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CCNY, UC Berkeley develop lasers that could rewrite quantum chips, spin those atoms right round
Computers are normally limited by the fixed nature of their chipsets: once the silicon is out of the factory, its capabilities are forever locked in. The City College of New York and University of California Berkeley have jointly developed a technique that could break chips free of these prisons and speed along quantum computing. They found that hitting gallium arsenide with a laser light pattern aligns the spins of the atoms under the rays, creating a spintronic circuit that can re-map at a moment's notice. The laser could be vital to quantum computers, which can depend heavily or exclusively on spintronics to work: a simple shine could get electrons storing a much wider range of numbers and consequently handling many more calculations at once. Research is only just now becoming public, however; even though gallium arsenide is common in modern technology, we'll need to be patient before we find quantum PCs at the local big-box retail chain. Despite this, we could still be looking at an early step in a shift from computers with many single-purpose components to the abstracted, all-powerful quantum machines we've held in our science fiction dreams.
CLASH is an adorable, cloth-climbing roach-bot (video)
Generally the words "roach" and "adorable" don't get thrown together. But, one look at the video after the break and you'll understand. This six-legged successor to UC Berkeley's DASH scampers not just horizontally, but vertically -- so long as the material it's climbing is cloth. All motion is handled by the bot's front four legs, while the rear two provide stabilization. The CLASH is able to adhere to cloth because its feet have small claws that allow it to grip the fabric, while its appendages scurry about at up to 34 strides per second. Its top speed of 24 centimeters a second may not sound like much, but considering the pest-inspired design is only 10 centimeters long, it's actually quite a brisk pace. Trust us, you don't want to miss watching it in action after the break.
Samsung studies 3D viewing discomfort, finds out bloggers don't read
Judging by the headlines today, Samsung's 3D R&D department made a huge mistake, just check them out: "Who Could Have Guessed: 3D Hurts Your Eyes", "Samsung-funded study finds 3D video causes extra eye strain, fatigue", "Samsung study finds that 3D video causes eye strain, fatigue". It seems obvious that Samsung's research grant financing a UC Berkeley study published in the Journal of Vision was wasted, except for one minor issue -- all of those headlines are wrong. "The zone of comfort: Predicting visual discomfort with stereo displays" is actually trying to find out why 3D-related eyestrain happens. That it can and does happen with poorly formatted video, whether 2D, 3D or otherwise, is already known. Scrolling down beyond the abstract reveals the prof's data actually indicated a wider comfort zone than 3D video producers commonly assumed with their percentage rule of thumb. It's a Friday night and you don't have to pick thumbing through dry descriptions of experiments over whatever your plans are, but that's why you have us. Shockingly, companies desperately hawking 3D tech are busy making it better instead of undermining their own products, but you'd have to actually read the study to find out for sure.
Paralyzed student uses robotic exoskeleton to walk at college graduation (video)
Austin Whitney hasn't been able to walk since a 2007 car crash left him paralyzed, but on Saturday the 22-year-old triumphantly strode across the stage to accept his degree from UC Berkeley. He had a little help, in the form of a specially crafted robotic exoskeleton developed by Berkeley engineering professor Homayoon Kazerooni. Kazerooni and his team designed the exoskeleton with lightness and affordability in mind, resisting the urge to load it up with expensive hardware and tethering the mechanized walker to a backpack that houses a computer and a rechargeable, eight-hour battery. As a result, the Austin walker won't enable the kind of acrobatic leaps that would make Lt. Rasczak proud, but its reduced mobility comes at a reduced cost of just $15,000. That's certainly not an impulse buy, though it's a welcomed alternative to other exoskeletons that retail for $100,000 or more. Walk past the break for a video of Whitney's momentous steps, along with a clip of Kazerooni describing his creation.
UC Berkeley researchers tout world's smallest semiconductor laser
Scientists at the Norfolk State University may laid claim to a "world's smallest laser" title just a few short weeks ago with the aid of some newfangled "spasers," but it looks like the folks at UC Berkeley at hot on their heels with some tiny lasers of their own, and they've now announced what they claim to be the worlds smallest semiconductor laser. Unlike Norfolk State's solution, the Berkeley researchers apparently relied primarily on standard semiconductor materials and fabrication technologies commonly used today, but devised a new means to squeeze the visible light into a 5 nanometer gap (about the size of a single protein molecule), while also using some newly-engineered "hybrid surface plasmons" to keep the light from dissipating as it moves along. That, the researchers say, represents nothing short of a "new milestone in laser physics," and could pave the way for everything from new nanolasers that can probe, manipulate and characterize DNA molecules to new breakthroughs in computing that could see light replacing electronic circuitry "with a corresponding leap in speed and processing power." [Via DailyTech]
Glass leaves sweat to generate electricity, get nervous in public situations
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Michigan and MIT have created glass "leaves" with networks of veiny channels filled with water. The smallest channels extend all the way to the edges of the leaf, where open ends allow water to evaporate, which draws water along the central stem of the leaf -- at a rate of about 1.5 centimeters per second. The glass leaves have been wired for electricity by adding metal plates to the walls of the central stems and connecting them to a circuit. Researchers then charge the plates and the water inside the stems creates two conducting layers separated by an insulating layer, which acts as a capacitor. The waterflow is then periodically interrupted with air bubbles, and every time a bubble passes through the plates a small electrical current is generated -- about 2 - 5 microvolts per bubble. The team thinks that on a large scale, artificial trees could be use to generate large amounts of energy entirely through evaporation.
Monkeys and scientists develop persistent "plug and play" control over brain-to-computer interface
While we've seen some pretty amazing things so far with computers jacked into human and monkey brains, systems so far have had to be re-learned each session by their subjects. In a new development, researchers at Berkeley have managed to get their monkeys to develop a "memory" for the controls, and recall them instantly each day. To do this, the scientists kept track of specific neurons from day to day -- a little tough to do, but obviously worth the hassle. It's good news for future brain-to-computer interfaces that will enable the disabled and the truly lazy to perform tasks and kick ass through the mere power of thought, but we're a little afraid of giving these monkeys too much in the way of internet access: the world doesn't need another 4chan.
CellScope, the cellphone microscope, gets UV upgrade to spot tiny glowing things
It was over a year ago that UC Berkeley introduced the world to CellScope, the 60x microscope for cellphones made from cheap, off the shelf components (like a re-purposed belt clip). Now, even though we're disappointingly still not seeing this thing in stores, there's an upgraded version able to take pictures of even smaller nasties. Using a filter the scope can now spot microscopic critters tagged with dye that glows under fluorescent light -- things like Mycobacterium tuberculosis (that's the cause of TB if you, like us, lack a med degree). A software app is able to then count the number of cells within a given sample and tell you whether to worry about that annoying cough. There's still no word on whether this product will ever actually start scoping out such things in the wild, but we certainly hope it will -- if only so that we can keep our vast collection of cellphone accessories complete. Video after the break.[Via Crave]
