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13,776 articles from Technology Review Feed - Tech Review Top Stories


SATURDAY 28. AUGUST 2010



FRIDAY 27. AUGUST 2010


Blog - The Mathematical Secret of Viking Jewellery

A long-standing puzzle over the craftsmanship behind Viking bracelets and necklaces has finally been solved--mathematically The beautiful bracelets and necklaces made by Viking artisans leave archaeologists with something of a conundrum. These objects are made from rods of gold and silver which have twisted together into double helices. The puzzle is the regularity of these helices, which are...


THURSDAY 26. AUGUST 2010


Blog - Fine Structure Constant Varies With Direction in Space, Says New Data

A spatial variation in the fine structure constant has profound implications for cosmology Over the years, many physicists have wondered whether the fundamental constants of nature might have been different when the universe was younger. If so, the evidence ought to be out there in the cosmos where we can see distant things exactly as they were in the past....


WEDNESDAY 25. AUGUST 2010


Blog - Quantum Entanglement Can Be A Measure Of Free Will, Say Physicists

The same experiments that reveal the nature of entanglement can also be interpreted as a measure of free will, say researchers The nature of quantum mechanics has forced researchers to reconsider their own role in the process of science. Gone is the Victorian idea that measurement is objective and absolute. Today, we know that in the quantum world, it is impossible to separate the measured from...


TUESDAY 24. AUGUST 2010


Blog - Synaptic Behaviour Captured By New Memristor Circuit Design

When it comes to copying the real behaviour of synapses, two memristors are better than one, according to a new circuit design Since the 1970s, electronic engineers have known that there are four fundamental building blocks of electronic circuits: resistors, capacitors, inductors and memristors (essentially variable resistors with memory). Memristors, however, had an air of mythology about them...


MONDAY 23. AUGUST 2010



SATURDAY 21. AUGUST 2010



FRIDAY 20. AUGUST 2010



THURSDAY 19. AUGUST 2010


Blog - The Emerging Science of Worker Productivity

Experiments with Amazon's Mechanical Turk are teasing apart the factors that determine worker productivity There's a puzzle at the heart of our economy that has troubled economists for decades. The question is this: why do people work hard in environments where they are poorly monitored and paid a fixed wage, rather than a performance-related one.Surely any rational worker would do the...


WEDNESDAY 18. AUGUST 2010


Blog - 1978 Cryptosystem Resists Quantum Attack

The search for encryption algorithms that will be safe against attacks by quantum computers has thrown up a surprise, say mathematicians Nobody has built a quantum computer much more powerful than a pocket calculator but that hasn't stopped people worrying about the implications of the post-quantum computing world. Most worried are the people who rely on cryptographic codes to protect...


TUESDAY 17. AUGUST 2010


Blog - The Problem of Predicting Crowd Crush

Predicting when the crushing forces in crowds are likely to become dangerous is a task that looks beyond current techniques Crowd control is a significant problem for organisers of major public events. Last month, 19 people died in a crush at a dance music event called the Love Parade in Germany when a crowd was channelled through a tunnel. In 2005, 350 died in a stampede during the annual...


SATURDAY 14. AUGUST 2010


Blog - Is Apple Getting Ready to Bring iTunes to the Web?

A job advert suggests the company is. When Apple bought streaming music service Lala, speculation was that the company intended to work on a Web interface for iTunes. Lala's engineers would certainly have had the expertise, and the company had an interesting approach to the concept of owning songs--users could buy "web albums" which gave them unlimited streaming rights but no downloads or...