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Intel has taken the wraps off Knights Landing, its next-gen, up-to-72-core Xeon Phi supercomputing chip. The main change is that Knights Landing will be a standalone processor, rather than a slot-in coprocessor that must be paired with standard Xeon CPU. Furthermore, Knights Landing will have up to 16GB of DRAM 3D stacked on-package, providing up to 500GB/sec of memory bandwidth ...

Move over, graphene and carbyne — stanene, with 100% electrical efficiency at temperatures up to 100 degrees Celsius (212F), is here, and it wants to replace the crummy, high-resistance copper wires that are a big limiting factor in current computer chips. Where graphene is a single-atom-thick layer of carbon, stanene is a single-atom-thick layer of tin. Modern computer chips, such ...

The DNA Analysis company 23andMe has become a popular, low-cost way for individuals to analyze their genome and determine what genes they might be carrying for specific diseases or disorders, as well as a means of tracing one’s ancestry. As of last Friday, however, the FDA has brought the company’s activities to a screeching halt. 23andMe is now prohibited from ...

Graphene is incredibly thin and light, and prevents all but the smallest molecules from passing through it (it’s an excellent water filter, for example). Condoms, though an excellent barrier against unwanted contaminants, are neither thin nor light — which is why they reduce sensation, and why some people really don’t like wearing them. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, realizing ...

Nanotechnology has contributed to all sorts of important medical and scientific breakthroughs, but when is it going to make speakers sound better? It’s a question we all ask ourselves every hour of every day, of course, but your nanotech speakers are almost ready. A team of researchers from Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology have created a new kind of ...

Los Angeles might be America’s best auto show even if New York, Detroit, and Chicago draw more, claim more tradition, or boast bigger convention centers. Southern California is America’s epicenter for cars, style and culture. Other shows are where you see the next big pickup truck or taxicab. LA is where you see the future and that’s reflected in the ...

As any good chef knows, mechanical stress aids the transfer of thermodynamic energy in a closed system. They employ this knowledge every time they press an ingredient down into a pan or grill, greatly increasing the efficiency of heat transfer from metal to food. We usually see that interaction exclusively from one perspective, that of using the pan to add ...

The heart of every radio transmitter is a reliable oscillator. Creating small, and tunable, oscillators that can maintain a precise frequency when conditions like temperature, pressure or humidity change, can be challenging. Engineers from Columbia University have just revealed to us the world’s smallest FM transmitter, which they managed to build around a nanoscale graphene oscillator. Details of their device ...

Hydrogen, not Botox or movie openings, is the talk of LA this week. Hyundai says it will begin selling a hydrogen-powered Tucson compact SUV in 2014. It’s one of several auto show announcements this week in Los Angeles and Tokyo about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles being readied for production. Hyundai says this will be the first mass-market hydrogen vehicle available ...

Over the last few weeks, a storm has been gathering around a treaty known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty, or TPP. Last week, Wikileaks published a draft version of the TPP that dates to this previous August, and the restrictions it places on digital freedoms and consumer rights are incredible. If you thought that the content creation industry had learned ...