Lifeboat Foundation

A flexible screen inspired in part by squid can store and display encrypted images like a computer—using magnetic fields rather than electronics. The research is reported in Advanced Materials by University of Michigan engineers.

“It’s one of the first times where mechanical materials use magnetic fields for system-level encryption, information processing and computing. And unlike some earlier mechanical computers, this device can wrap around your wrist,” said Joerg Lahann, the Wolfgang Pauli Collegiate Professor of Chemical Engineering and co-corresponding author of the study.

Continue reading “Inspired by squids and octopi, a new screen stores and displays encrypted images without electronics” »

One of the most exciting features in Bluetooth 6.0 is called “Channel Sounding,” which makes it possible to locate lost devices and/or other objects with much more precision than previous versions of Bluetooth. In fact, you’ll be able to locate them down to the centimeter.

And this device detection feature isn’t just for close-range uses — it will be able to work across long distances and be just as effective. If it lives up to the hype, this improvement could significantly improve devices like Apple’s AirTag and apps like Google’s Find My Device.

Bluetooth 6.0’s Channel Sounding could even find its way into more types of devices that need protection against loss, such as remote controls (which somehow tend to disappear without a trace).

Transistors, the building blocks of integrated circuits, face growing challenges as their size decreases. Developing transistors that use novel operating principles has become crucial to enhancing circuit performance.

Hot carrier transistors, which utilize the excess kinetic energy of carriers, have the potential to improve the speed and functionality of transistors. However, their performance has been limited by how hot carriers have traditionally been generated.

A team of researchers led by Prof. Liu Chi, Prof. Sun Dongming, and Prof. CHeng Huiming from the Institute of Metal Research (IMR) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has proposed a novel hot carrier generation mechanism called stimulated emission of heated carriers (SEHC).

Microsoft and Atom Computing aim to capitalize on a qubit-virtualization system that Microsoft and Quantinuum say has broken a logical-qubit creation record.

Neuromorphic computing, also known as neuromorphic engineering, is an approach to computing that mimics the way the human brain works.

A new study led by researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities is providing new insights into how next-generation electronics, including memory components in computers, break down or degrade over time. Understanding the reasons for degradation could help improve efficiency of data storage solutions.

In the realm of lighting and temperature measurement, advancements in material science are paving the way for significant improvements in technology and safety. Traditional methods, which combine yellow phosphors with blue chips in LEDs, have limitations such as inadequate red light components that affect color rendering and potential hazards from blue light exposure.

Something to look forward to: Improved ray tracing performance is one of the key benefits of Sony’s newly unveiled PlayStation 5 Pro console. Prior to its debut, rumors had long suggested that the mid-generation refresh would incorporate ray tracing technology based on AMD’s upcoming RDNA 4 GPU architecture. Recent comments from PlayStation designer Mark Cerny have all but confirmed these theories.

In a detailed interview with CNET following the reveal of Sony’s PlayStation 5 Pro console, designer Mark Cerny confirmed rumors that the device’s ray tracing capabilities are built on an architecture not yet available in AMD’s PC graphics cards. While Cerny didn’t explicitly name RDNA 4, no other viable candidates are known.

Continue reading “Sony says the PS5 Pro uses next-gen AMD ray tracing tech — likely RDNA 4” »

Nicholas Agar has recently argued that it would be irrational for future human beings to choose to radically enhance themselves by uploading their minds onto computers. Utilizing Searle’s argument that machines cannot think, he claims that uploading might entail death. He grants that Searle’s argument is controversial, but he claims, so long as there is a non-zero probability that uploading entails death, uploading is irrational. I argue that Agar’s argument, like Pascal’s wager on which it is modelled, fails, because the principle that we (or future agents) ought to avoid actions that might entail death is not action guiding. Too many actions fall under its scope for the principle to be plausible. I also argue that the probability that uploading entails death is likely to be lower than Agar recognizes.