Whacked on Goofballs

KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News

• 3D chip stacking to take Moore's Law past 2020 March 12, 2010
  By combining 3D-stack-architecture of multiple cores with hair-thin, liquid-cooled microchannels, IBM and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich hope to extend Moore's law for another decade or more. 3D chip stacks with interlayer cooling overcome the bandwidth bottleneck between core and cache memory and allow for systems with a much higher effic […]
• Lasers + nanotubes create invisible wireless speakers March 12, 2010
  High-quality, intense sound can be generated when vertical arrays of nanotubes ("forests") are struck with laser light modulated by sound, University of Texas At Dallas researchers have discovered. The nanotubes absorb energy from the laser light, inducing variations in the pressure of the air around the nanotubes, which are perceived as sound (the […]
• How electricity moves through cells March 12, 2010
  Researchers at the University of Minnesota have created a molecular image of a system that moves electrons between proteins in cells, obtained using x-ray crystallography. The study could provide insights to minimize energy loss in other systems, from shrinking electronic circuitry to a more efficient electrical grid. More info: University of Minnesota Colle […]
• Reading minds with computers and fMRI March 12, 2010
  Past events leave unique "memory traces" in the hippocampus of the brain that can be distinguished from one another in fMRI brain scans, a study at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London has found. While inside an fMRI scanner, volunteers were asked to recall each of three films they had just seen. A computer algori […]
• Robot toddler gets an upgrade March 12, 2010
  A consortium of European universities has added more functional hands and legs to the iCub robot, built to test theories about how children think, learn and develop. (Tony Kyriacou/Rex Features) (Source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18634-robot-toddler-gets-an-upgrade.html)
• Rob Glaser Defines the Superphone and Predicts the Mobile Future March 11, 2010
  By 2013 the installed base of smart phones and "superphones" will exceed the installed base of PCs, and those web-surfing devices will be mobile, says Rob Glaser, chairman of RealNetworks. (Source: http://gigaom.com/2010/03/10/rob-glaser-defines-the-superphone-and-predicts-the-mobile-future/)
• Disease Cause Is Pinpointed With Genome March 11, 2010
  Two research teams have independently decoded the entire genome of patients to find the exact genetic cause of their diseases. The approach may offer a new start in identifying the genetic roots of major killers like heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer's. Geneticists said the new research showed it was now possible to sequence the entire genome of a p […]
• The scientific brain March 11, 2010
  The brain's main job, like that of a scientist, is to generate hypotheses about what is going on in the outside world, a Max Planck Institute for Brain Research study suggests. It takes less effort for the brain to register predictable than unpredictable images. (Max Planck Institute for Brain Research) More info: Max Planck Institute for Brain Research […]
• Solar power could provide 10% of US energy: report March 11, 2010
  The U.S. could source 10 percent of its electricity from solar power by 2030, up from just 0.1 percent in 2008, according to a report produced by the independent environmental group Environment America. (Source: http://www.physorg.com/news187445269.html)
• Bottled Wind Could Be as Constant as Coal March 11, 2010
  The Electric Power Research Institute and the Department of Energy have identified grid-scale storage as a key need for the rapidly diversifying electricity system, and compressed-air energy storage looks like the cheapest option available. In the last four months, four compressed-air projects have gotten new funding. (Source: http://www.wired.com/wiredscien […]