Smallest Hard Disk to Date Writes Information Atom by Atom

Accomplished In Reduction to Final Limit

Present society tends to create over a billion gigabytes of new data daily and to store them, it has been progressively important for every individual to occupy the minimum space as possible. A group of scientist at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at Delft University accomplished in bringing about this reduction to the final limit by building a memory of 1 kilobyte wherein each of the bit is said to be represented by the position of a single chlorine atom. Sander Otte, lead-scientist had commented that in theory, this storage density would enable all books created by humans to be written on an individual post stamp.

 They had reached a storage density of 500 Terabits per square inch, which was 500 times superior to the best commercial hard disk available presently. Reports on this memory in Nature Nanotechnology had been done by his team on July 18. Physicist Richard Feynman had challenged his colleagues to engineer the world at the smallest possible scale.

 In his well-known lecture – There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom, he had speculated that if they had a platform enabling them to arrange single atoms in a precise orderly pattern, there would be a possibility of storing a piece of information for each atom.

Scanning Tunnelling Microscope

To respect the visionary Feynman, Otte together with his team had coded a section of Feynman’s lecture on an area of 100 nanometers wide. A scanning tunnelling microscope – STM had been utilised by the team where a sharp needle tends to search the surface of the atoms one after the other. With the aid of these probes, scientist not only can see the atoms but can also utilise them in pushing the atoms around.

Otte had explained that one could compare it to a sliding puzzle. Every piece comprises of two positions on a surface of copper atoms and one chlorine atom which tends to slide back and forth between these two positions. If the chlorine atom tends to be in the top position, there will be a hole below it which is called a 1. If the hole is said to be in the top position and the chlorine atom is on the bottom, the bit is then considered as 0.

New Approach Offers Tremendous Prospects

Since the chlorine atoms are surrounded by other chlorine atoms, apart from being near the holes, they seem to keep each other in place. This is the reason why this system with holes is said to be much more stable than the systems with movable atoms and are more suitable for data storage. The new approach tends to offer tremendous prospects with regards to stability and scalability.

Yet this kind of memory need not be anticipated in data centres soon. Otte had stated that in its present condition the memory tends to operate only in clean vacuum situations and at liquid nitrogen temperature in order that the actual storage of data on an atomic scale tends to be some way off. However through this accomplishment we seem to have advanced a big step nearer.

The research had been made conceivable with the support from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research NOW/FOM. The scientists of the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory – INL in Portugal had done calculations on the performance of the chlorine atoms.

Self Shading Windows Can Rapidly Switch from Transparent to Dark

New System – Windows Switch from Translucent to Opaque

The researcher team at MIT have discovered a new system of making windows which tend to switch from translucent to opaque which have a tendency to save energy by the blocking of sunlight on hot day thereby reducing the air-conditioning costs. Though other means of causing the glass to darken prevails, this new system tends to provide substantial benefit with the combination of speedy response times together with low power requirements.

When the glass is said to be switched from clear to dark or vice versa, the new system is said to need only little to no power for the maintenance of its new state unlike the other substances and only requires energy when the need to switch back again, arises. Reports of the results had been reported recently in a paper on Chem, the online journal, by the MIT professor of chemistry, Mircea Dinca, doctoral student Khalid Al-Kaabi as well as the former postdoc Casey Wade, presently an assistant professor at Brandeis University. Dinca explains that the latest discovery tends to utilise electrochromic materials that incline to alter their colour as well as transparency in reaction to applied voltage

Turning Voltage – Windows Darken

These tend to vary from the photochromic materials like those that are found in some eyeglasses which are inclined to get darker while the light gets brighter. These types of materials have the tendency of much slower response time and to experience a smaller change in their levels of opaqueness.

The prevailing electrochromic materials face similar limitation and have only role applications. For instance, the aircraft Boeing 787 has electrochromic windows that get darker to avert the bright sunlight from coming into the cabin. Dinca informed that by turning on the voltage, the windows could be darkened though when the switch is flipped it tends to take some time for the windows to turn dark and surely one would prefer it to be quicker.

The delay is due to the changes in the material which depend on the movement of electron, an electric current which provides the whole window with a negative charge.

MOFs – Conducts Electrons/Ions At High Speeds

Positive ions thereafter seem to move through the material restoring the electrical balance thus creating the colour change effect. However, while the electrons seem to flow quickly through the materials, the ions tend to move much more slowly which limits the general reaction speed.

