文章资讯
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- 2015-04-21 TAG Heuer to partner with Google, Intel to create smartwatch (Update)
- Luxury Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer announced Thursday it was joining forces with technology behemoths Google and Intel to develop a smartwatch that can compete with the new Apple Watch.
The timepiece, which aims to combine Swiss watchmaking know-how with high-end technology, is expected to hit stores by the end of the year, TAG Heuer chief Jean-Claude Biver told the Baselworld watch fair. - See Details
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- 2015-04-21 Superfast computers a step closer as a silicon chip's quantum capabilities are improved
- Research has demonstrated laser control of quantum states in an ordinary silicon wafer and observation of these states via a conventional electrical measurement. The findings—published in the journal Nature Communications by a UK-Dutch-Swiss team from the University of Surrey, University College London, Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, the Radboud University in Nijmegen, and ETH Zürich/EPF Lausanne/Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland—mark a crucial step towards future quantum technologies, which promise to deliver secure communications and superfast computing applications.
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- 2015-04-21 New transitory form of silica observed
- A Carnegie-led team was able to discover five new forms of silica under extreme pressures at room temperature. Their findings are published by Nature Communications.
Silicon dioxide, commonly called silica, is one of the most-abundant natural compounds and a major component of the Earth's crust and mantle. It is well-known even to non-scientists in its quartz crystalline form, which is a major component of sand in many places. It is used in the manufacture of microchips, cement, glass, and even some toothpaste. - See Details
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- 2015-04-21 Judge OKs punitive damages in California gender bias case
- A California trial judge ruled Saturday that a woman suing a Silicon Valley venture capital firm in a high-profile gender bias case may seek punitive damages that could add tens of millions of dollars to the $16 million in lost wages and bonuses she is pursuing.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Harold Kahn denied a request by lawyers for Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers to have Ellen Pao's demand for unspecified punitive damages thrown out. Pao, the interim CEO of the news and social networking site Reddit, claims she was passed over for a promotion at the firm because she is a woman and then fired in 2012 after she complained. - See Details
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- 2015-04-21 Techies snatching up more real estate in Southern California
- Internet moguls like Amazon's Jeff Bezos aren't the only techies snatching up real estate in Southern California.
While the mega rich from Silicon Valley have made headlines for their purchases of extravagant Los Angeles homes, the city has become increasingly appealing to a trove of angel investors and startup entrepreneurs as well. - See Details
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- 2015-04-21 Expert: Silicon Valley bias suit spurs closer look by firms
- A sex discrimination trial that has put a spotlight on gender imbalance in Silicon Valley has prompted some technology and venture capital companies to re-examine their cultures and practices—even before a jury reaches its verdict.
As jurors get ready to hear closing arguments in Ellen Pao's lawsuit against the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, other companies have been contacting consultants about possible obstacles to women being hired and advancing. Still other companies have been seeking female candidates for partner positions. - See Details
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- 2015-04-20 Ultra-thin silicon films create vibrant optical colors
- A new technology, which creates a rainbow of optical colors with ultra-thin layers of silicon, has been recently demonstrated by a research group at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).
Vibrant optical colors are generated from ultra-thin single layer silicon films deposited on a thin aluminum film surface with a low cost manufacturing process. The optical colors are controlled by the thickness of silicon films. The thickness of the silicon films ranges from 20 to 200 nanometers for creating different colors. - See Details
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- 2015-04-20 Can perovskites and silicon team up to boost industrial solar cell efficiencies?
- Silicon solar cells dominate 90 percent of the global photovoltaic market today, yet the record power conversion efficiency of silicon photovoltaics has progressed merely from 25 percent to 25.6 percent during the past 15 years—meaning the industry is keen to explore alternatives.
A collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Stanford University may be poised to shake things up in the solar energy world. By exploring ways to create solar cells using low-cost manufacturing methods, the team has developed a novel prototype device that combines perovskite with traditional silicon solar cells into a two-terminal "tandem" device. - See Details
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- 2015-04-20 New process could make gallium arsenide cheaper for computer chips, solar cells
- Computer chips, solar cells and other electronic devices have traditionally been based on silicon, the most famous of the semiconductors, that special class of materials whose unique electronic properties can be manipulated to turn electricity on and off the way faucets control the flow of water.
There are other semiconductors. Gallium arsenide is one such material and it has certain technical advantages over silicon – electrons race through its crystalline structure faster than they can move through silicon. - See Details
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- 2015-04-20 Imec demonstrates 50GHz Ge waveguide electro-absorption modulator
- At this week's OFC 2015, the largest global conference and exposition for optical communications, nanoelectronics research center imec, its associated lab at Ghent University (Intec), and Stanford University have demonstrated a compact germanium (Ge) waveguide electro-absorption modulator (EAM) with a modulation bandwidth beyond 50GHz. Combining state-of-the-art extinction ratio and low insertion loss with an ultra-low capacitance of just 10fF, the demonstrated EAM marks an important milestone for the realization of next-generation silicon integrated optical interconnects at 50Gb/s and beyond.
