CES 2013: what to expect - Updated

The Consumer Electronics Show, or CES, is one of the largest showcases of new technology in the world.

Hosted by the Consumer Electronics Association in Las Vegas, CES 2013 will open to press and exhibitors from every facet of the electronics industry, and TechRadar will be there.

We'll descend upon the gambling capital of the world for four days of basking in the glow of the latest computers, televisions, cameras, phones and more.

With plenty of winners and losers, last year's CES 2012was big news for many reasons.

First, the show floor opened on Jan. 9, a week later than usual. LG andSony unveiled 55-inch Ultra High-Definition TVs, then the largest in the world. Intel gave us a glimpse of the touch enabled Ultrabooks we've been seeing everywhere lately.

Last and most notably, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave the company'slast CES keynote, introducing the world to Windows 8's Metro interface, and announcing Xbox 360 apps for Fox, IGN and more.

To follow that, CES 2013 will be a mix of keynote razzle dazzle, sneak peeks at the latest tech, and introductions to products that will go from patently unaffordable to a given in every living room, a lot faster than you'd believe.

Before TechRadar hits the CES 2013 show floor from Jan. 8-11, we thought we'd put together a preview of the gadget glory you can expect from our on the ground coverage.

LG gives CPU making a try

The rumor mill is turning even faster as the days wind down to CES 2013. One thread we keep seeing pop up is processors, and LG is the latest to jump in the mix.

A report out of Korea has the tech firm producing in-house made CPUs next year, starting with chips for its web-capable Smart TVs.

One chip could be the H13, with the H standing for home entertainment and the 13 for the year, and we could see it and others come early January.

A tablet to take notice of

There's a good chance we'll see a good number of tablets at the show, but there's two we've heard about recently that could really turn some heads.

Asus is reportedly working on a tablet with the model name ME172V, a slate that could reach no more than 7 inches, come with a microSD slot for expandable memory and flash a price that puts the Google Nexus 7 on notice.

And while Samsung's Galaxy S4 is stealing most of the South Korean company's 2013 thunder, we've heard the firm might be planning a 13.3-inch tablet to take on Asus' Transformer series.

The 13-incher would even feature a QWERTY keyboard dock.

Intel to outline new tablet chips

In the mood for some T-time?

Intel is supposedly prepping the introduction of a next gen processor at CES 2013: the Bay Trail-T.

The Bay Trail-T is rumored as a quad-core scheduled for a 2014 launch, though CES will see the series' debut plus info on what manufactures are building slates based off the Trail-T.

A SoC sibling is also expected at the Vegas show. Dubbed the Valleyview-T, the chip could take on Nvidia's Tegra 3 and Qualcomm's S4.

Look for long battery lives plus 22nm prowess, superior audio, boosted memory capacity and amped up graphics when used in conjunction with the Gen7 Intel GPU. There's even talk 3D video recording could be in the cards.

Galaxy S4 with Full HD Super AMOLED display

As the major hardware manufacturer taking up CES real estate, it's no surprise Samsung should (so far) dominate the rumor mill.

This one has a Full HD Super AMOLED display arriving at the show, but that's not all: chances are we'll see such a screen housed inside the Galaxy S4.

A Samsung source reported that the display's resolution will reach 1920 x 1080 and a staggering 441 ppi, but the real point of interest is in the ultra-thin and energy efficient AMOLED technology.

Fingers crossed Samsung decides to bring a SIV with such a screen as its CES carry on.

Huawei Ascends take flight

With Windows Phone 8 reveals by Nokia, HTC and Samsung already in the books, it was easy to forget that a fourth manufacturer received a Microsoft nod to use the new OS.

China's Huawei may take the CES stage to bring its WP8 dish to the party in the form of the Ascend W1.

Though the Ascend W1 will be the last guest to arrive, it may turn out to be the phone everyone flocks to if a cheap asking price is tacked on.

The firm may also introduce the higher-end Ascend W3, a phone with a 4.5-inch display that recently leaked online.

Huawei has kept its lips sealed on whether it's even working on one or more Windows Phone 8 handsets, so CES could be the time it decides to open up.

