Electricity consumption from the manufacture of artificial intelligence (AI) chips has soared by more than 350 percent worldwide between 2023 and 2024, according to new research from Greenpeace East Asia. In East Asia, the global hub for AI semiconductor production, growing electricity demand from AI chipmaking has been met primarily …
EVEN severely disabled people have reasons for hope with the unveiling of a new device in Australia recently. With the help of this device, disabled people can one day use their brain waves to operate stereos, lights, telephones and even scroll through a computer menu of more complex options. The …
Charitable Net Non-profit groups are putting up their web sites to extend support to people in need. The free-to-browse sites disseminate information ranging from how to conserve oil to evil effects of free licensing of firearms. The American Red Cross Society calls for donations through its website, and surfers have …
THE rapidly evolving, inexpensive international communication afforded by the Internet is becoming increasingly important for non-profit groups. It has been instrumental in the organisation of campaigns against trans-national companies (TNCS) by environmental groups, as well as in providing a forum for information dissemination on subjects such as endangered tigers. Whereas …
Goodyear, the US tyre giant, is developing sensitive truck tyres, which will provide information on the pressure, temperature and mileage oftyres. Goodyear is Currently checking the reliability of computer chips which will be embedded in the tyres. The chips will provide a method of measuring the mileage and will give …
RANK Xerox is developing an ink that cannot be photocopied so that secret documents can now be safeguarded even better. The secret ink is being @developed at the company's laboratory in Grenoble, France, in association with scientists from Paris University. The ink incorporates molecules that can change shape and become …
• In Londona cafe called the Cyberia sells a cup of coffee for us$2.35 - and for another us $2.85half an hour"s access to theInternet on one of its 10 computers. • The Japanese call it maruchimedia or multimedia - and theypropose to link it to every home in Japan …
In the past, 'encryption' was a term closely related to espionage, which entailed the cloak-and-dagger despatch of secretly coded messages by spies from behind enemy lines. But in the modern world of computing, encryption has moved from the realm of the clandestine to that of the commonplace. The use of …
The Internet has been doubling its size every year since 1988: it is the fastest growing communications medium ever. More than 40 million people have access to it today. Over 110 countries have a direct access to the Internet and if other E-mail networks are taken into account, 168 have …
A team led by B Phillips and Paul Lett at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Maryland, US, have observed the retardation effect, that is, the small but finite delay between the time an atom sends out an electromagnetic field and another feels it. They used a small sample …
A SMALL drop is threatening the whole ocean of thought that physicists have nourished for quite some time now. Most particle physicists believe that the theory which governs the interaction of matter at the smallest scale, the so-called Standard Model of particle physics, has Deen tested to a reasonable degree …
COMPUTER science techniques are being used to probe into the mysteries of archaeological finds, most famous of them being the Dead Sea scrolls, which carry a surfeit of information about many a biblical anecdote. A revolutionary discovery by scientists would now make it possible for scholars to restore and study …
A GROWING number of companies throughout the world are exploiting the power of laptop and palmtop - small handhelds that include a keyboard - computers. These systems are being used to speed up information flow to distant sites, feed field employees with the collective. intelligence of the organisation, and set …
LENDING A SUPPORT: For nearly 1.5 million South Africans infected with HIV virus and their dependents, life is going to be less of a burden. The Metropolitan Life, an insurance group, has launched the world's first commercial life cover for AIDS patients. The insurance cover is restricted to persons in …
IF YOU had presumed that the latest fibre optic cables have relegated the good old copper wires into the dustbin of history , you may well be wrong. The us-based Bell Atlantic Corp is turning back to its roots -the copper phone lines running into our houses -in the battle …
THE ancients in India believed that the divine aphorisms of the Vedas, once uttered, remained for ever in the ether. The great seers were probably talking web before anyone conceived it. But the Vedas are now actually available in the ether, courtesy four "crazy" people who have put it on …
Manufacturers today are looking for ways to pack in more data in laser discs. But the most commonly used lasers emit red light which has a longer wavelength compared to blue light. Attempts to make a blue semiconductor laser have so far not been very successful. Now, a team of …
MILLIONS of pounds will be spent in the UK over the next three years on a new generation of high-speed radio networks that will provide super- highway services directly in offices and homes. The systems mean that consumers and businesspeople can have access to the Internet and use high-speed digital …
On what he thinks of global broadcasts using geostationary comsats: I think their use dearly illustrates how difficult it is to predict the nature of technological advancement and how soon new ideas actualise. Back in 1945, my idea of comsats was one of large space stations with permanent servicing crews. …
The talk of the town at the consumer electronics show in Las Vegas early this year was Motorola's new StarTac mini cellular phone, stated to be the smallest and highest cell phone in the world to date. Like something from a "Mission: Impossible" catalogue, the device is almost like a …
A CHEAP fingerprint recognition system may soon replace passwords and thereby make online shopping secure. In this system you can verify financial transactions on the Internet by keeping your fingerprint on a tiny touchscreen attached to your personal computer. This is the promise of a new fingerprint recognition technology developed …
