2011-08-09
Freescale Semiconductor, Rich Beyer, White Box, Asia What’s in the white box for Freescale?
When asked recently about his company’s new multimedia processors, Freescale Semiconductor CEO Rich Beyer replied that Freescale “would like to work with white-box vendors in China” rather than, say, gun for design wins in the next Apple iPad, HP tablet or Dell netbook.
The response raised a few eyebrows. With Freescale no longer in the wireless baseband business, many observers assumed the company would need to score a high-profile design win to prove its multimedia processor’s chops to the world.
But Freescale is moving away from what it sees as the bloodbath caused by hyper-price-competitive tablets from companies like Dell and Hewlett-Packard. (Freescale barely survived the decline of its biggest customer, Motorola, several years back.)
Partnering with white-box vendors working on a broad range of smart mobile products—everything from personal media devices to automotive infotainment systems, e-readers and media tablets—is “attractive to Freescale,” Beyer says.
Click here to read the full story at EE Times Confidential.
Freescale Semiconductor, Rich Beyer, White Box, Asia What's in the white box for Freescale?
MIT, Siggraph MIT's GelSight enhances 3-D imaging
MANHASSET, NY -- Researchers have created a simple, portable imaging system that combines a slab of transparent, synthetic rubber, a coat of paint containing tiny flecks of metal, and clever algorithms to achieve resolutions previously possible only with large and expensive lab equipment.
The device could enable a way to inspect products too large to fit under a microscope and could also have applications in medicine, forensics and biometrics.
GelSight is a slab of transparent, synthetic rubber, one of whose sides is coated with a paint containing tiny flecks of metal. When pressed against the surface of an object, the paint-coated side of the slab deforms. Cameras mounted on the other side of the slab photograph the results, and computer-vision algorithms analyze the images.
A new, higher-resolution version of GelSight can register physical features less than a micrometer in depth and about two micrometers across. This compares to an earlier version presented in a 2009 paper at Siggraph which was sensitive enough to detect the raised ink patterns on a $20 bill.
GelSight grew out of a project to create tactile sensors for robots for giving them a sense of touch. But researchers realized that their system provided much higher resolution than tactile sensing required.
The researchers shrunk the flecks of metal in the paint and used a different lighting scheme than before which in turn needed a redesign of the computer-vision algorithm that measures surface features.
Traditionally, generating micrometer-scale images has required a large, expensive piece of equipment such as a confocal microscope or a white-light interferometer, which might take minutes or even hours to produce a 3-D image. Often, such a device has to be mounted on a vibration isolation table, which might consist of a granite slab held steady by shock absorbers.
In contrast, researchers Edward Adelson and Micah Kimo Johnson built a prototype sensor, about the size of a soda can, which produces 3-D images almost instantly.
With multiple cameras measuring the rubber’s deformation, the system can produce 3-D models of an object, which can be manipulated on a computer screen for examination from multiple angles.
Adelson and Johnson are in discussion with a major aerospace company and several manufacturers of industrial equipment, all of whom are interested in using GelSight to check the integrity of their products.
The technology has also drawn the interest of experts in criminal forensics, who think that it could provide a cheap, efficient way to identify the impressions that particular guns leave on the casings of spent shells.
The researchers work in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.
Papers delivered at Siggraph 2011 in Vancouver this week can be viewed here.
MIT, Siggraph MIT's GelSight enhances 3-D imaging
The device could enable a way to inspect products too large to fit under a microscope and could also have applications in medicine, forensics and biometrics.
GelSight is a slab of transparent, synthetic rubber, one of whose sides is coated with a paint containing tiny flecks of metal. When pressed against the surface of an object, the paint-coated side of the slab deforms. Cameras mounted on the other side of the slab photograph the results, and computer-vision algorithms analyze the images.
A new, higher-resolution version of GelSight can register physical features less than a micrometer in depth and about two micrometers across. This compares to an earlier version presented in a 2009 paper at Siggraph which was sensitive enough to detect the raised ink patterns on a $20 bill.
GelSight grew out of a project to create tactile sensors for robots for giving them a sense of touch. But researchers realized that their system provided much higher resolution than tactile sensing required.
The researchers shrunk the flecks of metal in the paint and used a different lighting scheme than before which in turn needed a redesign of the computer-vision algorithm that measures surface features.
Traditionally, generating micrometer-scale images has required a large, expensive piece of equipment such as a confocal microscope or a white-light interferometer, which might take minutes or even hours to produce a 3-D image. Often, such a device has to be mounted on a vibration isolation table, which might consist of a granite slab held steady by shock absorbers.
In contrast, researchers Edward Adelson and Micah Kimo Johnson built a prototype sensor, about the size of a soda can, which produces 3-D images almost instantly.
With multiple cameras measuring the rubber’s deformation, the system can produce 3-D models of an object, which can be manipulated on a computer screen for examination from multiple angles.
Adelson and Johnson are in discussion with a major aerospace company and several manufacturers of industrial equipment, all of whom are interested in using GelSight to check the integrity of their products.
The technology has also drawn the interest of experts in criminal forensics, who think that it could provide a cheap, efficient way to identify the impressions that particular guns leave on the casings of spent shells.
The researchers work in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.
Papers delivered at Siggraph 2011 in Vancouver this week can be viewed here.
MIT, Siggraph MIT's GelSight enhances 3-D imaging
Gartner, Technologies, Hype Gartner expands technology 'hype' curve in 2011
MANHASSET, NY -- The Gartner market research firm has released its 2011 version of their "Hype Cycle for Semiconductors" report and has included six new technologies.
The renamed "Hype Cycle for Semiconductors and Electronics Technologies" includes the broader scope of technologies covered — such as displays, batteries, capacitors and wireless power
Specifically, the 2011 Hype Cycle includes the following six new technologies: quantum dot displays, cognitive radio, terahertz waves, MEMS displays, lithium iron phosphate batteries and 450-mm wafers.
Gartner's senior analyst Jum Tully claims these are important emerging technologies that should be tracked during the next few years.
Among the research's major findings are:
There were relatively few shifts in technologies during the past year. The prevailing economic conditions are no doubt partly responsible for this.
Therefore, no technologies from last year's Hype Cycle have progressed beyond the Plateau of Productivity; and they remain in this year's Hype Cycle. Also, no technologies have been pushed backward except for electronic paper because of a definition change to include color technologies as well.
Gartner has moved optical silicon, which has been in pre-peak position for the past several years, and floating body DRAM to join FPGA embedded in a SoC, micro fuel cells and phase change memory in the Trough of Disillusionment. (See figure)
Gartner, Technologies, Hype Gartner expands technology 'hype' curve in 2011
The renamed "Hype Cycle for Semiconductors and Electronics Technologies" includes the broader scope of technologies covered — such as displays, batteries, capacitors and wireless power
Specifically, the 2011 Hype Cycle includes the following six new technologies: quantum dot displays, cognitive radio, terahertz waves, MEMS displays, lithium iron phosphate batteries and 450-mm wafers.
Gartner's senior analyst Jum Tully claims these are important emerging technologies that should be tracked during the next few years.
Among the research's major findings are:
There were relatively few shifts in technologies during the past year. The prevailing economic conditions are no doubt partly responsible for this.
Therefore, no technologies from last year's Hype Cycle have progressed beyond the Plateau of Productivity; and they remain in this year's Hype Cycle. Also, no technologies have been pushed backward except for electronic paper because of a definition change to include color technologies as well.
Gartner has moved optical silicon, which has been in pre-peak position for the past several years, and floating body DRAM to join FPGA embedded in a SoC, micro fuel cells and phase change memory in the Trough of Disillusionment. (See figure)
Gartner, Technologies, Hype Gartner expands technology 'hype' curve in 2011
Spansion, NOR, Flash, Memory, Semiconductor Spansion claims first 4-Gb NOR flash
SAN FRANCISCO—NOR flash memory vendor Spansion Inc. Tuesday (Aug. 9) announced what it said was the semiconductor industry's first single-die, 4-gigabit (Gb) NOR product implemented at the 65-nm node.
Spansion (Sunnyvale, Calif.) said the latest addition to its GL-S product line delivers high quality and fast read performance. The 4-Gb NOR device is sampling this month, Spansion said.
Based on Spansion's proprietary MirrorBit charge-trapping technology, the Spansion GL-S is up to 45 percent faster read than competing NOR flash products, according to Spansion. The Spansion GL-S family is currently offered at 128-Mb through 2-Gb densities and the company is gaining design win momentum for the product family with consumer, automotive, gaming, telecom and industrial applications, according to the company.
Spansion, NOR, Flash, Memory, Semiconductor Spansion claims first 4-Gb NOR flash
Spansion (Sunnyvale, Calif.) said the latest addition to its GL-S product line delivers high quality and fast read performance. The 4-Gb NOR device is sampling this month, Spansion said.
Based on Spansion's proprietary MirrorBit charge-trapping technology, the Spansion GL-S is up to 45 percent faster read than competing NOR flash products, according to Spansion. The Spansion GL-S family is currently offered at 128-Mb through 2-Gb densities and the company is gaining design win momentum for the product family with consumer, automotive, gaming, telecom and industrial applications, according to the company.
Spansion, NOR, Flash, Memory, Semiconductor Spansion claims first 4-Gb NOR flash
Scientists pioneer new method for nanoribbon production
The work, reported in Nature Materials, could pave the way for the production of nanomaterials for use in a new generation of computers and data storage devices that are faster, smaller and more powerful.
The Nottingham research group, led by Dr Andrei Khlobystov in the University's School of Chemistry, specialise in the chemistry of nanomaterials and has been studying carbon nanotubes as containers for molecules and atoms.
Carbon nanotubes are remarkable nanostructures with a typical diameter of 1-2 nanometres, which is 80,000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair. Over the past few years, the researchers have discovered that physical and chemical properties of molecules inserted into carbon nanotubes are very different to the properties of free molecules. This presents a powerful mechanism for manipulating the molecules, harnessing their functional properties, such as magnetic or optical, and for controlling their chemical reactivity.
The latest study is a collaboration between Dr Khlobystov's chemical nanoscientists, theoretical chemists based in the University's School of Chemistry and electron microscopists from Ulm University in German.
Working together, they have demonstrated that carbon nanotubes can be used as nanoscale chemical reactors and chemical reactions involving carbon and sulphur atoms held within a nanotube lead to the formation of atomically thin strips of carbon, known as graphene nanoribbon, decorated with sulphur atoms around the edge.
Dr Khlobystov said: "Graphene nanoribbons possess a wealth of interesting physical properties making them more suitable for applications in electronic and spintronic devices than the parent material graphene -- the discovery of which attracted the Nobel Prize for Physics last year for University of Manchester scientists Professors Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov.
"Nanoribbons are very difficult to make but the Nottingham team's strategy of confining chemical reactions at the nanoscale sparks spontaneous formation of these remarkable structures. The team has also discovered that nanoribbons -- far from being simple flat and linear structures -- possess an unprecedented helical twist that changes over time, giving scientists a way of controlling physical properties of the nanoribbon, such as electrical conductivity."
Devices based on nanoribbons could potentially be used as nano-switches, nano-actuators and nano-transistors integrated in computers or data storage devices.
