A collaboration between the University of Leicester Space Research Centre and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is about to reach a new stage as hardware built at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai is sent to Leicester for integration into an x-ray camera.
The camera will eventually be returned to India for installation into Astrosat, India’s first national astronomy satellite. The five instruments in Astrosat’s payload will observe exotic o
The current decade will probably be known as the dawn of pervasive computing, when PCs were dethroned by technology to embed computers in almost everything. The hardware already exists to add features such as artificial intelligence and wireless connectivity to clothing or cars. Thanks to researchers, software is catching up fast.
“Hardware development has reached a stage where it is possible to have a fully-fledged computer with processor, memory and operating system on a board the size
Research initially aimed at helping partially sighted customers use chip & pin keypads has led to the creation of a device which will protect all customers from “Shoulder Surfing” – A method where a “criminally motivated” bystander can casually observe consumers’ secret PIN when paying for goods or services.
Neil Radford an Enterprise Fellow at the University of Warwick has worked with colleagues in the University of Warwick’s Manufacturing Group to create a special easy to
Miniaturised and wireless electronics step in new age
Technical Research Centre of Finland VTT, in co-operation with VTI technologies Oy, has developed a new timer circuit that is one hundred times smaller than the traditional quartz crystal. The substitution of quartz for silicon opens up totally new possibilities for reducing the size of electronic devices and for improving their performance. The device is especially helpful in the realization of wireless electronics. For exampl
The second phase of CERN openlab, a partnership between CERN and leading IT companies, was officially launched at a ceremony at CERN today. The industrial partners in this second phase are HP , Intel and Oracle . The second phase of CERN openlab builds on experience from the last three years, where the partnership produced many excellent technical results in the field of cluster and Grid computing. Activities for the start-up of the second phase of CERN openlab are based around a Platform Competenc
If computers could create a society, what kind of world would they make? Thanks to the work of an ambitious project that adds a whole new meaning to the phrase, ‘computer society’, in which millions of software agents will potentially evolve their own culture, we could be about to find out.
With funding from the European Commission’s Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) initiative of the IST programme, five European research institutes are collaborating on the NEW TIES project
Mobile Carriers, Operators, Device Companies Present New Standards-based Model for Content Authoring
Today, the World Wide Web Consortium announces the publication of the Device Independence Authoring Language (DIAL), which facilitates authoring for an ever-expanding range of mobile devices. The W3C Device Independence Working Group invites review and discussion with the community of this First Public Working Draft.
“The DIAL suite makes the most of existing, established
Dundee today moved a step closer to becoming Scotland’s city of wireless innovation, with the announcement of a partnership between the University of Abertay Dundee and LastMile Communications, the British company pioneering a wireless delivery platform using WiFi.
Under the agreement, the Abertay campus will become a test bed for LastMile’s state-of-the-art node-based wireless information system. The technology offers end user-focused content to mobile devices on demand, and tailo
A man gets lost when hiking. He is unable to tell the rescue service his exact position even though his mobile is working. Meanwhile, a pedigree dog, the apple of the owner’s eye, runs off. What to do these people do?
Mobile phone positioning helps locate lost people quickly and reliably. In the future, the volume of positioning services is expected to grow and their quality improve when the US GPS service is complemented by the European Galileo satellite positioning system.
During a ceremony held in Toulouse on 11 May 2006, ESA officially awarded EADS Astrium the contract to develop and build the Gaia satellite. The goal of this space mission, currently planned for launch in 2011, is to make the largest, most precise map of our own Galaxy to date.
The contract, worth 317 million Euros, has been jointly signed by ESA’s Director of Science, Professor David Southwood, and Antoine Bouvier, Chief Executive Officer for EADS Astrium. The Toulouse branch w
Developing ways to connect homes and businesses to the internet without using wires is the aim of a new project announced today. The research at Imperial College London could help users across Europe to access the internet, by removing the need to lay out connecting phone lines or other cables between the public internet and a user’s building or network.
At present, although it is possible to make use of wireless technology within homes and office buildings, the connection from th
Genes are the underlying cause of a large number of disorders. But identifying and studying these genes more closely is a major challenge for biotechnologists worldwide. Researchers from ESAT-SCD (Engineering Sciences) and the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) connected to the Catholic University of Leuven have now developed ENDEAVOUR: a computer program that compiles and processes data from a variety of databases and identifies the genes that play a key role in the origin o
A pet dog sits on command, but nobody expects an insect to follow human instructions. So it may come as a surprise to learn that researchers recently succeeded in controlling cockroaches with tiny mobile robots. The results hint at a future where we can interact and communicate with many different kinds of animal.
Little larger than a thumbnail, the cubic insect-like robots or ‘insbots’ are technological marvels. Developed under the European Commission’s Future and Emerging Technologies (
New method can identify what genes do, test drugs’ safety
Utah and Texas researchers combined miniature medical CT scans with high-tech computer methods to produce detailed three-dimensional images of mouse embryos – an efficient new method to test the safety of medicines and learn how mutant genes cause birth defects or cancer.
“Our method provides a fast, high-quality and inexpensive way to visually explore the 3-D internal structure of mouse embryos so scientists
A biometric security system which had been developed by specialists of the Scientific Production Association “INFORMATION” was awarded the best innovation product title at the 12th International Exhibition “Guarding, Security and Fire Protection MIPS-2006”. The system’s peculiarity lies in utilization of a 3D image of the face for identification of a person. Only within a second and a half, the turnstile equipped by this system would create and analyze such image, and take a decision based on rec
Thanks to a series of highly successful projects in the EUREKA MEDEA+ Cluster, Europe leads the way in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography for the production of future generations of semiconductor chips. As a result of strong co-operation between chipmakers, equipment suppliers and research centres, European companies will dominate the world market for equipment and materials. This is expected to generate some 18,000 jobs, mainly at a high technical level, as well as a €1 billion turnover b
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