Two new papers document progress in neuroprosthetic technology that lets people feel the shape and movement of objects moving over the “skin” of a bionic hand.
Category: computing – Page 4
Microscale light-emitting diodes (micro-LEDs) are emerging as a next-generation display technology for optical communications, augmented and virtual reality, and wearable devices. Metal-halide perovskites show great potential for efficient light emission, long-range carrier transport, and scalable manufacturing, making them potentially ideal candidates for bright LED displays.
However, manufacturing thin-film perovskites suitable for micro-LED displays faces serious challenges. For example, thin-film perovskites may exhibit inhomogeneous light emission, and their surfaces may be unstable when subjected to lithography. For these reasons, solutions are needed to make thin-film perovskites compatible with micro-LED devices.
Recently, a team of Chinese researchers led by Professor Wu Yuchen at the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has made significant strides in overcoming these challenges. The team has developed a novel method for the remote epitaxial growth of continuous crystalline perovskite thin films. This advance allows for seamless integration into ultrahigh-resolution micro-LEDs with pixels less than 5 μm.
Ferroelectrics at the nanoscale exhibit a wealth of polar and sometimes swirling (chiral) electromagnetic textures that not only represent fascinating physics, but also promise applications in future nanoelectronics. For example, ultra-high-density data storage or extremely energy-efficient field-effect transistors. However, a sticking point has been the stability of these topological textures and how they can be controlled and steered by an external electrical or optical stimulus.
A team led by Prof. Catherine Dubourdieu (HZB and FU Berlin) has now published a paper in Nature Communications that opens up new perspectives. Together with partners from the CEMES-CNRS in Toulouse, the University of Picardie in Amiens and the Jozef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana, they have thoroughly investigated a particularly interesting class of nanoislands on silicon and explored their suitability for electrical manipulation.
“We have produced BaTiO3 nanostructures that form tiny islands on a silicon substrate,” explains Dubourdieu. The nano-islands are trapezoidal in shape, with dimensions of 30–60 nm (on top), and have stable polarization domains.
Neuralink continues its push in the brain-computer interface space with a third implant, while competitors and researchers accelerate advancements globally.
Molecules haven’t been used in quantum computing, even though they have the potential to make the ultra-high-speed experimental technology even faster. Their rich internal structures were seen as too complicated, too delicate, too unpredictable to manage, so smaller particles have been used.
But a team of Harvard scientists has succeeded for the first time in trapping molecules to perform quantum operations. This feat was accomplished by using ultra-cold polar molecules as qubits, or the fundamental units of information that power the technology. The findings, recently published in the journal Nature, open new realms of possibility for harnessing the complexity of molecular structures for future applications.
“As a field we have been trying to do this for 20 years,” said senior co-author Kang-Kuen Ni, Theodore William Richards Professor of Chemistry and professor of physics. “And we’ve finally been able to do it.”
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In future, doctors hope the technology could revolutionise the treatment of conditions such as depression, addiction, OCD and epilepsy by rebalancing disrupted patterns of brain activity.
Jacques Carolan, Aria’s programme director, said: “Neurotechnologies can help a much broader range of people than we thought. Helping with treatment resistant depression, epilepsy, addiction, eating disorders, that is the huge opportunity here. We are at a turning point in both the conditions we hope we can treat and the new types of technologies emerging to do that.”
The trial follows rapid advances in brain-computer-interface (BCI) technology, with Elon Musk’s company Neuralink launching a clinical trial in paralysis patients last year and another study restoring communication to stroke patients by translating their thoughts directly into speech.
When used correctly, font selection usually goes unnoticed, blending seamlessly with content and reader. When the One Times Square Billboard used a retired Microsoft Word default Calibri font to usher in 2025’s “Happy New Year” message, it was immediately met with sarcastic scorn and delightful derision for the uninspired choice (at least by people who pay attention to such things). Had the font faux pas been the branding rollout of a new app, product, or company, the consequences might have been more severe.
Hanyang University researchers in Korea have attempted to take the intuition and subjective judgment out of the art of font selection. Using computational tools and network analysis to develop an objective framework for font selection and pairing in design, the researchers aim to establish foundational principles for applying typography in visual communication.
Font choice plays a critical role in visual communication, shaping readability, emotional resonance, and overall design balance across mediums. According to the researchers, designers have traditionally relied on subjective rules for font pairing, such as mixing Serif and Sans-Serif or creating contrast. These rules are difficult to formalize and often apply to only a narrow subset of fonts.
When the Army is thinking of deploying cloud capabilities, it has to take into consideration how it fights.
MIT researchers are developing techniques to make quantum gates, the basic operations of a quantum computer, as fast as possible in order to reduce the impact of decoherence. However, as gates get faster, another type of error, arising from counter-rotating dynamics, can be introduced because of the way qubits are controlled using electromagnetic waves.
Single-qubit gates are usually implemented with a resonant pulse, which induces Rabi oscillations between the qubit states. When the pulses are too fast, however, “Rabi gates” are not so consistent, due to unwanted errors from counter-rotating effects. The faster the gate, the more the counter-rotating error is manifest. For low-frequency qubits such as fluxonium, counter-rotating errors limit the fidelity of fast gates.
“Getting rid of these errors was a fun challenge for us,” says Rower. “Initially, Leon had the idea to utilize circularly polarized microwave drives, analogous to circularly polarized light, but realized by controlling the relative phase of charge and flux drives of a superconducting qubit. Such a circularly polarized drive would ideally be immune to counter-rotating errors.”