Applied Physics

LONDON, December 11 /PRNewswire/ -- - New Company, Huawei Submarine Networks Ltd. Will Target Subsea Telecommunications Market A new entrant in the submarine telecommunications market has been created with the announcement today that Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ("Huawei"), a leader in providing next generation telecommunications network solutions for operators around the world and Global Marine Systems have committed to launching Huawei Submarine Networks Ltd (Huawei Submarine.) A signing ceremony held this week in London commits both companies to launch the entity in early 2008. Huawei…

SOUTHPOINTE, Pennsylvania, December 10 /PRNewswire/ -- - ECAD Interface Now Available between Zuken Electronics Design and Manufacturing Solutions and ANSYS Workbench ANSYS, Inc. (Nasdaq: ANSS), a global innovator of simulation software and technologies designed to optimize product development processes, and Zuken Inc., an engineering consulting company, today announced a collaboration that will interface Zuken's electronics computer-aided design (ECAD) tools with the ANSYS(R) Workbench(TM) simulation environment. Headquartered in Japan, Zuken is trusted globally by leading companies to…

WASHINGTON, December 10 /PRNewswire/ -- - Leading technology companies join forces to improve access to technology. A coalition of leading information and assistive technology companies today announced the formation of the Accessibility Interoperability Alliance (AIA), an engineering working group dedicated to enabling developers to more easily create accessible software, hardware and Web products. Those solutions will reduce barriers to information and communication technologies that currently exist for people with disabilities in today's increasingly digital world. (Photo: http://www.…

After grabbing headlines for years as the ultimate solution to world energy problems, the “hydrogen economy” has an emerging but lesser-known competitor called the “methanol economy,” according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News. In the article, C&EN Associate Editor Jyllian Kemsley describes how methanol, an alcohol like ethanol, shows increasing promise as an alternative energy source with advantages over both ethanol and hydrogen. A methanol economy — championed in a 2006 book by chemistry Nobel Laureate George Olah — would not be dependent on bumper crops of corn and…

Following ground-breaking research showing that neurons in the human brain respond in an abstract manner to particular individuals or objects, University of Leicester researchers have now discovered that, from the firing of this type of neuron, they can tell what a person is actually seeing. The original research by Dr R Quian Quiroga, of the University’s Department of Engineering, showed that one neuron fired to, for instance, Jennifer Aniston, another one to Halle Berry, another one to the Sydney Opera House, etc. The responses were abstract. For example, the neuron firing to Halle Berry…

PITTSBURGH, December 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Vocollect, Inc., the world leader in Voice-Directed Work, today announced that it has named co-founder, chairman and chief operating officer Roger Byford as the company's new chief executive officer. Byford assumes the role effective today, succeeding Jack LeVan, who is leaving the company. Byford will remain chairman of Vocollect's board of directors. The company said that it will not seek a replacement for the role of chief operating officer. Byford's career spans more than 20 years in the industrial application of voice technologies. Since the…

PARIS, December 7 /PRNewswire/ -- At the prize-giving ceremony for the UJJEF 21st "Communication and Enterprise" Annual Contest, on Thursday 29th November at Cirque d'Hiver-Bouglione in Paris, prizes were awarded for companies' most innovative communication strategies. SPIE was nominated in the e-communication category for its virtual library. Constituting a vector for the Group image and a user-friendly tool benefiting from media convergence, the SPIE virtual library offers a new way of consulting and optimising the content of publications (brochures, activity reports, magazines, etc.) for…

Creating a strongly oil-repelling, or “oleophobic” material, has been a long-standing challenge for scientists since there are no natural examples of such a material. “Nature has developed a lot of methods for waterproofing, but not so much oil-proofing,” said Gareth McKinley, MIT School of Engineering Professor of Teaching Innovation in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and a member of the research team that have designed the first simple process for manufacturing materials that strongly repel oils. “The conventional wisdom was that it couldn't be done on a large scale without very…

Howard Hughes had a 'Spruce Goose' but the University of Michigan now has a 'flying fish' - an unmanned seaplane with a 7-foot wingspan believed to be the first seaplane that can initiate and perform its own takeoffs and landings on water. Funded by the Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), it is designed to advance the agency's "persistent ocean surveillance" program. Engineering researchers from U-M recently returned from sea trials off the coast of Monterey, Calif., where they demonstrated the craft's capability to DARPA officials. Credit: University…

The Herkules supercomputer is not only powerful, but also kind to the environment. It consumes considerably less electricity than similar supercomputers. In terms of energy efficiency, it occupies a leading position worldwide. Herkules, the new number-cruncher at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM in Kaiserslautern, is not only one of the fastest supercomputers in Germany, but also one of the most efficient. It handles processor-intensive tasks in areas such as simulated reality or computer-assisted engineering, processes seismic data for the oil industry, and…