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Researchers Propose Password in a Heartbeat
Researchers at Rice University have come up with a secure way to dramatically cut the risk that an implanted medical device (IMD) could be altered remotely without authorization.
News: Energy
'Wired Microbes' Generate Electricity from Sewage
Engineers at Stanford University have devised a new way to generate electricity from sewage using naturally-occurring “wired microbes” as mini power plants, producing electricity as they digest plant and animal waste.
Question of the Week
Will 'Bodies on a Chip' Improve Drug Testing in the near Future?
A new bioprinting project, backed by $24 million from the U.S. Department of Defense, will attempt to 3D-print miniature human organs. The 2-inch "body on a chip" will test how the human body reacts to diseases, chemical warfare agents, and new drugs intended to defend against...
News
Technology Enables Depth Perception Through a Single Lens
Researchers at Harvard have developed a way for photographers and microscopists to create a 3D image through a single lens, without moving the camera. The technology relies only on computation and mathematics — no unusual hardware or fancy lenses. The effect is the equivalent of seeing a...
News: Unmanned Systems
Rover Camera Upgrade Could Improve Discovery on Distant Worlds
As smart as the Curiosity rover has been about landing and finding its own way on a distant world, the rover is pretty brainless when it comes to doing the science that it was sent 567 million kilometers to carry out. That has to change if future rover missions are to make discoveries...
INSIDER: Electronics & Computers
Networks of spherical nanoparticles embedded in elastic materials may make the best stretchy conductors yet, engineering researchers at the University of Michigan have discovered. Flexible...
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INSIDER: Electronics & Computers
A team at the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering has developed a novel way to build what many see as the next generation memory storage devices for...
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INSIDER Product: Electronics & Computers
Verotec (Derry, NH) supports the Eurocard standard with its KM6 family of subracks. For light and medium duty general-purpose applications, Verotec’s KM6-II, which meets the requirements of DIN41494 and IEC...
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INSIDER Product: Electronics & Computers
Diamond Systems (Mountain View, CA) has introduced a rugged, low cost 4-port multiprotocol opto-isolated serial port module in the popular PCIe MiniCard form factor measuring 30 x 51mm. The DS-MPE-SER4OPT offers 4...
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INSIDER Product: Electronics & Computers
TDK Corporation (San Diego, CA) has extended its GWS500 series power supplies with the addition of two low output voltage models: a 5V 80A and a 7.5V 67A unit. The GWS series is a 400W to 500W AC/DC, forced...
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INSIDER Product: Electronics & Computers
ADLINK Technology, Inc. (San Jose, CA) has announced the release of its new high-speed digital I/O module, the PCIe-7360, which supports up to 100 MHz data rate and 400 MB/s throughput, with parallel and...
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News: Robotics, Automation & Control
Researchers Assess Snake Robot for Mars Exploration
SINTEF, an independent research organization in Scandinavia, will work to combine a rover and snake robot for Mars exploration. The researchers envision using the rover to navigate over large distances, after which the snake robot can detach itself and crawl into tight, inaccessible areas.
News
Photonic Band Gap Material Steers Light in New Ways
A team of San Francisco State University researchers is the first to build and demonstrate the ability of two-dimensional disordered photonic band gap material, designed to be a platform to control light in unprecedented ways.
News
Voyager 1 Ventures into Interstellar Space
NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft officially is the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space. The 36-year-old probe is about 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from the sun.
Question of the Week
Will Biometrics Become a Must-have for Consumers?
Apple Inc. added a fingerprint scanner to its latest version of the iPhone, offering biometric security possibilities for workplaces or mobile commerce. Some analysts say that Apple's embrace of fingerprint scanning could lead to wider adoption and mainstream usage. Many laptops, external...
News
Software Helps Stabilize Aircraft During Takeoff and Landing
One of the concerns about commercial aircraft is their stability on the ground during taxiing, takeoff, and landing. During these processes, planes must maintain stability under various operating conditions. However, in some situations, the aircraft landing gear displays unwanted...
News: Software
3D Earth Analysis Pinpoints Source of Earthquakes and Explosions
Under the sponsorship of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation R&D, Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National have partnered to develop a 3D model of the Earth’s mantle and crust called SALSA3D, or Sandia-Los...
News
Robot Moves Along Power Lines to Search for Damage
Mechanical engineers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) invented a robot designed to scoot along utility lines, searching for damage and other problems that require repairs. Made of off-the-shelf electronics and plastic parts printed on an inexpensive 3D printer, the SkySweeper...
News
Electric Bus Uses Novel Battery Management and Drive Control Systems
Electric mobility may be economically efficient today. Battery-based electric drives can be applied efficiently in urban buses, for instance. Frequent acceleration and slow-down processes as well as a high utilization rate in short-distance traffic make their use profitable even...
News
Researchers 3D-Print Interlocking Building Blocks
Purdue researchers are working with the U.S. Army Research Laboratory to develop a technology for creating parts out of interlocking segments.
INSIDER: Photonics/Optics
Bending light beams to your whim sounds like a job for a wizard or a complex array of bulky mirrors, lenses and prisms, but a few tiny liquid bubbles may be all that is necessary to open the doors...
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News
Programmable DNA Glue Guides Self-Assembling Devices
A team of researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University has found a way to self-assemble complex structures out of bricks smaller than a grain of salt. The self-assembly method could help solve one of the major challenges in tissue engineering:...
News
New Sensors Map Lightning Strikes
To better predict severe weather, a device developed at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) has become a valuable tool in researchers' quest to determine how lightning is spawned in clouds.
News
Inflatable Antennae Gives CubeSats Greater Reach
"CubeSats,” and other small satellites, are making space exploration cheaper and more accessible: The minuscule probes can be launched into orbit at a fraction of the weight and cost of traditional satellites.
Question of the Week
Will Wearable Computing Become Mainstream?
Bluetooth HD earmuffs, made by activewear company 180s, will debut this fall. The Bluetooth product, which warms your ears while also hiding speakers and a microphone, is another example of wearable computing — a technology area that includes trendy devices like smartwatches and Google Glass. Many...
INSIDER: Photonics/Optics
There are several ways to “trap” a beam of light — usually with mirrors, other reflective surfaces, or high-tech materials such as photonic crystals. But now researchers at MIT have discovered a...
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INSIDER Product: Photonics/Optics
Precision Glass & Optics (PG&O) (Santa Ana, CA) has announced a line of Littrow dispersion prisms for laser cavities and other optical systems, such as spectrographs. PG&O offers a wide range of coated and...
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INSIDER Product: Photonics/Optics
IDS Imaging Development Systems (Woburn, MA) announced that it is shipping its new uEye™ XS, the world's smallest machine vision camera with autofocus. Measuring a compact 23 x 26.5 x 21.5 mm (.9" x 1.04" x...
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INSIDER Product: Photonics/Optics
Optical Surfaces’ (Surrey, UK) beam expanders incorporate off-axis mirrors which provide an unobstructed output and highly efficient transmission. Beam expanders are the optical tool of choice for increasing the...
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