Feature Channels: Technology

• share
• favorite_border

In IEEE Spectrum's special January issue, the focus is on "winners and losers" from many technologies and several continents.

• share
• favorite_border

A Sandia National Laboratories robot recently withstood enough radiation to kill 40 men in freeing a stuck radiation source -- the size of a restaurant salt shaker -- at a White Sands Missile Range lab so that the cylinder could be safely returned to its insulated base.

• share
• favorite_border

A new concept integrates LED technology with building materials and systems. The design includes modular panels with integrated LED lighting fixtures that "snap" in and out of an electrical grid, allowing occupants to change the location of light fixtures and room design on a whim.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers have known for some time that a long, fibrous coil grown by a single-cell protozoan is, gram for gram, more powerful than a car engine. Now, researchers have found that this coil is far stronger than previously thought, discovering clues into the mechanism behind this microscopic powerhouse.

• share
• favorite_border

Clarkson University Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and "spoofing" expert Stephanie Schuckers' research demonstrates how using simple casts made from a mold and material such as Play-doh, clay or gelatin can be used to fool most fingerprint recognition devices.

• share
• favorite_border

Steven W. Van Sciver, an expert in cryogenics at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, is working with a technology company on the first phase of a grant to help prove the concept behind a patent-pending cryogenic technique for particle separation from a few microns down to submicrons.

• share
• favorite_border

A Georgia Institute of Technology researcher has developed a process that increases the hardness and improves the ballistic performance of the material used by the U.S. military for body armor. The researcher's start-up company is commercializing the technology.

• share
• favorite_border

As airline travel peaks for the Thanksgiving holiday, a newly completed wind tunnel at the University of Florida may help reduce the noise of commercial airplanes as they fly over homes and neighborhoods.

• share
• favorite_border

The friendly facial expressions, the soothing hand gestures, the coolly intelligent voice: Put them all together, and she is both disarmingly lifelike and surprisingly persuasive.

• share
• favorite_border

Akira Tokuhiro, a K-State associate professor of mechanical and nuclear engineering, is combining two research areas, biometrics -- including facial expressions -- and robotics, to combat terrorism.

• share
• favorite_border

Echoes of a "hydrogen economy" are reverberating across the country, but a number of roadblocks stand in the way. One of the biggest is the high cost of manufacturing fuel cells. A new project aims to tackle the challenge of mass production by using robots to assemble fuel cell stacks.

• share
• favorite_border

Clarkson University has announced an experimental fuel-saving device that may help revolutionize the trucking industry. The device reduces the "drag" on tractor trailers, thereby increasing fuel efficiency by some 10% and reducing costs and emissions.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers are developing a mechanical cochlea, a device that functions much like its human counterpart in the ear. Yet, because it is composed of micromachined parts and integrated circuits, the apparatus should be inexpensive to manufacture and could potentially capture a range of frequencies well beyond those of human hearing.

• share
• favorite_border

A partnership between Clarkson University researchers and an entrepreneur is transferring chemical process technology from the laboratory to the biofuels marketplace. Their efforts promise to contribute to energy independence and improve the economics of the biodiesel industry.

• share
• favorite_border

Sandia, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, and Sierra Monolithics demonstrated the Athena Radar-Responsive Tag during a recent military exercise in the U.K. Aircraft on bombing runs used their radar systems to spot unique signals from Athena tags carried on vehicles belonging to friendly forces.

• share
• favorite_border

The most important device of the 20th century was invented not just once, but twice.

• share
• favorite_border

How can the common housefly execute exquisitely precise and complex aerobatics with less computational might than an electric toaster?

• share
• favorite_border

Imagine an entire biotechnology laboratory reduced to the size of a pea and placed on a computer chip. Research to develop applications for this technology is also leading to establishment of a unique international engineering Ph.D. program.

• share
• favorite_border

For years scientists have had a problem with providing continuous power to sensors and electronic equipment in remote places. Now, scientists have devised a power cell that will provide continuous power for years.

• share
• favorite_border

An effort to transmit 150 times more electric power through long-length high-temperature superconductors as compared to conventional copper wire is the goal of a cooperative research and development agreement between the Department of Energy's ORNL and Metal Oxide Technologies.

• share
• favorite_border

Virginia Tech's "Cliff" and "Rocky" are among an elite group of 23 autonomous vehicles that will rev their engines on Saturday, Oct. 8 at the starting line of the $2 million DARPA Grand Challenge race through the Mojave Desert.

• share
• favorite_border

A pilot treatment system developed by the National Nuclear Security Administration's Sandia National Laboratories that tests technologies to remove arsenic from water, supplied by a number of vendors, will be demonstrated at a Rio Rancho well site on Oct. 10 at 1:30 p.m.

• share
• favorite_border

A team of Cornell University engineers has built a self-driving vehicle to enter the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge, in which a vehicle must cross 175 miles of battlefield-like terrain entirely under computer control.

