Research Watch
Personal Robot industry to grow to $15 Billion by 2015
January 2, 2008 A new study by ABI Research predicts that the personal robotics market will be worth $15 billion by 2015. The report examines the consumer market for toy robots like Sony's Aibo and the recently released iSobot, as well as increasingly sophisticated single-function “task” robots such as the Roomba vacuum cleaner and Looj gutter cleaning robot from iRobot. Read More
Argo: global floating computer network provides critical ocean data
Image Gallery (4 images)
December 11, 2007 With rising concerns over climate change and its regional impacts, understanding (and eventually predicting) changes in both the atmosphere and ocean are needed to guide international actions, to optimize governments’ policies and to shape industrial strategies. Argo is a program that brings together more than 25 countries and thousands of floating sensors to provide key data from the ocean and assist in achieving these goals.
Self-powered biosensor wins iGEM Environmental award
Image Gallery (2 images)
December 10, 2007 A team of students from the University of Glasgow have designed the world’s first self-powered biosensor as part of the international Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. The device, which took first prize in the Environment section of the awards, would have the ability to detect toxic leaks in environments that are unsuitable for humans and could be used as an early warning system in a range of industrial applications. Read More
Shrinking supercomputers: IBM optical modulator promises processing breakthrough
Image Gallery (2 images)
December 6, 2007 IBM scientists have announced a breakthrough that could lead to a new generation of supercomputers that squeeze the processing power of today's giants into the form factor of a laptop. The research is based on the use of a light pulses sent through silicon instead of electrical signals on wires which make up conventional computer chips and also promises incredibly energy efficient processors that would expend only the energy of a light bulb to achieve what current supercomputers do with enough power to run hundreds of homes.
User-generated content: the entertainment news of the future?
Image Gallery (2 images)
December 4, 2007 According to a prediction from
Nokia, up to 25% of the entertainment consumed by people in five years time will have been created, edited and shared within their peer circle rather than coming out of traditional media groups. This user-generated content phenomenon has been dubbed “Circular Entertainment” and could be the future of news information delivery.
Galileo signal reflections to monitor waves and weather at sea
Image Gallery (2 images)
November 29, 2007 For the first time a signal from a Galileo satellite - the European alternative to GPS - has been captured after reflection off the ocean surface. The successful experiment carried out by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) and the University of Surrey demonstrates the potential for determining the weather at sea with remote sensing satellites. The development offers the possibility of deploying a constellation of small satellites to take measurements over the oceans where there are large gaps in forecast knowledge at present. Such a system could be used to provide severe weather warnings to mariners, data for global climate change models and even the potential to detect tsunamis. Read More
Internet demand could outstrip network capacity by 2010
Image Gallery (2 images)
November 20, 2007 A new research report on the ability of Internet infrastructure to cope with burgeoning demand warns that usage could outstrip network capacity both in North America and worldwide as early as 2010. Read More
Sun Microsystems announce open petascale computing environment
Image Gallery (2 images)
November 15, 2007 Sun Microsystems, Inc. has announced two new systems designed to address the extreme computation, scale and storage requirements for High Performance Computing (HPC) customers. The Sun Constellation System – billed as the world's first open petascale computing environment – which combines ultra-dense, high performance compute, networking, storage and software into an integrated general purpose system, and the Sun StorageTek 5800 System - designed to help ensure long-term preservation, protection and integrity of massive data stores with extensive metadata facilities. Read More
Smartphone sales to overtake laptops
Image Gallery (2 images)
November 14, 2007 New research indicates that smartphones are moving out of the realm of "clever gadgets" and increasingly becoming a productive tool for business users with a report from In-Stat estimating that sales will grow by 30% annually over the next five years and exceed the unit sales for laptops. Read More
IBM closes in on petaflop barrier
Image Gallery (2 images)
November 14, 2007 Astronomical figures abound in the world of supercomputing and the numbers have just become even more astounding with IBM continuing its four-year domination of the official TOP500 Supercomputer Sites List with a new world record courtesy of the Blue Gene/L supercomputer. Although the Blue Gene/L, located at the Lawrence Livermore national Laboratory in California, has held the number one position since November 2004, the system was significantly expanded this summer to deliver a sustained performance of 478 trillion calculations per second (478 “teraflops”). Read More
