Cross-platform game compatibility and syncing aren't anything new, but there have been few if any games that truly make us feel at home when we switch devices. Developer 17-Bit's just-launched Skulls of the Shogun bucks that trend in style as the first game with a unified experience across every one of Microsoft's platforms. Start a game on a Windows 8 or RT PC, Windows Phone or Xbox 360, and cloud saves will carry over with nary a hitch in sight. Turn-based multiplayer works the same way: anyone involved in a match can play from whichever device is convenient, rather than give up a big screen or mobility. We just wish the undead strategy game's prices enjoyed the same level of consistency -- Skulls costs $5 on Windows Phone, $10 on Windows PCs and 1,200 points on the Xbox. Still, we'll bite if it means squeezing in one more round on our Surface.
Researchers are marshaling technology in a bid to thwart the harvest-threatening outbreak in Central America
By Daniel Cressey and Nature magazine
Coffee growers are worried that a fungal outbreak will affect the next harvest of coffee berries.Image: HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Where there is coffee, there is ?coffee rust?. But the long stalemate between growers and the fungus behind the devastating disease has broken ? with the fungus taking the advantage. As one of the most severe outbreaks ever rages through Central America, researchers are reaching for the latest tools in an effort to combat the pest, from sequencing its genome to cross-breeding coffee plants with resistant strains.
Caused by the fungus Hemileia vastatrix, coffee rust generally does not kill plants, but the Institute of Coffee of Costa Rica estimates that the latest outbreak may halve the 2013?14 harvest in the worst affected areas of the nation. This outbreak is ?the worst we?ve seen in Central America and Mexico since the rust arrived? in the region more than 40 years ago, says John Vandermeer, an ecologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, who has received ?reports of devastation in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Mexico?.
At his research plot in Mexico, Vandermeer says that the situation is so bad that the leaves are simply dropping off the plants. More than 60% of the trees have at least 80% defoliation, and 30% have no leaves at all.
On 22?January, Costa Rica enacted emergency legislation to speed up the flow of government money towards fighting the fungus. Other nations are also stepping up the fight. Last week, the Nicaraguan government reportedly declared that it would include coffee rust on a list of special research projects designed to safeguard the country?s agriculture.
The fungus first emerged as a significant problem by 1869 in Ceylon ? now Sri Lanka ? before spreading around the world. Stuart McCook, a historian at the University of Guelph in Canada who studies the rust, says that the wet weather in some areas of Ceylon was ideal for the spread of the fungus, and more than 90% of coffee crops were wiped out in those regions. Faced with an economic catastrophe, the country abandoned coffee for the tea it is associated with today. The disease is so universal that it ?is not going to be eradicated; or the only way to eradicate the disease in practice is to eradicate all of the coffee?, says McCook.
By 1970, the fungus had been detected in Brazil, and severe outbreaks were seen in Costa Rica in 1980 and Nicaragua in 1995, says Jacques Avelino, a plant pathologist at Costa Rica?s Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center, based in San Jos?.
But changes to management practices had brought the disease mostly under control. ?Coffee rust was considered a solved problem by most of the coffee growers and coffee institutes of the region?, says Avelino. ?People didn?t fear the disease.? The outbreak may have taken hold because of patchy use and effectiveness of fungicides.
And in Africa, Noah Phiri, a plant pathologist working in Nairobi for the not-for-profit development organization CABI, says that rust has been causing ever-greater problems, although in Kenya, varieties resistant to the rust have held it at bay.
Colombia could be the closest to a solution. Marco Aurelio Cristancho, a researcher at Cenicaf?, the National Center for the Investigation of Coffee in Chinchin?, says that the government has supported research into developing resistant strains of coffee through crossbreeding. The introduction of resistant strains, together with improved weather monitoring to help predict rust outbreaks, has meant that fewer than 10% of plants now need to be treated with fungicide, down from 60% four years ago, Cristancho says. The government has also supported work on the genetics of both the fungus and the plant.
