Technology Review News
Top Stories
- Packing More into Lithium Batteries
- Leakier Tumor Vessels Enhance Drug Delivery
- Fingerprinting Computer Chips
- Blog - Orange Dwarf Star Set to Smash into The Solar System
- Hunting Disease Origins with Whole-Genome Sequencing
- Toyota Applies the Brakes
- Teaching an Old Polymer Memory Tricks
- Blog - The Puzzle of 21 Lutetia
- Blog - Here Come High-Definition 3D TVs
- Patching the Security Update Process
Lithium sulfur promises a longer charge, and safer operation, compared to standard lithium batteries.
Researchers at Stanford University have developed an electrode that can be used to make more energy-dense lithium-sulfur batteries. If issues surrounding life-cycle deterioration can be addressed, the battery could resolve performance and safety issues limiting the spread of longer-lasting batteries in hybrid and electric vehicles.
Molecules that make blood vessels more permeable might boost chemotherapeutics.
Getting chemotherapy agents into solid tumors can be a challenge because high fluid pressure inside tumors makes it difficult for drugs to leave the bloodstream and attack their targets. But now researchers at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center have discovered a new way to regulate the leakiness of blood vessels: blocking certain molecules surrounding blood vessels in mice can temporarily tweak their leakiness, enhancing flow of drugs to tumors. If scientists can mimic this effect in humans, the compounds could be given along with chemotherapy drugs or molecular imaging reagents to more effectively deliver them into tumor tissues.
Verayo is harnessing unique manufacturing flaws to make RFID tags that are impossible to copy.
A company that relies on atomic-level flaws in computer chips to tell one chip from another says that its circuits could help fight counterfeiting in anything from passports to handbags. Verayo, an MIT spinoff based in San Jose, CA, says the ID tags should be more secure and relatively cheap to make.
A new set of star velocity data indicates that Gliese 710 has an 86 percent chance of ploughing into the Solar System within the next 1.5 million years.
The Solar System is surrounded by thousands of stars, but until recently it wasn't at all clear where they were all heading.
Two studies show that complete-genome sequencing can identify disease-causing genes.
James Lupski, a physician-scientist who suffers from a neurological disorder called Charcot-Marie-Tooth, has been searching for the genetic cause of his disease for more than 25 years. Late last year, he finally found it--by sequencing his entire genome. While a number of human genome sequences have been published to date, Lupski's research is the first to show how whole-genome sequencing can be used to identify the genetic cause of an individual's disease.
The company hopes a "smart pedal" will help defuse criticism.
In the wake of a massive public-relations nightmare involving brake problems in its cars, Toyota is investigating two more reports this week of unintended acceleration in its vehicles. Both cases involved Priuses: one in Harrison, NY, that resulted in a crash, and the other on an interstate east of San Diego.
A polymer takes on four shapes depending on the temperature.
Researchers have uncovered shape-memory properties in a commercially available polymer that's widely used to make fuel-cell membranes. The polymer, Nafion, can take on four different shapes in response to temperature changes--researchers have made triple-shape polymers before. "It's arguably the most versatile smart polymer ever discovered," says Tao Xie, a polymer scientist at the GM Research and Development Center in Warren, MI, who published his findings in this week's Nature.
21 Lutetia has puzzled astronomers since its discovery. Now they have made a daring set of predictions about what the Rosetta spacecraft will find when it flies past this mysterious asteroid in July.
On 10 July, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft will fly within a few thousand kilometres of 21 Lutetia, a main belt asteroid that orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter.
Panasonic, Samsung, Sony announced this week upcoming 3D HDTVs
Yesterday, Panasonic sold its first 3D HDTVs at Best Buy in New York. For about $3,000, you can get a 50-inch 3D plasma TV, a 3D Blu-ray player and one pair of 3D glasses (additional ones are available for about $150). Just the day before, Samsung announced that it will be selling three versions of 3D TVs within the month and Sony stated that it will roll out 3D TVs this June in Japan.
