Tech
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Computing
Making the Macintosh
Interested in computer history? Alex S. Pang of the Stanford University Library has assembled fascinating material from a variety of sources, including papers donated to the university from Apple’s corporate library, to portray the invention and emergence of the Macintosh personal computer. The evolving Web site includes sections on counterculture and computing, the early Macintosh, […]
- Tech
Flying Leap
In the history of human flight, first came the daring tinkerers who gave wings to the pent-up human desire to soar. In the wake of their successes came a remarkable proliferation of flying machines, spacecraft, and colorful characters. At this Web site, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics celebrates these achievements with an annotated […]
- Tech
Hop . . . Hop . . . Hopbots!
Two prototype jumping robots that hop, crash-and-land, and then hop again are demonstrating a novel mobility concept that may finally enable small, cheap robots to roam widely over rough terrain.
- Tech
Simple system may curb auto emissions
Researchers have developed a four-component system that acts like an on-vehicle oil refinery and may help significantly reduce the hydrocarbon emissions from internal combustion engines.
- Tech
Technique puts more data into airwaves
A new approach that exploits the orientations of the electric and magnetic fields in radio waves may increase data flows to and from cell phones and other wireless devices by up to a factor of six.
- Tech
Current may flow free and cheap
Wires that carry electricity without resistance at relatively high temperatures--and are inexpensive--moved a large step closer to reality as a 100-fold speed-up in depositing a key material wiped out a major obstacle to making those wires.
- Tech
From silicon seeds, laser might sprout
The achievement of light amplification in a layer of tiny nuggets of silicon called quantum dots raises the possibility that long-desired silicon lasers are on the way.
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- Tech
Ink-jet dots form transistor spots
A new technique makes ink-jet printing of transistor circuits possible from conductive polymer inks.
- Tech
Tiny tubes could ease eavesdropping
A team of researchers is developing highly sensitive acoustic sensors using ordered arrays of carbon nanotubes, which act much like the rodlike stereocilia of the inner ear.
- Tech
When the Chips are Down
Scientists seek alternatives to a computer technology nearing its limits.
- Tech
Novel sensing system catches the dud spud
A new device can detect a single potato that's infected with bacterial soft rot while buried deep in a storage crate with hundreds of healthy tubers.