Research programs have started in other countries, too. At the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Valdir Diola is working to isolate resistance genes in coffee and to find molecular markers that distinguish between different strains of the pathogen and that could be used to develop tailored strategies for its control. And in the United Kingdom, Harry Evans is working on the genome of H.?vastatrix at CABI in Egham. In Nairobi, Phiri is using money from the intergovernmental agency the Common Fund for Commodities, as well as from Kenya, India, Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe, to screen for resistant coffee plants and to analyze varieties of the pathogen.
Philips has decided that there just isn't any money in home entertainment, and as such is flogging off the remainder of its interests to Funai for $201 million. It had already sold its North American TV and DVD operations to the Japanese company back in 2008, but will now package off its whole Lifestyle Entertainment division, which includes global disc players and its Fidelio high-end audio outfit. Instead, Philips will concentrate on profitable sectors such as lighting and healthcare -- so the sooner it can develop a bulb that can kill the sniffles, the better.
Show full PR text
Amsterdam, the Netherlands - Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) today announced that it has signed an agreement regarding the transfer of its Lifestyle Entertainment business (Audio, Video, Multimedia and Accessories) to Funai Electric Co., Ltd (TSE/OSE 6839). Under the terms, Funai will pay a cash consideration of EUR 150 million and a brand license fee, relating to a license agreement for an initial period of five and a half years, with an optional renewal of five years. The deal for the Audio, Multimedia and Accessories businesses is expected to close in the second half of 2013. The Video business will transfer in 2017, related to existing intellectual property licensing arrangements. The gain on the transaction will be recorded at the closing date.
The transaction is subject to customary conditions, including regulatory filings and works council procedures. The Remote Control activities, which are predominantly business-to-business, are excluded.
"With this transaction we are taking another step in reshaping the Consumer Lifestyle portfolio and transforming Philips into the leading technology company in Health and Well-being," said Philips Chief Executive Officer Frans van Houten. "I am confident that today's agreement with Funai, our partner for over 25 years, will create a promising future for Philips Audio, Video and Entertainment, and continuity for our customers. It will leverage Philips' strong brand, strength in innovation, and leadership position in these businesses, with Funai's strong presence in North and Central America - and Japan, and its supply and manufacturing expertise."
"This is truly an exciting time for us at Funai," said Funai President and CEO, Tomonori Hayashi. "This transaction will allow us to continue moving forward and grow as a global company. We will benefit from Philips' legendary know-how and innovation, as well as the excellent talent they have in place around the world, allowing us to work as a team to leverage and grow the Philips brand in Audio, Video and Entertainment. Additionally, this will give Funai the opportunity to meet our goal of expanding our business into markets including Brazil, Russia, India and China."
"With this agreement and the joint venture for Philips Television, the Consumer Lifestyle sector will further focus on Health and Well-being. The portfolio, consisting of Personal Care, Health & Wellness, Domestic Appliances and Coffee, delivered high single-digit growth in 2012," said Philips Consumer Lifestyle Chief Executive Officer Pieter Nota. "Philips has a proud heritage in Audio, Video, Multimedia and Accessories, and today's agreement with Funai ensures that this business can continue to deliver great Philips-branded innovations to consumers around the world."
Philips Audio, Video, Multimedia and Accessories make up the Lifestyle Entertainment business group within Philips Consumer Lifestyle. This business group is headquartered in Hong Kong and employs approximately 2,000 people worldwide.
Today's agreement does not impact any of Funai's existing brand licensing agreements with Philips.
Well it is official - the country of Antigua is one step closer to launching a legal piracy portal - according to TorrentFreak. At a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland today the World Trade Organization (WTO) officially granted Antigua?s request to suspend U.S. copyrights - confirming a 2007 preliminary authorization given by the WTO to the Caribbean island. With this greenlight the country can launch a download portal that offers movies, music and software without compensating the American companies that make them.
The WTO authorized Antigua?s request because the U.S. has prevented the country from offering online gambling games to U.S. citizens. Even after the WTO ruled against the U.S. and granted Antigua preliminary authorization to suspend U.S. copyrights, the U.S. continued to blockade U.S. users from playing the country's online casino games.
Antigua?s Finance Minister Harold Lovell said in statement that the U.S. government left the country no choice but to find some way to make up for the damage done by the blockade.
"These aggressive efforts to shut down the remote gaming industry in Antigua has resulted in the loss of thousands of good paying jobs and seizure by the Americans of billions of dollars belonging to gaming operators and their customers in financial institutions across the world," Lowell said. "If the same type of actions, by another nation, caused the people and the economy of the United States to be so significantly impacted, Antigua would without hesitation support their pursuit of justice."
Antigua has not indicated when it would launch its online portal. We'll let you know when we have more details...
There is an insatiable demand for content of the video variety. It is so great in fact that sports networks like ESPN are getting an outsized portion of your cable bill. The network in fact gets more than $5 per subscriber per month regardless of whether you ever watch their networks. Cable and IPTV companies for their part are in quite a pickle as more subscribers drop their service altogether for OTT competition. The solution to the problem is painful for many but will eventually be taking sports programming and breaking it out into tiers according to Gary Kim who writes on TMCnet. He explains the first step these companies are taking is adding a $3 fee for local sports programming. At some point ESPN will have to be dealt with it seems.
We have all heard content is king and - remember that until recently Netflix took a massive hit to its earnings due to its lack of leverage in negotiating with content providers. The solution? Develop more of your own content. Exactly what the company is going to do with some of the $400 million in debt it just raised.
TMC?s Erik Linask had this to say about the news: ?Companies like Netflix and Hulu are proving that the longstanding dominance of mainstream networks may be in jeopardy. The combination of a modern business model, high-quality programming, and multi-device capabilities, present a compelling case for today's connected viewer, potentially disrupting the competitive landscape to the benefit of the consumer.?
To summarize: content is still king but consumers will soon have the ability to pick from infinite monarchs.
And as more of this content is streamed to various devices, networks have become more clogged than ever. The good news is the emerging H.265 standard which was just approved by ITU is twice as efficient as the current H.264 standard deployed on most tablets and smartphones and data centers pumping the content out.
Amazon today deployed news which is wonderful for the video market with the launch of Amazon Web Services Launches Amazon Elastic Transcoder a solution which leverages the company?s cloud to obsolete the entire market of small transcoding companies playing in the video space. Of course your definition of ?wonderful? will vary based on where you sit in the food chain.
Can we make a prediction about the future of video? It seems we are taking baby steps to a la carte programming or at least packages which give consumers some additional choices when it comes to sports and other areas. Investors believe there is money to be made in content production which means the Netflix deal may spawn others. Content will still be king but it gets tougher to stand out when there seems to be endless consumer choice in programming. We have seen Yahoo try the video production game on and off without a great deal of success ? perhaps they just did a poor job of it or maybe times have changed. One thing in favor of all these video production entrants is the new connected TVs and cheap consumer electronic devices allowing TV sets to easily display video from the Internet.
In 1979 the Buggles launched the hit song Video Killed the Radio Star which at the time seemed to make sense with the advent of MTV which chose this song as its very first video to play. But over the years it seems radio too has evolved being transmitted from space and traveling over the Internet for example. So radio actually never died. Let me clear up the confusion from my younger readers - MTV was a network which at one time actually played music television. But I digress ? I wonder if the title of the song should have been ?Video is the Recurring Star.?
Tagged buggles, cable, erik linask, espn, fcc, hulu, iptv, netflix, ott, radio, video, yahoo : Related Tags: sports programming, video recurring, content still, video production, video, content
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What to do with a cool ?1 billion? How about "build a CERN for the brain"?
That's what Henry Markram, director of the Human Brain Project (HBP), intends to do now that the project has won one of two ?1 billion European research prizes, to be paid out over the next 10 years. The other winner is a project that aims to unlock the potential of supermaterial graphene.
The HBP is a quest to simulate a brain in a supercomputer. It is the successor to the Blue Brain Project, which kicked off in 2005 and succeeded in modelling the cortical column of a rat brain on a cellular level. According to a project spokesperson from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, the next stage is to move on to the human brain. This will involving "expanding in all directions" and making the models bigger and more detailed.
The hope is that the model, once built, will be used to identify biomarkers that could be used to diagnose neurodegenerative diseases, to test combinations of different drugs and to help build neuromorphic computers based on components found in the brain. Researchers from around the world will be able to use the simulation in a similar way to how astronomers would reserve observation time on a telescope.
