GreenSound Technology Frazil Speaker Set Frequency response: 300 hertz-15 kilohertz; Dimensions: 49 x 18 x 18; Price: $8,000.

A speaker’s sound comes from the diaphragm, a flat or cone-shaped piece that pushes air. It can be made from almost anything: metal, carbon, fabric, paper, even wood. California-based Greensound Technology, however, has taken a new approach, sending vibrations pulsing through a half-inch pane of tempered glass.

Since sound comes off both sides of the glass, the speaker projects a full 360 degrees of sound that envelops listeners. By design, this glass sheet can reproduce notes from nearly every instrument, from an upright bass to a piccolo. A sound generator in its 10-inch-tall base sends the pane vibrating, and its sail-like shape helps it handle varied tones: Bass emanates from the lower portion, midrange comes off the midsection, and high frequencies radiate from the tip. The heft of the base deepens low frequencies, while three holes near the top cut mass to tune high notes.

The glass’s range and wide reach replicate a studio soundstage better than other speakers—a pair of these and a subwoofer can put you virtually dead center at a concert hall.

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Researchers at Fujitsu have made huge steps toward developing effective magnetic resonance-based wireless charging systems for mobile devices.

We’re all aware of how annoying a tangled mass of electrical wires can be. Fortunately, a research effort from Fujitsu is tackling the problem at its very source. During a conference held in the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers at Osaka Prefecture University, the Japanese electronics giant announced a major step in developing a wireless recharging technology that can work simultaneously with multiple portable devices.

Researchers have been struggling with wireless electricity for some time now, and have come up with a number of different possible solutions, most of which are only at a prototype stage because of technological hurdles that can’t be circumvented. As far as wireless charging goes, the two most popular solutions are electromagnetic induction and magnetic resonance.

Electromagnetic induction works by creating a magnetic flux between a power-transmitting and a power-receiving coil. While this is a promising technology for some applications, and particularly for recharging electric cars, it also seems to lack some flexibility since it only works over short distances, and the power transmitter and power receiver need to be in alignment for the system to work properly.

By contrast, the magnetic resonance method appears much more versatile, as it can transport electricity from a single transmitter to multiple receiving devices over a range of several meters and regardless of the relative position of the two ends.

While better in theory, the development of magnetic resonance has been hindered by practical design issues: a number of factors — parasitic capacitance, external magnetic fields, even the batteries in the device to be charged can influence the magnetic fields and drastically decrease the charging efficiency. Furthermore, the smaller the devices, the more they are subject to external influences, making this technology particularly hard to incorporate into mobile phones.

All these issues can be sorted out by properly designing the charging system, but the process takes time. In fact, the development of wireless charging for portable electronics has so far been hindered mainly by problems associated with design and analysis of the systems themselves.

What the Fujitsu researchers developed is essentially a sophisticated simulator that takes into consideration the coil model and the magnetic resonance conditions. This tool can guide manufacturers’ decisions in setting the parameters of the wireless chargers in such a way to maximize the charging efficiency for multiple transmitters and receivers even for devices, such as mobile phones, that used to be problematic because of their small size.

The tool, which reportedly reduces design time by a whopping factor of 150, was used to design a compact power receiver and to manufacture prototype mobile phones with built-in wireless charging. The mobile phones can get charged from anywhere within the transmitter’s range, reaching 85 pecent efficiency.

Fujitsu said it will use this technology to develop wireless charging systems for mobile phones and other portable devices, which should hit the shelves in 2012. The company is also looking to apply the technology for power transmission between computer chips and to provide mobile charging systems for electric cars.

EPROM Traditional electronic computer memory, made by Texas Instruments.

For years, particle physicists and computer scientists have been promising us vastly improved memory chips based on the spin of individual electrons, but concrete advances have been awfully elusive. Now a team at Ohio State has put together a working device to test spintronic memory, and used it successfully.

The team hooked a pair of leads to an array of magnets, and, by manipulating the spin of the electrons within the magnetic fields, were able to record and retrieve data.

