nanotech

Prototype goes 'see-through' with touch screen

There may finally be a compromise between the world of ever-shrinking electronic devices and our ever-expanding fingers.

A prototype device called the NanoTouch features a 2.4-inch screen and a touch-sensitive pad of the same size on the back, according to a video demonstration on NewScientist.

Using the touch pad on the back, users can manipulate icons on the screen in front without obscuring the target with their fingers, creating an experience resembling transparency.

Researchers say tests showed that targets as small as seven-tenths of an inch wide were easy to select using the NanoTouch. Targets on conventional touch screens … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 860: Close Enough for Nuclear War

On today's show, we learn that there's little difference between nuclear war and horseshoes, at least in the "close enough" department. Also, a new segment: This Week in Cooley! Plus, a flurry of online news including mobile scheduling for your TiVo, the travesty of the teacher and the porn pop-ups, and Chrome is the king of speed! Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 860

Cooley debriefs: - Just drove in in the new 370Z with SynchroMatch transmission. http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-10102550-48.html

- From iPhone to Bold: how it's going, why I did … Read more

Invisibility cloak on the horizon, scientists say

Scientists say they are a step closer to developing materials that will render people and other objects invisible.

Researchers say they can redirect light around 3D objects using metamaterials--artificially engineered structures created at a nano scale that contain optical properties not found in nature, according to an Associated Press report.

People see objects as a result of the light reflecting or scattering off them. This new mixture of materials has "negative refractive" properties that keep light from being absorbed or reflected by the object, allowing only the light from behind the object to be seen. Essentially, the material … Read more

Steve Jurvetson: The constant search for disruption

Few people have played as big a role in recent tech booms and busts as Steve Jurvetson, managing director of venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson in Menlo Park, Calif.

One of the leading venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, Jurvetson is best-known for his involvement in Hotmail, Interwoven, Kana, and more recently, Skype. He spends his spare time building and firing rockets of all sizes with his young son, and recently has financed a new movie, The Singing Revolution, about his parent's tiny home country of Estonia.

CNET News.com reporters Michael Kanellos and Carl-Gustav Linden recently sat down … Read more

The age of diamond-powered cell phones could be close

Within the next decade, you might take calls and surf the Web on a diamond-laced handset that would put the iPhone to shame. Unlike high-end, gem-studded cell phones, no bling would sparkle on the shell. But inside, diamond-covered components would enable crisper, faster communications.

Advanced Diamond Technologies is bringing diamond down to size for potential usage in a vast array of products, including wireless phones and medical implants. The company announced last week that it can make the first diamond coatings ideal for use in microelectromechanical devices, such as "tuning forks" in cell phones. The grains in ADT'… Read more

There's platinum hidden in your car

Guess how much platinum there is in a Volkswagen Passat diesel? If you said $238 worth, you'd be right.

Nanostellar is trying to reduce it. The company, which focuses on car emissions, has produced a platinum alloy that can substitute for the pure material inside catalytic converters, according to CEO Pankaj Dhingra. Recently, it began production of 250 kilograms a week.

Platinum sprinkled in the catalytic converter captures gases like carbon monoxide and turns them into less dangerous compounds, such as carbon dioxide. But platinum costs a lot. Nanostellar's particles can cut around $56 to $117 out of … Read more