CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2012-12-19 07:51:49 (1 comments, 18 reshares, 34 +1s)

Fast DNA Origami Opens Way For Nanoscale Machines
by +Kellya Clanzig, +EuroTech; France

Until now, biotechnologists have only been able to make simple forms out of DNA, like tubes, boxes, and triangles. In addition, the process has been laborious and time-consuming. A new study indicates that DNA strands can be coaxed to fold into shapes in a matter of minutes.

The waiting time has been cut down to minutes by Hendrik Dietz, a biophysicist at the Technical University in Munich, Germany, and his colleagues. Until now, scientists had to assemble the shape by heating the DNA and allowing it to cool over a week. Dietz and his colleagues strained the DNA with fluorescent dye and watched what happened as it cooled and folded.

By stopping the reaction at different states, they checked on how far the folding and sticking had gone. They discovered something... more »

2012-12-18 14:19:32 (4 comments, 3 reshares, 20 +1s)

Solar Power From Windows: The EPFL Convention Center
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany

The EPFL’s Convention Center in Lausanne, Switzerland is going to be the first public building to install stained glass solar power generating windows. These windows are powered by Grätzel cells, a type of dye-sensitized solar cell co-invented by EPFL’s Michael Grätzel in 1988.

The Convention Center was initially planning to use shaded glass blinds on its western facade, but decided to replace those blinds with power-generating ones instead. The installment will include 1500 artful red- and orange-shaded 35x50cm modules over a surface of 300m², built by the Swiss solar cell manufacturer Solaronix, which acquired the rights to the Grätzel cell in 1994. Not only will the colored cells look catchy, but they serve two important purposes: (1) to reduce solar radiation and thusregulat... more »

2012-12-17 12:28:23 (0 comments, 12 reshares, 12 +1s)

SSCAI: AI Bots Face Off In StarCraft Competition
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany

At Comenius University in Bratislava, 52 student-created Bots are facing off for 1176 games in a round-robin of 15 minute long, 1-on-1 rounds of StarCraft. The games will be run one at a time, and streamed live for all StarCraft fans to watch. The winner will take home 1000€ – or as much as last-minute Sponsors put into the prize pool, and the top bots will advance to the BWAPI ladder, where they will constantly be facing other Bots around the world.

It seems, though, that the results to date aren’t too promising for this year’s competitors: the leading spot on the board is from a non-student, with a average score of 2.86, belonging to a Zerg AI by Marian Devecka.

What’s behind a bot?
The bots are coded in either C++ or Java. But that’s not theinteresting... more »

2012-12-13 11:40:57 (6 comments, 32 reshares, 23 +1s)

Algae Lamps
by +Kellya Clanzig, +EuroTech; France

Shamengo pioneer Pierre Calleja has invented a light powered by algae that absorbs CO2 in the air at the rate of 1 ton per year. The microalgae streetlamp has the potential to provide significantly cleaner air in urban areas and revolutionize the cityscape. With the figures provided, roughly every five of these lights in use would counter the CO2 emissions of one car based on average mileage. 

For the last 20 years, Calleja has focused his attentions on species of mixotropic algae, versatile little buggers that generate electricity not only from the preferred source of most plant life – sunlight – but also by absorbing CO2: “the lamps are composed of a tube containing microalgae, as well as a battery… during the day, the batteries are charged via photosynthesis of the algae, using both solar power and CO2.” Thismeans that... more »

2012-12-12 12:53:20 (5 comments, 32 reshares, 31 +1s)

Team Uses Fractal Geometry To Build Lighter Structures
by +Kellya Clanzig, +EuroTech; France

A team made up of members from several European universities has published a paper in the Physical Review Letters describing a technique they’ve developed for using fractal geometry to build structures that maintain their strength despite weighing significantly less. 

Daniel Rayneau-Kirkhope, Yong Mao and Robert Farr  have developed a theoretical framework that assesses the advantages of hierarchical structures in general. They began with a hollow tube as their “generation-0” element and varied the diameter and thickness to obtain the strongest tube with the least amount of material. To assess the strength, the team considered different ways that a tube could fail when squeezed along its length, such as bowing out like an archery bow (Euler buckling) or crumpling up alongits axi... more »

2012-12-11 16:40:39 (27 comments, 6 reshares, 9 +1s)

Stopping Climate Change With A Stratospheric Shield?
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany

British Matthew Watson and his team think they have found a solution to stop climate change. They would like to construct a stratospheric shield to pump 100,000 tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere every year – at a construction cost of $24 million, and an operating cost of $10 million per year.

The idea consists of rubber hoses attached to weather balloons, rising 20 kilometers into the atmosphere. Through these hoses, the team could pump reflective aerosols directly into the stratosphere, deflecting incoming solar radiation and thus cooling the planet. They were planning a 1/20th scale test involving sending a helium balloon up one kilometer carrying a water-filled hose – which would simulate the weight of an aerosol-filled hose rising 20 kilometers – but this experimentwas c... more »

2012-12-10 13:45:21 (8 comments, 3 reshares, 12 +1s)

Dry Your Hands At The Sink
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany

Dyson has come up with a new, concept way to wash and dry your hands without leaving the sink.

