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MIT researchers cram optical circuitry on a silicon chip
It looks like MIT is raising the bar yet again, as this time it's taking a break from crafting autonomous UAVs and stackable vehicles to cram optical circuitry on your everyday silicon chip. In an effort to "integrate the optical circuitry with electronic circuitry" on the same silicon wafer, researchers have devised a method which will harness the "enormous power of light waves in networks" while offering up a way to manufacture the circuitry cheaply. The crew has reportedly already been playing around with a working prototype, and suggests that it could eventually "redefine how optical networks are built." Moreover, the development addresses the existing "signal weakening over distance" issue in fiber optic transmissions by "splitting the light beams as they pass through a circuit, rotating one of the polarized beams, and finally rejoining them on their way out of the circuit, which retains the signals' strength." While there's no projection of when this technology could actually hit the mainstream, anything that makes it less expensive to rollout FiOS (and similar networks) to more people most definitely has our vote.
SET CounterBomber spies hazardous humans from a distance
Here's one that's just begging for a profiling fit to be thrown over it. While the CounterBomber won't deem you guilty for creeping through a deserted street or texting your boy while waiting at a stop light, it just might inform everyone in an airport that you're the next suicide bomber waiting to blow. SET Corporation is unveiling a machine that best sport an accuracy level untouchable by mere human instincts, as it plans to sit at major public venues and sporting events to spot potential bomb-toting humans "from up to 50 yards away." The first iteration of the machine will utilize "radar-imaging technology" to somehow "analyze and reveal" concealed objects without actually peeking through folks' clothing, but future versions are slated to incorporate a "gait analysis" bit that could further substantiate if some awkward weight balance is going on underneath the hoodie. Still, we can just imagine the uproar from an innocent young lad with a stiff knee getting carted off due to this gizmo (incorrectly) deeming him suspicious, but considering the CounterBomber could be making its debut within 6 months or so, we'll be sure to find out just how inaccurate it is real soon.[Via CNET]
Tactile display could convey signals on soldiers' backs
Although glitzy, stat-filled jerseys are certainly sufficient ways to get information off your chest (ahem), a new vibrating vest could give "body language" an entirely new meaning. Joining the air-conditioned and insulating renditions, this snazzy vest features a "tactile display" on the back, which is created by 16 small vibrating motors that are connected to an internal wireless control unit. The jacket "writes symbols and messages on its wearer's back," and while the actual writing resembles Braille more than text, it can supposedly be used to "send important commands to soldiers or firefighters, warning them of imminent danger when ordinary radios cannot be used." Commands are beamed to the vests via a wirelessly-enabled computer, and can stealthily inform platoons to stop, look in a specific direction, run, or slow down. The US Army is partially funding the research, as it hopes to investigate different ways to communicate when hand signals and / or radio transmissions aren't effective. During initial testing, results have shown nearly flawless interpretation by participants, and while we're not exactly sure when we can expect rumble-equipped gear to grace our armed forces, the problem of "excess noise from the motors" has to be quelled before hitting the battlefield.[Via BoingBoing]
Rwanda joins the fray, getting "hundreds of thousands" of OLPC XOs
Here's an idea: just release these OLPC XOs to every country in the world and be done with it. Sadly, that isn't likely to happen, but at least Rwanda is joining the growing list of countries ready to get their palms on the green machines. According to OLPC, Rwanda will be receiving "initial test units and technical support at no cost within a few days." After Quanta ramps up production in July, the nation expects to receive "hundreds of thousands" of the wee laptops late this summer at an "initial cost" of $150 apiece, with future units expected to cost a bit less. Rwanda's government, of course, is footing the entire bill, and hopes to actually provide a computer to "all primary school children within five years." So for any school-aged Rwandans out there itching to crank up Doom or surf the net on Opera while disregarding those grammar and arithmetic lessons, your countdown can officially begin.
