Fiber-optic laser-based system brings rifle sights into the 21st century

A lab prototype of ORNL's Reticle Compensating Rifle Barrel Reference Sensor (Image: ORNL/Ron Walli)
At long ranges, snipers must compensate not only for crosswinds and the fact that bullets travel in a curved trajectory, but also allow for even very small barrel disruptions that can cause a shooter to miss their intended target by a wide margin. Contending with such difficulties makes feats such as the 1.53 mile (2.47 km) sniper kills by British Corporal Craig Harrison even more impressive, but a new type of rifle sighting system developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) could take one of these variables out of the equation. The fiber-optic laser-based sensor system precisely measures the deflection of the barrel relative to the sight and automatically adjusts the crosshairs to match the true position of the barrel.
The ORNL technology places glass optical fibers into the exterior grooves, known as flutes, found on the barrels of modern high-powered rifles. These reduce weight and create added surface area to enable the barrel to cool faster. Such flutes are either produced by the manufacturer or can be retrofit to existing barrels. A laser diode sends a signal beam into the optical fibers which split the beam twice, sending one light beam along the top of the rifle barrel and another along the side. This allows the system to measure both the vertical and horizontal barrel deflection.
Traditional reticles are normally manually adjusted by one-fourth minutes of angle, but through the use of a combination of algorithms, optics and additional sensor inputs, the ORNL's Reticle Compensating Rifle Barrel Reference Sensor can also take into account distance and other factors affecting bullet trajectory to automatically adjust the crosshairs by 1/1,000th of a minute in real time. According to the leader of the development team, Slobodan Rajic, this makes the ONRL system 250 times better than traditional reticles.
But the ONRL team isn't done yet. Rajic and his colleagues are also working on a laser-based bullet tracking system that will provide specific information about the bullet flight path to give shooters even better odds of hitting their target.
Source: ORNL

Laser igniters could spell the end for the humble spark plug

Spark plugs could soon be replaced be laser igniters
Internal combustion engines are likely to remain in widespread use for some time yet, but it's possible that we may be bidding adieu to that most iconic of engine parts, the spark plug. Researchers from Japan's National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) are creating laser igniters that could one day replace spark plugs in automobile engines. Not only would these lasers allow for better performance and fuel economy, but cars using them would also create less harmful emissions.
Located at the top of each engine cylinder, spark plugs send a high-voltage electrical spark across a gap between their two metal electrodes. That spark ignites the compressed air-fuel mixture in the cylinder, causing a controlled mini-explosion that pushes the piston down.
One byproduct of the process are toxic nitrogen oxides (NOx), which pollute the air causing smog and acid rain. Engines would produce less NOx if they burnt more air and less fuel, but they would require the plugs to produce higher-energy sparks in order to do so. While this is technically possible, the voltages involved would burn out the electrodes quite quickly. Laser igniters on the other hand, could ignite leaner mixtures without self-destructing because they don't have electrodes.
The NINS scientists also address another limitation of spark plugs – the fact that they only ignite the area of the air-fuel mixture closest to them (the top), with much of the heat of the explosion being absorbed by the metal cylinder walls before it can reach down to the piston. Lasers, by contrast, could focus their beams into the middle of the column, from which point the explosion would expand more symmetrically – and reportedly up to three times faster than one triggered by a spark plug.
Additionally, engine timing could be improved, as lasers can pulse within nanoseconds, while spark plugs require milliseconds.
In order to cause the desired combustion, a laser would have to be able to focus light to approximately 100 gigawatts per square centimeter with short pulses of more than 10 millijoules each. Previously, that sort of performance could only be achieved by large, inefficient, relatively unstable lasers. The Japanese researchers, however, have created a small, robust and efficient laser that can do the job. They did so by heating ceramic powders, fusing them into optically-transparent solids, then embedding them with metal ions in order to tune their properties.
Made from two bonded yttrium-aluminum-gallium segments, the laser igniter is just 9 millimeters wide and 11 millimeters long. It has two beams, which can produce a faster, more uniform explosion than one by igniting the air-fuel column in two locations at once – the team is even looking at producing a laser with three beams. While it cannot cause combustion with just one pulse, it can do so using several 800-picosecond-long pulses.
So far, the laser-ignition system hasn't been installed in an actual automobile. The scientists are reportedly in negotiations with a large spark plug manufacturer and with global auto components manufacturer DENSO Corporation.
In the meantime, drivers wishing an upgrade from their "old school" spark plugs might be interested in Pulse Plugs, which reportedly boost engine efficiency and performance by storing ignition energy, then discharging it in the form of intense plasma balls.
The NINS research will be presented next month at the Conference on Lasers and Electro Optics, in Baltimore.

