Information Technology

In the concrete canyons of city centres, GPS satellite positioning systems often fail because high buildings block the signals they rely on. But an unlikely back-up for GPS is emerging: Wi-Fi. A Wi-Fi based positioning system developed in the US and the UK works best where GPS fails: in cities and inside cavernous complexes like shopping malls. And because cheap Wi-Fi technology is already appearing on a raft of gadgets like PDAs, cellphones and laptops faster than more expensive GPS receivers are

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has received a grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to create a photonic research center to develop ultra-fast light sources for high-speed signal processing and optical communications systems. The grant will provide $6.2 million in funding over four years.

The Hyper-Uniform Nanophotonic Technology Center is directed by Norman K.Y. Cheng, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and a researcher at the university’

IPv6 will play a key role in the next generation Internet. It promises to deliver better quality services than the existing Internet, but how can we be sure? IST project 6QM was set up to ensure service providers deliver what they promise.

The 6QM project has developed technology to measure the quality of service (QoS) in IPv6 networks. “A prominent feature that we are concentrating on in our measurement system is the capability to perform passive flow measurement,” says Rudolf Roth, proje

When he wasn’t experimenting with lightning or overthrowing the British Empire, Benjamin Franklin found time to fool around with mathematics, inventing a variant of the magic square called Franklin’s squares. Now Maya Ahmed, a mathematics graduate student at UC Davis, has come up with a way to construct both Franklin’s own squares and others of the same type. The methods could have applications in computer programming for business.

A regular magic square is a table of numbers in which any

Speed is the name of the game in the world of racing and now UCL scientists have developed a technique that ’breeds’ winning Formula One cars.

By applying Darwinian principles to the art of motor racing, the researchers demonstrate in simulations that it’s possible to knock crucial tenths of a second off lap time by tailoring a car’s setup to whatever conditions are faced on the track.

In a paper to be presented later this month at a conference in Seattle, rese

The commercial launch of the first ever fool-proof document security system is planned for 2006, reports Marina Murphy in Chemistry & Industry magazine. The system, which uses DNA fingerprinting, will allow documents to be authenticated with an accuracy of billions to one against duplication, according to the Australian scientists working on the system.
The scientists plan to use human DNA in documents such as government bonds, securities, bearer bonds, shares and wills for authentication of docu