World's largest Ultra HD TV from Samsung

Can you say "whoa?" Samsung is about to set mouths agape with an 85-inch Ultra HD LED TV, "the world's largest commercialized UHD LED TV."

The company made the over eight million pixel tube official Nov. 12, and we're looking forward to standing wide-eyed before the mondo television that probably makes the lights on the Strip look like dying flashlights.

• Read more about Samsung's Ultra HD TV at CES

Samsung rebrands itself

Despite having the best-selling smartphone in the world and running an operating system on clip to eclipse all others, Samsung is reportedlypreparing quite the rebranding at CES 2013.

While we don't necessarily anticipate a radical image reimagining, we do expect Samsung will take advantage of the stage (and a keynote speech) to introduce a new facet to its business identity – a refresh, as it were.

One of CES's exhibit categories is "Digital Health and Fitness," so Samsung will likely tack onto that theme with the introduction of products (or the retooling of current devices) that fit into the health and wellness category.

Samsung has reportedly hired a design team that's worked with Nike on some of that company's branding initiatives, so we'll likely see some dynamic stuff from South Korea in Vegas.

As Samsung continues to grow from an Asian powerhouse to a global one, how it sells itself to a broad international audience will be key to its future.

We expect Stephen Woo, president of Samsung Electronics' device solutions division, to set the tone of the company's refreshed self during his keynote address Jan. 9.

The debut of Ultra High-Definition television

It took a while but CRT televisions have finally become the stuff of garage sales and trips to grandma's house, and 3D screens have just started to crack the home market. Now everyone's lovely flatscreen is about to become a little bit obsolete, thanks Ultra High-Definition.

After a brief flirtation with 4K high-definition, the CEA settled on the name Ultra HD. However, Sony, always one to buck a naming trend (remember Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD?) has said it will stick with numbered moniker, calling its pixel-dense displays 4K Ultra High-Definition (4K UHD).

LG's 55-incher, we've its since topped

Still, everyone seems to be in agreement over the spec requirements set by the CEA, defining what it takes to be called Ultra HD. According to the group, Ultra means at least 8 million pixels, with a minimum resolution of 3840 x 2160, and an aspect ratio of at least 16 x 9.

Now the question is how big will the screens at CES 2013 be? There's debate between engineers as to whether anyone can even tell the difference between UHD and regular HD on a display that's less than 100-inches. And when will these TVs become affordable? Right now they're around $20,000 (UK£12,515, AUD $19,210), keeping them firmly in Donald Trump and Richard Branson territory.

Intel introduces a new mobile processor, stakes its claim

Intel is probably one of the most recognizable names coming to CES 2013, though it's not the only chipmaker making a stand on the Vegas exhibit floor.

We expect Intel to show up big at the event, schooling the competition on how it's done, and very likely announcing a new mobile processor or two as well as some destined for PCs.

Intel is in an interesting position in terms of its mobile future: although it claims to have 20 Windows 8 tablets sporting its new Z2760 processor coming to market soon, the firm's chips are currently only found in six smartphones.

ARM and its licensees (Nvidia and Qualcomm) are making a killing in the mobile space and all are heading down to Nevada for the show, creating a perfect storm for one-up-man ship on the Strip.

ARM-based chips, while found in major money makers like the iPad and various Android tablets, aren't terribly up to snuff when it comes to processing prowess.

Yet Intel hasn't even breached the realm of relevancy smartphone space, making CES the time where it needs to stake that claim.

There's been talk that Apple may chuck Intel as its CPU provider in the coming years. Cupertino recently developed a poppy processor for its iPad 4 – the A6X – a chip that's reportedly twice as fast as those found in older iPads.

For that reason alone, Intel has got to show why it's relevant in mobile and why it deserves to be considered the top chipmaker in the world now and for years to come.

We'd love to see Intel not only announce a new mobile processor, but unveil a new partnership. It's got to prove it can work well with others (and capture consumer imagination) if it hopes to move deeper into smartphones and tablets.

Nvidia trumps out Tegra 4

Nvidia's Tegra 3 has done quite for itself this year, jumping into phones like HTC's One X+ and tablets such as Google's Nexus 7 and Microsoft'sSurface.

