| TRENDING STORIES IN TECH & GADGETS | | | | | | | ALL STORIES IN TECH & GADGETS | | |
| BMW Unveils New Sporty Hybrid Concept: i8 Spyder | |  BMW has unveiled the third concept car from its i8 series of electric-gas hybrids: the i8 Spyder. The i8 Spyder is based on the i8 concept car which debuted in 2011, ditching the top and the back two seats, and perhaps some of the more radical ideas from BMW's first sporty hybrid concept. The i8 Spyder sports a 96 kW/131 hp on the front, coupled with a 164 kW/223 hp gasoline engine on the back, which accelerate the car from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 5 seconds, with a top speed of 250 km/h (155 mph). As far as fuel consumption goes, BMW claims 3 liters per 100 km (62 miles), with 30 kilometres (19 miles) of autonomy on electric power alone. The design of the car is still as otherworldly as the first two i8 concepts, with plenty of black and electric blue details, upward-swivelling doors and a semi-transparent "V" on the front end, which enables passers-by to take a look at the electric engine. The interior features an 8.8-inch (22.4 cm) screen display, which, claims BMW, shows "all the relevant driving information in three-dimensional, high-resolution quality." There's no word on when BMW will show this vehicle in the flesh, but the upcoming New York Auto show, which is held on April 4-5, is as good a guess as any. |
| Genetic Sensor Boosts Biofuel Production | | 3:52:02 AM | Technology Review |
|  Give bacteria a bit of self-awareness and they can be smarter about producing biofuel. That's the conclusion from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley who report a genetic sensor that enables bacteria to adjust their gene expression in response to varying levels of key intermediates for making biodiesel. As a result, the microbes showed a threefold boost to the yield of the fuel. Such a sensor-regulator system could eventually help make advanced biofuels more cheaply and bring them one step closer to being an economically viable replacement to petroleum-based products. One issue that has limited the amount of biofuels that a microbe makes is an imbalance of the different biological ingredients, or precursors, used to make the final fuel product. In a study published this week in Nature Biotechnology, Jay Keasling, professor of chemical engineering and bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues describe a biological sensor system that enables bacteria to regulate genes in its biofuel-production pathways according to the amount of certain precursors in the cell. The researchers augmented a previously reported strain of engineered E. coli that creates biodiesel from two biological building blocks—fatty acids and ethanol. Over the lifecycle of that strain, one precursor can be produced at a higher level than another, an inefficient and sometimes harmful situation. "The pathways weren't in balance," says Keasling. "The cells were wasting resources producing one precursor at a higher level than another." What's more, he says, is that biofuel production would sometimes consume too many fatty acids, which the bacteria need at certain stages of their life cycle, making the strain unstable. Keasling and coworkers designed a microbe, using a naturally occurring sensor, that responds to the amounts of internal fatty acids and related molecules and tunes the activity of its pathways accordingly. When limited amounts of fatty acid are in the cell, the sensor-regulator molecules puts the brakes on both the ethanol-producing pathway and the fatty acid-converting pathway. Conversely, when the bacteria contain higher levels of fatty acids, the brakes on these pathways are released. The sensor-regulator system improves the engineered bacteria in two ways, says Keasling: the metabolic pathways are better balanced so that one precursor isn't overproduced relative to the other and the modified bacteria are more stable because the biofuel production isn't robbing the cell of the ability to grow. This "self-awareness" increased the amount of biodiesel made by the bacteria to 28 percent of theoretical maximum, a three-fold increase over the previously reported strain. Although the improvement is significant, biodiesel production is still too limited to bring the fuel into the mainstream. "There are many issues, including metabolic imbalances, that need to be solved to make biofuels a reality," said Keasling in an email. For instance, expanding these largely experimental cultures to commercial scale—on the order of a million liters—will be a challenge. While the genetic regulator will not be the only key to opening up the nascent biofuels field, it is an elegant strategy for improving yields, says James Liao, a biomolecular engineer at the University of California, Los Angeles. "The sensor-regulator system will be a very useful tool in the tool box we currently have." |
| IBM's Big Data Challenge: A Telescope That Generates More Data Than the Whole Internet | |  There's a massive telescope on the drawing board that hasn't even started construction yet, but when it's finished in 2024, it'll generate more data in a single day than the entire Internet. For scientists to ensure they'll be able to handle all that raw information, they need to start working on new computing technologies now. Fortunately, IBM is on it. The computing giant is collaborating with ASTRON (the Netherlands Institute of Radio Astronomy) to develop the next-generation computer tech needed to handle the colossal amount of data captured by the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), a new radio telescope that will spread sensing equipment over a span 3,000 kilometers wide, or about the width of the continental U.S.A. "One of the goals is to search what happened at the time of the Big Bang, 13 billion years ago," IBM researcher Ronanld Luijten told Mashable. "We need to figure out what technology needs to be chosen in order to build this large antenna." The project is called DOME, and it's challenged to find a way to capture and process approximately one exabyte every day, which works out to about twice the amount of data that's generated every day by the World Wide Web, IBM says. To do that in a way that doesn't consume a massive amount of energy, IBM will need to develop some entirely new processing architectures before construction on the telescope begins in 2017. "We need to be very creative," says Luijten. "If we were to use standard servers of today, we'd need millions of them. They would use so much space and use so much energy that we couldn't afford to build the machines let alone operate them." While the project has only just been announced, IBM already has some ideas in the hopper. Specifically, it'll be looking at novel ways of stacking chips (today's chips are flat, though stacking or "3D" tech is around the corner) and using optical technology for interconnects, something the company has already had some success with. The promising new conductive material graphene, however, probably won't play a part. "Graphene will not be available in time to build something we start in 2017," says Luijten. "But it might be available for a later generation. The expectation is that we will go with the traditional CMOS process." SEE ALSO: IBM: Mind-Reading Machines Will Change Our Lives Even though the new computing tech hasn't even been invented yet, it'll ironically still rely on one of the oldest storage technologies in existence: magnetic tape. Luijten says tape simply can't be matched by newer storage mediums since it's so cost-, space- and power-efficient. The project won't exclusively use tape for storage, though, also relying on phase-change media and solid-state drives. "We're looking at new memory technologies," says Luijten, "but at the end of the day most of the data likely will remain on tape because it's still the most cost-effective storage medium. Tape will be around for a long time." The SKA isn't planned to be completed until 2024, but the technologies that IBM creates to service it will have the potential to change entire industries in the meantime, dealing with big-data problems that the world is just now encountering. It's possible the social networks and search engines of the future will be powered by IBM's coming tech or something like it, enabling them to process an entire Internet's worth of data for anyone and everyone. What problems would you like to see the supercomputers of tomorrow take on? Share your ideas in the comments. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, sharply_done |
| Apple Developing 'Killer' 3D Camera for iOS Devices | | Sunday, April 01, 2012 6:57 PM | TabTimes |
|  What’s coming next from Apple? The perennially secretive company doesn’t share much, but its patent applications can be an indicator of to expect in future products. The site Patently Apple spotted Apple’s patent filing for a 3D imaging camera that will apply to both still photography and video. When and how the technology is implemented is open to speculation, but in an article Friday, Patently Apple says it’s likely to become part of a future Apple device, such as a new version of the iPhone or iPad. The new cameras being developed in Apple’s labs will utilize new depth-detection sensors such as LIDAR, RADAR and Laser that will create stereo disparity maps in creating 3D imagery. Additionally, the cameras will use advanced chrominance and luminance Sensors for superior color accuracy. “And if that wasn't enough, the new cameras will not only include facial recognition but also facial gesturing recognition,” says Patently Apple. Apple is far from the only company working on 3D camera technology, which has been around for years, but much as it did with another established technology, touchscreens, the consumer tech giant may be gunning to advance and enhance 3D and make it more broadly available. As Patently Apple puts it “...the technology described in today's invention will definitely provide iOS devices with the ability to view killer 3D images that could only be appreciated on Apple's “Resolutionary” Retina Display. Apple's resolutionary experience has only begun. With the ability to view stunning 3D imagery, photos and videos on our new iPad displays, the resolutionary experience is only going pop our brains even further.” |
| Top 10 Tech This Week [PICS] | | Sunday, April 01, 2012 5:59 PM | Charlie White |
|  It was yet another rip-roaring week in the tech world, with a huge batch of compelling innovations from which to choose. Undaunted, we narrowed it down to the most enticing 10. For instance, we found one of the world's most beautiful smartphones, we tested a camera that can almost take pictures in the dark, we reviewed a keyboard that also holds its own in the middle of the night, and we coveted coolness ranging from the tiniest guitar to an enormous blimp on which you can hang a McMansion. SEE ALSO: Previous editions of Top 10 Tech This Week As you've probably already guessed, it was an unusual week in tech, and we found the best of it for you right here on Top 10 Tech This Week. Here's last week's Top 10 Tech. |
| Google News Fooled by April Fools' Day Prank | | Sunday, April 01, 2012 4:45 PM | Zoe Fox |
|  Who doesn't love a little April Fool's Day fun? Apparently, not Google News. The algorithmic aggregator of the web's top breaking headlines confused a spoof story for a serious one on Sunday morning, slating it in the page-view-driving top spot. Business magazine Forbes published a fictional dispatch from the Republican campaign trail, "Romney Drops Out of Race, Endorses Santorum." The media company must have rethought its prank, once the story landed in Google News's coveted number one spot, and removed the story. "In a surprise move, Mitt Romney announced today that he is ending his presidential campaign and throwing his support behind Rick Santorum. The move shocked observers, including Senator Santorum, as Governor Romney seemed poised for a decisive victory in Wisconsin. The governor, however, said he concluded that he has 'no chance' to win the general election in December and that a Santorum candidacy in 2012 would be in the 'best interest of the party.'" You can read the full text of the removed story on Short Form Blog. Forbes didn't beat buzz-blog Gawker, which captured a screenshot while the story was trending on Google News. What do you think of news sites engaging in April Fools' Day pranks? Have any others caught your eyes today? Image courtesy of Flickr, Gage Skidmore |
| Flickr Gets Back to Basics [VIDEO] | | Sunday, April 01, 2012 4:24 PM | Charlie White |
|  Is Flickr taking the Instagram concept a step further? If you visit the photo sharing site today, you might think your photos have been tossed back to the primitive days of the 1980s. A quick click on an icon on the bottom right of a Flickr photo page first results in an ancient-sounding noise, just as your photo is turned into a pointillist fantasy from the days when image sensors were held together by figurative bailing wire and masking tape. Check out this video where we give you a close-up look at Flickr's whimsical throwback, trying a little primitive video trickery ourselves. |
| Gmail Tap: Say Goodbye to the QWERTY Keyboard | | Sunday, April 01, 2012 1:35 PM | Zoe Fox |
|  Google has cooked up an idea it calls Gmail Tap, reinventing the QWERTY keyboard as we know it. The new text input system, announced in a blog post on April 1 (ahem, April Fool's Day), uses finger taps rather than keys in mobile BONUS: Top 10 Viral Pranks on YouTube |
| |  |  | | | TOP STORIES TODAY TOP TOPICS | |
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق