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DailyTech – Researchers Peer Into Gold Nanoclusters

Gold nanoparticles are widely used by researchers around the globe. Because they are stable and have defined electronic, electrochemical, and optical properties; they are useful for a great many types of work. However, until recently, how the particles’ structures were as stable as they are has been a mystery. These superatoms, often composed of gold and one or more additional elements, hid their molecular and electronic structures from scientists quite well.

Research done by a collection of universities including Georgia Tech University, Stanford University, the University of Jyväskylä in Finland, and Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden broke through the haze of the mysterious atomic clusters. Earlier work at Stanford in 2007 disproved a popular theory that secondary atoms, in this case sulfur atoms, simply sat atop a structure of pure gold, connected to multiple atoms of the core.

Instead, the organic sulfer molecules, known as thiolates, stole gold atoms from the core forming a protective cover around it attached by the thiolate-gold-thiolate bonds. This confirmed, instead, a “divide and protect” theory predicted by Hannu Häkkinen, a professor at the University of Jyväskylä, formerly of Georgia Tech.

The accumulated work has been used to predict the structures of different gold nanoclusters involving various amounts of gold atoms. At least one of these structures, a 25 gold atom cluster, has been confirmed by another group of researchers.

Further understanding the complex gold nanoparticles will aid scientists in designing custom gold nanoparticles for use in various areas of research. “We now have a unified model that provides a solid background for nanoengineering ligand-protected gold clusters for applications in catalysis, sensing, photonics, bio-labeling and molecular electronics,” Häkkinen explained.

Researcher to demonstrate attack code for Intel chips | InfoWorld | News | 2008-07-14 | By Sumner Lemon, IDG News Service.

Security researcher and author Kris Kaspersky plans to demonstrate how an attacker can target flaws in Intel’s microprocessors to remotely attack a computer using JavaScript or TCP/IP packets, regardless of what operating system the computer is running.

Kaspersky will demonstrate how such an attack can be made in a presentation at the upcoming Hack In The Box (HITB) Security Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, during October. The proof-of-concept attacks will show how processor bugs, called errata, can be exploited using certain instruction sequences and a knowledge of how Java compilers work, allowing an attacker to take control of the compiler.

“I’m going to show real working code…and make it publicly available,” Kaspersky said, adding that CPU bugs are a growing threat and malware is being written that targets these vulnerabilities.

Different bugs will allow hackers to do different things on the attacked computers. “Some bugs just crash the system, some allow a hacker to gain full control on the kernel level. Some just help to attack Vista, disabling security protections,” he said.

The demonstrated attack will be made against fully patched computers running a range of operating systems, including Windows XP, Vista, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Linux and BSD, Kaspersky said, adding that the demonstration of an attack against a Mac is also a possibility.

Processors contain hundreds of millions of transistors and errata in these chips are relatively common. While some errata can affect a chip’s ability to function properly — such as the errata that last year forced Advanced Micro Devices to push back volume shipments of its quad-core Opteron processors — many others exist unnoticed by users.

For example, the Silverthorne version of Intel’s Atom processor, which lies at the heart of the Centrino Atom chip platform, contains 35 errata, according to a June specification update released by Intel.

“It’s possible to fix most of the bugs, and Intel provides workarounds to the major BIOS vendors,” Kaspersky said, referring to the code that controls the most basic functions of a PC. “However, not every vendor uses it and some bugs have no workarounds.”

Technology Review: Self-Cooling Microchips

As computer chips are crammed with more and more transistors, they run hotter, and traditional cooling mechanisms–heat sinks and fans–are having trouble keeping up. But future chips might cool themselves with a special ­gadget that uses ionized air and an electric field to create a tiny breeze. In a so-called ion pump, a high voltage across two ­electrodes strips electrons from molecules of ­oxygen and nitrogen in the air, creating positively charged ions. These ions flow to the negatively charged electrode, dragging along surrounding air molecules and cooling the chip. Researchers from Intel, the University of Washington Seattle, and ­Kronos Advanced Technologies of Redmond, WA, say a prototype can cool a two-­square-­millimeter spot on a ­surface by 25 ºC. Since the ion pump is made from silicon, it can be constructed as part of the chip-making process. Project leader Alex Mamishev, an electrical engineer at the University of Washington, says he expects the technology to be incorporated into commercial chips within two years.

Japan’s Ancient Underwater “Pyramid” Mystifies Scholars

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Submerged stone structures lying just below the waters off Yonaguni Jima are actually the ruins of a Japanese Atlantis—an ancient city sunk by an earthquake about 2,000 years ago. That’s the belief of Masaaki Kimura, a marine geologist at the University of the Ryukyus in Japan who has been diving at the site to measure and map its formations for more than 15 years.

Each time he returns to the dive boat, Kimura said, he is more convinced than ever that below him rest the remains of a 5,000-year-old city.

