IBM's 'graphene' to replace silicon chip

IBM has announced a significant breakthrough which may just have found the long-term successor to silicon in chip technology, reports TrustedReviews.

Called 'graphene', it is, according to IBM, "a single atom-thick layer of carbon atoms bonded in a hexagonal honeycomb-like arrangement. This two-dimensional form of carbon has unique electrical, optical, mechanical, and thermal properties and its technological applications are being explored intensely."

IBM has confirmed tests with graphene have achieved the highest cut-off frequency ever recorded: 100 billion cycles per second, or 100GHz. To put this in context, the highest cut-off frequency ever recorded for silicon is 40GHz. Furthermore, the breakthrough was achieved using standard silicon fabrication techniques so one material can simply be substituted for the other.

A Yorkshire company has successfully employed a quantum physics trick to create pressure-sensitive touchscreen technology that it's managed to license to Samsung and Japanese touchscreen manufacturer Nissha, says Pocket-lint.

The breakthrough uses spiky conducting nanoparticles that are embedded in an insulating material. However, as the particles get closer together, the probability that they can pass a charge to each other increases - a phenomenon known as Quantum Tunnelling. This results in the current passing through the material increasing as it's pressed down.

The results is that the phone can tell how hard the user is pressing the touchscreen - so it could scroll faster if they push harder on the 'down' arrow, for example. The switches can be made as thin as a human hair.

One astronaut has started taking advantage of the recently souped-up wireless connection on the International Space Station to post Twitpics of earth for all to see, writes Computerworld.

Soichi Noguchi, a Japanese aeronautical engineer, has been offering up some spectacular pictures of Earth on his Twitter account. Noguchi has been living onboard the space station since last December and quickly garnered more than 65 500 followers on Twitter.

Late in January, Nasa announced it had set up a wireless connection that lets astronauts on the International Space Station surf the Web, e-mail friends and family back home, and even send Twitter messages.