Category Archives: Science

Moore’s law will be dead soon. Again

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GPU maker NVIDIA declared it dead already, even Intel predicted its ultimate demise and now a futurologist is putting another nail in the coffin of Moore’s Law: Michio Kaku said that 10 years from now the aforementioned law will flat out, forcing the tech industry to find viable alternatives to the now-standard microchips made of silicon.

Kaku, an American theoretical physicist known for his work on the string theory and his role as a “science communicator”, recently addressed the issues that the microprocessors industry will face in the upcoming future: soon CPUs will not be able to double their performance every two years or so as predicted by the practical rule thought up by Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore in 1965.

In fact, Kaku explained, Moore’s Law is already slowing down: Intel is now “tweaking” its silicon-based technology with tri-gate three-dimensional transistors (Ivy Bridge), but when the shrinking of technology nodes will come to five nanometers and beyond the laws of physics will do justice of the so-called “Moore’s Law”.

Michio Kaku: Tweaking Moore’s Law and the Computers of the Post-Silicon Era

After that, Kaku suggested, there is only uncertainty: in what the scientist called the “post-silicon” era, the industry will probably tweak current technologies (optical chips, three-dimensional designs, extreme multi-core architectures) to further evolve microchips but there will not be a doubled performance per biennium anymore.

At the end of the Moore’s Law cycle, Kaku foresaw molecular (organic-based) chips and quantum computers as possible candidates to inherit the reign of silicon. In this latter case, however, humanity will have to wait until the late 21st century to see the issues of this still immature technology overcome.

Moore’s law will be dead soon. Again – Neowin.

The amazing spray-on antenna

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Wouldn’t it be great if you could just pop out a can of spray-on antenna and boost your signal whenever it was running low? Chamtech Enterprises is hoping to make that dream a reality, and if you happen to work for the government, it already is, according to Chamtech’s Solve for X presentation.

Chamtech took to Google’s Solve for X to show off the new technology. The company plans to turn its focus towards mobile phones and medical devices, offering a quick solution to boosting signals from existing antennas, or creating new ones. Chamtech’s ‘antenna in a can’ is far more efficient than traditional antenna models, offering energy savings equal to 12 times the amount of energy generated by solar and wind in the US annually – and it even works great underwater.

A traditional antenna would require thousands of watts to send out a signal with a one mile range underwater. Chamtech’s can do that with only three watts, and have a stronger signal to boot. So how does all of this work?

The truth is, we don’t really know. According to Chamtech’s co-founder Anthony Sutera, he and his team came up with it in his living room two years ago. It works by manipulating magnetic and radio signals through mysterious organic materials, and you can spray it on any virtually any surface and hook into it with a flexible circuit cable.

According to Sutera, the US government has had a lot of success with the technology, getting better performance out of it than their existing portable antennas, which he described as some of the best around. With the efficiency and mobility offered, it could even be used to rapidly deploy new infrastructure in disaster areas.

Sutera and chief technology officer Rhett Spencer have coated their car antennas with the stuff, boasting that they can now listen to radio stations in Salt Lake City fifty miles away, with 10,000-foot mountain range in between. Within a few months, they hope to be thinking about financing the company, and are looking at venture capital options to help them bring their technology to you.

For his part, Spencer can’t wait. “Can you imagine the infrastructure side of things? Telecomm under the oceans, Internet infrastructure, ships and satellite communications in the sea– they can do it out under the water.” Check out video of Chamtech’s Solve for X presentation below.

The amazing spray-on antenna – Neowin.net.

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Star Trek Create A Tricorder, Win $10 Million

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69b54b7b276e53bda7fadd5a51eb3ec9aa349d29 Star Trek Create A Tricorder, Win $10 Million

Back in June, 2011, StarTrek.com reported that, inspired in large part by Star Trek, the not-for-profit organization X PRIZE Foundation and communications giant Qualcomm planned to launch a contest that would ultimately bestow $10 million upon anyone or any team that could develop a practical, lightweight, mobile, real-world version of Star Trek’s fictional tricorder that everyday folks could use at home, without the presence of a doctor or health care provider, to evaluate health issues. Well, the time is now, as it was announced earlier this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that phase one of the contest has officially kicked off.

