High performance materials for gas storage, thermal insulators or nanomachines need a thorough understanding of the behavior of the material down to the molecular level. Thermodynamics, which have been developed two hundred years ago to increase the efficiency of steam engines, typically observes and averages over a large number of molecules. Now a team of scientists has developed a methodology, to investigate the equilibrium thermodynamics of single molecules.

By making what might be the world's smallest three-dimensional unofficial Block "M," University of Michigan researchers have demonstrated a nanoparticle manufacturing process capable of producing multilayered, precise shapes.

A European research project has made an important step towards the further miniaturisation of nanoelectronics, using a highly-promising new material called silicene. Its goal: to make devices of the future vastly more powerful and energy efficient.

You're looking at a commercial future where vendors will seek to leverage new technologies to track customer behavior, buying patterns, user patterns and to send out information realtime, up close, personal, as never before possible. What if your bottle of Johnnie Walker bottle, for example, turned "smart" and helped to suggest cocktail recipes or promotional offers? That appears to be in the works and will be showcased next month. An NFC-enabled smart bottle was announced Wednesday and will be presented at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Diageo—focused on drinks—and Thin Film Electronics ("Thinfilm")—focused on printed electronics—are teaming up to add something new to the role of the bottle. They have announced a prototype Johnnie Walker Blue Label "smart bottle." The prototype will be on display at Thinfilm's booth at the show.

Never mind that there are a number of smartwatch brands on the market and that competition is fierce. Never mind that the marketplace is getting crowded with brands in an increasingly competitive smartwatch arena, with eyes staring beyond in wait of the Apple watch coming out this year, no less. Who dares to join the parade? Palo Alto, California-based Pebble does, is still at it, the smartwatch pioneers still actively promoting an ability to produce an ideal smartwatch that people won't just like but love.

A pair of researchers, one with Yahoo Labs, the other Georgian Tech University, has found via analysis of data on the photo sharing site Pinterest, that the colors that dominate in an image can have an impact on how much an image is shared. In their paper published in the journal PLOS ONE, Saeideh Bakhshi and Eric Gilbert describe how they obtained sharing information on over a million images on the site, and what trends they found by doing so.

How do we mortals perceive random sequences? An entry in the question-and-answer site Quora focused on a question involving a music-streaming service Spotify. That question signifies how we perceive what is and what is not random.

Children don't have to be told that "cat" and "cats" are variants of the same word—they pick it up just by listening. To a computer, though, they're as different as, well, cats and dogs. Yet it's computers that are assumed to be superior in detecting patterns and rules, not 4-year olds. John Goldsmith, the Edward Carson Waller Distinguished Service Professor of Linguistics and Computer Science, and graduate student Jackson Lee are trying to, if not to solve that puzzle definitively, at least provide the tools to do so.

Social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter play an increasingly central role in our lives. Centrality is also an important concept in the theory of social networks. Centrality of an individual, called a "node" in network theory, measures its relative importance within a network.

If you live in a city, you know that a fair amount of your movement around town is social in nature. But how much, exactly? A new study co-authored by MIT researchers uses a novel method to infer that around one-fifth of urban movement is strictly social, a finding that holds up consistently in multiple cities.

(AP)—Computers, cellphones and landlines in Arizona were knocked out of service for hours, ATMs stopped working, 911 systems were disrupted and businesses were unable to process credit card transactions—all because vandals sliced through a fiber-optic Internet cable buried in the rocky desert.

(AP)—An Oregon judge has ordered technology giant Oracle Corp. to continue hosting Oregon's Medicaid health insurance system for low-income Oregonians even after the company's contract expires this weekend.

Google said Wednesday it was launching a reorganization of its European operations in the face of a tougher regulatory environment.

Google said Wednesday that Gmail is now available in Burmese, marking the 74th language for the popular email service.

Banks could be required to beef up their online password systems under new regulations designed to avert a so-called "cyber 9/11," a top financial regulator said Wednesday.

Marriage therapist Valerie Goss turned on her computer one day and found that all of her data was being held hostage.

(AP)—Internet service providers like Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile would have to act in the "public interest" when providing a mobile connection to your home or phone, under new rules being considered by the Federal Communications Commission.

It only takes a power outage of a few minutes in the middle of a busy workday to drive home the hazards of relying on an energy infrastructure rooted in the Industrial Age. Without the electricity delivered over the nation's power grid, commerce would grind to a halt, communication networks would fail, transportation would stop and cities would go dark.