How it works
Their patent application features a modified faucet with infrared sensors below the faucet, as you may expect, to automatically turn on the water when you wash your hands. When you are done, simply move your hands upwards – one hand on each side of the faucet – where jets of air emerging from nozzles on both sides of the faucet remove the remaining water from your hands.

The importance of drying your hands
According to Rob Green, a Dyson engineer, “Drying hands is just as important as washing them: damp hands can spread up to 1,000 times more bacteria than dry hands. The best way to ensure hands are dry is for facilities managers to provide a drying method that isfast ... more »

2012-12-06 13:09:45 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

The Keret House
by +Kellya Clanzig, +EuroTech; France

Three years have passed since the first presentation of a slightly impossible artistic concept during WolaArt festival in 2009. Now Keret House proves to be a possible venture. 

Everything seemed to stand in its way: the space’s narrowness, the infrastructure, law, and money. But since its creators were persistent and devoted to the vision, they’ve managed to convince and persuade other people: neighbors, authorities, administrators, sponsors and builders. Today the house, or rather an art installation of some 14m2 stands between two buildings at Żelazna St. in Warsaw.

In the crack between the buildings on 22 Chłodna St. and 74 Żelazna St., the Etgar Keret House designed by Jakub Szczęsny is the narrowest house in Warsaw, its interior measures a tight 133 centimeters in the widest spot.
... more »

2012-12-05 11:18:42 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 15 +1s)

A New Type Of Matter
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany

Shortly after the Big Bang, the universe was made out of a hot, radioactive soup. This soup contained a type of matter called color-glass condensate – which the Large Hadron Collider may have recreated.

Color-glass condensate
Two years ago, Raju Venugopalan and Kevin Dusling from Brookhaven National Laboratory theorized that proton-proton collisions could produce a wave of gluons in a liquid-like state – the kind of state that looks like a solid but behaves like a liquid, as glass does. Based on this state property, this state has been dubbed color-glass condensate. At normal energy levels, protons consist of three quarks. At higher energy levels, the protons gain an accompanying cluster of gluons, whose wave functions can be correlated with each other in an entangled state. The entanglement allowsthe... more »

2012-12-04 08:03:02 (7 comments, 2 reshares, 6 +1s)

Be ready, LeWeb Paris is coming up on December 4th, 5th, and 6th!
by +Kellya Clanzig, +EuroTech; France

Leaders and influencers who shape the future of the Internet gather at LeWeb. On stage, industry leaders and visionaries. In the audience, a perfect mix of entrepreneurs, large companies, influencers, VCs and journalists.

The LeWeb'12 theme is THE INTERNET OF THINGS. iThings, data everywhere, M2M, connected objects, Web 3.0, are not just buzzwords touting the next big thing. It is said that the “Internet of Things” (IoT) will likely be one of the most important technological advances of this century. By 2020, an estimated 50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet. This hyperconnected world is fueling the creation of an IoT that will bring devices, systems and people closer together. It’s about a melding of the physical world and the virtualworld... more »

2012-12-03 08:11:39 (6 comments, 5 reshares, 14 +1s)

PRotos X400, The Largest Commercial 3D Printer
by +Kellya Clanzig, +EuroTech; France

German RepRap has just launched their new PRotos X400 at the Euromold trade fair in Frankfurt – the largest 3D printer currently on the market.

As the company name suggests, their printer is built on the open source RepRap 3D printing solution. It is also a highly customizable solution, providing maximum access to mechanical components following a modular design and thus allowing custom components to be added to the printing process. With the size and resolution currently available, 3D printing has created not just a way to replicate objects cheaply,  but also a way to create more intricate sculpted structures than is possible with conventional machinery. 

The PRotos X400 has an overall dimension of 65 x 65 x 70 cm (W/D/H), weighs about 35 kg and is assembled on a stablealu... more »

2012-11-29 13:37:39 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

How Ogilvy Recrutes Software Pirates
by +Kellya Clanzig, +EuroTech; France

Today's young web designers need to buy very expensive application suites in order to create. So they are tempted to download these suites on illegal pirate websites. To prevent them from not only becoming criminals but also wasting their creativity in the numbness of unemployment, Ogilvy Brussels uploaded a file supposed to be the wanted application suite. For free. But when the web designers downloaded it, they didn’t found the new suite. They found a much stronger offer: a job opportunity at Ogilvy...

Ogilvy Group Belgium creates award-winning public policy and corporate sector communications, advertising, public relations, social media and digital communications for a mix of institutional and major brand clients.