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- 2015-04-20 Yelp expands Asian presence with Taiwan launch
- Yelp launched Wednesday in Taiwan, in an expansion of the Asian presence of the popular consumer business review service.
"Beginning today, people throughout Taiwan are able to create accounts on Yelp.com.tw to share their opinions about great local businesses," the San Francisco company said in a statement.
Yelp also launched its iPhone and Android applications for Taiwan and tools for business owners. - See Details
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- 2015-04-20 Chemists make new silicon-based nanomaterials
- Chemists from Brown University have found a way to make new 2-D, graphene-like semiconducting nanomaterials using an old standby of the semiconductor world: silicon.
In a paper published in the journal Nanoletters, the researchers describe methods for making nanoribbons and nanoplates from a compound called silicon telluride. The materials are pure, p-type semiconductors (positive charge carriers) that could be used in a variety of electronic and optical devices. Their layered structure can take up lithium and magnesium, meaning it could also be used to make electrodes in those types of batteries. - See Details
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- 2015-04-20 Special ops troops using flawed intel software
- Special operations troops heading to war zones are asking for commercial intelligence analysis software they say will help their missions. But their requests are languishing, and they are being ordered to use a flawed, in-house system preferred by the Pentagon, according to government records and interviews.
Over the last four months, six Army special operations units about to be deployed into Afghanistan, Iraq and other hostile environments have requested intelligence software made by Palantir, a Silicon Valley company that has synthesized data for the CIA, the Navy SEALs and the country's largest banks, among other government and private entities. - See Details
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- 2015-04-20 New Google security chief looks for balance with privacy
- Google has a new sheriff keeping watch over the wilds of the Internet.
Austrian-born Gerhard Eschelbeck has ranged the British city of Oxford; cavorted at notorious Def Con hacker conclaves, wrangled a herd of startups, and camped out in Silicon Valley.
He now holds the reins of security and privacy for all-things Google. - See Details
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- 2015-04-20 Engineer improves rechargeable batteries with MoS2 nano 'sandwich'
- The key to better cellphones and other rechargeable electronics may be in tiny "sandwiches" made of nanosheets, according to mechanical engineering research from Kansas State University.
Gurpreet Singh, assistant professor of mechanical and nuclear engineering, and his research team are improving rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. The team has focused on the lithium cycling of molybdenum disulfide, or MoS2, sheets, which Singh describes as a "sandwich" of one molybdenum atom between two sulfur atoms. - See Details
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- 2015-04-20 Google's new CFO gets $70M for defecting from Morgan Stanley
- Google just found out that luring a top executive from Wall Street to Silicon Valley is expensive.
The Mountain View, California, company is paying its new chief financial officer, Ruth Porat, more than $70 million to defect from the same job at New York investment bank Morgan Stanley.
The lucrative pay package disclosed in a Thursday regulatory filing underscored how much Google prized Porat, who is considered to be among Wall Street's most powerful women. - See Details
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- 2015-04-18 MESA complex starts largest production series in its history
Sandia National Laboratories has begun making silicon wafers for three nuclear weapon modernization programs, the largest production series in the history of its Microsystems and Engineering Sciences Applications complex.
MESA's silicon fab in October began producing base wafers for Application-Specific Integrated Circuits for the B61-12 Life Extension Program, W88 Alteration 370 and W87 Mk21 Fuze Replacement nuclear weapons. Planning and preparation took years and involved more than 100 people.
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- 2015-04-18 Jury says Silicon Valley firm did not discriminate (Update)
A jury decided Friday that a prestigious venture capital firm did not discriminate or retaliate against a female employee in a case that debated gender imbalance and working conditions for women in Silicon Valley.
The jury in San Francisco reached the verdict after three days of deliberations in a lawsuit filed by Ellen Pao against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
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- 2015-04-18 Facebook moves into 'not fancy' new headquarters
Facebook moved into its new Frank Gehry-designed headquarters in Silicon Valley, with a rooftop park and "the largest open floor plan in the world."
Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg insisted, however, that the building is "pretty simple and isn't fancy."
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- 2015-04-18 Search, social & shopping: Pinterest turns 5
In its five short years of life, Pinterest has become 'the' place where brides-to-be create wish boards of wedding china photos and do-it-yourself home renovators bookmark shiny turquoise tiles for bathrooms. It's where people share ideas and ingenuity and get creatively inspired. And it's fueled a new way of searching for items that's even stolen traffic from tech giant Google.