That doesn't mean Nvidia doesn't have its eyes to the horizon, and we believe the company will introduce its Tegra 4 processor come CES.

We might see the Tegra 3's successor at CES 2013

Word of the T40 (the new Tegra's model number) got going in April, with a report pointing to early 2013 as the time the Tegra 3's successor would ascend the throne.

At the time, it sounded like the Tegra 4 would fit four new Cortex A15 ARM chips, taking it way past the A9 Cortex chip summit.

Speeds of 1.8GHz are probably going to be average for the new processor, while by the middle/end of the year, 2.0 should be its cruising GHz.

If we're lucky, we might even see an Android or Windows 8 tablet poke about with the Tegra 4 inside.

Microsoft's show no more

The Consumer Electronics Show has long been Microsoft's chance to shine. The software giant has always given flashy presentations, usually involving celebrities. Shaq, Conan O'Brien, Ryan Seacrest, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and more have all appeared to help co-founder Bill Gates and current CEO Steve Ballmer show of the company's latest tech.

Sadly, CES 2013 will be the first year where Microsoft won't be giving one of its signature keynote presentations. It gave the world plenty of notice, saying in December 2011 that CES 2012 would be its last. Steve Ballmer's last presentation at the Las Vegas trade show focused on Metro, the new Live Tile-based interface for Windows 8.

Ballmer and Seacrest present at CES 2012

Companies have moved quickly to fill the space left by Microsoft's exodus. Qualcomm has nabbed the open keynote slot. The telecommunications mogul will be giving its Born Mobile keynote on Monday, January 7th. Meanwhile, satellite provider Dish and appliance manufacturer Hisense snapped up Microsoft's booth space in under an hour.

However, Venturebeat has quoted CEA president Gary Shapiro as saying, "Microsoft will have something" at CES 2013. While it's unknown what that something will be, there are plenty of possibilities. More Windows Phone 8devices? A Microsoft Surface Pro running Windows 8? Its all in the realm of possibility.

Via Venturebeat

LG unveils Smart TV platform underpinned by HP's webOS

While we expect LG to march out a bevvy of phones and TVs, including some we haven't seen before, what's really piquing our interest heading into the new year is word that it may launch a Smart TV service based onwebOS.

webOS, the open source system developed by HP, could take the reigns from LG's antiquated NetCast Smart TV interface during the show, a move that wouldn't leave our jaws dropped.

HP delivered on its promise to walk out webOS to the public by September, a vow it made in January, and now it needs a big product and solid partner to get its face out there.

The marriage between the two should be equal – reports have HP providing the OS while LG will plug in its dual-core L9-powered motherboards.

If our expectations pan out, we'll likely see the death of LG's small screen partnership with the struggling Google TV service, a relationship LG championed at CES 2012 yet has since cooled.

Automotive electronics

The CEA estimates that factory-installed automotive technology will generate $8.7 billion dollars in 2013, so it's no wonder seven major car companies will be on the show floor.

Audi, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Hyundai, Kia and Subaru will be joined more than 100 auto tech companies displaying the latest in-car tech. This is a record setting presence for the automotive industry at CES.

Displays and presentations will include electric drive technology. GoElectricDrive TechZone will demonstrate electric vehicles paired with their respective charging stations, ones that can be used at homes and in public facilities. The Safe Driver presentation will show more than the typical hands-free devices, highlighting technologies that can help drivers park, watch their speed and avoid collisions.

However, not everything between automakers and car tech designers is completely sunny. With so much hardware being put into cars before they even leave the factory, will the aftermarket industry be facing an all-time low? A presentation titled "Are Automakers Running the Aftermarket Off the Road?" will address the issue.

Source : Techradar

Blast of hot, hot heat can heal flash memory, science proves

Researchers have found that a blast of 800C heat can stop flash memory from wearing out.

Current flash drives tend to burn out after 10,000 cycles of data being written and read, which is a bit of an issue for server farms and other data-heavy computing outlets relying on solid state drives (SSDs) day-in-day-out.

Scientists now reckon that with this toasty blast SSDs can last up to 100 million cycles instead.

