More than a decade after it was first recommended, a trust that would function as a venture capital fund to research learning technology has finally achieved congressional appropriation through the U.S. Department of Education. The National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies will be introduced on Jan. 25 and could be awarding grants by the fall. The center’s co-chairmen will include former U.S. Federal Communication Commission chairman Newton N. Minow, former NBC News and PBS president Lawrence K. Grossman, and former American Arts Alliance director Anne G. Murphy. “It’s time that education had the equivalent of what the National Science Foundation does for science, Darpa [the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency] does for the national defense, and what N.I.H. [the National Institutes of Health] does for health,” Grossman says. The group constructed three prototypes to gain support for the project–an educational video game for biology students, a museum game, and a computer simulation to train firefighters in high-rise conflagrations.

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Researchers at the National Center for Scientific Research have devised an organic transistor that can emulate a synapse’s primary functionalities. The researchers say the breakthrough could lead to new generations of neuro-inspired computers capable of functions comparable to those of the human brain. The nanoparticle organic memory field-effect transistor (NOMFET) successfully mimics synapse plasticity. Gold nanoparticles are fixed in the transistor channel and coated with pentacene, and they have a memory effect that permits them to imitate the way a synapse operates during the transmission of action potentials between a pair of neurons. Thus the electronic element can evolve as a function of the system in which it is encapsulated. The NOMFET’s performance matches that of at least seven complementary metal-oxide semiconductor transistors that up to now have been needed to mimic plasticity. Neuro-inspired computers can address visual recognition and other challenges that are beyond the capabilities of silicon computers.

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An international team led by University of Sydney researchers have developed a multiple wavelength laser on a silicon chip that produces light for processing and transmitting information. The breakthrough has the potential to lead to more powerful and less expensive computers. “The on-chip light source will be key to enabling the simultaneous transmission of multiple data channels either on-chip or between chips in a single optical fiber, each at a different wavelength,” says Sydney professor David Moss. Electrical signals currently carry information over copper wires. “We know that metal is prone to ‘choking’ on the bandwidth bottleneck,” Moss says. The device consists of a laser on a chip, which can be integrated with silicon computer chips. The laser also could be used in telecommunications, high-precision broadband sensing and spectroscopy, metrology, molecular fingerprinting, optical clocks, and attosecond physics.

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