On Monday, a team of scientists in Australia announced an exciting breakthrough: For the first time, researchers were able to turn light into sound on a microchip. But—as crazy-sounding new physics applications tend to be—it’s probably going to be a long time before you see one of these chips on a computer you can…
When all sources of errors have been ruled out and 4096 phony votes have still been given to a candidate, who do you blame? In some cases, these kinds of glitches may be coming from outer space, according to scientists who discussed this cosmic conundrum today at the annual meeting of American Association for the…
You're looking at Neurogrid: a slab of silicon inspired by the human brain, which is 9,000 times faster than a normal computer brain simulator and uses way less energy to boot.
Futurists are always talking about how flexible electronics will change our lives in amazing ways, but we've yet to see anything mind-blowing come to market. A team of scientists from the University of Texas in Austin, however, think they've found the key to changing that: ultrafast graphene transistors printed on…
Metamaterials are a mind-bending class of matter. Broadly defined as manmade materials with unusual properties not found in nature, this category of materials is probably most famous for serving as the building blocks for a Harry Potter-style invisibility cloak. But so much more is possible.
A team of scientists in Switzerland has managed to cram 11,011 electrodes onto a single two-millimeter-by-two-millimeter piece of silicon to create a microchip that works just like an actual brain. The best part about this so-called neuromorphic chips? They can feel.
Our technologies are becoming more biological with each passing year. And here's the latest breakthrough: Caltech engineers have developed an integrated computer chip that can learn to heal its own injuries.
Technology can be fragile. Anyone who's dropped his or her phone knows that all too well. And though you might not get it in your hands for a while, there are some seriously robust electronics coming down the pipe. New self-healing microchips developed by Caltech, for instance, can survive multiple laser blasts.
The fastest microchips we have can only pass their data from side to side and front to back, no matter how close their components are squeezed together. A new chip developed by researchers at University of Cambridge, on the other hand, can pass data up and down too, making for the world's first truly 3D microchip.
The mesmerizing movements of jellyfish have inspired researchers to design all sorts of things, from mechatronic jellyfish that function as autonomous robots to artificial jellyfish built from rat cells and silicone. Now scientists have built a jellyfish-inspired microchip that can capture cancer and other rare cells…
Testing new and potential life-saving drugs can be a harrowing process because of the risk involved with not knowing how a substance will react once in the human body. Harvards scientists are hoping that microchips, such as the one pictured above, can mimic the function of human organs well enough for them to test…
Seven women suffering from osteoporosis got the chance to avoid their usual visits to the doctor for their injected medicines. Instead, their physician administered treatment remotely through an implant that pumped meds into their systems on demand while the patients rested at home.
Click to viewThis is Dr. Mark Gasson. He's a human being who's managed to contract a nasty computer virus. Don't feel too bad for him, though: he did it to himself.
When chipmakers slim down their silicon, they need finer and finer tools to organize all that circuitry. With MIT's latest self-assembling chips, the detail work is handled by molecular strands that, freakishly, just know where to go.
MIT researchers are just three years away from developing a retinal implant that can send visual information directly to the brain. Although it won't completely restore an individual's vision, they would be able to navigate rooms and recognize faces. [Wired]
From the "at least 10 years out" category of microchip fabrication comes word that IBM is working to reduce future costs and microchip sizes by using DNA.
One of the most frustrating aspects of dealing with a chronic illness, such as diabetes or lupus, is the need to test your body constantly to make sure you're healthy. MicroCHIPS is looking to alleviate that with a new device that's implanted under the skin of a patient. The “chip,” about the size of a dime, senses…
According to the chaps at the Eclipse Developer's Journal (EDJ), Intel is planning a six-core microprocessor, which will go by the Dunnington moniker.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a method of arranging cells on a microchip using what they call "optical tweezers." These optical tweezers consist of a fine tuned beam of laser light, which moves cells around on the chip.
Think your dual core 3-GHz processor is the bee's knees? IBM and Georgia Tech will more than likely make you cry today with their expected announcement of a silicon-based microchip that runs at 500GHz, a world record. No, not 50GHz, but 500GHz. This feat is accomplished because researchers essentially froze the…
