Information Technology

From cell manipulation to micro assembly, micro robots devised by an international team of researchers offer a glimpse of the future.

The MICRON project team, led by the Institute for Process Control and Robotics (IPR), Karlsruhe, Germany, brought together eight international partners. Funded under the European Commission’s FET (Future and Emerging Technologies) initiative of the IST programme, MICRON set out to build a total of five to ten micro robots, just cubic centimetres in si

E-commerce transactions are becoming more and more frequent in today’s fast-paced society. How about going one step further and making these transactions through your mobile phone, television set top box or even pen and diary based services. The technology breakthroughs achieved by the EUREKA Cluster Project A302 (Esp@ss-is) on smartcard platform development have improved the quality and the type of data that can be processed reducing even more the risks of identity theft.

In the past, a

Burglars often listen at windows and doors, leaving an earprint behind, which, just like a finger print, can be used to trace them. Lynn Meijerman is researching the value of ear prints as evidence in identifying criminals. She obtained her doctorate on 15th February, under the supervision of Professor George Maat.

In one out of every twenty burglaries the burglar leaves an earprint behind, at least this seems to be the case in and around Leiden. Fingerprints have long been accept

A new technique developed by an Indiana University School of Informatics scientist provides a strong shield against identity theft and cyber attacks.

Cybersecurity expert Markus Jakobsson and the start-up RavenWhite Inc., of which Jakobsson is a co-founder, have developed an “active cookie,” a countermeasure designed to protect against online scams such as pharming and man-in-the-middle attacks.

Pharming is obtaining personal or private (usually financial) information thr

Protoypes can help designers meet user needs

Before Jeff Hawkins ever started making the original Palm Pilot digital organizer he prototyped it as a block of wood with fake buttons and a paper screen. To this day the Palm Pilot is a successful design of human and computer interaction that remains all too rare, says Stanford computer science Assistant Professor Scott Klemmer. Every time a person uses a computer–a desktop, a cell phone or even a chip-enabled coffee maker–the inter

To present at AAAS meeting in St. Louis

Consumers who shop online may be risking their privacy with every purchase, contends University of Massachusetts Amherst computer scientist Kevin Fu. His research suggests that a confluence of factors, including the widespread use of cookies and demand for quick and easy transactions, results in Web sites that are often insecure.

“Much Web security rests on illusion and hope,” says Fu, who will discuss how Web sites leak private