Stephen Hawking's Time Machine

In an article in the Daily Mail this week, British cosmologist Stephen Hawking outlined not one, but three, theoretically realistic ideas for traveling through time, one of which he says is even practical.
The Fourth Dimension
First, though, you have to get your head around the notion that time is a dimension, just like width, height and length.
Hawking uses the example of driving in your car: You go forward. That's one direction. You turn left or right, that's a second. You journey up a mountain road, that's a third. The fourth dimension is time.
"Time travel movies often feature a vast, energy-hungry machine. The machine creates a path through the fourth dimension, a tunnel through time. A time traveler, a brave, perhaps foolhardy individual, prepared for who knows what, steps into the time tunnel and emerges who knows when. The concept may be far-fetched, and the reality may be very different from this, but the idea itself is not so crazy," Hawking writes.
SLIDE SHOW: Time travel as depicted in the movies can sometimes be based in science. We ask physicist Ron Mallett about his pick of the most accurate time travel methods in science fiction.
WATCH VIDEO: In an exclusive interview with Discovery News, Stephen Hawking discusses everything from intelligent extraterrestrial life to religion.
The laws of physics actually accommodate the notion of time travel, through portals known as wormholes.
"The truth is wormholes are all around us, only they're too small to see. They occur in nooks and crannies in space and time," Hawking writes. "Nothing is flat or solid. If you look closely enough at anything you'll find holes and wrinkles in it. It's a basic physical principle, and it even applies to time. Even something as smooth as a pool ball has tiny crevices, wrinkles and voids.
Quantum Foam and Tiny Wormholes
"Down at the smallest of scales, smaller even than molecules, smaller than atoms, we get to a place called the quantum foam. This is where wormholes exist. Tiny tunnels or shortcuts through space and time constantly form, disappear, and reform within this quantum world. And they actually link two separate places and two different times."
The tunnels, unfortunately, are far too small for people to pass through -- just a billion-trillion-trillionths of a centimeter -- but physicists believe it may be possible to catch a wormhole and make it big enough for people, or spaceships, to enter, Hawking writes.
"Theoretically, a time tunnel or wormhole could do even more than take us to other planets. If both ends were in the same place, and separated by time instead of distance, a ship could fly in and come out still near Earth, but in the distant past. Maybe dinosaurs would witness the ship coming in for a landing," Hawking writes.
Ultimately, scientists may find that only travel into the future is possible, as the laws of nature may make travel to the past impossible so the relationship between cause and effect is maintained. For example, if you could travel in the past and do something that prevents yourself from being born, how could you exist in the future to travel back in time?
WIDE ANGLE: Is time travel possible?
Time as a Flowing River
What if we could travel faster than light? How would be do it? Introducing the warpship.
Hawking suspects radiation feedback would collapse any wormholes scientists managed to expand to useable sizes, rendering them useless for actual travel. But there's another way -- navigating the variable rivers of time.
"Time flows like a river and it seems as if each of us is carried relentlessly along by time's current. But time is like a river in another way. It flows at different speeds in different places and that is the key to traveling into the future," Hawking writes.
Albert Einstein first proposed this idea 100 years ago that there should be places where time slows down, and others where time speeds up, notes Hawking. "He was absolutely right."
The proof, says Hawking, lies in the Global Positioning System satellite network, which in addition to helping us navigate on Earth, reveals that time runs faster in space.
"Inside each spacecraft is a very precise clock. But despite being so accurate, they all gain around a third of a billionth of a second every day. The system has to correct for the drift, otherwise that tiny difference would upset the whole system, causing every GPS device on Earth to go out by about six miles a day," Hawking writes.
The clocks aren't faulty -- it's the pull of Earth that's to blame.
"Einstein realized that matter drags on time and slows it down like the slow part of a river. The heavier the object, the more it drags on time," Hawking writes. "And this startling reality is what opens the door to the possibility of time travel to the future."
Black Holes and Flying at the Speed of Light
The keys to time travel are black holes, objects so dense that not even light can escape their gravitational grip.
"A black hole ... has a dramatic effect on time, slowing it down far more than anything else in the galaxy. That makes it a natural time machine," Hawking writes.
Here's how it might work:
Imagine a spaceship orbiting the super-massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, 26,000 light years away. From Earth, it would look like the ship is making one orbit every 16 minutes, Hawking writes.
"But for the brave people on board, close to this massive object, time would be slowed down," Hawking writes. "For every 16-minute orbit, they'd only experience eight minutes of time."
If they circled for five years, local time, 10 years would have passed back on Earth.
This scenario doesn't produce the paradoxes inherent in wormhole travel, but it's still pretty impractical, Hawking acknowledges.
Do aliens exist? Could they harness wormholes to invade Earth? Find out what Hawking thinks.
But there's one more possibility: traveling super fast.
"This is due to another strange fact about the universe," writes Hawking -- the cosmic speed limit: 186,000 miles per second, or the speed of light.
"Nothing can exceed that speed. It's one of the best established principles in science," writes Hawking, but "believe it or not, traveling at near the speed of light transports you to the future."
"Imagine a track that goes right around Earth, a track for a super-fast train. Onboard are passengers with a one-way ticket to the future. The train begins to accelerate, faster and faster. Soon it's circling the Earth over and over again.
"To approach the speed of light means circling the Earth seven times a second. But no matter how much power the train has, it can never quite reach the speed of light, since the laws of physics forbid it.
"Instead, let's say it gets close," writes Hawking. "Something extraordinary happens: Time starts flowing slowly on board relative to the rest of the world, just like near the black hole, only more so. Everything on the train is in slow motion."
Speed of Light Protection
This happens to protect the cosmic speed limit, Hawking said. Here's why:
Say there's a child running forward up the train. "Her forward speed is added to the speed of the train, so couldn't she break the speed limit simply by accident? The answer is no," writes Hawking. "The laws of nature prevent the possibility by slowing down time onboard. Now she can't run fast enough to break the limit. Time will always slow down just enough to protect the speed limit."
This is the essence of why time travel into the future is possible.
"Imagine that the train left the station on January 1, 2050. It circles Earth over and over again for 100 years before finally coming to a halt on New Year's Day, 2150. The passengers will have only lived one week because time is slowed down that much inside the train. When they got out they'd find a very different world from the one they'd left. In one week they'd have travelled 100 years into the future," Hawking writes.
Right now, the fastest motion on Earth is taking place in the circular tunnels of the world's largest particle accelerator at CERN, in Geneva.
"When the power is turned on (particles) accelerate from zero to 60,000 mph in a fraction of a second. Increase the power and the particles go faster and faster, until they're whizzing around the tunnel 11,000 times a second, which is almost the speed of light. But just like the train, they never quite reach that ultimate speed. They can only get to 99.99 per cent of the limit. When that happens, they too start to travel in time. We know this because of some extremely short-lived particles, called pimesons. Ordinarily, they disintegrate after just 25 billionths of a second. But when they are accelerated to near-light speed they last 30 times longer."
To accelerate humans to that speed, we'll need to be in space, concludes Hawking, noting that so far, the fastest that people have traveled is 25,000 mph aboard Apollo 10.
"To travel in time we'll have to go more than 2,000 times faster (than Apollo 10).  And to do that we'd need a much bigger ship, a truly enormous machinebig enough to carry a huge amount of fuel, enough to accelerate it to nearly the speed of light. Getting to just beneath the cosmic speed limit would require six whole years at full power.
"We could, in theory, travel extraordinary distances within one lifetime," Hawking writes. "A trip to the edge of the galaxy would take just 80 years."
Image: An artist's impression as to how it might look as you enter the mouth of a wormhole (source).

