Phys.org November 7, 2018 Researchers in Japan developed a terahertz pulse generator that delivered ultra-short and highly intense terahertz pulses across a pair of gold antennas. The pulses created an electric field in the material composed of germanium, antimony and tellurium (GST) sample, comparable to that of an electrically switched device. It greatly reduced the heat diffusion because of the extremely short duration of terahertz pulses enabling fine control over the rate and direction of GST crystallization. After a certain point when terahertz pulses were increased, crystal conductivity rapidly sped up instead of rising in line with the increase in […]
Impact through research: applied research for Europe’s future
Fraunhaufer Research News November 6, 2018 How can application-oriented research and technology help solve global challenges? This question will be explored by the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and nine other leading European Research and Technology Organisations (RTO) at the “The RTO Innovation Summit“conference on 6–7 November 2018 in Brussels. Representatives from the RTOs will be discussing with delegates from European institutions, industrialists and politicians. They will present their vision and technology roadmap until 2030 and beyond for Europe. Five core issues are – Climate protection, Environment, Resource efficiency and raw materials, Digitalization and industry, Foodstuffs and Natural resources, Inclusive and safe society, and […]
How to Encode a Secret Message in a Fingerprint
IEEE Spectrum November 2, 2018 Researchers in China have developed a sophisticated way to construct digital fingerprints that encode secret messages into the continuous lines that occasionally swirl into spiral points. The technique involves mapping the message to a polynomial and encode it into a set of points with different polarities, from which the spiral phase is computed and constructed. The continuous phase is constructed by decomposing a fingerprint image synthetically generated. The spiral phase and the continuous phase are combined to form the hologram phase to form a common from. They have demonstrated that the encoded message can be […]
‘Folded’ optical devices manipulate light in a new way
Phys.org October 31, 2018 In metasurface-based optical systems, most of the total volume inside the device is just free space through which light propagates between different elements. Free space makes it difficult to scale down the device. To overcome this limitation, a team of researchers in the US (Caltech, UMass Amherst) has introduced a technology called “folded metasurface optics,” which is a way of printing multiple types of metasurfaces onto either side of a substrate making the substrate itself a propagation space for the light. They demonstrated the technique by building a spectrometer. The folded metasystem design can be applied […]
Chinese New Mini Robot Carries Micro Intelligent Missiles
Defense Update November 6, 2018 A new robotic vehicle displayed at ‘Airshow China’ is equipped with a ‘micro-intelligent missile’. The tube-launched weapon weighs only one kilogram but is equipped with energetic rocket propulsion powerful enough to carry it on a flight up to 2,000 meters and a warhead, designed to defeat light armor. The missile that measures 40mm in diameter and 500mm in length looks similar in size and shape to Raytheon’s Pike missile designed that is also launched from 40mm grenade launchers. The weapon uses electro-optical guidance to deliver an accuracy of 0.5 meters with a lethality radius of […]
China Air Pollution fight is the current biggest global environmental effort
Next Big Future November 2, 2018 Over the next five-years China is implementing emission controls of diesel trucks that are cleaner than the level 6 European standard. There will be European level 6 standard by 2020 for China’s trucks. China is replacing a million heavy duty diesel trucks, almost 20 percent of the national fleet, with ones that burn cleaner fuel by 2020. This will cost China $2.8 billion annually by 2030 but it will return $57 billion in health and other benefits. Each $1 it costs China, it returns $21 and tens of thousands of lives are saved every […]
Top 10 Science and Technology Inventions for the Week of November 2, 2018
01. Light-bending tech shrinks kilometers-long radiation system to millimeter scale 02. Multi-functional quantum bits for future computers 03. New composite material that can cool itself down under extreme temperatures 04. Researchers design ‘smart’ surfaces to repel everything but targeted beneficial exceptions 05. Shape-shifting robots perceive surroundings, make decisions for first time 06. Entangled Photons Sneak through Hole Unscathed 07. Acoustic tractor beam can grab objects from behind obstacles 08. Army scientists develop computational model to predict human behavior 09. A USB stick? In the distant future, a little powder should suffice 10. Artificial intelligence controls quantum computers And others… China […]
A USB stick? In the distant future, a little powder should suffice
Nanowerk October 29, 2018 Researchers in Belgium developed a chemical process that allowed information, such as a piece of text or a QR code, to be stored in powder form. This information can then be read out by means of a biochemical method of analysis. They wrote two programs to make the processing of information run fast and automatically. The first program makes sure that the data on the molecules can be analysed in seconds, the second program automates the translation process from the QR code to the molecules and vice versa. That is how the information stored in the […]
Shape-shifting robots perceive surroundings, make decisions for first time
Science Daily November 1, 2018 A team of researchers in the US (Cornell University, University of Pennsylvania) has developed a modular robot system capable of autonomously completing high-level tasks by reactively reconfiguring to meet the needs of a perceived, a priori unknown environment. The system integrates perception, high-level planning, and modular hardware and is validated in three hardware demonstrations. Given a high-level task specification, a modular robot autonomously explores an unknown environment, decides when and how to reconfigure, and manipulates objects to complete its task. The research has begun to lay the groundwork for modular self-reconfigurable robots to address tasks […]
The Rodney Brooks Rules for Predicting a Technology’s Commercial Success
IEEE Spectrum October 25, 2018 Rodney Brooks, Chairman and CTO of Rethink and cofounder of Robotics, presents a short list of technology projects that are now under way or at least under serious discussion. In each case he points out features that tend to make a technology easy or hard to bring to market. In pointing out the differences that make one technology harder than another he is not preaching technological defeatism but suggesting that we properly gauge the difficulty of whatever we are told could be the next big thing… read more.