Information Technology

A researcher at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) at Virginia Tech is developing a database and computational tools to help scientists learn more about how certain genes in tomatoes affect the crop’s flavor and nutritional value.

The Tomato Metabolite Database, which is being implemented by Zhangjun Fei, a senior bioinformatics scientist in VBI’s Cyberinfrastructure Group, will be used to store a wide range of information and data about tomato, including microarray and

Robotiker-Tecnalia has designed a wireless Braille keyboard for ONCE (the Spanish National Association for the Blind) which is compact and incorporates bluetooth technology. The design is such that it enables visually impaired persons (more than 80,000 in Spain and more than a million in Europe) to use this communication interface with a number of current appliances and devices, such as PCs and PDA / Pocket PCs or mobile cell phones.

Thus, those persons with a visual disablement will have

An ambitious five-year project will attempt to make eye-tracking technologies more affordable for people with disabilities and extend the potential use of the devices to enable users to live more independently.

The Communication by Gaze Interaction (COGAIN) project will examine current state-of-the-art technologies, develop new software standards to extend the available products and research new applications for the technology based on end-users’ real needs.

“It’s a

Clear skies for Red Storm

A new series of measurements — the next step in evolution of criteria to determine more accurately the efficiency of supercomputers — has rated Sandia National Laboratories’ Red Storm computer the best in the world in two of six new categories, and very high in two other important categories.

Red Storm had previously been judged 6th fastest in the world on the old but more commonly accepted Linpack test.

The two first-place ben

“GoPubMed is a sort of an intelligent Google for biomedical specialists,” explains Dr Michael Alvers, CEO and Co-founder of Transinsight. “The search engine saves time and so accelerates research significantly.”

Founded in November 2005, Transinsight is a software company focused on the life sciences that provides products and solutions for intelligent search technologies. Their main product, GoPubMed, was partly developed during the IST project, Biogrid, by Professor Michael Schroeder

Emerging mobile services are demanding an ever-increasing amount of bandwidth, but the radio spectrum for third generation (3G) and beyond systems is in short supply. Algorithms developed by European researchers are helping operators better manage their precious bandwidth resources.

The EVEREST project developed and tested advanced algorithms to provide mobile operators with enhanced Radio Resource Management (RRM) techniques aimed at reducing the risk of communications bottlenecks at a t