Tech News Digest

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12.11

12.11

Tech News Digest

Compiled By IEEE-USA Staff

The following is a roundup of technology-related news and notable developments with a focus on electrical engineering, computing and information technology and allied fields reported during November 2011. Items are excerpted from news releases generated by universities, government agencies and other research institutions. Highlighted topics include:

NIST Releases Draft Roadmap for Cloud Computing Technology
Romine To Head NIST Information Technology Laboratory
Researchers Watch Next-Gen Memory Bit Switch in Real Time
Researchers Demonstrate A Smarter Way To Make Ultraviolet Light Beams
New Material Enhances Application of Piezoelectrics to MEMS
New Magnetic-Field-Sensitive Alloy Could Find Use in Novel Micromechanical Devices
Electron Beams Can Be Used as Nanoscale “Tweezers”
Graphene Interconnects Enhanced for Nanoelectronic Applications
Swarm of Tiny, Collaborative Robots Now Available to Researchers
Software Predicts Physical Behavior of Newly Designed Robots
DARPA Announces Crowd-Sources Formal Verification Program For Software
University-Industry Research Collaboration to Focus on More Energy Efficient Data Center Operation
DOE Seeks to Reduce Non-Hardware Costs of Solar Energy Systems
National STEM Video Competition Open for Students and Educators
Research Project Seeks to Boost Computer Science Knowledge Through Gaming
New Partnership Seeks to Enhance Cyber Security Education
Improved Tool for Hardening Software Against Cyber Attack
Researchers Find Some Smartphone Models More Vulnerable to Attack
Nanowires Could Be Solution For High Performance Solar Cells
New Technology Improves Capacity and Charge Rate of Rechargeable Batteries
New Report Urges Utility Submetering to Improve Building Efficiency
DARPA Aims to Launch Small Satellites Faster, Cheaper

1. NIST Releases Draft Roadmap for Cloud Computing Technology

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released for public comment a draft "roadmap" that is designed to foster federal agencies' adoption of cloud computing, support the private sector, improve the information available to decision makers and facilitate the continued development of the cloud computing model. NIST plans to issue the final U.S. Government Cloud Computing Roadmap as a three-volume work. The first two volumes were posted for public comment on 1 Nov. 2011. The draft publication defines high-priority requirements for standards, official guidance and technology developments that need to be met in order for agencies to accelerate their migration of existing IT systems to the cloud computing model.

For more information, see: http://www.nist.gov/itl/cloud-110811.cfm

2. Romine To Head NIST Information Technology Laboratory

On 21 Nov., Charles (Chuck) H. Romine became director of the Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Romine joined NIST in 2009, and most recently served as the acting associate director for NIST laboratory programs. Before joining NIST, Romine spent five years in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy as a senior policy analyst on information technology. Romine received a Ph.D. in applied mathematics and a B.A. in mathematics, both from the University of Virginia. He began his career in the Department of Energy, spending 15 years at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, conducting research on advanced algorithms for supercomputers and four years in DOE’s Office of Science as program manager for the Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research.

For more information, see: http://www.nist.gov/itl/romine-112211.cfm

3. Researchers Watch Next-Gen Memory Bit Switch in Real Time

For the first time, engineering researchers have been able to watch in real time the nanoscale process of a ferroelectric memory bit switching between the 0 and 1 states. Ferroelectric materials have the potential to replace current memory designs, offering greater storage capacity than magnetic hard drives and faster write speed and longer lifetimes than flash memory. Replacing dynamic random access memory — the short-term memory that allows your computer to operate — with ferroelectric memory can significantly decrease energy usage in computers. Ferroelectric memory doesn't require power to retain data. According to principal investigator Xiaoqing Pan, director of the University of Michigan’s Electron Microbeam Analysis Laboratory, "by following ferroelectric switching at this scale in real time, we've been able to observe new and unexpected phenomena. This work will help us understand how these systems work so one can make better memory devices that are faster, smaller and more reliable."

For more information, see: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/uom-rwa111511.php

4. Researchers Demonstrate A Smarter Way To Make Ultraviolet Light Beams

Existing coherent ultraviolet light sources are power hungry, bulky and expensive. University of Michigan researchers have found a better way to build compact ultraviolet sources with low power consumption that could improve information storage, microscopy and chemical analysis. Led by Mona Jarrahi and Tal Carmon, assistant professors in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, the researchers optimized a type of optical resonator to take an infrared signal from relatively cheap telecommunication-compatible lasers and, using a low-power, nonlinear process, boost it to a higher-energy ultraviolet beam. Their optical resonator is a millimeter-scale disk with a precisely engineered shape and smooth surface polishing to encourage the input beam to gain power as it circulates inside the resonator. Ultraviolet light sources have applications in chemical detection, crisper medical imaging and finer lithography for more sophisticated integrated circuits and greater computer memory capacity.

For more information, see: http://www.ns.umich.edu/new/releases/20093-a-smarter-way-to-make-ultraviolet-light-beams

5. New Material Enhances Application of Piezoelectrics to MEMS

A team of university researchers, aided by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), have succeeded in integrating a new, highly efficient piezoelectric material, dubbed PMN-PT, into a silicon microelectromechanical system (MEMS), delivering two to four times more movement with stronger force — while using only 3 volts — than most rival materials studied to date. This development could lead to significant advances in sensing, imaging and energy harvesting. Although conventional piezoelectric materials work fairly well for many applications, researchers have long sought to find or invent new ones that expand more and more forcefully and produce stronger electrical signals. More reactive materials would make for better sensors and could enable new technologies such as "energy harvesting," which would transform the energy of walking and other mechanical motions into electrical power.

For more information, see: http://www.nist.gov/cnst/piezo-112211.cfm

6. New Magnetic-Field-Sensitive Alloy Could Find Use in Novel Micromechanical Devices

A multi-institution team of researchers has combined modern materials research and an age-old metallurgy technique to produce an alloy that could be the basis for a new class of sensors and micromechanical devices controlled by magnetism. The alloy, a combination of cobalt and iron, is notable, among other things, for not using rare-earth elements to achieve its properties. The alloy exhibits a phenomenon called "giant magnetostriction," an amplified change in dimensions when placed in a sufficiently strong magnetic field. The effect is analogous to the more familiar piezoelectric effect that causes certain materials, like quartz, to compress under an electric field. They can be used in a variety of ways, including as sensitive magnetic field detectors and tiny actuators for micromechanical devices. The latter is particularly interesting to engineers because, unlike piezoelectrics, magnetostrictive elements require no wires and can be controlled by an external magnetic field source.

For more information, see: http://www.nist.gov/mml/metallurgy/magnetism-112211.cfm

7. Electron Beams Can Be Used as Nanoscale “Tweezers”

A recent paper by researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Virginia (UVA) demonstrates that the beams produced by modern electron microscopes can be used not just to look at nanoscale objects, but to move them around, position them and perhaps even assemble them. Essentially, they say, the tool is an electron version of the laser “optical tweezers” that have become a standard tool in biology, physics and chemistry for manipulating tiny particles. Except that electron beams could offer a thousand-fold improvement in sensitivity and resolution. According to NIST metallurgist Vladimir Oleshko “electron probes can be very fine, three orders of magnitude smaller than photon beams — close to the size of single atoms. We could manipulate very small quantities, even single atoms, in a very precise way.”

For more information, see: http://www.nist.gov/mml/metallurgy/tweezer-110811.cfm

8. Graphene Interconnects Enhanced for Nanoelectronic Applications

A new study at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute could hasten the downfall of copper as the ubiquitous metal in smart phones, tablet computers, and nearly all electronics. This is good news for technophiles who are seeking smaller, faster devices. As new generations of computer chips continue to shrink in size, so do the copper pathways that transport electricity and information around the labyrinth of transistors and components. When these pathways — called interconnects — grow smaller, they become less efficient, consume more power, and are more prone to permanent failure. To overcome this hurdle, industry and academia are vigorously researching new candidates to succeed traditional copper as the material of choice for interconnects on computer chips. One promising candidate is graphene, an atom-thick sheet of carbon atoms arranged like a nanoscale chicken-wire fence. Led by Rensselaer Professor Saroj Nayak, a team of researchers discovered they could enhance the ability of graphene to transmit electricity by stacking several thin graphene ribbons on top of one another.

