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Technology Research Advances of 2004


Aki

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TRN releases their top notable advances in the technology world of the year 2004.

http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2004/122904/TRN%27s_Top_Picks_122904.html

 

I actually checked out the link and wanted to post a few of the 'advances'. Let me know what you think of these things.

 

Biotechnology tools advances include a nanowire-based biochip developed by Harvard University researchers that detects single viruses , and a biochip developed by University of Texas researchers that uses water droplets as tiny test tubes.

 

Photonic crystal research continued to heat up, highlighted by two research teams -- MIT and Kyoto University -- that developed three-dimensional photonic crystal devices that emit as well as channel light. Cornell University researchers used more conventional light-channeling devices to create a silicon switch that allows one light beam to control another.

 

Nanotube and nanowire-based chip research moved this year from the level of transistors and simple logic gates to that of entire chip architectures. Hewlett-Packard Laboratories researchers developed a highly redundant, highly fault-tolerant chip design for their nanowire logic circuits , and researchers at Duke University developed a software program for designing computer chips made from DNA-assembled carbon nanotubes.

 

Researchers from Microsoft Research, Microsoft Research Asia, and Tsinghua University in China showed that surfing the Net using a handheld device can be improved by allowing the user to zoom in on relevant content and collapse irrelevant content with single pen strokes.

 

And North Carolina State University and University of Utah researchers showed that it was possible to evolve the ability to play Capture the Flag in a simulation using artificial neural networks and then download the smarts into real mobile robots

 

Those are just a few from the TRN webpage that AKi linked above. There are some other REALLY cool things mentioned in the article. aybe we should take a poll to see which of the things mentioned in the article is considered "THE" advance of the year - according to Hypography's members? Any takers?

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Great idea Irish, do you want to create the poll or should i or aki?

As to what i think of the things above:

Biotechnology, i was actually surprised that this didnt mention the russian biochip... http://english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/379/14765_chip.html

Photonic crystal, i dont think i have words to describe this, i guess that it will be interesting to see where these things go in the future.

Nanotechnology, well, i've been fascinated with what they've been capable of doing with nanotubes for a while, it constantly blows my head off, every time they comeup with something new.

Microsoft research, I'm always critisizing Microsoft, I think I'll stick to my tradition and say "Wow, it took them that long to figure this out..."

That last thing with robots playing capture the flag, it sounds cool, i'd like to see that in action someday...

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