Really can't even imagine this thing but now its possible using ultrasonic waves

Ultrasound scans are often a standard part of prenatal care. Recent advances in technology now offer clinicians and parents more detailed 3D images of the fetus in real-time. Three-dimensional scanning sends in sound waves from a few different angles and a composite still image is produced that shows surface depth and volume. Now another dimension has been added – time. Real-time viewing capabilities have been added into the equation by 4D ultrasound techniques, so that live images of the fetus moving around can be seen on the screen.

As the long-term effects of repeated ultrasound exams on the fetus are still a bit of a gray area, how often such things take place is generally up to the healthcare provider. Shiue looked into the risks and concerns associated with ultrasound scanning while researching her thesis project at the University of South Wales, and told Gizmag that "in compliance with ultrasonic regulations outlined by the British Medical Ultrasound Society, I have proposed limitations on the usage of my device to a fixed frequency (10 MHz), maximum scanning time (20 minutes every 24 hours), and countdown time be apparent on screen with friendly notifications, not 'warnings'."

The parents themselves, working with their healthcare provider, would be likely to impose their own limits on the use of such a device – one interviewee revealing to the designer that a likely usage window would be 5 to 10 minutes before bedtime, to coincide with a period of high fetal activity.

PreVue would utilize upcoming e-textile technologies to incorporate the viewing screen and electronics into the device. Recent innovations like the bendy micro-LED arrays created by researchers at the University of Illinois and the work undertaken by the STELLA project offer only a glimpse of things to come. It shouldn't be too long before such things start to make regular military, medical or commercial appearances.

The device would also operate in two image modes – one for general diagnostic purposes and the other with enhanced resolution for more domestic settings. Although its primary use would be as a means of bonding enhancement rather than medical examination, Shiue says that "the user should still seek professional advice if anything is uncertain."

While safety concerns surrounding the use of ultrasound for prenatal care continue to be raised, the fact is that 4D scanning is being offered now and the personal approach offered by a device like PreVue may well be a viable alternative to the impersonal – and perhaps stressful – conditions of an examination room.

In the meantime, PreVue has been entered into the 2011 Australian Design Award/James Dyson Award competition.

Festo creates SmartBird flying robotic seagull

Festo has added to its robotic menagerie with the creation of a robotic seagull that weighs just 450 g (15.87 oz) and boasts a wingspan of 1.96 m (6.4 ft). Dubbed the SmartBird, the ultralight flying robot was inspired by the herring gull and can take off, fly and land autonomously, without the help of any additional drive systems.

In creating the SmartBird, Festo says it has succeeded in deciphering the flight of birds. The robot's wings not only beat up and down, with a lever mechanism increasing the degree of deflection to increase from the torso to the wing tip, but also twist at specific angles along their length in the same way that a real bird's do so that the leading edge is directed upwards during the upward stroke.

Directional control is achieved through the opposing movement of the robot's head and torso sections, which is synchronized by means of two electric motors and cables. This enables it to bend aerodynamically, with simultaneous weight displacement, and is responsible for the SmartBird's agility and maneuverability.

As with a real bird, the SmartBird's tail isn't just for show either. It produces lift and functions as both a pitch elevator and yaw rudder. In addition to stabilizing the robot in a similar way to an aircraft's conventional vertical stabilizer, the tail also tilts to initiate left and right turns and rotates about the longitudinal axis to produce yaw.

Packed inside the SmartBird's torso are the battery, engine and transmission, the crank transmission and control and regulation electronics. Wing position and torsion can be monitored via two-way ZigBee protocol radio communication and can be adjusted and optimized in real time during flight.

Festo says developing the SmartBird has provided insights that will help it in a variety of areas. The robot's minimal use of materials and lightweight construction will help increase efficiencies in resource and energy consumption, while the functional integration of its coupled drive units have provided ideas the company says it can transfer to the development of hybrid drive technology. Additionally, analysis of its flow characteristics during development has provided insights into ways to optimize future designs. Another plus is that it won't try and steal your chips at the beach.

Via IEEE Spectrum

New battery technology may allow for complete recharging within minutes

 

Of all the criticisms of electric vehicles, probably the most commonly-heard is that their batteries take too long to recharge – after all, limited range wouldn't be such a big deal if the cars could be juiced up while out and about, in just a few minutes. Well, while no one is promising anything, new batteries developed at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign do indeed look like they might be a step very much in the right direction. They are said to offer all the advantages of capacitors and batteries, in one unit.

"This system that we have gives you capacitor-like power with battery-like energy," said U Illinois' Paul Braun, a professor of materials science and engineering. "Most capacitors store very little energy. They can release it very fast, but they can't hold much. Most batteries store a reasonably large amount of energy, but they can't provide or receive energy rapidly. This does both."

The speed at which conventional batteries are able to charge or discharge can be dramatically increased by changing the form of their active material into a thin film, but such films have typically lacked the volume to be able to store a significant amount of energy. In the case of Braun's batteries, however, that thin film has been formed into a three-dimensional structure, thus increasing its storage capacity.

Batteries equipped with the 3D film have been demonstrated to work normally in electrical devices, while being able to charge and discharge 10 to 100 times faster than their conventional counterparts.

To make the three-dimensional thin film, the researchers coated a surface with nanoscale spheres, which self-assembled into a lattice-like arrangement. The spaces between and around the spheres were then coated with metal, after which the spheres were melted or dissolved away, leaving the metal as a framework of empty pores. Electropolishing was then used to enlarge the pores and open up the framework, after which it was coated with a layer of the active material – both lithium-ion and nickel metal hydride batteries were created.

The system utilizes processes already used on a large scale, so it would reportedly be easy to scale up. It could also be used with any type of battery, not just Li-ion and NiMH.