Flexible conductor
The goal of the graphene project is to take advantage of the exotic properties of the one-atom-thick wonder material that won its creators the 2010 physics Nobel prize. Jari Kinaret of Chalmers University in Gothenburg, Sweden, says that the flexible conductor will be used to make electronic paper, printed electronics and new kinds of personal communications devices such as those integrated into clothing.
Also on the to-do list are batteries for electric vehicles, lightweight medical implants made out of graphene nanocomposites and solar cells that take advantage of the material's ability to conduct light as well as electricity.
"The first products seen on market will be a golf club or tennis racket. This won't take 10 years," says Kinaret. "This was one of the strengths of our proposal ? there is low-hanging fruit as well as long-term goals."
Today's announcement of the winners is the culmination of a European Commission competition, dubbed science's X Factor, that started in 2010, when the EC put out a call for computing projects of a visionary scale. Each winner is supposed to receive ?1 billion over 10 years, half from the EC and half from European countries and private companies.
Four other projects made it through to the final round and most plan to continue with their proposals in some form. "We are exploring options," says Dirk Helbing, one of the directors of FuturICT, a project to build a real-time, global civilisation simulation. "The FuturICT idea will live on. It's more a question how big will Europe's piece of the cake be, that European scientists have baked."
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Michael Houston dropped a bombshell as he sat down for an interview on OWN with Oprah Winfrey and his mother Cissy Houston. Michael admits getting his sister, late singer Whitney Houston, started on drugs years ago. He said he lives with that guilt every day. During the Oprah interview on OWN, the host discussed singer ...
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Though prospective college students are increasingly applying to more schools, each applicant can ultimately enroll in just one. For fall 2011, some of the most popular choices among students were U.S. service academies.
Colleges refer to the percentage of their accepted first year students who choose to enroll as "yield" and report the statistic to U.S. News in annual surveys. Yield is an important indicator of what students think about their college choice. While a high yield shows students greatly value being admitted to a particular institution, a low yield may mean that the school was considered a "safety" and may not have been those students' first choice.
In a 2012 U.S. News survey, 233 ranked National Liberal Arts Colleges, generally small schools that emphasize undergraduate education, reported yield rates for fall 2011.
The United States Naval Academy reported the highest yield rate that year, enrolling 86.2 percent of admitted undergraduates. Following closely behind, the United States Military Academy enrolled 83.6 percent of admitted applicants for fall 2011, while 82.1 percent of students accepted to the United States Air Force Academy chose to attend.
On average, the ranked National Liberal Arts Colleges that reported yield rates to U.S. News enrolled close to 30 percent of accepted undergraduates for fall 2011. That's not as high as the average among National Universities: about 36 percent, according to school reports.
[See the yield rates at National Universities.]
High yield rates do not necessarily correspond with the overall Best Colleges rankings. Though Harvard University is the No. 1 ranked National University and has the second-highest yield rate amongst similar schools for fall 2011, Williams College, ranked No. 1 overall in the U.S. News Best National Liberal Arts Colleges rankings, reported a yield rate of 44.9 percent for fall 2011--the 25th highest on the list below.
The yield rates could be affected by any early decision or early action options offered by schools. Since students accepted through those programs are generally expected to enroll, overall yield rates may increase as a result.
Below are the fall 2011 yield rates for every National Liberal Arts College that reported the statistic to U.S. News.
The yield data above are correct as of Jan. 28, 2013. For additional admissions data, complete rankings, and much more, access the U.S. News College Compass.
Tuesday, January 29th, 2013 By George Leong, B.Comm. for Profit Confidential
Small-cap stocks will be a key driver of the broader market should the U.S. and global economies continue to improve. In 2012, small-cap stocks trailed only the technology sector as far as performance. The Russell 2000 advanced the most in December. If 2013 is a strong year for the economy, small-cap stocks will deliver.
Small-caps have been impressive so far in 2013, as the Russell 2000 is up six percent, with the index trading at the 900 level for the first time.
In my view, continued economic renewal will drive small companies higher, because these companies tend to be able to react more quickly to a changing economy.
My stock analysis suggests that what happens in January will be an important indicator for the year as far as performance. Historical records indicate that stocks have increased an average of 1.6% in January since 1969, according to the Stock Trader?s Almanac.