PhD student develops technology to make broadband Internet 200 times faster
Image Gallery (2 images)
October 25, 2007 The Melbourne Herald Sun has reported that an Australian PhD student has developed technology that will delver Internet speeds up to 250Mbps over existing copper phone lines, negating the need to install costly fiber optic cables. Dr John Papandriopoulos, a research fellow at the University of Melbourne, spent a year developing the technology, which uses mathematic coding to reduce the interference that slows down Internet speeds. Read More
Researchers create a transparent composite plastic as strong as steel
Image Gallery (2 images)
October 22, 2007 Researchers at the University of Michigan have created a light-weight, transparent composite plastic that’s as strong as steel. The material mimics the brick-and-mortar molecular structure of mother of pearl, the iridescent lining of mussel and oyster shells, which is built layer by layer and is one of the toughest natural mineral based materials. Read More
Active care safety features a top priority according to new research
Image Gallery (2 images)
October 17, 2007 According to a new study from ABI research consumer demand is growing for active safety features in cars with technology advancing rapidly as a result. Radar- and lidar-based obstacle-detection systems continue to develop at the high end of the automobile market, and ultrasonic sensors dominate the low end. Read More
Rolls Royce open new outdoor jet engine testing facility
Image Gallery (2 images)
October 15, 2007 Rolls-Royce has opened a $42 million outdoor jet engine testing facility in Mississipi. One of only three of its kind in the world, the site at NASA’s John C. Stennis Space Center will be used to test development and prototype jet engines for performance and noise, as well as validate their safety systems. Read More
New technology accurately identifies imperfect fingerprints
Image Gallery (2 images)
October 9, 2007 Current technology is limited and time consuming in correctly identifying people from partial, distorted, scratched, smudged, or otherwise warped fingerprints. Researchers at the University of Warwick in the UK have now devised a way of recognizing these types of prints in just a few seconds. Read More
"Lab-on-a-chip" breakthrough for on-site diagnostics
Image Gallery (2 images)
October 1, 2007 A Californian based company has produced the world’s first disposable photonic lab-on-a-chip solution for next-generation water and food analysis, chemical and biological agent detection, and point-of-care diagnostics. The PhotonicLab Platform from Bioident Technology Inc. enables rapid in-vitro diagnostics, chemical and biological threat detection, and environmental testing without the need for off-site lab analysis. This offers greater mobility and sensitivity compared to existing biological and chemical assays and delivers a cost-effective disposable lab-on-a-chip solution by eliminating the need for complex and expensive readout systems. Read More
Research unlocks Spiderman's climbing secrets
Image Gallery (2 images)
September 3, 2007 Physicists at the Polytechnic University of Turin, Italy, have designed a suit that could allow its wearer to scale walls like Spider-man. The suit is the latest proposed application of carbon nanotubes, a technology currently being researched by Polytechnic’s Professor Nicola Pugno that has potential applications in areas ranging from electrical circuitry to Space Elevators. Read More
Turning beer into biofuel: researchers examine alcohol by-products as a source of alternative energy
Image Gallery (2 images)
August 28, 2007 The debate surrounding the benefits and perils of biofuels continues with by-products from the alcohol manufacturing process offered as the latest solution in the search for alternatives to fossil fuel. A proposal for a new research project to be completed at the University of Abertay Dundee in the UK has outlined a concept for cars to run on residues from beer and whisky production. Read More
Consumer Survey shows the decline of TV as the Primary Media Device
Image Gallery (2 images)
August 23, 2007 A new IBM survey of consumer digital media and entertainment habits shows audiences are more in control than ever and increasingly savvy about filtering marketing messages. The global findings overwhelmingly suggest personal Internet time rivals TV time. Among consumer respondents, 19 percent stated spending six hours or more per day on personal Internet usage, versus nine percent of respondents who reported the same levels of TV viewing. 66 percent reported viewing between one to four hours of TV per day, versus 60 percent who reported the same levels of personal Internet usage. The survey results are available as a free download. Read More
Biofuel production comes at a cost according to new report
Image Gallery (2 images)
August 21, 2007 In an effort to prevent an impending energy crisis, industries are considering various alternative energy sources with which to continue generating power whilst reducing environmental impacts. Biofuels are one alternative being adopted within the transport sector, but some experts are warning that biofuels may do more harm than good. Read More
Time machine theory: a step forward in travelling backwards?
