Daily Tech News

A team of international scientists from Canada, the U.K., Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden announced Friday that they had developed a model biological supercomputer capable of solving complex mathematical problems using far less energy than standard electronic supercomputers. The model “biocomputer,” which is roughly the size of a book, is powered by Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) — dubbed the “molecular unit of currency.” According to description of the device, published in the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , the biocomputer uses proteins present in all living cells to function. It uses a strategy similar to that of quantum computers, which use qubits — the quantum computing equivalents of bits — to perform “parallel computation,” wherein  computers are able to process information quickly and accurately by performing several calculations simultaneously, rather than sequentially. In the case of the biocomputer, the qubits are replaced with ...

An NEW ERA IN SMARTPHONES Many of us use our smartphones these days to complete a wide range of tasks; however, tablets still come in handy, allowing us to complete a variety of tasks that would otherwise be difficult (if not impossible) on a smaller screen. But with Samsung’s latest invention, you can forget about having to budget twice as much for two separate electronic devices. Samsung has announced its plan to create a foldable smartphone, dubbed the ‘smartlet.’ The phone is a 2-in-1…a smartphone that can transform into a 7-inch tablet when unfolded. You can probably picture it acting a bit like a book. And indeed, it kind of does. SO, HOW DOES THE THING WORK? The ‘smartlet’ uses an OLED screen (organic light-emitting diode) that allows the device to fold. These OLEDs also provide a brighter display on electronic devices, are super thin, and use less energy than LCDs. This new development comes about as Smartphones are reaching their climax. There’s...

Boyan Slat, 20-year old founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup, today announced that the world’s first system to passively clean up plastic pollution from the world’s oceans is to be deployed in 2016. He made the announcement at Asia’s largest technology conference, Seoul Digital Forum, in South-Korea. The array is projected to be deployed in Q2 2016. The feasibility of deployment, off the coast of Tsushima, an island located in the waters between Japan and South-Korea is currently being researched.  The system will span 2000 meters, thereby becoming the longest floating structure ever deployed in the ocean (beating the current record of 1000 m held by the Tokyo Mega-Float). It will be operational for at least two years, catching plastic pollution before it reaches the shores of the proposed deployment location of Tsushima island. Tsushima island is evaluating whether the plastic can be used as an alternative energy source. The scale of the plastic pollution problem, whereb...

Researchers in Norway have succeeded in getting bacteria to power a fuel cell. The "fuel" used is wastewater, and the products of the process are purified water droplets and electricity. This is an environmentally-friendly process for the purification of water derived from industrial processes and suchlike. It also generates small amounts of electricity -- in practice enough to drive a small fan, a sensor or a light-emitting diode. In the future, the researchers hope to scale up this energy generation to enable the same energy to be used to power the water purification process , which commonly consists of many stages, often involving mechanical and energy-demanding decontamination steps at its outset. Nature's own generator The biological fuel cell is powered by entirely natural processes -- with the help of living microorganisms. "In simple terms, this type of fuel cell works because the bacteria consume the waste materials found in the water," explains SINTEF...

Water is an essential to any human being on this planet, while having clean water is unfortunately not something we all have access to. But a new invention developed by a team of researchers at Alexandria University in Egypt could change that. The technology uses a desalination technique called pervaporation. Salt is removed from sea water using specifically designed synthetic membranes which filter out large salt particles and impurities so they can be evaporated away. The remaining salt is heated, vapourised, and condensed back into clean water.  In developing countries, spending time and money on water filtration is important, but there aren’t always enough resources to properly explore the field. So when it comes to water cleaning in those countries, it’s important for technology to be affordable and easily replicable. Thankfully, the membranes involved in this new invention can be made in any lab using cheap materials that are avail...

A prefabricated modular block of apartments has been opened in London, to provide accommodation for the homeless. The Y:Cube concept was  announced earlier this year  and its method of construction means that rent can be kept low. Residents will pay just 65 percent of the local market rate. Y:Cube was developed for the international YMCA youth charity, which, among its activities, offers accommodation for young homeless people in the UK. Designed by architecture firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Y:Cube is conceived as "move-on accommodation" for people leaving homeless hostels, such as those run by YMCA. Based in the Mitcham area of south west London, this first deployment of the concept has 36 one-bed studios, each with an area of 26 sq m (280 sq ft). The units are made from "high quality, eco-efficient materials," such as renewable timber, and are said to be so well insulated as to require little or no heating, even during the winter. The affordabi...

If you want a smartpen – which digitizes your handwriting and transmits it to a computer or mobile device – you currently have your choice of models including the Neo Smartpen N2, the LiveScribe Sky or the Orée Stylograph. All of those pens, however, require you to use special paper that's unique to that particular product. By contrast, Wacom's just-announced Bamboo Spark system works with a non-electronic pen and whatever A5-sized paper you've got on hand. The three earlier-mentioned smartpens all have tiny cameras located by the nib, that are able to gauge the pen's position on the page by imaging patterns printed on the paper. Bamboo Spark instead utilizes a smart folio, which the paper is laid upon. That folio contains an electro-magnetic resonance board, which is able to sense the location of the tip of the included Bamboo Spark ballpoint pen. This allows it to record pen strokes (it doesn't matter if it's text or drawings), and their position rela...

Although the ability tends to wane as we get older, the human auditory system is pretty good at filtering out background noise and making a single voice able to be understood above the general hubbub of a crowded room. But electronic devices, such as smartphones, aren't quite as gifted, which is why getting Siri or Google Now to understand you in crowded environments can be an exercise in futility. But now researchers have developed a prototype sensor that’s not only able to figure out the direction of a particular sound, but can also extract it from background noise. To create the sensor, scientists at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina used a class of materials known as metamaterials, which boast properties not found in nature, and a signal processing technique known as  compressive sensing . The disk-shaped device is made of plastic and doesn't have any electronic or moving parts. Rather, it features a honeycomb-like structure and is split into dozens of slices wh...

Google is much more than just a search giant. It is also home to many of your favorite products: Gmail, YouTube, and Chrome, just to name a few. Apart from that, it also offers many products to help you  keep track of your data . Most of these are  hidden deep  inside the My Account dashboard, which many users don’t really know of. These hidden tools  may reveal interesting details  about your usage of Google’s many services. We’ve compiled a list of important Google URLs of some  hidden tools  that carry information of what you did with Google, mostly from the searches that you have made on their many products, the voice searches and typed out Google searches that you have made. Are you ready to  find out what how Google knows about you ? 1.  Google Dashboard Google Dashboard offers  transparency and control over the personal data stored with your Google Account. You can  view  and  manage the data gener...