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As you can guess, hardwired computer systems are much faster than general-purpose ones because they are designed to do a single task. But when they fail, they need to be totally reconfigured. This can be just a costly problem in a lab on Earth, but it can be vital in space. This is why a University of Arizona (UA) team is working with NASA to design self-healing computer systems for spacecraft. The UA engineers are working on hybrid hardware/software systems using Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) to develop these reconfigurable processing systems. As said the lead researcher, 'Our objective is to go beyond predicting a fault to using a self-healing system to fix the predicted fault before it occurs.' But read more... This research work has been led by Ali Akoglu, an assistant professor in UA's Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, and his students in the Reconfigurable Computing Laboratory (RCL). You can see above three of these students, Kevin Carr, Adarsha … [Read more...] about Self-healing computers for NASA spacecraft

A team of Chinese and U.S. researchers has successfully applied for a patent for a virtual telemicroscope. It is the only one of its kind capable of emailing electronic slides. It has been specifically designed to allow 'off-site pathologists to diagnose cancer or other diseases in patients living in remote locations around the world,' like China, where many hospitals don't have on-site pathologists. Real systems based on this patent have already been deployed. And the results of the first clinical trials are pretty encouraging. Telepathologists reached the same level of diagnostic accuracy as pathologists using standard light microscopy. Using this software, telepathologists were able to remotely deliver their diagnosis in about 15 minutes. But read more... You can see above a diagram of the functional structure of the virtual telemicroscope system patented by the researchers. (Credit: Virginia Anderson and Jiang Gu). This system was developed by Virginia Anderson, associate … [Read more...] about A microscope that emails medical images

Researchers at the University of Central Florida (UCF) have developed zoom lenses which closely replicate the working of the human eye. These adaptive lenses should be manufactured at a dramatically smaller size than conventional zoom lenses without compromising clarity. After being granted no less than 5 U.S. patents, the UCF team has licensed the technologies to a manufacturing company. So we might soon get better zoom lenses in our cell phones and digital cameras. The photo above shows such a tunable focus liquid lens in action. "The lens, developed by Shin-Tson Wu, provost-distinguished professor of optics, and his research team at UCF's College of Optics & Photonics, replicates the function of the human eye. The lens pictured was built for demonstration purposes, so the aperture was expanded to 15 millimeters, or roughly the diameter of a penny. The lenses that are made for miniaturized applications, such as for cell phones, are one to two millimeters in diameter (Credit: … [Read more...] about Zoom liquid lenses for digital cameras

Researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have built a new optical surveillance based on lasers. Their Laser-Based Item Monitoring System (LBIMS) is designed to protect high-value items in high security environments. It's also supposed to respect your privacy and be the equivalent of cameras with a 10,000-megapixel resolution. The LBIMS can be used in situations where conventional surveillance systems cannot be employed, such as areas where video surveillance has been specifically prohibited and areas where a RFID system could trigger an explosion. It should become commercially available this year. The U.S. National Laboratories routinely publish news releases, but very often don't provide public images about their achievements. So I had to read a whole patent to provide you with some illustrations for this post (details below). You can see above "the diffuse reflected cone of light returning to the photonic receiver portion of a laser scanning transceiver system in … [Read more...] about Lasers for video surveillance

In "Self-powered displays keep gadgets alive," New Scientist describes two new patents granted to Nokia and Motorola which plan to improve the batteries of our favorite handhelds (see below for tips on how to find a full version of a patent). While Nokia wants to develop self-powered billboards, Motorola is building a liquid crystal display (LCD) that incorporates a solar panel behind the screen of a phone. Other companies have tried to put solar cells behind phones' screens without success. Motorola says its approach is different because this new LCD will act both as a display and a light collecting device for the solar cell. No date is given about the availability of such a solar-powered phone. New Scientist was kind enough to give us the U.S. patent number (7206044), so here is a description of the figure on the left extracted from this patent. "Many solar cells are provided in an integrated package that does not offer a uniformly colored active surface area. Instead, [in the figure … [Read more...] about Solar-powered cellphones