Technology

Today computer science research has crossed a major threshold in producing a system that can be considered to display true intelligence. The system is purported to possess the ability to engage in conversations and even invoke creative use of language to express new and novel ideas. The system utilizes about 20 quad-core processors for processing speed while linking together several terrabytes of memory to maintain an active working set of functions. There is no appreciable delay in responses, and unlike systems of the past, this system displays a behavior that can only be considered "self…

Already well-known for its short character length limits, in a press conference scheduled for later today, Twitter will announce that it will severely shorten its allowable “tweets”. “I’m frankly amazed at all the crap people fit into their tweets,” said Jack Dorsey, Twitters’ founder, by phone with me yesterday. “By shortening tweets to 20 characters, they’ll be able to put their bit.ly link, and still have about seven characters left over for a snappy headline.” Prior to this decision, “twitterers” could put in up to 140 characters, allowing Twitter tripe such as, “Recall the Tiger Woods…

Silicon is the basic material for most microprocessors and memory chips. But for a long time the electronics industry has been pursuing novel organic materials to create semiconductor products—materials that perhaps could not be packed as densely as state-of-the-art silicon chips, but that would require less power and cost less. According to scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an organic semiconductor may be a viable candidate for creating large-area electronics, such as solar cells and displays that can be sprayed onto a surface as easily as paint.…

Consumers continue to click on spam despite awareness of how bots and viruses spread through risky email behavior, according to the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG). Their findings were based on a survey it released today covering North America and Western Europe and said that even though over eighty percent of email users are aware of the existence of bots, tens of millions respond to spam in ways that could leave them vulnerable to a malware infection. In the new survey, half of users said they had opened spam, clicked on a link in spam, opened a spam attachment, replied or…

University students have developed a computer game that is operated by eye movements, which could allow people with severe physical disabilities to become 'gamers' for the first time. The technology behind the game may one day be adapted to create more sophisticated games and applications such as wheelchairs and computer cursors controlled by eye movements. The researchers adapted an open source game called 'Pong', where a player moves a bat to hit a ball as it bounces around the screen. The adaptation enables the player to move the bat using their eye. To play the game, the user wears…

Where 2.0 Conferenceat San Jose Marriott, San Jose, California Tuesday, March 30 - Thursday, April 1 by O'Reilly Media, Inc The first Web 2.0 innovations helped us make new connections on a global scale. The rise of location-aware tools, linked with the growing ubiquity of real-time, social, and mobile, is swinging the pendulum back to the human and local scale. Location has permeated our collective wisdom, informing our online and in-person experiences, our business models, and our ability to change the world. Location information is a force for both opportunity and disruption, ready…

Where 2.0 Conferenceat San Jose Marriott, San Jose, California Tuesday, March 30 - Thursday, April 1 by O'Reilly Media, Inc The first Web 2.0 innovations helped us make new connections on a global scale. The rise of location-aware tools, linked with the growing ubiquity of real-time, social, and mobile, is swinging the pendulum back to the human and local scale. Location has permeated our collective wisdom, informing our online and in-person experiences, our business models, and our ability to change the world. Location information is a force for both opportunity and disruption, ready…

"Wikileaks.org was founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians, and technologists from the United States, China, Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa. Its Web site became operational in early 2007. The advisory board for Wikileaks.org includes journalists, cryptographers, a former US intelligence analyst, and expatriates from Chinese, Russian, and Tibetan refugee communities. The ACIC does not have any information to associate or link the former US intelligence analyst on the Wikileaks.org advisory board with the leakage of sensitive or classified DoD documents posted to…

I have an issue with the ladies of Hollywood. As a scientist, I find diamond a most useful material, and the way these glitterate use these stones for personal adornment does, I think, only serve to grossly inflate their price.   Diamond is famous for two properties, firstly its wonderful transparency and secondly its hardness, which are put to good use in the diamond anvil cell.   But there is a third property that is not so widely known. Until recently, it had the highest thermal conductivity of any known material, although it has recently been overtaken by graphene.…

A new approach to water desalination called ion concentration polarization may lead to small, portable desalination units that could be powered by solar cells or batteries and deliver enough fresh water to supply the needs of a family or small village. As an added bonus, the system would also remove many contaminants, viruses and bacteria at the same time. Fresh water is often in high demand and short supply following a natural disaster like the Haiti earthquake or Hurricane Katrina. In both of those instances, the disaster zones were near thesea, but converting salty seawater to potable…