Lifeboat Foundation

Chemical engineer Zhenan Bao and her team of researchers at Stanford have spent nearly two decades trying to develop skin-like integrated circuits that can be stretched, folded, bent and twisted — working all the while — and then snap back without fail, every time. Such circuits presage a day of wearable and implantable products, but one hurdle has always stood in the way.

Namely, “How does one produce a completely new technology in quantities great enough to make commercialization possible?” Bao said. Bao and team think they have a solution. In a new study, the group describes how they have printed stretchable-yet-durable integrated circuits on rubbery, skin-like materials, using the same equipment designed to make solid silicon chips — an accomplishment that could ease the transition to commercialization by switching foundries that today make rigid circuits to producing stretchable ones.

Stanford researchers show how to print dense transistor arrays on skin-like materials to create stretchable circuits that flex with the body to perform applications yet to be imagined.

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Investments will boost U.S. chip manufacturing amid a crippling global shortage of semiconductors that has damaged sales of consumer goods.

A team led by a researcher from the University of Sydney has developed a low-cost, sustainable, and readily available technology that can dim the screens of electronic devices, anti-reflection automobile mirrors, and smart architectural windows at a fraction of the cost of current technology.

It would replace one of the world’s scarcest—yet highly ubiquitous in use—modern materials: indium. A rare chemical element, that it is widely used in devices such as smartphones and computers, windscreen glass and self-dimming windows.

Although small amounts are used to manufacture smart device screens, indium is expensive as it is hard to source; it naturally occurs only in small deposits. Industrial indium is often made as a byproduct of zinc mining, which means a shortage could occur if demand for optoelectronic devices—such as LCDs and touch panels—ramps up.

Researchers have discovered that cybercriminals operating from Romania are performing Linux cryptojacking attacks.

SEOUL—The smartphone industry is showing battle scars from the world-wide chip crunch.

Shipments are slowing and customers are seeing their first significant price increases in years. Some companies have had to scale back production and delay new releases. All this has halted what had been a strong start to the year.

Smartphone makers, for much of the year, avoided the parts disruptions faced in the auto, personal computer and home-appliance industries. Phone manufacturers purchase key parts roughly a half a year in advance, but now those stockpiles have shrunk.

TAIPEI —Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) signalled on Thursday plans to build new factories in the United States and Japan, riding on a pandemic-led surge in demand for chips that power smartphones, laptops and cars.

TSMC, which posted record quarterly sales and forecast higher revenue for the current quarter, said it will expand production capacity in China and does not rule out the possibility of a “second phase” expansion at its $12 billion factory in Arizona.

The world’s largest contract chipmaker and a major Apple supplier also said it is currently reviewing a plan to set up a speciality technology wafer fabrication plant, or fab, in Japan.

Hubble is back!

The Hubble Space Telescope has powered on once again! NASA was able to successfully switch to a backup computer on the observatory on Friday (July 16) following weeks of computer problems.

On June 13, Hubble shut down after a payload computer from the 1980s that handles the telescope’s science instruments suffered a glitch. Now, over a month since Hubble ran into issues, which the Hubble team thinks were caused by the spacecraft’s Power Control Unit (PCU), NASA switched to backup hardware and was able to switch the scope back on.

He has not been able to speak since 2003, when he was paralyzed at age 20 by a severe stroke after a terrible car crash.

Now, in a scientific milestone, researchers have tapped into the speech areas of his brain — allowing him to produce comprehensible words and sentences simply by trying to say them. When the man, known by his nickname, Pancho, tries to speak, electrodes implanted in his brain transmit signals to a computer that displays his intended words on the screen.

His first recognizable sentence, researchers said, was, “My family is outside.”

“There was cheering in the control center” when word came that NASA had brought a key computer back, says James Jeletic, the Hubble project’s deputy project manager.

The Hubble Space Telescope is returning to operation more than a month after its original payload computer shut down. NASA said it has successfully switched over to its backup computer — and while the process of bringing the system back online is slow, the agency has started to bring science instruments out of “safe mode.”

“There was cheering in the control center” on Thursday night when word came that NASA had managed to restore the payload computer, James Jeletic, Hubble’s deputy project manager, told NPR.

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