Tags: #ScienceEverydaymore »

2012-11-28 11:42:42 (7 comments, 24 reshares, 27 +1s)

Big Slap From The German Gov For The ITU
by +Alexander Becker, +EuroTech; Germany

The International Telecommunication Union plans to extend its influence and control of the Internet. Some members, including Russia and Iran, try to push for online surveillance, censorship, and taxation.

From a position paper [1] of the German ministry of economy, it emerges that the government rejects a regulation of the Internet by the ITU decisively.

In the first two weeks of December, the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) holds a summit in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, which is curiously one of the more tightly regulated and controlled countries to access the Internet from. The specialized United Nations agency sets global standards for telephone connections with current rules being from 1988, since then, the Internet has changed the global... more »

2012-11-27 12:46:53 (2 comments, 2 reshares, 9 +1s)

Cocoon 1, A Very Special Place Of Retreat
by +Kellya Clanzig, +EuroTech; France

Micasa Lab, the laboratory in Zürich that also created the iRock presented previously by +EuroTech, is starting out with products that explore modern living in different ways. The interesting aspect of space, not having enough space, or just the wrong kind of space. This, in combination with the increasing need for privacy and tranquility paved the way for Cocoon 1.

The Cocoon 1 is a completely transparent ball, measuring 180 cm in diameter.  It is spacious enough to create a room, but not so large that it will not fit into one. Its uses are infinite: it can be a place to relax, sleep, work, cook or simply a storage space. 

This new type of furniture transcends the border between object and space and challenges how we perceive furniture. By adding different modules, thefu... more »

2012-11-26 12:31:58 (0 comments, 3 reshares, 17 +1s)

How Long-Term Memories Are Created
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany

Have you ever wondered how long-term memory works? The hippocampus is responsible for transferring short-term memory to long-term memory during deep dreamless sleep, and Nikos Logothetis’ team at the Max Planck Institute has developed an explanation of how exactly this is done.

How memories are created
The hippocampus is one of the most ancient and most primitive brain structures. It is responsible for the long-term retention of information, and this is performed in two steps. First, during the encoding phase, it binds neocortical representations into local memory traces. Then, during sleep, the new traces are reactivated in both the hippocampus and the cortex. This strengthens cortico-cortical connections, which reinforce the memory pattern. But: How do these memory patterns travel fromt... more »

2012-11-23 11:07:00 (1 comments, 21 reshares, 20 +1s)

The Backenger: Urban Bag To Revolutionize Your Daily Walk
by +Kellya Clanzig, +EuroTech; France

Listening to urban walkers and watching them get around enabled the Newfeel product development team to come up with the Backenger, a mixture between the comfort of the backpack and the appeal of the messenger bag. 

Developed in partnership with the component brand Strenfit, the Backenger challenges current codes and provides an innovative multi-object carrying solution. The trick? In one simple movement, the shoulder bag strap transforms it instantly into a backpack and vice versa. You don’t even have to stop walking! 

The Backenger is an innovative, comfortable and ingenious product: heat-shaped foam back, non-slip shoulder pad, wide adjustable strap, bottle holder, Oyster card holder, and many zipped compartments including one to protect a laptop up to15.... more »

2012-11-22 13:14:02 (9 comments, 9 reshares, 22 +1s)

Russia To Seek Nationalized Control Of The Internet
by +Francois Demers, +EuroTech; Ukraine

From the leaked proposal:

“Member States shall have the sovereign right to manage the Internet within their national territory, as well as to manage national Internet domain names.”

“Member States shall have equal rights in the international allocation of Internet addressing and identification resources.”

As a politician, just say NO or you may never rule your country again.

Governments may feel threatened by a free and open Internet.

I understand that with territorial integrity becoming increasingly difficult to define; foreign relationships happening at the individual level without policy; currencies becoming virtual and private, what is to be the role of the sovereign?

The answer is not in a stepbackwar... more »

2012-11-21 14:10:17 (1 comments, 12 reshares, 17 +1s)

ZenRobotics Recycler
by +Kellya Clanzig, +EuroTech; France

The ZenRobotics Recycler will revolutionize the way recycling works – and help solve the global waste crisis that is getting out of hand.

This robotic waste sorting system was built with off the shelf industrial robotics components. The robotic recycler is designed for commercial and industrial waste, municipal solid waste, and construction waste.

Using multiple sensor inputs to identify items and raw materials, the system utilizes machine learning techniques to separate raw materials from waste. Possible sensors include Visible spectrum cameras, NIR, 3D laser scanners, haptic sensors, and transillumination. These sensors allow for a diverse and accurate analysis of waste.

Unlike any other sorting method, the recycler can perform multiple simultaneous sorting tasks. For example, contaminantre... more »

2012-11-20 13:47:10 (2 comments, 12 reshares, 18 +1s)

Mine Kafon: A Cheap Minesweeper
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany

Meet Mine Kafon, a $40 wind-powered mine sweeping device created by Massoud Hassani as part of his thesis at the Design Academy Eindhoven.

