Computing

Computing

Straining for Speed

Hitting fundamental limits on how small they can make certain structures within semiconductor transistors, chip makers are deforming the silicon crystals from which those transistors are made to eke out some extra speed.

Computing

Paint by Pixel

Aaron Hertzmann is both a computer scientist and a painter. Among his art-related programming projects, he has developed a way for computers to refashion images and animations to reflect different painting styles. Other work includes a stretched “canvas” that projects a continually-changing painting of the viewer and a learning-by-example system that animates characters based on […]

Computing

Virtual stampede sees faces in crowd

A new computer model based on particle interactions suggests ways to prevent a panicked crowd from stampeding.

Computing

Resistance leaps as magnetism mounts

A tiny traffic island for electrons promises to serve as an extraordinarily sensitive detector of magnetic fields.

Computing

Going to digital extremes

A researcher designs the ultimate laptop, stretching the laws of physics to their limits to achieve blazing computation rates.

Computing

Computer Game Art and History

Curious about early video games or recent developments in game technology? This Web site accompanies the “Game On” exhibition, developed by the Barbicon Gallery and the National Museums of Scotland. An exhibition guide briefly explains what the various displays include. The education section offers tips for creating a video game as a classroom project. The […]

Computing

Computation Takes a Quantum Leap

A quantum computation involving a custom-built molecule furnishes experimental evidence that a quantum computer can solve certain mathematical problems more efficiently than can a conventional computer.

Computing

Minding Your Business

By means of novel sensors and mathematical models, scientists are teaching the basics of human social interactions to computers, which should ease the ever-expanding collaboration between people and machines.

Computing

Tight packaging for digitized surfaces

A novel digital compression scheme may make it practical to transmit detailed models of three-dimensional surfaces over the Internet.

Computing

Computer grid cracks problem

A large network of powerful computers solved a 32-year-old optimization challenge known as the "nug30" quadratic assignment problem.

Computing

Strength and weakness in diversity

Although the Internet's redundancy and diversity help it survive local node malfunctions despite its vast size and complexity, it is vulnerable to attacks aimed specifically at the most highly connected nodes.

Computing

Pictures Only a Computer Could Love

New, unconventional lenses shape scenes into pictures for computers, not people, so that computer-equipped microscopes, cameras, and other optical devices can see more with less.