By utilising the sponge-like material known as metal-organic frameworks-MOFs that tends to conduct both electrons and ions at very high speeds, the MIT team overpowered that issue. These materials are said to have been utilised for around 20 years for their capacity of storing gases in their structure. However, it was the MIT team who were the first to connect them for their electrical as well as optical properties.

Dinca remarks that the other issue with the prevailing versions of self-shading materials is that it is difficult to obtain a material which alters from totally transparent to, for instance, completely black. Even the windows in the 787 tend to change only to a dark shade of green instead of being opaque.

This is How Sports Teams Choose Their Tech Gear

AP

From as long as the 1930s, both major league baseball clubs as well as baseball historians have made the mention of phones in their bullpens as well as dugouts. Though historians are unsure of when they first came in to use, they have found the earliest mention in an article of the Sheboygan Press in the year 1930 with regard to the Yankee stadium.

It is strongly believed that the phones were used by the managers to make calls to the bullpen which is the area where pitchers warm up, so as to inform the relievers to get prepared to play. Though today this technology is not anything extraordinary, in the 1930s it was considered to be advanced which stands to be noted.

In the year 2013 which is not too long ago , T-mobile invested in millions to start a partnership with major league baseball in order to do away with stadium landlines and move on to cell phones. Reason being, with this change, the coach would be able to stand with the reliever and watch him play rather than be confined to the corner because of the landline. However this idea failed to take off well since until today all of the 30 Major league ball clubs make use of landlines since managers were not convinced enough to make a switch mentions Matthew Gould MLB spokesman.

Observers of the technology believe that that is how it works. There is a high level of mistrust when it comes to stressful situations hence technology does not work too well when it comes to both coaches and players even though there is a visible advantage of the same. Nick Watanabe who is a Sports administration professor at the University of Mississippi believes that people feel they will come across as stupid and it could cost them their career, however those who are using technology are surely at a competitive advantage.
For instance, coaches and players of NFL go through high numbers of photographs to check on the offence or defence of the opposition. Latest images are retrieved from printers after every play are carried around in think binders.

In the year 2014, the league and Microsoft went into a partnership to replace the use of binders with Surface Pro tablets. However this too wasn't accepted immediately - some coaches would make use of both binders as well as the tablet while others would call it an iPad or knock off iPads which did not go down will with Microsoft officials resulting in giving them a complete tutorial on how to both use and talk about the device.

This year, the NFL has granted permission to the teams to use the tablet so they have videos at the bench itself which was not allowed ever before which is resulted in the tablet being used all the time states Galen Clavio who is not only a professor of sports media at Indiana University but also the director of the National Sports Journalism Centre.

He also believes that it is not about the gadget being new but a gadget that does something new. There is a high amount of pressure faced when using these devices and for the users a pressure of being able to perform. Most NFL coaches most often have a tenure of 3 years thus it is up to them to decide what to spend their money on and they believe that spending on an app and not winning games could cost them their job.

This is the divide between what makes it to the sports world and what does not. The tablets helps with generating reports while the cell phones do not help with games.

Very often there is a generation gap when it comes to professional sports coaches, they belong to a different generation from the technology mentions Ann Pegoraro who happens to be the director of the Institute for Sport Marketing at Laurentian University in Ontario, Canada. It is like asking your grandfather to work with an iPad which is crazy, we would all agree.

It is simple if your grandfather does not know how to make use of the data, and a tech savvy niece or nephew gets hold of the data, it could be misused.

Watanabe mentions that not everybody trusts technology however the ones who do and have mastered the use have begun to reap benefits resulting in teams being secretive in what devices they use during not only the game but also practice.

The major league has provider every club with an iPad which can be used in the dugout and a mobile had also been allowed on the field for the first time in 113 years and the technology is being made use of by every team as it benefits their overall game.

Cybersecurity Student Researches How to Keep Cars Safe from Hacking

Smart Cars Susceptible to Cyber-Attacks

In 2015, a Jeep Cherokee driven by a reporter had documented how two researchers had hacked it and controlled everything from the radio and the media console of the car to its brakes and steering. For an associate professor of computer science at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Dr Shucheng Yu, the application demonstrated how susceptible smart cars, featuring GPS, Bluetooth and internet connections, are to cyber-attacks.

Yu remarked that these cars have become the trend of the future and there could be some very severe consequences if someone tends to hack into the car. A car can be completely controlled by the hacker if it is not secure.

