Stalking trolls: Intellectual property: After being blamed for stymying innovation in America, vague and overly broad patents on software and business processes could get the chop

Stalking trolls: Intellectual property: After being blamed for stymying innovation in America, vague and overly broad patents on software and business processes could get the chop

Mar 8th 2014 | From the print edition

AT LAST, it seems, something is to be done about the dysfunctional way America’s patent system operates. Two recent developments suggest calls for patent reform are finally being heard at the highest levels. First, in 2013, defying expectations, the House of Representatives passed (by an overwhelming majority) the Innovation Act, a bill aimed squarely at neutralising so-called patent trolls. These are individuals or companies who buy up lots of patents and then use them to extract payments from unsuspecting victims. Second, the US Supreme Court agreed to rule on what is the most contentious issue of all: which inventions are actually eligible for patent protection. Read more of this post

Woven electronics: An uncommon thread; Conductive fibres: From lighter aircraft to electric knickers, flexible filaments raise a wide range of interesting possibilities

Woven electronics: An uncommon thread; Conductive fibres: From lighter aircraft to electric knickers, flexible filaments raise a wide range of interesting possibilities

Mar 8th 2014 | From the print edition

LAS VEGAS in January is the place to spot the latest trends in consumer electronics. The one that grabbed the attention of most people at the 2014 CES show were the wearables. These are gadgets that you put on, from all sorts of spectacles with built-in cameras and screens, like Google Glass, to wrist bands and watches that can monitor your heart rate or relay text messages. There is even jewellery that can warn you of too much exposure to the desert sun. Read more of this post

Molecular communications: Researchers are looking at ways to broadcast messages using chemical rather than electrical signals

Molecular communications: Researchers are looking at ways to broadcast messages using chemical rather than electrical signals

Mar 8th 2014 | From the print edition

HUMANS have long experimented with how best to communicate at a distance. Smoke signals and drums date back to prehistoric times. The Romans used carrier pigeons as messengers to support their conquests. Since the early 1830s, however, communication has been dominated by electrical or electromagnetic signals, from the first telegraph to the carrier waves in fibre-optic cables and the wireless networks of cellular telephones. But now a new contender is signalling its presence: molecular communication. Read more of this post

Smart labels: The 40-year-old barcode has a new, more intelligent rival that can store information, display and transmit it

Smart labels: The 40-year-old barcode has a new, more intelligent rival that can store information, display and transmit it

Mar 8th 2014 | From the print edition

IN JUNE 1974 history was made at a supermarket in Troy, Ohio, with a ten-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum. It was the first time a commercial item bearing a Universal Product Code (UPC) was scanned by a cashier at the checkout. Forty years on, what became known as a barcode has transformed the world of commerce by providing reliable product identification, tracking and pricing. Nearly everything now comes with a barcode. Read more of this post

Aerial jellyfish: Ornithopters: Flying like a bird has long captured the imagination. The latest way to do so is copied from the ocean, not the atmosphere

Aerial jellyfish: Ornithopters: Flying like a bird has long captured the imagination. The latest way to do so is copied from the ocean, not the atmosphere

Mar 8th 2014 | From the print edition

ENGINEERS often look to the natural world for inspiration—and flight engineers, doubly so. Mankind’s desire to soar like the birds directly inspired the Wright brothers’ solution to the problem of controlling a heavier-than-air flying machine, by suggesting the way to do so was to warp the shape of the craft’s wings. More recently, designers of ornithopters (tiny, robotic flying machines lifted by flapping wings) have looked to insects for inspiration, and built systems of sensory feedback that can keep aloft designs which are essentially unstable. Read more of this post

Truffle farming: How mapping technology is being used to discover new places to grow savoury and expensive fungi

Truffle farming: How mapping technology is being used to discover new places to grow savoury and expensive fungi

Mar 8th 2014 | From the print edition

PIGS, dogs and rakes can all be useful in the quest to discover wild truffles, but each has its drawbacks. Pigs like to gobble up the fancy fungi as much as their owners do. Dogs are costly to train. Rakes wreak havoc on the duff (leaf litter) that often covers truffle-rich soil, thus damaging the fungi’s environment. Truffles are, nevertheless, successfully being unearthed in areas not traditionally associated with their growth. Read more of this post

Can parallel lines meet: Power transmission: How to build a real supergrid by making existing electricity lines more efficient at transmitting power

Can parallel lines meet: Power transmission: How to build a real supergrid by making existing electricity lines more efficient at transmitting power

Mar 8th 2014 | From the print edition

GERMANY has a problem. The decision, taken in 2011, to close down the country’s nuclear-power stations risks leaving parts of the country with insufficient supplies of electricity. This means power will have to be brought in from elsewhere. But to do that seems, on the face of things, to require the building of new transmission lines, which will be unpopular with those they pass by. Read more of this post

Giant batteries: The missing piece of the renewable-power jigsaw may now have been found in the form of a new type of flow battery

Going with the flow

Giant batteries: The missing piece of the renewable-power jigsaw may now have been found in the form of a new type of flow battery

Mar 8th 2014 | From the print edition

THERE is nothing so expensive, some cynics suspect, as free fuel. It is not that turning wind and sunlight into electricity is itself that costly, provided you pick the right places to do it. But it is not reliable. The wind does not always blow, and even in the most cloud-free desert night falls with monotonous regularity. Political commitments to use large quantities of renewables, such as several European countries have made (see article), thus risk the lights going out. The search therefore has been on for a cheap way to store energy transduced from sun and wind when it is plentiful, so that it can be used when it is not. Read more of this post