Milestone for unique bionic hand
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A bionic hand, controlled by the patient's mind and muscles, goes on the market
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Movable parts in a silicone face enable 'emotional' response to key words.
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The world&#39;s lightest flying micro-robot has been developed by Japan&#39;s Seiko Epson Corporation. The 12-gram robot resembles a small helicopter and is about 136 millimetres wide
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It&#039;s one of the greatest challenges for robotics engineers: Building a machine that actually walks like one of us.
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One nanotechnology researcher said supercomputers small enough to fit into the palm of your hand are only 10 or 15 years away."If things continue to go the way they have been in the past few decades, then it's 10 years," said Michael Zaiser, a professor and researcher at the University of Edinburgh School of Engineering and Electronics. "The human brain is very good at working on microprocessor problems, so I think we are close -- 10 years, maybe 15."Zaiser's research into nanowires should help move that timeline along.For the last five years, he has been studying how tiny wires -- 1,000 times thinner than a human hair -- behave when manipulated. He explained that each such miniscule wire tends to behave differently when put under the same amount of pressure. Therefore, it has been impossible to line them up close to each other in tiny microprocessors in a production atmosphere.Zaiser said he's now figured out how to make the wires behave uniformly. He separates the interior material of the wire into distinct groups so the wire can't react as a whole. That makes it much easier to control. "It's like crowd control," he added. "If they can all go one way, you have a big mess."These nanowires will go inside microprocessors that could, in turn, go inside PCs, laptops, cell phones, or even supercomputers. And the smaller the wires, the smaller the chip can be.Shrinking down the microprocessors is a big step toward shrinking down computers.Zaiser was quick to point out that his nanowire discovery won't immediately lead to the development of supercomputers that can fit in the palm of a hand or even shrink down to the size of a book of matches. In addition to smaller microprocessors, engineers will need to deal with thermal fluctuations that erupt at that size.But he does humbly admit that taming nanowires is a big step toward the goal of small supercomputers."This will enable chips to become much smaller," he said. "Think 10 years back. You could hold [a cell phone] the size of a telephone receiver and it didn't work so well. Today, you can fit what is a powerful computer onto a small device."Charles King, an analyst at Pund-IT in Hayward, Calif., said that with advances like nanowire technology continuing to come along, Zaiser's predictions for tiny supercomputers may not be so far off. And that will be a huge step for the industry, considering that not so long ago supercomputers filled up enormous rooms or even entire buildings."Actually, what he's saying is not crazy," said King. "The wire problem was an important one. Solving that particular issue, one so fundamental, needed to be done. If he can solve that, a lot of people, a lot of companies, will appreciate that. The industry is aligning in a direction where we're going to be seeing continuing improvements and developments."Jim McGregor, an analyst at In-Stat in Scottsdale, Ariz., said he definitely can see palm-size supercomputers coming out within 10 to 15 years, but he thinks they'll be based on the basic silicon technology used today. He added that the next generation of tiny supercomputers -- made with carbon nanotubes and nanowires -- may be as far off as another 30 to 40 years, though."You know, everybody says we'll get to a physical limit but every time we think we're going to hit it, we overcome it," said McGregor. "They end up being speed bumps instead of road blocks."King added that over the last 10 or 20 years, technology advancements have put smaller and more powerful computers into the hands of children and researchers alike. That leads him to believe that the shrinking of supercomputers is just ahead of us."We're at the beginning of some very exciting times in supercomputing," he said.Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate
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Psion special goes binary Last month, we published something unusual for us: a long feature about the consumer electronics pioneer Psion. It's full of previously untold stories: the plucky outfit could have been the British Sony. But we know that reading long pieces on the web is a pain. So as promised, we're making it available as a PDF download.â¦
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The art and science of successfully harvesting an organ from one body to give new life to another turns 50 today. Since the first successful kidney transplant by Dr.
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Scientists have created a  salamander-like robot that married biology and robotics and  enabled them to explore ideas about the first vertebrates that  emerged from water to land hundreds of millions of years ago.
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Logitech's  MX Revolution Laser Mouse is far ahead of the competition
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A mechanical arm that can grab 120 items a minute from a conveyor belt won Japan's Robot of the Year award Thursday, defeating a dozen flashier finalists, including a walking humanoid and a transparent torso for simulating surgery.
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Researchers train a monkey to feed itself by guiding a mechanical arm with its mind. It could be a big step forward for prosthetics. By David Cohn.
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The natural world was the focus of much nanotechnology and energy research. Robots, meanwhile, were learning to mimic crabs and bees.
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Company is working on flexible display technologies.
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Bob Knight reached another milestone.
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After more than 2 1/2 years of physical therapy and electronic stimulation, stroke victim Mike Marin still couldn't open a door with his left hand. Now, thanks to a robot, Marin can open a door and his atrophied left arm isn't completely useless anymore.
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Â· New law heralds world's biggest biometric systemÂ· Police to share information on visa applicants
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The federal government has approved plans to deploy a robot developed to help stroke victims gain control of arm muscles.