A quick heat hit is much easier to apply than baking the chip for hours at 250C in situ, as was the previous "solution".

More than times a thousand

Scientists looked to future memory sources for inspiration, deciding to try a solution used by phase change RAM (PCRAM) which could end up usurping flash memory in the long run.

The Macronix engineers redesigned a flash memory chip with tiny onboard heaters that can use an electric current to generate pulses of heat just a few milliseconds long that have a healing effect on the chip.

Sounds power-hungry, but the scientists argue that because the process can be done just occasionally and bit-by-bit, it can be programmed to heal just when a device is hibernating and connected to a power source.

Basically, as project deputy director at Macronix Hang‑Ting Lue puts it, "It's not going to drain your cellphone battery."

So when will we see this self-healing memory make its way into our handsets and computers? It might not be as far off as it sounds.

"It took a leap of imagination to jump into a completely different regime…very high temperature and in a very short time," says Lue.

"Afterward, we realised that there was no new physics principle invented here, and we could have done this 10 years ago." 


From IEEE Spectrum via BBC , Techradar

Jaguar introduces its fastest, most powerful sedan ever

After pulling the cloth off the Jaguar F-Type for the first time on North American turf, Jaguar turned stage left and rolled the second member of its R-S ultra high-performance model line out of a makeshift garage door at the 2012 LA Auto Show. The "S" version of the XFR borrows features from the XKR-S and F-TYPE in Jaguar's attempt to take the sporty sedan to the next level.

As any "ultra high-performance" model should be, the XFR-S is based around serious mechanical enhancements. Jaguar tuned the 5.0-liter supercharged V8 engine up to 550 hp – 40 ponies above and beyond the XFR. That bump is enough to give the XFR-S the designation of fastest, most powerful Jag sports sedan ever. The car hits 60 mph (96.5 km/h) in 4.4 seconds and 62 mph (100 km/h) two ticks later. The XFR-S joins the XKR-S in the 300 km/h (186 mph) top speed (electronically limited) club.

Jaguar claims the increased performance doesn't have any impact on fuel consumption or emissions. The V8 engine is mated to an eight-speed Quickshift transmission.

In addition to being faster and more powerful than any other Jaguar sedan, Jaguar claims that the XFR-S is also more agile. It paved the way for a tighter connection between driver and asphalt by tuning the spring rates and adaptive damper settings. Lateral suspension stiffness increases by 30 percent, creating more responsive steering. To ensure the suspension settings meet discerning customers' demands, Jaguar spent time testing them on some of the world's most demanding pavement – from the Nürburgring, to the high-speed bowl at Nardo in Italy, to the roads surrounding Jaguar's Gaydon Research and Development center.

The wide Pirelli tires that wrap the 20-inch forged alloy Varuna wheels are designed to provide enhanced grip and stability. Jaguar re-calibrated the active electronic differential to work more smoothly with the uprated engine, stiffened suspension and wider tires. Jaguar also modified the Dynamic Stability Control settings for further driving enhancement, while exhaust system tuning results in a more powerful exhaust note.

In terms of the XFR-S body, Jaguar attacked the air ahead with aerodynamic enhancements that simultaneously increase performance and add an aggressive, no-nonsense demeanor. Jaguar claims that lift has been decreased by 68 percent thanks to the changes, which include a carbon fiber front splitter and rear diffuser, larger front bumper intakes, a trunk lid spoiler, and "aero-blades" on the sides.

The XFR-S will be available in five colors: French Racing Blue, Ultimate Black, Stratus Grey, Polaris White and Italian Racing Red. Subtle exterior cosmetic touches include the gloss black grille and trim.

Inside, "carbon fiber effect" leather and Warm Charcoal leather highlighted with contrast micro-piping and stitching mold a sporty cabin. R-S badging can be found on the seats and dashboard. Internal audio comes courtesy of a 380-watt 12-speaker Meridian surround sound system, and an 825-watt 18-speaker system is available as an option.

Only 100 will be available in the U.S., with prices starting at US$99,000, not including destination and delivery costs. The car will be available from early in the 2013 Northern Hemisphere summer.

