http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. (Phys.org) —Video game and augmented-reality game players can spontaneously build virtual teams and leadership structures without special tools or guidance, according to researchers. http://phys.org/news286449741.html Technology Mon, 29 Apr 2013 10:22:36 EST news286449741 It may sound like science fiction, but it's anything but. Today, engineers and entrepreneurs can design a product on a computer and, with the help of increasingly accessible 3-D printers, have a prototype in their hands within hours. Tucker Marion, assistant professor of technological entrepreneurship and the Sam and Nancy Altschuler Faculty Fellow and Bornstein Endowed Faculty Fellow, studies industrial innovation and here explains how rapid prototyping is changing product development. http://phys.org/news281609298.html Technology Mon, 04 Mar 2013 09:20:02 EST news281609298 Research into using simple video clips to build up a virtual 3D environment has won a Best Paper award for a team from the Department of Engineering. http://phys.org/news279791235.html Technology Mon, 11 Feb 2013 07:47:34 EST news279791235 A new guide for Web developers recently released by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will make it easier for electric utilities and vendors to give customers convenient, electronic access to their energy usage data with tools and applications developed as part of the new "Green Button" initiative. http://phys.org/news279446734.html Technology Thu, 07 Feb 2013 08:20:01 EST news279446734 (Phys.org)—It is not enough to be energy efficient; LED lighting also must be consistently high quality and reliable to win over consumers. http://phys.org/news279276663.html Technology Tue, 05 Feb 2013 08:51:13 EST news279276663 Childrenswear designers and retailers will be able to design and make better fitting clothes for British children from four to seventeen years thanks to 3D scanning of children by researchers at the University of Hertfordshire. http://phys.org/news278236560.html Technology Thu, 24 Jan 2013 07:56:13 EST news278236560 Samsung Electronics today announced that it reached another milestone in the development of 14-nanometer (nm) FinFET process technology with the successful tape-out of multiple development vehicles in collaboration with its key design and IP partners. In addition, Samsung has signed an agreement with ARM for 14nm physical IP and libraries. This agreement is the latest in a series from Samsung and ARM that has delivered production proven SoC enablement. Samsung, together with its ecosystem partners, is in a position to offer leading edge customers a robust design infrastructure to drive an ever expanding advanced mobile SoC market. http://phys.org/news275293461.html Technology Fri, 21 Dec 2012 06:24:54 EST news275293461 (Phys.org)—Minteye is offering a no-type option to annoying CAPTCHA tests where users' first tries turn into third and fourth tries to get the blurry, blotched letters and digits correct for entry. The company Minteye, made up of "engineers, designers and entrepreneurs," has come up with a solution that is targeted both at advertisers and web site owners, called SLIDING CAPTCHA, with the idea being "slide to fit." Minteye's flavor of a CAPTCHA appears as a twisted, wavy, deformed, image with a small slider below the image. http://phys.org/news275080581.html Technology Tue, 18 Dec 2012 19:16:50 EST news275080581 Facebook games pioneer Zynga on Wednesday said it was expanding its casino-style offerings with an "Elite Slots" title that weaves social and story elements with luck-based play. http://phys.org/news274547877.html Technology Wed, 12 Dec 2012 15:18:05 EST news274547877 To build the computer chips of the future, designers will need to understand how an electrical charge behaves when it is confined to metal wires only a few atom-widths in diameter. http://phys.org/news271430167.html Nanotechnology Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:16:33 EST news271430167 The advertising-supported Internet "ecosystem" generated $530 billion last year and supported 5.1 million jobs in the United States, an industry study said Monday. http://phys.org/news268307712.html Technology Mon, 01 Oct 2012 10:55:57 EST news268307712 (Phys.org)—Casual online games, such as FarmVille and Fantastic Contraption, have thousands of enthusiastic followers – but the use of automated "bots" to give some players an advantage is short-changing the companies behind the games. Now researchers from NC State have developed a new technique to help companies identify these bots, and take action against them. http://phys.org/news268289494.html Technology Mon, 01 Oct 2012 05:51:52 EST news268289494 (Phys.org)—Up to now, overclockers hungry for more processing power had to trade off on the possibility of a shorter life of the SoC and a voided warranty. Eben Upton, a founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, had remarked earlier this year, that "This is a mobile phone chip. The voltage this chip runs at, you can't just give it a significant voltage overhead without harming the overall chip lifetime.' The Raspberry Pi designers have good news for power enthusiasts this week, however. The team has developed a turbo mode that boosts performance by about 50 percent while keeping warranties intact. The turbo mode is a key feature of its latest firmware update. Its blog headline is "Introducing turbo mode: up to 50% more performance for free." http://phys.org/news267380065.html Electronics Thu, 20 Sep 2012 17:14:43 EST news267380065 These days, gamers aren't just saving the