Security firm aims to make installing updates as painless and invisible as possible.
Recent research shows that the typical PC user needs to install a security update roughly every five days in order to safely use Microsoft Windows and all of the third-party programs that typically run on top of it. In response, a Danish computer security firm says it will soon debut a free new service that silently automates the installation of security updates for dozens of the most commonly used software products.
Research News Briefs
Weblog
- Here Come High-Definition 3D TVs
- Software tells Bloggers What Readers Want
- Revealing the Source of Ritalin's Brain Boosting Benefits
- Bing Dinged on Arab Sex Censorship
- Putting Virtual Controls on Your Arm
- Google's New Photo Editor
- Signs of Success in Home Medical Monitoring
- Pacific Biosciences Sequencing Machine Unveiled
- Valley Entrepreneurs Vent Frustration at Department of Energy
- Predicting Smart Phone Attacks
Panasonic, Samsung, Sony announced this week upcoming 3D HDTVs
Yesterday, Panasonic sold its first 3D HDTVs at Best Buy in New York. For about $3,000, you can get a 50-inch 3D plasma TV, a 3D Blu-ray player and one pair of 3D glasses (additional ones are available for about $150). Just the day before, Samsung announced that it will be selling three versions of 3D TVs within the month and Sony stated that it will roll out 3D TVs this June in Japan.
IBM has created a widget that crowd-sources ideas for blog posts.
Blogging often sounds like a great idea: sharing thoughts and expertise, becoming a part of a community, and taking the first few steps to wider recognition as a writer. But many bloggers quickly get disillusioned.
The ADHD drug improves attention by enhancing neural plasticity.
New research in animals sheds light on how Ritalin, the stimulant drug prescribed to millions of children each year in the United States for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), sheds light on how the drug works. The molecule appears to boost both attention and enhance the speed of learning by increasing the activity of the chemical messenger dopamine, according to new research in Nature Neuroscience.
Report says Microsoft censors even more harshly than Arab nations do.
At a time when Google is promising to end search censorship in China, a new report has now revealed that Microsoft censors its Bing search engine returns in Arab countries even more heavily than the countries themselves do using national Internet filters. The study covered the United Arab Emirates, Syria, Algeria, and Jordan, and found heavy censorship of anything relating to sex.
"Skinput" lets users control a computer by tapping buttons projected onto their body.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Microsoft have developed an acoustic biosensor that turns an arm into a crude touch screen.
Web app Picnik may be integrated with Picasa.
Google announced today that it has acquired Picnik, a company that provides a fully-featured Web-based photo editing application. This is the latest in a recent string of acquisitions that has also seen Google snap up the social search site Aardvark.
In a pilot project, technology reduced doctor's visits for patients with chronic illness, but will this work on a broader scale?
Connecting patients and their physicians through the internet might help cut down on office visits, according to results of a pilot project announced today. More than 250 patients with chronic diseases, namely diabetes, heart failure, and hypertension, participated in the study, tracking their health at home with heart rate monitors, glucometers, scales, pedometers or blood pressure monitors. Data from those devices was then uploaded to the patient's HealthVault record, a personal medical record system developed by Microsoft. That data was in turn connected to the electronic medical records used by the Cleveland Clinic, allowing doctors to monitor their patients remotely.
The company showed off its behemoth instrument at a conference in Florida this week.
Pacific Biosciences' highly anticipated new sequencing machine has finally arrived.
Cleantech entrepreneurs urge Washington to make better use of Bay Area intellectual capital.
At an event in downtown San Francisco on Tuesday, a representative of the Obama administration went before a gathering of Silicon Valley cleantech entrepreneurs to spread the good news about what's resulted from the stimulus package, and to get their feedback.
Researchers perform spying and other tricks.
Though malware is not yet common on mobile phones, experts are taking a hard look at how it could appear down the road, hoping to find solutions before real attacks emerge.
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