Netherlands researcher Paulette Prins has demonstrated that plastic does not have to be always worse drivers than current semiconductors. This opens the door for the next revolution in consumer electronics: mobile phones, MP3 players and other devices that, among other benefits, will survive falls.

Household electronic devices that do not break if accidentally dropped, devices with flexible screens that can be rolled, and much cheaper products. So far there was only a dream. The limiting factor is the chips in such devices. These need to conduct electricity and plastic chips were not successful in this task. Driving in plastics was 1,000 times lower than in the current generation of semiconductors. (more…)

It is a toy that most kids have ever played, but the results of Gene Cooperman, a professor of Computer Science at Northeastern University, and his colleague Dan Kunkle, not the work of a child. Both have shown that 26 moves suffice to solve any configuration of a Rubik’s Cube, a new record. Historically, the best result shown looked 27 moves.

Cooperman and Kunkle were able to achieve this new record through two primary techniques, used 7 terabytes of distributed disk as an extension of RAM memory in order to hold some large tables and developed a new way to ultra-fast computing and movements, and even groups full of movement, using the mathematical theory of groups. (more…)