Spintronics promises to double the density of computer storage, as each electron will be able to store two bits of data instead of one. Energy usage will drop as well, since the electrons won’t need to flow around to do their work. The result would be smaller devices with smaller batteries.

io9 quotes Arthur J. Epstein, a researcher on the project: "If we had a lighter weight spintronic device which operates itself at a lower energy cost, and if we could make it on a flexible polymer display, soldiers and other users could just roll it up and carry it."

Merlin, Learning to Speak

Steve Jobs promised us the iPad would change our lives, and while it hasn’t been all things to all people – what about that front-facing camera, Steve? – the beauty of such a device is that developers (to the extent that Apple will allow them, anyhow) are free to get as creative as they want with the device. Just ask Merlin the bottlenose dolphin. He loves the iPad, and thanks to a symbol-based human-dolphin communication interface being developed for the iPad’s ample touchscreen, he could one day be able to tell you so himself.

The program, being developed by a non-profit called Speak Dolphin at Dolphin Discovery’s swim facility in Puerto Aventuras, Mexico, is being tested on both the iPad and a Panasonic Toughbook. Merlin, a two-year-old bottlenose, uses his rostrum (that’s his elongated beak) to operate the touchscreen, learning to associates symbols with objects.

Researchers think once Merlin gets the hang of using the touchscreen to associate objects, he’ll be able to learn a kind of symbolic language to express more intangible ideas, like actions or even emotions. Of course, this dolphin-human interface requires some other more basic technology beyond the program, like anti-glare screens that Merlin can better see and waterproofing tech that keeps him from ruining his favorite status symbol.

But what’s starting out as rudimentary symbol association on a touchscreen could potentially provide a way for humans to communicate quickly and efficiently, if at a very basic level, with the more intelligent species with which we share the planet. Add “Dog Whisperer” to the list of apps we’d like to see hit the store in coming years.

Researchers have succeeded in building a molecular computer that can mimic the inner working mechanisms of the human brain

Researchers from Japan and the Michigan Technological University have succeeded in building a molecular computer that, more than any previous project of its kind, can replicate the inner mechanisms of the human brain, repairing itself and mimicking the massive parallelism that allows our brains to process information like no silicon-based computer can.

A relatively new technology, molecular electronics is an interdisciplinary pursuit that may very well prove the long-term solution to validate Moore’s law well into the next century. A molecular computer is made of organic molecules instead of silicon. Chips built this way are not only potentially much smaller but also, because of the way they can be networked, able to do things that no other traditional computer, regardless of its speed, can do.

"Modern computers are quite fast, capable of executing trillions of instructions a second, but they can’t match the intelligent performance of our brain," Michigan Tech physicist Ranjit Pati commented. "Our neurons only fire about a thousand times per second. But I can see you, recognize you, talk with you, and hear someone walking by in the hallway almost instantaneously, a Herculean task for even the fastest computer."

The key lays in the massive parallelism and versatility of the human brain, as the electrical impulses that travel through it follow vast, dynamic neural paths that operate collectively, constantly communicating with each other. In digital computers, by contrast, information processing is done sequentially, with recent advancements such as multicore processors and GPU processing altering the picture only slightly.

The researchers built a molecular computer by placing DDQ — a hexagonal molecule made of nitrogen, oxygen, chlorine and carbon that self-assembles in two layers — on a gold substrate. Crucially, this molecule has the ability to easily switch among four conducting states (compared to the only two used by a standard computer), which simplifies the read/write mechanisms and speeds up the data crunching.

"The neat part is, approximately 300 molecules talk with each other at a time during information processing. We have mimicked how neurons behave in the brain," said Pati. But perhaps the most stunning similarity of the team’s computer with the human brain comes from the self-organizing ability of the molecular layer, and is the ability to physically heal itself, just like brain cells are able to regenerate to some extent.

Because of these unique characteristics the team’s processor can, despite its relative simplicity, solve problems for which algorithms are unknown. The researchers already demonstrated this capability by simulating two natural phenomena in the molecular layer — heat diffusion and the evolution of cancer cells. As their complexity grows, molecular computers may soon be able to solve the same problems that our brains face every day.