MIT launches iFIND app for stalking your friends
When we first spotted MIT's location-tracking WiFi network last year, the stalking capabilities were interesting, but not fully realized. Now with this new iFIND app of theirs, WiFi positioning takes on a whole new level of geeky functionality at the Boston campus. At its core, iFIND is a peer-to-peer application that allows users to control the flow of their own location information, eliminating the privacy concerns of a centralized tracking system. Built on top of that functionality are all sorts of interesting buddy list capabilities to track and chat with friends, and choose who can track you. You can also set up meeting places with friends, even using the system to pick a spot at the "center of gravity" of a group of friends for the ultimate in geek cred. Anyone with an MIT email address can use the system, and future functionality includes the ability to share data anonymously with users found with the system, or to alert the police to your position in an emergency without divulging your identity -- all for the truly paranoid, but fun stuff all the same.[Via Smart Mobs]
MIT profs create autonomous UAVs
Creating a robot that can manage to fly around a room on its own without hitting a wall is a mean feat to pull off, but that's exactly what a team of professors at MIT have managed to do. Their multiple-UAV test platform is capable of complex tasks like following moving ground-based objects with little or no direct control from a human -- yup, unfortunately that geek dream of a cockpit will no longer be required if these guys get their way. The current test setup is made up of $700 four-rotorblade helicopters, monitored by networked computers, which could theoretically allow a single person -- or even a bored student with an internet connection -- to control several UAVs at a time. Current flying drone systems require a team of trained personnel to keep a single UAV airborne and on target, so this endeavor is certainly a step up in software terms. How well the test system will transition from tracking radio controlled cars in a lab to lets say, a stolen car going at 125MPH, remains to be seen.Read - Videos of the UAV in actionRead - The Boston Globe
Samsung's SPH-P9000 Deluxe MITs landing in December
If you're just not feeling the typical, customary UMPC, Samsung has the ultimate mishmash of laptop and ultraportable machine that you've been dreaming up, and it should be ready to rock in just "two weeks." That snazzy (albeit cockamamie) SPH-9000 was originally announced as the first thing to get after the holiday rush in "Q1 2007," but in a very atypical turn of events, the company is now announcing that the WiBro-packin' foldable should be ready by "early December" for pickup in South Korea. While we can't wait to see how functional this three-pieced machine really is, and whether its battery life breaks away from the short-lived stereotype its brethren have unfortunately created, we suppose we'll have to wait for a hands-on from overseas -- but hey, at least it'll get here an awful lot quicker than previously assumed.[Via SlashGear]
MIT makes case for wireless power
We all know and love our WiFi laptops, 3G and DECT phones, and wireless TVs, keyboards, and mice. Thing is, that freedom is always interrupted by the need to re-tether and juice-up the rechargeables. So someone, somewhere must be seeking the Holy Grail of wireless power right? Oh, you betcha. In fact, Nikola Tesla (of AC power and 80's glam-band fame) was working on his Wardenclyffe Tower for long-range wireless energy transfer back in the 19th century. Now, MIT's Marin Soljacic, Aristeidis Karalis, and John Joannopoulos have outlined a relatively simple (for physicists) system that could deliver power wirelessly by harnessing the properties of resonance. You know, that phenomena which causes a played instrument to vibrate another of the same acoustic resonance or collapse bridges spanning the Tacoma Narrows when its mechanical resonance is exploited by a bit of wind. However, MIT's solution is based on the resonance associated with electromagnetic waves. Notably, they've investigated a special class of non-radiative objects with long-lived resonances that won't scatter energy like radio waves or infrared. When energy is applied to these objects, it remains bound to them allowing, in theory, for a simple copper antenna with a long-lived resonance to transfer energy to say, a laptop antenna resonating at the same frequency up to about 5-meters away -- any unused energy is simply reabsorbed. Hmmm, "reabsorbed" you say, into what? No worries, they haven't built a test system yet and besides, when the robots hear about this we'll have bigger concerns than infertility.[Thanks, Shig]
"Silent jet" will make airports quieter, prove dangerous to Superman
In a breakthrough that's being touted as a potentially crushing blow to the noise-canceling headphone industry, researchers at MIT and Cambridge University have designed a unique passenger jet that reportedly sounds no louder than a washing machine from outside the confines of an airport. The so-called Silent Aircraft Initiative -- which began in November 2003 -- culminates today with the unveiling of a concept plane which is roughly the size of a Boeing 767, but takes its design cues from stealth military jets like the B-2 bomber, in that its fuselage has been "squished" to create an all-lifting body. Besides re-imagining the shape of traditional jumbo jets, the 40-person team also moved the engines from under the wings into the body of the plane itself, allowing them to take in air from the top of the wing and minimize the noise heard by people on the ground. The quieter design could result in airports being constructed much closer to residential areas, meaning that passengers would be able to start their two-hour wait at the security checkpoint that much more quickly. While specific noise-dampening elements of the airplane will probably be implemented into passenger jets in the near future, the SAI researchers believe we won't see the concept itself in flight until sometime around 2030 -- a little too late, in our opinion, as we're pretty sure that teleportation will completely obviate the need for air travel long before then.[Via Reuters, illustration courtesy of CNET]
Future microbes could probe for aircraft stress points
A team of MIT researchers has identified microbes that -- with a little genetic engineering -- could highlight stress points in aircraft wings. The microbes produce certain proteins that bond to metal alloys that form at the stress points: the modified microbes will then emit light when the metal is stressed, thereby alerting the pilot and/or freaking out the passengers. Before we start seeing Jumbos with wings covered in agar jelly, the team still has to find a way of working around the issue of dirt and grime -- and presumably how to stop the gunk from slipping off the wing. Other recent innovations that MIT researchers have brought to the field of "industrial microbiology" include creating a battery out of cobalt oxide secreting microbes and a microbe that can split water with sunlight, with future research proposals to look into creating a microbe that can produce particles that make up solar cells. The future: it's full of stars agar!
