TechKnowledgey 2005
by Jeff Eckert
TechKnowledgey
2005
Events, Advances, and News
From the Electronics World
If you see anything revolutionary and
interesting — or just plain cool — while
surfing newsgroups, filtering press
releases, or simply doing your job, drop
me a line about it. Have questions or
comments about what you read here in
“Techknowledgey 2005?” Send those my
way, too. You can reach me at www.jkeck
ert.com
— Jeff Eckert
Advanced
Technologies
Another Step Toward a
Quantum Computer
Initial step in the formation of an “egg carton”
of atoms. Graphic produced by the
Ohio Supercomputer Center, courtesy
of Ohio State University.
E
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NUTS & VOLTS
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Before you can build a computer
that exploits the quantum
mechanical properties of atoms, you
have to create something that can hold
them. Scientists at Ohio State
University ( www.osu.edu) have taken
a step in that direction by making tiny
holes that contain nothing at all. These
holes, which resemble dark spots in an
egg-carton-shaped laser light surface,
could someday do the job.
E
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To create such a surface, lasers
and magnetic fields capture vaporized
rubidium atoms and form them into a
pea-sized cloud (see graphic). The
device holding the cloud then slides
down a track to move the atoms into
position above a glass chip. Then, the
magnetic fields are shut off, releasing
the atoms, which fall onto a surface of
laser light. According to OSU, other
12
research teams have created similar
arrays, called “optical lattices,” but
those designs present problems that
limit their practical usefulness. Other
lattices lock atoms into a multilayered
cube floating in free space. But
manipulating atoms in the center of
the cube would be difficult. The Ohio
State lattice is said to have a more
practical design, with a single layer of
atoms grounded just above a glass
chip. In this scheme, each atom could
be manipulated directly with a single
laser beam.
Security System Mimics
Human Brain
The SENTRI system mimics the way
the human brain processes sounds. Photo
courtesy of the Office of Naval Research.
It’s not all that difficult to install a
security system that employs various and sundry sensors and annunciators to detect things that don’t seem
right. The problem is figuring out
how to react to whatever it detects.
For example, do you interpret a loud
“bang” as a gunshot or just a
backfire from the pizza delivery guy’s
disintegrating Hundai? Is the night
watchman smart, awake, and sober
enough to tell the difference?
This may not be a problem
much longer, with the advent of the
Smart Sensor Enabled Neural Threat
Recognition and Identification (
SENTRI) system, developed through
research sponsored by the Office of
Naval Research ( www.onr.navy.
mil). The system, marketed by
Safety Dynamics, L.L.C., uses software that mimics the way the human
brain processes sounds to recognize,
identify, and locate the source of a
range of suspicious noises.
It is based on the work of Dr. Ted
Berger, of the University of Southern
California Center for Neural
Engineering, who created mathematical models to mimic brain activity and
applied them to the extraction of signals from background noise, much as
the human brain can focus on spoken
words within a noisy environment.
The basic concept has been modified for application to other types of
sounds. Conceptually, sound identification could be coupled with chemical
or optical sensors so that, if exhaust
fumes are detected along with a
weapon-like “pop,” the system would
identify the event as a backfire rather
than a weapon discharge. If the sound
of a door rattling on its hinges is
accompanied by the aroma of doughnuts, SENTRI might conclude that the
police are trying to break in. And if the
reverberation of a voice bellowing “ho,
ho, ho” coincides with the aroma of
reindeer drifting down your chimney ...
well, you get the picture. For details,
visit www.safetydynamics.net
Microbial Fuel Cells Beat
Fermentation
Whenever a friend begins a dissertation on the wondrous hydro-gen-based society that will be arriving
in, oh, a couple months, I ask a question: Where are you going to get all
that hydrogen? This generally derails
the conversation, as there presently
is no practical answer. However, a
germ of a rejoinder may be contained
in recent news out of Penn State
University ( www.psu.edu) about the
JULY 2005
