Computer

Engineers have recently focused on trying to emulate the structure of the brain with artificial synapses. Now, a team of researchers have made a new artificial synapse design that works using a light-based biotechnology technique called optogenetics.

This is the story of the Apollo Guidance Computer that helped the Apollo astronauts safely navigate to the Moon. It was a computer that was so advanced that the engineers who created it said they probably wouldn't have tried to do so if they'd known what they were getting themselves into.

​Holographic generators are not just the stuff of science fiction movies, we've seen them in special tables and even a pricey smartphone. Now the Looking Glass Pro has been launched, an all-in-one 3D visualization workstation that allows business users to interact with holographic applications.​

What happens when the vastly different worlds of modern art and computer malware collide? The answer is an installation called The Persistence of Chaos, and it just sold at auction for US$1.345 million.

The keyboard and mouse combo is the long-standing weapon of choice for players of first-person shooter games. Now a Chinese company called Ragnok is trying to ramp up the realism a bit with the Mousegun, a controller that’s designed to look and feel like the handle of a pistol.

Supercomputers will take a huge leap forward when the “exascale” era kicks off in 2021 with the launch of Aurora. But now it looks like that world-leading machine will be usurped before it’s even set up. The Frontier system has been announced, which will boast the power of over 1.5 exaflops.

The CRISPR gene-editing system is usually known for helping scientists treat genetic diseases, but the technology has a whole range of possible uses in synthetic biology too. Now researchers at ETH Zurich have used CRISPR to build functional biocomputers inside human cells.

Touch-enabled coffee tables have been around for a while that family and friends can gather around, but they can be rather expensive. British startup Jigabyte has joined the touchscreen coffee table party and aims to significantly reduce the cost of entry.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation says that a version 3 upgrade to its A+ cut-down computer board first introduced in 2014 has been one of its most frequent requests from makers. With the Pi 3 Model B+ now shipping, the Foundation has filled that gap with the all-new Pi 3 Model A+.​

"World’s smallest computer” is a contentious title, not just because scientists are racing to shrink devices, but because the very definition of a computer could be up for debate. The latest claim to the title is a tiny device that communicates through light and makes a grain of rice look gigantic.

In what they're calling the first evidence of a DNA-based exploit of a computer system, a team of scientists have successfully shown that a computer can be hacked through malicious code incorporated into synthetic DNA.

Over the years, we've seen standing desks in cardboard, mini units which are plonked atop a normal desk and motor-assisted designs that go up or down at the push of a button. The DK-05 from Lian Li falls into the latter category, but the chassis also doubles as a case for up two computer.​