The structure is made of 70 bamboo legs with biodegradable plastic ‘feet’ arranged in a tumbleweed-like structure. In the middle is it’s sole electronic component, a GPS system used to track detonated mine locations. When deployed in a minefield, it rolls about carried by the wind until it hits and detonates a mine. The deminer has already been strength-tested and approved, and Hassani plans on launching a Kickstarter project to begin commercializing it next week. With professional mine removal costs running around $1200 per mine, the potential of this device is huge.

The Motivation behind Mine Kafon
The story behind Mine Kafon is equallycompe... more »

2012-11-16 10:33:49 (2 comments, 12 reshares, 16 +1s)

More Power: Breakthrough In Long-Distance Power Transmissions
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany

ABB is set to change the face of intercontinental power grids. The Swiss energy company has solved a century-old electrical engineering puzzle crucial in building large-scale, long-distance green energy transmission networks: How to build a circuit breaker for high-voltage direct current (HVDC).

How it works
A typical circuit breaker involves a single switch on a single power line. ABB’s solution, however, is a hybrid circuit breaker – it combines a mechanical breaker an electronic element. This combination results in a circuit breaker with low losses, and a fast reaction time. This happens in three stages:
1. A small electronic breaker opens, diverting power to an alternate pathway with less resistance.
2. A mechanical breaker opens, cutting off thealt... more »

2012-11-15 13:04:48 (1 comments, 8 reshares, 16 +1s)

Beam Me Up To The ISS!
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany

Thomas Scheidl at the Austrian Academy of Sciences has proposed what we’re all dreaming about: teleporting to an orbiting spacecraft. More specifically, he wants to beam photons up to the International Space Station, orbiting some 400 km above Earth’s surface, with a very economical idea.

The proposal
The proposed plan would create entangled photons on the ground, and send one of the entangled photons up to a camera mounted in the cupola on board the ISS – a viewing area with windows pointing towards earth. The camera would contain a photon sensor that watches for photons fired from their quantum physics labs in Austria and in the Canary Islands. The alternative, producing entangled photons in space, would require the hardware used in entangled photon production to be certified, and that’s acostly ... more »

2012-11-14 10:56:04 (2 comments, 26 reshares, 25 +1s)

EUPL: A New Class Of Open Source Licensing
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany

With the European Union Public License (EUPL), the European Commission has created a new type of open source license. It is a copyleft compatible license and unlike other open source licenses, it establishes a wide cross-compatibility basis, while securing many of the basic concerns expressed by the open source movement. It also, as its name suggests, specifically targets the European community, featuring official translations into all EU member state languages and juristic text compatible with all EU member states.

When analysing the plethora of already available licences, the EC discovered that there was no license meeting three important criteria in Europe:
1. The license should have equal legal value in many languages,
2. The terminology regarding intellectual property rights... more »

2012-11-12 11:09:42 (0 comments, 6 reshares, 9 +1s)

Implanting a Pressure Sensor Inside People’s Heads
by +Kellya Clanzig, +EuroTech; France

Researchers at the Fraunhofer institute have created a tiny pressure sensor that can be implanted into people’s heads in order to measure the pressure of the cerebrospinal fluid, and draws its power from an external device that also reads the sensor. This is important because increases in pressure can lead to dementia and could destroy the brain. 

The sudden increase of cerebral pressure in certain people remains a mystery, but the consequences are well known: blood circulation is disrupted and after a while, parts of the brain may die off, similar to what occurs in a stroke. Experts estimate that up to ten percent of all cases of dementia in Europe can be attributed to rising blood pressure in the brain. 

Still, making the diagnosis is tough. Nowadays, a probe isinsert... more »

2012-11-08 13:35:04 (2 comments, 2 reshares, 10 +1s)

ELI: The World’s Most Powerful Laser
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany
 
Put lasers and particle accelerators together, and you get some very powerful lasers. Powerful lasers have important applications in engineering, nuclear pharmacology, oncology, and x-ray and gamma-ray imaging. And revolutionizing those fields is what the ELI (Extreme Light Infrastructure) project aims to accomplish.

290 million Euros in funding has been approved for the construction of the first of four sites in the ELI project, located in Prague, Czech Republic, and scheduled for completion in 2015. The other three pillars are in Szeged in Hungary, and Magurele in Romania, and a final location to be selected by the end of this year, the total costs will exceed 700 million.

ELI-Beamlines Facility. Location: Prague
This facility will focus on providing ultra-short energeticpa... more »

2012-11-07 14:42:05 (0 comments, 13 reshares, 12 +1s)

Gene Therapy: Now Commercially Available In Europe
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany

The European Commission has given the go to a Dutch company, UniQure, to commercially sell their gene therapy treatment, Glybera, in all EU member states – making it the first gene therapy treatment commercially available in Europe.

What is Glybera?
Scientifically known as alipogene tiparvovec, Glybera treats lipoprotein lipase deficiency (LPLD). This rare inherited disease occurs literally in one in a million people, which prevents people from being able to break down particular fats due to an error in the protein called lipoprotein lipase (LPL). The result is a buildup of fats in the blood, causing abdominal pain and life-threatening pancreatic inflammation. Other than undergoing gene therapy, the only way of dealing with the condition is by maintaining a very low-fatd... more »

2012-11-06 12:04:53 (3 comments, 14 reshares, 24 +1s)

Teleportation Across Ocean Waters
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany

The University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Science are the new record holders in quantum teleportation distances: they have teleported a photon over 143 kilometers, breaking the record set by the former Chinese teleportation team. But what makes this teleportation so special is the underlying communication technology, which is fundamentally different from the fiber-optic approach of the Chinese experiment: they used wireless communication and attenuation to transmit signals through the atmosphere under less-than-optimal conditions.

The experiment
The team has successfully teleported photos between two Canary Islands, La Palma and Tenerife. This was no relaxing vacation experiment: They had to overcome a significant challenge to accomplish this feat. The photons had to be sent... more »

2012-11-05 13:15:18 (2 comments, 26 reshares, 19 +1s)

Help Protect Open And Free Software
by +Kellya Clanzig, +EuroTech; France

The Document Foundation is a charitable foundation under German law, founded on February 17th, 2012. Its objective, as defined in the statutes, is to nurture and develop office software that is free to use by everyone. The foundation furthers a sustainable, independent and meritocratic community which develops free, libre, and open source software based on open standards through international collaboration.

They are driven by thousands of volunteers as well as paid contributors worldwide, and with joint forces, provide the best free office suite, LibreOffice, which is available in over 110 languages, for any major platform.

According to its values of openness, transparency and meritocracy, the foundation has made their budget as well as their financial reports public. Achieving the mission... more »

2012-11-02 11:09:02 (0 comments, 9 reshares, 12 +1s)

iRock, The Worlds First Power-Generating iPad Rocking Chair
by +Kellya Clanzig, +EuroTech; France

MICASA LAB, in Zurich, is developing a technology that uses the moves of your rocking chair to generate power. The iRock is an updated version of the traditional rocking chair. It's a self sufficient iPad dock and sound station, making that rocking motion... worthwhile. 

The chair itself is inspired by traditional rocking chairs and is designed it to resemble the classic, proven design of old rocking chairs. It is handcrafted out of Swedish pine wood and comes in 5 different colors.

What they have added to the design is a generator that transforms the movement into power. In addition, the iRock is equipped with an iPad stand and a set of build in speakers in the back rest. 

The amount of technical gadgets we have learned to depend on has increasedd... more »

2012-10-31 14:53:29 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 12 +1s)

Happy Halloween!
by +Alexander Becker, +EuroTech; Germany

Trick-or-treat this night with the European all saints crew +Max Huijgen, +Sophie Wrobel, +Kellya Clanzig, and +Alexander Becker...

Good haunting.

Tags: #HalloweenEveryday
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2012-10-30 14:44:23 (3 comments, 19 reshares, 18 +1s)

A Circuit Diagram Of The Mouse Brain
by +Kellya Clanzig, +EuroTech; France

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute are in the process of constructing a complete circuit diagram of a mouse brain by using an electron microscope to perform serial block scanning of neural tissue to image slices layer by layer at 80nm resolution. With this, the resolution at which the brain tissue can be examined is so high that the fine extensions of almost every single neuron are visible.

In 2004, scientists working with Prof. Dr. Winfried Denk developed a new method that enabled them to do just this: “serial block-face” scanning electron microscopy. To examine tissue using this method, it must be fixed, stained and embedded in synthetic material. This works for small pieces of tissue, but up to now it was not possible for tissue of large size. Now whole mouse brains can be used, withsca... more »

2012-10-29 12:01:54 (3 comments, 10 reshares, 16 +1s)

Dense, Spacious Living Quarters: The Menuires Ski Resort
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany

How do you fit eight beds, two bathrooms, a kitchen, a living and a dining room into 55m² with a spacy, comfy feel – without touching the building’s structure? If you think that challenge is beyond you, take a look at what the h2o architects pulled off at the Menuires ski resort in France, dubbed “the refuge.”

The building was constructed in 1964, and contains a highly compartmentalized structure. The architects decided to attack the space maximization problem by reversing the traditional building perspective: instead of trying to fit furniture into the apartment, make the apartment fit into the furniture. And there you have it: beds and sofas appear to be ‘cut into’ curved walls and overlap each other in various places. A reading corner brings light from the windowto the kitch... more »

2012-10-26 10:47:49 (7 comments, 2 reshares, 11 +1s)

The Convenient Bank Combicard For Your Wallet
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany

Monte Paschi’s latest bank card lineup presents a solution that convenience shoppers will love: an all-in-one bank card for credit card, debit card, cash card, and online transaction generator combined into one integrated piece of plastic.

