesture control armband by Thalmic Labs.