The team’s work is detailed in the paper Massively Parallel Computing on an Organic Molecule Layer, published in the online version of the journal Nature Physics. The research is supported by the National Science Foundation.

The system works by taking a 3D image of people at the door via its two cameras and matching them against your stored database of images (up to 500 faces).

Deploying the same wiring protocol (Weigand) commonly used to connect a card swipe mechanism to the rest of an electronic entry system, you can monitor your staff, family members, their friends, plus unwelcome guest and family members.

Chinavasion says the wall-mounted CVJB-G107 can recognize facial distinction accurately in a fraction of a second and the added security of 3D images means that photographs of people won’t fool the system, only the real people will gain access to your premises.

The facial recognition and time attendance system isn’t a bad looking piece of equipment either, and will sit comfortably alongside most other high-tech devices in the modern home or office.

Also equipped with night vision, the unit has a 3.5-inch TFT display screen, touch keypad, USB and Ethernet port for TCP/IP connections.

Strictly business

The Hanvon CVJB-G107 comes with its management software that allows you to define work time, vacation time, overtime, etc., and gives you full data and reports by department or individual so you can see who’s late, out of the office or ducking out for one too many tea breaks.

In a nutshell, the device lets you: lock and unlock doors remotely and through face recognition technology; record employee attendance; keep track of employee times; export and import from a TXT file; download recorded data via USB or TCP/IP.

Specifications for the CVJB-G107:
• Processor: TI DSP 600MHz
• User capacity: 500 users
• Record capacity: 150,000 records
• Recognition Algorithm: Dual Sensor TM V2.0
• Sensor: specialized double sensor
• Verification speed: Less than one second
• 3.5 inch TFT color screen
• 320 x 240 Resolution Standard TCP/IP
• 12V DC, working current 500mA, power consumption: 12W when operating, less than 5W standby
• Dimensions: L:145mm x W: 200mm D:90mm

1. Anthropomimetic Machines

No matter how closely a robot resembles a human on the outside, if you crack it open, the jumble of wires is unlikely to bear much resemblance to our insides. A group of European researchers aims to bridge that gap—its robot prototype is anthropomimetic, meaning it mimics the human form. There’s a skeleton made of thermoplastic polymer, actuators that correspond to each muscle and kiteline as tendons. The goal is to create a more human-like robot that interacts with and responds to environments the way we do.

2. Direct Carbon Fuel Cell

Yesterday’s fuel cells, like those seen here on Spacelab, require a hydrogen infrastructure. (Photograph by H4NUM4N)

Coal is dirty, and fuel cells run on hydrogen—that’s the conventional wisdom. But a new generation of “direct carbon” fuel cells challenges that. Instead of relying on hard-to-produce hydrogen, these cells pull their power from an electrochemical reaction between oxygen and pulverized coal (or some other source of carbon, like biomass). The advantage: carbon-based energy production that requires no combustion, allowing it to operate at about twice the efficiency of a typical coal-fired power plant. California-based Direct Carbon Technology expects to have a 10-kilowatt prototype running on biomass in 2010, while Ohio-based Contained Energy hopes soon to use the tech to power a small light bulb. Eventually, the companies hope to build modular fuel cells that can be stacked in order to create new small-scale power plants or add clean capacity to existing plants.

3. Metabolomics

For the past five years, scientists at the University of Alberta in Edmonton have been working on the Human Metabolome Project, a database of the 8000 naturally occurring metabolites (that is, small molecules involved in chemical reactions in the body), as well as 1450 drugs, 1900 food additives and 2900 toxins that turn up in blood and urine tests. With this information, researchers can analyze a patient’s metabolomic profile, allowing them to tell from a drop of blood or urine whether somebody likes chocolate—or is likely to develop a life-threatening disease. Today, these tests require million-dollar pieces of equipment that are mostly confined to research labs. The Project’s database, which was first released in 2007, is already being used in commercial applications such as drug discovery and disease diagnosis, making quick and easy tests for personalized health and medical guidance possible.

