Random Accesses

Do you ever wish you could just reach out and move the icons on your computer desktop around the same way you do with pieces of paper on your physical desk? BumpTop has created a software system to allow you to do just that. Their version of a computer desktop has icons that appear as objects with weight and shapes that can be manipulated, letting their interaction seem much more intuitive to users.

Today, BumpTop announced that it has taken the concept to the next level, and will provide multi-touch support for Windows 7 and MS touchscreen. CEO and Co-founder Anand Agarawala explains the original concept of BumpTop in a TED video.

So there’s really two products here, the current BumpTop system which you can upload onto your PC right now via their website, and a future touchscreen enhanced version that will likely be released to coincide with the adoption of Windows 7. Both versions are trying to make files on your desktop more like real world objects, like so many other experimental human-computer interfaces we’ve discussed.

Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, or WiMAX for short, is a next generation open standard that seeks to serve users' increasing demands for high data throughput (broadband) services such as streaming media on the internet, live video conferencing, and mobile TV on computers as well as handsets and PDAs.

WiMAX is expected to be integrated into the next generation mass market consumer devices and to offer something that does not exist today – speeds similar to cable and metropolitan area coverage while on the move, all for a much lower cost than we are used to today.

WiMAX already offers broadband services in many emerging and rural markets which are not supported by wireline-based technologies and started its first deployment in developed countries replacing both commonly used Wi-Fi on one hand and traditional cellular standards such as 3G (third generation, based on "The Third Generation Partnership Project") on the other hand.

Source: http://thefutureofthings.com/articles/6361/the-future-of-wimax.html

A hybrid of silicon nanocircuits and biological components that mimics some of the processes that control the passage of molecules into and out of cells has been created by a team of scientists from UC Davis, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and UC Berkeley.

The lipid-coated nanocircuits could lead to the development of new classes of bio-sensing tools and biological applications, such as comprehensive blood-chemistry tests that fit on the point of a needle or screening tools for the development of new drugs.

“This is an example of a marriage between integrated circuit technology and biotechnology,” said Pieter Stroeve, a professor of chemical engineering and materials science at UC Davis and one of three lead scientists on the project. “The technology of both can be mass produced, so in theory, their integration can also be mass produced.”

Source: http://www.physorg.com/news170619218.html

In recent years, the Austrian physicist Anton Zeilinger has bounced entangled photons off orbiting satellites and made 60-atom fullerene molecules exist in quantum superposition--essentially, as a smear of all their possible positions and energy states across local space-time. Now he hopes to try the same stunt with bacteria hundreds of times larger.

Meanwhile, Hans Mooij of the Delft University of Technology, with Seth Lloyd, who directs MIT's Center for Extreme Quantum Information Theory, has created quantum states (which occur when particles or systems of particles are superpositioned) on scales far above the quantum level by constructing a superconducting loop, visible to the human eye, that carries a supercurrent whose electrons run simultaneously clockwise and counterclockwise, thereby serving as a quantum computing circuit.

But before technologies like quantum communications, computing, and metrology can realize their potential--a quantum Internet and uncounterfeitable money are two interesting possibilities--quantum networks must be able to transmit and store data. The quantum optics group at the California Institute of Technology has been working toward this goal.

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/23198/?a=f

Researchers have demonstrated the smallest laser ever, consisting of a nanoparticle just 44 nanometers across. The device is dubbed a "spaser" because it generates a form of radiation called surface plasmons. The technique allows light to be confined in very small spaces, and some physicists believe that spasers could form the basis of future optical computers just as transistors are the basis of today's electronics.

While the best consumer electronics operate at speeds of about 10 gigahertz, Mikhail Noginov, professor of physics in the Center for Materials Research at Norfolk State University in Norfolk, VA, notes that optical devices can operate at hundreds of terahertz. Optical devices are, however, difficult to miniaturize because photons can't be confined to areas much smaller than half their wavelength. But devices that interact with light in the form of surface plasmons can confine it within much tighter spots.

"There's currently a big effort, mostly theoretical, towards designing a new generation of nanoelectronics based on plasmonics," says Noginov. Unlike other previous plasmonic devices, spasers are an active element that can produce and amplify these waves. Noginov co-led the development of the new spaser with Ulrich Wiesner of Cornell University and Vladimir Shalaev and Evgenii Narimanov of Purdue University. The work is described today in the journal Nature.

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/23249/