TechEye |  |
- Scientists make single molecule diode
- Samsung profits up
- Forget teens now
- Facebook profits fall
- Nokia back in the black
- Silicon Gan but not forgotten
- Insure yourself against cyber attack
- Scientists create nano based white lasers
- Virtual reality hyped up again
- Microsoft rolls out Windows 10
| Scientists make single molecule diode Posted: 30 Jul 2015 03:10 AM PDT
The scientists used a combination of gold electrodes and an ionic solution to make the diode, which they claim outperforms all predecessors by a factor of 50. Back in 1974 two electronics scientists theorised that an asymmetric molecule could act as a rectifier and that led to a chase to develop a diode based on the theory. Jeff Neaton, a senior faculty scientist at Berkeley Lab, said: "Using a single symmetric molecule, an ionic solution and two gold electrodes of dramatically different exposed surface areas, we were able to create a diode that resulted in a rectification ratio – the ratio of forward to reverse current at fixed voltage – in excess of 200, which is a record for single molecule devices." The scientists describe single molecule devices as the "ultimate limit in electronic miniaturisation". Diodes are one of the most prevalent components in electronics. Neaton said the team expected the work to lead to ionic liquid gating in other contexts. "These tiny molecular circuits are petri dishes for revealing and designing new routes to charge and energy flow at the nanoscale [level]. We're just at the tip of the iceberg with what we can understand and control at these small length scales," he said.        |
| Posted: 30 Jul 2015 02:38 AM PDT
Samsung often makes the press as a manufacturer of smartphones but it is a big company with fingers in almost every vertical pie. As well as making smartphones, for example, Samsung also makes components for a variety of purposes and has a big flat panel business too. It also makes memory components and expects bouyant sales in the second half of this year. But it sounded a warning about its smartphone business as it faces increasing competition from Chinese manufacturers, particularly at the low end. It said in a regulatory statement that its high end S6 Edge phone is selling so well it's unable to meet demand.     |
| Posted: 30 Jul 2015 01:46 AM PDT
Dubbed "iRights”, its proposals allow for young people to be easily edit or delete content they have created online. The plan is backed by Baroness Shields, the UK’s Minister for Internet Safety and Security. It is based on a report by the Children’s Commissioner for England. As well as supporting children’s “right to be forgotten”, iRights says young people have a right to digital literacy and should be well informed about how their data might be used. A host of companies and charities, including Barclays bank, the NSPCC and law firm Schillings, have signed up. Baroness Shields said, “iRights gives a unique insight into how government can join with technology companies, civil society and business to make a better digital world for young people. Rachel O’Connell, a government adviser and founder of Trustelevate.com, said the proposals largely represented EU laws that would come into force over the next few years. O’Connell said young people were increasingly becoming wise to the need to protect their privacy and identify online. “There is a movement among children and young people reclaiming what they can privacy, ownership of their body and images of them online,” she said. Ian Walden, a legal expert at Queen Mary University of London, said companies often needed prompting before they took privacy issues seriously. “Many of the companies out there that we know and love are making huge amounts of money from children,” he said.
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| Posted: 30 Jul 2015 01:45 AM PDT
Expenses will grow 55 to 60 percent in 2015 from last year, including an 82 percent jump in the second quarter to $2.77 billion, it added. Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said the social notworking site was investing in the next set of services and what will be future investments like Messenger, WhatsApp and Oculus Rift. Messenger has more than 700 million users, and the app has been downloaded more than one billion times on Android, Google’s mobile operating system, Facebook said. Facebook will add new advertising formats to photo-sharing app Instagram, which was launched in Brazil, Germany and Japan in the second quarter, Sandberg added. Macquarie Research analyst Ben Schachter said the costs and spending met expectations. “We think the company has many opportunities ahead of it so we want to see them investing heavily in those investments,” he said. Facebook shares fell more than 3 percent in after-hours trading. Daily active users increased to 968 million in June, up 17 percent from the same month last year. For the quarter, revenue jumped to $4.04 billion from $2.91 billion. It lost a bit due to the effects of a strong dollar, revenue would have been about $33 million higher. Advertising revenue grew 43 percent to $3.83 billion. Mobile ads accounted for 76 percent of that, up from 62 percent in the same quarter last year. The average price paid per ad rose 220 percent while total ad impressions, a measure of the number of times an ad is viewed, fell 55 percent.     |
| Posted: 30 Jul 2015 12:48 AM PDT
Nokia reported a surprise rise in second-quarter profits, helped by high-margin software sales and fewer low-priced contracts at its mainstay telecom network equipment business. Nokia appears to be rolling in it and in April proposed a 15.6 billion euro take-over of its French rival Alcatel-Lucent. Operating profit at its network unit was $343 million in the second quarter, or 11.5 percent of sales. That was up from $307 million euro a year earlier, and well above analysts’ average forecast of a profit of $257 million euros and a margin of 8.3 percent. Network equipment sales were $2.99 billion The company also said its strategic review of its Here navigation business was now in an advanced stage. Last week, Reuters claimed that Nokia was closing in on a deal to sell the maps to German car makers for about $3.29 billion.     |