“I’m probably the first guy who’s here in Vegas,” said X Prize Foundation chairman and CEO Peter Diamandis, “who would be happy to lose $10 million.”

It remains to be seen if anyone – a doctor, scientist, entrepreneur, engineer, or some combination thereof — can actually create a device worthy of such an otherworldly bounty, as it would be a daunting challenge to meet the contest’s requirements, among them that the tricorder condense all the necessary technology into a single gadget that weighs no more than five pounds and that is capable of registering key health metrics and diagnosing a set of 15 diseases (yet to be named, as final details won’t be ready until September).

Still, just as Star Trek spurred the contest, the contest is intended to spur the transformation of healthcare via integrated diagnostic technology.

“The tricorder that was used by Spock and Bones inspires a vision of what healthcare will look like in the future,” Diamandis stated to the audience at CES, according to BBC News and other media outlets. “It will be wireless, mobile and minimally or non-invasive. It may use digital imaging. It may be sequencing your DNA on the spot to tell you if you are allergic to something you just ate.”

The good news for those venturing to create a Star Trek-style tricorder?

“We don’t,” Diamandis noted, “have a requirement that it make the same noise.”

Star Trek Create A Tricorder, Win $10 Million.

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To build a holodeck: an exclusive look at Microsoft’s Edison lab

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Microsoft‘s working on some wild technology in its Redmond labs, and our own Joshua Topolsky recently toured the facilities to see the latest innovations. Today we’re pleased to share our final segment — it’s a mind-bending look at a suite of technologies that Microsoft is developing in order to create a holodeck-like experience.

Stevie Bathiche, director of research at Microsoft‘s applied sciences lab, says to “imagine a day where in your home, one wall is dedicated to being your magic wall. A wall where it can teleport you to another world without really going anywhere.” Bathiche shows off a number of systems that aim to accomplish this vision, including a system that projects LED light to detect a human being’s movements in space, and a glasses-free stereoscopic display that can be “steered” by the viewer as they move.

Be sure to catch up on the rest of the videos in the series, and the longer tour of Microsoft‘s campus in our latest episode of On The Verge.

Note: We’d like to extend a special thanks to Frank Shaw, Beth Keebler, Bill Shultz, Steve Clayton, and the rest of the folks at Microsoft for sharing their time, their tech, and their imagination with us.

To build a holodeck: an exclusive look at Microsoft’s Edison lab | The Verge.

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Kinect weighs astronauts just by looking at them in Space

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ASTRONAUTS will soon be able to stay fit thanks to a body tracking camera system built into Microsoft’s Kinect gaming sensor, which helps calculate their weight in zero gravity.

Even during missions that last just a few weeks spacefarers can lose up to 15 per cent of their body mass because their muscles atrophy due to lack of use. To prevent this physical decline, crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS) typically spend 2 hours exercising per day.

Monitoring weight in space is not easy, though, since traditional scales don’t work in orbit.

The problem was partially solved in 1965 by William Thornton, an American astronaut and doctor who came up with a way to measure objects using oscillating springs. Astronauts still use a similar device today, in which they have to mount a stool fitted with a spring that raises and lowers the stool at a frequency that depends on the mass it is acting against.

The trouble is that this system is bulky and a lot of energy is required to power the moving stool, using up two of the space station’s most limited resources. Now Carmelo Velardo, a computer scientist at Eurecom in Alpes-Maritimes, France, says his new system could simply be integrated into the station itself.

“Something that you could easily put inside the walls of the space station would free up the space for other equipment or experiments,” Velardo says.

Along with colleagues at the Italian Institute of Technology’s Center for Human Space Robotics in Torino, he used the Kinect’s depth-sensing ability to create a 3D model of an astronaut. Then the team ran their calculation using a statistical model that links weight to body measurements based on a database of 28,000 people. Velardo’s estimates are 97 per cent accurate, corresponding to an average error of just 2.7 kilograms, which is comparable to the current method used on board the ISS.

“This technique appears feasible, although not without some effort,” says John Charles, chief scientist on NASA’s human research programme in Houston, Texas. He says that microgravity shifts water around inside astronauts’ bodies, which means their density may not match the assumptions in the model.

