"NANOTECH: "Two-armed nanorobot to facilitate computer assembly"

A two-armed robot built from DNA molecules has demonstrated 100 percent success as grasping target molecules that could someday be used to assembly nanoscale computers, optical fibers, or mechanically encrypt information.

BOTTOM LINE: Nanorobots were predicted by their seminal inventor, Richard Smalley, to herald a new age of self-fabricating materials that configure themselves. However the goal has been illusive. This two-armed nanorobot may be a stepping stone along the way to self-assembling nanofabrication techniques, but we are still decades away from Smalley's dream.

"MEMS: Piezoelectric MEMS said to lower power consumption"

MEMS oscillators harness electrostatic forces rather than relying on the piezoelectric effect used in traditional quartz crystals. But silicon resonators are less stable than quartz, forcing MEMS makers to include temperature compensation using a power-hungry phase-locked loop (PLL). By adding a piezoelectric thin-film atop its silicon resonator, and using a switched capacitor method for performing temperature compensation (instead of a PLL), the Swiss Center for Electronics (CSEM) is claiming a 1,000-fold decrease in power consumption in a paper presented this week during the International Solid-State Circuits Conference. CSEM's piezoelectric silicon resonator consumes 3 microamps while achieving a native accuracy for its real-time clock of 5 parts per million/degree Celsius compared to 15 to 30 PPM/degreeC for typical MEMS resonators that consumes 3 or more milliamps.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=213900931
Audio: http://homepage.mac.com/guitarmedia/interviews/rcjCSEM-09-02-12.mp3

"ENERGY: Shock absorber harvests energy, boosts gas mileage"

By harvesting the energy wasted by ordinary shock absorbers, a prototype device aims to take over much of the work now performed by alternators. In hybrid vehicles, the GenShock also could boost mileage by 10 percent. The GenShock design has been patented by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) students who formed a startup, Levant Power Corp., that is targeting heavy vehicles like Humvees and AM General's proposed Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. In a marriage of electrical and mechanical engineering, GenShock absorbers compress hydraulic fluid as they damp the vertical motion of the shock, generating up to 1 kilowatt per shock. An active suspension system then converts into electricity the combined hydraulic pressure from all the shocks using a centralized generator.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=213402656
Audio: http://homepage.mac.com/guitarmedia/interviews/rcjGenShock-09-02-10.mp3

"ALGORITHMS: MIT's guitar combines DSP with interchangeable sound"

Guitarists revel in the diverse acoustic resonances emanating from instruments made from different types of wood. As a result, most guitarists own a variety of guitars. Now, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have combined digital signal processing with a removable sound board, enabling the Chameleon guitar to change its sonic characteristics by changing the type of wood used for the sound board. The design also retains the same guitar body, neck and frets.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=213402573
Video: http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid10372689001/bctid10503036001

"CHIPS: Smart sensor targets advanced machine vision"

A smart sensor that aims to lower the cost of automotive, industrial and consumer electronics machine vision systems integrates a DSP chip with a CMOS imager, according to the Swiss Center for Electronics (CSEM), which will unveil its system-on-chip during the International Solid-State Circuits Conference. The Icycam sensor, the result of nearly a decade of research at CSEM (Neuchatel, Switzerland), is said to build intelligence into firmware, enabling low-cost automotive vision and smart security systems, as well as for optical character recognition.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=213300424
Video: http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid10172840001/bctid10219777001

"ALGORITHMS: Gesture control enabled by 3-D sensor"

Emerging consumer electronics applications have prompted smart 3-D sensor chip maker Canesta Inc. to adapt its 3-D CMOS image technology from automotive applications to a new consumer version of its 3-D image processing chip. The new chip is designed to inject new features into consumer products, ranging from gesture control for TVs to chroma-key image mixing that eliminates the need for a green background screen.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=213001764
Video: http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid10043451001/bctid10045889001

"ENERGY: Thin-film solar said to outperform crystalline"

Thin-film solar cells can use inexpensive, low-temperature processing to stack amorphous silicon and germanium photovoltaic layers atop a reflective foil backing. By using multiple layers with semiconductor junctions tuned to different wavelengths of light, thin-film module makers claim that their solar cells are not only cheaper, but could outperform expensive crystalline solar cells in many climates. Advanced Green Technologies (AGT, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.) claims its thin-film solar cell modules trade higher output on sunny days for better performance on cloudy days. AGT said its thin-film cells outperform glass encapsulated monocrystalline solar cells where sunny days are the exception. The reason, the company said, is that they continue to produce electricity when its cloudy.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=213000692

"ALGORITHMS: Intel's 'My Wi-Fi' seeks to mobilize personal-area nets"

Intel Corp. wants to connect millions of Wi-Fi-enabled devices by building a wireless access point called My Wi-Fi into Centrino 2-equipped notebook computers, establishing a personal-area network (PAN) that travels with users.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=213000379
Video: http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid9952983001/bctid10008762001