virtual world, they're creating it. http://phys.org/news267361883.html Other Sciences Thu, 20 Sep 2012 12:11:30 EST news267361883 Silicon Valley, it turns out, doesn't revolve around the stock prices of Facebook and its playful sidekick, Zynga. http://phys.org/news266513423.html Technology Mon, 10 Sep 2012 16:50:02 EST news266513423 Animatronics aims at creating physical robots that move and look like real humans. Many impressive characters have been created in this spirit, like those in the Hall of Presidents attraction at Walt Disney World. Until now, creating animatronic copies of real human individuals is a difficult and labor-intensive process requiring the manual work of skilled animators, material designers and mechanical engineers. Researchers at Disney Research, Zürich, ETH Zürich, and Walt Disney Imagineering R&D have developed a new computational design process for cloning human faces that could greatly simplify the creation of synthetic skin for animatronic characters. http://phys.org/news263828718.html Technology Fri, 10 Aug 2012 14:46:32 EST news263828718 (Phys.org) -- Some strands of the World Wide Web are getting a little tattered. http://phys.org/news263030481.html Technology Wed, 01 Aug 2012 09:02:33 EST news263030481 New intelligent algorithms could help robots to quickly recognize and respond to human gestures. Researchers at A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research in Singapore have created a computer program which recognises human gestures quickly and accurately, and requires very little training. http://phys.org/news257068765.html Electronics Thu, 24 May 2012 09:50:06 EST news257068765 (Phys.org) -- Using the most recent generation windows, architects and lighting designers can to control daylight, directing it where they want within a room. An EPFL laboratory has developed a simulation tool to make access to this technology more widely available. http://phys.org/news255682697.html Technology Tue, 08 May 2012 08:10:01 EST news255682697 Giving people the freedom -- but not too much freedom -- to express themselves may help designers build more interactive web portals and online communities, according to Penn State researchers. http://phys.org/news255606044.html Technology Mon, 07 May 2012 15:30:01 EST news255606044 Fan power may lead to a ban on the ugly new "stepped noses" on this year's Formula One cars, the sport's ruling body has conceded. http://phys.org/news251183297.html Technology Sat, 17 Mar 2012 06:08:24 EST news251183297 Sales of epic medieval videogame "Skyrim" have soared to about $650 million, with rave reviews pegging the title as game of the year. http://phys.org/news243279453.html Technology Fri, 16 Dec 2011 17:37:40 EST news243279453 Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have released a technical report that could help improve the performance of electric vehicles (EVs) and the efficiency of the electric utility grids that power them. http://phys.org/news242545891.html Technology Thu, 08 Dec 2011 05:51:49 EST news242545891 "Skyrim" has become the year's second fastest selling videogame, with more than 3.4 million copies snapped up in the two days after its release, industry tracker VGChartz reported on Tuesday. http://phys.org/news240596532.html Technology Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:22:17 EST news240596532 Skyrim unleashes its magic on videogame lovers, opening a boundless world of medieval adventure complete with death-dealing dragons, Nordic gods, and foreboding prophecy. http://phys.org/news240237220.html Technology Fri, 11 Nov 2011 12:33:47 EST news240237220 These days, cars are developed on computers, and to assist with this, designers want processes which generate realistic surfaces such as seat covers. Researchers have now developed high-resolution scanners which copy objects and fabric samples in a few minutes, converting them into virtual models. The light effects are startlingly realistic. http://phys.org/news239532597.html Technology Thu, 03 Nov 2011 10:20:03 EST news239532597 The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has developed a world-leading pvT (pressure-volume-temperature) and thermal conductivity test kit. http://phys.org/news236250397.html Chemistry Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:06:45 EST news236250397 (PhysOrg.com) -- Designers from the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design and engineers from Toyota have been working together and have come up with a unique and innovative concept they call the "Window to the Word" where the window of the back seat of an automobile is converted into a see-through touch-screen device capable of allowing people, likely children, to draw images with their finger, magnify objects they see outside the car, learn by having objects they touch converted into another language, get distance for objects seen and be given information about objects they see. http://phys.org/news230467097.html Technology Thu, 21 Jul 2011 11:38:41 EST news230467097 Thousands of people in Silicon Valley are unemployed and looking for work. But for tech workers with the right skills, work is looking for them. http://phys.org/news228491675.html Technology Tue, 28 Jun 2011 15:30:01 EST news228491675 Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new method that can accurately predict the behavior of players in online role-playing games. The tool could be used by the game industry to develop new game content, or to help steer players to the parts of a game they will enjoy most. http://phys.org/news227266952.html Technology Tue, 14 Jun 2011 11:20:01 EST news227266952