There is a device from a small company named Edge that could be that standout stocking stuffer for that special someone who works from home or a deserving college student. The EDGE® Kit attaches to the back of any device with a suction cup. A variety of devices can then be attached to the swing-out arm: a light for online conferencing, a smartphone to add a second screen to the work mix or a wireless Qi charger for the side of your desktop’s monitor.

Attach a Phone. Most users will attach the EDGE® Kit to their display monitor. It's attached with a suction cup on one side of its bending arm. Watch that podcast or a movie from the side of your monitor, or put the Kit on top of the screen and use your phone as a camera for video conferencing.

Wireless Charging. The EDGE® Kit includes a wireless Qi charging coil that’s compatible with iPhone MagSafe devices (iPhone 8 and above) or any Android device that supports wireless charging. You can also kill two birds at once by putting the phone on the charger and then watching that movie or podcast!

In what's being hailed as an important first for chemistry, an international team of scientists has developed a new technology that can selectively rearrange atomic bonds within a single molecule. The breakthrough allows for an unprecedented level of control over chemical bonds within these structures and could open up some exciting possibilities in what's known as molecular machinery.

Molecules comprise clusters of atoms and are the product of the nature and arrangement of those atoms within. Where oxygen molecules we breathe feature the same repeating type of atom, sugar molecules are made of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen.

To create precisely the chemical interactions between atoms they desire, scientists have been working on a concept known as "selective chemistry" for some time. This could cause the development of sophisticated chemicals and machinery that can be tailored for specific purposes.

The 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Dutch scientist Ben Feringa for his development of a molecular car propelled by molecular motors spinning at 12 million revolutions per second. These so-called molecular machines were the subject of the award. To specifically target cancer cells, scientists have also developed molecular pumps, small gear wheels, and molecular submarines, to name a few examples.

This new study's authors compare “putting Lego bricks in a washing machine and hope that the quintillions of molecules somehow manage to assemble themselves into the intended product.” Their latest research hopes to rely more on deliberate control of the chemical bonding process and less on chance.

The study focuses on molecules known as structural isomers, which share the same atomic structure but differ in the way those atoms are connected to one another. The researchers showed they could specifically rearrange the chemical interactions by applying different voltage pulses using the tip of a scanning probe microscope. It was possible to change a molecule with a 10-membered carbon ring in the middle into, for instance, a molecule with a 4- and 8-member ring or a molecule with two 6-member rings in the middle.

The scientists discovered these processes were also reversible, allowing them to flip between different molecular configurations in a controlled way by arbitrarily breaking and forming the various connections. The team claims that this type of "selective chemistry" is unique.

Leo Gross, an IBM Research scientist and the senior author of the study, said “it is the first time that selectivity different bonds can be formed in a single molecule. By the magnitude of the voltage pulse applied on the molecule in the center, we can choose if we want to create the molecule on the right or the one on the left (see above left).”

Although molecular machinery is still in its infancy, technology that allows for more precise control over these kinds of structures may drastically speed up their development.

The movement of molecules or nanoparticles, the creation and manipulation of nanostructures, and the facilitation of chemical reactions are just a few of the activities that molecular machines may be used, according to Gross. Future uses could involve medication delivery, chemical synthesis, nanoelectromechanical systems, and single-electron molecular devices.

The speed record for data transmission using only one light source and an optical chip has been shattered. 1.84 petabits per second (Pbit/s), or nearly twice the volume of all internet traffic per second, was the blazing rate at which engineers transported data. The team published their findings in the journal Nature Photonics.

It's difficult to emphasize how quickly 1.84 Pbit/s actually is. If you're lucky, you might get a 1-gigabit or 10-gigabit connection at home, but 1 petabit is equal to one million gigabits. Your average home internet connection receives a few hundred megabits per second. The new chip is 20 times quicker than the forthcoming ESnet6 update to the scientific network used by organizations like NASA.

The fact that this new speed record was achieved with only one light source and one optical device is even more amazing. Infrared laser light is split into hundreds of various frequencies, or colors, by a device known as a frequency comb. Data can then be encoded into the light by modulating the amplitude, phase and polarization of each of these frequencies, before recombining them into one beam and transmitting it through optical fiber.

The Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and Chalmers University of Technology researchers used the system in experiments to transport data at 1.84 Pbit/s, encoded in 223 wavelength channels, down an optical fiber with 37 distinct cores that was just under 5 miles long. This system could manage the whole bandwidth of the internet, which is predicted to be just around 1 Pbit/s, at once and still have capacity for expansion.

Historically, the first big test was in mid-2020 when a similar photonic chip managed a transmission of 44 terabits per sec (Tbit/s). That record was broken this past May at a speed of 1.02 Pbit/s.

According to the team behind the new microprocessor, though, smashing records is far from over. Using a computer model, the researchers predict the device will eventually be able to transmit data at eye-watering speeds of up to 100 Pbit/s.
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“The reason for this is that our solution is scalable—both in terms of creating many frequencies and in terms of splitting the frequency comb into many spatial copies and then optically amplifying them, and using them as parallel sources with which we can transmit data,” said Professor Leif Katsuo Oxenløwe, lead author of the study. “Although the comb copies must be amplified, we do not lose the qualities of the comb, which we utilize for spectrally efficient data transmission.”

When you travel, unless you are proficient in the native language, you are at a disadvantage. In this newsletter, we have covered five different translation devices starting back with Issue 2-50 in 2016. So I was a little skeptical of another tech device that is the international traveler’s best friend. But the Indiegogo-funded NEWYES Scan Reader Pen 3 has so many other uses that I couldn’t ignore it.

The device supports 9 UI languages, 55 OCR languages, 112 text translation languages, and 112 voice translation languages. You can scan written material, record your voice or someone else’s voice and translate that voice into any of a 112 languages. If you use the OCR scan, you can either read the text in another language or hear it pronounced orally. This means that not just translators can benefit from the device. Second-language learners can use it to get professional pronunciations of difficult words and use it to help with memorizing coursework. While scanning text, it recognizes up to 3,000 characters per minute and has a 0.3-second translation speed with up to 98% accuracy.

Individuals with dyslexia can use the device to read materials to them so they hear the material. When your child is eager to read independently but always comes across new words, the Scan Reader Pen 3 can help with both the pronunciation and the definition of the word.

The device also has a built-in dictionary. You can even save audio to listen to or view a translation later. Transfer your audio files directly to your Mac or PC via a USB port. It also supports Bluetooth, so you could connect your earbuds and listen in private.
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The company produced a YouTube video showing how the device works. The NEWYES Scan Reader Pen 3 is available for $159 from Amazon.