MIT gasoline / ethanol engine to up gas mileage by "30 percent"
Anyone with enough coin to not concern themselves with fuel prices anyway can throw down $100,000 (or more) for an uber-green Tesla Roadster, or you can tack a few extra grand onto the price of your next vehicle to ensure it has some sort of hybrid engine underneath the hood, but MIT researchers are developing yet another alternative to our oh-so-troublesome fuel dilemma without looking to fuel cells. The gasoline / ethanol prototype is about "half the size" of a conventional gas engine, and would only add "about $1,000" to the price of a vehicle -- much less than current battery / gasoline options. The gasoline and ethanol are housed in separate tanks, with the ethanol "suppressing the spontaneous combustion inside the cylinder," allowing for a "higher compression ratio" and a "30 percent increase" in overall gas mileage. Ford is currently testing the system with Ethanol Boosting Systems, and while we're unsure how these engineering minds will solve the problem of double-pumping each time you need a fill up, they're reportedly working hard to "minimize any inconvenience to the driver."
MIT student hacks his dorm room door lock
Dheera Venkatraman, a crafty MIT student, has just completed the latest iteration in a series of upgrades to his dorm room door lock. Now because MIT's administration doesn't like it if you hack the door locks or the strike plates, Dheera needed an innovative way to enter his own room without using a key. He's gone through a series of various door-opening mechanisms over the last couple of years -- our favorite one required scanning a barcode on a box of EZ Mac to gain entry -- but he's finally settled on the simplest design, a computer-less setup that involves a microcontroller, a motor, and a PS/2 (waterproof) keyboard. (He's got a much more technical explanation, including a circuit diagram and drivers on his website, in case your SO / parents / kids also have rules about messing with your house). We're now taking bets on how long it takes his MIT classmates to crack his password.[Via MAKE: Blog]
New switch puts an end to exploding batteries
Check it Sony, 'cause if necessity is the mother of invention then you're about to be calling the ETRI daddy. Coming a bit too late for some, ETRI (Telecommunications Research Institute of Korea) have developed what they call a Critical Temperature Switch to prevent exploding batteries in mobile devices. Smaller, but more reliable than ceramic sensors, the new switches use a Mott Metal-Insulator Transistor or MIT, to prevent batteries from swelling and exploding in a violent discharge triggered by overheating. Ultimately, ETRI expects to integrate over 16,000 of the Critical Temperature Switches or 5,000 explosion-proof systems into a film just 2-inches in diameter. For the time being, they are looking for partners to develop their commercially ready technologies into product. Hey Sony, you paying attention?
MIT developing an "engine on a chip" to beat the battery
After busting out those floating windmills earlier today, you'd think the MIT types would take a little break, maybe relax for a nice evening of D&D, but instead they're still hard at work, bringing power to the people. This time they're thinking small, with a new gas-turbine engine the size of a quarter designed to supplement or replace the battery in consumer electronics. The new "engine on a chip" technology builds all the traditional parts of a gas-turbine engine using silicon, allowing for utterly tiny, reliable and efficient components. The turbine blades spin at 20,000 revolutions per second, and the mini-generator produces 10 watts of power once up and running. Unfortunately, the MIT wiz-kids haven't quite got a working model yet. Each component has been successfully built and tested, but they haven't squeezed them all together, though they should have it all up and running simultaneously by the end of the year. The tech could be a boon to the Army (which is funding the project), since troops are often required to carry up to three days worth of laptop batteries for a field mission, but we're totally stoked to start smogging it up in Starbucks with our little turbine a-whirring and spreadsheet a-crunching. Other than that spreadsheet part. Those suck.[Via Slashdot]
MIT's new "invisible" wind turbines float offshore
Thanks to MIT's Paul D. Sclavounos, we might get a reprieve from the eyesore problem of windmills, while still sticking with their clean-and-cheap energy benefits. Unfortunately, hapless birds aren't going to get much of a respite. The plan is to plant these things offshore, far enough out into the water for the skinny white turbines to disappear on the horizon, but we're sure a few seagulls will be able to find those "invisible" blades all the same. The turbines can be anchored in water up to 650 deep, and can withstand even hurricane-generated waves. Another benefit of the system is the strong and steady wind out at sea, so the 90-meter turbines should be able to generate twice as much electricity in comparison to their near-shore counterparts. Count us in, we never liked seagulls too much anyways.
