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Duke University's underwater invisibility cloak stills troubled waters
Everyone's jumping on the invisibility cloaking bandwagon these days, but no one's quite managed to fully deliver on the promise. The same goes for two Duke University researchers who believe their mesh casing could grant the gift of concealment to underwater craft -- submarines, anyone? According to the proposed model, a specially designed shell punctuated by complex patterns of permeability and millimeter-sized pumps would eliminate the drag and turbulent wake caused by an object as it moves through the water. Utilizing the penetrable gaps in the case, water would at first accelerate, and then decelerate to its original speed before exiting -- rendering the fluid around the object virtually undisturbed. Now for the bad news: the design doesn't quite work for large-scale, real-world implementations -- hello again, submarines -- since the tech can only cloak small structures, like "a vehicle one centimetre across... [moving] at speeds of less than one centimetre per second." It's a massive bummer, we know, but we're getting there folks -- you just won't see it when it actually happens.
SleepWell forces WiFi to wait its turn, keeps gadgets well-rested (update)
Ever feel like your WiFi devices' battery-lives are better off when not surrounded by peers and passersby? According to Duke University grad student Justin Manweiler and assistant professor Romit Roy Choudhury, this phenomenon is due to gadgets constantly fighting to retrieve the same data. Their Systems Networking Research Group has created a program dubbed SleepWell to alleviate the congestion; it puts WiFi to rest until the path is clear for accessing the specific data it needs, and provides improved power management all the while. The tech was shown off at MobiSys 2011 this past week and reportedly works well "across a number of device types and situations." Notably, Microsoft and Nokia (amongst others like Verizon) are backing up the project, which makes us cautiously optimistic that it could be headed for WP7 (or Windows 8, for that matter) in due time. There's no info on whether SleepWell will ever be distributed commercially, but may we suggest an LTE version to help out big V's poor ol' T-Bolt? Update: We'd like to clarify that this software currently works from the accesss point side rather than the individual devices. You'll a find an additional PDF about the project in the source links below. [Thanks, Daiwei Li]
Duke University physicists test first air-based acoustic invisibility cloak
Firmly departing from the Stuff Of Dreams category, Duke University physicists have successfully tested an acoustic cloaking device that fools sound waves while looking nowhere near as scifi as you'd think. Layering nothing more than a bunch of hole-punched plastic sheets -- known as meta-materials, for those curious -- atop a ten centimeter long block of wood, highly-directed sound in the 1 - 4kHz range bounced right off the concealed object none the wiser. The cloaking tech owes some of its origin to the math behind transformation optics -- and maybe to the Duke team, too. Besides allowing defense department bunkers to erupt into silent applause, the research should prove useful in the construction of future concert halls. DIY hobbyists, let us know what you can rig up with some trash bags. [Thanks, Drew]
Duke University to use iPads for field research
This fall, the Duke University Global Health Institute in Durham, NC will embark on a pilot project using the iPad as a field research tool. Masters students enrolled in the Research Methods in Global Health Sciences II class will be broken up into groups of three, with each group being given a 3G-enabled iPad. The course introduces students to a wide range of methodological techniques, including quantitative surveys research, interventions and evaluations along with qualitative techniques of ethnography, survey design and semi-structured interviews. Funding and assistance with the course will come from the Duke Center for Instructional Technology (CIT). Educational tech consultant Mark Sperber, who will train students on the iPad and decide upon the selection of software, notes that the iPad will allow students to collect and analyze data while in the field, where it's most meaningful. The do-it-nowability of the iPad was written about by mobile research blogger Tim Macer. Traditionally, field-collected research could not be analyzed until the researcher got to a computer off-site, but the use of iPads will allow data to be examined immediately. Having done my share of quantitative field research I feel that bringing immediacy to the field opens up possibilities that were never before imaginable. The primary goal, according to sociologist Jen'nan Ghazal Read who will be teaching the course, is to equip students with tools allowing them to make the most of their time in the field and master the complex methods on which they will base their research.
Self-assembling DNA circuits could power your next computer
Sick of silicon? It is getting a bit played, so maybe it's time to shift some paradigms, and Duke University engineer Chris Dwyer thinks that pure proteins deoxyribonucleic acids are where it's at. He's demonstrated a way to force DNA to create shapes all by itself, a process he likens to a puzzle that puts itself together: It's like taking pieces of a puzzle, throwing them in a box and as you shake the box, the pieces gradually find their neighbors to form the puzzle. What we did was to take billions of these puzzle pieces, throwing them together, to form billions of copies of the same puzzle. Right now the waffle-shaped structures he can form aren't particularly useful, but going forward the hope is that nearly any type of circuitry could be made to build itself in massive quantities at next to no cost. It sounds exciting, promising, almost utopian -- exactly the kind of research that we usually never hear of again. Update: We've had a few people commenting on the inaccuracy of the word "proteins" above, so it's been fixed and we hereby invite all you armchair molecular biologists to get back to curing cancer already.