The implications for electric vehicles are particularly exciting. "If you had the ability to charge rapidly, instead of taking hours to charge the vehicle you could potentially have vehicles that would charge in similar times as needed to refuel a car with gasoline," Braun said. "If you had five-minute charge capability, you would think of this the same way you do an internal combustion engine. You would just pull up to a charging station and fill up."

Braun and his team believe that the technology could be used not only for making electric cars more viable, but also for allowing phones or laptops to be able to recharge in seconds or minutes. It could also result in high-power lasers or defibrillators that don't need to warm up before or between pulses.

For the first time in history, two planets have been discovered that share the same orbit.

The pair of planets are part of a four-planet solar system called KOI-730. They orbit a sun-like star, one 60 degrees ahead of the other, with a full revolution taking 9.8 days. The reason this phenomenon is possible is because there are two gravitational "sweet spots" called Lagrange points along a planetary body's orbit where another body can share the same orbit. These points are located 60 degrees ahead of and 60 degrees behind the orbiting object.
This even occurs within our solar system - group of asteroids called Trojans inhabit the Lagrange points of Jupiter's orbit! The existence of this pair of planets also supports an existing theory that the moon was formed by the collision of the Earth and a Mars-sized planet that once shared its orbit.

Researchers demonstrate self-repairing chip

As chips continue to get smaller, the technological possibilities just get larger. One of the trade-offs of miniaturization, however, is that smaller things are also often more fragile and less dependable. Anticipating a point at which chips will become too tiny to maintain their current level of resilience, a team of four companies and two universities in The Netherlands, Germany, and Finland have created what they say could be the solution – a chip that monitors its own performance, and redirects tasks as needed.

"Because of the rapidly growing transistor density on chips, it has become a real challenge to ensure high system dependability," said Hans Kerkhoff of The Netherlands' University of Twente, and part of the CRISP (Cutting-edge Reconfigurable ICs for Stream Processing) consortium. "The solution is not to make non-degradable chips, it's to make architectures that can degrade while they keep functioning, which we call graceful degradation."

In order to make that graceful degradation possible, the CRISP chip incorporates multiple cores. Different tasks are assigned to different cores, by a built-in resource manager. The connections of those cores are continuously tested, and when a fault is detected, the task assigned to that core is simply reallocated to another one.

Although the chip itself isn't actually any stronger, it can function at full capacity for a longer period of time.

CRISP's self-testing, self-repairing chip was recently demonstrated at the DATE2011 conference in Grenoble, France.

Japan earthquake may have shortened length of days and shifted Earth’s axis

Using a complex model to perform a theoretical calculation based on a U.S. Geological Survey, Richard Gross of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has determined that by changing the distribution of the Earth's mass, the earthquake that devastated Japan last Friday should have sped up the Earth's rotation, resulting in a day that is about 1.8 microseconds (1.8 millionths of a second) shorter.

The calculations, which will likely change as the data on the Japan quake is further refined, have also been used to examine the effects of other recent quakes. Gross estimated that last year's 8.8 earthquake in Chile shortened the length of a day by about 1.26 microseconds, while similar calculations revealed the 9.1 magnitude Sumatran quake of 2004 shortened the day by 6.8 microseconds. Just how much an earthquake affects the Earth's rotation depends on the magnitude of the quake, its locations and details of how the fault slipped.

Gross's calculations also indicate the Japan quake should have shifted the position of the Earth's figure axis by about 17 cm (6.69 in), towards 133 degrees east longitude. Not to be confused with the Earth's north-south axis, the figure axis is that about which the Earth's mass is balanced. While the slight shift will cause the Earth to wobble a bit differently as it rotates, it won't cause a shift of Earth's axis in space, which can only be affected by external forces such as the gravitational pull of the sun, moon or planets.

Gross points out that the changes to the Earth's rotation and shift of its axis aren't anything to be worried about. "Earth's rotation changes all the time as a result of not only earthquakes, but also the much larger effects of changes in atmospheric winds and oceanic currents," he said. "Over the course of a year, the length of the day increases and decreases by about a millisecond, or about 550 times larger than the change caused by the Japanese earthquake. The position of Earth's figure axis also changes all the time, by about one meter (3.3 feet) over the course of a year, or about six times more than the change that should have been caused by the Japan quake."

Although scientists are able to measure the larger effects of the atmosphere and ocean on the Earth's rotation, the changes due to earthquakes have been too small to measure as the computed change in the length of a day caused by earthquakes is much smaller than the accuracy with which scientists can currently measure changes in the length of a day.

However, the effects from the 9.0 magnitude Japan quake, which is the fifth largest since 1900, may actually be large enough for scientists to observe. This is because the position of the figure axis can be measured to an accuracy of about five cm (two inches), so the 17 cm shift from the Japan quake may be observable if the scientists can adequately remove the larger effects of the atmosphere and ocean from the equation.

Disposable endoscopic camera is the size of a grain of salt

Tiny video cameras mounted on the end of long thin fiber optic cables, commonly known as endoscopes, have proven invaluable to doctors and researchers wishing to peer inside the human body. Endoscopes can be rather pricey, however, and like anything else that gets put inside peoples' bodies, need to be sanitized after each use. A newly-developed type of endoscope is claimed to address those drawbacks by being so inexpensive to produce that it can be thrown away after each use. Not only that, but it also features what is likely the world's smallest complete video camera, which is just one cubic millimeter in size.

The prototype endoscope was designed at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration, in collaboration with Awaiba GmbH and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering.

Ordinarily, digital video cameras consist of a lens, a sensor, and electrical contacts that relay the data from the sensor. Up to 28,000 sensors are cut out from a silicon disc known as a wafer, after which each one must be individually wired up with contacts and mounted to a lens.

In Fraunhofer's system, contacts are added to one side of the sensor wafer while it's still all in one piece. That wafer can then be joined face-to-face with a lens wafer, after which complete grain-of-salt-sized cameras can be cut out from the two joined wafers. Not only is this approach reportedly much more cost-effective, but it also allows the cameras to be smaller and more self-contained – usually, endoscopic cameras consist of a lens at one end of the cable, with a sensor at the other.

