Technology

Move over, compact discs, DVDs, and hard drives. Researchers in Japan report progress toward developing a new protein-based memory device that could provide an alternative to conventional magnetic and optical storage systems, which are quickly approaching their memory storage capacities. Their study is scheduled for the March 4 issue Langmuir. Just as nature chose proteins as the memory storage medium of the brain, scientists have spent years exploring the possibility of similarly using proteins and other biological materials to build memory-based devices with the potential for processing…

BARCELONA, Spain, February 11 /PRNewswire/ -- - New service gives users access to on-the-go business-class e-mail on the desktop, via a web browser or on a mobile device. Today at Mobile World Congress 2008, Microsoft Corp and Cbeyond announced a new e-mail service, including support for mobile devices, that is now available as part of a communications package specifically targeting small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The package includes hardware and air time for mobile phone service, local and long-distance phone service, T-1 broadband internet access, and, now, enterprise-class e-…

Raytheon Company has delivered a new SUV to the Department of Homeland Security's Domestic Nuclear Detection Office - with a radiation detection system. It's designed to operate in urban environments and prevent the smuggling of nuclear materials through ports of entry. "This is a tremendous result by our Raytheon-led team in a very rapid response to an urgent and critical homeland security need," said Mary Petryszyn, vice president of Civil Security and Response Programs.

The Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) has released an upgraded version of the IMG/M metagenome data management and analysis system, providing tools for analyzing the functional capability of microbial communities based on their metagenome DNA sequence in the context of reference isolate genomes. The new version includes five additional metagenome datasets generated from microbial community samples that were the subject of recently published studies, including the metagenomic and functional analysis of termite hindgut microbiota (Nature 450, 560-565, 22 November 2007) and the single cell…

At today’s IEEE International Solid State Circuit Conference, IMEC introduced its prototype of a 60GHz multiple antenna receiver, and invites industry to join its 60GHz research program. The 60GHz band offers massive available bandwidth that enables very high bit rates of several Gbits-per-second at distances up to 10 meters (about 33 feet). To make the 60GHz technology cost-efficient to manufacture, low power and affordable in consumer products, IMEC has built its RF solution in a standard digital CMOS process thereby avoiding the extra cost of alternative technologies or dedicated RF…

At yesterday’s International Solid State Circuit Conference, Holst Centre - founded by the Belgian nanoelectronics research center IMEC and the Dutch research center TNO - presented a plastic 64-bit inductively-coupled passive RFID tag operating at 13.56MHz. With a record 780bit/s data readout of 64 bits over 10cm, the device approaches item-level tagging requirements. The tag generates a 5-fold higher bit rate compared to state-of-the-art plastic RFID systems. The achievement paves the way for low-cost high-volume RFID tags to replace barcodes. The RFID system consists of a low-cost…

Computers are increasingly being used by those seeking sexual thrills and this use is helping inspire new and innovative technologies, according to a cybersex expert from University of Portsmouth. Dr. Trudy Barber is delivering a lecture on the subject at a Royal Society of Medicine ‘Sexual Pleasures’ conference this week in which she will explain how fetishism and deviation in sexuality are helping change the way people use new technology and can even influence the invention of new technology. She doesn't say what those are but it's worth consideration. Barber is a Senior Lecturer in the…

Patients with diabetes or high blood pressure could benefit from the development of new "smart" holograms which can detect changes in, among other things, glucose levels and make self-diagnosis much simpler, cheaper and more reliable, write Chris Lowe and Cynthia Larbey in February’s Physics World. A hologram is a recording of an optical interference pattern created when laser light shone on an object is made to overlap with a separate beam of light that does not pass through the object. When light is shone onto the interference pattern, a 3D image of the original object is recreated.…

REDMOND, Washington, February 3 /PRNewswire/ -- The combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! will create a more competitive marketplace by establishing a compelling number two competitor for Internet search and online advertising. The alternative scenarios only lead to less competition on the Internet. Today, Google is the dominant search engine and advertising company on the Web. Google has amassed about 75 percent of paid search revenues worldwide and its share continues to grow. According to published reports, Google currently has more than 65 percent search query share in the U.S. and more…

The billions of dollars spent each year on the space program sometimes translate into practical real world improvements; if you don't know the value of Tang (1) and pens that write upside-down (2), you have just never tried them. It's no different in Europe. The European Space Agency (ESA) developed Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), e.g. GPS, satellite navigation technology which allows real-time transmission of telemetric data from lots of objects on the ground and a start-up called iOpener did what you might expect with it; they used it to make a racing game, where you can…