Accurate, large-scale three-dimensional (3D) computer maps could soon revolutionize how people manage and relate to urban environments. “Everyone is now familiar with 3D maps, we’re trying to take them beyond simple visualization,” says Glen Hart, the head of research at Ordnance Survey, the United Kingdom’s mapping agency. In a project to demonstrate the potential of 3D mapping, researchers used Lidar technology to capture the height of buildings, trees, and other features in Bournemouth, a coastal resort town in south England. Combining the Lidar scans with information from aerial photos and traditional surveys produces a full-color 3D map, built from more than 700 million points and accurate to 4 centimeters in x, y, and z. In comparison, the 3D structures in Google Earth are accurate to about 15 meters. Other efforts to advance 3D mapping include transferring the overlaying techniques already used on detailed digital two-dimensional maps to large-scale 3D maps, including information such as the layout of electric cables or data on air pollution. “Now it’s not just buildings, but floors within the building that could be annotated,” Hart says. The newest generation of maps can capture information such as mailboxes and lamp posts, which are too small to appear on existing city-scale virtual maps. They also can be used to simulate how a proposed building would affect available light in neighboring buildings, for example, or predict wind corridors or dead spots in cell coverage.

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University of Salamanca researchers have developed a procedure that enables forensic investigators to extract metric data from a crime scene using only a single photograph and reconstruct it in three dimensions. “We have studied an unprecedented and original line of research in the field of criminology and forensic engineering, which makes it possible to derive metric data from a single image,” says Salamanca researcher Diego Gonzalez-Aguilera. The process starts by capturing an image that includes easily identifiable details, at least three vanishing points, and at least one distance in the scene. Data from these features are used to automatically extract the structural components and the most important objects in the image. As the structural features are geometrically related to the features of the scene and the camera, it is possible to take measurements and analyze the dimensions of the scene based on distances, surfaces, and angles. The system is based on photogrammetry technology, which makes it possible to create a three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of a crime scene using a single image by allowing “restrictions” to be introduced into the scene, such as the presence of parallel or perpendicular lanes. A tool written in Virtual Reality Modeling Language is used to visualize a crime scene from any viewpoint to create an interactive 3D simulation.

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The U.K. e-science grid is being used to run simulations of transistors smaller than 30 nanometers, which will help designers manage the physical constraints that come into effect when working on such a small scale. Hundreds of thousands of tiny transistors have already been simulated, using about 20 years worth of processing time. The researchers hope to understand how such small components function and determine the best way to produce future generations of nanoscale chips. “What we do in these simulations is try to predict the behavior of these devices in the presence of atomic-scale effects,” says the University of Glasgow’s Asen Asenov, who is leading the NanoCMOS simulation project. The current generation of chips features transistors about 32 nanometers in size, but manufacturers want to move to transistors with even smaller components. “What’s happening at such dimensions is that the atomic structure of the transistor cannot be precisely controlled,” Asenov says. “In order to make them work we have to put in impurities to define different regions.” The researchers are learning how to best deploy materials so transistors provide reliable and dependable performance at the nanoscale.

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OWL 2, a new Internet language developed by an international team led by computer scientists from the University of Manchester and Oxford University, is designed to enable computers to understand and interpret the contents of its pages. “The World Wide Web as we see it today is rather like a collection of linked documents,” says Oxford professor Ian Horrocks, who helped develop the language. “Whilst humans are very good at analyzing the data contained in these pages, languages such as HTML do not help computers to ‘bridge the meaning gap,’ and understand that, for instance, ‘paracetamol,’ ‘acetaminophen,’ and ‘para-acetylaminophen’ are all names for the same thing.” One of the initial applications for OWL 2 is helping computers understand and analyze special medical terms. For example, the NCI Cancer Thesaurus has more than 50,000 medical terms, and ensuring that these terms are described, updated, and linked correctly has been a huge task for humans. However, OWL 2 can allow definitions to be written in such a way that computer programs can automatically update terms and identify errors. “The first stage was writing the NCI Thesaurus in the original version of the language, OWL, but now OWL 2 enables computer programs to interpret these terms in a much more human-like way,” says Manchester’s Bijan Parsia.

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BlindAid, a new device developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT’s) Touch Lab, enables visually impaired users to “feel” their way around a virtual model of a room or building, making it possible to familiarize themselves with the layout before going someplace new. Touch Lab director Mandayam Srinivasan is working with the Carroll Center for the Blind to develop and test the device. Preliminary results show that when blind people have the chance to explore a virtual model of a room, they have an easier time navigating their way around the actual room in real life. Carroll Center mobility instructor Joseph Kolb says BlindAid could be invaluable to the visually impaired. He notes that one of the toughest challenges is entering an unfamiliar environment without the assistance of a guide dog or another human. BlindAid uses a robotic arm that a user grasps as if holding a stylus. The stylus can create the sensation of touch by exerting a small, precisely controlled force on the user’s fingers. The BlindAid stylus functions like a blind person’s cane, enabling users to feel virtual walls, floors, doors, and objects. The stylus is connected to a computer containing a three-dimensional map of an environment. Whenever a virtual obstacle is encountered, the stylus produces a force against the user, mimicking the feel the real object would have. BlindAid could eventually be used to plan trips by public transportation using virtual route maps that users can download and interact with through touch.

