Cody Taylor

Al writes “Two research groups have found a way to unzip carbon nanotubes to create nanoribbons of graphene — a material that has shown great promise for use as nanoscale transistors but which have proven difficult to manufacture previously. A team led by James Tour, a professor of chemistry and computer science at Rice University and another led by Hongjie Dai, a professor of chemistry at Stanford University, both figured out ways to slice carbon nanotubes open to create the nanoribbons. The Stanford team was funded by Intel and the Rice group is in talks with several companies about commercializing their approach.”

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Google’s first attempts at a social network with Orkut have not proved fruitfulLittle did we know however that whilst we thought Google had made a conscious decision to take steps away from the “social networking” arena, they were building one right under our noses and have the capabilities to grow larger and more useful than any competitor

An anonymous reader writes “New York City is soliciting ideas from the public about possible technology improvements for its 13,000+ fleet of taxis. TLC (the city agency in charge of cabs) is ‘seek[ing] input and information on ways to enhance the technology systems in each taxicab for the benefit of passengers, drivers and owners alike.'”

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alphadogg writes with this excerpt from Network World: “Stanford University researchers are designing an operating system from the ground up to handle the power and security requirements of mobile devices. The Cinder operating system is already working on an Arm chip, and members of the team are working on making it run on the HTC G1 handset, according to Philip Levis, a Stanford assistant professor. Levis spoke about Cinder at the Stanford Computer Forum on Tuesday. If an application isn’t running as fast as the user wants, a Cinder-based phone could include a button to boost the energy allocated to that application, Levis said. Cinder also could allow users to download any code and run it safely on their phones in a ‘sandbox’ mode.”

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TEDChris writes “The Allosphere, being created at USC Santa Barbara, is the most ambitious attempt yet at creating powerful 3d visualizations of raw scientific data, such as the structure of a crystal, or how quantum effects take place. Researchers watch from a bridge inside the 30-foot sphere, looking at data projected 360 degrees around them and listening to 3D sound. The first major public demo of the facility has just been posted at TED.com. Optimists would argue that many of the greatest scientific breakthroughs happened through a new visual way of imagining data. Penicillin and relativity come to mind. So this is either a killer new research vehicle, an incredible toy, or just an insanely expensive art project.”

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jcrousedotcom writes “Time Warner cable apparently has heard that folks aren’t too happy with their plan to meter their unlimited connections. From the first paragraph of the article: ‘Time Warner Cable’s proposed trials of consumption-based billing were originally slated to begin in several markets this summer, where customers would be a part of a tiered pricing scheme. Pricing would have started at 1 GB per month for , and go up to 100 GB per month for , and include a per-gigabyte overage fee. The public’s reaction was less than favorable, and the trials in Texas have been rescheduled.'”

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DesScorp writes “The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Energy Secretary Steven Chu is endorsing ‘clean coal’ technology and research, and is taking a pragmatic approach to coal as an energy supply. ‘”It absolutely is worthwhile to invest in carbon capture and storage because we are not in a vacuum,” Mr. Chu told reporters Tuesday following an appearance at an Energy Information Administration conference. “Even if the United States or Europe turns its back on coal, India and China will not,” he said. Mr. Chu added that “quite frankly I doubt if the United States will turn its back on coal. We are generating over 50% of our electrical energy from coal.”‘ The United States has the world’s largest reserves of coal. Secretary Chu has reversed his positions on coal and nuclear power, previously opposing them, and once calling coal ‘My worst nightmare.'”

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