19.02.11

New Wireless Tech Lets Radio Devices Send and Receive Simultaneously, Doubling Efficiency

Electrical engineering grad students Jung Il Choi and Mayank Jain (along with fellow grad student Kannan Srinivasan, not pictured here) developed the tech along with their professors at Stanford. Radio communications devices can either send or receive wireless signals
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Google Rolls Out a Browser-Based Content Farm Blocker, Helping Users Sort the Wheat from the Chaff

It seems like everyone in the twitterverse, the blogosphere, and tumblrdom is getting fed up with so-called content farms--those mostly-useless text generators that turn out articles based on the terms people most commonly search for. Now the Googleplex is getting
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PopSci's Guide to The Best New Kids' Toys for Adults

From Toy Fair 2011, a dozen amusements for grown-ups This time every year, PopSci spends a couple of enjoyable days scouting out the blinkingest, fastest, smartest, most glee-inducing
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By Shining a Laser From the Ground, Researchers Could Easily Measure Earth's Magnetic Field

Satellites, step aside To map the earth's magnetic field, scientists usually take readings from one of a number of satellites, a process that is expensive and often less-than accurate. Physicists at UC Berkeley have a better idea: measure
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Some Japanese Patients Shun Robot Helpers, Throwing High-Tech Future of Elder Care Into Doubt

In Japan, robot-led weddings, robot factory workers and even squeaky robot pets
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Toshiba's Automated Checkout Cam Can Distinguish Different Varieties of Apple

Self-checkout kiosks at the grocery store can save time and space for quick shoppers, but if an item doesn't have a bar code--like, say, produce (hopefully)--you still have to search through the list of variations, which can lose any time you've gained by phasing
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Chip-Sized Particle Accelerators Could Lead to Cancer-Fighting Ray Guns

Forget the gigantic Large Hadron Collider - how about a particle-accelerator-on-a-chip? OK, so it can't reach the energies produced at
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Water Flea Genome is the Most Complex Yet, and May Help Scientists Study Organisms' Response to Stress

A microscopic, see-through water flea is the most complex creature ever studied, genomically speaking. Daphnia pulex is the first crustacean to ever have its genome
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National Health Detective Squad Uses Genomic Tools to Diagnose its First Mysterious Disease

Medical detectives National Institutes of Health have just cracked their first case wide open, a result they hope to repeat with a slew of other uncharacterized illnesses and conditions. The Undiagnosed Diseases Program (UDP), a sleuthing agency set up within the NIH
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Scientists Mine Dormant Bacterial Genes For New Antibiotics

Streptomyces coelicolor, a soil-dwelling bacterium, has one of the best-understood genomes in its genus. Even so, a computational analysis of its genome has led researchers to a surprise: a new antibiotic compound. By tinkering with the bacteria, researchers at
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DIY Helicam Takes Awesome Aerial Videos

A couple of weeks ago, we wrote about the BeetleCam, a remote-controlled roving camera that lets photographers take pictures of wild animals up close. While clawed critters present one sort of obstacle to a great photo, the perfect shot is often blocked by something
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Video: Military's New Water Guns Can Rip Through Steel, Disabling IEDs

Need to disarm an IED? Make sure you've got your Super Soaker handy. Sorry, make that your "Fluid Blade Disablement Tool." The Stingray, the military's newest bomb-fighting tech, is a small water gun developed
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A huge week in photography

In the days leading up to the industry-stopping Photokina event, the major players have lifted the lid on all-new and exciting camera bodies that are sure to command the attention of conference attendees when it finally kicks off.
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Build a life-size paper clone of yourself for under $40

A young German guy has a detailed Instructable online this week that explains how you can exercise your inner narcissist and make a 3D paper clone of yourself. It's worth checking out
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Dog Poo Powers a Streetlight In Massachusetts Park

Good dog parents might think they're doing their part by using biodegradable baggies to pick up after their pooches. But after Fido's feces go in the trash can and to a landfill, they release methane gas, a significant contributor to the greenhouse effect. A dog
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New Electric Skin Could Bring the Human Touch to Robots, Artificial Limbs

