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Mobile Phones Enhanced to Transmit Emphasis, Emotions
Computer scientists at University of Helsinki in Finland developed enhancements to mobile phones that enable callers to express their emotions during calls through tactile sensory devices. A team led by postdoctoral researcher Eve Hoggan in Helsinki’s Institute of Information Technology described the technology they call ForcePhone at ACM’s User Interface Software and Technology symposium in…
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USPTO Expands Pro Bono Patent Help to California, D.C.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is expanding pro bono legal assistance on patents in California and the District of Columbia. The America Invents Act, signed into law last year, calls for USPTO to establish regional pro bono legal help programs on patent issues. In California, USPTO will partner with the organization California Lawyers for…
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Life Sciences Can Generate Start-Ups, With a Little Help
A case study of innovation in the life sciences in San Francisco shows academic researchers, with the right kind of support, can generate a high number of start-up companies producing new products for the marketplace. The study focuses on the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) and its entrepreneurial programs, which appears in this week’s…
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Public Domain Name Services Found Slowing Web Performance
Computer scientists at Northwestern University in Illinois found the global trend toward public domain name systems (DNSs) — to look up Internet addresses before making connections — is slowing down the Web for many visitors. A team led by Northwestern computer science professor Fabián Bustamante (pictured left) will discuss these findings at the ACM Internet…
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New Potato Type Bred for Higher Carotenoid Levels
Researchers with the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture developed a new breed of potato with higher levels of carotenoids, plant pigments considered beneficial to human health. The work of plant geneticist Kathy Haynes at the Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, Maryland is described in the October 2012 issue of Agricultural Research…
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Online Prostate Cancer Patient Tracking Database Launches
An online database to help men track the progression of their prostate cancer started yesterday to help patients avoid complications from overtreatment. The new program is part of the National Proactive Surveillance Network, a joint project of the Prostate Cancer Foundation, Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The database…
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Americans Use More Gas and Renewables, Less Coal in 2011
Americans used less energy overall in 2011 than in 2010 due mainly to reductions in the amount of energy wasted, along with natural gas and renewable sources increasing, and coal declining. The findings were published in an annual accounting of national energy supply and demand by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, based on data from the…
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Merck, Seiko Epson to Partner on Organic LED Inkjet Inks
The chemical company Merck in Darmstadt, Germany will license ink-jet ink technology from electronics manufacturer Seiko Epson in Tokyo for the manufacture of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) television displays. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. OLEDs use thin films of carbon-based materials — thus the name “organic” — placed between two conductors. When…
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New Non-Plastic Medical Testing Film Developed
Chemical researchers at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland and North Carolina State University in Raleigh developed a testing medium that can make it easier to conduct medical diagnostics in doctors’ offices rather than separate labs. The work of Aalto doctoral candidate Hannes Orelma and colleagues appears online in the journal Biointerphases. The new testing platform…
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Robotic Programming Language Devised for Bio Labs
Researchers at the Joint BioEnergy Institute of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California created a programming language for robotic devices in biology labs. The high-level language called PaR-PaR — short for Programming a Robot — is described this month in the journal ACS Synthetic Biology. Par-Par is written to help train robotic devices perform repetitive…