Florida Tech professor quadruples amount of information carried on single cable
Dr. Syed Murshid’s eyes light up as he flips the switches, one, two, three, and four. As the Florida Tech associate professor of electrical engineering uses his optics projector, pulses of red light project onto a wall. With each click, a new concentric circle appears. The circles represent a sea change in information technology. When he’s finished, a red glowing bull’s eye shines brightly,
Penn State engineers have developed innovative design methods for a new class of antennas composed of an array of fractal-shaped tiles that offer anywhere from a 4:1 to 8:1 improvement in bandwidth compared to their conventional counterparts.
Many natural objects, such as tree branches and their root systems, peaks and valleys in a landscape and rivers and their tributaries are versions of mathematical fractals which appear pleasingly irregular to the eye but are actually made of self-simila
The increasing use of mobile phones has resulted in increased human exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields: already more than 80% of the Finnish population have a mobile phone. Although the electromagnetic fields from mobile phones are weak, the high number of exposed persons, together with some provocative but inconclusive scientific results, has raised concerns about possible health hazards. Finnish universities and research institutes have investigated possible health effects of mobile
UK broadcasters are often accused of promoting obscenity through the increased use of bad language on TV. However, new research from the University of Warwick reveals that the language of public name-calling, or ’street theatre’, in early modern England was full of foul sexual insults that are far more lewd than today’s broadcast media – and women were the main offenders.
Professor Bernard Capp’s book ’When Gossips Meet’, tracks the history of poor and ’mi
The Owasys company in Zamudio has chosen Babel technology, world leader and pioneer in speech technologies, for its new Owasys22C mobile telephone. This mobile phone has been designed and developed by Owasys specifically for those persons who are blind or visually impaired. Initially the Owasys22C will have the Spanish and English version of Babel so that other languages can be added afterwards.
The launching of the Owasys22C on to the market will enable the visually impaired and the blind t
Scientists explore how we could interact with computers
Imagine ordering your meal in a restaurant by a simple tap on the table, transmitting your choice direct to the kitchens. Or placing an order for goods by making your selection on the surface of the shop window.
It may sound like science fiction, but this could be the way we interact with computers in the future, thanks to a pan-European research project, led by experts at Cardiff University, Wales, UK.
“The v
Researchers have successfully tested a system that can replace a cellular tower’s room full of communications hardware with a single desk-top style computer, making the technology affordable for small, rural communities.
The software is also capable of running emergency communications-such as police, fire and ambulance channels-on the same device as the civilian system, eliminating the need for a separate network of emergency communications towers.
“Rural customers are the firs
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., has opened the door to using reliable digital video as evidence in court by developing a system that identifies an attempt to alter digital video evidence.
“It’s not too hard to make changes to digital video,” says Tom Duerr, APL’s project manager. “But our system quickly and conclusively detects any alterations made to the original tape.” For the past two years Duerr has led development of the project for th
Scientists at the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR) at the University of Southampton are nearing the end of the first phase of a study to assess whether the use of mobile phones has any adverse effect on the hearing of healthy young adults.
The study into Potential Adverse Effects of GSM Cellular Phones on Hearing (known by the acronym GUARD) is part of a joint European project funded by the European Commission being carried out simultaneously in several countries across Europ
Using phone numbers, remote controls and computer keyboards will likely seem quaint within a decade as new capability to turn human speech into accurate, efficient computer code radically changes the ways we live and work.
That’s the outlook of Lawrence R. Rabiner, associate director of the Center for Advanced Information Processing (CAIP) at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, in an overview of speech processing, “The Power of Speech,” in the journal Science, available Friday
Seeing really is believing
“Virtual product demonstrations that allow individuals to interact with merchandise create more vivid mental images of the consumer using the products, thereby increasing the likelihood they’ll purchase the item,” said Ann Schlosser, UW Business School assistant professor of marketing.
“We’ve found that the more easily individuals can envision themselves using a product, the more likely they are to buy it.”
Schlosser studied how consumer
Innovative students and professors at the University of Rochester have created a navigational assistant that can help inform a visually impaired person of his whereabouts, or even bring new dimensions to museum navigation or campus tours for sighted individuals. The system, nicknamed “NAVI” for Navigational Assistance for the Visually Impaired, uses radio signals to gauge when someone is near passive transponders that can be as small as a grain of rice and located on the outside of a building, on a s
In a recent study that examined perceptions of gays and lesbians by others, Kansas State University psychology professor Richard Harris asked one group of people to think of a positive gay or lesbian character from a television show or movie and asked another group to think of a negative gay or lesbian character from media. A third group, the control group, was asked to think about an unmarried media character, but sexual orientation was not mentioned. All three groups were then asked to complete a p
Contrary to popular belief, using the Internet may not improve a person’s chances of finding a job.
That surprising finding will be presented Tuesday (Aug. 18) during a session on economic sociology at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in Atlanta by Christine Fountain, a University of Washington doctoral student.
“The punch line is everyone thinks the Internet is a great new way to help people find a job. But it really is not,” said Fountain,
It will never be the same old song again–this was the concept for MS3, a Hungarian musician when he created a software solution he calls „digital improvisation” or DI. The „di” music file format he developed enables the users to listen to one song in endless number of versions. „Imagine Madonna’s new releases were recorded in di format. Whenever you hit the ’’Play’’ button, a different remix of the same song is played back. You never get bored of your cd then” said Mester, now hea
Web Services is currently one of the hottest issues in the software industry. There are good reasons for predicting a success of Web Services. However, there are still a number of open issues. Is Web Services just another technology hype or the beginning of a new era in the evolution of information and communication technology? What will be the role for telcos in the emerging Web Service scenarios?
The new issue of ‘Eurescom mess@ge’, the quarterly magazine for R&D in telecoms, presents answ
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