January 2008 News Analysis

The Gray Areas of Search-Engine Law

U.S. law has not caught up with search-engine technology and its implications

No Asteroid Impact on Mars After All

Expected asteroid impact would have let scientists study crater formation and underlying Martian geology

Taking Apart the 700-MHz Wireless Spectrum Auction

A U.S. spectrum auction opens up the coveted 700-MHz band to cellphones

Silicon Nanowires Turn Heat to Electricity

Thermoelectric converters could tap waste heat from power plants and microchips

An Antitrust Lawyer Dissects New York AG's Decision to Investigate Intel

European efforts against Intel have a better chance than American ones

Replacement for Hubble Space Telescope Will Use Copper-based Communications Systems

Optical fiber interconnects not yet good enough for James Webb Space Telescope, but SpaceWire standard is.

Phase-Change Materials Could Boost Reconfigurable Chips

More powerful FPGAs and other reconfigurable chips could come from vertical wires made from phase-change material

What a Wi-Fi Worm Outbreak Would Look Like

A future form of computer malware might infect Wi-Fi routers and steal data

Synthetic Fuel From a Solar Collector

Solar energy powers greenhouse-gas-free synthetic fuel production in Sandia experiment

Sensitive Synthetic Skin in the Works for Prosthetic Arms

Carbon nanotubes key to making synthetic skin that lets artificial limbs sense heat and touch

Searching the Sky

Image-recognition software for astronomy pictures brings professional and amateur astronomers together

NTT develops a Smell-o-Phone

Chip Design Hardwires Security

New microprocessor architecture keeps hackers at bay without compromising security

Book-Scanning Robots Digitize Delicate Texts

21st-century robots read 16th-century Bavarian books

Engineers Graduate From New Afghan Military Academy

"East Point" technologists to rebuild Afghanistan's infrastructure

A Weaker, Cheaper MRI

Magnetic fields that would barely budge a compass might find tumors faster

NTT Becomes a Smell-o-Phone Company

Will aroma advertising pass the smell test?

RFID Tags Guide the Blind

Italian town's buried transponders keep blind people on the right track

Thermal Transistor: The World's Tiniest Refrigerator

Thermal transistors refrigerate one electron at a time and physicists plan to compute with heat

Laptop Orchestra

the big picture

The Other Digital Divide

News brief

Microscopic Microwave Oven

News brief