A study and research work made at Arizona State University directed the thoughts of scientists to develop a new memory technology which could replace the flash memory which is being used in the world nowadays. This memory is having 1000 times more storage capacity than the flash. This new technology is introduced in the market by the name of PMC - programmable metallization cell. This memory device could be used in digital cameras, MP3 player, and laptops and it would be possible to increase their memories to a much greater extent.

This advanced technique has been introduced in college Center of Applied Nanoionics (CANi). They considered it a challenge to the physical limits of storage capacity. When we see to its structure and functionalities we can say it the advancement of the previous flash drive; the existing materials are used but different principles are applied in it.

This new technology works entirely differently to the currently used technology of flash drive. In flash drive, the electrodes move between the ions, whereas in this discovery ions are subjected to move. By this method, resistance of electrodes is much reduced and doesn’t remain as high as in flash drive.

This technology is expected to be used in commercial products in the next 18 months. Many big companies showed their interest to use it in their products like Micron Technology, Samsung, Sony and IBM.

Good news for the eye-patients who have gone blind due to retina damage or disease. German scientists have successfully created wireless bionic eyeball recently, which will restore vision of that kind of eye-patients.

It took 12 years of deep research work by the scientists to create this new prosthetic device for the eye-patients. This is named as “bionic eyeball” and it would be fully implanted in the body.

This will bypass the damaged retina; this statement was given by the German scientists from Franuhofer Institute for Microelectronic Circuits and Systems in Duisburg, Germany.

This new system is consisted of implant and external transmitter; both are integrated on the eyeglass-frame.

This integrated implant system plays a key role in this eyeglass-frame and works amazingly. A telemetric link is used to transfer data and energy to this implant system. This received data or image patterns are converted into stimulation signals by this system. These signals are interpretable. The nerve cells of the eye start simulating according to these capture images.

The intact cells are stimulated by 3-D electrodes. This innervating system is present against the retina.

The whole arrangement works perfectly like healthy eyes as long as the optic nerve remains safe without any damage. The vision signals received by the implant system are sent to the brain in a perfect manner like a natural eye system.

Hoc Khiem Trieu, who is working in the Franuhofer Institute, said,

“For normally sighted people that may not seem much, but for the blind, it is a major step”

By the invention of this system the blind people will be able to see like normal sighted people. It would be miracle in medical history. The whole system depends on how the nerve cells are simulated.

Trieu remained involved from the beginning of this project and is one of the major scientists of this discovery. This project was fully financed and supported by the education and research ministry of Germany.

Hoc Khiem Trieu translated the information into an implant and chip design, which was given by the medical experts and material scientists working with him in this project. The whole process was carried out by Hoc Khiem Trieu, who was accompanying with two other scientists, Ingo Krisch and DMichael Goertz.

Dr Krisch talked about this experiment in his statement in the following words,

“A milestone was reached when the prosthetic system finally operated wirelessly and remotely controlled”

As this system was desired to be created any external link; therefore it strongly demanded a thorough research work by these scientists.

This system had to be fitted in the eye; therefore the scientists made the design smaller and used more flexible materials having high performance. This last and final creation was more comfortable to fit in the body.

Goertz describes it as;

“The designs became smaller and smaller, the materials more flexible, more robust and higher in performance, so that the implant now fits comfortably in the eye”

For this great milestone discovery, these scientists are nominated for Joseph von Fraunhofer Prize for 2008 and will be given soon.

This was the result of the continuous research work of IBM and Los Alamos engineers on the computer technology.

Turek described their research work in these words;

“We took the basic chip design (of a PlayStation) and advanced its capability”

The whole arrangement of this computing machine occupies 6,000 square feet space; 57 miles of fiber optics which is weighing to 500,000 pounds. Average quality materials and parts are used in this system. The machine is having 6,948 dual-core computer chips and 12,960 cell engines with 80 terabytes of memory. The machine cost is $100

The computer was tested for two-hour on May 25. In this test it achieved speed of “petaflop”. This was a sustained performance, which no other computer had ever achieved. It performed so in different real applications, which also include nuclear weapons applications.

A “flop” is the abbreviation word for floating-point-operations per second. When we say one petaflop; it means 1,000 trillion operations per second.

Turek said just two years ago no device was invented to work with the speed of even 100 teraflops; which is 1/10th of the roadrunner speed. This new advancement is discovered in a very short time. It is a big jump in technology.

This new discovery – Roadrunner computer – is currently working at the IBM research laboratory in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. This computer will be shifted over to Los Alamos in New Mexico in the coming next month.