The strong start to 2013 is also a bullish sign, as was the case in 2012 when stocks flew out of the gate. We are seeing a similar situation this year, so expect some gains.
The chart of the Russell 2000 shows the break near 860 on rising relative strength and the moving average convergence/divergence (MACD) indicator. Watch to see if the breakout holds.
Chart courtesy of www.StockCharts.com
I favor small-cap stocks for long-term growth, as the valuations are more attractive and may be worth a look for aggressive long-term investors. (I also like the emerging markets, which you can read more about in ?Boost Your Portfolio Returns with the Emerging Markets.?)
And while I view the holding of large-cap stocks as an integral part of a portfolio, for added overall portfolio returns, I like small-cap stocks. These stocks add to the risk component of your portfolio, but you are compensated by a higher overall expected return from your investments. You can increase the expected return of a portfolio by simply adding more risk. This is the advantage of adding small-cap stocks.
A standard and simple measure of stock risk versus the market is called beta?a quantitative measure of systematic or market risk that cannot be diversified away and generally changes in relation to the S&P 500 or another market/benchmark.
A beta of less than one implies a stock has less risk than the market, which in turn means less expected return; whereas a beta of greater than one implies a higher comparative risk versus the market, meaning possibly higher expected returns
When there?s a stock market rally, stocks with a higher beta will tend to fare better. But a note of warning?buying only higher beta stocks does not necessarily translate into higher returns, as it also results in greater volatility and downside risk when the broader market declines.
To increase the overall risk of your holdings, you need to increase the expected return. The most important fact to understand is that you can increase the risk-reward profile of your portfolio by adding small-cap stocks and/or sectors that have higher growth potential.
If the global and U.S. economies continue to show renewed growth, look to small-cap stocks to outperform this year.
Guest Post by Jennifer Foster, President Foster Results
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Small business accounting hurdles are scattered everywhere and failure to clear virtually any of them could cripple your business. Not being able to handle taxes and acquire banking loans could spell disaster for your business. Here?s why:
Taxes Properly handling taxes is a crucial part of the everyday operation of a small business. But it?s not just payroll taxes that are the issue. Getting all the right information together and taking care of income taxes for the company is also an area that trips up many small business owners.? It?s crucial to have an accountant or bookkeeper familiar with taxes to guide your company in the right direction. This is especially true with income taxes, which include social security taxes. If you don?t get your taxes right, then you could quickly be put out of business.
Bank Loans In order to get a loan or help from a banker, there?s plenty of accounting information that?s required so the bank will feel comfortable about the financial condition of your company. A banker will want to see your financial and cash flow statements to get an idea of the money your company will require in the months ahead. If this accounting information isn?t correctly prepared, a bank won?t be interested in a company that doesn?t even have its finances in order. And if you don?t get that much needed loan, your business could go under.
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran has denied media reports of a major explosion at one of its uranium enrichment sites, describing them as "Western propaganda" designed to influence upcoming nuclear negotiations.
Reuters has been unable to verify reports since Friday of an explosion at the underground Fordow bunker, near the religious city of Qom, that some Israeli and Western media have said caused significant damage.
Tehran has accused Israel and the United States of being behind cyber attacks and the assassination of its nuclear scientists, aiming to sabotage a nuclear program which the West suspects hides an attempt to develop nuclear weapons.
"The false news of an explosion at Fordow is Western propaganda ahead of nuclear negotiations to influence their process and outcome," state news agency IRNA quoted the deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Saeed Shamseddin Bar Broudi, as saying late on Sunday.
The IRNA report also quoted the head of parliament's national security and foreign affairs committee, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, strongly denying there had been an explosion.
The plant at Fordow in late 2011 began producing uranium enriched to 20 percent fissile purity, compared with the 3.5 percent level needed for nuclear energy plants, and has been operating 700 centrifuges there since January this year, according to Western diplomats.
Western governments are concerned that high-grade enrichment is a significant step towards developing a nuclear weapons capability.
Iran maintains its nuclear activities are entirely peaceful and that it began producing high-enriched uranium that it was no longer able to obtain from abroad for medical use.