Image Gallery (2 images)
August 7, 2007 From H.G Wells' classic novel to Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, the popular imagination has long been enthralled by the prospect of time travel. Now researchers at the Israel Institute of Technology, Techion, have released a paper outlining theoretical advances that could one day assist in liberating the notion of a time-machine from the realms of pure science fiction. The research by Prof. Amos Ori of the Technion’s Faculty of Physics centers around a new model of space-time that overcomes some (but not all) of the theoretical stumbling blocks that would prevent the required curvature of space-time needed to facilitate time travel. Read More
New fingerprinting technique could reveal more than just identity
Image Gallery (2 images)
August 7, 2007 Imagine if a single fingerprint could reveal the diet, race and sex of a suspected criminal. As far fetched as the proposition sounds, it might soon become a reality according to new research published in the August edition of the journal Analytical Chemistry. The new technique collects fingerprints along with their chemical residue - containing a few millionths of a gram of fluid - and keeps it intact for future reference. These residues can be found on all fingerprints and could be used to identify traces of items people came in contact with such as gunpowder, narcotics and biological or chemical weapons, as well as potentially being used to pin-point specific traits - like a persons sex or aspects of their diet - through spectroscopic analysis. Imperial scientists led by Professor Sergei Kazarian from Imperial College London’s Department of Chemical Engineering found that the use of commercial gelatine based tape provides a simple method for collection and transportation of prints for chemical imaging analysis. Read More
The human battery: turning body heat into electric power
Image Gallery (2 images)
August 6, 2007 Previously ignored energy sources are being revisited as both the global will to conserve energy and the technological means to generate it radically improve. Electromagnetic radiation from our cities, acoustic noise and stray radio waves are now being re-classified as potential power sources and the human body itself is being re-examined as a battery thanks to advances enabling the energy from body heat, motion and even blood pressure to be harnessed. A new thermoelectric system created by researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute is at the forefront of these developments - running on a miniscule 200 millivolts the device is able to create an electrical charge from body heat and could lend itself to an endless array of applications that go way beyond powering your own mobile phone. Read More
Bioengineers rebuilding bacteria to produce crude oil
Image Gallery (2 images)
August 2, 2007 If you ever doubt the creativity of modern science, just throw a serious challenge at it and watch the myriad responses you receive. Rising oil prices and historical data are signifying that Hubbert’s “peak oil” may be upon us, and the rush is on all over the world to find viable alternative energy sources to replace the dwindling crude that’s powered us into the technology age. But what if we could just ‘grow’ more oil? The deadly bacteria E. coli, might seem like an unlikely ally, but scientists in California are claiming they have successfully genetically manipulated the deadly bug and a host of other bacteria to produce pure hydrocarbon chains that can be processed into biofuels. In fact, they’re getting so good at it that they can coax the bacteria into producing a substance that’s exceptionally close to crude oil – minus the sulfur impurities that taint the oil we pump out of the ground - and ready to be put through a standard refinery to produce petrol, diesel, jet fuel or any other petroleum product. There’s also talk of other, far more pure and powerful fuels that need no further refinement before they go to the pump. Could the next great oil barons be bug farmers? Read More
Global Insight study predicts dramatic rise in biofuel - but at what cost?
Image Gallery (2 images)
July 30, 2007 In his 2006 State of the Union address, George W Bush said that “America is addicted to oil.” By this, he meant that not only is the US a massive consumer of fossil fuel, but that this consumption leaves them grossly dependant and vulnerable to exploitation. Bush’s remark came at a time when the US had just surpassed Brazil in the production of ethanol fuel, often touted as the most likely contender to replace petroleum, or at least diminish the demand for it to manageable levels. The world market is already feeling the effect of increased interest in ethanol, which begs the question of whether biofuels can overtake petroleum as a power source – and if so, whether it will be the viable alternative its proponents claim, or simply a case of swapping one addiction for another. Global Insight, Inc., the world's leading company for economic and financial analysis and forecasting, has released a detailed projection for its possible future consequences. Read More
Over half the world now live in cities according to UN Report
Image Gallery (2 images)
July 12, 2007 A United Nations report coinciding with World Population Day reveals that for the first time in history, more people now live in cities than rural areas. There are now 6.6 billion of us – a figure expected to surge dramatically by 37 percent to 9.076 billion by the year 2050 according to the UN report, with Asia and Africa leading the growth.