4. DNA Origami

Scientists at Caltech have been folding microscopic strands of DNA into interesting shapes for the past few years. A cool party trick for sure, until a breakthrough last summer suggested that the folded strands could be used to create ultrasmall computer chips. That’s when the scientists teamed up with IBM researchers and showed that they could strategically position folded DNA shapes, such as triangles, along the sort of silicon wafer used in microchips. This should allow them to use pieces of the DNA strands as anchor points for tiny computer-chip components that could be built as little as 6 nanometers apart—a huge improvement over the current stand-ard of 45 nm.

5. Piezoelectric Display

Scientists have long known about naturally occurring piezoelectric materials, which have the ability to transform electrical energy into physical stress and vice versa. But by building the property into electronic displays, companies can now create screens that can change shape or texture. This year, the technology is expected to make the leap into mainstream consumer products, offering the potential for mobile devices with screens that can harden protectively when turned off, and soften into a depressible touchscreen when turned on.

6. Osseointegration

The ideal prosthetic limb would behave like part of the natural body. Osseointegration allows prosthetics to fuse with a patient’s living bone—it works by taking advantage of the fact that bone cells attach to titanium instead of rejecting it. The technique has already been used for small-scale dental and facial implants, and researchers are now bringing it to full-scale limb prosthetics. After a successful lower-leg implant in 2008 on a German shepherd named Cassidy, veterinary surgeons at North Carolina State University have six more leg operations on amputee dogs planned for 2010, and are considering a case involving an ocelot at the North Carolina Zoo. But the big challenge ahead is to implement the technology in human limbs.

7. Horizontal Drilling

Trillions of cubic feet of natural gas in the United States lie buried within layers of shale as much as 11,000 feet deep. Much of this gas is inaccessible through ordinary wells—the dense rock makes it flow too slowly. The answer: wells that drill vertically down to the shale bed, then make a gradual 90-degree horizontal turn through the shale deposit. It’s an old idea, but higher energy prices and better technology have suddenly made it a hit. In 2008, Chesapeake Energy deployed 14 horizontal drilling rigs in the South’s massive Haynesville Shale deposits, and they expect to have 40 rigs up by the end of 2010.

8. Kinetic Hydropower

Traditional hydroelectricity requires dams—massive engineering works that remake local landscapes and ecosystems. A less intrusive solution: kinetic hydropower, which uses underwater turbines to capitalize on the natural flow of rivers and tides. Since 2006, Verdant Power has been testing six underwater turbines in New York’s East River to prove the technology’s potential. In 2010, the company expects to receive licensing for a major build-out of 30 underwater turbines in the river, to the east of New York’s Roosevelt Island, that will feed 1 megawatt of power into the grid. Other projects around the world are expected to complete testing soon and begin full-scale operation, including three installations that tap some of the highest tidal ranges in the world, in Canada’s Bay of Fundy.

9. Nanoyarn

Carbon nanotubes have been touted as the next big thing ever since their discovery in 1991. The appeal lies in their strength (they are up to 100 times stronger than steel) and their ability to conduct both heat and electricity. But, until now, they’ve been too difficult to manufacture in useful quantities. That’s finally changing: New Hampshire–based Nanocomp Technologies is weaving nanotubes into lengths of yarn that can be built into commercial applications. The company recently delivered more than 6 miles of nanoyarn to a major aerospace client, and successful bullet-stopping tests last spring have the Pentagon excited about the prospect of next-gen body armor that’s both lighter and thinner than Kevlar.

10. Ultracapacitors

The biggest challenge for electric cars is energy storage: Batteries are better than ever, but they are still expensive, slow to charge and have fairly limited life spans. The solution may be ultracapacitors, which hold less energy than batteries (at least as the technology currently stands) but have virtually none of their drawbacks. That means longer life spans, no messy chemical reactions, no issues with battery memory and far greater durability. Researchers have been trying to perfect automotive ultracapacitors for several years (MIT is working on nanotube-based ultracaps, while Argonne National Laboratory is exploring battery–ultracap hybrids), but the big move could come from the secretive Texas-based company EEStor, which announced in April that its barium-titanate design had passed a crucial test. Though the company’s claims have aroused skepticism, EEStor’s automotive partner, ZENN Motors, is hyping the release of an ultracapacitor-powered car in 2010.