Thu, 03 Jul 2008 02:32:57 GMT

Computing is Bigger in Vegas

Las Vegas is Everyman's cut-rate Babylon. - Alistair Cooke
© guspim
The Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas has brought six Microsoft Surface tabletop computers into its iBar ultra-lounge for use and play by bar patrons. Cool. I cannot wait to get out there and try it out.Microsoft Surface is a thirty inch tabletop computer that features an interface that allows several users to move data around with their hands on the tabletop. I really do not know what practical value that has, but I am not Microsoft.

The chief application is called Flirt. This is described as "an exciting new way to chat and meet people from one Surface to another. Strategically placed video cameras at each Surface add even more energy to the action, allowing guests to interact with old friends, flirt with new acquaintances, and take and send photos across the lounge." Cool. But, my significant other and Microsoft Surface partner is probably not into this feature. Guests will also be able to play a variety of games, order specialty cocktails, view videos, and tour Vegas virtually.

The Microsoft Surface Microsoft Surface has a video and a description of the first days' implementation of the project. Having spent significant time in the Rio, I doubt the tabletop will stay as clean, spill-free, and without ashes, as shown in the video.

I have checked out the schedule at the Rio to see if I could justify a convention trip on the business tab. No dice. The Microsoft Surface have the next big convention out there in July (with the exception of a June seminar on Accounting for Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities). Neither sound at all interesting (no offense internal auditors - Go Flirt with the other auditors!). Posted by: Gregory Boop      Read more     Source

July 1, 2008, 9:46 PM CT

How older adults function in daily life

As more adults age into the high-risk period for cognitive impairment, clinicians need simple and reliable methods to identify where they may have problems in everyday life that reveal underlying changes in the brain. A new, carefully validated questionnaire called Everyday Cognition (ECog), when filled out by someone who knows an older adult well, can sensitively evaluate the performance of everyday activities that reflect basic mental functioning, as per a report in the recent issue of Neuropsychology, published by the American Psychological Association.

Keeping track of things, sorting the mail, following a conversation, shopping for a few things without a list, finding the car in a parking lot activities such as these, if compromised, could signal the risk for or presence of disease. The quick and easy identification of mild functional problems in elderly adults could be extremely useful in primary-care settings, where dementia and its early warning signs are frequently missed.

Seven academic and Veterans Administration psychology experts, led by co-authors Sarah Tomaszewski Farias, PhD, and Dan Mungas, PhD, of the University of California, Davis, teamed up to develop and validate this new 39-question screening tool. The team first collected data on everyday functioning and mental status for 576 elderly adults, averaging nearly 77 years old, who were reviewed at the University of California's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. Of these individuals, 174 were diagnosed as cognitively normal, 126 were diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment (which often develops into dementia), and 276 were diagnosed with dementia (progressive cognitive decline)......... Posted by: Beverly      Read more         Source

June 26, 2008, 8:32 PM CT

Physicists Produce Quantum-Entangled Images

Using a convenient and flexible method for creating twin light beams, scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland (UM) have produced "quantum images," pairs of information-rich visual patterns whose features are "entangled," or inextricably linked by the laws of quantum physics.

In addition to promising better detection of faint objects and improved amplification and positioning of light beams, the researchers' technique for producing quantum images-unprecedented in its simplicity, versatility, and efficiency-may someday be useful for storing patterns of data in quantum computers and transmitting large amounts of highly secure encrypted information. The research performed at the NIST/UM Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) was described in the June 12 edition of Science Express.*.

Conventional photographic films or digital camera sensors only record the color and intensity of a light wave striking their surfaces. A hologram additionally records a light wave's "phase"-the timing the crests and valleys in the wave. However, much more happens in a light wave. Even the most stable laser beam brightens and dims randomly over time because light has inherent quantum level "uncertainties" in its properties. Controlling these fluctuations-which represent a sort of "noise"-can improve detection of faint objects, produce better amplified images and allow workers to more accurately position laser beams. Scientists can't completely eliminate the noise, but they can rearrange it to improve desired features in images. A quantum-mechanical technique called "squeezing" lets physicists reduce noise in one property-such as intensity-at the expense of increasing the noise in a complementary property, such as phase. In addition to noise reduction, the quantum manipulations open new applications for images-such as transferring heaps of encrypted data protected by the laws of quantum mechanics and performing parallel processing of information for quantum computers......... Posted by: Beverly      Read more         Source

June 26, 2008, 8:27 PM CT

Extreme Ultraviolet Photoresists

Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have confirmed that the photoresists used in next-generation semiconductor manufacturing processes now under development are twice as sensitive as previously believed. This finding, announced at a workshop last month,* has attracted considerable interest because of its implications for future manufacturing. If the photoresists are twice as sensitive as previously thought, then they are close to having the sensitivity mandatory for high volume manufacturing, but the flip side is that the extreme ultraviolet optical systems in the demonstration tools currently being used are only about half as effective as believed.

Extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) is a process analogous to film photography. A silicon wafer is coated with photoresist and exposed to EUV light that reflects off a patterned "photomask." Where the light strikes the resist it changes the solubility of the coating. When developed, the soluble portions wash away leaving the same pattern exposed on the silicon surface for the processing steps that ultimately create microcircuits.

The drive to make circuits with ever smaller features has pushed manufacturers to use shorter and shorter wavelengths of light. EUVL is the next step in this progression and requires developing both suitable light sources and photoresists that can retain the fine details of the circuit, balancing sensitivity, line edge roughness and spatial resolution. NIST researcher Steve Grantham says that optical lithography light sources in use today emit light with a wavelength of about 193 nanometers, which borders on optical wavelengths. EUVL sources produce light with wavelengths about an order of magnitude smaller, around 13.5 nanometers. Because this light does not travel through anything-including lenses-mirrors have to be used to focus it......... Posted by: Beverly      Read more         Source

June 23, 2008, 8:07 PM CT

What Makes Diamonds Slippery

They call diamonds "ice," and not just because they sparkle. Engineers and physicists have long studied diamond because even though the material is as hard as an ice ball to the head, diamond slips and slides with remarkably low friction, making it an ideal material or coating for seals, high performance tools and high-tech moving parts.

Robert Carpick, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics at the University of Pennsylvania, and his group led a collaboration with scientists from Argonne National Laboratories, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Florida to determine what makes diamond films such slippery customers, settling a debate on the scientific origin of its properties and providing new knowledge that will help create the next generation of super low friction materials.

The Penn experiments, the first study of diamond friction convincingly supported by spectroscopy, looked at two of the main hypotheses posited for years as to why diamonds demonstrate such low friction and wear properties. Using a highly specialized technique know as photoelectron emission microscopy, or PEEM, the study reveals that this slippery behavior comes from passivation of atomic bonds at the diamond surface that were broken during sliding and not from the diamond turning into its more stable form, graphite. The bonds are passivated by dissociative adsorption of water molecules from the surrounding environment. The scientists also observed that friction increases dramatically if there is not enough water vapor in the environment......... Posted by: Beverly      Read more         Source

June 23, 2008, 8:03 PM CT

A look into the nanoscale

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers have captured time-series snapshots of a solid as it evolves on the ultra-fast timescale.

Using femtosecond X-ray free electron laser (FEL) pulses, the team, led by Anton Barty, is able to observe condensed phase dynamics such as crack formation, phase separation, rapid fluctuations in the liquid state or in biologically relevant environments.

Other Livermore scientists include Michael Bogan, Stafan Hau-Riege, Stefano Marchesini, Matthias Frank, Bruce Woods, former Livermore researcher Saša Bajt and former LLNL scientist Henry Chapman, who is now at the Centre for Free Electron Laser Science, DESY, in Hamburg, Germany.

"The ability to take images in a single shot is the key to studying non-repetitive behavior mechanisms in a sample," Barty said.

As the femtosecond laser blasts the sample, it is destroyed, but not before the scientists created images with a 50-nanometer spatial resolution, and a 10-femtosecond shutter speed. (A femtosecond is one billionth of one millionth of a second. For context, a femtosecond is to a second as a second is to about 32 million years.).

"This experiment opens the door to a new regime of time-resolved experiments in mesoscopic dynamics," Barty said. "This technique could be extended to a few nanometers spatial and a few tens of femtoseconds temporal resolution"......... Posted by: Beverly      Read more         Source

June 19, 2008, 9:13 PM CT

Tiny refrigerator taking shape to cool future computers

Scientists at Purdue University are in the process of developing a miniature refrigeration system small enough to fit inside laptops and personal computers, a cooling technology that would boost performance while shrinking the size of computers.