Source: Jaguar , GIzmag

MIT developing a robotic "Swiss Army knife" that changes shape to suit the job

An MIT team is developing a robot that has the potential to become possibly the most versatile machine ever. Referred to by the team as the "robotic equivalent of a Swiss Army knife,” the milli-motein robot is made up of a chain of tiny modules each containing a new type of motor that can be used to form the chain into various shapes. This shape-changing capability could lead to the creation of robots that dynamically change their form to suit the task at hand.

To call the milli-motein a “Swiss Army knife” is a bit of a misnomer. The iconic bit of cutlery gets its versatility by carrying all sorts of tools folded away inside itself. However, the protein-inspired milli-motein robot does its job by turning itself into the needed tool. In this respect, its less like a pocket knife and more like the shape-shifting Shoggoths from H.P. Lovecraft’s stories. Though that sounds disturbing, it gives the milli-motein the potential for one day becoming a nearly universal machine.

Diagram of the magnet assembly of the MIT milli-motein

The MIT team of Neil Gershenfeld, head of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, visiting scientist Ara Knaian and postdoctoral associate Kenneth Cheung call this idea “programmable matter.” Ideally, what the team would like to achieve is a device that can change to become whatever is required at the time. If you need a hammer, it’s a hammer. If you need a spanner, it’s a spanner.

This device would be made up of tiny chains of mechanical modules strung together. That may sound a lot like other wormlike robots, but its purpose is more ambitious than just wiggling through cracks. With a paper published last year by another MIT team mathematically proving it is theoretically possible to reproduce any 3D shape by folding a sufficiently long string, such a chain modeled on protein molecules could be folded into any 3D shape.

The MIT milli-motein is based on a protein molecule seen here in simulation

As a first step in developing programmable matter, the MIT team produced the milli-motein robot. Its name stands for MILLImeter MOtor proTEIN and is currently the world’s smallest chain robot. Created under a DARPA grant at MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, each of its modules is smaller than a cubic centimeter and is built around an entirely new kind of motor.

The milli-motein’s modules are too small to use conventional gears and motors, so in order to keep the design simple and the costs down, the team came up with a motor that is strong, yet maintains its position when turned off.

They call it an electropermanent motor and its principle is similar to that of scrapyard electromagnets used to lift cars. Flying in the face of intuition, some types of these electromagnets are actually turned off while they’re lifting scrap iron. That’s because they’re permanent magnets paired with a weaker electromagnet. When the electromagnet is switched on, it cancels the stronger permanent magnet’s field and the scrap drops.

In the milli-motein, coils switch off the permanent magnets that make up the rotor’s arms in sequence and cause it to turn. When the power is off, the motor locks. This means that the module is very energy-efficient, cheap, simple and needs no gears. It also makes the motor relatively powerful for its size. The motors can currently only lift one other segment in the robot’s chain, but the team hopes the use of lighter materials will enable it to lift two or three.

Exploded view of the MIT milli-motein

When the milli-motein modules are linked in a chain, each module gets an instruction to turn left, right or straight. It works like DNA code in that, like a DNA pair, it carries out an independent function without any reference to the task as a whole. However, the team learned that using the modules in chains rather than as discrete units allowed for much more efficient control since commands can be passed down the line so that the individual “dumb” modules operate in harmony.

The final size of later versions of the milli-motein robot will depend on the size of the task and chains can range from the size of proteins to that of a human being. Even if the robot concept goes nowhere, the new motor has already sparked interest in a number of industries.

The MIT video below explains the mechanics of the milli-motein robot.

Source: MIT , GIzmag

Software works like a traffic cop to boost Wi-Fi performance

NC State researchers say WiFox software can improve data throughput by up to 700 percent (Photo: Shutterstock)

Researchers at North Caroline State University have come up with a new tool to speed up public Wi-Fi hotspots. The researchers say that WiFox software can improve data throughput by up to 700 percent and could be packaged as an update to existing networks.

Current Wi-Fi hotspots can get annoyingly slow because both users and the Wi-Fi access point are connected via single channel that sends data back and forth, creating a bottleneck when a large number of users submit data requests on that channel. Even if the access point is given permanent high priority, so that it passes over user requests in order to send out its data, users would then have trouble submitting their data requests.