The two sides are set to resume negotiations in coming weeks but the talks have been beset by delays and wrangling over dates and location.
(Reporting by Marcus George; editing by Patrick Graham)
Home ? Blog ? Military News ? Edmonds Military Wire: Six in 10 VA claim denials are in error
Edmonds Military Wire: Six in 10 VA claim denials are in error
By Michael Schindler
Despite some process and administrative changes in the Federal Veterans Administration, veterans can still expect they?ll have to fight to see their claim approved, and that approval could take well over three months if everything goes right.
As we start 2013, many of the headlines are expressing the angst of what now seems to be the perpetual fiscal cliff and the rather dismal unemployment numbers. Not to side track too much, but Ted Daywalt, president of VetJobs.com, believes ?unemployment will remain in the 7 percent to 9 percent range throughout 2013. This will be due to the stalled recovery and layoffs created by new federal regulations (DOL, EPA, etc.), new taxes, especially Obamacare and union actions.?
With our veterans experiencing some of the highest unemployment, the Department of Defense facing significant cuts in a matter of months, and more than a million service members cycling back into our communities over the next few years, one would think the VA would be preparing for a significant increase in claims ? and certainly their mandate would be ?efficiency and excellence.?
After all, haven?t those who volunteered to stand in the gap earned at least that when dealing with our government?
Unfortunately, the VA has a long way to go.
Rick Maze, staff writer for the Military Times, reports that six of 10 VA claims are in error. While Mr. Maze?s report is new, the problem isn?t ? as a matter of record this ?old problem? hasn?t improved much at all over the years: - 31 percent of claims filed with the Veterans Affairs Department are likely to be denied ? and 60 percent of those denials will be erroneous. - 60 percent of claims will take longer than 125 days to be processed, more than 7 percent of claims will be misplaced, and 4 percent will be completely lost. - A veteran calling VA?s benefits hotline has just a 49-percent chance of being connected to someone and receiving a correct answer.
The report, ?The Veterans Disability System: Problems and Solutions,? was released Dec. 12, 2012 by the nonprofit National Center for Policy Analysis. Based on a review of the 870,000 benefits claims pending before VA in 2011 ? a number that has climbed to about 900,000 pending claims today ? the report says the pile of pending claims has grown despite the fact that VA is processing more claims than ever before and using a variety of new efforts to work faster and more accurately.
Government solutions to government problems typically are not known for being efficient and the report goes on to suggest that ?faster claims processing might be possible by contracting out administrative services or transferring claims processing from the federal government to states.?
The nonpartisan National Center for Policy Analysis, which specializes in retirement and health care programs, is skeptical about VA?s stated goal of eliminating the claims backlog by the end of 2015. VA ?is barely able to process current claims,? the report says, ?and has exhibited little to no progress toward their stated goal of 125 days and 98% accuracy for processed claims by 2015.?
The report goes on to state, ?The federal government, in general, does a poor job of administering disability benefits and services as evidenced by the state of Social Security Disability. But the Veterans Benefits Administration appears to be far worse.?
Bottom line: While Congress scrambles to get a budget passed, debate the debt ceiling and preserve their benefits, every day Americans are ?fighting for milk? ? to quote a great movie ?Cinderella Man.? Our veterans are coming home only to face a tough economy, misperception among hiring managers and a fight not only for milk but also for their benefits. It is time for real change.
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Jan. 27, 2013 ? Rice University scientists have taken an important step toward the creation of two-dimensional electronics with a process to make patterns in atom-thick layers that combine a conductor and an insulator.
The materials at play -- graphene and hexagonal boron nitride -- have been merged into sheets and built into a variety of patterns at nanoscale dimensions.
Rice introduced a technique to stitch the identically structured materials together nearly three years ago. Since then, the idea has received a lot of attention from researchers interested in the prospect of building 2-D, atomic-layer circuits, said Rice materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan. He is one of the authors of the new work that appears this week in Nature Nanotechnology. In particular, Ajayan noted that Cornell University scientists reported an advance late last year on the art of making atomic-layer heterostructures through sequential growth schemes.
This week's contribution by Rice offers manufacturers the possibility of shrinking electronic devices into even smaller packages. While Rice's technical capabilities limited features to a resolution of about 100 nanometers, the only real limits are those defined by modern lithographic techniques, according to the researchers. (A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.)