The new camera has a resolution of 62,500 pixels, and it transmits its images via an electrical cable, as opposed to an optical fiber. Its creators believe it could be used not only in medicine, but also in fields such as automotive design, where it could act as an aerodynamic replacement for side mirrors, or be used to monitor drivers for signs of fatigue.

They hope to bring the device to market next year.

New technique developed to identify authors of anonymous emails

 

Concordia University professor, Benjamin Fung, has developed an effective new technique to determine the authorship of anonymous emails (Image: Concordia University)

 

 

There might be many harmless reasons for sending anonymous emails – confessing your undying love for someone, seeking anonymous advice, or simply playing a joke on a friend – but there are also plenty of harmful reasons – making threats against someone, distributing child pornography or sending viruses, just to name a few. While police can often use the IP address to locate where an email originated, it may be harder to nail down exactly who sent it. A team of researchers claims to have developed an effective new technique to determine the authorship of anonymous emails that can provide presentable evidence in courts of law.

In an attempt to combat the increase of cybercrimes involving anonymous emails, Benjamin Fung, a professor of Information Systems Engineering at Quebec's Concordia University and an expert in data mining, and his colleagues set about developing a novel method of authorship attribution based on techniques used in speech recognition and data mining, which involves extracting useful, previously unknown knowledge from a large volume of raw data. Their approach relies on identifying frequent patterns and unique combinations of features that recur in a suspect's emails.

The technique works by first identifying the patterns found in emails written by the subject. Any of these patterns which are also found in the emails of other subjects are then filtered out, leaving patterns that are unique to the author of the emails being analyzed. These remaining frequent patterns then constitute what the researchers call the suspect's 'write-print' – a distinctive identifier akin to a fingerprint.

"Let's say the anonymous email contains typos or grammatical mistakes, or is written entirely in lowercase letters," says Fung. "We use those special characteristics to create a write-print. Using this method, we can even determine with a high degree of accuracy who wrote a given email, and infer the gender, nationality and education level of the author."

Fung and his colleagues tested their technique by examining the Enron Email Dataset – a collection containing over 200,000 real-life emails from 158 employees of the Enron Corporation. Using a sample of 10 emails written by each of 10 subjects – 100 emails in all – they were able to identify authorship with an accuracy of 80 to 90 percent.

"Our technique was designed to provide credible evidence that can be presented in a court of law," says Fung. "For evidence to be admissible, investigators need to explain how they have reached their conclusions. Our method allows them to do this."

Yill is one wheely useful mobile office energy storage unit

The Yill mobile energy storage unit
Although HP and others are breaking new ground in notebook battery life, there are times when you might find yourself away from the grid for a bit longer than your laptop battery can last. A mobile energy storage unit like Yill, from Germany's Younicos, is said to be capable of autonomously meeting the power needs of a computer workstation for between two and three days on a single charge of its own quick-charge batteries. Deployment of the drum-like power houses throughout an office could even help save energy bills.

   

There are numerous reasons why you might consider using something like Yill. You may find yourself having to work for a few days in a remote location where a stable supply of power cannot be guaranteed. You might generate your own electricity from renewable resources, such as photovoltaic panels, and want to spend more time completely off-grid, even during days without sunshine. As a designer, you might want to minimize heat loss in a new office by eliminating the elevated floors or suspended ceilings usually needed for extensive cabling.

The standalone power storage unit is said to be capable of meeting the energy needs of a small mobile office for two to three days before its own rechargeable lithium titanium battery needs some juice. The battery pack benefits from quick recharge times (about four hours) and a long operating life. Yill can supply devices with up to 300 Watts of electricity, and stores about 1 kWh of energy.
Younicos says that when Yill needs some energy, it can be plugged into a charging station that draws power from renewable energy sources, or from the grid. Its 20.8-inch (530 mm) diameter wheels and a pull-out handle also give it mobility.

The Yill mobile energy storage unit, designed by Werner Aisslinger, will be launched during Milan Design Week from April 12 to 17.

World's first anti-laser demonstrated

In the anti-laser, incoming light waves are trapped in a cavity where they bounce back and forth until they are eventually absorbed (Image: Yidong Chong/Yale University)
Much to the distaste of James Bond villains everywhere, scientists from Yale University recently demonstrated not a new, more powerful type of laser, but actually its opposite – the world’s first anti-laser. The device receives incoming beams of light, which interfere with one another in such a way as to cancel each other out. It could apparently have valuable applications in a number of technologies, such as optical computing and radiology.
Lasers work by using a “gain medium,” often gallium arsenide or some other semiconductor, to produce light waves with the same frequency and amplitude. These waves, which are in step with one another, make up a focused beam of coherent light.
By contrast, the anti-laser utilizes a silicon wafer “loss medium.” When two laser beams were shone into a cavity containing that wafer, it aligned the light waves so that they became “perfectly trapped,” causing them to ricochet back and forth until they were absorbed and transformed into heat.
The anti-laser, officially known as a coherent perfect absorber (CPA), is about one centimeter across, and capable of absorbing 99.4 percent of incoming light. According to Yale physicist A. Douglas Stone, however, the current model is merely a proof-of-concept. He believes that future versions should be able to absorb 99.999 percent of the light, and could be built as small as six microns – approximately one-twentieth the width of a human hair. The current CPA is also limited to absorbing near-infrared light, but Stone believes that by altering the cavity and the loss medium, future versions should be able to handle visible and infrared light.
CPAs could reportedly find use in optical computers, serving as components such as optical switches or detectors. Stone believes they could also be used in radiology, where they could focus electromagnetic radiation to a small region within opaque human tissue, for imaging or therapeutic purposes.
The research was just published in the journal Science.

Keyboard that uses sonar to protect sensitive data

 

KSI's SonarLocID Keyboard uses sonar to monitor the presence of the user
 
While the simple act of logging off a workstation is an obvious way to protect sensitive data – like that used by healthcare providers, pharmacies, banks and government agencies – it is all too easy for users to forget and leave the data not only viewable, but also editable by anyone who happens to pass by. Custom keyboard supplier Key Source International (KSI) has developed a keyboard that does the remembering for you, logging out as soon as the user physically leaves the keyboard.

