Taking the Internet to the People
IEEE Spectrum MagazineAround 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The FBI's Virtual Case File was an auspicious start to what would become the most highly publicized software failure in history.
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.
If integrated electronics could be big and flexible instead of small and rigid, they would be suitable for a dazzling array of items.
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.
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.
Cell phone charged? Joe Hynek and his Iowa State University collaborators are working to make wearable solar charging devices useful and pretty.
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.
The traditional "campus visit" has gone virtual, presenting new challenges for college enrollment officials as university websites become 24-hour admissions offices.
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.
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.
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.
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.
NASA researchers quarrel over how to network outer space.
Undergraduate engineers build 17-foot model of military surveillance airship that would hover at outer edge of atmosphere.
Isis Innovation, the technology transfer arm of the University of Oxford, is offering for licence a new and more reliable method for retrieving images from the web and from archive libraries.
A multi-organizational team is adapting for DOE use a technology that can help keep security adversaries out of DOE sites that contain nuclear assets. The DOE Office of Security and Safety Performance Assurance is exploring the potential to use directed energy weapons technology to help protect DOE nuclear assets.
A team of students from the University of Missouri-Rolla will try for another championship in solar car racing beginning July 17 in Austin, Texas. The race covers 2,500 miles, ending in Calgary, Alberta.
Humanoid robots RUBI and QRIO engage 1- to 2-year-old children in daily activities as part of a long-term project to investigate the uses of interactive computers in educational environments and to advance the field of real-time, social robotics.
The Florida LambdaRail Network, a next-generation Internet that is faster than any other education-based network in the Southeast and is among the top in the nation in speed and capacity, is now operating at Florida State University and nine other universities in the state.
Imagine if on September 11 rescue workers had been able to track each other with small locators emitting a signal that could penetrate through a building, metal, fire or smoke.
It took two centuries to cram the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., with more than 29 million books and periodicals, 2.7 million recordings, 12 million photographs, 4.8 million maps, and 57 million manuscripts; today it takes 15 minutes to churn out the digital equivalent.
The University of Arkansas is creating a center to test the durability of high-tech, high-speed fiber-optic communication devices made for the extreme environments faced by military and space flight equipment, thanks to an award from a local company that makes the devices.
A project to improve the false alarm rate and to standardize the certification of fire detection systems in cargo compartments of commercial aircraft is underway. Sandia's role in the project was to develop a physics-based Computational Fluid Dynamics model to analyze smoke transport in cargo compartments.
The federal government has asked engineering researchers to develop purely electronic systems to make the nation's power grid more reliable and efficient. Silicon-carbide, solid-state equipment will replace outdated and obsolete electro-mechanical devices.
Undergrad engineers answer challenge to make tractor useable by disabled volunteers at southern Maryland state park.
Open development of biological technology is crucial to US domestic security and to the health of our economy. Misuse of this technology in bioterrorism is a clear threat. Our first response to recent domestic bioterror attacks has been to pursue safety in regulation.
Researchers at USF's Center for Ocean Technology are taking underwater mass spectrometry equipment -- built to detect dissolved gasses and volatile organic compounds -- to ever greater depths to measure compounds at ever smaller concentrations.
Iowa State University researchers take innovative bridge beam to the breaking point: 595,000 pounds of load. That's more than the weight of seven semi trucks.
Dendritic NanoTechnologies Inc. at Central Michigan University makes precise denrimers that can be engineered for function and interior nanocontainer space available at low cost.
Alternatives to conventional solder, along with new electrically-conductive adhesives, are helping manufacturers get the lead out of consumer electronic products such as cellular telephones and electronic toys.
A multibeam Doppler radar that scans storms every 5 to 10 seconds is prowling the Great Plains through June in search of its first close-up tornado. The National Center for Atmospheric Research helped develop the Rapid-Scan Doppler on Wheels and a powerful technique to analyze its data in 3-D.
A special report looks at how technology is driving China's emergence as an industrial powerhouse -- and what that means for the world.
Iowa State University X-ray flow visualization facility allows researchers to see and take X-ray images of liquids, solids and gases flowing through a system.
Sophisticated signal processing techniques and simple proof-of-principle antenna arrays built from PVC pipe, aluminum foil and copper wire could revolutionize the way NASA obtains data from its Earth observing satellites.
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are helping public safety officials, building managers, child welfare authorities and others learn how to protect themselves from the dangers of clandestine methamphetamine laboratories.
A newly developed unmanned aerial vehicle could be the next tool in homeland security defense. The craft has no pilot -- not even one who controls it remotely from the ground. All aspects of flight are conducted without human intervention, making this UAV the first of its kind.
A new breed of rapid prototyping machine now in development can make everything from rockets to robots, batteries included.
Because a computer network cannot ward off every last Internet worm, it must sound an alarm the minute one slithers inside.
When the first matter came into being right after the big bang, what was it like? It may not have been quite as scientists have been describing it. That is one of the possibilities raised by four international teams of researchers.