A researcher at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) at Virginia Tech is developing a database and computational tools to help scientists learn more about how certain genes in tomatoes affect the crop’s flavor and nutritional value.
The Tomato Metabolite Database, which is being implemented by Zhangjun Fei, a senior bioinformatics scientist in VBI’s Cyberinfrastructure Group, will be used to store a wide range of information and data about tomato, including microarray and
Robotiker-Tecnalia has designed a wireless Braille keyboard for ONCE (the Spanish National Association for the Blind) which is compact and incorporates bluetooth technology. The design is such that it enables visually impaired persons (more than 80,000 in Spain and more than a million in Europe) to use this communication interface with a number of current appliances and devices, such as PCs and PDA / Pocket PCs or mobile cell phones.
Thus, those persons with a visual disablement will have
An ambitious five-year project will attempt to make eye-tracking technologies more affordable for people with disabilities and extend the potential use of the devices to enable users to live more independently.
The Communication by Gaze Interaction (COGAIN) project will examine current state-of-the-art technologies, develop new software standards to extend the available products and research new applications for the technology based on end-users’ real needs.
“It’s a
Clear skies for Red Storm
A new series of measurements — the next step in evolution of criteria to determine more accurately the efficiency of supercomputers — has rated Sandia National Laboratories’ Red Storm computer the best in the world in two of six new categories, and very high in two other important categories.
Red Storm had previously been judged 6th fastest in the world on the old but more commonly accepted Linpack test.
The two first-place ben
“GoPubMed is a sort of an intelligent Google for biomedical specialists,” explains Dr Michael Alvers, CEO and Co-founder of Transinsight. “The search engine saves time and so accelerates research significantly.”
Founded in November 2005, Transinsight is a software company focused on the life sciences that provides products and solutions for intelligent search technologies. Their main product, GoPubMed, was partly developed during the IST project, Biogrid, by Professor Michael Schroeder
Emerging mobile services are demanding an ever-increasing amount of bandwidth, but the radio spectrum for third generation (3G) and beyond systems is in short supply. Algorithms developed by European researchers are helping operators better manage their precious bandwidth resources.
The EVEREST project developed and tested advanced algorithms to provide mobile operators with enhanced Radio Resource Management (RRM) techniques aimed at reducing the risk of communications bottlenecks at a t
Wireless sensor networks consisting of multiple objects, each capable of simple sensing, actuation, communication and processing have tremendous potential. To better realise their full capabilities researchers are developing a broad vision of innovative future applications.
Wireless sensor networks are a typical example of a network of ‘cooperating objects’, tiny embedded computers that cooperate together to produce an intended result. Such embedded systems, be they tiny processo
Airport security experts at Manchester Metropolitan University are developing new bag scanning technology that could automatically detect weapons. Dr Peter Twigg, a senior lecturer in the Department of Engineering and Technology, is carrying out tests at Manchester Airport to find out how guns, pistols and hand grenades can be identified using an automated control system. The system aims to pick up weapons by matching their outline against objects in a pre-stored database.
Existin
VTT, Technical Research Centre of Finland, announced a new product development technology for the software industry. By using VTT’s new agile methods, savings of as much as 70 per cent can be gained in the development of new software products. The method developed by VTT is being introduced in several Finnish and European companies.
VTT has developed an agile method called Mobile-D, the results of which have been transferred to industry at a fast pace. In the pilots for the software
A revolutionary manner of distributing TV programmes via the Internet, the new peer-to-peer Tribler system, based on open-source software, has been launched.
Various public broadcasting corporations, commercial TV stations and cable and telecommunications companies are all showing keen interest in the distribution of television programmes via the Internet. While the current method makes use of centrally located computer systems, research is now being conducted at Delft Un
The revolutionary model plane has been developed as part of a £6.2m programme, involving engineers from the University of Leicester, funded jointly by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and BAE Systems.
The five-year programme is called FLAVIIR – flapless air vehicle integrated industrial research – and involves teams from Leicester, Liverpool, Nottingham, Southampton, Swansea, Warwick, York and London. Manchester University’s Goldstein Aeronautical Resea
Paper labels in supermarkets could become a thing of the past, thanks to a revolutionary digital display system that could also give mobile phones a much longer life.
The new type of electronic display could save retailers millions by allowing product information on the supermarket shelves to be changed globally, at the touch of a button. Labour costs linked to price changes in stores could plummet and supermarkets will be doing their bit for the environment by scrapping the paper
The first 3D maps of the UK underworld are to be created in a new £2.2m project which will save the UK millions of pounds by reducing the amount we dig up our roads.
There are enough pipes and cables buried under our streets to stretch to the moon and back ten times, but we don’t know where many of them are. Researchers from the Universities of Leeds and Nottingham will help to locate them, by finding a way to integrate existing digital and paper-based records and link these with
A new platform to help small and medium-sized government organisations (SMGOs) implement e-government strategies – with the emphasis on cross-border cooperation – has been created and tested by a pan-European team.
With people, goods, and now services, able to move freely within the Member States of the European Union, it’s perhaps surprising how exchanging information across borders can still present such a barrier. Yet even in border regions, cities geographically close to each
A study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows that computerized systems that match fingerprints using interoperable minutiae templates–mathematical representations of a fingerprint image–can be highly accurate as an alternative to the full fingerprint image. NIST conducted the study, called the Minutiae Interoperability Exchange Test (MINEX), to determine whether fingerprint system vendors could successfully use a recently approved standard* for minutiae data rather t
Optical-wireless convergence
Telecommunications researchers have demonstrated a novel communications network design that would provide both ultra-high-speed wireless and wired access services from the same signals carried on a single optical fiber.
The new hybrid system could allow dual wired/wireless transmission of the same content such as high-definition television, data and voice up to 100 times faster than current networks. The new architecture would reduce the cost o
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