Intel: World’s First Working Chips Built on 22nm Process Technology

The 22nm test circuits include both SRAM memory as well as logic circuits to be used in future Intel microprocessors.

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SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Products Finally Available

The USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) announced the first certified SuperSpeed USB 3.0 commercially available product.

The SuperSpeed USB 3.0 boosts the data transfer rate up to ten times faster than Hi-Speed USB (USB 2.0), with optimized power efficiency.

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Drop Test for An Inflatable Heat Shield

NASA successfully tested a device to slow and protect a spacecraft descending on a planet's surface.

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(Image NASA)

GE Grabs Gearless Wind Turbines

Instead of gearboxes, ScanWind uses a novel direct-drive generator technology in its 3.5-megawatt turbines. This makes the turbines more reliable, the company says, by cutting downtime and repair costs--an especially important consideration for turbines offshore, where it's more expensive to send technicians for maintenance.

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Intel's Plan to Replace Copper Wires

Intel plans to sell inexpensive cables with fiber-optic-caliber speed to connect, for instance, a laptop and an external hard drive, or a phone and a desktop computer. At the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco Wednesday, the company announced a new type of optical cable that it hopes will be fast, cheap, and thin enough to make it an attractive replacement for multiple copper wires.

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Microsoft DRM Patent Could Revive Peer-to-Peer Music Nets

Microsoft has just been awarded a U.S. patent for a distributed DRM system -- it works over peer-to-peer networks -- which uses encrypted public and private keys as the licensing mechanism. This is significant because, while centralized music stores like Apple's iTunes have forsaken DRM, the Microsoft patent would enable peer-to-peer networks to reemerge as viable, albeit protected, content sources.

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SGI aims at 'personal supercomputing' that's cheap, easy to use

Silicon Graphics International Corp. on Monday released its first so-called personal supercomputer. The new Octane III system is priced from $7,995 with one Xeon 5500 processor. The system can be expanded to an 80-core system with a capacity of up to 960GB of memory.

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RFID Keeps Assets From Getting Lost

A ZigBee-based system lets the California hospital continually monitor the location and condition of high-priced equipment throughout its nine-building campus.

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Component of asphalt eyed as new fuel source

The pavement material that cars drive on may wind up in their fuel tanks as scientists seek ways of transforming asphaltenes -- the main component of asphalt -- into an abundant new source of fuel, according to the cover story in the current issue of Chemical & Engineering News, ACS' weekly newsmagazine.

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Are Magnetically Levitating 'Sky Pods' the Future of Travel?

A company in California, called Unimodal Systems, has designeda transport system that allows individualized travel, but that is also a form of mass transit. The key lies in the use of "sky pods" that magnetically levitate from their rails.

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Intel brings Nehalem to notebooks, makes light of cables

Intel has moved its latest desktop and server chip architecture to the laptop with the announcement of its 45nm Core i7 mobile processor, based on its new Nehalem microarchitecture.

Officially launched at the Intel Developer Forum here Wednesday morning, the chip is initially available in two standard and one Extreme Edition versions. Formerly known as Clarksfield, the quad-core chip combines Intel's Turbo Boost and Hyperthreading technologies.

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Ground-based Augmentation Landing System OK’d

Honeywell’s SmartPath precision-landing system yesterday became the only ground-based augmentation system (GBAS) to receive FAA approval. GBAS monitors GPS signals to detect errors and augment accuracy by transmitting correction messages to aircraft, providing precision-approach guidance to all qualifying runways at an airport.

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Neurocinema Aims to Change the Way Movies are Made

New practice of neuromarketing — where MRI technology is used to determine a shopper’s preferences and actual brain reactions to a particular product or idea — is being applied to the film industry, starting with the horror genre.

MindSign Neuromarketing is leading the charge in applying neuroscience to feature films, with assistance from film producer Peter Katz. They are calling this new hybrid of neuromarketing and how it applies to film, rather than commercials or movie trailers, neurocinema.

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River turbines could electrify New York City

A network of floating docks could harness clean energy for New York City and provide new space for parks, researchers now propose.

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US Navy: ALQ-99 pods no match for "today's" threat

The core of the US military's airborne electronic attack weapons are useless against Russian S-400 integrated air defense systems currently for sale on the export market.

In unusually blunt language for an unclassified source, a US Navy document soliciting sources for a next generation jammer (NGJ) dismisses the current system as out-classed.

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Israeli troops get plasma screens

The Israeli military has launched a program to provide combat units with portable digital maps of their operational areas and a three-dimensional picture of the battlefield.

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U.S. Army Tests Precision Mortar Round

The U.S. Army and General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems (GD) are test-firing a new GPS-guided 120mm mortar designed to bring precision accuracy to conventional rounds by adding a small receiver and micro-controller to existing mortars, service and company officials said.

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U.S. Army Tests Precision Mortar Round

The U.S. Army and General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems (GD) are test-firing a new GPS-guided 120mm mortar designed to bring precision accuracy to conventional rounds by adding a small receiver and micro-controller to existing mortars, service and company officials said.

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