One of the world's smallest electronic circuits created

A team of scientists, led by Guillaume Gervais from McGill's Physics Department and Mike Lilly from Sandia National Laboratories, has engineered one of the world's smallest electronic circuits. It is formed by two wires separated by only about 150 atoms or 15 nanometers (nm). This discovery, published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, could have a significant effect on the speed and power of the ever smaller integrated circuits of the future in everything from smartphones to desktop computers, televisions and GPS systems.

This is the first time that anyone has studied how the wires in an electronic circuit interact with one another when packed so tightly together. Surprisingly, the authors found that the effect of one wire on the other can be either positive or negative. This means that a current in one wire can produce a current in the other one that is either in the same or the opposite direction. This discovery, based on the principles of quantum physics, suggests a need to revise our understanding of how even the simplest electronic circuits behave at the nanoscale

In addition to the effect on the speed and efficiency of future electronic circuits, this discovery could also help to solve one of the major challenges facing future computer design. This is managing the ever-increasing amount of heat produced by integrated circuits. Well-known theorist Markus Büttiker speculates that it may be possible to harness the energy lost as heat in one wire by using other wires nearby. Moreover, Buttiker believes that these findings will have an impact on the future of both fundamental and applied research in nanoelectronics.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by McGill University.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

D. Laroche, G. Gervais, M. P. Lilly, J. L. Reno. Positive and negative Coulomb drag in vertically integrated one-dimensional quantum wires. Nature Nanotechnology, 2011; 6 (12): 793 DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2011.182

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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The World's First Smartphone - IBM's Simon

The world sure has changed a lot over the last two decades. The technological improvements transformed our lives, making it easier to communicate with each other and finding out new things with just the press of a button. Nowadays, billions of dollars revolve each year around the smartphone market, with approximately four hundred million users across the globe. But do you remember when it all started? Do you remember how it all started?

The year was 1994 when IBM came up with this slogan - ''Mobile Communications Made Simple." The slogan marks the birth of the world's first smartphone, or personal communicator as it was called in those days. The handset was designed by IBM and received the name Simon. This revolutionary device acted like a cellular phone but in the same time it much offered more than simple voice communications. Users were able to employ IBM's Simon as a wireless machine, an electronic mail device, a pager, a calendar, an address book, calculator or pen-based sketchpad. I know, this would simply qualify as a low-end smartphone these days, but in 1994 it was a pretty big deal.

Whoever interested in the handset had to pay a heavy price in order to enjoy its capabilities. No less than $899, which is a lot of money even as we speak, not to mention 17 years ago. The personal communicator was rather heavy, weighing in at more than a pound, and it had a liquid crystal display, or LCD while offering a telephone keypad as well as computer one. It was like you had a computer built inside you cellular which really made you stand out of the crowd.

When used as a cellular phone, Simon could offer all the standard cellular features, including all of today's classics - last number redial, last 10 number redial, a built in 911 emergency call button, address book audio dial and even roaming preference. On the other hand, when using Simon as a personal communicator, users found it easy to access the handset's graphical user interface, which used icons and on-line help screens making the device much more user-friendly. Obviously, it had limited storage capabilities but you had the option to increase it via a personal computer memory card slot. The same card slot allowed users to add a paging card if they wanted to receive electronic messages on both nationwide and local basis, thanks to MobileComm which was IBM's paging company. Furthermore, the slot contained an organizer feature and a calendar, which could have been updated automatically from a remote computer.

Even without the above mentioned slot card, Simon still had the capability to send and receive E-mail through most public E-mail systems. Also, using Simon, you could create faxes and memos by using pen-touch screens or even by writing them directly on the screen with the use of a stylus. The moment you sent that certain fax, you handwriting was reflected exactly as it was, without being digitized in order to look like a printed word. The technology created a huge frenzy in those times and is used constantly in the present as well, being called pen annotation. This isn't the only patented technology that Simon brought to the customers. Ever heard of predictive keyboard? Sure you have! Well, you might not have heard about it if it wasn't for Simon, the first smartphone ever to use this IBM technological marvel. Using the predictive keyboard, only a part of the keyboard was displayed on the LCD screen and the user selected a few letters, Simon predicted the next letters most likely to use. As a comparison, it was like the Siri application on Apple's iPhone 4S; it simply was able to blow your mind. The impact it had on the people was huge, it even appeared in the popular movie ''The Net'', where it ''played'' an important role.

The IBM Simon was undoubtedly a great piece of technology; it revolutionized communications and was a pioneer for all that the smartphone industry currently means. Although it was ahead of its time, as time passed it remained nothing else than a huge, heavy and horribly expensive device, so today it's nothing more than a remainder of the past and only interests collectors.

As we said, the smartphone is now an essential part of our daily life, so if you want to know all the latest news and reviews, check out our website.

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Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Tower to claim world’s tallest building title

 The Kingdom Tower will stand over one kilometer tallImage Gallery (9 images)

Chicago-based firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill (AS+GG) has officially been announced as the design architects for the Kingdom Tower that is to be built in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Initially planned to stand one mile (1.6 km) high and be called the Mile-High Tower, the building was scaled down after soil testing in the area in 2008 cast doubt over whether the location could support a building of that height. Now the building will stand over 0.62 miles (one kilometer) tall, which will still allow it to overshadow the 2,717 ft. (828 m) Burj Khalifa to claim the title of the world's tallest building.

The Kingdom Tower will be the centerpiece and first construction phase of Kingdom City, a 57 million square foot (5.3 million m2) development located along the Red Sea north of Jeddah, which is known as the traditional gateway to the holy city of Mecca. The entire development has been budgeted at US$20 billion, with the Kingdom Tower alone costing approximately $1.2 billion to construct and covering an area of 5.7 million square feet (530,000 m2).

The building will contain 59 elevators, including 54 single-deck and five double-deck elevators, as well as 12 escalators. The elevators serving the observatory will travel at 22 mph (36 km/h) in both directions. At level 157, a sky terrace roughly 98 feet (30 m) in diameter intended as an outdoor amenity for use by the penthouse floor extends from the side of the building.

The exterior wall system is designed to minimize energy consumption by reducing thermal loads, while a series of notches on the building's three sides create pockets of shadow that shield areas of the building from direct sunlight and provide outdoor terraces.

The three-sided tower rises from a three-petal footprint design with aerodynamic tapering wings that help reduce structural loading due to wind vortex shedding. Gill says the tower's sleek, streamlined form was inspired by the folded fronds of young desert plant growth.

"With its slender, subtly asymmetrical massing, the tower evokes a bundle of leaves shooting up from the ground - a burst of new life that heralds more growth all around it," added Smith.

While the building's exact height isn't yet known, when completed AS+GG claim it will be at least 568 feet (173 m) taller than the Burj Khalifa, which was also designed by Adrian Smith when he was at architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). At SOM, Smith also worked on the design for the Pearl River Tower, while AS+GG also recently won an international competition to design China's Wuhan Greenland Center.

AS+GG says design development of the Kingdom Tower is underway, the foundation drawings are already complete and construction is set to begin 'imminently."

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Creators of world’s smallest stop-motion video make world’s largest with Nokia N8

Though it’s not necessarily a new phone, it looks like Nokia is still boasting about the N8?s 12-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens . The company commissioned a promotional video that is indeed special. The video, entitled “Gulp,” broke the record as the world’s largest stop-motion video ever made. Created by the Sumo Science team at

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Creators of world’s smallest stop-motion video make world’s largest with Nokia N8

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