Scientists pioneer new method for nanoribbon production
Research group shows iPhones cost less to support
Enlarge
(PhysOrg.com) -- ClickFox, a firm that analyzes customer experience when trying to solve problems with their technology has focused its attention on how much work and cost is involved in supporting and troubleshooting problems related to the three main kinds of smartphones; the iPhone, Blackberry and those running Google’s Android OS. They found that iPhone’s are cheaper to support than Blackberry’s and Android phones are the most expensive of all.
ClickFox reached its conclusions by analyzing support data from North American carriers; after eliminating call data for questions about billing or queries about plan options, the company found that calls for assistance with iPhones were generally handled more expeditiously than those for Blackberry and even more so than for Android calls.
ClickFox, though not revealing exact figures noted that the main difference between the types of support were the number of calls that had to be transferred to other support reps, i.e. difficult problems often require the assistance of more than one support rep to get resolved. ClickFox says that the number of transfers for iPhone callers is fewer than for Blackberry users, and far fewer than for Android users.
In an interview with InfoWorld, analytics director for ClickFox , Lauren Smith said that Blackberry users cost support carriers a total of $46 million more to support than iPhone users did for their support, while Android users cost theirs $97 million more.
ClickFox suggests the disparity is due to the higher degree of difficulty in learning and using the Blackberry and Android phones versus the iPhone, resulting in confused users calling support lines only to find the reps oftentimes confused as well. ClickFox says that while iPhone users typically have their questions or problems resolved on the first call, Blackberry users find themselves transferred to another rep 37% of the time; and Android users get transferred a staggering 77% of the time.
This announcement by ClickFox comes at a bad time for Android users as reports from the recent DefCon Hacking conference in Las Vegas, suggest that the Android OS has a flaw in it that allows one app to change the focus of another app without user consent. Worse, the offending app can apparently also disable the Back button, preventing the user from going back to the original app. Security experts say such a flaw, in addition to being annoying, can allow a secondary app to masquerade as the first, setting up the user for a phishing attack.
© 2010 PhysOrg.com
Research group shows iPhones cost less to support
UMC, foundry, semiconductor, sales, July UMC's July sales down 18% on 2010
LONDON – July sales for foundry United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) were NT$8,809 million (about $300 million) down 4.1 percent on June sales and down 18.6 percent on UMC's July sales in 2010.
A fall was expected after UMC (Hsinchu, Taiwan) predicted sales would fall 10 to 12 percent in the third quarter when compared with the second quarter. In a typical year sales jump up significantly in the third quarter as ICs to go into consumer equipment for the winter buying season that typically lasts from November to February.
UMC's year-to-date sales for the first seven months of 2011 are NT$65.08 billion (about $2.24 billion), 3.3 percent less than the equivalent figure in 2010. The comparison with the previous year has been declining continuously since January when UMC's sales were 10.75 percent ahead of the previous year.
Rival foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Hsinchu, Taiwan) is expected to post its July sales figures on Wednesday (Aug. 10).
Related links and articles:
UMC predicts declines in revenues, fab use
Taiwan comforted by Apple chip spend cycle
TSMC posts weak June, Q2 sales figures
UMC, foundry, semiconductor, sales, July UMC's July sales down 18% on 2010
Jim Hogan, EDA, Nimbic, semiconductor Jim Hogan joins board of cloud-EDA startup
LONDON – Nimbic Inc., a provider of software-as-a-service, cloud-computing for EDA has announced that Jim Hogan, an EDA industry veteran, has joined its board of directors.
Nimbic (Mountain View, Calif.), founded as Physware in 2006, provides signal integrity, power integrity and electromagnetic interference design tools.
Hogan has worked in the semiconductor industry for more than 33 years, serving as a senior executive in electronic design automation, semiconductor intellectual property, semiconductor equipment, and fabrication companies. Hogan currently serves as chairman at Solido Design Automation and as director at Scoperta and Tela Innovations.
Hogan also has held a variety of executive and board positions at companies including: Altos Design Automation, Telos Venture Partners, Artisan Components and Cadence Design Systems Inc.
"Jim is a terrific addition to Nimbic's board of directors and is already bringing his industry expertise to bear as we launch our cloud solutions for EDA," said Raul Camposano, CEO of Nimbic, in a statement. Camposano is a former chief technology officer at Synopsys Inc.
"In my opinion, Nimbic will be a company that establishes both innovative technology solutions as well as new and interesting business models to help world-class customers with their design challenges," said Hogan, in the same statement.
Related links and articles:
www.nimbic.com
News articles:
Nimbic launches cloud computing solution for EDA
Jim Hogan joins GateRocket advisory board
Layout optimization startup Tela buys Blaze DFM
Camposano appointed CEO at simulation startup
Jim Hogan, EDA, Nimbic, semiconductor Jim Hogan joins board of cloud-EDA startup
IMS, wireless, charging, market, smartphones, semiconductor IMS: Wireless charging market is on 85% CAGR
LONDON – The global market for wireless power components and accessories was $100 million in 2010 but will grow to be worth $4.5 billion, according to market research IMS Research Ltd. That is equivalent to a compound annual growth rate of 85.5 percent.
Palm and Powermat are the pioneers in wireless charging but with incompatible products and being challenged by the Wireless Power Consortium and its Qi standard, the firm said.
IMS (Wellingborough, England) said it expects rivalries to focus around two implementations of wireless power. Powermat and WPC's Qi are in the "tightly coupled" camp that requires close proximity. Qualcomm and Witricity use magnetic resonance to transfer power over greater distances.
"Our forecast assumes that while competition will be fierce in the near term, a combination of market forces and industry alliances will coalesce to form a de facto standard for interoperability in the next several years," said Jason dePreaux, research manager at IMS Research, in a statement.
Related links and articles:
MediaTek goes to startup for charging tech
Wireless Power Consortium adds seven members
An introduction to the Wireless Power Consortium and TI solutions
IMS, wireless, charging, market, smartphones, semiconductor IMS: Wireless charging market is on 85% CAGR
Twitter, Facebook, BlackBerry Social media blamed as UK youths riot
Serious public disorder has broken out in several major cities of the United Kingdom with gangs of youths looting shops and attacking the police where they meet resistance, according to reports.
The modern tools of social networking, Facebook, Twitter and BlackBerry are being used by the young people to co-ordinate locations where they can meet, leaving the stretched UK police force scrambling to catch up.
The rioting began in the Tottenham district in the north of London on Saturday night but on Sunday night spread across the east and south of London in a series of copy-cat events as young people sought to challenge the authorities. On Monday night violence and looting were reported in Birmingham, Bristol and Nottingham as well as London.
The spark for the initial violence was a peaceful gathering held outside a police station in Tottenham to protest at the fatal shooting of a man on Thursday. However, since then the violence and looting appear to have been opportunistic criminality amongst young people that have few opportunities for well-paid employment and who are pressured by declining welfare provision and the introduction of austerity measures.
Related links:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14450248
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14454250
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14456050
Twitter, Facebook, BlackBerry Social media blamed as UK youths riot
National Instruments, NIWeek 2011 al Instruments hails latest feats at NIWeek 2011
AUSTIN, Texas -- The elusive goal of developing nuclear fusion as a viable energy source has been a lifetime ambition espoused by National Instruments’ co-founder, at least for the past 35 years of the existence of his company.
NI's president and CEO James Truchard,, who co-founded the company in 1976 while working at The University of Texas at Austin, mentions the elusive goal of sustainable energy from fusion as part of his opening remarks at what has become an "engineering lovefest", the annual NIWeek. The latest NIweek 2011 was held here last week.
Since 1986, when Truchard and co-founder Jeff Kodosky invented NI’s LabVIEW graphical development software, engineers and scientists have become exposed to the company’s graphical system design environment as an intuitive way to develop customer-defined test, control, and embedded design systems.
The two dates 1986 and 1976 were marked at NIWeek 2011 held last week in 107 degree F. hot Austin, where some 3300 attended the “big tent” event in the Austin Convention Center. “You are in the hottest place for innovation held in one of the hottest cities,” said Truchard in his keynote who then took the crowd of enthusiastic NI engineers, scientists, and followers on a concentrated history map of laboratory test and measurement equipment.
It was left to Shelley Gretlein, NI’s director of software marketing, to provide the background for four modern application areas that in some ways answer the quest posed by the 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering, defined by the National Academy of Engineering.
Truchard was elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering in 2007, what is widely considered to be the highest honor given in the engineering profession. As such he was able to help define and tackle the 14 Grand Challenges, and to have users of NI tools come up with partial solutions, including the one of energy from fusion.
Gretlein eloquently presented some of the 14 challenges including: a medical application from Santec; a civil infrastructure application with the Cockrell School of Engineering; a smart grid application with NEXTGen Consultancy; and energy from fusion with the University of Parma (Italy).
Watch the fusion application from NI Week 2011 and other NI presentations here.
The medical application was a Santec Corp. (Japan) portable optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging system. OCT is a non-invasive imaging technique that relies on analyzing the frequency components of backscattered light from the internal structure of an object or tissue.
NI FlexRIO and FPGA technology was used to create the OCT system that achieved a 4X speed increase and a dramatically smaller footprint compared to the company’s previous rack-mounted OCT system. OCT provides much greater resolution than magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or positron emission tomography (PET) and uses a low-power light source and the corresponding light reflections to create images, similar to an ultrasound method, only with light.
Another OCT project won NI’s annual Graphical System Design Achievement Award, an NI Week highlight that sports a contest that this year was judged by a committee of NI technical experts reviewing the papers and selecting finalists and winners. A total of 130 submissions were received from authors in 20 countries.
Kohji Ohbayashi, of Kitasato University, Graduate School of Medical Science, and his team of researchers created a 3-D OCT medical instrument that can detect cancer during medical checkups without requiring the patient to undergo a biopsy.
To achieve 3-D imaging capabilities, two FPGAs in the system computed more than 700,000 512-point fast Fourier transforms (FFT) every second.
The system has three different real-time display modes: (a) continuous display of rendered 3-D images, (b) continuous 2-D cross-sectional frame scanning in a 3-D cube along each of the axes, and (c) continuous display of all acquired B-scan images.
The GSDAA NI Week 2011 finalists and winners can be viewed here. The full NIWeek 2011 conference presentations can be viewed here.
Read more NI Week coverage here:
The latest updates from NI Week 2011
National Instruments, NIWeek 2011 al Instruments hails latest feats at NIWeek 2011
NI's president and CEO James Truchard,, who co-founded the company in 1976 while working at The University of Texas at Austin, mentions the elusive goal of sustainable energy from fusion as part of his opening remarks at what has become an "engineering lovefest", the annual NIWeek. The latest NIweek 2011 was held here last week.
Since 1986, when Truchard and co-founder Jeff Kodosky invented NI’s LabVIEW graphical development software, engineers and scientists have become exposed to the company’s graphical system design environment as an intuitive way to develop customer-defined test, control, and embedded design systems.
The two dates 1986 and 1976 were marked at NIWeek 2011 held last week in 107 degree F. hot Austin, where some 3300 attended the “big tent” event in the Austin Convention Center. “You are in the hottest place for innovation held in one of the hottest cities,” said Truchard in his keynote who then took the crowd of enthusiastic NI engineers, scientists, and followers on a concentrated history map of laboratory test and measurement equipment.
It was left to Shelley Gretlein, NI’s director of software marketing, to provide the background for four modern application areas that in some ways answer the quest posed by the 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering, defined by the National Academy of Engineering.