The NC State researchers say WiFox works like a traffic cop, keeping data flowing smoothly in both directions by monitoring the amount of traffic on a Wi-Fi channel and granting an access point priority to send its data when it detects that a backlog is developing. The more people that are using the Wi-Fi, the greater the benefits of the system, because the access point will be given priority based on the size of its backlog.

When testing the Wi-Fi in their lab, whose top capacity is around 45 users, the researchers achieved an improvement to data throughput performance of 400 percent with 25 users. The figure increased to 700 percent when there were around 45 users on the network.

The research will be presented at the ACM CoNEXT 2012 conference in Nice, France, between December 10 and 13.

Source: North Carolina State University , GIzmag

Voyager 1 gets a taste of interstellar space

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft exploring a new region in our solar system called the 'magnetic highway' (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Voyager 1 has reached yet another new frontier on its historic journey towards the edge of our solar system. NASA scientists believe this “magnetic highway” represents the final region the spacecraft must cross before becoming the first man-made object to reach interstellar space, an event they are guessing could be as close as a couple of months away.

After Voyager 1 crossed the termination shock into the outer layer of the heliosphere known as the heliosheath in December 2004, the stream of charged particles from the sun (known as the solar wind) abruptly slowed down from supersonic speeds and started bouncing around in all directions.In June 2010, when it was about 17 billion kilometers (10.7 billion miles) from the sun, the outward speed of the solar wind finally slowed to zero and the intensity of the magnetic field experienced by the spacecraft also began to increase.

On July 28, 2012, data from Voyager 1’s onboard instruments that measure charged particles showed the spacecraft had entered a new region for the first time. Here, our sun’s magnetic field lines are connected to interstellar magnetic field lines, which allows lower-energy charged particles originating from the sun to zoom out and higher-energy particles from interstellar space to stream in – hence the “magnetic highway” moniker. The region ebbed and flowed towards Voyager 1 several times before becoming stable on August 25.

"If we were judging by the charged particle data alone, I would have thought we were outside the heliosphere," said Stamatios Krimigis, principal investigator of the low-energy charged particle instrument, based at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.

However, the Voyager team believes it is still inside the heliosphere because the direction of the magnetic field lines hasn’t changed. They expect this to change once Voyager 1 crosses over into interstellar space.

"Although Voyager 1 still is inside the sun's environment, we now can taste what it's like on the outside because the particles are zipping in and out on this magnetic highway," said Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. "We believe this is the last leg of our journey to interstellar space. Our best guess is it's likely just a few months to a couple years away. The new region isn't what we expected, but we've come to expect the unexpected from Voyager."

Now about 18 billion kilometers (11 billion miles) from the sun, Voyager 1 is the most distant human-made object, with a signal from the spacecraft taking approximately 17 hours to travel to Earth.

Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech , Gizmag

MIT spin-off Robot Rebuilt working on sensitive robotic hands

While at MIT, Robot Rebuilt's founder Torres-Jara built a robot with highly sensitive hands, called Obrero

Robot manipulators – or hands, as we like to call them – come in all shapes and sizes. Some, like those developed for Willow Garage's PR2, have just two fingers. Others have three, four, or five fingers – and some manage to lift objects with none at all. Now, an MIT spin-off called Robot Rebuilt is hitting up Boston venture capital firms to develop a manipulator with human-like sensitivity.

"I was inspired by the ridges humans have on their fingers. We wanted to make a robotic hand that would mimic that, and achieve some of the same sensitivity our hands have," says Eduardo Torres-Jara, who developed the robot hand at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab under the supervision of Rodney Brooks (founder of iRobot and Rethink Robotics). Torres-Java's company is working out a technology license with MIT, while he works as an assistant professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Torres-Jara's Obrero robot, seen here about to lift a ceramic mug

At MIT he built a robot called Obrero, which had a compliant hand with position and force control of its three fingers, allowing them to conform to an object's shape. Additionally, the fingers and palm contained eight force sensors, five position sensors, and seven high-resolution tactile sensors – the details of which have since been removed from Obrero's project page. However, Obrero is described as being "as much about perception as action and is intrinsically responsive to the properties of the object being manipulated; manipulation that does not rely on vision as the main sensor but as a complement."