Samsung NV100HD – click for info

Digital Foci’s Photo Safe II takes the load off of your flash card – Engadget

Interesting gadget

techPowerUp! News :: Danamics Innovates the First Liquid-metal Based CPU Cooler

A CPU cooler that comprises of a circulatory mechanism of liquid-metal, the liquid-metal has higher thermal conductivity than other liquid media, flowing liquid metal across an array of metal fins to disperse heat, and the cycle continues. What’s more, the liquid is inextinguishable. That’s ‘cool’. Danamics innovated such a cooler for today’s CPUs called the LM10.

The cooler also has no moving parts. The pump that circulates liquid-metal across tubes doesn’t have them either. The pump functions on the principles of electromagnetic flow, the ferromagnetic liquid is subjected to flow caused due to changes in polarity of electromagnets. With no moving parts, the MTBF is substantially increased. Of course, you can use a retention module of some sort to hook up a fan or two on each side of the heatsink.

DailyTech – Evidence of Water Discovered on the Moon

“It suggests that water was present within the Earth before the giant collision that formed the Moon,” Saal added. “That points to two possibilities: Water either was not completely vaporized in that collision or it was added a short time – less than 100 million years – afterward by volatiles introduced from the outside, such as with meteorites.”

DailyTech – Scientists: Water Flowed Freely on Mars

Water flowed freely on Mars for a long time, Scientists said after using the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to make the discovery

Source: JapanToday

TOKYO —

NEC Corp says it has developed a new plasma display that can instantly identify people’s sex or age range and target them with advertisements to suit them. The 50-inch (127-cm) display is being demonstrated at an annual festival in Tokyo run by Fuji Television network. The event, which runs through Aug 31, drew more than four million visitors last summer.

A camera on top of the display recognizes on-the-spot the age and sex of viewers who are standing in front of it.

If the device finds viewers are predominantly female in their 20s, it will show cute miscellaneous items sold by Fuji Television for young women or an NEC cell phone designed for the demographic.

“Conventional advertisements may show cell phones for young women to men over 60,” said Hiroshi Takahashi at NEC’s solution business promotion division.

“Changing advertising products in accordance with the viewer would bring advertising closer to the purchaser,” he said.

The system is presented as entertainment at the Fuji event, with visitors knowing they are being watched, Takahashi said.

But the system is seen as having growth potential as companies struggle to win the attention of customers who are increasingly bombarded by advertisements throughout the day.

Those who are interested in what is being advertised can hold their cell phones over a special device, which feeds them a URL link, coupons and other information on the products.

Advertisers can tell whether the promotion has been effective by checking whether viewers visited their stores or made purchases.

Source: BBCNews

Read the entire article in the link above

A vast physics experiment built in a tunnel below the French-Swiss border is fast becoming one of the coolest places in the Universe.

The Large Hadron Collider is entering the final stages of being lowered to a temperature of 1.9 Kelvin (-271C; -456F) – colder than deep space.

The LHC has thousands of magnets which will be maintained in this frigid condition using liquid helium.

The magnets are arranged in a ring that runs for 27km through the giant tunnel.

Once the LHC is operational, two particle beams – usually consisting of protons accelerated to high energies – will be fired down pipes running through the magnets. These beams will then travel in opposite directions around the main ring at close to the speed of light.

At allotted points along the tunnel, the beams will cross paths, smashing into one another with cataclysmic force. Scientists hope to see new particles in the debris of these collisions, revealing fundamental new insights into the nature of the cosmos and how it came into being.

The most powerful physics experiment ever built, the LHC will re-create the conditions just after the Big Bang.

Currently, six out of the LHC’s eight sectors are between 4.5 and 1.9 Kelvin, though all sectors of the machine have been down to 1.9 Kelvin at some stage over the last few months.

By comparison, the temperature in remote regions of outer space is about 2.7 Kelvin (-270C; -454F).

Check out these great articles by DannyChoo about the iPhone launch in Tokyo

http://www.dannychoo.com/adp/eng/1522/iPhone+Japan.html

http://www.dannychoo.com/adp/eng/1523/iPhone+Trooper.html

Flash SSD Update: More Results, Answers : An Apology First – And One New SSD To Prove Us Right – Tom’s Hardware

DailyTech – MIT Designs Solar Power Producing Windows, Coming Within 3 Years

By clustering solar cells around the edges of the specially prepared sheets of glass, the new method provides a unique alternative to expensive rooftop solar cells.  They are also much more efficient than their rooftop brethren.  The special glass panels concentrate light 40 times standard sunlight before delivery directly to the cell.  Further different designs to absorb different wavelengths are available, so by using windows with several stacked glass panes, absorption can be optimized across the entire visible wavelength.

The system is so simple to manufacturer that the inventors expect it to be deployed within 3 years at little cost over standard window costs.  Furthermore, it can be added to existing solar panels to help concentrate sunlight for virtually no additional cost, and would increase their efficiency by a modest 50 percent, according to the authors.

DailyTech – Conference Examines Man and Machine Merging, How Tech Will Make Human Brain Obsolete

New conference examines what risks super intelligent robots might hold and how man itself may merge with machine to the point where it is no longer recognizable as human