Eyeglasses with built-in computer monitors could soon be a reasonable alternative to reading text from a traditional computer screen, according to new research from Ohio State University.
Participants in a recent study rated the comfort and performance of these so-called near-eye displays as comparable to that of traditional computer monitors. Near-eye displays are like eyeglasses with a monitor built into the lenses.
“The problems with near-eye devices range from motion sickness t
Equipment used at home, as well as at offices, is more and more powerful and although their interfaces are also more comprehensive, they are more complicated to understand.
One of the causes of that problem may be that the common interfaces based on windows, icons, menus, etc. do not have enough control of all the present technological aspects.
A possible solution could be to provide the system with an assistant function equipped with a universal, efficient and easy to use interfac
That bar code on your cereal box holds information read by a laser scanner. It’s not much information, but it’s enough to let the supermarket take your money, keep track of inventory, follow trends in customer preference, and restock its shelves. Scanners and bar codes speed up checkout, but they’ve got a few limitations. The scanning laser needs a direct line of sight to the bar code, and the bar code itself needs to be reasonably clean and undamaged – one reason your cashier might ha
Researchers at Oregon State University have made a significant breakthrough in the technology to produce crystalline oxide films, which play roles in semiconductor chips, flat panel displays and many other electronic products.
In a report to be published Friday in the journal Science, the OSU scientists explain a way to create these crystalline thin films at temperatures far lower than those used currently, and with no need to be produced in a vacuum as the current technology usually requir
New parallel library allows maximum performance for communication networks
A new message-passing library that makes it possible to extract optimum performance from both workstation and personal computer clusters, as well as from large massively parallel supercomputers has been developed by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory. The new library, called MP_Lite, supports and enhances the basic capabilities that most software programs require to communicate bet
Hackers who try to use or copy software illegally may soon find a sticky web waiting to trap them.
It’s not the World Wide Web. Instead, it’s a new approach under development at Purdue University designed to protect software. By placing a linked brigade of hundreds of tiny “guards” at different points within software code, computer scientists have made it far more difficult for hackers to use software without permission from the vendor.
“Merely cracking a single p
Digital images that have been tampered with could now be spotted – thanks to a digital ‘watermark’ developed by UK scientists
Digital images such as CCTV footage are increasingly being used as evidence in high profile court cases. However, it is easy to tamper with an image and very difficult to tell if any manipulation has taken place.
Researchers have created a digital version of a watermark to tackle this problem and validate digital evidence. The team is led by Profes
Researchers at the University of Toronto have discovered a new technique to form tiny perfect crystals that have high optical quality, a finding that could usher in a new era of ultra-fast computing and communication using photons instead of electrons.
These crystals, called photonic crystals, could greatly improve both speed and bandwidth in communications systems, says University Professor Geoffrey Ozin of the Department of Chemistry.
“All of the promises of what photonic crysta
In a discovery that could greatly reduce the size and cost of computer chips, Princeton researchers have found a fast method for printing ultrasmall patterns in silicon wafers.
The method, described in the June 20 issue of Nature, could allow electronics manufacturers to increase the density of transistors on silicon chips by 100-fold while dramatically streamlining the production process. Packing more transistors onto chips is the key to making more powerful computer processors and memory c
Philips has demonstrated the world’s first fully functional miniature optical disc drive using blue laser technology. Up to 1 Gbyte of data can be stored on a single-sided optical disc of just 3 cm in diameter, matching the size constraints of portable devices such as digital cameras, mobile phones, PDAs and portable Internet devices. This prototype illustrates Philips’ leadership in optical storage technology, which is driven by superb media robustness and the low cost per Mbyte of the storage me
Durham University scientists have successfully carried out a basic computer operation using a magnetic microchip – a major step along the way to establishing a new generation of electronics and computer technology.
They are working in the rapidly growing field of nanotechnology, harnessing the magnetic properties of electrons, rather than their electrical charge on which conventional electronics is based. Magnetic microchips could, in the future, offer a range of benefits over standard chips
IBM supercomputers connected via high-speed, optical-fiber network
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue University and Indiana University have succeeded in linking their IBM supercomputers in a computational grid via the universities’ high-speed optical network, creating a facility capable of performing a trillion operations per second.
The process works by breaking complex programs into small segments, which are then “distributed” across hundreds of separate processors contain
Top quality colour printing could be revolutionised thanks to the revival in Bristol of an old printing process once used to create, among other things, colour charts for selecting glass eyes. Art researchers from the University of the West of England have discovered a 21st century use for the process, known as collotype, which fell out of favour during the early 1900s. As an added bonus, new inks are being developed which unlike current computer colour printouts, won`t fade over time.
In th
Who has not wound up nowhere in an Internet search for information that should be available about a company, an institution, or an organization? Who has not then longed to have someone to talk to who could answer questions with no hassle or waste of time? Johan Åberg, from the Department of Computer Science at Linköping University, Sweden, has studied what such a human help system might look like.
Automatic help systems with computerized answers already exist. But they seldom work very well
Researchers at the University of Kent at Canterbury (UKC) have been working with a group of more than two hundred volunteers from among the general public to develop better ways to tackle credit card fraud.
Working with partners across Europe, Professor Mike Fairhurst and Dr Farzin Deravi, from UKC`s Electronics Department, are currently developing a new smart card, which includes a small fingerprint sensor. The credit card user will need to match the fingerprint before the card can be used
Even a conventional mobile phone user demands more functions and better performance of his mobile phone in the smallest possible space. The mobile phone should also be easy to use, reliable and inexpensive. In order to meet these demands, more data and functions than before must be packed into the circuit boards of mobile phones in the future.
The researchers at the Helsinki University of Technology have met this challenge by developing a new type of production method for electronics, a so-c
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