American government controlcrats are absolutely in love with RFID chips.
They want to embed radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags in everything, passports, "enhanced" driver's licenses (ELD), PASS cards required for travel to nearby countries, other types of identity documents and credentials, and in the ears of all farm animals (but that latter is an article for another day).
A new computer game designed by a researcher at Newcastle University could help to create CAPTCHA systems immune to attack from AI bots. Dr Jeff Yan's Magic Bullet game turns the validation of CAPTCHA characters into an online game. He hopes that it will help companies stay one step ahead of spammers, hackers and online criminals.
CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart) is widely used by websites such as Google and Facebook to defend against malicious bots that spread junk emails or grab thousands of free email accounts.
THE power gadgets waste when converting alternating current to direct current could be cut by a third by switching to converters that use gallium nitride transistors instead of silicon ones.
These transistors will also make adaptors small enough to fit inside a laptop - doing away with the need to carry a separate adaptor, says a team at Fujitsu Laboratories in Kawasaki, Japan.
Twenty years ago, in a research establishment in the Swiss Alps, a British-born computer scientist dreamt up a new way for academics to share information around the globe.
Little did he realise that his invention would break out from the confines of academia and give birth to the world wide web.
Two decades on, there are over 200 million websites and over one trillion unique URLs. An astounding 1.6 billion people use the web worldwide, and here in the UK the figure stands at over 70 per cent of the population.
As technology journalists, we get a lot of pitches from companies' public relations teams. Some of these pitches, unfortunately, are written in a language that bears little resemblance to English. Here we explain some of the worst.
This used to be a typical day for Dr. Ian Boykin, "In a normal day of rounds, when you come into the hospital the first thing you have to do is ask for a patient list, talk to nurses, check their vital signs." That's the old fashioned, long way. Now, the information he needs is right in his cell phone. Dr. Boykin says, "When I start my rounds I don't even have to stop at the nurses desk. I just go directly to the patients room. I walk in see how they are doing."
Technology is being tested that allows heat generated by computers to warm offices and homes. IBM has launched a trial in Switzerland that could see the heat produced by large datacentres being recycled to heat offices.
A team led by Yale University researchers has created the first rudimentary solid-state quantum processor, taking another step toward the ultimate dream of building a quantum computer.
They also used the two-qubit superconducting chip to successfully run elementary algorithms, such as a simple search, demonstrating quantum information processing with a solid-state device for the first time. Their findings will appear in Nature's advanced online publication June 28.
Solar power is an undeniably great idea, but it soon runs into trouble when clouds roll in to block the Sun's rays. Which is why we could soon be looking at moving the panels into space way beyond the pesky old atmosphere.
The plan is already in motion in Japan, where the government is soliciting for firms to build the hardware required to get giant solar panels into orbit. By next month, the goal is to have the necessary partners in place for the real planning to begin, with a goal of supplying solar power from space by 2030.
A company based in Berkeley, CA, is developing lightweight, high-energy batteries that can use the surrounding air as a cathode. PolyPlus is partnering with a manufacturing firm to develop single-use lithium metal-air batteries for the government, and it expects these batteries to be on the market within a few years. The company also has rechargeable lithium metal-air batteries in the early stages of development that could eventually power electric vehicles that can go for longer in between charges.