      

KSI's SonarLocID Keyboard uses sonar to monitor the presence of a user. When a logged in user physically leaves the workstation it will then immediately log off the user who will be prompted to log back in when the sonar sensor detects that they – or someone else – has returned. The user can then log back into the system with a username/password, or via a proximity badge ID reader or fingerprint reader built into the keyboard.
The SonarLocID Keyboard connects to a PC via USB and can be configured via an included programming application that allows the user to program custom keystrokes as well as delays and a sequence to lock the computer when the user walks away. These user definable keystrokes, delays and settings aren't stored on the client or server, but rather stored in the keyboard's onboard flash memory. KSI also says the keyboard can be programmed to work seamlessly with most popular single sign on and web-based security applications.

New graphene transistor created with record high-switching performance

Graphene is a one-atom-thick planar sheet of carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice (Image: Lau lab UC Riverside)
Graphene has already brought us the world’s smallest transistor, a triple-mode, single transistor amplifier and a supercapacitor that can store as much energy as a battery while recharging in seconds. And these are sure to just be the tip of the iceberg. The latest breakthrough from the wonderful world of graphene is a new graphene field effect transistor (GFET) that boasts a record high-switching performance. The device promises improved performance for future electronic devices and means graphene could potentially replace silicon, or at least be used side by side with silicon, in electronic devices.
Although graphene boasts high electrical conductivity, it is what is known as a zero bandgap semiconductor. This means that there is no difference between its conductive and nonconductive state and transistors made of the material cannot be easily turned on and off.
Dr Zakaria Moktadir of the Nano research group at the University of Southampton discovered that by introducing geometrical singularities such as sharp beds and corners in bilayer graphene nanowires, the current could be turned off efficiently. According to Professor Hiroshi Mizuta, Head of the Nano research group, this engineering approach has achieved an on/off switching ratio 1,000 times higher than previous attempts.
"Enormous effort has been made across the world to pinch off the channel of GFETs electrostatically, but the existing approaches require either the channel width to be much narrower than 10 nanometres or a very high voltage to be applied vertically across bilayer graphene layers," he says. “This hasn't achieved an on/off ratio which is high enough, and is not viable for practical use."
The researchers believe the breakthrough will enable electronics that progress beyond current silicon complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology, which is reaching its limits.
"It will have major implications for next generation computer, communication and electronic systems. Introducing geometrical singularities into the graphene channel is a new concept which achieves superior performance while keeping the GFET structure simple and therefore commercially exploitable,” says Professor Harvey Rutt, Head of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton.
Now that he’s created the transistor, Dr Moktadir is now carrying out further research to understand the mechanism that causes the current to stop flowing in the channel. He is also testing the transistor’s reliability and performance under various noise and temperature conditions.

Patrimony Traditionally World Time captures all the world's 37 time zones simultaneously

Vacheron Constantin's Patrimony Traditionnelle World Time model tells the time in all the world's 37 time zones
A longstanding part of the Vacheron Constantin watchmaking heritage, the World Time complication is making a noteworthy comeback in the form of the Patrimony Traditionnelle World Time model. Developed and manufactured by Vacheron Constantin, this new mechanical self-winding movement is distinguished by its capacity to indicate the world’s 37 time zones, including those offset from Universal Coordinated Time (UCT) by a half or quarter-hour.

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The new Patrimony Traditonnelle World Time by Vacheron Constantin marks the return to the collection of a complication inextricably bound to the history of the Geneva-based manufacturer.
A pioneer in the development and production of innovative watches, the Manufacture Vacheron Constantin has displayed the same approach in being resolutely open to the world at large. Created in 1755 in Geneva and able to look back over more than 255 years of uninterrupted activity, Vacheron Constantin soon began exploring the four corners of the earth. It established a presence in the United States in 1832 and in China in 1845 – well before the International Meridian Conference held in Washington in 1884 which divided the world into 24 time zones, taking the Greenwich meridian as the longitude 0 point of reference. This new approach became indispensable in keeping step with the development of international travel and of railways.
Driven by a wish to demonstrate that the multiple time-zone watch could be further perfected, Vacheron Constantin introduced its first timepieces endowed with an international time mechanism in 1932.
This movement was the work of a brilliant Geneva watchmaker, Louis Cottier, who had imagined and developed a mechanical movement indicating the 24 time zones from 1 to 24 by means of a disc rotating around the central dial and the outer bezel bearing the names of the world’s major cities.
This first Vacheron Constantin World Time “Cottier system” watch (reference 3372) enabled simultaneous read-off of the time in 31 cities around the world. It marked the start of a rich and longstanding relationship between Vacheron Constantin and the World Time complication. In 1936, Vacheron Constantin presented two new versions of its World Time model with a 31-city dial (reference 3650) and a 30-city dial (reference 3638) without Cairo.
In 1937 and 1938, the Geneva-based manufacturer unveiled six table clocks with a mobile dial featuring 67 locations, including summer and winter time in Paris. From the 1940s onwards, Vacheron Constantin attributed the reference number 4414 to a world time model with a 41-city dial and a day/night division of the mobile 24-hour disc. During the 1940s and 1950s, many famous customers were captivated by this useful and ingenious mechanism, and contributed to spreading the fame of this new complication.
In 1957, Vacheron Constantin wrote a new chapter in its history of World Time watches by introducing the first World Time wristwatch, reference 6213, ordered by an Egyptian dignitary. It was the first of a long line of models incorporating this remarkable complication and that earned it an outstanding reputation among connoisseurs and collectors.