Truchard was elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering in 2007, what is widely considered to be the highest honor given in the engineering profession. As such he was able to help define and tackle the 14 Grand Challenges, and to have users of NI tools come up with partial solutions, including the one of energy from fusion.
Gretlein eloquently presented some of the 14 challenges including: a medical application from Santec; a civil infrastructure application with the Cockrell School of Engineering; a smart grid application with NEXTGen Consultancy; and energy from fusion with the University of Parma (Italy).
Watch the fusion application from NI Week 2011 and other NI presentations here.
The medical application was a Santec Corp. (Japan) portable optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging system. OCT is a non-invasive imaging technique that relies on analyzing the frequency components of backscattered light from the internal structure of an object or tissue.
NI FlexRIO and FPGA technology was used to create the OCT system that achieved a 4X speed increase and a dramatically smaller footprint compared to the company’s previous rack-mounted OCT system. OCT provides much greater resolution than magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or positron emission tomography (PET) and uses a low-power light source and the corresponding light reflections to create images, similar to an ultrasound method, only with light.
Another OCT project won NI’s annual Graphical System Design Achievement Award, an NI Week highlight that sports a contest that this year was judged by a committee of NI technical experts reviewing the papers and selecting finalists and winners. A total of 130 submissions were received from authors in 20 countries.
Kohji Ohbayashi, of Kitasato University, Graduate School of Medical Science, and his team of researchers created a 3-D OCT medical instrument that can detect cancer during medical checkups without requiring the patient to undergo a biopsy.
To achieve 3-D imaging capabilities, two FPGAs in the system computed more than 700,000 512-point fast Fourier transforms (FFT) every second.
The system has three different real-time display modes: (a) continuous display of rendered 3-D images, (b) continuous 2-D cross-sectional frame scanning in a 3-D cube along each of the axes, and (c) continuous display of all acquired B-scan images.
The GSDAA NI Week 2011 finalists and winners can be viewed here. The full NIWeek 2011 conference presentations can be viewed here.
Read more NI Week coverage here:
The latest updates from NI Week 2011
National Instruments, NIWeek 2011 al Instruments hails latest feats at NIWeek 2011
Tri-Gate, Intel, ARM, Mobile Will tri-gate play an important role in the Intel-ARM tussle?
Rivalries between companies have a charm of their own. For many years, Intel v. AMD was the talk of the town, and then it became Microsoft v. Google. The most interesting rivalry today is, of course, Intel v. ARM. After Intel's tri-gate transistor announcement, I was therefore not surprised to see these news articles:eWeek
3-D transistor will indeed help Intel beat back ARM, iHS iSuppli says
xbit Labs
ARM Not Afraid of Intel's 22nm/Tri-Gate Process Technology - Company.
Wired Revolution
Intel’s 3D tri-gate Transistor Redesign Brings Huge Efficiency Gains
At the moment, it certainly looks as though ARM will go planar at the 22-nm node, while Intel will go tri-gate. To judge if tri-gate offers Intel a significant advantage, a few questions need to be answered:
• Intel announced that their 22-nm tri-gate transistor consumed 50 percent lower power when compared to their 32-nm planar transistor. But what are the power savings for a 22-nm tri-gate transistor when compared to a 22-nm planar transistor?
• How much chip power can one save by using a 22-nm tri-gate transistor in a microprocessor instead of a 22-nm planar transistor? Is it 10 percent? Or is it 30 percent? Or is it 50 percent?
It is not difficult to get estimates for these. Let’s take a look.
Transistor-level calculations
Tri-Gate, Intel, ARM, Mobile Will tri-gate play an important role in the Intel-ARM tussle?
Sony, Panasonic, Samsung in 3D glasses deal
Japan's Sony and Panasonic and South Korea's Samsung Electronics have said they will jointly develop new standards for glasses used to watch 3D images on television, computer and movie screens.
Japan's Sony and Panasonic and South Korea's Samsung Electronics said Tuesday they will jointly develop new standards for glasses used to watch 3D images on television, computer and movie screens.
The three Asian consumer electronics giants, working with European technology firm X6D Limited, said their collaboration will cover a technology called "3D active glasses", according to their joint statement.
The universal glasses -- which can be used on TVs from all three firms -- will go on sale in 2012 and will be compatible with 3D sets being released this year, the companies said.
"Today’s announcement marks a unique collaboration of the world’s leading 3D TV manufacturers and 3D technology providers for the benefit of consumers," they said, expressing hope the move would promote 3D technology.
(c) 2011 AFP
Sony, Panasonic, Samsung in 3D glasses deal
Severe low temperatures devastate coral reefs in Florida Keys
Lead author Dustin Kemp, a postdoctoral associate in the UGA Odum School of Ecology, said the study was prompted by an abnormal episode of extended cold weather in January and February 2010. Temperatures on inshore reefs in the upper Florida Keys dropped below 12 C (54 F), and remained below 18 C (64 F) for two weeks. Kemp and his colleagues had planned to sample corals at Admiral Reef, an inshore reef off Key Largo, just three weeks after the cold snap. When they arrived, they discovered that the reef, once abundant in hard and soft corals, was essentially dead. "It was the saddest thing I've ever seen," Kemp said. "The large, reef-building corals were gone. Some were estimated to be 200 to 300 years old and had survived other catastrophic events, such as the 1998 El Niño bleaching event. The severe cold water appeared to kill the corals quite rapidly."
Odum School Professor William Fitt, Kemp's doctoral advisor and one of the paper's co-authors, realized that the team had a unique opportunity. "Nearly 100 years ago, Alfred Mayer described the temperature tolerance of different corals in the Dry Tortugas and found very similar results," Kemp said. "We decided to take the next step and learn how and why the cold temperatures caused the corals to die."
The researchers took samples of Siderastrea siderea -- one of the few reef-building corals to survive -- from Admiral Reef. They also took samples of three common Florida Keys corals, Montastraea faveolata, Siderastrea sidereaand Porites astreoides from Little Grecian Reef, a nearby offshore reef that had not experienced the temperature anomaly to the extent of Admiral Reef. Kemp explained that Little Grecian Reef is far enough offshore that the cold-water temperatures were likely buffered by the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, which resulted in offshore coral reefs being less severely affected by the cold air mass that was pushed by an unusual weather pattern over much of the U.S. during that two-week period.
Back in the lab, they simulated the temperatures that had been recorded at Admiral Reef during the cold weather event, testing the different corals' physiological responses at 12 C and 16 C (61 F), and then, after the corals' exposure to the cold, returned the temperature to 20 C (68 F). They found that although responses varied depending on the coral species, in general the stress of extended cold temperatures had an effect similar to that of high temperatures.
Kemp explained that corals depend on Symbiodinium, a type of symbiotic algae that lives inside them, for nutrition. Through photosynthesis, the algae produce sugars, which are passed on to the corals. "The cold temperatures inhibited photosynthesis in the algae, leading to a potential net loss of carbon transferred from the algae to the coral," said Kemp. He said that each coral species had its own unique type of Symbiodinium, some of which were better able to tolerate and recover from cold temperatures than others.
All of the corals experienced a significant decrease in photosynthesis at 12 C. Siderastrea siderea and M. faveolata were able to handle the 16 C temperatures, but P. astreoides was not, and did not show signs of recovery once the temperature was returned to 20 C. Siderastrea siderea was the only coral able to recover.
"Corals and their symbiotic algae have a range of stress tolerance," said Kemp. "Some can handle moderate stress, some are highly sensitive, and some are in between. But extreme cold is just one stressor among many." Other threats to coral health include increased seawater temperatures, diseases, ocean acidification, and pollution. "Adding stress from wintertime cold episodes could not only quickly kill corals but also may have long-term effects," he said. "For corals found in the Florida Keys, winter is typically a 'non-stressful' time and corals bulk up on tissue reserves that are important for surviving potentially 'stressful' summertime conditions (i.e. coral bleaching)."
Kemp said that researchers at NOAA attribute the record-breaking cold anomaly to a negative trend in the North Atlantic oscillation, an atmospheric pressure pattern that influences the weather in the northern hemisphere. "They speculate that if the trend continues, these kinds of extreme cold events may become more frequent," he said.
Kemp stressed that the study's findings should not be interpreted to downplay the major role of higher temperatures on corals' decline. "The study shows that warming may not be the only climate-related problem for coral reefs in the future," he said.
Kemp also pointed out that it was not only the corals that were devastated by the cold snap. "The corals provide the framework for the entire reef ecosystem," he said. "The lobster, shrimp, clams, fish -- all the creatures that depend on the reef -- were affected too. The potential consequences for coral ecosystems are extremely alarming."
Besides Kemp and Fitt, the paper's coauthors were Clinton Oakley and Gregory Schmidt of the UGA Department of Plant Biology, Daniel Thornhill of the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife and Bowdoin College, and Laura Newcomb of Bowdoin College. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and Bowdoin College.
Severe low temperatures devastate coral reefs in Florida Keys
'Endurance gene' for Olympic-level athletes: Genetic basis for muscle endurance discovered in animal study
The study appears online this week in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The work has implications for improving muscle performance in disease states including metabolic disorders, obesity, and aging.
"We have shown that mice lacking the gene run six times longer than control mice and that the fatigable muscles of the mouse -- the fast muscle in the front of the leg -- have been reprogrammed and are now fatigue-resistant," explains senior author Tejvir S. Khurana, MD, PhD, professor of Physiology and member of the Pennsylvania Muscle Institute. "This has wide ramifications for various aspects of muscle biology ranging from athletics to treating muscle and metabolic diseases."
The gene codes for a protein called Interleukin-15 receptor-alpha (IL-15R-alpha), which acts alone or in conjunction with the IL-15 protein. IL-15R-alpha is important in the immune response, but it also has other functions. IL-15 and IL-15R-alpha have been implicated in muscle physiology, but the exact role in muscle function has not been defined.
"We found a previously unrecognized role for IL-15R-alpha in defining muscle function, and manipulation of this gene has the potential to improve muscle performance in disease states including metabolic disorders, obesity, and aging." says lead author Emidio E. Pistilli, PhD, who was a postdoctoral researcher at Penn and is now an assistant professor in the Division of Exercise Physiology at the West Virginia School of Medicine.
Slow Vs. Fast
Slow muscles are used for endurance and fast muscles are used for speed. The champion fast muscles are the muscles moving the eye, but they are also fatigue-resistant, the only muscles like this.
In the IL-15R-alpha knockout mouse used in this study, fast muscles behave like slow muscles. These mice ran 6.3 times greater distances and had greater ambulatory activity than controls. Their fast muscles displayed fatigue-resistance and slower contractions compared to fast muscles in control mice.
They also showed that the loss of IL-15R-alpha induces a shift in how energy is burned in fast muscles, substantially increasing fatigue resistance and exercise capacity.
The molecular signature of the muscles in the knockout mice included a greater number of active transcription factors, which indicates more muscle fibers with more mitochondria, and the machinery to better process calcium since this chemical drives muscle contraction. Mitochondria are the energy storehouses of the cell.
Morphologically, the fast muscles had a greater number of muscle fibers, smaller fiber areas, and a greater number of nuclei per fiber. The alterations of physiological properties and increased resistance to fatigue in the fast muscles are consistent with a shift towards a slower, more oxidative muscle type in the knockout mice.
The study also found significant associations between the gene and elite endurance athletes and hence supports the possibility that these athletes had a genetic predisposition or advantage.