Physicists detect new type of electron wave
Image Gallery (2 images)
July 9, 2007 Scientists have proved the existence of a new type of electron wave present on metal surfaces that could assist in the development of nano-optics and high-temperature superconductors. Known as the “acoustic surface plasmon”, the phenomenon has previously been predicted in theory but has been difficult to prove because of the incredible accuracy required to make measurements on such a minute scale. Spreading only a few nanometers (millionths of a millimetre) and lasting only millionths of a billionth of a second, researchers led by University of New Hampshire detected the waves by shooting electrons at a specially prepared surface of a beryllium crystal in an ultra-high vacuum chamber. Read More
More than idle chit-chat: the mobile phone is a girl’s new best friend
Image Gallery (2 images)
July 6, 2007 The mobile phone is now officially a girl’s best friend according to a recent survey commissioned by Samsung, showing the degree to which the ubiquitous mobile phone has entwined itself in our day-to-day lifestyles as much more than a mere instrument of conversation. From SMS to receiving images to email, video and even public transport information we now employ our phones for a multiplicity of uses, but do the choices we make about the way in which we use phones vary depending on our sex? Read More
The Genographic Project - where we came from and how we got where we are
Image Gallery (4 images)
June 29, 2007 “People are trapped in history, and history is trapped in them”*. James Baldwin’s well-known quotation aptly captures the essence of The Genographic Project – an ambitious five-year expedition through our genetic past that aims to understand where humans came from and how we got to where we are today. Eighteen months into the project, the first findings outlining the procedures used to analyze the genetic data from 78,590 public participants have been released. In the report published in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics, Doron Behar and colleagues also give the first anthropological insights into the emerging genetic map of human history. Read More
30th Anniversary of Deep-Sea Vent discovery
Image Gallery (5 images)
June 26, 2007 A discovery that radically changed our understanding of the planet we live on celebrates its 30th anniversary this month. Scientists first discovered volcanic hot vents surrounded by bizarre animals thriving in total darkness at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean in 1977 and at the end of June an international team of scientists, including many of the original explorers, will honor the landmark discovery at a special meeting and public event in the Galápagos Islands, located just south of the discovery site. Read More
Circadian rhythms found to be in control of all mammal genes
Image Gallery (5 images)
June 19, 2007 Ever wondered exactly why eating at night makes you put on weight, why some people are "night owls" or what controls your metabolic energy levels through the day? Instead of only 15% of our genes being regulated by circadian rhythms, as previously thought, researchers have discovered that ALL mammalian genes are affected by nature's daily clock - our entire bodies are regulated by genes whose expression oscillates on a daily cycle. What's more, if we're not exposed to a proper daily cycle of light and darkness, our genes don't have a reference point to synchronise to - and they can gradually get more and more out of sync with one another, causing organs to function ineffectively. Read More
The Science of team – systematically enhancing performance
Image Gallery (5 images)
June 14, 2007 Human history is largely the story of people working together in groups to explore, achieve and conquer—and in our modern world the role of teams is only growing, spurred by globalization and communications technology. Given the centrality of work teams, it is remarkable how much our society's perspective is focused on the individual. We school our children, hire, train and reward employees as individuals, yet throw individuals into a team with little thought to the team’s composition, training, development and leadership. Scientific American Mind’s June 2007 issue has an excellent article entitled The Science of Team Success about the growing body of research showing that groups can systematically enhance their performance. It turns out that what team members think, feel and do provide strong predictors of team success—and these factors also suggest ways to design, train and lead teams to help them work even better. If you work with other people, you should read this.
Internet Advertising Revenues Soar Again
Image Gallery (5 images)
June 7, 2007 Figures released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers today show that Internet advertising revenues continue to skyrocket, the tech wreck of six years ago just an insignificant correction. The 2007 first quarter revenues of US$4.9 billion represent a 26 percent increase over Q1 2006 at US$3.8 billion and a 2 percent increase over Q4 2006 at US$4.8 billion. “The continued growth of online ad revenues clearly illustrates marketers’ increased comfort with the extraordinary vitality and accountability of this medium,” commented IAB President and CEO Randall Rothenberg. “It reaches consumers with an unprecedented level of efficiency and measurability that provides marketers with actionable data. And the ever-changing landscape of new platforms and technologies that enrich interactive advertising guarantees that this growth trend will continue.” Read More
Men in Grocery Stores “need assistance”
Image Gallery (5 images)
June 6, 2007 At Gizmag we try hard not to be sexist, racist, anythingist. We just report the important new technology insights and advancements, and given our readership is predominantly male, we thought TNS Retail Forward’s recently-released Men in Grocery Stores Report might make interesting reading. In summary: Many men shop inefficiently. They have difficulty finding items, especially when their partners compile the grocery list. Men forego buying rather than risk purchasing a substitute for an item their partners have listed. They circle back through aisles multiple times in their searches, hesitate to ask for help and don’t admit to not finding items when the cashier asks them whether they found everything they were looking for. They need assistance. Read More
Google becomes the world’s most valuable brand
Image Gallery (5 images)
June 4, 2007 We are all familiar with brands and we have all developed long term relationships with these consistent names. Every day we all make choices about which brands we interact with and each of us has our own relationship with the brands we choose – creating a consistent and ultimately worthwhile relationship with the client/customer is an incredibly complex process. Every interaction with the brand helps to define our view - is it reliable, is it the best, does it reflect who I am? Put all those thoughts together and you vaguely define the incredibly complex brand organism. The second annual BRANDZ Top 100 Most Powerful Brands ranking was announced recently and the world has a new heavyweight champion. As a commercial entity, the number one spot is the holy grail, and the new champion is, astoundingly, Google. Millward Brown’s unofficial world championship ranking for brands ascribes Google a brand value of US$66 billion, 50% more than Coca Cola and double that of Toyota, McDonald’s, Nokia or American Express. The rise to the top of the heap took less than a decade with the final ascent seeing Google rocket past General Electric (founded 1878 - US$62 billion), Microsoft (1975 - US$55 billion) and Coca-Cola (1885 - US$44 billion). A free summary of the report is available for download ... Read More
