According to Xu Zhiwei, Deputy Director of the Institute of Computing Technology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences will debut its 65 nm Longxin 龙芯III (also known as Loongson or Godson), 4-core (10W) 1.2 GHz microprocessor at the end of the year, and an 8-core (20W) version in 2009. The chip uses MIPS64 cores with 200+ additional instructions for X86 binary translation and media acceleration. Given the low power consumption and less than cutting-edge 65nm silicon process, the Longxin III probably has a low transistor count. This would make it more comparable to Intel’s low-end Atom processor than the upcoming Core i7.

For several years scientists have been studying how geckos manage to climb up and remain on very sheer surfaces. Recently scientists at the University of Dayton have created an adhesive inspired by the gecko's remarkable ability.

During a workshop on the future of energy conducted at National University of Singapore, our experts were divided into several groups and asked to develop a model for a research center supporting transformative science and innovation. The question we put them was:

The X2 Project conducted a workshop on the future of science at National University of Singapore on July 25, 2008.

Materials scientists have been singing graphene's praises since it was first isolated in 2005. The one-atom-thick sheets of carbon conduct electrons better than silicon and have been made into fast, low-power transistors. Now, for the first time, researchers have measured the intrinsic strength of graphene, and they've confirmed it to be the strongest material ever tested. The finding provides good evidence that graphene transistors could take the heat in future ultrafast microprocessors.

The New York Times reports that a privately financed team of scientists and engineers is nearing completion of a special-purpose supercomputer intended to offer more than a thousandfold increase in performance for complex molecular simulations.

The World's new fastest computer has many applications for military and citizen research, the computer, Roadrunner, is twice as fast the world's previous fastest computer, IBM's Blue Gene.

There are several hurdles, technical and economic, before the technology becomes widespread in homes but this is a first step towards our eargerly anticipated future of interacting with our media and technology in three dimensions.