From these two lines of evidence, the researchers concluded that IL-15R-alpha plays a role in defining the function of fast skeletal muscles.
Importantly, the study demonstrates that muscles can be reprogrammed to perform much better at endurance sports and hence IL-15R-alpha manipulation is of great importance from an athletic doping standpoint as currently it is neither tested for nor do methods exist to detect its misuse by athletes. The investigators are working toward this.
This research identifies a "druggable target" that allows possible reprogramming of muscle function by increasing genes, proteins and pathways typically expressed in slow or fatigue-resistant muscle, similar to adaptations seen after endurance exercise. It is widely accepted that these types of adaptations would be beneficial or protect against obesity, diabetes and aging and may help ameliorate pathology in myopathies such as muscular dystrophy. Hence, say the researchers, the identification of this pathway should facilitate better understanding of these diseases and aid in the development of rational therapies drugs for these disorders.
From a translational research point of view the team will test the role IL-15R-alpha plays in obesity, diabetes, aging, and muscle diseases, as well as develop methods to harness the therapeutic potential of it for patients.
The research was funded by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskelatal and Skin Diseases; the National Eye Institute; the National Institute on Aging; and the VA Puget Sound Health Care System.
In addition to Khurana and Pistilli, co-authors were from the Institute for Neuroscience and Muscle Research, The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; the Australian Institute of Sport, Canberra, Australia; Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center, VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle; Division of Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle; and the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism, Penn.
'Endurance gene' for Olympic-level athletes: Genetic basis for muscle endurance discovered in animal study
Like superman's X-Ray vision, new microscope reveals nanoscale details
But that's not all. What's unusual about this new, nanoscale, X-ray microscope is that the images are not produced by a lens, but by means of a powerful computer program.
The scientists report in a paper published in this week's early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that this computer program, or algorithm, is able to convert the diffraction patterns produced by the X-rays bouncing off the nanoscale structures into resolvable images.
"The mathematics behind this is somewhat complicated," said Oleg Shpyrko, an assistant professor of physics at UC San Diego who headed the research team. "But what we did is to show that for the first time that we can image magnetic domains with nanometer precision. In other words, we can see magnetic structure at the nanoscale level without using any lenses."
One immediate application of this lens-less X-ray microscope is the development of smaller, data storage devices for computers that can hold more memory.
"This will aid research in hard disk drives where the magnetic bits of data on the surface of the disk are currently only 15 nanometers in size," said Eric Fullerton, a co-author of the paper and director of UC San Diego's Center for Magnetic Recording Research. "This new ability to directly image the bits will be invaluable as we push to store even more data in the future."
The development should be also immediately applicable to other areas of nanoscience and nanotechnology.
"To advance nanoscience and nanotechnology, we have to be able to understand how materials behave at the nanoscale," said Shpyrko. "We want to be able to make materials in a controlled fashion to build magnetic devices for data storage or, in biology or chemistry, to be able to manipulate matter at nanoscale. And in order to do that we have to be able to see at nanoscale. This technique allows you to do that. It allows you to look into materials with X-rays and see details at the nanoscale."
"Because there is no lens in the way, putting a bulky magnet around the sample or adding equipment to change the sample environment in some other way during the measurement is much easier with this method than if we had to use a lens," Shpyrko added.
Ashish Tripathi, a graduate student in Shpyrko's lab, developed the algorithm that served as the X-ray microscope's lens. It worked, in principle, somewhat like the computer program that sharpened the Hubble Space Telescope's initially blurred images, which was caused by a spherical aberration in the telescope's mirror before the telescope was repaired in space. A similar concept is employed by astronomers working in ground-based telescopes who use adaptive optics, movable mirrors controlled by computers, to take out the distortions in their images from the twinkling star light moving through the atmosphere.
But the technique Tripathi developed was entirely new. "There was a lot of simulation involved in the development; it was a lot of work," said Shpyrko.
To test their microscope's ability to penetrate and resolve details at the nanoscale, the physicists made a layered film composed of the elements gadolinium and iron. Such films are now being studied in the information technology industry to develop higher capacity, smaller, and faster computer memory and disk drives.
"Both are magnetic materials and if you combine them in a structure it turns out they spontaneously form nanoscale magnetic domains," Shpyrko. "They actually self assemble into magnetic stripes."
Under the X-ray microscope, the layered gadolinium and iron film looks something like baklava dessert that crinkles up magnetically to form a series of magnetic domains, which appear like the repeating swirls of the ridges in fingerprints. Being able to resolve those domains at the nanoscale for the first time is critically important for computer engineers seeking to cram more data into smaller and smaller hard drives.
As materials are made with smaller and smaller magnetic domains, or thinner and thinner fingerprint patterns, more data can be stored in a smaller space within a material. "The way we're able to do that is to shrink the size of the magnetic bits," Shpyrko said.
The technique should find many other uses outside computer engineering as well.
"By tuning the X-ray energy, we can also use the technique to look at different elements within materials, which is very important in chemistry," he added. "In biology, it can be used to image viruses, cells and different kinds of tissues with a spatial resolution that is better than resolution available using visible light."
The scientists used the Advanced Photon Source, the most brilliant source of coherent X-rays in the Western Hemisphere, at the University of Chicago's Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago to conduct their research project, which was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. In addition to Tripathi, Shpyrko and Fullerton, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC San Diego, other co-authors of the paper include UC San Diego physics graduate students Jyoti Mohanty, Sebastian Dietze and Erik Shipton as well as physicists Ian McNulty and SangSoo Kim at Argonne National Laboratory.
Like superman's X-Ray vision, new microscope reveals nanoscale details
Scientist develops virus that targets HIV: Using a virus to kill a virus
Dr. Pin Wang's lentiviral vector latches onto HIV-infected cells, flagging them with what is called "suicide gene therapy" -- allowing drugs to later target and destroy them.
"If you deplete all of the HIV-infected cells, you can at least partially solve the problem," said Wang, chemical engineering professor with the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.
The process is analogous to the military practice of "buddy lasing" -- that is, having a soldier on the ground illuminate a target with a laser to guide a precision bombing strike from an aircraft.
Like a precision bombing raid, the lentiviral vector approach to targeting HIV has the advantage of avoiding collateral damage, keeping cells that are not infected by HIV out of harm's way. Such accuracy has not been achieved by using drugs alone, Wang said.
So far, the lentiviral vector has only been tested in culture dishes and has resulted in the destruction of about 35 percent of existing HIV cells. While that may not sound like a large percentage, if this treatment were to be used in humans, it would likely be repeated several times to maximize effectiveness.
Among the next steps will be to test the procedure in mice. While this is an important breakthrough, it is not yet a cure, Wang said.
"This is an early stage of research, but certainly it is one of the options in that direction," he said.
Wang's research, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health, appears in the July 23 issue of Virus Research.
Scientist develops virus that targets HIV: Using a virus to kill a virus
DNA building blocks can be made in space, NASA evidence suggests
"People have been discovering components of DNA in meteorites since the 1960's, but researchers were unsure whether they were really created in space or if instead they came from contamination by terrestrial life," said Dr. Michael Callahan of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "For the first time, we have three lines of evidence that together give us confidence these DNA building blocks actually were created in space." Callahan is lead author of a paper on the discovery appearing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
The discovery adds to a growing body of evidence that the chemistry inside asteroids and comets is capable of making building blocks of essential biological molecules. For example, previously, these scientists at the Goddard Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory have found amino acids in samples of comet Wild 2 from NASA's Stardust mission, and in various carbon-rich meteorites. Amino acids are used to make proteins, the workhorse molecules of life, used in everything from structures like hair to enzymes, the catalysts that speed up or regulate chemical reactions.
In the new work, the Goddard team ground up samples of twelve carbon-rich meteorites, nine of which were recovered from Antarctica. They extracted each sample with a solution of formic acid and ran them through a liquid chromatograph, an instrument that separates a mixture of compounds. They further analyzed the samples with a mass spectrometer, which helps determine the chemical structure of compounds.
The team found adenine and guanine, which are components of DNA called nucleobases, as well as hypoxanthine and xanthine. DNA resembles a spiral ladder; adenine and guanine connect with two other nucleobases to form the rungs of the ladder. They are part of the code that tells the cellular machinery which proteins to make. Hypoxanthine and xanthine are not found in DNA, but are used in other biological processes.
Also, in two of the meteorites, the team discovered for the first time trace amounts of three molecules related to nucleobases: purine, 2,6-diaminopurine, and 6,8-diaminopurine; the latter two almost never used in biology. These compounds have the same core molecule as nucleobases but with a structure added or removed.
It's these nucleobase-related molecules, called nucleobase analogs, which provide the first piece of evidence that the compounds in the meteorites came from space and not terrestrial contamination. "You would not expect to see these nucleobase analogs if contamination from terrestrial life was the source, because they're not used in biology, aside from one report of 2,6-diaminopurine occurring in a virus (cyanophage S-2L)," said Callahan. "However, if asteroids are behaving like chemical 'factories' cranking out prebiotic material, you would expect them to produce many variants of nucleobases, not just the biological ones, due to the wide variety of ingredients and conditions in each asteroid."
The second piece of evidence involved research to further rule out the possibility of terrestrial contamination as a source of these molecules. The team also analyzed an eight-kilogram (21.4-pound) sample of ice from Antarctica, where most of the meteorites in the study were found, with the same methods used on the meteorites. The amounts of the two nucleobases, plus hypoxanthine and xanthine, found in the ice were much lower -- parts per trillion -- than in the meteorites, where they were generally present at several parts per billion. More significantly, none of the nucleobase analogs were detected in the ice sample. One of the meteorites with nucleobase analog molecules fell in Australia, and the team also analyzed a soil sample collected near the fall site. As with the ice sample, the soil sample had none of the nucleobase analog molecules present in the meteorite.
Thirdly, the team found these nucleobases -- both the biological and non-biological ones -- were produced in a completely non-biological reaction. "In the lab, an identical suite of nucleobases and nucleobase analogs were generated in non-biological chemical reactions containing hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, and water. This provides a plausible mechanism for their synthesis in the asteroid parent bodies, and supports the notion that they are extraterrestrial," says Callahan.
"In fact, there seems to be a 'goldilocks' class of meteorite, the so-called CM2 meteorites, where conditions are just right to make more of these molecules," adds Callahan.
The team includes Callahan and Drs. Jennifer C. Stern, Daniel P. Glavin, and Jason P. Dworkin of NASA Goddard's Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory; Ms. Karen E. Smith and Dr. Christopher H. House of Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pa.; Dr. H. James Cleaves II of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC; and Dr. Josef Ruzicka of Thermo Fisher Scientific, Somerset, N.J. The research was funded by the NASA Astrobiology Institute, the Goddard Center for Astrobiology, the NASA Astrobiology: Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology Program, and the NASA Postdoctoral Program.
DNA building blocks can be made in space, NASA evidence suggests
Improved electrical conductivity in polymeric composites
The researchers in Luxembourg, in cooperation with scientists from the Netherlands, have studied the electrical percolation of carbon nanotubes in a polymer matrix and shown the percolation threshold -- the point at which the polymer composite becomes conductive -- can be considerably lowered if small quantities of a conductive polymer latex are added. The simulations were done in Luxembourg, while the experiments took place at Eindhoven University.