Researchers develop algorithm to combat photo blur
Since it's unlikely that your hand will get any steadier with age, and we probably won't see optical image stabilization in cameraphones anytime soon, researchers are concentrating on ways to fix your crappy photos once they've already been captured. The latest salvo in the war against so-called hand motion blur comes from a team of computer scientists at MIT and the University of Toronto, who have developed an algorithm that can create a sharper picture by "estimating the distribution of a number of probable images" and coming up with a happy medium. Introduced at this year's Siggraph Conference in Boston, the algorithm could potentially be included in future versions of Adobe Photoshop -- which currently fights blur with a rather ineffective unsharp mask tool -- although it will do nothing for blurring caused by moving objects or improperly-focused shots. Unfortunately, it sounds like this product is still at least a year away from commercial release, so tripods and nerve-steadying Pentazemin are still your best bets for the time being.[Thanks, Alex]
MIT researchers create photo-detecting fibers
Those cats at MIT have been at it again: when not fooling around in their dorm rooms or playing with robot snails, they're toiling away in the lab late at night developing technologies that could well become commonplace in our everyday lives. Their latest breakthrough is a sphere-shaped web of photo-detecting fibers that can measure the direction, intensity, and phase of light, something previously only possible with traditional lens-based optics. Unlike lenses, however, the fiber webs have an unlimited field of view, opening up a whole range of new possibilities like improved space telescopes or sensitive clothing to provide increased awareness to soldiers or the blind. Still in the research phase, this tech is likely a long ways from trickling down into the consumer space, although researchers do see the common man eventually using it to enhance interaction with computers and video games.[Via Digital Camera Info]
Henry Jenkins has a blog (and a new book)
Erudite academic and advocate for all things gaming, MIT Professor Henry Jenkins has started a blog titled "Confessions of an Aca/Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins." Now you can finally trash all those unofficial Henry Jenkins fansites from your RSS feed, cause this one's official. With only a couple gaming posts -- like this one on games as branded entertainment -- there's still plenty for the interested nerd to uncover and look forward to.But the blog isn't supposed to be all about games, it's about his new book, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. We could try to condense what Prof. Jenkins is gonna be writing on his blog, but we'd only be doing a disservice to you, reader. So we'll just tease you into it: "Reduced to its most core elements, this book is about the relationship between three concepts - media convergence, participatory culture, and collective intelligence ...."
MIT developing hairy capacitors, Energizer Bunny weeps
Check it grandpa, 'cause your 18th century inventions are set to change modern portable electronics in a big way. Those neomaxizoomdweebies over at MIT have discovered a process whereby capacitors -- those little stored energy devices knocking dim-witted TV tinkerers on their asses for decades -- can be slathered at the electrodes with nanotubes thereby increasing the surface density to store more energy. So just like a thick fuzzy towel soaks up more slop than a bedside sock, these new capacitors can be kept small and store the equivalent energy of today's chemical batteries. Why do you care? Well, the device could potentially be recharged hundreds of thousands of times and in only a matter of seconds saving you time and the environment, heartburn. Prototypes are expected within the next few months with actual product hitting the market in less than five years. Fuel cells, fool cells, bring on the capacitors!
MIT prof. Henry Jenkins talks gaming, look at him go
GameSetWatch launches their new interview column with a bang, featuring a lengthy chat with Henry Jenkins, Director of the Comparative Media Studies program and Full Professor of Literature at MIT ... oh yeah, and an influential advocate of gaming. They cover divergent topics from his background in video games, to alternative reality games (ARGs), casual games, and that old staple, games as art, of which he says, "It doesn't matter whether there are games in the Museum of Modern Art. It does matter whether the best game designers are given enough room to push the limits of games as a medium ..."You'd all be wise to read the (admittedly long but proportionally edifying) interview and get a crash course in where gaming stands in the bespectacled eyes of one of gaming's greatest and most visible proponents ... all for a lot less than a degree from MIT.[Via Kotaku]
