E-commerce transactions are becoming more and more frequent in today’s fast-paced society. How about going one step further and making these transactions through your mobile phone, television set top box or even pen and diary based services. The technology breakthroughs achieved by the EUREKA Cluster Project A302 (Esp@ss-is) on smartcard platform development have improved the quality and the type of data that can be processed reducing even more the risks of identity theft.

In the past, a

Burglars often listen at windows and doors, leaving an earprint behind, which, just like a finger print, can be used to trace them. Lynn Meijerman is researching the value of ear prints as evidence in identifying criminals. She obtained her doctorate on 15th February, under the supervision of Professor George Maat.

In one out of every twenty burglaries the burglar leaves an earprint behind, at least this seems to be the case in and around Leiden. Fingerprints have long been accept

The world’s largest particle detector is nearing completion following the construction of its ‘endcap’ at the University of Liverpool.

Its assembly of advanced apparatus, at the University’s Semiconductor Detector Centre, has been a joint effort by physicists, engineers and technicians from the Universities of Liverpool, Glasgow, Lancaster, Manchester and Sheffield as well as Daresbury and Rutherford Laboratories.

The endcap is part of a semiconductor tracker (SCT) bas

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who recently reported that DNA-wrapped carbon nanotubes could serve as sensors in living cells now say the tiny tubes can be used to target specific DNA sequences. Potential applications for the new sensors range from rapid detection of hazardous biological agents to simpler and more efficient forensic identification.

In the Jan. 27 issue of the journal Science, chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Michael

Scientists who hope to use quantum dots as the building blocks for the next generation of computers have found a way to make these artificial atoms communicate.

“Essentially, the dots talk to each other,” said Ameenah Al-Ahmadi, an Ohio University doctoral student who published the findings with Professor of Physics Sergio Ulloa in a recent issue of the journal Applied Physics Letters.

The dots are tiny, engineered spherical crystals about 5 nanometers in diameter. An

A study by an academic at The University of Nottingham gives us the first observational evidence for how massive galaxies in our universe formed.

The implications of the study are vast and are being used by astronomers to explain seemingly unrelated processes such as how massive black holes and the universe’s stars came to be.

The research, led by Dr Christopher J Conselice, of the University’s School of Physics and Astronomy, which is published in the February 20 edi

On Dec. 27, 2004, scientists detected the largest gamma-ray burst ever recorded. It came from a magnetar–a neutron star with an enormous magnetic field–50,000 light years away. Its powerful rays penetrated deep into the ionosphere, the electrically conductive layer encircling Earth. On Feb. 19 in St. Louis at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Stanford electrical engineering Professor Umran Inan will describe what scientists learned from thi

Space science discoveries are being made in earthly labs

Reaching for the stars isn’t so out of reach these days. With the development of increasingly sophisticated instruments, researchers not only are able to get more detailed information about circumstellar and interstellar dust from afar by using advanced telescopes, but they also are now able to study actual stardust right in their own labs.

Since the discovery two decades ago that primitive meteorites contain

Scientists at the University of Chicago are among the first ever to analyze cometary dust delivered to Earth via spacecraft.

Scientists routinely examine extraterrestrial material that has fallen to Earth as meteorites, but never before NASA’s Stardust mission have they had access to verified samples of a comet. The leftover debris from the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago, comets consist mostly of ice, dust and rock.

“We think comets make up a hug

A new technique developed by an Indiana University School of Informatics scientist provides a strong shield against identity theft and cyber attacks.

Cybersecurity expert Markus Jakobsson and the start-up RavenWhite Inc., of which Jakobsson is a co-founder, have developed an “active cookie,” a countermeasure designed to protect against online scams such as pharming and man-in-the-middle attacks.

Pharming is obtaining personal or private (usually financial) information thr

Protoypes can help designers meet user needs

Before Jeff Hawkins ever started making the original Palm Pilot digital organizer he prototyped it as a block of wood with fake buttons and a paper screen. To this day the Palm Pilot is a successful design of human and computer interaction that remains all too rare, says Stanford computer science Assistant Professor Scott Klemmer. Every time a person uses a computer–a desktop, a cell phone or even a chip-enabled coffee maker–the inter

To present at AAAS meeting in St. Louis

Consumers who shop online may be risking their privacy with every purchase, contends University of Massachusetts Amherst computer scientist Kevin Fu. His research suggests that a confluence of factors, including the widespread use of cookies and demand for quick and easy transactions, results in Web sites that are often insecure.

“Much Web security rests on illusion and hope,” says Fu, who will discuss how Web sites leak private

The historic city of Bath in England will become the scene of a city-wide wireless computing network as part of a research project that could influence the future of mobile phone technology across the globe.

The £1.6 million Cityware project, based at the University of Bath, will turn the city centre into a ‘pervasive’ computing zone where users have access to computer services wherever they are and at all times, without disrupting Bath’s famous 18th century Georgian architec

A new optical effect has been created in a London laboratory that means solid objects such as walls could one day be rendered transparent, scientists report today in the journal Nature Materials.

Researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland, have pioneered the technique which could be used to see through rubble at earthquake sites, or look at parts of the body obscured by bone.

The effect is based on the development of a new materi

A new study by a researcher at The University of Nottingham has provided the first observational evidence of how massive galaxies in our universe formed.

The results of this study have major implications for many other areas of research and are being used by astronomers to explain seemingly unrelated processes such as how massive black holes and the universe’s stars came to be.

The research, led by Dr. Christopher J. Conselice of the University’s School of Phy

One hundred days after beginning its cruise to Venus, ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft successfully tested its main engine for the first time in space.

The main engine test is a critical step in the mission. In fact, it is due to its powerful thrust that Venus Express will be able to ‘brake’ on arrival at Venus. The spacecraft must slow down in order to be captured in orbit around the planet.

The engine was fired during the night of 16/17 February, starting at 01:27 CET