For more information, see: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/rpi-rgn110911.php

9. Swarm of Tiny, Collaborative Robots Now Available to Researchers

Computer scientists and engineers at Harvard University have developed and licensed technology that will make it easy to test collective algorithms on hundreds, or even thousands, of tiny robots. Called Kilobots, the quarter-sized bug-like devices scuttle around on three toothpick-like legs, interacting and coordinating their own behavior as a team. A June 2011 Harvard Technical Report demonstrated a collective of 25 machines implementing swarming behaviors such as foraging, formation control, and synchronization. Once up and running, the machines are fully autonomous, meaning there is no need for a human to control their actions.

For more information, see: http://www.seas.harvard.edu/news-events/press-releases/kilobots-are-leaving-the-nest

10. Software Predicts Physical Behavior of Newly Designed Robots

Researchers from three universities are collaborating to develop a new generation of design software that can accurately predict the physical behavior of robots prior to prototyping. "One of our goals is to find a way to do virtual testing so that key flaws can be found on a computer before a prototype is ever built," said Walid Taha, adjunct professor of computer science at Rice University and professor of computer science at Halmstad University in Sweden. Taha is principal investigator on a new research grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that brings together researchers from Rice, Halmstad and Texas A&M University.

For more information, see: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/ru-ari110911.php

11. DARPA Announces Crowd-Sources Formal Verification Program For Software

Formal program verification is a proven method for reducing defects in software and proving that software has specified properties, but formal verification does not currently scale to the size of software found in modern weapon systems. Moreover, formal verification is currently performed by highly specialized researchers with deep knowledge of software technology and mathematical theorem-proving techniques. Because of these constraints and the resulting high costs, formal verification is not widely practiced, an issue of particular concern for the Department of Defense.

DARPA’s Crowd Sourced Formal Verification (CSFV) program seeks to make formal verification of software more cost effective by enabling non-specialists to participate productively in the formal verification process. CSFV’s approach is to transform formal verification into a game that is intuitively understandable and fun to play. The envisioned CSFV system would create a specific game instance based on the particular software implementation and software property to be verified. Playing, and completing, the CSFV game enables formal verification tools to complete a corresponding formal software verification proof.

For more information, see: http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2011/11/22.aspx

12. University-Industry Research Collaboration to Focus on More Energy Efficient Data Center Operation

Three of the nation's leading universities have joined with 15 US companies to launch a first-of-its-kind collaborative research center whose holistic approach to energy efficiency development could mean savings of millions of dollars and a much 'greener' electronics industry. Headed up by researchers at Binghamton University and its partners, Villanova University and the University of Texas at Arlington, the newly designated National Science Foundation (NSF) Industry/University Cooperative Research Center in Energy-Efficient Electronic Systems (I/UCRC E3S) will link the fields of information technology, telecommunications, electronic systems and cooling equipment to solve issues of energy-efficiency in data center operation.

For more information, see: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/bu-uit110811.php

13. DOE Seeks to Reduce Non-Hardware Costs of Solar Energy Systems

As part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced on 15 Nov. up to $7 million in DoE funding to reduce the non-hardware costs of residential and commercial solar energy installations. Made available through the SunShot Incubator Program, this funding will support the development of tools and approaches that reduce non-hardware, or “soft” costs, such as installation, permitting, interconnection, and inspection. These expenses can amount to up to half of the cost of residential systems. The Incubator will make the process of buying, installing, and maintaining solar energy systems faster, easier, and less expensive.

For more information, see: http://energy.gov/articles/energy-department-announces-7-million-reduce-non-hardware-costs-solar-energy-systems

14. National STEM Video Competition Open for Students and Educators

In mid-November,the 2012 National STEM Video Game Challenge was officially launched, aiming to motivate interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) learning by tapping into students’ natural passion for playing and making video games. This competition is the culmination and continuation of a two-year effort among the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the White House, the Department of Education’s Digital Promise Initiative and other public/private partners and co-sponsors. The annual competition is accepting submissions of original video game concepts and designs in four different categories: the Middle School Category, High School Category, Collegiate Category, and Educator Category. This year, there are also new sub-categories available to entering designers: the PBS KIDS stream and the Sesame Street stream.

