[H]ardNews - Blair Tech Ed.

Nanosurfing:

A trip to Mars was the reason Nanosurf AG came into being. About seven years ago, Nanosurf’s founders were working at the same University of Basel lab that collaborated with IBM to make the world’s first scanning tunneling microscopes. NASA needed an atomic force microscope to test dust storm particles to see how small and sharp they were before sending any humans there.

PC Theft Prevention?

Pilfering a PC may become less appealing, if software makers Phoenix Technologies and Softex have their way. The two companies are teaming to offer software called TheftGuard, which is designed to be anchored in the guts of PCs and automatically disable any stolen machine connected to the Internet.

Electronic Engineering Milestone:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology's university-level combined electrical engineering/computer science departments, one of the nation's oldest, commemorated its 100th anniversary here Friday (May 23), renewing its lofty mission of serving society "by educating students who will help the world understand and wisely embrace the emerging technologies" of nanotechnology, bioengineering and quantum engineering.

Designing Better Robots:

In a large room in Georgia Tech's College of Computing, Thomas Collins is tweaking the behavior of a machine. Around him stand a gaggle of robots, some with trash can figures, others resembling miniature all-terrain vehicles. They appear to be merely functional, plodding pieces of equipment. But these unlikely contraptions can "think" in the sense that they can react to and reason about their environment.