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A study by Christian Holz and Patrick Baudisch at Germany’s Hasso Plattner Institute suggests that the real reason for missed targets on touch screens may be finger orientation and variation between users, not the fact that users’ fingers are too big. Holz and Baudisch asked 12 volunteers to repeatedly touch a target on a touch screen, but to do so with their finger held at a specific angle, defined by the three-dimensional axes of pitch, roll, and yaw. The researchers found that the touch screen registered distinct clusters of touch points for different finger orientations, with some of the clusters only being 2 to 3 millimeters in size. Most touch-screen targets are a minimum of 10 millimeters due to the belief that a finger cannot hit a smaller target. The researchers say that if a touch-screen device knows the orientation of the finger as it touches the screen, it should be possible to define significantly smaller targets on screen. In a second study in which a series of cameras captured the position of a user’s finger, the researchers enabled the system to account for finger position, which tripled the precision of touch interaction. Fingerprints can reveal finger orientation, so the researchers adapted a type of fingerprint scanner to see if a system could identify finger position without the use of cameras. The system finds the center of a fingerprint for each touch on screen, and compares that print to a database to calculate the finger’s orientation. Applying the cluster region associated with a specific finger orientation gave the system twice the accuracy of the traditional touch technology, Baudisch says.

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A new graphics processing units (GPUs) computer cluster will process CSIRO research data thousands of times faster and more efficiently than a desktop PC as a complementary system to the supercomputing resources available to CSIRO researchers. The new GPU cluster is the first of its kind in Australia, and is about the size of six large refrigerators, containing 61,440 compute cores. CSIRO’s John Taylor says the new cluster combines central processing units (CPUs) and GPUs to make the system more efficient. “GPUs speed up data processing by allowing a computer to massively multitask through parallel processing,” Taylor says. GPUs are generally less expensive, per unit of processing power, and more energy efficient than a CPU-based supercomputer, and GPUs can be 30 to 70 times faster than CPUs. “This cluster will be part of our family of high-end computers in CSIRO and important to our e-Research Strategy,” says CSIRO’s Alex Zelinsky. “It will enable CSIRO to, in a cost-effective way, be globally competitive in addressing computational challenges for ‘big science.’ ” Taylor notes that running experiments on the GPU cluster requires a new approach to coding, specifically dividing up each task to make the best use of the extra processors.

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Google’s recent disclosure of broad surveillance “originating from China” highlighted a threat that many experts are convinced will continue to grow, writes James Fallows. Purdue University computer scientist Eugene Spafford says that cybercrime has evolved into a well-financed enterprise perpetrated by mature individuals and groups of professionals who have deep financial and technical pockets, as well as the tolerance, if not support, of local governments or other countries. Cybercrime experts generally agree that the primary damage inflicted by cyberwar so far has been business-versus-business spying rather than the stealing of military secrets or electronic sabotage. Fallows says that China has become even more of a potential cyber-adversary due to its ability to rapidly approach parity with the West in terms of advanced information systems, particularly in its focus on being able to cripple foes’ networking infrastructure in times of war.
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers recently released research showing how molecules in chips can self-assemble, potentially reducing manufacturing costs by making it less expensive to etch complex designs on smaller chips. The researchers developed a technique in which polymers automatically fall into place to create an integrated circuit, says MIT professor Caroline Ross. The researchers designed a template to cause polymers to spontaneously arrange themselves into useful patterns. They then created blocks on the pattern around which the polymers lined up to create a circuit. The researchers are looking to extend the technique to denser patterns. “We want to do something that people would want to be able to use,” Ross says.
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Silicon Valley is losing more foreign-born executives, engineers, and scientists due to better opportunities in their native countries, tough U.S. immigration laws, and the high cost of living in California. Meanwhile, the Silicon Valley Index shows that fewer foreign students are pursuing engineering and science degrees in the region. The annual study found that foreign students received 16.6 percent of all degrees awarded in science and engineering programs from local colleges and universities in 2007, down from 18.4 percent in 2003. Harvard Law School senior research associate Vivek Wadhwa says the region is experiencing a massive brain drain. “For the first time, immigrants have better opportunities outside the U.S.,” he says. A lack of work visas also can push foreign talent to leave the United States. Legislation pending in the U.S. Congress would give immigrant entrepreneurs with investment funding a two-year visa.
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