Emerging tech

ICANN attracts 100 would-be Net domain operators

ICANN, the Internet overseer that's begun a process to expand Net domains dramatically beyond the likes of .com and .edu, said today 100 organizations have registered to get involved.

The expansion concerns generic top-level domains, or GTLDs. ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) spent years putting the new program together so the Internet could use Web and e-mail addresses ending in .paris, .canon, .hotel, and .eco.

As of Monday, 100 registrants successfully joined the program, but ICANN didn't say who they are or what GTLDs they're seeking to establish. Organizations have until March 29 … Read more

Nifty stem-cell engineering sheds light on Parkinson's disease

Researchers at the University at Buffalo may have taken a significant step toward unraveling the way Parkinson's disease assails the human nervous system--thanks in part to a nifty bit of stem-cell engineering.

Scientists led by physiologist Jian Feng took skin cells from healthy control subjects and people with a particular type of Parkinson's disease and transformed them into a type of primordial cell--technically, an "induced pluripotent stem cell." Such iPS cells, as they're known, can be coaxed into developing as almost any type of cell in the body.

Here, they turned into brain cells. … Read more

Can a smartphone sense depression?

New smartphone technology is in the works that should be able to tell whether a person is depressed.

The idea behind Mobilyze--under development by researchers at Northwestern University--is to create a virtual therapist to monitor a person's activity over several days and then make a mood assessment.

"We're trying to develop individual algorithms for each user that can determine specific states," lead researcher and psychologist David Mohr said in an interview on WBBM radio in Chicago.

These algorithms would include people's location, activity, social context, what they're doing, and their mood, in order … Read more

Portable device to detect pathogens in 30 minutes

Engineers at Cornell are building a handheld pathogen detector that will help health care workers around the world test for pathogens such as tuberculosis, gonorrhea, and HIV and get results in as little as 30 minutes, instead of waiting days.

Dan Luo, professor of biological and environmental engineering, has been using synthetic DNA to amplify tiny samples of pathogen DNA, RNA, or proteins. Because of $25 million in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Grand Challenge to 12 teams developing point-of-care diagnostics, Luo will be combining forces with Edwin Kan, a Cornell professor of electrical and computer engineering, who has built a computer chip that can respond quickly to those amplified samples.

The engineers describe their novel device as something akin to a molecular-level Lego builder.… Read more

Why Apple's A5 is so big--and iPhone 4 won't get Siri

Apple's A5 processor includes noise-reduction circuitry licensed from a start-up called Audience, and a chip analyst believes that fact resolves an iPhone 4S mystery and explains why the iPhone 4 lacks the Siri voice-control system.

Audience revealed details of its Apple partnership in January, when it filed paperwork for an initial public offering (IPO) of stock. Teardown work from iFixit and Chipworks revealed a dedicated Audience chip in the iPhone 4, but the iPhone 4S integrates Audience's "EarSmart" technology directly into the A5 processor, the company's S-1 filing said.

The details answered a question that … Read more

Want 4.5GB of free Dropbox space? Be a guinea pig

Dropbox, the popular cloud storage utility for synchronizing files among many devices, ordinarily limits free accounts to 2GB, but those who test a new feature to automatically upload photos can get as much as 4.5GB.

To take advantage of the offer, you have to run a beta version of the company's software, and you have to try a feature that automatically uploads photos and videos to the service, according to a forum post yesterday.

"During this beta period, we are also offering additional free space to test automatic uploading of photos and videos. For every 500MB of … Read more

Tiny monitor tracks vital signs sans skin contact

Scientists and engineers have built a monitor that tracks heart rate, respiration, and movement--without requiring direct contact with skin.

The "life and activity" monitor, developed at Oregon State University, is wearable and non-invasive. The team worked with researchers at the University of California at San Diego to develop a noncontact sensor that is essentially an electric field sensor for tracking the heart rate through materials such as clothing.

The sensor also includes a 5-axis inertial measurement unit that allows for ongoing and simultaneous monitoring of movement, heart rate, and respiration. Imagine adhering such a device to your pants … Read more

Bass-heavy rap powers implantable medical sensors

To get in the mood for this one, I've put on an old favorite, a deep bass track by Dead Prez. It turns out the song's title, and main refrain--"It's Bigger Than Hip Hop"--applies to the power of music in a very literal sense as well.

The acoustical vibrations that are particularly pervasive in the heavy bass lines of hip-hop penetrate our bodies and can then be captured and stored as electricity to power implanted medical devices. Researchers out of Purdue have built a device, which they are unveiling at the IEEE MEMS conference in Paris … Read more

Mac OS X gets ZFS after all--but not from Apple

Apple may have given up on the idea of building Sun Microsystems' ZFS file system into Mac OS X, but one of its engineers has picked up where Apple left off.

Don Brady, a former Apple engineer and current ZFS enthusiast, now is leading a small team at start-up Ten's Complement that's been commercializing the software since its 2010 founding. They have released their first product, the $19.95 Zevo Silver Edition, the first version of a product formerly called Z410.

ZFS was a spotlight feature of the Solaris operating system, which Sun released as open-source software and … Read more