Information Technology

11.8T HP supercomputer with Intel Itanium2 processors running Linux reaches full operations.

The Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is now home to the United States’ fastest operational unclassified supercomputer. The laboratory’s 11.8 teraflops industry-standard HP Integrity system came to full operating power this week, marking the next advance in high-performance computing designed to enable new insights in the environmental and molecular sciences, includ

Researchers at the Universities of Essex and Bristol will soon be launching a ground-breaking project to develop a ‘conscious’ robot.

The aim of the project, which involves computer scientists and neuropsychologists, is to advance the technology of intelligent machines, while also extending the understanding of human consciousness.

Owen Holland, Senior Lecturer in Computer Science, who will lead the three-year project at Essex, explained: ‘Consciousness is perhaps the last r

Whilst western Europe is feeling the effects of global warming, a “freeze” has come to the rescue of quantum computing.

Quantum Computers – computers so fast they could break any code devised for a digital computer – have a fatal flaw which has until now made it impossible to build really fast quantum computers. They make so many operations that very rare and tiny errors occur rapidly and are amplified, making them unable to function properly.

The Institute of Physics and Ge

Liquid crystals are most recognized in the form of liquid crystal displays (LCDs)—found in everything from digital watches to notebook computers and flat-panel desktop monitors. But liquid crystals are far more talented than that. In the August 1 issue of the journal Science, for example, University of Wisconsin chemical engineer Nicholas Abbott reported a big step toward using them in flexible, inexpensive “smart-paper” displays, and in ultra-sensitive detectors for biomolecules or toxic chemicals.

“Diamond Graph” Corrects Long-Standing Errors of 3-D Bar Graphs

Looks can be deceiving. That’s one of the problems with today’s three-dimensional bar graph. While these graphs may look correct, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health believe they are in fact inaccurate and misleading.

Currently, the 3-D bar graph is used in countless computer programs, scientific journals, and newspapers to display financial, medical, and other information in whi

System detects tissue changes

Mammograms, X-rays and other pricey medical scans do little good if doctors can’t see the tiny changes that signal early stages of disease. But such warning signs are often too subtle to spot by eye, and too complex for computers to interpret. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory have developed the Change Detection System, technology that highlights slight differences between digit