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Dr. Cormac Herley spends most of his time thinking about why and how computer users reject security advice (originating from both fellow humans and software security warning prompts). Recently, his paper So Long, and No Thanks for the Externalities: the Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users, received a fair amount of attention from the general media (Boston Globe, Tech Republic, NPR, etc). The paper also prompted our favorite software renegade, Dr. Erik Meijer, to send me an email simply asking "please set up and E2E with Cormac Herley". I did just that and the following conversation is what happened...

There is a long history of attempts at replicating neural systems either in software or in conventional semiconductors, such as the FACETS project (not to mention the creation of conventional logic gates from lab-grown biological neurons!) According to a USC Viterbi news release, researchers at the BioRC project, whose goal is research on an artificial cortex, have succeeded in creating a functioning synapse from carbon nanotubes. The new research was presented by Alice C. Parker in the paper "A biomimetic fabricated carbon nanotube synapse for prosthetic applications" at the Life Science Systems and Applications Workshop in April 2011. (unfortunately the actual paper is behind a paywall but the abstract is readable). An earlier paper, "A Biomimetic Carbon Nanotube Synapse Circuit", describes the proposed design of synapse including schematics and comparison with biological neural

People have been using pens to jot down their thoughts for thousands of years but now engineers at the University of Illinois have developed a silver-inked rollerball pen that allows users to jot down electrical circuits and interconnects on paper, wood and other surfaces. Looking just like a regular ballpoint pen, the pen's ink consists of a solution of real silver that dries to leave electrically conductive silver pathways. These pathways maintain their conductivity through multiple bends and folds of the paper, enabling users to personally fabricate low-cost, flexible and disposable electronic devices. While metallic inks have been used to manufacture electronic devices using inkjet printing technology, the silver pen offers users the freedom and flexibility to construct electronic devices on the fly, says Jennifer Lewis, the Hans Thurnauer professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois who led the research team along with Jennifer Bernhard, a professor of electrical and computer engineering.

The first part of this white paper explores the basic concepts behind HDMI, the markets it serves and its leadership role in multimedia interfaces. This is followed by a tutorial on the new capabilities of HDMI 1.4 and their role in providing a richer, more straightforward user experience. Next, we'll explore a series of user case scenarios that illustrate how the HEAC feature can simplify cabling requirements between digital home multimedia devices. The last portion of this paper discusses the architectural considerations and technical details involved with incorporating the Ethernet and Sony/Philips Digital Interconnect Format (S/PDIF) standards into the HDMI system-on-chips (SoCs) to support the HEAC feature.

March has seen two significant announcements from FPGA start-ups with innovative architectures: Tabula, with their time-domain-multiplexed architecture, and TierLogic, implementing their routing switches in a layer of thin-film transistors. Both approaches promise to significantly reduce the die size and cost of high-end FPGAs. But before these announcements broke, a relatively unnoticed paper at February's International Symposium on FPGAs described what may be the most radical technology of them all: FPGAs using electromechanical relays. No, this is not an early April Fool's joke, nor is it one of those "let's see if anyone will publish this one" academic exercises. The paper presented work by professors and students at the Stanford University departments of electrical engineering and computer science, and researchers at Altera Corp. The work was supported in part by DARPA funding.

The e-reader market took the company E-Ink and its low-power, easy-on-the-eyes digital paper technology mainstream. But no one says E-Ink is perfect; the displays, to date, don’t do flexibility or full color well. And they aren’t cheap enough to move into budget-conscious applications, like the long-dreamed of grocery store shelf tags that could be updated remotely to display new prices. E-Ink and its brethren continue to advance down their technology development paths. But a startup company based in Saratoga, Calif., says they’re heading in the wrong direction.

The conservation of Mayan wall paintings at the archaeological site of Calakmul (Mexico) will be one on the subjects touched upon by Piero Baglioni (based at the University of Florence) in his invited lecture at the 3rd European Chemistry Congress in Nürnberg in September. In a special issue of Chemistry-A European Journal, which contains papers by many of the speakers at this conference, he reports on the latest developments on the use of humble calcium and barium hydroxides nanoparticles as a versatile and highly efficient tool to combat the main degradation processes that affect wall paintings. La Antigua Ciudad Maya de Calakmul is located in the Campeche state (Mexico) and is one of the most important cities of the Classic Maya period (AD 250-800). The excavation of this site (set up in 1993) involves, under the supervision of the archaeologist Ramon Carrasco, archaeologists, architects, engineers, conservators and epigraphists, besides other specialists. Since 2004, the Center for Colloid and Surface Science (CSGI) at the University of Florence (CSGI), and currently directed by Piero Baglioni, has been an active partner, being involved in the study of the painting technique and in the development of nanotechnology for the consolidation and protection of the wall paintings and limestone.