Hence Yu together with his student Zachary King, a junior majoring in computer science at UALR, did some researching during summer on keeping cars safe from cyber-attacks. They operated on the project all through a rigorous eight weeks summer research program at UALR. King had been one out of the 10 college students from across the country who had been recruited through a National Science Foundation grant-funded project. `REU Site – CyberSAFE@UALR – Cyber Security and Forensics Research at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’

Investigating & Securing Communication – Controller Area Network – CAN

According to Dr Mengjun Xie, an associate professor of computer science and director of the CyberSAFE@UALR program, the purpose of the program is to reduce cyber-attacks on individuals utilising mobile technology and social networking sites.

He states that the simple idea is to integrate cyber-security and cyber forensics research with the latest technology in mobile cloud computer together with social media in order to offer research opportunities to students. Over 130 students had applied for 10 spots wherein participants comprising of undergraduate college students with a grade point average of 3.0 or more who had been majoring in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering math or physics.

The selected student had to spend eight weeks conducting full time research with a faculty mentor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock where the participants had received a $4,000 stipend, for on-campus housing, travel expenses and a meal plan. King, in his project, `Investigating and Securing Communications in the Controller Area Network – CAN, developed a security protocol in order to secure smart cars from being hacked.

Layer of Security – Safeguards CAN

Moreover he also built an experimental environment which tends to mimic the communication system in a smart car that tends to permit the security procedure to be verified through imitations.The research centres on the development of a security procedure to defend the Controller Area Network – CAN, which is an internal communication structure in vehicles.

King informs that there are several ways which hacker could control CAN. Once they gain access to it, they can control your car the way they want to. King tends to propose a layer of security wherein if an unauthorized person attempts to access it, they would not be able to control the vehicle. The security procedure safeguards the CAN in a couple of ways.

 It validates messages sent through the network by developing a validation code which enables nodes on the network to distinguish between a valid message and an assailant’s message. The second security feature shields against replay attacks whenever a hacker tries to breach the network by sending old messages repeatedly. The modus operandi utilises a timestamp in calculating when the network received the message last and verifies the freshness of the message.

Mobile Phones Which Assemble Themselves

MIT – Mobile Device which Assemble by Itself

A mobile device that tends to assemble by itself within a few moments has been created by researchers from MIT. The model created by the scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab is said to be composed of six single parts that tend to assemble into two diverse mobile devices.The Self-Assembly Lab had been established in 2011 by the department of architecture research scientist Skylar Tibbits of MIT.

The lab was originally set up to work on 4D printing which is said to be a process that utilised 3D printers in the creation of materials which can grow and change on its own.The device is capable of assembling itself within a few minutes even in unsteady environment like being thrown around a tumbler.

Since then, MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab attained subsidy from DARPA to work on materials which could self-construct, comprising of flat-packed furniture that can build by them and self-lacing sneakers. The latest project for the Self-Assembly Lab is the partnership with designer Marcelo Coelho, experimenting consumer electronics with a self-assembling mobile phone. According to a report by Fast Co.Design, the source responsible for the self-assembly device, is simplicity. To start with, the tumbler needs to be going adequately fast so that the components seems to meet but do not break.

Components – Lock & Key Mechanism

The project tends to observe how a few components; an energy source together with the right collaborations enables a mobile phone to build itself without the need of any human interference or mechanisation. All the components of the device tend to have lock and key mechanism that like puzzle pieces tend to permit only the appropriate connection to happen and reject the ones which are not right.

Lastly it is essential for the parts to stick and hence the team utilised magnets ensuring that the right parts were attracted to each other. The researcher, Skylar Tibbits, who had been working on the project informed the publication that if one looks at how things are manufactured at every other scale except the human scale-look at DNA and cells and proteins, then view the planetary scale, everything is built through the self-assembly.

However, at the human scale, it seems to be the opposite. Everything seems to be built top down. We tend to take components and force them together. If this type of technology is adopted in mainstream, it would tend to have grave consequences for the manufacturing industry.

Cost of Automation Can be Condensed At Scale

According to MIT, the cost of automation can be condensed at scale removing the need of shifting labour overseas or have workers altogether. Moreover, jobs could be replaced with mechanisation and assembly-line staff at electronic factories could someday be a thing of the past.

But researchers are of the opinion that the possibilities for these types of designs seems to be limitless and could provide the vendors with more freedom in designing and creating improved and more ground-breaking products. Tibbits remarked that `right now the phone is pre-determined and we are using this process to assemble that phone.

But imagine you take a circuit board and have different logical building blocks and those logical building blocks can be tumbled around, you could have different functionalities’.MIT does not seem to be the only institution which has been exploring the possibilities of modular consumer products. Google has revealed that this year, Project Ara, the modular smartphone of the tech giant would be released in 2017.