Information Technology

NASA satellites’ “eyes” above Earth are providing scientists and fire managers with powerful monitoring tools. NASA is providing the “big picture” needed to understand how fires behave before, during, and after damage has been done. A suite of NASA satellites, flying in coordinated fashion, offers the unparalleled insight only possible from space.

Fire season is underway in the American West, with wildfires raging in at least 11 states, challenging fire agencies and their limite

Researchers at Purdue University are creating interactive software that artists could use to make realistic animations of cloud formations, explosions, smoke, steam, fog and other gaseous phenomena for movies and video games.

The same software might also be used by meteorologists to create accurate representations of quickly developing weather conditions. Because the software is interactive, it shows results immediately, whereas conventional programs might take hours to complete such anim

Chemistry is big business. From medicine to food, industrial processes to environmental management, it is more important than ever before to know exactly which chemicals are present in our lives. With more sophisticated chemicals comes greater responsibility. Now a EUREKA project is helping companies the world over to comply with a new set of legally binding standards.

In the near future the International Organisation of Standardisation (ISO) will require companies to state just how reliable

Lotura launches CDPrest! a software that companies can use to generate their own multimedia catalogues, up-dating and customising them for their clients. Video, 3D imaging, photos of and instructions for use of the products can be included in the catalogues.

The Gipuzkoan-based company, Lotura (www.lotura.com), has launched the CDPrest! software on to the market, an application that enables companies to create their own products catalogue in multimedia format and their subsequent transfer to

Researchers from Myongji University, Korea, have developed a way to improve liquid crystal displays (LCD), which could revolutionise display technology. Published today in the Institute of Physics journal Semiconductor Science and Technology, Professor Yong-Sang Kim and his team propose a new structure for polycrystalline silicon thin film transistors (poly-Si TFT), which makes them more reliable when used in active matrix liquid crystal displays (AMLCD), like those on lap top screens and television

In less than a month, researchers at USC’s Information Sciences Institute and collaborators nationwide have built one of the world’s best systems to translate Hindi text into English and query Hindi databases using English questions.

This effort was part of the “Surprise Language” project, a test of the computer science community’s ability to create translation tools quickly for previously unresearched languages sponsored by the Defense Advance Research Project Agency (DARPA). The ex