Features:
• Credit card (Mastercard) functionality, including magnetic stripe, card number, and signature strip
• Debit card (Maestro) functionality, including electronic chip and card number
• NFC chip for contact-free payment
• Integrated TAN generator for online purchases

One secure step backwards?
Perhaps the most striking “feature” about this card is its integrated Transaction Number (TAN) generator. Online shoppers across Europe are no stranger to the TAN generation, which involves usinga physical de... more »

2012-10-25 11:54:29 (6 comments, 10 reshares, 12 +1s)

Tribler 6.0 Is Out!
by +Kellya Clanzig, +EuroTech; France

Tribler is a social community originating at the Delft University of Technology, facilitating file sharing through a peer-to-peer (P2P) network. The Tribler client has been around for more than half a decade already, and during that time it has been developed into the only truly decentralized BitTorrent client out there.

The name Tribler stems from the word Tribe, referring to the usage of social networks in this P2P client. The first version of Tribler was a small enhancement on ABC (Yet Another BitTorrent Client).

Tribler 6.0 is the killer tool, it is in any case what promises Dr. Johan Pouwelse, who manages the project from the side of Dave: “The goal is to provide all users download speeds that can be found on private BitTorrent communities.”

Tribler already offers features that do notrea... more »

2012-10-24 11:21:57 (9 comments, 18 reshares, 21 +1s)

Security Alert: Many Android Apps Leak Passwords And Credit Card Data
by +Alexander Becker, +EuroTech; Germany

Security researchers at the Leibniz University of Hannover and the Philipps University of Marburg in Germany have released the results [1] of a study that indicate a number of popular Android apps are subject to serious security flaws based on inadequate use of SSL.

The numbers
The analysis of the 13,500 most popular free apps from the Google Play Market has shown that 1,074 apps contain code vulnerable to Man-In-The-Middle Attacks (MITM) targeting flaws in SSL implementations. These 1,074 apps represent 17.0% of the apps that contain HTTPS URLs. To evaluate the real threat the potential vulnerabilities, the researchers manually mounted MITM attacks against 100 selected apps from that set, connected to a WiFi access point with a MITM SSL proxy. The... more »

2012-10-23 19:13:50 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 8 +1s)

The Commission has adopted today an Amending budget for Europe's students, scientists, NGOs', businesses and regions. The Commission estimates that an extra 9.0 billion is needed to cover the incoming bills and respect contractual and legal obligations, mainly in areas essential for growth and jobs in Europe like #Erasmus or researches programs.  The President of the #European Commission José Manuel #Barroso stated: "This is not about the Commission asking for more money but about Member States honouring the commitments they have made: to provide uninterrupted funding to students under the Erasmus programme or to poorer regions through the Cohesion Funds. These payments are essential to revive growth and create jobs throughout the #EU."

More information here: http://bit.ly/QS0pxl

FAQ on Erasmus and its budget: http://bit.ly/RvtqAp

2012-10-22 12:40:35 (0 comments, 3 reshares, 12 +1s)

Metal-Organic Frameworks For Extremely Large Surface Areas
by +Kellya Clanzig, +EuroTech; France

Metal-Organic Frameworks (“MOFs”) are among the most exciting, high profile developments in nanotechnology to emerge over the past decade. They have broad industrial applications because of two key attributes: their extremely large surface-areas and the flexibility with which their structures can be varied. Professor Stuart James in Queen’s School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering has patented a novel technique for the synthesis of MOFs, allowing affordable, large-scale deployment of these groundbreaking materials.

MOFs are crystalline, sponge-like materials composed of two components: metal ions and organic molecules known as linkers. The choice of metal and linker has significant effects on the structure and properties of the particular MOF.

MOFs have thehighe... more »

2012-10-19 10:38:28 (4 comments, 15 reshares, 20 +1s)

Vegitecture: Barcelona’s Vertical 8-Story Skyfarming Garden
by +Alexander Becker, +EuroTech; Germany

Imagine a giant steel tree that provides oxygen, filters the air, shades the neighboring building and provide a home for nearly a dozen bird species — even with nesting boxes — as well as, for geckos and bats.

The city of Barcelona asked Architect Juli Capella to design this vertical garden to cover a nearly 70-foot-high windowless wall. Instead of creating a typical living wall that simply covered the existing surface with plants, Capella constructed a piece of architecture (or vegitecture) that acts like any conventional building, complete with a door, stairs and floors. But unlike any other building, it has plants for walls.

This type of vegitecture, like any other living wall, is expensive to build explains Montserrat Prado Barrabés, an architect withInstit... more »

2012-10-17 11:38:31 (4 comments, 2 reshares, 10 +1s)

Dyson Tangle-free Turbine Tool
by +Kellya Clanzig, +EuroTech; France

Today, it’s science for housewives happiness: Dyson solved the problem of hairs ending up getting trapped by the brushes around the turbine, that reduces the suction capacity of the vacuum cleaner, or even worse, totally stops and breaks it.