"In this project, the idea is to use as little as possible carbon nanotubes and still benefit from their favourable properties," says the project leader at the University of Luxembourg, Prof. Tania Schilling, "we have discovered that, by adding a second component, we could make use of the resulting interactions to reach our goal." By mixing finely dispersed particles, so-called colloidal particles, of differing shapes and sizes in the medium, system-spanning networks form: the prerequisite for electrically conductive composites.
The recent finding of the materials scientists of the University of Luxembourg was published in the peer-reviewed, scientific journal Nature Nanotechnology. This finding is a result of a cooperation of scientists at the University of Luxembourg, the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven and the Dutch Polymer Institute.
Improved electrical conductivity in polymeric composites
Nordic Semiconductor, Broadcom, Bluetooth Broadcom, Nordic Semi team on Bluetooth LE
SAN FRANCISCO—RF chip vendor Nordic Semiconductor ASA Monday (Aug. 8) announced successful wireless communication tests between a prototype design for a small, low-cost Bluetooth low energy proximity tag and Broadcom Corp.'s BCM4330, the first combo chip certified compliant with the Bluetooth 4.0 standard.
The prototype compatibility Bluetooth low energy tags—also known as fobs—demonstrate the interoperability between Bluetooth low energy chips and Bluetooth 4.0 devices, according to Nordic (Oslo, Norway). Adherence to the Bluetooth v4.0 specification ensures that devices from different providers, such as Broadcom and Nordic, communicate seamlessly, Nordic said.
The recently released Bluetooth v4.0 proximity profile enables the communication between the fob and next generation host devices like laptops and mobile phones, Nordic said.
Nordic said the fob is designed to prevent a device such as a laptop from being accessed in the owner’s absence. After pairing with the chip in the mobile device, the user carries the fob on their person, Nordic said. If the distance between the user and the mobile device exceeds a pre-set threshold—as could occur if the device is lost or stolen—the pairing is broken and the mobile device automatically locks, according to Nordic.
The fob is based on Nordic's µBlue nRF8001 single-chip Bluetooth low energy solution expected to be ready for volume production early in the third quarter, Nordic said. The power consumption of the nRF8001 maximizes the battery life of the CR2032 coin-cell powered fob, according to the company.
Broadcom’s BCM4330, the successor to the company’s BCM4329, is the industry’s first combo chip certified with the Bluetooth 4.0 standard, which includes Bluetooth low energy as a hallmark feature.
According to Peter Cooney, practice director for semiconductors at ABI Research, nearly all existing Bluetooth-enabled phones are expected to migrate to Bluetooth 4.0. This will result in more than 1 billion Bluetooth low energy-capable hosts in the handset market alone in the next few years, according to Cooney.
"Demand for Bluetooth low energy continues to grow as the technology is integrated into the increasing number of consumer electronics devices," said Craig Ochikubo, vice president and general manager of Broadcom’s Wireless Personal Area Networking line of business.
Several Bluetooth low energy profiles are expected to be released within the next few months by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group.
Nordic Semiconductor, Broadcom, Bluetooth Broadcom, Nordic Semi team on Bluetooth LE
The prototype compatibility Bluetooth low energy tags—also known as fobs—demonstrate the interoperability between Bluetooth low energy chips and Bluetooth 4.0 devices, according to Nordic (Oslo, Norway). Adherence to the Bluetooth v4.0 specification ensures that devices from different providers, such as Broadcom and Nordic, communicate seamlessly, Nordic said.
The recently released Bluetooth v4.0 proximity profile enables the communication between the fob and next generation host devices like laptops and mobile phones, Nordic said.
Nordic said the fob is designed to prevent a device such as a laptop from being accessed in the owner’s absence. After pairing with the chip in the mobile device, the user carries the fob on their person, Nordic said. If the distance between the user and the mobile device exceeds a pre-set threshold—as could occur if the device is lost or stolen—the pairing is broken and the mobile device automatically locks, according to Nordic.
The fob is based on Nordic's µBlue nRF8001 single-chip Bluetooth low energy solution expected to be ready for volume production early in the third quarter, Nordic said. The power consumption of the nRF8001 maximizes the battery life of the CR2032 coin-cell powered fob, according to the company.
Broadcom’s BCM4330, the successor to the company’s BCM4329, is the industry’s first combo chip certified with the Bluetooth 4.0 standard, which includes Bluetooth low energy as a hallmark feature.
According to Peter Cooney, practice director for semiconductors at ABI Research, nearly all existing Bluetooth-enabled phones are expected to migrate to Bluetooth 4.0. This will result in more than 1 billion Bluetooth low energy-capable hosts in the handset market alone in the next few years, according to Cooney.
"Demand for Bluetooth low energy continues to grow as the technology is integrated into the increasing number of consumer electronics devices," said Craig Ochikubo, vice president and general manager of Broadcom’s Wireless Personal Area Networking line of business.
Several Bluetooth low energy profiles are expected to be released within the next few months by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group.
Nordic Semiconductor, Broadcom, Bluetooth Broadcom, Nordic Semi team on Bluetooth LE
Chimpanzees are spontaneously generous after all, study shows
The current study findings are available in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
According to Yerkes researchers Victoria Horner, PhD, Frans de Waal, PhD, and their colleagues, chimpanzees may not have shown prosocial behaviors in other studies because of design issues, such as the complexity of the apparatus used to deliver rewards and the distance between the animals.
"I have always been skeptical of the previous negative findings and their over-interpretation, says Dr. de Waal. "This study confirms the prosocial nature of chimpanzees with a different test, better adapted to the species," he continues.
In the current study, Dr. Horner and colleagues greatly simplified the test, which focused on offering seven adult female chimpanzees a choice between two similar actions: one that rewards both the "actor," the term used in the paper for the lead study participant, and a partner, and another that rewards only the actor/chooser herself. Examples of the critically important simplified design aspects include allowing the study partners to sit close together and ensuring conspicuous food consumption, which the researchers achieved by wrapping pieces of banana in paper that made a loud noise upon removal.
In each trial, the chooser, which was always tested with her partner in sight, selected between differently colored tokens from a bin. One colored token could be exchanged with an experimenter for treats for both members of the pair (prosocial); the other colored token would result in a treat only for the chooser (selfish). All seven chimpanzees showed an overwhelming preference for the prosocial choice. The study also showed the choosers behaved altruistically especially towards partners who either patiently waited or gently reminded them that they were there by drawing attention to themselves. The chimpanzees making the choices were less likely to reward partners who made a fuss, begged persistently or spat water at them, thus showing their altruism was spontaneous and not subject to intimidation.
"We were excited to find female after female chose the option that gave both her and her partner food," says Dr. Horner. "It was also interesting to me that being overly persistent did not go down well with the choosers. It was far more productive for partners to be calm and remind the choosers they were there from time to time," she continues.
The authors say this study puts to rest a longstanding puzzle surrounding chimpanzee altruism. It is well-known these apes help each other in the wild and show various forms of empathy, such as reassurance of distressed parties. The negative findings of previous studies did not fit this image. These results, however, confirm chimpanzee altruism in a well-controlled experiment, suggesting human altruism is less of an anomaly than previously thought.
The study authors next plan to determine whether the altruistic tendency of the chimpanzees towards their partners is related to social interactions within the group, such as reciprocal exchanges of food or social support.
For eight decades, the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, has been dedicated to conducting essential basic science and translational research to advance scientific understanding and to improve the health and well-being of humans and nonhuman primates. Today, the center, as one of only eight National Institutes of Health-funded national primate research centers, provides leadership, training and resources to foster scientific creativity, collaboration and discoveries. Yerkes-based research is grounded in scientific integrity, expert knowledge, respect for colleagues, an open exchange of ideas and compassionate quality animal care.
Within the fields of microbiology and immunology, neurologic diseases, neuropharmacology, behavioral, cognitive and developmental neuroscience, and psychiatric disorders, the center's research programs are seeking ways to: develop vaccines for infectious and noninfectious diseases; treat drug addiction; interpret brain activity through imaging; increase understanding of progressive illnesses such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases; unlock the secrets of memory; determine how the interaction between genetics and society shape who we are; and advance knowledge about the evolutionary links between biology and behavior.
Chimpanzees are spontaneously generous after all, study shows
What the Australian electronics industry can learn from Taiwan Electronics News
THE RISE of China as an electronics manufacturing powerhouse has forced Australia’s electronics sector to adopt a more design/IP centric model. But the migration of manufacturing has also affected Asian countries like Taiwan.
In June 2011, Electronics News visited Taiwan, courtesy of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA).
The Taiwanese government is making a concerted effort to build an information society, viewing technology as a key tool to improve the lives of its citizens. The Institute for Information Technology (III) was established in 1979 to push this agenda.
According to Sam Shen, Deputy Managing Director for the International Division of III, Taiwan remains a major procurement centre for the region, with its main strengths being its OEMs and ODMs. Its businesses are making products in China, but retain decision-making and other high-end activities within Taiwan.
“Taiwanese companies are no longer showing off their manufacturing capabilities, but have moved to global logistics,” Shen said.
And where 30 years ago, Taiwan specialised in copying products from other countries, like many other Asian countries (Japan and South Korea come to mind), it is now developing its own products in a bid to differentiate itself.
“As long as product functions and mobility keep growing, new opportunities will emerge for Taiwanese companies,” claimed Shen. “The real strength of Taiwan are the small companies supporting the strength of well-known brands.”
A large number of SMEs exist in Taiwan, providing niche services and parts which together enable the creation of devices. These specialist companies are retaining their operations in Taiwan, as opposed to moving elsewhere.
However, profit margins are shrinking for hardware devices, meaning Taiwanese device-makers are increasingly focused on value-adding with services and content.
HTC, for example, is employing software engineers, and there is always the chance that the smartphone operating system market (which thus far has been dominated by Google’s Android, Apple’s iOS and Microsoft’s Windows Phone) will further fragment as manufacturers develop their own software.
But this fragmentation will not be a negative move for consumers, claims Joseph Wu from TAITRA, since the diverse software experience offers choice, but will retain inter-compatibility through the cloud.
Here, shipping containers hold cloud servers, with 500 racks crammed into each. Companies like Wistron and Invensys have their servers here, with a multitude of technicians configuring, analysing and debugging the servers.
Since its founding in 1973, ITRI has been instrumental in founding companies that are now key players in the semiconductor industry, including UMC, TSMC, TMC and Vanguard International Semiconductor.
By partnering with over 50 research institutes, ITRI has come out with a number of next-generation technology solutions, including car tracking on roads, personal health devices, and a a flexible and paper-thin speaker made from nanomaterial which can be configured for different sizes and shapes, with the possibility of integration into walls and furniture.
FAVITE is the largest RFID manufacturer in Taiwan, with an entire production line in the country. It specialises in UHF products from inlays to readers, and provides OEM and ODM services to its clients, who are predominantly system integrators.
These system integrators often use UHF readers and tags to enable parts of the applications or projects.
According to FAVITE’s RFID sales specialist Wendy Chang, UHF is still at a emerging stage, and the company is aiming to work with system integrators to increase adoption around the world.
“UHF is not a very easy sector to be in. Systems integrators have the ability to write software and control conditions, so 50 percent of the contribution to a project has to come from the client. We need partners who are willing to work with us,” said Chang.
While keeping its base in Taiwan, FAVITE, like many other manufacturers, is expanding its production line to China.