Unlike conventional cooling systems, which use a fan to circulate air through finned devices called heat sinks attached to computer chips, miniature refrigeration would dramatically increase how much heat could be removed, said Suresh Garimella, the R. Eugene and Susie E. Goodson Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

The Purdue research focuses on learning how to design miniature components called compressors and evaporators, which are critical for refrigeration systems. The scientists developed an analytical model for designing tiny compressors that pump refrigerants using penny-size diaphragms and validated the model with experimental data. The elastic membranes are made of ultra-thin sheets of a plastic called polyimide and coated with an electrically conducting metallic layer. The metal layer allows the diaphragm to be moved back and forth to produce a pumping action using electrical charges, or "electrostatic diaphragm compression".

In related research, the engineers are among the first to precisely measure how a refrigerant boils and vaporizes inside tiny "microchannels" in an evaporator and determine how to vary this boiling rate for maximum chip cooling......... Posted by: Beverly      Read more         Source

June 17, 2008, 9:53 PM CT

DNA Knot KeepsViral Genes Tightly Corked Inside Shell

A novel twist of DNA may keep viral genes tightly wound within a capsule, waiting for ejection into a host, a high-resolution analysis of its structure has revealed.

Using electron microscopy and three-dimensional computer reconstruction, UC San Diego biologists and chemists have produced the most detailed image yet of the protein envelope of an asymmetrical virus and the viral DNA packed within, they report this week in the journal Structure. The image, with a resolution of less than a nanometer, or a millionth of a millimeter, will help to unravel how the virus locks onto its host and infects the cells by injecting its DNA.

By assembling more than 12,000 microscopic views of frozen viral particles from different angles, UCSD chemists Jinghua Tang, Norman Olson and Timothy Baker, a professor of chemistry and biological sciences, have determined the structure of a bacteriophage called phi29 with a resolution finer than 8 Angstroms (one Angstrom equals a tenth of a nanometer). Their project was part of a long-term collaboration with molecular virologist Dwight Anderson and colleagues at the University of Minnesota.

Eventhough the structures of spherical viruses with a high degree of symmetry have been resolved using similar methods, a number of more images were mandatory to accomplish the same task for the head-and-tail shape of phi29. The UCSD researchers said their images of phi29 are twice as fine as those created in prior efforts to visualize viruses with a similar shape......... Posted by: Beverly      Read more         Source

June 10, 2008, 8:32 PM CT

Secrets of Newest Form of Carbon

Using one of the world's most powerful sources of man-made radiation, physicists from UC San Diego, Columbia University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have uncovered new secrets about the properties of graphene-a form of pure carbon that may one day replace the silicon in computers, televisions, mobile phones and other common electronic devices.

Graphene-a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycombed lattice-has many advantages over silicon. Because it is an optically transparent conductor of electricity, graphene could be used to replace current liquid crystal displays that employ thin metal-oxide films based on indium, a rare metal that is becoming increasingly expensive and likely to be in short supply within a decade,. The problem for researchers is that not much is known about its optical and electronic properties because graphene, which was discovered only four years ago, has resisted traditional forms of spectroscopy.

In this week's advance online publication of the journal Nature-Physics, the physicists report that they used the Advanced Light Source at the Berkeley lab-one of the most powerful and versatile sources of electromagnetic radiation, from the infrared to x-ray region, in the world-to reveal some of those secrets. The scientists said that their study shows that the electrons in graphene strongly interact not only with the honeycomb lattice, but also with each other......... Posted by: Beverly      Read more         Source

June 10, 2008, 8:26 PM CT

Carbon emissions trading in Europe

For the past three years, the European Union has been operating the world's largest emissions trading system and the first system to limit and to trade carbon dioxide emissions. An MIT analysis of this initial "trial" phase finds that-despite its hasty adoption and somewhat rocky beginning-the European Union cap-and-trade system has operated well and has had little or no negative impact on the overall EU economy.

The MIT results provide both encouragement and guidance to policy makers working to design a carbon dioxide (CO2)-trading scheme for the United States and for the world. "This important public policy experiment is not perfect, but it is far more than any other nation or set of nations has done to control greenhouse gas emissions-and it works surprisingly well," said A. Denny Ellerman, senior lecturer in the MIT Sloan School of Management, who performed the analysis with Paul L. Joskow, the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor in the Department of Economics.

The cap-and-trade approach to controlling emissions is hardly unprecedented. For years, the US has operated highly successful cap-and-trade systems for emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Based on a national emissions cap, facilities that emit those pollutants receive a limited number of emissions permits, or "allowances," for a given period. Facilities that emit more than their allowed limit must buy allowances from facilities that emit less. Markets for trading allowances operate smoothly, and-in response to the strong economic incentive-facilities have reduced their emissions significantly......... Posted by: Beverly      Read more         Source