D’Agostino stated that this new discovery would play a key role along with other supercomputers in our weapon stockpile security and safety arrangement. Its high speed will also enhance the performances of a warhead and would be helpful to scientists in tracking the aging of warhead.

DARPA is going to sign a contract to engineer an unmanned aircraft that would be able to remain in the air for continuous five years; that was a statement given by the officials of Flight Global. The representatives from DARPA gave it the name of “Vulture”. They characterized their creation by saying that it would be having pseudo-satellite features. The aircraft would be able fly over a specific area with full capabilities of communicating and performing analysis for continuous five years in a single flight.

There would be some barriers in the way of achieving this goal. One of them is to design the mechanism of supplying power to this aircraft during its continuous flight mission. One important thing to mention here is that this aircraft will carry a 1000 pound (450 kg) payload in fierce winds at the height of 60,000 to 90,000 feet.

The design of the aircraft would probably be as it shown in the picture; this design is developed by NASA. The work on project began but no specific time period is given by the authorities for the completion of the project.

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency hopes to totally change the concept of unmanned aviation and bring this aviation technology up to new levels. This new project of UAV -Unmanned Aircraft Vulture - is the part of their efforts in this regard.

“We want to completely change the paradigm of how we think of aircraft”.

This was said by Daniel Newman, who is designated as the project manager of this new Vulture project.

He also said,

“Aviation has a perfect record; we have never left one up there. We will attempt to break that record”.

This new creation would change the whole systematic arrangement of aircraft with its characteristics. Daniel Newman describes this thing in these words.

“The ability to “close the business case” on an aircraft that could be launched and then not maintained or brought home for five years would be a paradigm shift. We would no longer define an aircraft by the launch - recover - maintain - launch cycle,”

Besides the power supply problem scientists are also facing two more major problems in this project. One is aero-structural efficiency which should be maximized. Secondly since the aircraft would stay in air for a long time; it would definitely face the material deterioration problem during its long-period stratospheric flight. Engineers are working to solve both of these problems and doing continuous research work.

The aircraft works much like a satellite and not having orbital mechanics to operate it.

DARPA’s Wade Pulliam said,

“It could be positioned over the battle, at 65,000ft versus 260 miles”

He said that as the aircraft would have a look of satellite and would have stratospheric flight; this would upgrade communication capability with 65dB and also increase onboard sensor resolution to good enough extent.

In the past two to three decades technology has advanced and continues to advance in a rapid way; this momentum doesn’t seem to slow down and continuously speeding up. We are now entering into the world of possibilities from the world of imagination.

World’s fastest supercomputer has been produced. This $100 million machine practically performed 1,000 trillion calculations in one second in repeated and sustained tests for different applications. This big technological discovery has been made by the joint scientific research work of Los Alamos National Laboratory and IBM Corp.

This high-speed computer will be primarily used for nuclear weapons work like simulating nuclear explosions. A part of the software is said to be developed in Austin.

This supercomputer is given a name of Roadrunner. This machine can work twice speedily to the IBM’s earlier release of Blue Gene System, which is working at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. This Blue Gene System is also tested as three times faster than any other supercomputer of the world. From here you can estimate how speedy is this machine?

Thomas D’Agostino, who is the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said that this system is extremely speedy. We would be able to solve big problems by that system. Thomas D’Agostino is currently supervising the nuclear weapons research and maintaining the warhead stockpile.

It is also said that this system could be used in the fields of civil engineering, medicine and science also. This can perform the tasks of making biofuels and engineering and designing of more fuel-efficient cars. This could also be used in the financial industry.

The speed of computer can be illustrated with an example. It is estimated that the amount of work completed by the 6 billion population of the world after 46 years by working 24 hours a day by using a hand-held-computer is equal to the work completed by that computer in one single day. This is extremely high speed.

To practically see the feasibility of this idea, the researchers put the test satellite in a vacuum chamber at SUNY Binghamton; then they shot the charge ions on this satellite in the same way as it happen in the outer space.

No chemical propellant are used in this system, however it doesn’t mean that this is a fuel-less device. It has radioactive material – Americium 241 – which emits charged particles; it is also having electric device with solar cells or battery; which are required essentially to maintain the satellite’s charge.

As the charged ions flowed around the test satellite, its charged particles were whipped off “like wet paint off an aircraft,” said Peck.

The electrical arc produced by the electrical charge – which is created on the two metals used in the satellite – blow off the solder.
Peck said that recently performed tests of solder-less satellites at University of Michigan are found to be successful in results.

Manuel Martinez Sanchez, who is the Director of the Space Propulsion Laboratory of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said; “I don’t think this is going to make satellite designers very excited,”
He further said that this technology would not be successful for propelling a satellite.