For more information, see: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/11/23/national-stem-video-game-challenge-open-students-and-educators or http://www.stemchallenge.org/

15. Research Project Seeks to Boost Computer Science Knowledge Through Gaming

North Carolina State University researchers are launching a project to develop a video game that will help improve computer science knowledge in middle school students and contribute to a better educated workforce in the future. The game, which is being developed under a one million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation, could be used nationally if it proves successful.

For more information, see: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/ru-ari110911.php

16. New Partnership Seeks to Enhance Cyber Security Education

On 8 Nov., the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Department of Education and a new organization, and the National Cybersecurity Education Council (NCEC), announced a strategic public-private partnership to promote formal cybersecurity education.

The plan, outlined in a recent Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), is designed to help the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) meet one of its top priorities, to “broaden the pool of skilled workers capable of supporting a cyber-secure nation.”

For more information, see: http://www.nist.gov/itl/cyberschool-110811.cfm

17. Improved Tool for Hardening Software Against Cyber Attack

Computer scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have dramatically enlarged a database designed to improve applications that help programmers find weaknesses in software. This database, the SAMATE Reference Dataset (SRD), version 4.0, is a freely available online tool aimed at helping programmers fortify their creations against hackers.

For more information, see: http://www.nist.gov/itl/ssd/20111122_samate.cfm

18. Researchers Find Some Smartphone Models More Vulnerable to Attack

New research from North Carolina State University shows that some smartphones specifically designed to support the Android mobile platform have incorporated additional features that can be used by hackers to bypass Android’s security features, making them more vulnerable to attack. Android has the largest share of the smartphone market in the United States.

“Some of these pre-loaded applications, or features, are designed to make the smartphones more user-friendly, such as features that notify you of missed calls or text messages,” says Dr. Xuxian Jiang, an assistant professor of computer science at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the research. “The problem is that these pre-loaded apps are built on top of the existing Android architecture in such a way as to create potential ‘backdoors’ that can be used to give third-parties direct access to personal information or other phone features.”

For more information, see: http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/wmsjiangandroidphones/

19. Nanowires Could Be Solution For High Performance Solar Cells

Tiny wires could help engineers realize high-performance solar cells and other electronics, according to University of Illinois researchers. The researchers have developed a technique to integrate compound semiconductor nanowires on silicon wafers, overcoming the challenge of lattice mismatch and reducing defects in devices.

For more information, see: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/uoia-ncb110811.php

20. New Technology Improves Capacity and Charge Rate of Rechargeable Batteries

Northwestern University engineers have created an electrode for lithium-ion batteries that allows the rechargeable batteries to hold a charge up to 10 times greater than current technology. The batteries also can charge 10 times faster than current batteries. The researchers combined two chemical engineering approaches to address two major battery limitations — energy capacity and charge rate — in one fell swoop. The technology could pave the way for better batteries for cellphones, iPods and electric cars.

For more information, see: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/nu-bb111411.php

21. New Report Urges Utility Submetering to Improve Building Efficiency

A new interagency report recommends systematic consideration of new metering technologies, called submetering, that can yield up-to-date, finely grained snapshots of energy and water usage in commercial and residential buildings to guide efficiency improvements and capture the advantages of a modernized electric power grid. Commercial and residential buildings consume vast amounts of energy, water, and material resources. In fact, U.S. buildings account for more than 40 percent of total U.S. energy consumption, including 72 percent of electricity use. If current trends continue, buildings worldwide will be the largest consumer of global energy by 2025. By 2050, buildings are likely to use as much energy as the transportation and industrial sectors combined.

For more information, see: http://www.nist.gov/el/submeter-110811.cfm and http://www.nist.gov/el/submetering.cfm

22. DARPA Aims to Launch Small Satellites Faster, Cheaper

On 11 Nov., DARPA announced its new Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (ALASA) program, which seeks to reduce cost, time and weather constraints for launching small satellites from an aircraft. The programs goal is to put 100-pound satellites into orbit for one-third the current cost.

For more information, see: http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2011/11/10.aspx