Category: Technology

As we approach the extent to which powerful processors can be miniaturized the engineering has to move in a new direction.

At IBM that direction is a brain-inspired 3D architecture, staking processors and memory in close proximity.  But it is a solution with the same old problem.  How do you remove all the heat?

One possible answer; Electronic Blood.

The art of liquid cooling has been demonstrated by Aquasar and put to work inside the German supercomputer SuperMUC which – perversely – harnesses warm water to cool its circuits.

SuperMUC consumes 40% less electricity as a result.

But for IBM to truly match the marvels of the brain, there is a third evolutionary step it must achieve – simultaneous liquid fueling and cooling.

Just as blood gives sugar in one hand and takes heat with another, IBM is looking for a fluid that can multitask.

Vanadium is the best performer in their current laboratory test system – a type of redox flow unit – similar to a simple battery.

First a liquid – the electrolyte – is charged via electrodes, then pumped into the computer, where it discharges energy to the chip.

Redox flow is far from a new technology, and neither is it especially complex.

But IBM is the first to stake its chips on this “electronic blood” as the food of future computers – and will attempt to optimize it over the coming decades to achieve zettascale computing.

Many great achievements in engineering have looked to nature for as a path to success.  IBM is exploring the compact efficiency of the human brain as a model for getting more out of a more compressed package.

“Ninety-nine per cent of a computer’s volume is devoted to cooling and powering. Only 1% is used to process information. And we think we’ve built a good computer?”

“The brain uses 40% of its volume for functional performance – and only 10% for energy and cooling.”

Michel’s vision is for a new “bionic” computing architecture, inspired by one of the laws of nature – allometric scaling – where an animal’s metabolic power increases with its body size.

Can they built it better, faster, even stronger…?  Will it cost 6 million dollars?  Can they get that power into a form factor anyone can use at a price they can afford.  It’s not as if they have not done it before.

We’ll just have to wait and see.

Computer aided or assisted design has evolved thanks to the robotic revolution and innovations that made 3D printing a reality.  Today’s designers and craftsman can exchange the hand-tools they used to use for digital design tools and equipment that allows them to turn their imagination into a part or product in a fraction of the time.   And not just where they are, but anywhere in the world where the equipment and materials are at hand, without ever having to leave their workshop.

Financial Times

Thanks to technological strides in computer-aided manufacturing, jewellery designers are now able to release more unique designs more frequently – and they are precisely matching supply and demand in the process.

“With 3D printing, it doesn’t matter how intricate a design is or how many variations you make, the cost of production is only determined by the material used,” says Duann Scott, designer evangelist at Shapeways

“This means a unique item costs the same price as a one-size-fits-all item.

“Because all items are 3D printed to order, supply exactly meets demand. Customisation is free, there is no inventory and no risk to innovate,” says Mr Scott.

3D modelling and printing allow you to redesign on the fly, prototype and literally ‘fax’ finished parts.  And while almost anyone could push some buttons if that all it took, it does not take away from the talent or vision of artists or designers that will be needed to make the system work.

“We are seeing an emerging field of expertise called digital craftsmanship,” says Mr Scott. “Three-dimensional modelling techniques require an understanding of material, process and digital tools all honed over time with a meticulous eye for detail in much the same way as traditional craftsmanship.”

At some future date, when equipment and material costs allow, the article points out that 3D printers could be part of every household.  You could order a part for a kitchen appliance and have it in your hands shortly after.  With no need to maintain inventory or a distribution network, costs could be reduced considerably, as long as long as the networks, computing power and base materials were at hand.

Before we get to that point, business and industry will be able to capitalize on the same benefits with custom 3D printers that can create specialized parts, materials, or tools they need, when they need them.

Depending on its evolution the 3D printer could completely change distribution and supply chains for a wide range or products and materials in the years to come.

By manipulating light, carbon-dioxide, and nutrients cutting edge food scientists are hacking into fruits and vegetables in search of new ways to control how they grow.  This isn’t some funky fertilizer research either.  Recent discoveries about light, for example, have produced some bountiful results.

At the Wageningen greenhouses (Wageningen University and Research Center, Netherlands), researchers can grow as many as 150 pounds of tomatoes in a square yard of space. And by using specially calibrated LED lights, they have managed to produce exotic new tomatoes with a whopping 50 percent more vitamin C than ordinary ones.

By manipulating wavelengths of light and using LED’s that emit these wavelengths, used together or at different times during the day or night, even directed directly at developing fruit, the growers have been able to achieve these amazing results.

We’ve seen in the last year that we can increase the amount of vitamin C in the tomato fruit by concentrating the amount of red light the fruit itself receives. Not the whole plant, but just the fruit. And so if we can do that effectively, then we’ll be able to have a better quality fruit.

And it’s not just the Netherlands.  The US Food and Drug Administration recently reported that using certain types of UV-LED’s can extend the life of Strawberries by reducing how fast they rot, and slowing the spread of any areas already showing any evidence of damage.