Human skin is primed for touch - even minuscule pressure from a fly is enough to make you flinch. This ability does not yet extend to artificial limbs, however, and robots are a long way from having sensitive tactile abilities. Now two California research teams have announced
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Munich Deploys Custom Bacteria at Oktoberfest to Devour Ubiquitous Stink of Stale Beer

Bavarian beer purveyors concerned about a smelly Oktoberfest are hoping bacteria can make the experience more enjoyable. They plan to pour a solution of live bacteria on the
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Samsung's New Notebooks

Samsung has announced three new models to add to its lineup of notebooks - the QX series, the RF series and the SF series. We haven't had a chance to test any of these units yet, but the press release offers the following information: QX Series: This Core i5-driven notebook is made for professionals
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New this week: Win a Zeppelin, plus meet our new blogger

Meet Tesla Patent Pending. PopSci.com.au has unleashed a new opinion writer over at our blog. He's outspoken, he's informed, and he can usually be found hiding in dark rooms with a pile of new gadgets around him. Boys and girls, please
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MIT's Opera of the Future Features Singing Walls and Dancing Robots

A new opera produced by the lab behind Guitar Hero technology includes robotic singers, interactive instruments and a focus on technology that could change the way we experience live performances.
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Opinion: Should You Buy An iPad?

Apple's iPad was finally launched yesterday to eager Australian crowds yesterday, with numerous media reports of enormous crowds being piled up outside
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Video: An incredibly accurate (working!) hoverboard replica would make future-Marty proud

The closer we get to the year 2015, the louder people lament that our world hardly resembles the one depicted in Back to the Future II. Although it will be awhile before any of us coast around in a flying Delorean, we've piped down our complaints, as a young
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Video-stitching surveillance camera gives DHS 360-degree, 100-megapixel seamless views

Big Brother was watching before, but soon he'll bewatching with a whole new set of high-tech eyes. The US Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) is creating a wide-eyed
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Iran's Boat-Plane-Thing Would Strike Fear Into Other Flying Military Boats if Any Existed

Iran's Sacred Week of Defense (celebrating its eight-year resistance to the Iraqi invation of the 1980s) is never without a healthy dose of pomp and ceremony, but this week Iran's defense ministry took the usual military parade to the waterfront. Yesterday Iran unveiled
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The Future of...the Hot Dog?

According to both common sense and the US Academy of Pediatrics, there are two truths about hot dogs which neither science nor industry can afford to ignore: kids love hot dogs, and hot dogs are the perfect size and shape for a child to choke
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Video: Apocalypse-Fearing Folk Can Seek Shelter in Futuristic US$10 Million Doomsday Bunker

A doomsday bunker envisioned by California company Vivos can offer you, your family, and 4,000 other people the chance to escape the end of the world in a network of 20 underground shelters. Surely even the sceptics can't resist the allure of scary music played over scenes of comfortable underground
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Although It's Been Said Many Times, Many Ways: The iPad is the Future

After a weekend using the iPad, I've realised I'm not interested in hedging my reaction to it with careful considerations of its lack of a USB port or webcam. It's not every day, or every year or maybe even every decade that we're able to see a piece of technology that takes a familiar human
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'Imaginary' hardware interface lets users wield their own fantasy peripherals to control a real device

Imagine a gesture-based mobile device with no screen, no keyboard, and no other peripheral inputs or outputs, a mobile device that's not really a device at all. Can you see it in your mind's eye? If so, you're probably picturing something akin to a new
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Kinect: good with kids, bad with couches

Microsoft's Kinect, the controller-free, gesture-based gaming platform that finally saw an official unveiling at E3 this week continues to surprise us, but not always necessarily in good ways. For instance, we think it's awesome that the non-peripheral peripheral can
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Liquid mirror breakthrough could make state-of-the-art optics cheap

A $136 million Earth-based telescope using brand new adaptive optics just trumped Hubble's deep space image clarity three-fold, but such high tech optics aren't just reserved for high-dollar observatories. A breakthrough in deformable liquid mirror technology
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