Research - SlashGear

‘research’ Stories

Researchers in Tokyo working on new fluorescent implantable glucose monitor

Shane McGlaun, Aug 19th 2011 Discuss [2]

A group of researchers at the Institute of Industrial Science at the University of Tokyo have been hard at work trying to perfect a new blood glucose sensor that can be implanted and glows when the blood sugar changes. The sensor is designed for long-term in vivo glucose monitoring. The study on the sensor was published earlier this month. Read The Full Story

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab ads stronger but shoppers still buy iPad instead

Chris Davies, Aug 18th 2011 Discuss [66]

Apple's market success has often been attributed to the "magical" brain-washing powers of its advertising, but new research suggests that strong ad campaigns aren't necessarily so persuasive when it comes to sales. Ace Metrix crunched viewer feedback around the Apple "It Becomes Delightful, Even Magical" iPad 2 advert and found that, in fact, people preferred Samsung's "Feel Free" ad for the original Galaxy Tab. Read The Full Story

IBM, DARPA, and university researchers create basic design for computer chip that works like the brain

Shane McGlaun, Aug 18th 2011 Discuss [4]

IBM is one of the biggest companies in high performance computing and supercomputers and has been a big force in the computer world for over 65 years. IBM announced today that with help from DARPA and four major universities the basic design of an experimental computer chip that emulates the human brain has been completed. IBM calls the chip a cognitive computing chip. Read The Full Story

Grabby robot satellite could clean up space junk

Chris Davies, Aug 12th 2011 Discuss [4]

Space may look cavernously empty, but in actual fact there's a growing cloud of debris surround the Earth from previous manned and unmanned missions, progressively presenting an increasing risk to further exploration. Now scientists have come up with the space equivalent of a Roomba, only instead of sucking up junk it would grab it, glue a rocket to it, and then send it hurtling to the Earth's atmosphere where it would - so the theory goes - harmlessly burn up on re-entry. Read The Full Story

NASA contracts Virgin Galatic & more for suborbital testing

Chris Davies, Aug 11th 2011 Discuss [0]

NASA has selected seven commercial spacelines to fly suborbital missions intended for scientific research, including Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic and the Near Space Corp. Each contract for multiple suborbital flights using reusable platforms will deliver various technological payloads into space. The first such agreement between the US space agency and commercial spacelines, the exact contents of those payloads will be selected by independent research teams making proposals to NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program. Read The Full Story

NASA researchers find DNA building blocks can be made in space

Shane McGlaun, Aug 9th 2011 Discuss [6]

NASA thinks that it has found evidence that the building blocks of life may have come from asteroids and comets that stuck the earth. According to researchers that were funded by NASA, some of the building blocks needed for DNA have been found in meteorites and were likely created in space. The building blocks found in the meteorites are adenine and guanine. Read The Full Story

VLC D-Light LED networking takes on WiFi and GPS [Video]

Chris Davies, Aug 8th 2011 Discuss [1]

Another optical WLAN project has demonstrated the potential for using LED lighting as a method of data transmission, with University of Edinburgh professor Harald Haas showing the 10 MBit/sec in action. Presenting a prototype anglepoise lamp at TED this month - you can watch the video after the cut - Haas illustrated how rapidly flickering the LED - faster than the human eye can discern - can allow it to embed the data for streaming video playback. Meanwhile, the technology - which Haas has dubbed D-Light, and hopes to commercialize under the new VLC (Visible Light Communications) brand - could also have applications in mobile location and positioning services. Read The Full Story

OutRun arcade game actually drives on the road

Shane McGlaun, Aug 5th 2011 Discuss [2]

Way back in the day I was all about the driving arcade games. When the parents took me to Chuck E Cheese I waited in line and blew most of my tokens on OutRun and other driving games. I always thought it would be awesome if you could really drive like that video game and apparently, some other geeks did too. Some researchers at the University of California at Irvine used research as an excuse to live out their childhood driving game on the street fantasies. Read The Full Story

Smartphone addiction diagnosed as users admit to stall-surfing

Chris Davies, Aug 4th 2011 Discuss [5]

Smartphone addiction is spreading through the UK at a phenomenal rate, regulator Ofcom claims, with increasing numbers of users turning to their handsets while at the dining table, in cinemas and in the bathroom. According to the new research, 47-percent of UK teens and 27-percent of UK adults now have a smartphone, with 81-percent keeping their handset on all the time and 47-percent of teens (22-percent of adults) admitting to stall-surfing. Read The Full Story

Android “openness” a myth say researchers

Chris Davies, Aug 4th 2011 Discuss [26]

Android‘s much-vaunted “open source” credentials do not mean the OS is “open”, researchers have suggested, finding that Google’s platform is actually severely lacking in comparison to other open-source software. Google’s refusal to release a public roadmap, unilinear development decisions and “closed contributions process model” all leave it behind rivals like MeeGo and Symbian, VisionMobile concludes, with Android’s success being attributed more to Google’s deep pockets and a general fear of Apple dominance than anything else.

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Internet Explorer IQ research a hoax

Chris Davies, Aug 3rd 2011 Discuss [1]

A report which suggested Internet Explorer users had a lower IQ than those relying on other browsers has been shown to be bogus, using a freshly set-up site and staff images copied from another company. The data, which faux-firm ApTiquant claimed had been gathered from 100,000 web users and included IQ testing and software surveys, has in fact apparently been fabricated, the BBC reports. Read The Full Story