Category Technology/Electronics

New Tools to Minimize Risks in shared, Augmented-reality environments

For now, augmented reality remains mostly a solo activity, but soon people might be using the technology in groups for collaborating on work or creative projects.

Security researchers have created ShareAR, a toolkit that lets developers build collaborative and interactive features into AR apps without sacrificing their users’ privacy and security. A few summers ago throngs of people began using the Pokemon Go app, the first mass-market augmented reality game, to collect virtual creatures hiding in the physical world.

For now, AR remains mostly a solo activity, but soon people might be using the technology for a variety of group activities, such as playing multi-user games or collaborating on work or creative projects...

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Nylon as a Building Block for transparent Electronic devices?

Transparent nylon could be an important building block for the development of transparent electronic circuits in the future

Scientists develop solution processable ferroelectric nylons. Scientists have solved a four decade long challenge of producing very thin nylon films that can be used for instance in electronic memory components. The thin nylon films are several 100 times thinner than human hair and could thus be attractive for applications in bendable electronic devices or for electronics in clothing.

As the microelectronic industry is now shifting toward wearable electronic gadgets and electronic (e-)textiles, the comprising electronic materials, such as ferroelectrics, should be integrated with our clothes...

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Researchers build a Heat Shield just 10 Atoms Thick to Protect Electronic Devices

This greatly magnified image shows four layers of atomically thin materials that form a heat-shield just two to three nanometers thick, or roughly 50,000 times thinner than a sheet of paper. Credit: National Institute of Standards and Technology

Excess heat given off by smartphones, laptops and other electronic devices can be annoying, but beyond that it contributes to malfunctions and, in extreme cases, can even cause lithium batteries to explode. To guard against such ills, engineers often insert glass, plastic or even layers of air as insulation to prevent heat-generating components like microprocessors from causing damage or discomforting users.

Now, Stanford researchers have shown that a few layers of atomically thin materials, stacked like sheets of paper atop hot spots, can...

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Newfound Superconductor material could be the ‘Silicon of Quantum Computers’

A cartoon of two islands in a blue sea. Each island has mountains and explorers. At bottom are clouds and a pot of gold.
We have already found lots of superconductors, but this whimsical illustration shows why one superconductor’s newfound properties may make it especially useful. Most known superconductors are spin singlets, found on the island to the left. Uranium ditelluride, however, is a rare spin triplet, found on the island to the right, and also exists at the top of a mountain representing its unusually high resistance to magnetic fields. These properties may make it a good material for making qubits, which could maintain coherence in a quantum computer despite interference from the surrounding environment.
Credit: N. Hanacek/NIST

Possible ‘topological superconductor’ could overcome industry’s problem of quantum decoherence...

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