| Posted: 30 Jul 2015 12:47 AM PDT
This week it is allium nitride (GaN) which could make data centres massively more efficient only this time its boffins have managed to create some actual product. GaN was part of a $70 million research program by the US Department of Energy in 2013. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) spinout Cambridge Electronics (CEI) has unveiled a line of GaN transistors and power electronic circuits. It claims to cut energy usage in data centres, electric cars, and consumer devices by 10 to 20 percent globally by 2025. CEI co-founder Tomás Palacios, who co-invented the technology said it was an "opportunity" to change electronics and how energy was used. CEI's GaN transistors have one-tenth the resistance of such silicon-based transistors. This allows for much higher energy-efficiency. CEI is using its transistors to enable 'power electronics' that will make data centres less energy-intensive, electric cars cheaper and more powerful, and laptop power adapters up to one-third the size. MIT researchers slashed costs by using new manufacturing technologies that switched gold metals used in manufacturing GaN devices for metals that were compatible with silicon fabrication. They also developed ways to deposit GaN on large wafers used by silicon foundries. Cambridge Electronics researcher Bin Lu said that advanced GaN transistors and circuits where fabbed in conventional silicon foundries, at the cost of silicon. The cost is the same, but the chips have 100 times better performance.     |
| Insure yourself against cyber attack Posted: 30 Jul 2015 12:45 AM PDT
They didn't say that because they always knew it wasn't but still wanted to sell stuff. And it's an ill wind that brings no one any good, because according to market research company ABI Research, insurance companies are set to collect a $10 billion cyber bonanza by the year 2020. Michela Menting, a research director at ABI, said that continued and sustained cyber attacks "are having a ruinous effect on enterprises". She said that over 900 million records were abstracted last year and that's leading big companies to insure themselves. But, she added, less than 20 percent of big enterprises use cyber insurance and for small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs), only six percent bother. She said that companies will move to cyber insurance at a compound annual growth rate of 36.6 percent between now and 2020. She said: "The largest barrier to growth is lack of actuarial data about cyber attacks, but this is quickly changing." She continued that insurers find it difficult to give data or systems a proper value. "They are unable to scope the cyber risk environment of an organisation."     |
| Scientists create nano based white lasers Posted: 29 Jul 2015 07:07 AM PDT
To produce a white laser beam, the full visible colour spectrum is required, and the ASU boffins have proven that semiconductor lasers are capable of doing just that. The scientists made a nanosheet with three parallel segments with each supporting laser in one of three colours but can tune colours from the RGB display. The research means that lasers are now potentially a mainstream light source and will replace light emitting diodes (LEDs) by providing brighter and more energy efficient devices. The ASU scientists believe that the white lasers could provide a combination illimination and communication system – called Li-Fi. This is likely to be over 10 times faster than current wi-fi systems and Li-Fi based on lasers may be between 10 to 100 times faster than LED based Li-Fi. Doctoral student Fan Gan said: "Our goal is to achieve a single semiconductor piece capable of laser operation in the three fundamental lasing colours. The piece should be small enough so that people can perceive only one overall mixed colour instead of three different colours." One obstacle is that the semiconductor based white layer needs to be driven by a battery, and that's not yet achievable.     |
| Virtual reality hyped up again Posted: 29 Jul 2015 06:53 AM PDT
But, according to a report from ABI Research, that's going to change over the next few years with Google, Samsung, Microsoft and Facebook joining the push. ABI estimates that there will be shipments of 43 million units in 2020, representing an average compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 107 percent. People are going to take more interest in devices such as the Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard, Oculus Rift and Sony Morpheus, according to ABI Research analyst Eric Abbruzzese. He said there's a market for vertical sales in the education and industrial sectors, but augmented reality (AR) devices such as smart glasses will lead the way, accord to Abbruzzese. He said that VR will be focused on entertainment and gaming and video will take the lead in pushing sales, but devices in industrial and automotive markets will also see some usage of devices.     |
| Microsoft rolls out Windows 10 Posted: 29 Jul 2015 06:43 AM PDT
Windows 10 is a free upgrade for devices that use Windows 7 and 8.1 machines and will be made available for new PCs and tablets. Microsoft made a bad move with the Windows 8.x family and claims it has listened to over five million customers to introduce a set of features people might like. Windows 10 is software as a service (SaaS) and will push upgrades to your machine, rather like Apple does with its OSX operating system. It will be available on PCs, tablets, phones, Raspberry Pi and the Xbox One, but as we reported yesterday, it wants to embed the OS in all sorts of devices as it makes a play for the internet of things market. The features Microsoft wants to highlight are Cortana, a Siri like digital assistant, and Xbox integration. It will be making an enterprise version available towards the end of this year.     |
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