The new component is the only turbine tool that doesn’t tangle. It releases more hair straight into the bin than any other mini turbine tool, avoiding the problem of having to scrape off and cut away at hair around the brush bars. This new Dyson problem solver is listed at £45.00, as it is currently only available in United Kingdom (and North America).

The designers took a second look at traditional vacuum brushes, unsatisfied by the way the tools too easily ball up fibers on carpets and upholstery. Instead of a horizontal spinning brush, Dyson’saccess... more »

2012-10-16 13:41:54 (19 comments, 6 reshares, 17 +1s)

CNIL vs. Google: EU Data Privacy Outrage
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany

On March 1, Google changed their privacy policy and terms of service to allow product-specific privacy policies to be generalized and to unify data usage across their services. The European Data Protection ePrivacy Working Party wasn’t pleased, and asked the Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL) to investigate. CNIL, then, sent two questionnaires to Google on March 19 and May 22, which Google responded to. Now, CNIL has finally completed their investigation, and isn’t pleased with Google at all.

The findings
In a nutshell, the investigation determined that:
1. Google didn’t adequately inform users on how their data is being processed.
2. The new privacy policy allows Google to combine data – which requires an appropriate legal ground thatis compati... more »

2012-10-15 07:20:07 (4 comments, 3 reshares, 27 +1s)

Breaking The Sound Barrier In Free Fall
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany

Felix Baumgartner, the 43-year-old Austrian base-jumper renowned for his impressive jump stunts, jumped out of a 39 km high weather balloon yesterday. He survived, and set the world record for the highest parachute jump, being the first human to break the sound barrier without vehicle assistance, and – while not the longest free fall time, then at least the longest distance covered in free fall.

At that altitude – more than twice as high as commercial airliners fly – air pressure is less than 2% of what it is at sea level. Getting up there is a challenge: Baumgartner’s special weather balloon needed next to zero wind in order to get his pressurized capsule up that high. As you might expect, breathing is close to impossible, and so Felix will be on a pure oxygen supply. Also, above 19 km,beyond ... more »

2012-10-12 09:30:53 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 12 +1s)

Who Says Carbon Dioxide Is Bad — You Can Even Use It For Cleaning
by +Alexander Becker, +EuroTech; Germany

In server components, hard disks, or clock mechanisms, the smallest impurities can lead to malfunctions and short circuits; in optical components such as lenses, they impair quality because they scatter light; in threaded holes, they cause mechanical failure. The phenomena of progressive miniaturization and ever more complex components are presenting the manufacturers of cleaning technologies and tools with big challenges. Now, cleaning with carbon dioxide (CO2) has proven itself an effective means of removing extremely fine dirt particles.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA developed a tool capable of completely removing processing residues from areas inside components that are difficult to clean, for example blind holesa... more »

2012-10-11 11:23:23 (5 comments, 5 reshares, 12 +1s)

What's hot in your language
http://www.circlecount.com/explore/

Maybe you know already the What's hot section on CircleCount where you can filter by country.
+Jaana Nyström has introduced this page here: https://plus.google.com/107742059751171695340/posts/QxXE8Swmvd4

Now we have added a language filter.

Some examples:
► Arabic
http://www.circlecount.com/explore/?language=arabic

► English
http://www.circlecount.com/explore/?language=english

► German
http://www.circlecount.com/explore/?language=german

► Italian
http://www.circlecount.com/explore/?language=italian

► Norwegian
http://www.circlecount.com/explore/?language=norwegian

► Spanish
http://www.circlecount.com/explore/?language=spanish

► Russianhttp://www.c... more »

2012-10-09 09:21:34 (4 comments, 8 reshares, 15 +1s)

Improve Your Google+ Hangouts With The Hangout Toolbox
Interview with +Moritz Tolxdorff and +Martin Thielecke 
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany

Yesterday at 18:00 CET, Moritz Tolxdorff and Martin Thielecke unveiled their new Hangout Toolbox – a meta-app, combining the best of several hangout apps for improving the Google+ Hangout experience, into one convenient toolkit.

Q: Who are you, and what motivated your involvement / cooperation on this project?
Moritz Tolxdorff: I am a system administrator for UNIX systems in a data center. I am 28 years old and live in Essen, Germany. Since Google released the Hangout API I started to develop applications for Hangouts. My main motivation is to build useful tools for Hangout users to increase their Hangout experience. I also add fun apps like my latest one, Meme Face. It all started with the idea of havingLow... more »

2012-10-08 10:06:31 (15 comments, 7 reshares, 14 +1s)

Verisize: The Virtual Fitting Room
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany

Online shopping doesn’t have a fitting room – but does it need one? Verisize helps you to figure out if a piece of clothing will fit you, without you needing to try it on.