It could only be used for changing the satellite orbit; which doesn’t need energy for its movement. The magnetic propulsion system will be tested only when it will be sent to outer space. Peck and his fellow scientists determined to perform the Sputnik-style test in the near future; in which a little beep sound confirms the success of the mission.

The news comes of wind-tunnel test. This test was made on experimental satellite propulsion system; in which satellite uses the earth’s magnetic force to move around the earth instead of chemical propellants. In the experiment the experimental satellite exploded with the flying hot metal pieces.

Despite of this failure of experiment, NASA-funded machine was improved to much better form; representing the new satellite discovery influencing physics and economics of satellite.The plan is to create millions of tiny satellites (equal to corn kernel size or even much smaller in size)

Mason Peck – scientist of Cornell University and co-author of the research work published on arXiv.org – said this explosion doesn’t cast any big physical or financial damage or loss.
After this trial, Peck and his fellow scientists - who are working in University of Michigan and State University of New York, Binghamton – have successfully tested another propulsion system.

This experiment and its results have not been announced yet. It is said that this new system could increase the speed of satellite to four and a half miles per second. Peck and his fellow scientist also said that this newly invented machine will make the satellite mission more affordable and feasible in future. Peck also said that in this way millions of things could be launched in space; if one of them reached the real destination it would be a success of mission.

Propellant-less satellite works on the much like Tele Vision. In the same way as the gun at TV back shoots negatively charged electron and as these electrons move towards the viewer; magnet changes its direction. In this case, a satellite works as electron; it moves around the magnetic field which is earth. As the satellites started circling around the earth it also started taking the influence of a new force, which is Lorentz force.

This force pushes it to the angle perpendicular to its movement direction. In this movement, the satellite would take a little from earth’s energy for its movement.

“The Earth would essentially push the satellite along,” said Peck.

The difference between this newly introduced system and EDT – Electro Dynamic Tether - is that tether has to be aligned and focused in a specific direction; whereas in this new system it would not be necessary.

Geoffrey Coates of Cornell University in Ithaca, NY suggested and emphasized to polymerize CO2 directly. The chemicals substances used in the CO2-based processes are obtained from fossil fuel origins. So it lessens the amount of petroleum used in these processes.

To fully eliminate the need of petroleum origin substances, he used epoxide. This substance was obtained from the oil present in orange peels and was used in the plastic manufacturing process by reacting with the CO2. Coates is actively engaged to commercialize CO2-based plastic materials and other environmentally friendly synthetic compounds. These materials are having good number of properties. The campaign is being run through a company called Novamer.

The amount of CO2 produced in the industries and plants is much higher than the demand and production of the polymers in the whole world. Only one solution to this problem could not be sufficient one. Coates said that the amount of carbon dioxide produced by combustion of fossil fuel could not be negated by a single process. Muller affirmed it with the statistics and said that in 2005, 260 millions of polymers were produced; on the other hand CO2 emissions were reported to be gone up to hundred times more than that.

Christopher Rayner who belongs to the University of Leeds (UK) pointed out the fact that the use of CO2 instead of petrochemical origin substances has another advantaging factor of increasing the lifetime of available petrochemical resources. He is also doing experiments and research to make formic acid from carbon dioxide and hydrogen. He is trying to produce the formic acid which could be used in fuel cells.

The carbon in CO2 is low in energy as we described earlier. Another technique is being adopted to provide the energy to carbon molecule present in CO2. This is performed by electrochemical cells. Electricity and catalyst are used to turn its chemical structure. CO2 is first converted into carbon monoxide and in the next step to a fuel such as methanol. Daniel Dubois is doing a research work on that process. He was also present in the meeting and representing Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Rayner said that electricity supply itself produces CO2 gas; which levels the results gained in the electrochemical process. He put the question to other scientists to provide a solution to that problem.

All we discussed above was the human being’s effort to remove CO2 from the air. But there is a common procedure which is always going on to strip CO2 out of the atmosphere. This process of converting CO2 gas into oxygen is happening on a large scale all over the globe. I am talking about plants; which do all that. They take the CO2 gas in their bodies all the day under the sunlight performing the photosynthesis process and build their cells and tissues by taking energy from the CO2 and sunlight.

Scientists are doing research work on transforming CO2 gas back to fuels. They are doing work on the concept of plant’s photosynthesis process. The low energy level of CO2 is raised through the energy in sunlight thus converting CO2 gas into higher-energy smaller molecules.

