"MATERIALS: Researchers harvest algae for chip nanofabrication"

Diatoms--single-celled phytoplankton (algae)--are one of the most plentiful life forms on Earth, accounting for 20 percent of the carbon dioxide removed from the environment each year. The mechanism they use--encasing themselves in patterned silicon dioxide shells as they fall to the bottom of oceans and lakes worldwide--removes as much carbon dioxide from the environment as all of the planet's rainforests combined. Now, an electrical engineer, a biochemist and a geneticist are collaborating at the company they founded--NimbleGen Systems Inc. (Madison, Wis.)--to harness the diatom, as an alternative to lithography, to produce the intricate patterns on future semiconductors. By identifying the 75 genes, out of 13,000, that control silicon dioxide pattern formation in diatoms, the researchers hope to precisely control diatoms to pattern chips. Their results will be published in an upcoming issue of the prestigious "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."
Text: hhttp://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205921193

"MATERIALS: World's darkest material comes to light"

The world's darkest material has been fabricated from vertical arrays of loosely packed carbon nanotubes. The project at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Rice University resulted in a new material that absorbs 99.9 percent of incident light, enabling higher sensitivity and efficiency for applications ranging from solar panels to infrared sensors.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205920344

"PODCAST: Week-in-Review, Jan. 28, 2008"

This week's top stories include how Nanochip is on track for terabyte memories, how a retrofit sharpens x-rays with darkfield illumination, how electronic contact lens made their dubut, and how acoustic guitar subtlties were recreated with a Blackfin digital signal processor (DSP). These stories were compiled from interviews I do for EETimes, where you'll find global news for the creators of technology at EETimes.com
Text: http://www.eetimes.com

"CHIPS Nanochip on-track for terabyte chips"

Nanochip Inc. (Fremont, Calif.) claims to be on-track to the development of terabyte memory chips that combine phase-change media to cantilever read/write heads controlled by a microelectro-mechanical system (MEMS). The memory chips will use conventional, DRAM-like interfaces, but internally will function like a multiple-head hard drive, where slaved MEMS cantilevers will move in unison over their array of bit cells to read and write phase-change media. Nanochip claims its first prototypes will be delivered in 2009, with volume production scheduled to 2010.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205918634

"ALGORITHMS:Acoustic guitar subtleties re-created by DSP"

Guitarists usually associate digital signal processing with electric, rather than acoustic, guitars, especially after early attempts to apply DSPs to acoustic instruments led to modeling effects that kept the guitars from performing as advertised.
Now Fishman Transducers Inc. says it has repurposed the Analog Devices Inc. Blackfin DSP to perform "digital acoustic imaging" instead of modeling, making acoustic guitars with an inexpensive piezoelectric pickup sound as if they were in a pristine studio in front of an expensive condenser microphone.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205917354

"NANOTECH: Retrofit sharpens X-rays"

Today's "dark-field" X-ray machines are too expensive for routine use. For instance, the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) uses its $200 million, 300-meter diameter synchrotron to take dark-field X-rays. Now, researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland) have crafted a nanoscale diffraction grating that could be retrofitted into existing X-ray machines, enabling health-care providers to also take dark-field X-rays.
FULL TEXT: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205917092

"CHIPS: Electronic contact lens debuts"

Electronic contact lenses promise to overlay a heads-up display over a user's visual field, enabling tactical information—like an automobile speedometer for drivers—to be seen only by the wearer. Researchers at the University of Washington (Seattle) recently demonstrated the world's first electronic contact lens, complete with integrated light-emitting-diodes. So far the researchers have only completed animal testing on unpowered lenses, but for the upcoming human trials the researchers hope to power a virtual control panel that enables the display to appear to float in mid-air. Future applications could give military users virtual heads-up displays, give video gamers "anywhere" action, and let any contact-lens wearer surf the Internet sans monitor.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205916535

"PODCAST: Week-in-Review, Jan. 21, 2008"

This week's top stories include how memory is going multicore too, how Displaytech is eyeing the lead in the pico projector race, how the Mercury fly-by was a success, and how Darwin's theory has been confirmed. Thse stories were compiled from interviews I do for EETimes where you'll find global news for the creators of technology at EETimes.com
Text: http://www.eetimes.com