This is technology that is soon to be incorporated into your refrigerator, where low power use UV-LED’s optimized to the storage compartments of your appliance will reduce waste by improving the life of fruits and vegetables stored there.  We should also expect to see it in large scale applications for growers, distributors, wholesalers, and haulers of fruits and vegetables that are being hacked with specialized LED light to protect them from damage and extend their shelf life.

 

Would you want your Smartphone to have a kill switch?

A New York State Attorney General and a San Francisco District Attorney are meeting with four major cell phone manufacturers to discuss the possibility of integrating a feature that would allow for the remote deactivation of the devices when stolen.

New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon said on Wednesday that they will meet on July 13 to meet with representatives of the four largest smartphone manufacturers to discuss the idea. The prosecutors intend to ask the firms to include a disability mechanism on future mobiles that will render the devices useless if taken — which could eliminate the current incentives for theft and prevent smart-phones being sold on to other users.

The allure of compact high-tech with a high price-tag is causing lawbreakers to assault women and children to acquire them, an act that has been dubbed as “apple picking.”   If there was little or no point in doing so, the theory goes that these attacks would never happen in the first place.

“The theft of handheld devices is the fastest-growing street crime, and increasingly, incidents are turning violent,” said Attorney General Schneiderman. “It’s time for manufacturers to be as innovative in solving this problem as they have been in designing devices that have reshaped how we live.”

I’m sure we can all think of dozens of occasions where we are in public with people who have no phone-etiquette whatsoever.  You just wish you could will their device to power off.  Well that is kind-of what law-enforcement has in mind, but as a deterrent to crime.

There are no known particulars yet about how this feature would be engaged.  Presumably the carrier would be able to send a signal to your phone telling it to power down indefinitely, something that could be undone if you were ever to recover the device.  We’ll have to wait until after the July 13th meeting before we know if this is something that will be added to new handsets at all, and if so, how it might operate.

So is this a feature you’d want on your phone or would you be reluctant for any reason to allow anyone with the ability to do so to not just terminate your smartphone tether to the digital universe but power it off completely?

Charlie Osborn – ZDNet.com

IQ Biometrix has developed a software package called FACES.  It allows almost anyone, without ever having been trained as a forensic artist, to render a near-photo-quality composite sketch of a human face.

The package comes with 4400 different facial features, and an easy to use interface.

With an expanded database of 4,400 facial features, including new Latin, African-American and Asian components, FACES 4.0 lets you create accurate composites of either sex and any race. Selected features are blended together to produce a photo-quality composite image. New to FACES 4.0 is the ability to enhance image accuracy by choosing among three different hair tones: adding facial markings such as scars, moles, piercings, tattoos and earrings: and using hats, headwear and eyeglasses. 

The generated image can be used with facial recognition technology or to compare to images in a mug-shot database.  The software is also able to use video enhancement technology to create a composite from still frame video.  The completed “sketch” an be added to fliers or any print media for distribution.

It runs on Windows 98 or later and needs 1.2 GB of of install space, but the exported images are small.  The program should run easily on any hardware built in this century, and while they only mention Desktops and Laptops, I expect this will find more use on adequately equipped portable devices like rugged tablets that are easier to use in the field.  Used in conjunction with wireless technology sketches of suspects could be generated on site and distributed rapidly, when necessary.

The Law enforcement list price on the vendor Web Site is 599.00

 

US Researchers have come up with a successful way to introduce a nano-particle network into the blood of a diabetes patient that would be able to deliver insulin as needed for up to ten days.

The process, successful in animal trials, hopes to move to human clinical trials, where if it produces similar results could address two pressing problems with insulin delivery.  Patients would not have to inject themselves multiple times a day and, there would be no risk of improper dosing.

From gizmag.com

The injectable nano-network is made up of a mixture that contains nanoparticles with a solid core or insulin, modified dextran (which is commonly used to reduce blood viscosity), and glucose oxidase enzymes. When exposed to high levels of glucose, the enzymes convert glucose into gluconic acid, which breaks down the modified dextran to release the insulin. The gluconic acid and dextran, which are biocompatible, dissolve in the body, while the insulin brings the glucose levels under control.

The nanoparticles are given a positively or negatively charged biocompatible coating so that when they are mixed together, they are attracted to each other to form a “nano-network.” The positively charged coatings are made of chitosan, a material found in shrimp shells that has also found applications in self-healing car paint, while the negatively charged coatings are made of alginate, a material normally found in seaweed.

“This technology effectively creates a ‘closed-loop’ system that mimics the activity of the pancreas in a healthy person, releasing insulin in response to glucose level changes,” says Dr. Zhen Gu, an assistant professor in the joint biomedical engineering program at North Carolina State University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “This has the potential to improve the health and quality of life of diabetes patients.”

If that isn’t technical enough you can read the research paper here.

If the process works as well in humans this will be an impressive development toward normalizing the lives of people who have diabetes by simplifying insulin delivery.