• share
• favorite_border

Flying cars are everywhere"¦ large regions of the earth are under transparent domes with controlled weather...elsewhere, single buildings rise miles into the sky...huge areas of the ocean are covered with solar cells...tiny cameras watch everyone everywhere all the time, making sure crime does not pay...

• share
• favorite_border

A satellite equipped with novel solar antennas will be part of the payload on the Russian rocket Cosmos, scheduled for launch September 30 from Plesetsk, Russia. This satellite incorporates advanced technology that combines antenna functions and solar cells on a single surface. (French and German versions available)

• share
• favorite_border

In a demonstration that could foretell the future of videoconferencing, scientific visualization and digital cinema deployment, scientists at iGrid 2005 were treated to the world's first real-time, international transmission of super high-definition digital video.

• share
• favorite_border

The shutoff date for analog television will open the door to a host of new services.

• share
• favorite_border

Around the world, people in less-developed countries reap the benefits of the Internet without owning computers or, in some cases, even knowing how to read.

• share
• favorite_border

Cognitive radios can seemingly adapt to their environment and learn. Now Virginia Tech's Center for Wireless Telecommunications, with NSF funding, will develop a cognitive engine to allow the radios to share a distributed knowledge base to use for individual and collective reasoning and learning.

• share
• favorite_border

U.S. National Science Foundation Director Arden L. Bement, Jr. and Japanese deputy education, science and technology minister Tetsuhisa Shirakawa signed an agreement sign on Sept. 11 to enhance both countries' efforts to work together to combat the devastation of natural disasters.

• share
• favorite_border

Chris Wyatt is a Virginia Tech electrical engineer who is attempting to provide the medical community with better, quicker, and more relevant images of the human body. The side effects are not bad either "“"“ lower medical costs, new treatments, and earlier disease detection.

• share
• favorite_border

A concept vehicle designed to illustrate potential technology options for improving survivability and mobility in future military combat vehicles will be shown publicly for the first time Sept. 13-15 at a military technology meeting in Virginia.

• share
• favorite_border

A new solar-powered underwater robot technology developed for undersea observation and water monitoring will be showcased at a Sept. 16 workshop on leading-edge robotics to be held at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Arlington, Va.

• share
• favorite_border

On Sept. 16, the National Science Foundation (NSF) will host more than a dozen robots and their creators to showcase advanced robotics technology from across the nation.

• share
• favorite_border

Five years after breaking ground on a South African mountaintop near the edge of the Kalahari desert, astronomers today released the first images captured by the Southern African Large Telescope, now the equal of the world's largest optical telescope and a prized window to the night skies of the southern hemisphere.

• share
• favorite_border

A grad student at UC San Diego has released the beta version of open-source software that allows users to make a change to a computer file on one machine, and have that change happen to files located on other devices.

• share
• favorite_border

A versatile technology that can spot cracks in space shuttle foam, while also offering the potential to see biological agents through a sealed envelope and detect tumors without harmful radiation, will be the focus of a full-day symposium at the 230th national meeting of the American Chemical Society.

• share
• favorite_border

The military's next generation of airborne drones won't be just small and silent "“ they'll also dive between buildings, zoom under overpasses and land on apartment balconies.

• share
• favorite_border

The FBI's Virtual Case File was an auspicious start to what would become the most highly publicized software failure in history.

• share
• favorite_border

Of the $1 trillion that will be spent worldwide on technology this year, many billions will be wasted on software mistakes that are entirely preventable.

• share
• favorite_border

If integrated electronics could be big and flexible instead of small and rigid, they would be suitable for a dazzling array of items.

• share
• favorite_border

Inefficient, unproductive meetings -- like those satirized in Scott Adams' "Dilbert" cartoon -- are the bane of the modern workplace, but two University of Missouri-Rolla professors are looking to reverse that with new software to help people share ideas and stick to an agenda.

• share
• favorite_border

University of South Florida College of Marine Science scientists and engineers have placed sophisticated, small, rugged sensors at strategic points in Tampa Bay and downloaded environmental data from them wirelessly.

• share
• favorite_border

Cell phone charged? Joe Hynek and his Iowa State University collaborators are working to make wearable solar charging devices useful and pretty.

• share
• favorite_border

Iowa State University engineers have designed a high-tech system to protect the bridges of Madison County from vandals. The remote monitoring technology could be applied to other structures where security is an issue.

• share
• favorite_border

The traditional "campus visit" has gone virtual, presenting new challenges for college enrollment officials as university websites become 24-hour admissions offices.

• share
• favorite_border

Members of the news media are invited to attend a special event marking a major technological leap forward for the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory.

• share
• favorite_border

The development of molecular manufacturing will be a hinge point in history. Like the invention of the printing press, steam engines, and computers, molecular manufacturing will transform business, industry, social structures, and the balance of world power. The question is not if, but when.

• share
• favorite_border

Using a patented design introduced by his professor, a K-State graduate student used a simple technique to improve the resolution of the gamma ray detector -- at a fraction of the cost of other techniques.

• share
• favorite_border

Precision mirrors to focus X-rays and neutron beams could speed the path to new materials and perhaps help explain why computers, cell phones and satellites go on the blink.