Charles adds that combining the idea with the existing weighing system might prove more beneficial, as the Kinect measures body volume while the stool measures mass. “The combination would provide insights into changes in body density that might be illuminating,” Velardo agrees.

The Kinect system has yet to be tested in space, due to the high cost of launching new equipment. But Velardo hopes to try it out soon aboard a parabolic aircraft flight that simulates the microgravity found in orbit. He will present the research at the Emerging Signal Processing Applicationsconference in Las Vegas, Nevada, next month.

Kinect weighs astronauts just by looking at them – tech – 23 December 2011 – New Scientist.

Scientists hack Kinect to deflect asteroids

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Creating a tool for scientists in the field was probably the furthest thing from the minds of the engineers at Microsoft while they were building the Kinect, yet that’s precisely what it’s become. Researchers at UC Santa Cruz are using the device to develop techniques that could one day save the world, while others are using it to predict the flow of ice in Norway’s glaciers, Wired reports.

Naor Movshovitz, a planetary science Ph.D. student at UC Santa Cruz, is hoping to use the Kinect to make observations that could one day be used to deflect an asteroid from earth. He intends to launch projectiles at asteroid-like pebbles inside one of NASA‘s gravity-reduced planes and study the results using a Kinect. Meanwhile, Ken Mankoff, a NASA-funded Ph.D. student is using the Kinect to get a better handle on the size and roughness of glacial crevices, using the data to predict how the ice will flow toward the sea.

Most researchers today are using LIDAR, or Light Detection and Ranging, to make such observations. Using laser pules, they are able to accurately map massive areas over many miles. The only disadvantage is that such technology can cost as much as $200,000. And while it may be limited in scope (the Kinect can only see between 3 and 16 feet ahead), the Kinect more than makes up for that with its pricetag: $120.

That’s more than enough for certain types of observations, The Kinect takes measurements of 9 million data points per second, compared to the Wiimote’s single-point observations. If your LIDAR breaks down, you’re in serious trouble, since they have to be ordered, calibrated, and repaired by specialists. The Kinect, on the other hand, is ready to go right out of the box, with open source drivers easily accesible online.

“You can go in any store and buy a Kinect for a small price,” Marco Tedesco, a hydrologist at the City College of New York, said. “You can even crash it and then buy another one.” Tadesco is hoping to mount the Kinect to a remote-controlled boat or hellicopter and map the meltwater lakes that form atop glaciers in the summer, something that’s completely inconceivable with LIDAR. Such lakes can drain very quickly when cracks start to appear in the glacier.

“The more water you have, the more violent this process is.” By using the Kinect, Tedesco will be able to get better estimates of the lake’s volume by measuring the shoreline when it’s full and by scanning the bottom after it drains.

Unfortunately, it’s not all rosy. Naor Movshovits, the planetary science student who wants to use the Kinect to make observations of projectiles impacting gravel, would like to be able to get very high-speed video of micro-g flying gravel, but that’s beyond the scope of Kinect.

Tedesco could end up encountering problems if he tries to mount the Kinect to a boat, or even to a remote controlled helicopter – the Kinect doesn’t take extreme temperatures and moisture very well. A lens could solve some of these problems, but that damages the accuracy of the device’s measurements. Bob Hawley, a glaciologist from Dartmouth College, is sure that they’ll find a way to get around such kinks. “We’ll put the Kinect through its paces in the lab and make sure it’s up to snuff.”

The one thing that ties all of these researchers together isn’t so much the fact that they are using the Kinect, but how they are using it: in ways that it was never intended to be used. “I’ve always enjoyed repurposing cheap devices… You know, the hacker ideals,” Ken Mankoff said. And that’s what makes the Kinect such a perfect platform for these researchers.

Despite being a consumer product, Microsoft‘s policy on modifying the Kinect is in stark contrast to that of Apple or Sony. As a piece of hardware, Kinect is open by design, as a Microsoft representative said last year. That customer’s are finding new uses for the device is just what Microsoft wants because, just like the PC, Kinect’s abilities are only limited by developer’s imaginations. With Kinect, the sky is so not the limit.

Image courtesy of Ken Mankoff/Wired

Scientists hack Kinect to deflect asteroids – Neowin.net.

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