“We know there is a market for our products in China, and this move will allow us to cater to it,” Chang said. “We have the IT teams and background knowledge on the products. China has a lot of production capabilities but not a lot of technical knowledge on their application and integration.”
Founded in 1975, it has more than 700 employees in total and a 2010 revenue of US$55 million. It has subsidiaries in California, Penang, Suzhou, Shanghai, Seoul and Tokyo, and distributors in more than 80 countries.
While GW Instek derives around 80 percent of its revenue from its own instruments, the company also provides ODM services for brands like Tektronix, Hitachi and Kenwood.
Helena Wang, manager of GW Instek’s overseas sales department, said the company is now working on strengthening its R&D capabilities.
“Our products started by targeting the low-end, but now we have very strong R&D and are positioned in the middle-higher range,” Wang told Electronics News.
Like other instrument manufacturers in Asia, GW Instek has yet to achieve brand recognition in the wider market, but hopes to compete in price, quality and product range.
When asked about the price competition from China, Wang pointed out that Chinese companies tend to manufacture duplicates at a low price, and generally lack R&D capabilities, quality control, and customer support.
“Most of the cost of our instruments is from the material and components. For example, we source the CRTs, the most costly component in the systems, from Toshiba/Matsushita in Japan. We differentiate by having higher quality components, and advanced functions,” said Wang.
On a tour of GW Instek’s facility, Wang also mentioned calibration accuracy as being a big source of problems with Chinese instruments, and emphasised the rigorous testing the company undertakes with its products, including EMI, temperature and humidity.
Established in 1985, Diptronics produces and develops dip switches, tactile switches and other precision switches. It has captured approximately 60 percent of the notebook market.
While the company has production facilities in China, it undertakes pre-production and the production of miniature tactile switches and high level products in Taiwan, having imported Sumitomo injection moulding machines, as well as Japanese punching machines, thickness checking systems, and digital microfocus X-ray systems, etc.
During a tour of the Diptronics production line, Vincent Chang, manager of the sales department, emphasised that the company self-designed the line and a number of the machines, having the parts manufactured in China to be shipped back and assembled.
The company has its finger on the pulse of the market through the relationship its sales team has built with customers, allowing it to predict demand in advance to keep up with its clients’ demands.
Diptronics is focused on developing new components to cater for the demand for smaller dimensions and LED integration into the switches. Demand for indicating switches with LED technology in particular, is on the rise, with Diptronics expanding its range in that area and projecting a big leap in LED switches within the next three years.
This R&D focus served it well, with the company actually gaining market share post-GFC, powering a very quick recovery from 2009.
“[During the GFC] we stabilised our production. After 2009, many switch makers could not offer new products, so we took market share from our competitors,” Chang told Electronics News.
Overall however, Chang said the company has benefited from a very stable industry.
“Over the last 26 years, we have phased out none of our products,” Chang said, while adding six or seven new products to its range annually.
Diptronics’ main competition are from big global companies like Alps and Panasonic. However, it has a strong market in Taiwan, which conveniently is home to a wide range of notebook manufacturers. It has mainly competed by offering a high degree of customisability and quick supply turnaround.
When asked about problems with IP protection in China, Chang maintained that Diptronics staff are very involved in auditing the quality control in China, with 100 percent control of the Chinese production processes.
However, Chang acknowledged challenges on the horizon.
“China wants to double its wages in the next five years, and it is a challenge for us, since our operations are labour-intensive,” he said. “We are expanding our automation line to reduce our dependence on labour, and to lower our costs.”
Organised by TAITRA and the Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers' Association, the show will feature categories for a whole range of electronic components, meters and instruments, from passive components to consumer electronics and RFID.
Specifically angled at professionals, TAITRONICS will provide visitors with a window into the Taiwanese electronics supply chain, and an opportunity to discover and source electronics gear, components and equipment from a range of manufacturers.
What the Australian electronics industry can learn from Taiwan Electronics News
In June 2011, Electronics News visited Taiwan, courtesy of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA).
The Taiwanese government is making a concerted effort to build an information society, viewing technology as a key tool to improve the lives of its citizens. The Institute for Information Technology (III) was established in 1979 to push this agenda.
According to Sam Shen, Deputy Managing Director for the International Division of III, Taiwan remains a major procurement centre for the region, with its main strengths being its OEMs and ODMs. Its businesses are making products in China, but retain decision-making and other high-end activities within Taiwan.“Taiwanese companies are no longer showing off their manufacturing capabilities, but have moved to global logistics,” Shen said.
And where 30 years ago, Taiwan specialised in copying products from other countries, like many other Asian countries (Japan and South Korea come to mind), it is now developing its own products in a bid to differentiate itself.
Mobile as the future
SMEs and corporations in Taiwan are responsible for a large number of ICT-related products, with mobile handheld devices a large growth area, particularly on the back of HTC.“As long as product functions and mobility keep growing, new opportunities will emerge for Taiwanese companies,” claimed Shen. “The real strength of Taiwan are the small companies supporting the strength of well-known brands.”
A large number of SMEs exist in Taiwan, providing niche services and parts which together enable the creation of devices. These specialist companies are retaining their operations in Taiwan, as opposed to moving elsewhere.
However, profit margins are shrinking for hardware devices, meaning Taiwanese device-makers are increasingly focused on value-adding with services and content.
HTC, for example, is employing software engineers, and there is always the chance that the smartphone operating system market (which thus far has been dominated by Google’s Android, Apple’s iOS and Microsoft’s Windows Phone) will further fragment as manufacturers develop their own software.
But this fragmentation will not be a negative move for consumers, claims Joseph Wu from TAITRA, since the diverse software experience offers choice, but will retain inter-compatibility through the cloud.
Research and innovation
Nowhere is the upwards move to the cloud more evident than at the Industrial Technology Research Institute’s (ITRI) Cloud Computing Centre in the windy city of Hsinchu.Here, shipping containers hold cloud servers, with 500 racks crammed into each. Companies like Wistron and Invensys have their servers here, with a multitude of technicians configuring, analysing and debugging the servers.Since its founding in 1973, ITRI has been instrumental in founding companies that are now key players in the semiconductor industry, including UMC, TSMC, TMC and Vanguard International Semiconductor.
By partnering with over 50 research institutes, ITRI has come out with a number of next-generation technology solutions, including car tracking on roads, personal health devices, and a a flexible and paper-thin speaker made from nanomaterial which can be configured for different sizes and shapes, with the possibility of integration into walls and furniture.
Manufacturers in Taiwan
As part of the visit to Taiwan, TAITRA organised site visits to a number of electronics firms. FAVITE, GW Instek, and Diptronics stood out for Electronics News.FAVITE is the largest RFID manufacturer in Taiwan, with an entire production line in the country. It specialises in UHF products from inlays to readers, and provides OEM and ODM services to its clients, who are predominantly system integrators.These system integrators often use UHF readers and tags to enable parts of the applications or projects.
According to FAVITE’s RFID sales specialist Wendy Chang, UHF is still at a emerging stage, and the company is aiming to work with system integrators to increase adoption around the world.
“UHF is not a very easy sector to be in. Systems integrators have the ability to write software and control conditions, so 50 percent of the contribution to a project has to come from the client. We need partners who are willing to work with us,” said Chang.
While keeping its base in Taiwan, FAVITE, like many other manufacturers, is expanding its production line to China.
“We know there is a market for our products in China, and this move will allow us to cater to it,” Chang said. “We have the IT teams and background knowledge on the products. China has a lot of production capabilities but not a lot of technical knowledge on their application and integration.”
GW Instek
GW Instek (or Good Will Instrument) designs and manufactures oscilloscopes, spectrum analysers, signal sources, power supplies and component safety analysers.Founded in 1975, it has more than 700 employees in total and a 2010 revenue of US$55 million. It has subsidiaries in California, Penang, Suzhou, Shanghai, Seoul and Tokyo, and distributors in more than 80 countries.While GW Instek derives around 80 percent of its revenue from its own instruments, the company also provides ODM services for brands like Tektronix, Hitachi and Kenwood.
Helena Wang, manager of GW Instek’s overseas sales department, said the company is now working on strengthening its R&D capabilities.
“Our products started by targeting the low-end, but now we have very strong R&D and are positioned in the middle-higher range,” Wang told Electronics News.
Like other instrument manufacturers in Asia, GW Instek has yet to achieve brand recognition in the wider market, but hopes to compete in price, quality and product range.
When asked about the price competition from China, Wang pointed out that Chinese companies tend to manufacture duplicates at a low price, and generally lack R&D capabilities, quality control, and customer support.
“Most of the cost of our instruments is from the material and components. For example, we source the CRTs, the most costly component in the systems, from Toshiba/Matsushita in Japan. We differentiate by having higher quality components, and advanced functions,” said Wang.
On a tour of GW Instek’s facility, Wang also mentioned calibration accuracy as being a big source of problems with Chinese instruments, and emphasised the rigorous testing the company undertakes with its products, including EMI, temperature and humidity.
Diptronics
It takes a visit to Diptronics to appreciate the market for seemingly simple components like the small switches and buttons found on the electronic boards of common devices like notebook computers.Established in 1985, Diptronics produces and develops dip switches, tactile switches and other precision switches. It has captured approximately 60 percent of the notebook market.While the company has production facilities in China, it undertakes pre-production and the production of miniature tactile switches and high level products in Taiwan, having imported Sumitomo injection moulding machines, as well as Japanese punching machines, thickness checking systems, and digital microfocus X-ray systems, etc.
During a tour of the Diptronics production line, Vincent Chang, manager of the sales department, emphasised that the company self-designed the line and a number of the machines, having the parts manufactured in China to be shipped back and assembled.
The company has its finger on the pulse of the market through the relationship its sales team has built with customers, allowing it to predict demand in advance to keep up with its clients’ demands.
Diptronics is focused on developing new components to cater for the demand for smaller dimensions and LED integration into the switches. Demand for indicating switches with LED technology in particular, is on the rise, with Diptronics expanding its range in that area and projecting a big leap in LED switches within the next three years.
This R&D focus served it well, with the company actually gaining market share post-GFC, powering a very quick recovery from 2009.“[During the GFC] we stabilised our production. After 2009, many switch makers could not offer new products, so we took market share from our competitors,” Chang told Electronics News.
Overall however, Chang said the company has benefited from a very stable industry.
“Over the last 26 years, we have phased out none of our products,” Chang said, while adding six or seven new products to its range annually.
Diptronics’ main competition are from big global companies like Alps and Panasonic. However, it has a strong market in Taiwan, which conveniently is home to a wide range of notebook manufacturers. It has mainly competed by offering a high degree of customisability and quick supply turnaround.
When asked about problems with IP protection in China, Chang maintained that Diptronics staff are very involved in auditing the quality control in China, with 100 percent control of the Chinese production processes.
However, Chang acknowledged challenges on the horizon.
“China wants to double its wages in the next five years, and it is a challenge for us, since our operations are labour-intensive,” he said. “We are expanding our automation line to reduce our dependence on labour, and to lower our costs.”
On exhibition
FAVITE, GW Instek and Diptronics will be among the hundreds of exhibitors at TAITRONICS 2011, the 37th Taipei International Electronics Show, to be held from 10 to 13 October at the TWTC Nangang Exhibition Hall in Taipei.Organised by TAITRA and the Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers' Association, the show will feature categories for a whole range of electronic components, meters and instruments, from passive components to consumer electronics and RFID.