Study finds commercial-skipping DVRs don't affect purchases, 'TiVo effect' may not exist
Two years back, consumer research told us the vast majority of DVR users skipped commercials; now, statisticians at Duke University say that's not the case. More importantly, even those who do hit that oh-so-tempting skip button aren't necessarily spending less on advertised products as a result. Pulling data from over 1,200 TiVo boxes over the course of three years, Professor Carl Mela and colleagues found that a staggering 95 percent of television was watched live instead of recorded, giving viewers no opportunity to skip, and even when there was an opportunity, users took it only 6.5 percent of the time. Moreover, every attempt the researchers made to find a "TiVo effect" failed -- comparing those who had DVRs with those who didn't, they found no significant difference in the amount TV watchers spent on nine different goods (including cleaning and grooming products) advertised. This could be for a variety of reasons -- perhaps advertising doesn't work, period, or perhaps those without DVRs "skipped" commercials simply by walking out of the room -- but no matter the reason, it seems these days television advertisers don't have quite so much to fear.
Robot surgeon uses frighteningly large needle to remove shrapnel, your resistance
We've reported on many a creepy looking and dangerous sounding robot in the past, but this one might just take the cake when it comes to dominating your nightmares for the next few nights. Developed by a team at Duke University, the bot uses ultrasound to identify areas of density in human flesh, then starts probing them with a rather painfully large looking needle. It could be used to locate and extract bits of shrapnel from stricken GIs on the battlefield, but that same tech might also be deployed to pierce women's breasts and men's prostates -- ostensibly to treat cancers of those respective regions, but we can think of more nefarious reasons. The bot doesn't have a name, but once it and its kind take over, neither will you. [Via gizmag]
PhonePoint Pen application is a hand-talkers' dream come true
Know someone who talks with their hands so expressively that you have to step back or risk catching a wayward exclamation point in the face? The video after the break will make their day. Students at Duke University have come up with a way to use phone accelerometers to capture gestures with surprising precision, allowing them to pipe those motions through a character recognition algorithm and, hey presto, turn flapping hands into letters and numbers. The prototype app is called PhonePoint Pen, and while right now the process looks painfully slow, with large, precise motions required, with a few months or years of refinements you might just be able to jot down a quick text to a friend while running between terminals, all without putting down the double latte that just cost you $8 at the airport food court. The future, dear readers, it's closer than you think.[Via Yahoo! News]
Robot targeting-intercepting system inspired by Marco Polo pool game
Engineers from Duke University and the University of New Mexico have just published the results of their most recent robotic escapades in the Journal on Control and Optimization. Silvia Ferrari and Rafael Fierro, leaders of the project, say that by applying the basic principles of the children's swimming game "Marco Polo" they have been able to advance robot's ability to both detect and intercept moving targets. By equipping robots with multiple types of camera sensors camera sensors which provide coverage of all the cells within the space the robot is able to more accurately predict where the moving target is at any given moment. The team sees all types of possible applications for robots equipped with the setup, but there's no real word on when we'll see any real life applications. [Via Gizmag]
Robot doctors join the fight against breast cancer
From Da Vinci robosurgeons to helpful nursebots , robots are becoming commonplace in hospitals the world over -- and now researchers at Duke University have developed a rudimentary tabletop robot that uses 3D ultrasound technology to detect a 'lesion' in a simulated sponge breast, pinpoint its exact location, and perform a biopsy. All the calculations are performed by the device itself, using what has been described as "a basic artificial intelligence program." The next step in the research will be an upgrade that will that the robotic arm from three-axis to six-axis capability, and a change from the old sponge-based simulated breast to one made from turkey breasts, which approximates the density of human breast tissue. According to Stephen Smith, director of the Duke University Ultrasound Transducer Group, if things stay on track, robots will be performing routine breast exams and biopsies in five to ten years. Video after the break.[Via PhysOrg]
Duke micro-bots learning to dance, probe cellular architectures
We won't even front: Duke's quasi-invisibility cloak is far cooler than this, but a team of microscopic robots sure have the potential to do more good than a glorified figment of someone's imagination. Bruce Donald, a Duke professor of computer science and biochemistry, has teamed up with a few other mad scientists in order to create ridiculously tiny robots that can dance on objects smaller than a pin's head. According to Mr. Donald, they are "almost 100 times smaller than any previous robotic designs of their kind and weigh even less." Sure, watching these critters do the tango is undoubtedly entertaining, but he's hoping to collaborate with the medical center in order to "probe the molecular and cellular architectures of very small things such as cells." We appreciate the dedication to mankind and all, but don't pretend like you don't goof off with these guys on your coffee breaks, Bruce.[Via Slashdot]
Duke University: home to world's largest 802.11n wireless network
We know, most of you Blue Devil fans are still reeling from that recent loss to Wake Forest, but if it's any consolation, at least your campus is about to become home to the "world's largest" 802.11n wireless network. Last we heard, The Ohio State University held the crown for Earth's biggest WLAN with 1,700 access points lit, but according to Cisco, Duke's campus will soon house 2,500 Aironet 1250 Series APs. The installation will leave more than six million square feet of central North Carolina blanketed in WiFi, and will supposedly be the "largest planned 802.11n wireless network in the world by any organization to date." Watch out, Dukies -- we hear those folks in Chapel Hill have a thing for swiping unsecured signals.
Researchers say three-dimensional sound cloak is possible, in theory
Apparently not content with simply building an invisibility cloak, of sorts, those mad scientists at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering now say that they've found that a three-dimensional "sound cloak" is also possible, in theory. According to Duke's Steven Cummer, the researchers have come up with a "recipe" for an acoustic material that would "essentially open up a hole in space and make something inside that hole disappear from sound waves." Needless to say, they haven't tested that possibility just yet, but they say it could one day be used to hide submarines from detection by sonar or even be used to improve the acoustics of a concert hall by making inconvenient structural beams effectively disappear. What's more, they say that the basic principles at play here could also suggest that cloaks could be created for other wave systems, like seismic waves, or even waves at the surface of the ocean, although the practical applications for those would seem to be a bit more limited.[Image courtesy of Royal Navy/BAE Systems]
Monkeys take their robot-wielding powers international
It's been a while since we've heard from the folks at Duke University and their robot-controlling monkeys, but it seems that they've remained hard at work on their potentially perilous collaboration, with them recently showing off some of their latest tricks at the Neuroscience 2007 conference earlier this month. This time, they had the monkeys control a pair of robot legs through the use of some electrodes implanted in their brains which, apparently, went off without a hitch. But that's not all! The legs the monkeys were controlling just so happened to be located at the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International in Kyoto, Japan, which the monkeys were linked to via the Internet. No word on what they plan to attempt next, although taking the robots and/or monkeys into space would seem to be the next logical step (at least to us).[Photo courtesy of NASA-JSC / Wikimedia Commons]
Duke U reconsidering stance on iPhone
Earlier this week, Duke University was blaming the iPhone for persistent outages they were experiencing on their wireless network. Their IT department reported that on campus iPhones were flooding access points with requests, thereby knocking them down, a dozen (or more) at a time. Today, it is expected that Duke will release a report on their investigation into the matter, which may exonerate the iPhone. Duke's assistant vice president of academic services technology support, Julian Lombardi, is reported as having said that all aspects of the school's network are under consideration. That doesn't mean that the iPhone is free and clear, but at least he isn't laying blame on it as clearly as he did last week.We'll let you know what's up when this report is finally released.
Duke scientists build theorized invisibility cloak. Sort of.
Yes, everyone wants an invisibility cloak. Yes, it's been theorized and in development before. But now, what our friends across the pond have only imagined, scientists at an American university have actually built. A group of brainiacs at Duke University have built a device (based on the Imperial College London theory) that can deflect microwave beams so the beams flow around an object almost as if nothing was there, with not too much distortion (but only in two dimensions). In order to do this, the group built a series of concentric circles made up of "metamaterials," or "artificial composites that can be made to interact with electromagnetic waves in ways that natural materials cannot reproduce." Don't get too excited yet, as scientists warn that this is merely a "baby step." The next step is to make the cloak work in three dimensions, and make improve the cloak's effectiveness. And even still, we're a long way off from making something completely disappear from visibility, which "would have to simultaneously interact with all of the wavelengths, or colors, that make up light." said David R. Smith, a member of the research squad. Hey Duke team, if you ever need human test subjects, we'd definitely be willing to volunteer.[Via The Associated Press]
