Apple Researching Keyboards With Adaptive Displays on Each Key

Apple is researching keyboards with small displays on the keys to dynamically change the label on each key, according to a newly-granted patent filing. From a report: The filing is titled “Electronic devices having keys with coherent fiber bundles” and was granted to Apple by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on the final patent day of this year. The patent…

Atomic-Scale Nanowires Can Now Be Produced At Scale

fahrbot-bot shares a report from Phys.Org: Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have discovered a way to make self-assembled nanowires of transition metal chalcogenides at scale using chemical vapor deposition. By changing the substrate where the wires form, they can tune how these wires are arranged, from aligned configurations of atomically thin sheets to random networks of bundles. This paves the way…

Capella Space Defends High-Resolution Satellite Photos Described as ‘Eerily Observant’

“A new satellite from Capella Space was described as “pretty creepy” by Bustle’s technology site Input: Like other hunks of metal currently orbiting Earth, the Capella-2 satellite’s onboard radar system makes it capable of producing ludicrously high-resolution visuals from its data. More unconventional is the service Capella has launched to match: the government or private customers can, at any time, request…

Plastic Pipes Are Polluting Drinking Water Systems After Wildfires

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Conversation: When wildfires swept through the hills near Santa Cruz, California, in 2020, they released toxic chemicals into the water supplies of at least two communities. One sample found benzene, a carcinogen, at 40 times the state’s drinking water standard. Our testing has now confirmed a source of these chemicals, and it’s clear…

Lockdown Gardening in Britain Leads To Archaeological Discoveries

Gardeners in Hampshire, a county in southeast England, were weeding their yard in April when they found 63 gold coins and one silver coin from King Henry VIII’s reign in the 16th century, with four of the coins inscribed with the initials of the king’s wives Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour. From a report: The archaeological find was…

All Three Monoliths Gone — Two Removed By Activist Vandals

A Reddit user found Google Earth photos showing the Utah monolith may have appeared in its canyon up to five years ago, according to The Daily Beast. But it’s gone now: Last week, a team of four people removed the Utah obelisk. One of them, a Utah adventure guide, explained their actions in an Instagram post. “We removed the Utah Monolith…

‘I Tried the World’s First No-Kill, Lab-Grown Chicken Burger’

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: PhD in genetics might seem like an unusual requirement for the role of head chef. It makes more sense when the man running the kitchen is not just in charge of frying your chicken burger — he created the meat himself. “This burger takes something between two to three days to grow,”…

Light-Based Quantum Computer Exceeds Fastest Classical Supercomputers

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Scientific American: For the first time, a quantum computer made from photons — particles of light — has outperformed even the fastest classical supercomputers. Physicists led by Chao-Yang Lu and Jian-Wei Pan of the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Shanghai performed a technique called Gaussian boson sampling with their quantum…