A patented new World Time calibre

Eager to make a major new contribution to the history of this complication, the Vacheron Constantin master-watchmakers and engineers have sought to create a mechanical movement capable of indicating not only the full time zones, but also the partial ones, so as to reflect the exact temporal reality in the 37 time zones. A number of countries have indeed adopted a half-hour or quarter-hour difference from UTC, and the Calibre 2460WT by Vacheron Constantin takes account of these specific characteristics. By way of example, it provides the correct time indication for Caracas, since Venezuela decided in 2007 to switch from a full time zone to a half time zone (GMT – 4:30).
The indication of the 37 time zones as proposed by Vacheron Constantin in its Patrimony Traditionnelle World Time is as complete as one could wish for. The display consists of three dials: a sapphire dial with a unique day/night shading; a metal dial with a “Lambert projector” type map; and a metal chapter ring. Beating at a frequency of 4 Hz (28,800 vibrations per hour) and endowed with a 40-hour power reserve, mechanical self-winding Calibre 2460WT drives displays of the hours, minutes, central seconds and World Time. It enables simultaneous read-off of the time in all regions of the world, along with the day/night indication provided by the central world map. All indications are adjusted via the crown, thus considerably simplifying the use of this highly technical watch. A patent has been filed for the new Vacheron Constantin Calibre 2460WT bearing the prestigious Hallmark of Geneva.

Appreciable user friendliness

Despite its complex construction principles, the new mechanical World Time movement is extremely user-friendly. The wearer chooses the reference time and places it opposite the black triangle at 6 o’clock. The time in the reference location can then be read off either by the hour hand, or by the 24-hour disc, while the time in the other 36 time zones is simultaneously readable. The cities shown in black represent the full time zones, while the cities in red indicate half-hour or quarter-hour zones.
Incorporating all the signature characteristics of the collection – a slender bezel, a knurled motif on the case-back, a screw-down sapphire crystal case-back, and dauphine hands – the new Patrimony Traditionnelle World Time comes with a 42.5 mm diameter 18K pink gold case that is water-resistant to 30 meters. It is fitted with a brown alligator leather strap secured by an 18K pink gold folding clasp.

Gesture-controlled computers and robotic nurses being developed for operating rooms

Researchers are developing a system that would allow surgeons to control both computers and robotic scrub nurses via hand gestures (Photo: Purdue University)
Although surgeons need to frequently review medical images and records during surgery, they’re also in the difficult position of not being able to touch non-sterile objects such as keyboards, computer mice or touchscreens. Stepping away from the operating table to check a computer also adds time to a procedure. Researchers from Indiana’s Purdue University are addressing this situation by developing gesture-recognition systems for computers, so that surgeons can navigate through and manipulate screen content simply by moving their hands in the air. The system could additionally be used with robotic scrub nurses, also being developed at Purdue, to let the devices know what instruments the surgeon wants handed to them.
The system incorporates a Microsoft Kinect camera (yes, from the gaming system) and specialized algorithms to recognize hand gestures as instructions.
“One challenge will be to develop the proper shapes of hand poses and the proper hand trajectory movements to reflect and express certain medical functions,” said Juan Pablo Wachs, an assistant professor of industrial engineering. “You want to use intuitive and natural gestures for the surgeon, to express medical image navigation activities, but you also need to consider cultural and physical differences between surgeons. They may have different preferences regarding what gestures they may want to use.”

There are also other considerations that the researchers are taking into account in the design of the system. For instance, they don’t want surgeons to be required to wear special types of gloves or colors of clothing in order for their hands to be “read.” The system should also be able to recognize and respond to gestures quickly, and provide confirmation that it understands the request. At the same time, however, it should not accidentally respond to extraneous gestures, such as those made to colleagues in the room.
The Purdue team also want the system to be relatively inexpensive, and to be quickly and easily adaptable to different operating rooms, lighting conditions, and other variables.
The system could be particularly effective when combined with the robotic scrub nurses, although they wouldn’t be intended to replace human nurses in all situations. “While it will be very difficult using a robot to achieve the same level of performance as an experienced nurse who has been working with the same surgeon for years, often scrub nurses have had very limited experience with a particular surgeon, maximizing the chances for misunderstandings, delays and sometimes mistakes in the operating room,” Wachs said. “In that case, a robotic scrub nurse could be better.”
While other groups have also researched the use of robotic scrub nurses, Wachs claims that his is the first to look into the incorporation of gesture – instead of voice – recognition. The Purdue system is also apparently unique in that it uses advanced algorithms to predict where the surgeon’s hands will be next, or what screen images will next be requested.

Biknd Helium protects your bike with air

The Biknd Helium is a bicycle shipping case that uses inflatable bladders to protect one's bike
If you’ve shelled out several thousand dollars for a high-end road or mountain bike, it’s understandable that you might want to bring it with you when you travel to far-away cycling locales. Should you be traveling to compete in a race, it’s pretty much essential that you bring the bike you’ve trained on. It’s also understandable, however, that you might not want to entrust the safety of your precious cargo to a simple cardboard box or giant plastic bag. While several companies offer foam-padded bicycle-shipping cases, Biknd takes a different approach with its Helium case – it uses inflatable air bladders to protect your ride.

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To fit one’s bike into the Helium, both wheels have to first be removed, along with the seatpost, rear derailleur, pedals, and the handlebars and stem. This is definitely more work than is required for the cardboard box or airline-supplied plastic bag methods, but is fairly typical of dedicated bicycle-shipping cases. The frame is secured to the hard bottom of the case via an attachment point at the front fork dropouts, a foam block and strap located near the bottom bracket, and a strap at the rear. Protective covers slip over the forks, handlebar stem and drive train, while front and rear protective axles keep the forks and rear triangle from being compressed inward while in transit.
The wheels and other removed items stow in assigned side, top or bottom compartments, with room provided for an additional set of wheels.

When the case is folded closed, the bladders sit between the frame and the wheels, so the air pressure won’t be forcing the wheels into the frame – this also, however, means that the air bladders won’t be protecting the outsides of the wheels.
Using the supplied pump, the user then inflates the bladders through two air valves. The company claims it should take about 70 pump strokes per side. Besides being lighter than foam, the air bladders also reportedly result in form-fitting padding that minimizes shifting and rattling.
The Biknd Helium weighs 11 kg (24 lbs) empty, has a 900 denier ballistic nylon exterior, and four caster wheels on the bottom. It sells for US$599.

