IBM develops 'instantaneous' memory, 100x faster than flash. IBM Researchers Create Device Which Uses Light for Communication Between Computer Chips. Web giants promote new IPv6 internet address system. 8 June 2011Last updated at 00:03 Some home users may need new IPv6 compatible internet routers The biggest ever test of the internet's new address system is taking place. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Bing and Facebook are among the companies switching-on IPv6 versions of their websites for the one day trial. The technology is gradually being introduced because the world is running out of older IPv4 addresses as more devices come online. Companies and home users may need new networking equipment. World IPv6 day, on June 8, is partly a technical exercise by internet companies to see how the technology works, and partly an awareness-raising initiative. For the small percentage of users already set up to access IPv6, they will be able to connect through the usual URLs - such as Google.com or Yahoo.com.
Behind the scenes, their browsers will be pointed to the new, much longer IP address. New equipment Continue reading the main story Really big numbers That gives a maximum of around 4.3bn addresses. DNA computer 'calculates square roots' 2 June 2011Last updated at 19:11 By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News DNA computing is just one of several "biological computing" approaches Researchers have shown off a "DNA computer" of unprecedented complexity, which can calculate square roots.
DNA computing uses chemical reactions to solve problems in which a number of DNA strands act as "bits". The work, reported in Science, required 130 strands of DNA to work in a cascade of programmed chemical changes. The approach is not designed to rival traditional electronics, but rather to allow computing to occur in biological contexts, perhaps even in the body. DNA computing was first proposed by Leonard Adelman in 1994, to solve what is known as the "travelling salesman problem" - determining the shortest path that joins a number of geographically separated locations. Stranded Continue reading the main story “Start Quote End QuoteErik WinfreeCalifornia Institute of Technology.
National Science Foundation (NSF) Discoveries - Researchers Control Collective Spin States Electrically at Room Temperature. DiscoveryResearchers Control Collective Spin States Electrically at Room Temperature Breakthrough paves way to store and process information in novel spin-electronics August 16, 2010 Processing large amounts of information in today's electronics requires large amounts of power, which results in heating. Heat can ruin modern electronics by potentially damaging the stuff that makes them work--the ever smaller and denser structures in a computer's "brain," the microprocessor that incorporates all of its logic functions. So, researchers have been investigating something called "spintronics," a field of research that uses the spin state of electrons to pave the way for a future generation of advanced, fast, low-power, heat-limiting devices that perform memory and logic functions beyond today's microprocessors.
Now, new lab work at the University of Nebraska Lincoln (UNL) Materials Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) may have made a significant breakthrough in the field of spintronics. National Science Foundation (NSF) Discoveries - Electronics Breakthrough Could Revolutionize Memory Chips. DiscoveryElectronics Breakthrough Could Revolutionize Memory Chips Rice University graduate student Jun Yao's research with silicon-oxide circuits could be a game-changer in nanoelectronics October 8, 2010 Tenacity, audacity, intuition, patience, a lot of talent and a little luck are healthy qualities for a young scientist. Jun Yao has them all. The fifth-year graduate student at Rice University believed so strongly in his discovery two years ago that he went to the mat for it.
What Yao found could be a game-changer in the budding field of nanoelectronics. The breakthrough brings high-capacity, 3-D memory chips a step closer to reality; Rice's commercial partners are already working on prototypes that they expect will compete well with the technologies striving for dominance in next-generation computer memory. "I don't remember how this idea came to me. "I was pretty surprised, yet excited. Yao spent months testing his idea, combining silicon oxide with every material he could find. Laser puts record data rate through fibre. 23 May 2011Last updated at 00:33 By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News A wide array of data strings can be encoded within a single laser's pulse Researchers have set a new record for the rate of data transfer using a single laser: 26 terabits per second.
At those speeds, the contents of nearly 1,000 high-definition DVDs could be sent down an optical fibre in a second. The trick is to use what is known as a "fast Fourier transform" to unpick more than 300 separate colours of light in a laser beam, each encoded with its own string of information. The technique is described in the journal Nature Photonics. The push for higher data rates in light-based telecommunications technologies has seen a number of significant leaps in recent years.
While the earliest optical fibre technologies encoded a string of data as "wiggles" within a single colour of light sent down a fibre, newer approaches have used a number of tricks to increase data rates. Check the pulse Colours everywhere. Do Aliens Speak Particle-Tongue? Physicists move closer to efficient single-photon sources. Public release date: 16-Mar-2011 [ Print | E-mail Share ] [ Close Window ] Contact: Charles E.
Bluecblue@aip.org 301-209-3091American Institute of Physics Washington, D.C. (March 16, 2011) -- A team of physicists in the United Kingdom has taken a giant step toward realizing efficient single-photon sources, which are expected to enable much-coveted completely secure optical communications, also known as "quantum cryptography. " The team presents its findings in Applied Physics Letters, a journal published by the American Institute of Physics.
Fluorescent "defect centers" in diamond act like atomic-scale light sources and are trapped in a transparent material that's large enough to be picked up manually. This makes them strong contenders for use as sources of single photons (the quantum light particle) in provably secure quantum cryptography schemes, explains J. . [ Print | E-mail AAAS and EurekAlert!