Science and Enterprise

Tag: computer science

  • International Team Develops Optical Packet Router

    Researchers from Spain, the Netherlands, and Canada have developed an optical router chip, capable of operating up to 100 times faster than currently available chips. The router, that incorporates the principle of directing packets of data, are described in the latest issue of the journal Optics Express. The new chip is capable of routing optical…

  • Council Recommends Steps for Home Medical Devices, Health IT

    The National Research Council has recommended a series of actions to meet the likely increased demand for home use of medical devices and health information technology. The study was sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), a division of the Department of Health and Human Services. The 11 recommendations for other agencies…

  • Grant Awarded for Mind-Machine Engineering Research Center

    National Science Foundation announced an $18.5 million grant to establish an Engineering Research Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering based at University of Washington in Seattle. The grant is for five years of funding, with an option for another five years. The new center is expected to research robotic devices that interact with, assist, and understand…

  • University Develops Tiny, Lens-Free Camera

    A postdoc engineer at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York developed a microscopic camera that fits on the head of a pin, contains no lenses or moving parts, and costs pennies to make. The prototype by Patrick Gill and his colleagues is described in the current issue of the journal Optics Letters (paid subscription required).…

  • Algorithm Being Developed to Limit Small Airplane Collisions

    A postdoc and colleagues at Massachusetts Institute of Technology are developing an algorithm for a tracking system to predict and prevent collisions between small aircraft. The MIT team will present early results of its research in October at the 30th Digital Avionics Systems Conference in Seattle. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has mandated that by…

  • University Spin-Off to Develop Semiconductor Power Devices

    Anvil Semiconductors Ltd, a company created by University of Warwick in Coventry, U.K., will develop silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductor power switches that promise to be smaller and more efficient than devices built on traditional silicon. The company was founded by Warwick engineering faculty Phil Mawby and Peter Ward, who designed the company’s development technology in…

  • Software Helps Reduce Battery Drain on Mobile WiFi Devices

    A graduate student at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina has developed software that coordinates mobile devices competing for WiFi signals and extends the battery lives of those devices. Computer scientist Justin Manweiler (pictured right) presented details about the software at the Association for Computing Machinery’s conference on Mobile Systems, Applications and Services, held this…

  • Computerized Outpatient Prescriptions Still Have Errors

    Researchers from three Boston, Massachusetts medical centers, Harvard Medical School, and CVS Pharmacies analyzed records from automated prescription systems and found error rates similar to prescriptions written manually. The team’s findings appear online in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (paid subscription required). The panel of clinicians reviewed 3,850 prescription records from a…

  • Integrated Robotic Tactile Skin Sensitivity Developed

    Researchers at Technical University Munich (Technische Universität München, TUM) have built small hexagonal plates, which when joined together, provide a tactile-sensitive skin for autonomous robots. A paper describing these developments appears in the June issue of the journal IEEE Transactions on Robotics (paid subscription required). The TUM scientists have developed an artificial skin for robots…

  • White House Unveils Manufacturing Partnership, Investments

      At Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh today, President Obama launched an initiative that aims to invest in emerging technologies leading to high quality manufacturing jobs. The Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) is expected to combine resources from industry, universities, and the federal government to encourage progress in information technology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology, and other advancements…