Get some virtual culture with the Google Art Project

Google has announced a collaboration with 17 of the world’s most acclaimed art museums that lets people view over 1,000 high res artwork images and 17 "gigapixel" images while taking a virtual stroll through their galleries using “Street View” technology. While nothing can beat seeing a work of art in person, the Google Art Project could be the next best thing for those without the time and money to pop on a plane and trade elbows with crowds of tourists looking to catch a glimpse of what some of the best museums have on offer.

Google has spent the last 18 months working with museums including The Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA in New York, the National Gallery and Tate in London, The State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg and Uffizi Gallery in Florence to capture super high resolution images of famous artworks. While many art museums already provide access to some of their collections online, Google Art Project is the first that allows virtual tourists to walk through the museum’s halls using Street View technology to see how the works are arranged.

To capture the 360 degree Street View images a specially designed trolley was taken through over 385 rooms within the museums. In addition to being viewed through the Google Art Project website, the gallery interiors can also be accessed directly within Street View in Google Maps.

As the user moves around the virtual galleries they can choose to go for a closer look on any of the 1,061 works of art captured in high resolution with the use of a custom built zoom viewer that Google says, “allows art-lovers to discover minute aspects of paintings they may never have seen up close before, such as the miniaturized people in the river of El Greco’s ‘View of Toledo’, or individual dots in Seurat’s ‘Grandcamp, Evening’.

Additionally, each of the 17 museums taking part in the project was asked to select one artwork to be photographed in super high "gigapixel" resolution. The resultant images each contain around 7 billion pixels, which enables viewers to study details fine details, such as the brushwork and patina, that can’t even be seen with the naked eye.

The site allows visitors to create their own personalized collection by saving specific views of any of the artworks. They can also add their own critiques to each painting, which can then be shared with friends and family. Google also sees this as an ideal tool for students or groups working on collaborative projects or collections.

“This initiative started as ‘20% project’ by a group of Googlers passionate about making art more accessible online. Together with our museum partners around the world we have created what we will hope will be a fascinating resource for art-lovers, students and casual museum goers alike - inspiring them to one day visit the real thing,” said Amit Sood, head of the project.

So if you’re looking to inject a touch of culture into your day, you can head on over to the Google Art Project to view artworks from the following museums:

• Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin - Germany
• Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, Washington DC - USA
• The Frick Collection, NYC - USA
• Gemäldegalerie, Berlin - Germany
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC - USA
• MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art, NYC - USA
• Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid - Spain
• Museo Thyssen - Bornemisza, Madrid - Spain
• Museum Kampa, Prague - Czech Republic
• National Gallery, London - UK
• Palace of Versailles - France
• Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - The Netherlands
• The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg - Russia
• State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow - Russia
• Tate, London - UK
• Uffizi Gallery, Florence - Italy
• Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam - The Netherlands

Google catches Microsoft with pants down, copying search results

Google doesn't have a lot of competition in the search world – it rose from obscurity in the late 1990s to its current position of utter dominance on the back of its clever results ranking algorithm; Google is the megalithic entity it is today, because for the last decade people have chosen its results over MSN, Yahoo and other search options. And now it seems Microsoft's new(ish) search competitor, Bing, is copying Google results in order to make its own search results better. In an embarrassing sting operation, Google claims it has proven that Bing is taking Google search results and displaying them as if they're coming from the Bing engine – and you'd have to imagine the guys at Google are absolutely delighted.

Search team engineers at Google have proven that Microsoft's Bing is watching what people search for at Google, then altering its search results to match Google's.

Google engineers had suspected for some time that Bing was looking over their shoulders – competitive analysis has shown an increasing number of top-10 Google search hits appearing in the Bing top 10, including a very noticeable correlation in #1 hits, but this could be explained away if Bing was operating on a similar search algorithm to Google.

Web search algorithms are incredibly complex. Not only do search engines have to find relevant results based on keyword searches, they also have to filter out spam sites designed to take advantage of search engine traffic, rank how influential and authoritative each result is, and perform a thousand other tweaks to help users get what they're looking for.

One thing Google prides itself on is its ability to correct misspellings in the search box and return valid results for the correctly spelled search term - both for common misspellings and for others that have never been made yet. Type "Vagita" into Google and straight away you'll receive search results for vagita.

And it's this ability to correct for misspellings, and Bing's seeming ability to bring up the same answers not long afterward, that finally gave Google a place to strike.

The sting setup

Google engineers created around 100 bizarre search terms that it reasoned would never be used in an actual search – things like "hiybbprqag" and "mbzrxpgjys" – and wrote some sneaky manual code that pointed these search terms at particular pages.

The search terms didn't appear anywhere on the results pages, so there was nothing but Google's own search results to link these terms with the pages they brought up. So if these results started showing up on Bing, Microsoft would be caught red-handed stealing search results.

The Google engineers then went home, and booted up Internet Explorer with the Bing toolbar installed. They went to Google.com and started searching for the list of false search terms, and clicking on the results they'd planted.

Sure enough, within two weeks, you could search Bing for "hjybbprqaq" and get Google's planted search result. This didn't work for all the new search terms, but for 7 or 8 of them; enough to prove a point.

What does it mean?

It means that it seems Internet Explorer, its 'Suggested Sites' feature and the Bing Toolbar appear to be watching what you search for at Google.com, then feeding those results back into its own search algorithm.

So if Microsoft's own search algorithm isn't finding the same things as Google, it seems Bing tends to correct itself towards the Google results.

For users, this means that Google can offer a more up-to-date search experience, since it seems to take Bing a few weeks to copy the results and start using them – and for Google, it's quite a PR piece.

Although it's a PR piece that might backfire - after all, in Microsoft's eyes, what Bing is doing is trying to improve the user experience. The toolbar setup is designed to check what people are searching for, see where they clicked through to, and then measure how long they spent on each of those pages, presuming that users will spend more time on relevant pages and less time on pages that shouldn't be ranked so high. And that does seem to be a clever way of helping build search rankings.

Still, it's an interesting spat to watch, and an interesting insight into how our search results are built, and the competitive, innovative environment in Silicon Valley.