"It should be possible to make fully functional devices with circuits 30, even 20 nanometers wide, all in two dimensions," said Rice researcher Jun Lou, a co-author of the new paper. That would make circuits on about the same scale as in current semiconductor fabrication, he said.
Graphene has been touted as a wonder material since its discovery in the last decade. Even at one atom thick, the hexagonal array of carbon atoms has proven its potential as a fascinating electronic material. But to build a working device, conductors alone will not do. Graphene-based electronics require similar, compatible 2-D materials for other components, and researchers have found hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) works nicely as an insulator.
H-BN looks like graphene, with the same chicken-wire atomic array. The earlier work at Rice showed that merging graphene and h-BN via chemical vapor deposition (CVD) created sheets with pools of the two that afforded some control of the material's electronic properties. Ajayan said at the time that the creation offered "a great playground for materials scientists."
He has since concluded that the area of two-dimensional materials beyond graphene "has grown significantly and will play out as one of the key exciting materials in the near future."
His prediction bears fruit in the new work, in which finely detailed patterns of graphene are laced into gaps created in sheets of h-BN. Combs, bars, concentric rings and even microscopic Rice Owls were laid down through a lithographic process. The interface between elements, seen clearly in scanning transmission electron microscope images taken at Oak Ridge National Laboratories, shows a razor-sharp transition from graphene to h-BN along a subnanometer line.
"This is not a simple quilt," Lou said. "It's very precisely engineered. We can control the domain sizes and the domain shapes, both of which are necessary to make electronic devices."
The new technique also began with CVD. Lead author Zheng Liu, a Rice research scientist, and his colleagues first laid down a sheet of h-BN. Laser-cut photoresistant masks were placed over the h-BN, and exposed material was etched away with argon gas. (A focused ion beam system was later used to create even finer patterns, down to 100-nanometer resolution, without masks.) After the masks were washed away, graphene was grown via CVD in the open spaces, where it bonded edge-to-edge with the h-BN. The hybrid layer could then be picked up and placed on any substrate.
While there's much work ahead to characterize the atomic bonds where graphene and h-BN domains meet and to analyze potential defects along the boundaries, Liu's electrical measurements proved the components' qualities remain intact.
"One important thing Zheng showed is that even by doing all kinds of growth, then etching, then regrowth, the intrinsic properties of these two materials are not affected," Lou said. "Insulators stay insulators; they're not doped by the carbon. And the graphene still looks very good. That's important, because we want to be sure what we're growing is exactly what we want."
Liu said the next step is to place a third element, a semiconductor, into the 2-D fabric. "We're trying very hard to integrate this into the platform," he said. "If we can do that, we can build truly integrated in-plane devices." That would give new options to manufacturers toying with the idea of flexible electronics, he said.
"The contribution of this paper is to demonstrate the general process," Lou added. "It's robust, it's repeatable and it creates materials with very nice properties and with dimensions that are at the limit of what is possible."
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Journal Reference:
C. Drexler, S. A. Tarasenko, P. Olbrich, J. Karch, M. Hirmer, F. M?ller, M. Gmitra, J. Fabian, R. Yakimova, S. Lara-Avila, S. Kubatkin, M. Wang, R. Vajtai, P. M. Ajayan, J. Kono, S. D. Ganichev. Magnetic quantum ratchet effect in graphene. Nature Nanotechnology, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2012.231
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The news that Sarah Palin will no longer be a paid contributor to Fox News puts an exclamation point on the end of an era, or at least a chapter, in U.S. political history. She could land somewhere else, and she still has her Facebook friends, but it?s hard to imagine she?ll find a more visible or influential platform than Fox.
The former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential nominee has been fading from the scene for some time, as she inadvertently highlighted when she complained on Facebook during the Republican convention in August that the network had canceled her scheduled interviews that night. Her brother, Chuck Heath Jr., told Alan Colmes last week on Fox Radio that his sister is ?kind of laying low right now,? though he wouldn?t or couldn?t say when asked why.
