Magazine

Solar-Cell Rollout

July 2004

Breakthroughs in nanotech are making it possible to churn out cheap, flexible solar cells by the meter. Soon your cell phone may be powered by the sun.

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Letter from the editor

Features

Categorized in 17032
A Remote Control For Your Life
Japanese mobile-phone giant NTT DoCoMo is replacing house keys, credit cards, and train passes with a phone that does it all.
Categorized in 17032
The World’s Tallest Building (for Now)
A look at some of the building technologies that are enabling new skyscrapers to shatter height records.
Categorized in 17032
Computing Gets Physical
Gadgets that let you control computers with a wave or a nod could offer an escape from keyboards and mice.
Categorized in 17035
Spotting Cancer Sooner
Blood tests that detect cancer in its early stages would save countless lives. The first could arrive within a year.

Also in this issue
- The Other IPO
  From the editor
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- Letters
  Insights and opinions from our readers
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- Spinning a (Silk) Yarn
  Who needs spiders? An arachnoid-mimicking device turns out strong, light, flexible fibers.
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- Power Elbow
  A powered elbow brace developed at MIT allows patients with spinal-cord injuries to bend and extend their arms under their own control.
  Categorized in 17035
- Desktop Dashboard
  A free program called Dashboard constantly combs through your e-mail, calendar, address book, word-processing, and browser programs and brings together information related to your current tasks before you even know you want it.
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- Cheaper Radio Tags
  3M is developing nonsilicon radio-frequency identification chips that could be cheaply integrated into shampoo bottles, soup cans, and other products.
  Categorized in 17032
- Wireless Power Booster
  Battery-hogging, static-ridden cell phones could soon be a thing of the past.
  Categorized in Uncategorized
- Hearing Steps
  An unobtrusive, brick-sized box analyzes the footstep patterns of the elderly to detect when they have fallen and to give early warning of certain diseases.
  Categorized in 17032
- Car Pool Coordination
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- Zapping Ulcers
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- A Picture Worth 1,000 E-Mails
  Photo sharing emerges as one of the fastest-growing Web applications.
  Categorized in Uncategorized
- Near-Term Nanotech
  Japan’s strategy: enhance conventional devices
  Categorized in 17036
- MEMS Blow past Air Bags
  A new generation of micromachines could transform everything from eye surgery to cell-phone reception.
  Categorized in 17032
- Wi-Fi Goes to Town
  Add Wi-Fi access to garbage collection and police protection as services that that many municipalities now regard as essential amenities.
  Categorized in Uncategorized
- Fuel Cells Hit Home
  Japan promotes first mass use in residences
  Categorized in 17037
- Name That Money Launderer
  Categorized in Uncategorized
- Biotech Briefs
  Categorized in 17035
- Infotech Briefs
  Researchers in Sweden have smashed through previous Internet speed records, sending 840 gigabytes (the equivalent of about 200 DVD movies) in less than 30 minutes.
  Categorized in 17032
- Nanotech Briefs
  …and other key developments in the technology and business of the ultra-tiny.
  Categorized in 17032
- Radio Flyer
  Reginald Denny made movies with Alfred Hitchcock and Abbott and Costello-and he built the U.S. Army’s first robot plane.
  Categorized in Uncategorized
- Demo: Wearable Robots
  Robotics inventor Stephen Jacobsen demonstrates an exoskeleton that provides superhuman strength.
  Categorized in 17032
- 99 Percent
  Meet a creator of high-tech, electrically active fabrics who shows plenty of scrap.
  Categorized in Uncategorized
- The Tablet PC Nonrevolution
  Tablet PCs are convenient and cleverly designed, but there’s no need to trash your old laptop just yet.
  Categorized in 17032
- Prepared Minds Favor Chance
  As data gets cheaper to collect, smart innovators will manufacture their own serendipity.
  Categorized in 17035
- Tracking Privacy
  Procter and Gamble’s Sandra R. Hughes on whether radio identification tags are a threat to privacy.
  Categorized in 17032
- Worm Guards
  Determina’s software provides maintenance-free protection against computer worms.
  Categorized in 17032
- Digital Image Sensor
  How the latest digital-camera sensors create sharper color photographs.
  Categorized in 17032

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