Some researches are trying to take advantage directly from plants. The plants are able to transform CO2 into useful molecules. It would be a challenging task to produce compounds which are economical as well. Muller told the amazing fact that no more than one percent of the sun’s energy is used by plants in their photosynthesis process. He also emphasized at the end that we should copy and learn from nature.

Carbon is a very productive thing and found in abundance in oil and coal. These energy source materials are used to produce many useful things like fuel, plastics, paints, detergents, pharmaceuticals and many others; this is long list. But unfortunately, the big percentage of this carbon dioxide could not be used for productive results and ends up going into air out of chimneys and is totally useless. This amount of carbon changes the climate and affects it badly.

Is this gas totally useless? This is a question. Scientists are researching and trying to develop technologies and processes to make maximum use of it especially in the production of items derived from oil.

CO2 is a good replacement of poisonous gas phosgene; which is used in the manufacturing of certain plastics. If this is practically adopted it would be great. This was said in the report released by Toshiyasu Sakakura of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (Tsukuba, Japan) at a meeting of the American Chemical Society.

Sakakura and his fellow scientists succeeded in developing a new catalyst; which could replace phosgene used in producing plastic precursor. This new substance can perform same as phosgene do and converts CO2 and methanol into plastic product. Phosgene is a colorless poisonous gas and is gained from Petroleum. It is a nasty compound and was broadly used in World War I as a chemical warfare agent.

Sakakura said that in the experiments this gas did not produce much waste. He further said that the waste was just water therefore it will not pollute the environment very much.

Sakakura and his research team also did their research work on making other types of plastics. They found that the CO2 is having the capacity to chemically react with epoxide (a class of chemicals); and makes new compounds. Their reaction makes a substance called polycarbonate; which is a tough and clear plastic material. Polycarbonate is highly used in the manufacturing process of compact discs, eyeglass lenses, bulletproof windows and other durable and sensitive plastic products.

Thomas Muller of the CAT (Catalytic Center in Aachen, Germany) pointed out the fact that it would be really difficult to put CO2 to production again because discharged gas is low in energy and is difficult to handle also. As it is the fact, that this is a gas emptied from energy after passing through the combustion process. This low energy molecule needs other substances to act as a source of energy for it. This could be methane or epoxide. This will produce durable and higher-energy plastic materials like Polycarbonate.

Stop using Firefox Old versions. Get new Firefox 3 with extra features. You must be aware of this; new version of Mozilla Firefox has already been released on previous Wednesday.

• It works on most of the operating systems like Windows, Mac OS, Linux
• Very stable on each Operating System

Mozilla Firefox has the following other editions available:

• Mozilla Firefox for Linux
• Mozilla Firefox for Mac OS X
• Mozilla Firefox for Windows (Gran Paradiso)
• Mozilla Firefox for Mac OS X (Gran Paradiso)
• Mozilla Firefox for Linux (Gran Paradiso).

A new Window Mobile Trojan has been discovered by F-Secure Security Laboratory. This has been given a name of “Infojack” and is also known as Trojan WinCE/InfoJack. This is a new and first discovery for mobile devices. Earlier, a number of donwloaders for PCs has been released, but for mobile devices it is the first discovery. InfoJack is a strong Trojan and can seriously affect windows mobile devices. This worm leaks information from mobile to a home server when the user connects it to the internet. This worm can affect the security of the device by changing its settings also. It affects the installation procedure and causes all software installations to complete without asking to apply the safety precautions.

Trojan: Wince/InfoJack is malicious software having multiple parts. Its first part attaches and affects .cab installation files. These files are having the software like games, mapping software and others like that. InfoJack affects the device quietly and waits till it is connected to internet. When the mobile device is connected to internet; it starts functioning and connects to the home server. InfoJack finds its additional parts and download them for its greater functionality. Beside this, it also leaks information and transfers it from mobile device to the server. It is having the functionality of changing the security settings of the device. The new installations do not ask for safety precautions and complete the process without it; which could be dangerous.

BIOS stands for Basic Input Output System. Memory (RAM) commonly uses this system. BIOS is pronounced as BYE-OSE. BIOS is present in every computer system. It is responsible for having all information of the system (hardware).

In fact BIOS is a chip consisting of electronic circuit. This circuit encapsulates the set of instructions. These BIOS instructions are utilized when operating system start operating. BIOS is located on the motherboard. The basic and important function of the BIOS is to provide instructions and lines to POST. POST stands for power on self test. This test is responsible for providing the information to operating system that necessary devices are attached or not.

BIOS also provides the information to Operating System that how to tackle or interact Memory and Hard Drives. BIOS configurations can be set by going to bios set up. Each system can have different BIOS setup features. BIOS can be reinstalled.