Self-Organising DNA Helps Create More Closely Spaced Devices

Small pieces of DNA known as DNA Origami have been made to self-organise onto silicon forming the scaffolding for new electronic components.  Current micro fabrication techniques can create surface features with a spacing of 45nm. Creating the transistors and electronic components closer together will ultimately lead to faster computers.

In this image, we see the DNA origami looking like the triangular shaped spaghetti hoops. The hope is that the DNA can be used to manipulate the tiny parts that will go into future devices such as carbon nanotubes. The DNA origami can be made to fill regularly spaced holes etched into the silicon carrying their cargo when they are added to liquid and this is made to contact the sillicon.

As microfibrication techniques move to a smaller scale the cost of fabrication becomes increasingly more expensive as features must be resolved using light of smaller wavelengths. The components features are made from the top down. This new technique has the scope to create parts and then introduce them to the substrate. A more bottom up approach if you will. This research and has a great deal of potential but to develop the process to a useful stage, where it might be used on a large scale may take more than ten years.

British Technology Love Affair

Britons love technology so much that they are willing to cut back on spending on holidays and eating out or at least this is the conclusion of an annual review by Ofcom. Spending on mobile  phones, internet and TV is more important than everything except food according to the survey of some 862 people. When asked how they would be cutting back spending during  the recession, 47% said eating out, 41% cutting back on DIY projects, 41% on holidays compared with 19% who said they would cut back on mobile phone spending, 16% tv subscriptions and 10% broadband services. The study also showed the increase in social networking use. It shows we really love our tech in the UK.

Your own Satelite in Orbit for $8000

A company is offering personal satellites which will be sent into low Earth Orbit for the interestingly low price of $8000. (4,751 GBP) . The interorbital tube satellites will be sold in kit form and contain the parts for a satellite that can be picked up on HAM radio. The satellite kit contains:

• Casing, endplates and Mounting hardward
• A transceiver
• A battery pack
• Solar Cells
• Power management control system (PMCS)
• Microcomputer
• Software
• Antennas
• Safety switches
• complete instructions

Up to 32 satellites can be launched on a single rocket into a polar orbit. To prevent the build up of dangerous space junk, after a few months the satellites will fall back to Earth and burn up in the atmosphere. As well as the equipment included there is also some space in left for your own experiments. A maximum mass of 0.200 kg  is available. More information can be found at the company web-page.

E-Cigarette - Good, Bad , Indiferent

Since the introduction of smoking bans around the world people have been looking for an alternative to smoking in doors, Many people are now used to and more than happy to nip outside with many establishments catering for this with the development of smoking areas.

The Cigarette industry may be taking a knock in the UK and US and other European countries however one persons downfall is another persons gain. This is were we have the introduction of e-cigarettes. An e-cigarette is a fairly new device which is a smoke free flame free method of taking in nicotine. The e-cigarettes do not produce smoke but they produce a vapour from mixing water flavourings and nicotine with heat from a battery inside the e-cigarette.

Many anti smoking organisations however refuse to back the electronic cigarette saying nothing has been proven in terms of the safety to your health with these. Many pro smoking organisations are claiming they are a cheaper and healthier alternative to real cigarettes which can contain up to 1000 different chemicals

Technology advancements improve Lasik eye surgery

Lasik eye surgery - also commonly called laser eye surgery - has been around for a few years now. Lasik stands for Laser-Assisted In-Situ Keratomileusis. It is becoming more and more common as a definitive way of improving the eyesight of thousands of people with vision impairments.

Initially, Lasik eye surgery involved a surgeon manually cutting a flap in the cornea, which is then followed by using a laser to reform the under-tissue into the correct shape. This process has been improved and now uses an all-laser approach, where the laser can be used to both cut the flap and reshape the cornea. Using the laser to cut the flap reduces the chances of problems as the flap is thinner and more precise.

The above procedures can be carried out very quickly (usually 10-15 minutes per eye) and are relatively simple for a professional to carry out. However, they are also all based on the same routine and individual needs are largely ignored. This is where the latest type of lasik eye surgery comes in.

Custom lasik - also known as wavefront lasik - involves generating a three dimensional map of every individual eye. This map is then used as a reference for the laser to appropriately reshape the cornea tissue.

Semiconductor market would see consecutive decline in annual revenues

Hard-pressed semiconductor industry would be registering consecutive fall in annual revenues for the first time in its history, as per Gartner’s forecast.