Once the face of an energetic and politically potent Tea Party movement, Palin is leaving Fox at a time when polls show the Tea Party at an all-time low in both membership and favorability. Her departure also coincides with calls by some leading Republicans for their party to stop saying things that erode the GOP brand and turn off voters in droves.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said bluntly this week at a Republican National Committee meeting in Charlotte that the GOP needs to stop being ?the stupid party,? and former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said he agreed. The two were talking in particular about losing Senate candidates Todd Akin of Missouri and Richard Mourdock of Indiana, both of whom made inflammatory (and in Akin?s case, flagrantly ignorant) comments about rape.
But Palin, with her flamboyant rhetoric, has stoked her own disproportionate share of controversies. This is the woman who, after all, coined the term ?death panels? to describe discussions between patients and physicians about end-of-life treatment (killing a bipartisan proposal for Medicare to reimburse doctors for having those talks); who complained of a ?blood libel? against her by ?journalists and pundits? after the Tucson shooting rampage that injured Gabrielle Giffords (the phrase historically relates to the charge that Jews murder children to use their blood in religious rituals); and who last fall accused Obama of ?shuck and jive? in his statements on the killings of U.S. diplomatic personnel in Benghazi (a racist term dating from slavery days).
Former secretary of state Colin Powell ripped Palin, though not by name, for the shucking-and-jiving remark. He said that and a characterization of Obama as "lazy" (by former New Hampshire governor John Sununu, also not cited by name) played into negative stereotypes of blacks and laid bare a ?dark vein of intolerance? within some parts of the GOP.
Palin defended herself by noting other political figures have used the phrase, including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and White House press secretary Jay Carney. That?s true, and it?s also true that outside of conservative media, Carney largely seems to have gotten a pass. But Cuomo was roundly criticized when he said it during the 2008 Democratic primary campaign (he was a Hillary Clinton supporter). In fact, during that bitter nomination contest, the media monitored every word from Clinton, her husband and her staff for evidence of racial politics. And we found a number of examples, some more valid than others.
The problem for Republicans is that Democrats nominated and elected a black president ? twice now ? while they are still trying to fight perceptions they are hostile to minorities and the policies they support. That makes comments like Palin?s particularly harmful.
The shuck-and-jive incident was one of many signs that Palin has not adapted to a changing political environment. Her Dec. 19 interview on On The Recordwith Greta Van Susteren, her final appearance on the network, was like a time warp back to 2008. She still makes up words (?electioning?). She still repeats sentences and phrases, padding her answers with filler. She still talks in vague generalities, leaving one to wonder how much she really knows. At a time when some conservatives reportedly have concluded it?s time to challenge liberalism rather than keep trying to stoke hostility toward Obama himself, she still attacks Obama in highly personal terms (?Mr. Nobel-Peace-Prize- winning president of ours?). Her diction is still, shall we say, unusual (?I believe that it?s many, many things that he would say and do being deceptive?).
Palin also still says weirdly inexplicable things.
When she first heard that Obama had been named Time magazine?s 2012 Person of the Year, she said her reaction was ?What the heck has he done really? What has he done except drive us over a fiscal cliff? ? Other than that, really, what has he done to unify and make our nation a more perfect union? For the life of me I don?t know, Greta.?
Obama of course has done a lot of things, some of them very polarizing. Palin had an opportunity to invoke Obamacare, gays in the military or any number of moves to back up her point about Obama dividing the nation and, in the view of many, making it less rather than more perfect. It was left to Van Susteren to add a little heft to the discussion, noting that Obama would deserve the designation if it had been awarded for winning a very difficult reelection campaign with a broad swath of demographic groups.
The strangest thing Palin said during that interview was her argument as to why Time?s recognition of Obama was irrelevant. Pointing to herself in seeming disbelief, she said that ?yours truly? had made the magazine?s list of the most influential people in the nation and world, and ?that ought to tell you something right there about the credence that we should give Time magazine and their list of people.? A bemused Van Susteren replied, ?All right. Well. That?s an interesting concept.?
Fox hired Palin three years ago ? at a reported $1 million a year ? because, Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes told The Associated Press, ?she was hot and got ratings.? While the terms of her departure are not public, it appears Fox came to the same conclusion as Palin about her diminishing role on the national and world stage.
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