Verisize was developed by a group of PhD students from the Computer Vision Center (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), an organization with a streak of successful market applications in computer vision and design. Their tool can be integrated in any online store, and first estimations reveal an increase of 40% in operating margin, as well as 100% net margin for online retailers, primarily by reducing the return quota (which stands at between 15-40% for most clothing retailers). In addition to saving on shipping costs, they also aim to help online stores avoid accruing bad reputation due to negative feedback, and help to raisecust... more »

2012-10-05 10:55:24 (5 comments, 9 reshares, 19 +1s)

Computerized Surveillance: Bad For Me, Bad For You
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany

Intuitively, commoners know that surveillance is bad. But have you ever wondered how bad exactly? Antti Oulasvirta’s research team in the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology has quantified it: surveillance causes anxiety and anger – only, not quite as bad as in a depression.

The experiment
The research team installed surveillance cameras and computer logging software in ten volunteer households, and asked them to fill out a questionnaire at regular intervals during the course of a year. It is quite possible that the experiment was biased – but the findings and approach are interesting nonetheless. Some of the results were not so surprising: Feelings ‘plateaued’ after three months, the time it took for participants to get used to the constantsurveilla... more »

2012-10-04 11:21:28 (13 comments, 8 reshares, 31 +1s)

Walk Underwater On The Moses Bridge
by +Kellya Clanzig, +EuroTech; France

The Moses Bridge, located in 
Halsteren, Municipality of Bergen op Zoom
, The Netherlands, visually parts water and gives pedestrians the unique experience of walking below the water. Designed by RO&AD Architects of the Netherlands and Belgium, this pedestrian bridge is an access route to the Fort de Roovere, part of some 17th century defense structures. 

From a distance, the Moses Bridge is nearly invisible, all that you see is a marked line in the landscape. But it becomes visible as one approaches. The concept and execution was crucial to preserving the site’s integrity and allowing views to the Fort, as it is highly improper to build bridges across the moats of defense works, especially on the side of the fortress the enemy was expected to appear on.

Built with AccsysTechno... more »

2012-10-02 10:04:36 (0 comments, 8 reshares, 11 +1s)

Mapping Startups In Berlin
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany

+Berlinstartupmap, itself a startup currently in beta mode, but publicly available, is a project run by BerlinStartupfactory, a company aimed at helping the Berlin startup scene and founded by Emil Kendziorr and +Erik Stoffregen in 2010. Their UI is relatively simple, but the concept an ingenious help to anyone interested in following the Berlin startup scene. The site is mobile-optimized, and offers:

Maps
A one-stop shop for details on who is backing which startup, who the entrepreneurs are, how they plan to monetize, as well as the usual description of what the startup is about and where to find it.

Events
Pleasantly visible as a summary on the home screen, the Events lists upcoming events in the Berlin area. Like Maps, it can be filtered by category, as well as the usual... more »

2012-10-01 14:04:55 (3 comments, 26 reshares, 15 +1s)

Tears Of Steel
by +Kellya Clanzig, +EuroTech; France

“Tears of Steel” was realized with crowd-funding by users of the open source 3D creation tool Blender. The target was to improve and test a completely open and free pipeline for visual effects in film – and to make a compelling sci-fi film in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License. The Blender Foundation is an independent organisation (a Dutch “stichting”), acting as a non-profit public benefit corporation. It aims to provide services for active users and developers of Blender, to maintain and improve the current Blender product via a public accessible source code system under the GNU GPL license, to establish funding or revenue mechanisms that serve the foundation’sgoals and c... more »

2012-09-27 14:51:58 (0 comments, 3 reshares, 8 +1s)

+EuroTech Is Looking For Columnists And Contributors
by the +EuroTech team; Europe

Are you passionate about technology? We’re looking to expand our article menu, and we ask you to help us.

You probably noticed that we often talk about politics, hardcore science, and funny experiments, but hardly about new trending gadgets. That’s because we believe that writing about topics following our personal inclinations produces the best results. If you are interested in the gadgets subject, we would be glad to welcome you aboard! Naturally, that would not prevent you from writing about anything else that is of interest, as long as it is related to Europe and technology.

Background
+Max Huijgen started this page and gathered a team of volunteers who want to get European tech better known and connect the people working in it. In 6 months, EuroTech managedto be... more »

2012-09-26 09:37:46 (3 comments, 6 reshares, 14 +1s)

Intelligent Power Management For Consumers?
by +Sophie Wrobel, +EuroTech; Germany

The German energy company EnBW currently allows its customers to use intelligent power management to reduce their electricity bills with their “EnBW Intelligente Stromzähler” (aka “smart meter”) billing plan. They are currently the only company offering this type of billing plan in multiple urban areas throughout the country.

Their current package offers:
• Monthly usage-based billing
• Mobile apps, desktop widgets, and online access to reports, analysis, counters, and bills
• Reports and analysis allowing you to compare your usage per month over time, or real-time (15-minute interval), or even on a device specific basis.

The only precondition, of course, is that your house is equipped with intelligent electricity management devices, a wireless Internetnetwork, and a... more »