Specifically angled at professionals, TAITRONICS will provide visitors with a window into the Taiwanese electronics supply chain, and an opportunity to discover and source electronics gear, components and equipment from a range of manufacturers.
What the Australian electronics industry can learn from Taiwan Electronics News
Chimpanzees are spontaneously generous after all
According to Yerkes researchers Victoria Horner, PhD, Frans de Waal, PhD, and their colleagues, chimpanzees may not have shown prosocial behaviors in other studies because of design issues, such as the complexity of the apparatus used to deliver rewards and the distance between the animals.
"I have always been skeptical of the previous negative findings and their over-interpretation, says Dr. de Waal. "This study confirms the prosocial nature of chimpanzees with a different test, better adapted to the species," he continues.
In the current study, Dr. Horner and colleagues greatly simplified the test, which focused on offering seven adult female chimpanzees a choice between two similar actions: one that rewards both the "actor," the term used in the paper for the lead study participant, and a partner, and another that rewards only the actor/chooser herself. Examples of the critically important simplified design aspects include allowing the study partners to sit close together and ensuring conspicuous food consumption, which the researchers achieved by wrapping pieces of banana in paper that made a loud noise upon removal.
In each trial, the chooser, which was always tested with her partner in sight, selected between differently colored tokens from a bin. One colored token could be exchanged with an experimenter for treats for both members of the pair (prosocial); the other colored token would result in a treat only for the chooser (selfish). All seven chimpanzees showed an overwhelming preference for the prosocial choice. The study also showed the choosers behaved altruistically especially towards partners who either patiently waited or gently reminded them that they were there by drawing attention to themselves. The chimpanzees making the choices were less likely to reward partners who made a fuss, begged persistently or spat water at them, thus showing their altruism was spontaneous and not subject to intimidation.
"We were excited to find female after female chose the option that gave both her and her partner food," says Dr. Horner. "It was also interesting to me that being overly persistent did not go down well with the choosers. It was far more productive for partners to be calm and remind the choosers they were there from time to time," she continues.
The authors say this study puts to rest a longstanding puzzle surrounding chimpanzee altruism. It is well-known these apes help each other in the wild and show various forms of empathy, such as reassurance of distressed parties. The negative findings of previous studies did not fit this image. These results, however, confirm chimpanzee altruism in a well-controlled experiment, suggesting human altruism is less of an anomaly than previously thought.
The study authors next plan to determine whether the altruistic tendency of the chimpanzees towards their partners is related to social interactions within the group, such as reciprocal exchanges of food or social support.
For eight decades, the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, has been dedicated to conducting essential basic science and translational research to advance scientific understanding and to improve the health and well-being of humans and nonhuman primates. Today, the center, as one of only eight National Institutes of Health-funded national primate research centers, provides leadership, training and resources to foster scientific creativity, collaboration and discoveries. Yerkes-based research is grounded in scientific integrity, expert knowledge, respect for colleagues, an open exchange of ideas and compassionate quality animal care.
Within the fields of microbiology and immunology, neurologic diseases, neuropharmacology, behavioral, cognitive and developmental neuroscience, and psychiatric disorders, the center's research programs are seeking ways to: develop vaccines for infectious and noninfectious diseases; treat drug addiction; interpret brain activity through imaging; increase understanding of progressive illnesses such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases; unlock the secrets of memory; determine how the interaction between genetics and society shape who we are; and advance knowledge about the evolutionary links between biology and behavior.
Chimpanzees are spontaneously generous after all
Billion-year-old piece of North America traced back to Antarctica
"I can go to the Franklin Mountains in West Texas and stand next to what was once part of Coats Land in Antarctica," said Staci Loewy, a geochemist at California State University, Bakersfield, who led the study. "That's so amazing."
Loewy and her colleagues discovered that rocks collected from both locations have the exact same composition of lead isotopes. Earlier analyses showed the rocks to be the exact same age and have the same chemical and geologic properties. The work, published online (ahead of print) in the September issue of the journal Geology, strengthens support for the so-called SWEAT hypothesis, which posits that ancestral North America and East Antarctica were joined in an earlier supercontinent called Rodinia.
The approximately 1.1 billion year old North American Mid-continent Rift System extends across the continent from the Great Lakes to Texas. Volcanic rocks associated with the rift, which appears to represent an aborted tectonic attempt to split the ancestral North American continent of Laurentia, are well exposed in the Keweenaw Peninsula of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan from which they take their name, the Keweenawan large igneous province. The rift extends in the subsurface beneath Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma to the Franklin Mountains near El Paso, Texas where related rocks are exposed. In this latest report, Loewy, Ian Dalziel, research professor at The University of Texas at Austin, Richard Hanson of Texas Christian University and colleagues from several overseas institutions, find that rocks barely peeking through the ice in Coats Land, a remote part of the Antarctic continent south of the Atlantic Ocean basin, reflect a former continuation of the North American rift system. Loewy began her collaboration with Dalziel several years ago as a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin.
Loewy et al. use new lead (Pb) isotopic data from the 1.1-billion-year-old rocks from Coats Land, to constrain the positions of Laurentia (ancestral North America) and Kalahari (ancestral southern Africa) in the 1-billion-year-old supercontinent, Rodinia. The Coats Land rocks are identical in age to both the Keweenawan large igneous province of the North American mid-continent rift and the contemporaneous Umkondo large igneous province of southern Africa. Comparison of the isotopic compositions, however, unequivocally links the Coats Land rocks with the Keweenawan province. Together with paleomagnetic data this suggests that the Coats Land block was a piece of Laurentia near west Texas 1.1 billion years ago. Furthermore, the Coats Land block collided with the Kalahari Precambrian craton of Africa during a 1-billion-year-old collision. Based on this reconstruction, Laurentia collided with Kalahari along Antarctica's Maud mountain belt, which would represent a continuation of the 1-billion-year-old Grenville mountain belt of eastern and southern North America.
Thus the tiny Coats Land block of Antarctica is a 'tectonic tracer' providing critical clues to the geographic relationships between three of the major continents of the planet in the time interval 1.1 -- 1.0 billion years ago, just prior to the opening of the Pacific Ocean basin, the hypothesized 'Snowball Earth' glaciations, and the rise of multi-cellular life.
Billion-year-old piece of North America traced back to Antarctica
Meteorites: Tool kits for creating life on Earth
Extensive research has shown that amino acids, which string together to form proteins, exist in space and have arrived on our planet piggybacked on a type of organic-rich meteorite called carbonaceous chondrites. But it has been difficult to similarly prove that the nucleobases found on meteorite samples are not due to contamination from sources on Earth.
The research team, which included Jim Cleaves of Carnegie's Geophysical Laboratory, used advanced spectroscopy techniques to purify and analyze samples from 11 different carbonaceous chondrites and one ureilite, a very rare type of meteorite with a different type of chemical composition. This was the first time all but two of these meteorites had been examined for nucleobases.
Two of the carbonaceous chondrites contained a diverse array of nucleobases and compounds that are structurally similar, so-called nucleobase analogs. Especially telling was the fact that three of these nucleobase analogs are very rare in terrestrial biology. What's more, significant concentrations of these nucleobases were not found in soil and ice samples from the areas near where the meteorites were collected.
"Finding nucleobase compounds not typically found in Earth's biochemistry strongly supports an extraterrestrial origin," Cleaves said.
The team tested their conclusion with experiments to reproduce nucleobases and analogs using chemical reactions of ammonia and cyanide, which are common in space. Their lab-synthesized nucleobases were very similar to those found in the carbonaceous chondrites, although the relative abundances were different. This could be due to chemical and thermal processing that the meteorite-origin nucleobases underwent while traveling through space.
These results have far-reaching implications. The earliest forms of life on Earth may have been assembled from materials delivered to Earth by meteorites.
"This shows us that meteorites may have been molecular tool kits, which provided the essential building blocks for life on Earth," Cleaves said.
Funding for various portions of this work was provided by the NASA Postdoctoral Program administered through Oak Ridge Associated Universities, the Goddard Center for Astrobiology, the NASA Astrobiology Institute, NASA Astrobiology: Exobiology and Evolutionary Program. Meteorites were provided by the NASA Johnson Space Center, the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, P. Ehrenfreund, P. Jenniskens and M. Shaddad, the University of Melbourne Australia, and the 2006 ANSMET team.
Meteorites: Tool kits for creating life on Earth
You can count on this: Math ability is inborn, new research suggests
It seems we do, at least according to the results of a study by a team of Johns Hopkins University psychologists. Led by Melissa Libertus, a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, the study -- published online in a recent issue of Developmental Science -- indicates that math ability in preschool children is strongly linked to their inborn and primitive "number sense," called an "Approximate Number System" or ANS.
Research reveals that "number sense" is basic to all animals, not just human beings. For instance, creatures that hunt or gather food use it to ascertain where they can find and procure the most nuts, plants or game and to keep track of the food they hunt or gather. We humans use it daily to allow us, at a glance, to estimate the number of open seats in a movie theater or the number of people in a crowded meeting. And it is measurable, even in newborn infants.
Though the link between ANS and formal mathematics ability already has been established in adolescents, Libertus says her team's is the first study to examine the role of "number sense" in children too young to already have had substantial formal mathematics instruction.
"The relationship between 'number sense' and math ability is important and intriguing because we believe that 'number sense' is universal, whereas math ability has been thought to be highly dependent on culture and language and takes many years to learn," she explained. "Thus, a link between the two is surprising and raises many important questions and issues, including one of the most important ones, which is whether we can train a child's number sense with an eye to improving his future math ability."
The team tested 200 4-year-old (on average) children on several tasks measuring number sense, mathematical ability and verbal ability. The children were rewarded for their participation with small trinkets, such as stickers and pencils.
During the number sense task, researchers asked the children to view flashing groups of blue and yellow dots on a computer screen and to estimate which color group of dots was more numerous. Counting wasn't an option, both because the dots were flashed so quickly and because most of the children were not yet skilled counters. The preschoolers would then verbally tell the tester whether the yellow or blue dots were more numerous, and the tester would press the appropriate button. Some comparisons were easy (like comparing five yellow versus 10 blue dots). Others were much harder (like comparing five yellow versus six blue dots). Children were informed of right or wrong answers via a high- or low-pitched beep. (You can take a test similar to the one administered to the children online here: http://www.panamath.org/testyourself.php )
The children also were given a standardized test of early mathematics ability that measures numbering skills (verbally counting items on a page), number-comparison (determining which of two spoken number words is greater or lesser), numeral literacy (reading Arabic numbers), mastery of number facts (such as addition or multiplication), calculation skills (solving written addition and subtraction problems) and number concepts (such as answering how many sets of 10 are in 100.) This standardized test is often given to children between the ages of 3 and 8 years.
Lastly, the parents and guardians of the children were given an assessment that asked them to indicate each word on a list that their children had been heard to say. According to Libertus, this verbal test was administered because language and math abilities are to some extent linked through general intelligence, and the researchers wanted to make sure that the differences in math ability that they found were not just due to some children performing better on all kinds of tasks, or to some children feeling more comfortable being tested than others.
Libertus and her colleagues Lisa Feigenson and Justin Halberda, faculty members in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, found that the precision of children's estimations correlated with their math skill. That is, the children who could make the finest-grained estimations in the dot comparison task (for example, judging that eight yellow dots were more than seven blue dots) also knew the most about Arabic numerals and arithmetic.