Robot Rebuilt's new robot, Tactico, would continue where Obrero left off. "We're starting with the hand, but we're also working on building an arm," Torres-Java says in an interview with Boston.com. "Right now, PhDs come in at 3 AM to take care of their experiments," he adds, referencing the CNC-milled parts that must be removed from the machine's work area. "Our robot could do that." It would use a camera to detect objects around it, and would pick them up with enough strength to lift them without them slipping or breaking.

You can watch Obrero handling objects in the videos below.

Source: Robot Rebuilt via Boston.com , Gizmag

Cadbury Chocolates that won't melt at high temperatures

Cadbury is developing temperature tolerant chocolate for sale in tropical regions (Photo: Shutterstock)

One of life’s less pleasant surprises is discovering the chocolate bar that you forgot you had in your pocket on a hot day. Two scientists working at Cadbury’s research and development plant in Bourneville, U.K., are fighting that gooey surprise with the invention of chocolate that remains solid even when exposed to temperatures of 40º C (104º F) for more than three hours. Aimed at tropical markets, the “temperature tolerant chocolate” is described in a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) patent application.

Chocolate tastes great, in part, because the cocoa butter and other fats in it melt quickly and smoothly in the mouth. Chocolate softens at about 28ºC (82ºF) and melts at 32 to 35ºC. (90 to 95ºF). That makes for a nice treat, but it also makes chocolate hard to transport and store – especially in tropical regions where climate-controlled vehicles and warehouses are scarce.

This isn't simply a matter of being able to have chocolate that doesn't turn into a mess in your glove box. Chocolate is very temperature sensitive and heat can easily cause it to sag and deform and the fats and sugars can “bloom” out if it's improperly stored, resulting in an unappetizing appearance.

Temperature tolerant chocolate isn't new. In fact, it’s been around since the 1930s. Just before World War II, the U.S. military commissioned companies, most notably Hershey’s, to develop and manufacture chocolate bars for soldiers that could be carried in a pocket or stored at tropical temperatures. Over the years, millions of these were issued as regular or emergency rations and some even went to the Moon on Apollo 15. The most recent version was the “Congo Bar” carried by U.S. forces during the Gulf War.

The problem was that making a chocolate bar that wouldn't melt wasn't hard. What was hard was to make one that people still wanted to eat. The military bars didn't melt and they were nutritious, but they were difficult to eat and they didn't taste very good. That’s because the usual way to keep chocolate from melting was to either add fillers like oat flour and swap the cocoa butter for other fats, which made it taste like a candle, or adding water or glycerol to encourage sugar crystal formation, which made it gritty.

Cadbury's approach is to modify part of the chocolate manufacturing process known as “conching.” Conching is a complex mixing process that causes a number of physical and chemical changes in the chocolate. It can take anywhere between 15 minutes to an entire day depending on the type and quality of the chocolate. The conching machine’s design depends on how much chocolate is being processed, the quality, and whether it's made in batches or by continuous flow, but it generally involves temperature-controlled troughs where the chocolate is constantly pushed about by rollers, rotors or louvres.

In the conch, the chocolate undergoes a number of changes. Conching thoroughly mixes the chocolate, allowing the flavors to come out as it's aerated and volatiles and moisture are allowed to escape. As the chocolate is repeatedly pressed against the trough by the rollers or rotors, the cocoa butter and other fats coat the sugar particles in the mix.

In conventional conching, the sugar particles are completely and evenly coated with fats so that they slip by one another easily, but Cadbury discovered that it could make chocolate more temperature tolerant by refining it after conching instead of just before.

In testing, the temperature tolerant chocolate was heated to 40º C (104º F) for three hours, yet when pressed with a finger it didn't stick or deform. According to the Cadbury patent, the chocolate has a similar texture to Cadbury Dairy Milk and the company sees it being used in chocolate bars, biscuits and snacks in hot regions.