We had to cover monads eventually, and there are many great monad tutorials out there (see, for example, here: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Tutorials#Using_monads). In fact, there are web resources concerned solely with organizing the many monad tutorials available in the wild, and developing new monad tutorials seems to be a popular sport in the Haskell community.Today, Ralf Lämmel's lecture goes back to the roots, essentially revisiting Wadler's "The essence of functional programming"—the 1992 paper that discovered monads and popularized their use in functional programming. Ralf Lämmel's lecture and accompanying code distribution show Wadler's seminal insight: those original scenarios and observations still make sense today. Indeed, Simon Marlow (a Haskell/GHC high priest @ MSR Cambridge) recently noted: "it's still the best monad tutorial" (see http://twitter.com/simonmar/status/21397398061).

The goal of Long Term Evolution (LTE) is to achieve higher data rates through more efficient transmission, and thus improving the cellular phone user experience by enabling powerful new devices. The changes required in this technology present new challenges for base station vendors and their suppliers. Supporting 4G systems efficiently requires a number of innovations in DSP design; these innovations are moving the industry toward SoC architectures to support such systems. This paper will explore how TI's new architecture enables the key features in 4G systems.

Today's FPGAs are doubling in capacity every 2 years and have already surpassed the 5 million equivalent ASIC gate mark. With designs of this magnitude, the need for fast flows has never been greater. At the same time, designers are seeking rapid feedback on their ASIC or FPGA designs by implementing quick prototypes or initial designs on FPGA-based boards. These prototypes or designs allow designers to start development, verification and debug of the design—in the context of system software and hardware—and also to fine tune algorithms in the design architecture. Quick and intuitive debug iterations to incorporate fixes are of great value. The ability to perform design updates that don't completely uproot all parts of the design that have already been verified is also a bonus! Whether the goal is aggressive performance or to get a working initial design or prototype on the board as quickly as possible, this paper provides information on traditional and new techniques that accelerate design and debug iterations.

The purpose of this essay is to examine whether or not there would be practical reasons for creating a conscious, emotional machine.  I will not delve to deeply into whether or not it is possible to create such a machine, as the argument as to what exactly would constitute a living conscious machine seems largely unsettled.  Rather I will concentrate on whether or not we should create such a machine, if the possibility becomes available to us.  Are there uses for such a machine that could not be satisfied by a complex automaton?  Is there anything about real emotional response that would be necessary for a machine to operate autonomously, and still interact with human beings?  What are the dangers? What are the ethical ramifications? It is questions such as these that will be the interest of this paper.

The IEEE has launched a new Web site that consolidates information about smart electric grids from it various societies. The portal is one of many activities from an IEEE smart grid initiative coordinating the organization's work on the transition to digital, networked power systems and services. The smart grid is "so interdisciplinary," said Wanda Reder, chair of the IEEE Smart Grid Task Force and former president of the IEEE Power & Energy Society. "We have the gamut covered in technical interests, but we needed a way to facilitate communications between our many entities to link information on all the conferences, papers and standards we have in this area," she added.

You just built a breadboard of your expert design. You did all the simulations needed before going to layout, and reviewed the manufacturer's suggested techniques for a good thermal design for the particular package chosen. You even did your due diligence in going through the initial thermal analysis equations on paper to be sure not to exceed IC junction temperatures with a comfortable margin. But wait, you turn on the power and the IC is pretty hot to the touch. You are uncomfortable with this (not to mention the concern of your thermal experts and reliability people). Now what do you do?

A fossil that was celebrated last year as a possible "missing link" between humans and early primates is actually a forebearer of modern-day lemurs and lorises, according to two papers by scientists at The University of Texas at Austin, Duke University and the University of Chicago.

Related to the strong demands for virtualization technology, network I/O virtualization has recently become a hot topic and is one of the key topics being discussed at the upcoming Multicore Expo @ ESC. In fact, analyst firm IDC, in a recent white paper titled "Optimizing I/O Virtualization: Preparing the Data Center for Next-Generation Applications", stated that "If I/O is not sufficient, then it could limit all the gains brought about by the virtualization process."