According to the researchers, this means that inborn numerical estimation abilities are linked to achievement (or lack thereof) in school mathematics.
"Previous studies testing older children left open the possibility that differences in instructional experience is what caused the difference in their number sense; in other words, that some children tested in middle or high school looked like they had better number sense simply because they had had better math instruction," Libertus said. "Unlike those studies, this one shows that the link between 'number sense' and math ability is already present before the beginning of formal math instruction."
Still in question, of course, is the root cause of the link between number sense and math ability. Do children born with better number sense have an easier time learning to count and to understand the symbolic nature of numbers? Or it is just that children born with less accurate number sense may end up avoiding math-related activities before they develop competency?
"Of course, many questions remain and there is much we still have to learn about this," Libertus said. "But what we have done raises many important avenues for future research and applications in education. One of the most basic is whether we can train children's Approximate Number System and thereby improve their math ability, and whether we can develop school math curricula that make use of children's ANS abilities and thus, help them grasp more advanced math concepts earlier."
You can count on this: Math ability is inborn, new research suggests
'Amino acid time capsule': New way to date the past
It is the first widespread application of refinements of the 40-year-old technique of amino acid geochronology. The refined method, developed at York's BioArCh laboratories, measures the breakdown of a closed system of protein in fossil snail shells, and provides a method of dating archaeological and geological sites.
Britain has an unparalleled studied record of fossil-rich terrestrial sediments from the Quaternary, a period that includes relatively long glacial episodes -- known as the Ice Age --interspersed with shorter 'interglacial' periods where temperatures may have exceeded present day values.
However, too often the interglacial deposits have proved difficult to link to global climatic signals because they are just small isolated exposures, often revealed by quarrying..
Using the new method, known as amino acid racemization, it will be possible to link climatic records from deep sea sediments and ice cores with the responses of plants and animals, including humans, to climate change over the last three million years. The research is published in the latest issue of Nature.
The new method was developed by Dr Kirsty Penkman, of the Department of Chemistry, alongside Prof. Matthew Collins of the Department of Archaeology at York, and measures the the extent of protein degradation in calcareous fossils such as mollusc shells. It is based on the analysis of intra-crystalline amino acids -- the building blocks of protein --preserved in the fossil opercula (the little 'trapdoor' the snail uses to shut itself away inside its shell) of the freshwater gastropod Bithynia. It provides the first single method that is able to accurately date such a wide range of sites over this time period.
Dr Penkman said: "The amino acids are securely preserved within calcium carbonate crystals of the opercula. This crystal cage protects the protein from external environmental factors, so the extent of internal protein degradation allows us to identify the age of the samples. In essence, they are a protein time capsule.
"This framework can be used to tell us in greater detail than ever before how plants and animals reacted to glacial and interglacial periods, and has helped us establish the patterns of human occupation of Britain, supporting the view that these islands were deserted in the Last Interglacial period."
In a close collaboration with palaeontologist Dr. Richard Preece in the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge, the study examined a total of 470 fossil remains from 71 sites in the UK and three on continental Europe. The method proved highly reliable with more than 98 per cent of samples yielding useful results, resulting in the largest ever geochronological programme of the British Pleistocene.
Professor Collins said: "When we started this work 11 years ago, we thought it was going to be relatively straightforward to identify a good material for dating, but the first 3 years of research on shells showed that the stability of the mineral itself was vital. The tiny trapdoor of a snail proved to be the key to success."
Dr Preece added: "Luckily, fossil opercula are common in Quaternary sediments around the world, so the new technique can be used to build regional Ice Age chronologies everywhere, giving it enormous international scope."
Vital to the study were the inter-disciplinary collaborations with Quaternary scientists, the core team of which involved researchers at the Department of Geography, University of Durham; Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, University of Birmingham; Institute of Archaeology, University College London; the Netherlands Centre for Biodiversity, Leiden and the Department of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum.
The analyses were funded by English Heritage, Natural Environment Research Council and the Wellcome Trust. The research is a contribution to the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) project funded by the Leverhulme Trust.
'Amino acid time capsule': New way to date the past
Craig Berger, Texas Instruments, TI, Atmel Analyst likes Atmel over Texas Instruments
SAN FRANCISCO—A Wall Street analyst Monday (Aug. 8) upgraded his firm's rating on Atmel Corp.'s stock while simultaneously downgrading Texas Instruments Inc., citing Atmel's broad microcontroller product line and stockpile of cash on hand.
Craig Berger, an analyst with FBR Capital markets, upgraded his firm's rating on Atmel 's stock to "outperform" from "market perform." Berger simultaneously cut his rating on TI's stock to "market perform" from "outperform."
"While some may question the wisdom of exiting a defensive stock like [TI] too soon (before the market decline has ended), we note that [TI] actually is taking on debt to finance its now seemingly expensive National acquisition, making it less 'safe' than it was before," Berger wrote in a report circulated Monday. "Atmel is a relatively 'safe' stock too given its $450M of net cash on hand, no debt, high margins, and improving cash generation abilities."
TI announced in April it would acquire rival National Semiconductor Corp. for about $6.5 billion. The company has subsequently said it has obtained regulatory approval from all countries except China, where the company is still working to secure approval. TI expects the National acquisition to close by the end of the year.
Berger said FBR believes that Atmel's stock will have more upside than TI's once chip stocks move higher early next month. Berger said FBR likes Atmel's broad based microcontroller portfolio, AVR architecture, increasing R&D investments and the market position of its maXTouch line of touch screen controllers.
"We think the firm has technology leadership, and think Atmel can continue to grow maXTouch into a sizable business in coming years as it drives growth beyond smartphones into feature phones, non-Apple tablets, digital cameras, printers, game consoles, industrial applications, white goods and others," Berger wrote. "While touchscreen competition is growing, this should be a sizable and broad-based market."
Berger said FBR remains optimistic about Atmel's ability to grow its 32-bit microcontroller business.
In a separate report, Berger said FBR is not bearish on TI's business or stock prospects, but that believes Atmel's stock offers a better risk/reward proposition.
"We still see some industrial ship-ahead risks for TI and other industrial-exposed chip firms (including Atmel) that could still weigh upon sales and gross margins in 2H11 as take-rates and inventories are adjusted lower," Berger wrote.
FBR maintains a price target for TI's stock of $36 and a price target for Atmel's stock of $17. TI traded at $26.29 Monday afternoon, down 3 percent from Friday's close, while Atmel traded at $9.31, down 5 percent from Friday's close.
Craig Berger, Texas Instruments, TI, Atmel Analyst likes Atmel over Texas Instruments
Craig Berger, an analyst with FBR Capital markets, upgraded his firm's rating on Atmel 's stock to "outperform" from "market perform." Berger simultaneously cut his rating on TI's stock to "market perform" from "outperform."
"While some may question the wisdom of exiting a defensive stock like [TI] too soon (before the market decline has ended), we note that [TI] actually is taking on debt to finance its now seemingly expensive National acquisition, making it less 'safe' than it was before," Berger wrote in a report circulated Monday. "Atmel is a relatively 'safe' stock too given its $450M of net cash on hand, no debt, high margins, and improving cash generation abilities."
TI announced in April it would acquire rival National Semiconductor Corp. for about $6.5 billion. The company has subsequently said it has obtained regulatory approval from all countries except China, where the company is still working to secure approval. TI expects the National acquisition to close by the end of the year.
Berger said FBR believes that Atmel's stock will have more upside than TI's once chip stocks move higher early next month. Berger said FBR likes Atmel's broad based microcontroller portfolio, AVR architecture, increasing R&D investments and the market position of its maXTouch line of touch screen controllers.
"We think the firm has technology leadership, and think Atmel can continue to grow maXTouch into a sizable business in coming years as it drives growth beyond smartphones into feature phones, non-Apple tablets, digital cameras, printers, game consoles, industrial applications, white goods and others," Berger wrote. "While touchscreen competition is growing, this should be a sizable and broad-based market."
Berger said FBR remains optimistic about Atmel's ability to grow its 32-bit microcontroller business.
In a separate report, Berger said FBR is not bearish on TI's business or stock prospects, but that believes Atmel's stock offers a better risk/reward proposition.
"We still see some industrial ship-ahead risks for TI and other industrial-exposed chip firms (including Atmel) that could still weigh upon sales and gross margins in 2H11 as take-rates and inventories are adjusted lower," Berger wrote.
FBR maintains a price target for TI's stock of $36 and a price target for Atmel's stock of $17. TI traded at $26.29 Monday afternoon, down 3 percent from Friday's close, while Atmel traded at $9.31, down 5 percent from Friday's close.
Craig Berger, Texas Instruments, TI, Atmel Analyst likes Atmel over Texas Instruments
Rare Earths, China, Intematix, LEDs Rare earths get rarer
PORTLAND, Ore. -- Rare earth materials are becoming increasingly rare as dominant supplier China tightens restrictions on production, essentially cutting already short-supply exports by a third.
As a result, rare earth prices are skyrocketing in a market where supply can only meet only about 40 percent of the demand outside China, according to a recent report from rare earths expert Dudley Kingsnorth, executive director of the Industrial Minerals Co. of Australia.
"Prices for rare earths are going wild," said Mike Pugh, director of operations for Intematix Corp. "For instance, the price of europium more than doubled during a three-week period in June of this year."
The U.S., Canada and Australia all have strategic efforts underway to reopen rare earth mines outside China, including new mines in Russia and Malaysia. Still, these new mines are not expected to significantly reduce the shortfall for at least three years. As a result, hoarding and price gouging are already rampant as is a concerted effort by manufacturers to either move manufacturing operations to China or find alternatives to rare earths.
Rare earths are used in slurries for mechanical planarization of everything from glass to semiconductor wafers. Chip makers are resorting to silicates and other minerals to substitute for rare earths, but the biggest squeeze is being felt by makers of phosphors for everything from fluorescent bulbs to white LEDs.
Phosphor maker Intematix (Fremont, Calif.) is taking a two-prong approach to rare earth shortages--moving some of its manufacturing to China while developing alternate phosphors in the U.S.
"By manufacturing our aluminate and garnet phosphors in China, we can buy our rare earth materials there instead of having to export them," said Pugh. "In the U.S., we are making our nitride and silicate phosphors which use only very small quantities of rare earths."
These nitride- and silicate-based phosphors can substitute for the heavily rare-earth-doped aluminate and garnet phosphors that are traditionally used for fluorescent bulbs and white LEDs, thus sidestepping the rare earth scarcity problem, but at a price. Nitride-based phosphors, for instance, are more than three times as expensive as traditional aluminate- and garnet-phosphors, both of which are heavily doped with rare earth materials.
"When you get a quote on the price of nitride phosphors it knocks your socks off," said Pugh. "But when you realize how little you need of them they become very affordable."
One bright spot in the rare earth market is that shortages may accelerate the move to solid-state lighting since much less phosphor is needed to coat the inside of an LED compared to a fluorescent bulb. A blue LED can be used to pump green silicate phosphors mixed with red and yellow nitride phosphors to make white light. That combination uses few rare earths.
Nitride phosphors, in particular, are very rugged, allowing them to be placed very close to the semiconductor junction of a blue LED, further reducing the amount of material needed to make white light.
Rare Earths, China, Intematix, LEDs Rare earths get rarer
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)