According to Gartner, 2009 worldwide semiconductor revenues would be 16.3% less to £14.7bn ($21.2bn), than revenues in 2008. This decline was 4.4% during 2007-2008. Read more

Apple fixes security bug in iPhone

A serious security bug detected in the iPhone has been fixed by Apple in its latest firmware update.
The flaw was discovered by the German Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology (SIT). The flaw could enable tricking of user, via an email link, to take over the dialling capabilities of the iPhone, calling any premium-rate number while disabling the handset user controls to stop the call.

According to Fraunhofer SIT researcher, Collin Mulliner, the security bug in iPhone was small but could impact in a big way by enabling calling of arbitrary phone numbers via a website. Acting quickly on the information, Apple released 2.2 version of iPhone firmware. The security enhancement, bearing ID CVE-2008-4233, is meant to fix the bug.

Describing the bug, Apple explained that a call gets placed if an application is launched through Safari with display of call-approval dialogue. This can allow a malicious website to initiate phone call independent of user. Also, under certain circumstances, the maliciously created website could disable a user from deactivating dialling for a short time.

Apple complimented Collin Mulliner for reporting the flaw and stated that its update fixes the flaw by disabling Safari’s call-approval dialogue if an application is launched via Safari. Apple so far has addressed 12 flaws in 2.2 version of iPhone firmware. The firmware update has new features such as Google Street View.

Telcos may take IPTV shelter to fight mobile-broadband

According to market research firm Informa Telecoms & Media, hiring an IPTV service seemed to be a strategy for telcos to prevent their customers from switching over to mobile-broadband and abandoning fixed lines.

Telecoms watchdog Ofcom in its ‘International Communications Market 2008’ report stated that 15% of UK homes were mobile-only last year, accounting for a 2% rise on the year before. Ofcom is expecting that economic downturn and rise of mobile broadband would give people fat-pipe access without requiring a landline to further reduce its uptake.

Julian Herbert, principal Informa analyst while addressing the Informa Mobile Broadband & TV Industry Outlook conference claimed that telcos were beginning to realise that it was not possible to live without IPTV.

Herbert cited the case in the Austrian market where fixed-line usage was gradually declining in the past 3 years but ‘bottomed out’ by end of 2007 soon after the relaunch of an IPTV service by Telekom Austria. IPTV had direct impact on the rate of fixed-line reduction and incremental increase in overall revenue, claimed Herbert.

He also claimed that IPTV reduces line loss and churn, and telco community was getting more and more interested in IPTV. The analyst informed that there were more than 100 IPTV deployments across the world and the number would continue to grow.

IT spending growth slowing down?

IDC, the industry analyst firm, is modifying its yearly forecast on the IT budgets of companies across the world. Owing to the financial crisis all over the world, the firm expects the total spending on technology by enterprise companies to grow by a mere 2.6 per cent next year as compared to 2008. Before the late-September Wall Street meltdown, IDC had predicted a worldwide spending growth rate of 5.9 percent. In the US, the growth expected was 4.2 percent growth. But after the meltdown, IDC is revising that to just 0.9 percent.

Companies like Cisco, Dell, Nortel and others have already indicated that they are expecting IT spending to drop. Hardware, with the exception of storage, will be the hardest hit by the spending cutbacks. However, software and services will be relatively safer.

Region wise, spending in Japan, Western Europe, and US will be hit the hardest. Emerging markets in regions like Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America will still encounter very healthy growth, as per the new forecast. The firm said that it expects IT spending to make “a total recovery” and reach a figure of six per cent growth by 2012.

Use of untested IT strategies to cut costs would risk security

Companies pursuing new IT strategies to reduce costs in the prevailing downturn will only end up risking their corporate security, warned experts.

Speaking at the RSA Conference Europe 2008 held in London, chief security strategist, Tim Mather, cautioned business enterprises about the risks involved in using untested technologies.

Economic downturn may push some companies to deploy insecure technologies for cutting costs, Mather warned.

Similar views were held by the Microsoft’s UK security adviser, Ed Gibson, who commented that security would suffer if corporate took its eyes off the important issue.

Mather believed that relatively new technologies lacked security maturity. He listed virtualisation, cloud computing and VoIP technologies that increase system compromise risk. He noted that VoIP was widely implemented within enterprise but not between enterprises.

Another speaker, Ben Jun, technology vice president at Cryptography Research, noted that while technology was fairly established, its security had not been tested fully. He termed it as maturity effort where companies had not reached despite the fact that virtualisation was not new.

Jun informed that virtualisation companies were working on the issue, citing VMware’s launching of VMsafe API. But he commented that its security maturity was not high.

VMware did not respond to comments immediately.

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