Source: Sumobrain via Daily Mail , Gizmag

The streets of Vancouver are paved with ... recycled plastic

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit's latest Global Liveability Report, the beautiful city of Vancouver in Canada is a pretty decent place to live, ranking third in the world. Its environmental footprint is currently unsustainable, though, prompting officials to hatch an ambitious plan to have Vancouver crowned the greenest city in the world by 2020. Helping things along nicely is a new warm mix paving process that makes use of the kind of waste plastic placed in blue household recycling boxes by conscientious citizens, reducing greenhouse gases and improving air quality along the way.

A team of city officials, including Peter Bremner and Jeff Markovic from Kent Services, has been working with Toronto's GreenMantra to develop an innovative new process that coverts 100 percent post-consumer recycled plastic waste into a wax that can be mixed into warm mix asphalt.

"Warm mix asphalt is not all that new, but what is unique in our application is using a wax that was derived from recycled plastics," Karyn Magnusson from Vancouver's Engineering Services told Gizmag. "We have been trialing warm mix since 2008 with different kinds of additives designed to reduce the viscosity to make placement easier at lower temperatures. We have now paved three sections of Vancouver roads with this latest trial."

"The mix was a 19 mm Superpave, surface coarse warm-mix, with 20 percent reclaimed asphalt pavement and wax derived from blue box plastics," added Markovic. "The temperature was reduced from our typical 320°F [160ºC] to 250°F [121ºC], there's a significant reduction in VOC and CO readings at the plant, and visible reductions in fumes at the both the paver and the plant."

Other benefits revealed in the lab and road trials include 20 percent savings on gas used to heat the mix. Additionally, the City of Vancouver says that there is potential for additional grinding and re-using cycles of pavement, as the wax helps prevent aging of asphaltic oils. Mixing at lower temperatures allows for increased use of recycled asphalt content and lower use of virgin asphaltic oils.

"Paving season is now coming to a close, but next spring we will do some more trials and go back to look at the in-situ performance of the placed material," said Magnusson. "We have some work to do yet evaluating this trial, but if our testing continues to show the benefits we were anticipating then we would love to embrace this as the norm rather than as a special mix. Ideally we will also see somebody begin to produce this wax locally. The material we have used to date was created by a company in Toronto, it would be nice to see Vancouver plastic waste going into Vancouver roads."

Although the new development currently carries a three percent premium over typical hot mix, the developers believe this extra cost will disappear in the near future as a result of an ample supply of waste plastics.

Source: City of Vancouver , Gizmag

Scientists successfully treat Alzheimer’s symptoms in mice

By turning off an immune system transmitter in mice with an Alzheimer’s-like condition, scientists have been able to greatly reduce the accumulation of an abnormal protein known as amyloid-ß in the animals’ brains. Previous studies have shown that the protein plays a central role in Alzheimer’s disease. It is hoped that the research may ultimately point the way towards a method of preventing or treating the disease in humans.

The project was led by Prof. Frank Heppner from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, and Prof. Burkhard Becher from the University of Zurich.

In mice that had a build-up of amyloid-ß “plaque” in their brains, the scientists blocked an immune molecule called p40, which is a component of the cytokines (immune system signal transmitters) interleukin (IL)-12 and -23. This effectively turned off those cytokines, which in turn reduced the animals’ plaque build-up by up to 65 percent.

In a follow-up study, in which an antibody was used to block the p40 molecules of afflicted mice, substantial improvements in their behavioral testing resulted. This ties in with the scientists’ observation that p40 levels are higher in the brain fluid of Alzheimer’s patients, and with a previous study that noted high levels of the molecule in patients’ blood plasma.

Heppner and Becher are still trying to understand the exact cause/effect relationship between p40, the cytokines and Alzheimer’s, but hope to move on to clinical human trials soon. There are already p40-blocking medications for conditions such as psoriasis, that have been shown to be safe.

In a separate study conducted at Ohio’s Case Western University, an anticancer drug has also been used to reverse Alzheimer’s symptoms in mice.

A paper on the p40-blocking research was recently published in the journalNature Medicine.

Source: University of Zurich