Stanford Engineering Library Blog

From the Editor's Summary in the 1 May 2008 issue of Nature:

Basic electronics textbooks list three fundamental passive circuit elements: resistors, capacitors and inductors. But nearly forty years ago, Leon Chua predicted the existence of a fourth, the memristor — in effect a nonlinear resistor with memory. A paper from the Hewlett-Packard research lab now reports that memristance arises naturally in nanoscale systems where solid-state electronic and ionic transport are coupled under an external bias voltage.

See related article at SFGate.com, 5/1/08
HP Labs' find could revolutionize computing by Deborah Gage

Read the full article from Nature, 5/1/08 (Stanford- or by subscription-only)
The missing memristor found by Dmitri B. Strukov, Gregory S. Snider, Duncan R. Stewart & R. Stanley Williams

Researchers at MIT are using RFIDs to track post-it notes. Using a special pen and pad, the information you write on the post-it is stored into a system that then allows you to set reminders, alerts, etc.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/01/mit-reinvents-the-post-it-note-with-post-it-notes/

From Reuters:

E-Fuel Co has announced the release of it's "MicroFueler" that allows you to make your own fuel at home using sugar. At $10,000.00 a unit you may want to get your neighbors to chip in.

More from Reuters:
http://www.reuters.com/article/gc08/idUSN0850981420080509

About the MicroFueler from Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/09/e-fuels-micro-fueler-creates-ethanol-from-sugar-in-your-backyar/

Congratulations to SoE's David A.B. Miller on his election to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of his contributions to scientific research. Prof. Miller is currently the W. M. Keck Foundation Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford, Director of the the Solid State and Photonics Laboratory at Stanford, and a Co-Director of the Stanford Photonics Research Center. More

A University of Portsmouth (UK) Electronic and Computer Engineering student is developing an online electronics workbench that teaches students the fundamentals of electronics and evaluates their work using artificial intelligence. More