ScienceDaily: Top Technology News

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• Software may be able to take over from hardware in managing caches
• Machine learning used to boil down the stories that wearable cameras are telling
• Scientists achieve highest open-circuit voltage for quantum dot solar cells
• The '50-50' chip: Memory device of the future? Material built from aluminum and antimony shows promise for next-generation data-storage devices
• To touch the microcosmos: New haptic microscope technique allows researchers to 'feel' microworld
• 'Terminator' polymer: Self-healing polymer that spontaneously and independently repairs itself
• Simple textiles can be used with catalysts to enable complex chemical reactions
• Molecular mirror images assigned: Safer drugs thanks to a new solution to a 150-year-old chemistry problem?
• Using technology to reduce hospital admissions for COPD patients
• Toward a truly white organic LED: Physicists develop polymer with tunable colors
• Detecting biomarkers on faraway planets
• CrowdGrader brings crowdsourcing to the task of grading homework

Software may be able to take over from hardware in managing caches Posted: 13 Sep 2013 08:40 AM PDT It may be time to let software, rather than hardware, manage the high-speed on-chip memory banks known as "caches."

Machine learning used to boil down the stories that wearable cameras are telling Posted: 13 Sep 2013 08:40 AM PDT Computers will someday soon automatically provide short video digests of a day in your life, your family vacation or an eight-hour police patrol, say computer scientists. Researchers are working to develop tools to help make sense of the vast quantities of video that are going to be produced by wearable camera technology like Google Glass and Looxcie.

Scientists achieve highest open-circuit voltage for quantum dot solar cells Posted: 13 Sep 2013 08:40 AM PDT Using colloidal lead sulfide nanocrystal quantum dot substances, researchers have achieved the highest recorded open-circuit voltages for quantum dot solar cells to date.

The '50-50' chip: Memory device of the future? Material built from aluminum and antimony shows promise for next-generation data-storage devices Posted: 13 Sep 2013 08:33 AM PDT A new, environmentally-friendly electronic alloy consisting of 50 aluminum atoms bound to 50 atoms of antimony may be promising for building next-generation "phase-change" memory devices, which may be the data-storage technology of the future.

To touch the microcosmos: New haptic microscope technique allows researchers to 'feel' microworld Posted: 13 Sep 2013 08:33 AM PDT What if you could reach through a microscope to touch and feel the microscopic structures under the lens? In a breakthrough that may usher in a new era in the exploration of the worlds that are a million times smaller than human beings, researchers have unveiled a new technique that allows microscope users to manipulate samples using a technology known as "haptic optical tweezers."

'Terminator' polymer: Self-healing polymer that spontaneously and independently repairs itself Posted: 13 Sep 2013 07:18 AM PDT Scientists have reported the first self-healing polymer that spontaneously and independently repairs itself without any intervention. The researchers have dubbed the material a "Terminator" polymer in tribute to the shape-shifting, molten T-100 terminator robot from the Terminator 2 film.

Simple textiles can be used with catalysts to enable complex chemical reactions Posted: 13 Sep 2013 07:15 AM PDT In future, it will be much easier to produce some active pharmaceutical substances and chemical compounds than was the case to date. Chemists have immobilized various catalysts on nylon in a very simple way. Catalysts mediate between the reagents in a chemical reaction and control the process leading to the desired end product. When textile material is used as a support for the chemical auxiliaries, the reaction can proceed on a large surface thereby increasing its efficiency. One of the catalysts that the researchers used in this way plays an important role in the synthesis of a pharmaceutical agent which could only be used previously in dissolved form, making the production process very complicated and expensive. Immobilising this catalyst on fabric simplifies production considerably. This process may be expected to yield similar advantages for other chemical processes.

Molecular mirror images assigned: Safer drugs thanks to a new solution to a 150-year-old chemistry problem? Posted: 13 Sep 2013 05:58 AM PDT Just like gloves, molecules come in so-called left-handed and right-handed versions. Until now, however, it could be determined only with great difficulty whether a certain molecule is right-handed or left-handed. Scientists now report a new solution to this 150-year old problem. In medicine, this would be a big step forward because, for example, the unwanted side effects of drugs could be avoided.

Using technology to reduce hospital admissions for COPD patients Posted: 13 Sep 2013 05:57 AM PDT Patients with COPD can use tablet computers to report their daily condition, allowing hospitals to pick up early symptoms, take action and thereby reduce admissions.

Toward a truly white organic LED: Physicists develop polymer with tunable colors Posted: 13 Sep 2013 05:54 AM PDT By inserting platinum atoms into an organic semiconductor, physicists were able to "tune" the plastic-like polymer to emit light of different colors – a step toward more efficient, less expensive and truly white organic LEDs for light bulbs of the future.

Detecting biomarkers on faraway planets Posted: 12 Sep 2013 06:27 AM PDT On Earth, life leaves tell-tale signals in the atmosphere. Photosynthesis is ultimately responsible for the high oxygen levels and the thick ozone layer. Microbes emit methane and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere, and seaweeds emit chloromethane gas. These chemicals, when present in sufficient quantities, are indicators of life and are known as atmospheric biomarkers. Detecting them in the atmosphere of an exoplanet should, in theory, be a means of discovering whether life exists on any alien worlds.

CrowdGrader brings crowdsourcing to the task of grading homework Posted: 11 Sep 2013 01:09 PM PDT A new crowdsourcing tool that gets students involved in grading, CrowdGrader allows students to submit their homework online and then distributes the submitted solutions anonymously to other students in the class for grading.

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