Best-ever quality printing inspired by stained glass

11:27 14 August 2012

Nanotech

Jacob Aron, reporter
A nanoscale image (a) before the addition of metal and (b) after adding metal layers to the nanostructures in specific patterns (Images: Agency for Science, Technology and Research)
A new way of printing colours at the highest resolution permitted by the laws of physics could be used to create secure watermarks or high-density data storage - not to mention some great-looking pictures.
Joel Yang and colleagues at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore, who created the new technique, were inspired by the colours in stained-glass windows. These are normally made by adding metallic fragments to glass, with light scattering off nanoparticles in the metal to produce a range of colour.
Zooming in, the specular reflection at the corner of the eye shows the refined colour detail that the new method is able to achieve. The region indicated (right) is made up of nanostructures as observed in the electron micrograph
Each "pixel" in the image is actually made up of four nanoscale cylinders coated in silver and gold. The colour they produce depends on both the diameter and spacing of the cylinders, allowing Yang to "print" a full-colour image just by carving out cylinders at the right scale.
The team tried out their method by printing a 50x50 micrometre copy of "Lena", a photograph of a woman commonly used in image processing tests. This image has a resolution of around 100,000 dots per inches (dpi), compared to the 10,000 dpi images produced by regular printing methods such as inkjet and laser printers.
Yang and colleagues choose this figure because it corresponds to a fundamental optical limit. Visible light, with an average wavelength of 500 nanometres, can only distinguish between objects that are half that distance apart - any closer than 250 nanometres, and the two would blur into one.
If the new method can be scaled up to print at regular sizes the resulting images will be of incredibly high quality. Alternatively, Yang and colleagues could apply their printing technique to creating tiny watermarks for security. The method of printing nanostructures very close together could also be used to create high-density versions of optical storage discs such as DVDs.

EyeRing is a camera that you can wear on your finger, identifies text and reads it back to you via smartphone or tablet

By Tyler Lee on 04/26/2012 02:47 PDT

Just yesterday we reported on the NewsFlash, a technology by the MIT Media Lab that basically allows the user to use their smartphone’s camera to retrieve information from a display that cannot be seen by the human eye. The folks over at MIT definitely have more up their sleeves and thanks to the folks at Engadget, they have stumbled across one more piece of technology dubbed the EyeRing.
As you might have surmised from the photo above, the EyeRing is a camera that can be wore around the finger. It was created to help the visually impaired “read” words that they might have otherwise find difficult or impossible to read. It will also be able to help children learn to read as all the child would have to do is direct the EyeRing to a set of words on a page, capture it with the device and it will be read back to them via a Bluetooth device, i.e. smartphones or tablets.
On top of that we can picture the EyeRing having some espionage capabilities where photos or images captured by the device can be immediately sent to a smartphone or tablet which can then be uploaded onto social networking websites or onto a private server. Unfortunately according to Engadget, the EyeRing appeared to be rather buggy during its demonstration. However it is a pretty good idea and we guess it’s only a matter of time before the kinks have been ironed out.
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EyeRing voice-activated augmented reality device for the blind
Nikon rumored to make an announcement on the 22nd of August
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Scientists unearth the origins of singing mice

 Scientists have uncovered the origin of singing mice which use songs to communicate, a finding they say can help identify genes that affect language in humans.
The singing mice are tawny brown fur rodents instead of the common white albino strain and hail from tropical cloud forests in the mountains of Costa Rica.
University of Texas at Austin researcher Steven Phelps is examining these unconventional rodents to gain insights into the genes that contribute to the unique singing behavior, an information that could help scientists understand and identify genes that affect language in humans.

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"We can choose any number of traits to study but we try and choose traits that are not only interesting for their own sake but also have some biomedical relevance," said Phelps.
"We take advantage of the unique property of the species."
The song of the singing mouse song is a rapid-fire string of high-pitched chirps called trills used mostly used by males in dominance displays and to attract mates.
Up to 20 chirps are squeaked out per second, sounding similar to birdsong to untrained ears. But unlike birds, the mice generally stick to a song made up of only a single note.
"They sound kind of soft to human ears, but if you slow them down by about three-fold they are pretty dramatic," said Phelps.
Most rodents make vocalizations at a frequency much too high for humans to hear. But other rodents typically don't vocalize to the extent of singing mice, which use the song to communicate over large distances in the wild, said Andreas George, a graduate student working in Phelps' lab.
Phelp's research on the behavior of the mouse has appeared in the journals 'Hormones and Behaviour' and 'Animal Behaviour'.
His newest research project is examining the genetic components that influence song expression and at the center stage is a special gene called FOXP2.
"FOXP2 is famous because it's the only gene that's been implicated in human speech disorders specifically," said Phelps.
Having at least one mutated copy of the gene has been associated with a host of language problems in humans, from difficulty understanding grammar to an inability to make the precise mouth movements needed to speak a clear sentence.
The FOXP2 gene is remarkably similar overall between singing mice, lab mice and humans, said Phelps.