The San Francisco-based venture capital darling was recently valued at $11 billion. While its core audience has always been female, Pinterest says its popularity is growing faster than ever among men. It is winning in the all-important social-mobile space—the vast majority of "pinners" connect from mobile devices—and is enjoying a healthy expansion overseas.
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- 2015-04-18 Facebook, Tesla, Airbnb host world's ambassadors for crash course in Silicon Valley culture
Some came to replicate Silicon Valley, others to regulate it. Thirty-five foreign ambassadors representing countries as big as China and as small as Kiribati, Barbados and Monaco toured the Bay Area this week in what the U.S. State Department described as the biggest such diplomatic meet-up outside of Washington.
"It's all about finding ways to advance our small nations," said Ambassador Aunese Makoi Simati, of Tuvalu, a country of about 12,000 people living on nine coral atolls in the South Pacific. "It's very hard to invest in Tuvalu. We have to improve our Internet connections first."
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- 2015-04-18 Computer sharing of personality in sight: inventor
The world has only touched the surface of technological progress and computers may soon be able to transmit the complexities of human personalities, a prominent inventor says.
Sebastian Thrun, who founded the Google X laboratory where the Internet search giant has developed Google Glass and driverless cars, said it was often difficult to grasp concepts before they come to fruition.
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- 2015-04-18 Water makes wires even more nano: Lab extends meniscus-mask process to make sub-10 nanometer paths
Water is the key component in a Rice University process to reliably create patterns of metallic and semiconducting wires less than 10 nanometers wide.
The technique by the Rice lab of chemist James Tour builds upon its discovery that the meniscus - the curvy surface of water at its edge - can be an effective mask to make nanowires.
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- 2015-04-18 More deals ahead? China fund buys Silicon Valley chip maker
China's aggressive new policy to expand its semiconductor industry is worrying U.S. chipmakers, many of which are based in Silicon Valley, and raising potential national security concerns as it begins to acquire U.S. tech companies.
The world's largest market for integrated circuits, China is expected to spend up to $100 billion on both domestic investments and acquisitions abroad to grow itssemiconductor industry by more than 20 percent annually over the next five years.
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- 2015-04-18 Electrical control of quantum bits in silicon paves the way to large quantum computers
A UNSW-led research team has encoded quantum information in silicon using simple electrical pulses for the first time, bringing the construction of affordable large-scale quantum computers one step closer to reality.
Lead researcher, UNSW Associate Professor Andrea Morello from the School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, said his team had successfully realised a new control method for future quantum computers.
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- 2015-04-18 Firms push high-tech solutions to fortify airport perimeters
Technology firms increasingly pitch new sensors and software to U.S. airports as a way to bolster exterior security and keep intruders out, but such digital barriers come with a hefty price tag and don't always work.
An Associated Press investigation this week documented 268 instances in which people hopped over, crawled under, drove cars through or otherwise breached the fences and gates protecting the perimeters of 31 of the nation's busiest airports from January 2004 through January 2015.
How to address the problem is up for debate.
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- 2015-04-17 Pentagon eyes recruiting cyber talent through National Guard
- The Defense Department still doesn't have the capabilities and resources needed to defend against a major cyberattack from another nation or other tech-savvy criminals, Pentagon officials told members of a Senate panel Tuesday.
But officials said they are looking for more creative ways to attract high-tech experts into the military and the department, including beefed up National Guard and Reserve recruiting in places like California's Silicon Valley. - See Details
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- 2015-04-17 Post-silicon computing
- Could Pittsburgh be the nation's next "Strontium Valley"? The University of Pittsburgh is the lead institution on a $1.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation and the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative (NRI) of the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) to bring a new kind of computer out of the lab and into the real world. The goal of the group, led by Jeremy Levy, a professor of physics and astronomy in Pitt's School of Arts and Sciences, is no less than transforming the way computing is done.
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- 2015-04-17 Proton-based transistor could let machines communicate with living things
- Human devices, from light bulbs to iPods, send information using electrons. Human bodies and all other living things, on the other hand, send signals and perform work using ions or protons.
Materials scientists at the University of Washington have built a novel transistor that uses protons, creating a key piece for devices that can communicate directly with living things. The study is published online this week in the interdisciplinary journal Nature Communications. - See Details
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- 2015-04-17 A faster, cheaper method for making transistors and chips
- It may soon be possible manufacture the miniscule structures that make up transistors and silicon chips rapidly and inexpensively. Swiss scientists are currently investigating the use of dynamic stencil lithography, a recent but not yet perfected method, for creating nanostructures.
Faster, less expensive, and better. These are the advantages of dynamic stencil lithography, a new way of fabricating nanostructures, such as the tiny structures on transistors and silicon chips. - See Details