Think you're good at classic arcade games such as Space Invaders, Breakout and Pong? Think again.

Siemens is developing tools that ensure smart data applications abide by data protection regulations. The reliable protection of data privacy is very important because it is a precondition for people or institutions to provide applications with personal data. In cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems (Fraunhofer IAIS), the researchers at Siemens Corporate Technology (CT) are therefore creating a toolbox that helps users of smart data to adhere to the data protection regulations that apply to their applications. Although a great variety of algorithms exist for making data anonymous, many of them are not suited to the software environments that are typical of smart data. The new toolbox will contain a selection of algorithms for such environments.

Siemens is researching the use of sensor networks in an advanced parking management solution that will hopefully counter the increasing parking space crisis in cities. The online magazine Pictures of the Future reports about this solution, which will be used this spring for the first time in a pilot project in Berlin. In this concept, sensor networks collect information about the parking situation in cities. The information is forwarded to the drivers in order to make it easier for them to find unoccupied parking spaces. In addition, the data is transmitted to a parking management center so that cities can intelligently manage their parking spaces.

Late last year, two University of California, San Diego students set out for Florence, Italy, to diagnose a patient that had no prior medical record, couldn't be poked or prodded in any way, and hadn't been in prime condition for more than 800 years.

AWESOME, financed in the European Commission's Horizon 2020 programme, gathers some of Europe's most prominent research centres, universities and businesses in the field of wind power with a view to enhancing knowledge on wind farm management and maintenance.

The existence of price comparison websites may be bad for consumers, research by the University of Warwick's Department of Economics has found.

When people read negative Facebook posts about an organization, it erodes their trust in the institution and diminishes its reputation. Efforts to "inoculate" readers against damaging messages, however, do appear to mitigate the harm somewhat.

Research conducted by nine leading UK universities has found that up to 50 per cent of electricity demand in the UK could be met by distributed and low carbon sources by 2050.

Coal from China could become a major source of the metal lithium, according to a review of the geochemistry by scientists published in the International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology.

(AP)—The U.S. has elevated its appraisal of the cyber threat from Russia, the U.S. intelligence chief said Thursday, as he delivered the annual assessment by intelligence agencies of the top dangers facing the country.

(AP)—The auto industry, fed up with slow progress toward finding the cause of air bags to explode with too much force, has hired a Virginia rocket science company to investigate the matter.

Facebook users who don't fit any of the 58 gender identity options offered by the social media giant are now being given a rather big 59th option: fill in the blank.

Fans of a bedroom sing-along can now look beyond karaoke systems as music streaming giant Spotify tries to attract their attention by integrating lyrics into its service.

US regulators Thursday approved landmark Internet rules that would prevent broadband providers from separating online traffic into slow and fast lanes.

Apple sent invitations Thursday for a mystery event due to take place March 9, amid speculation about an imminent launch of its much anticipated Apple Watch.

(AP)—Google will start showing ads in its online store for mobile apps and entertainment as the Internet search leader strives to bring in more revenue from smartphones and tablets.

(AP)—German consumer groups said Thursday they will file a lawsuit against Facebook unless the social network changes its terms of service.

A landmark ruling by the US Federal Communications Commission seeks to enshrine the notion of an "open Internet," or "net neutrality." Here are key points:

(AP)—Nickelodeon is creating brand-new content and resurrecting old shows for a mobile subscription service aimed at preschoolers.

(AP)—Edur Ansa couldn't find work for a year after he got his nursing degree from Barcelona University. Like many other Spaniards, he started looking for work in Germany and ended up with a job at a private hospital.

German chemicals and pharmaceuticals giant Bayer said Thursday it was "optimistic" for business this year after a "very successful" 2014.

(AP)—Almost every Pakistani citizen has a cellphone, but from now on, Big Brother is checking to make sure their name, number and fingerprints are on record. The measures are meant to tighten control of cellphones and avert their use for militant attacks after the Taliban massacre two months ago at a school in Peshawar.

Known as either "Industrial Revolution 4.0" or as "Industrial Renaissance", the need for visionary industrial approaches is widely recognized in the European Union. SatisFactory, a three-year research project funded by the European Commission under the Horizon2020 program, started in January 2015 to tackle this problem and offer a feasible and attractive solution for the shopfloor of smart factories. The Information Technologies Institute (Centre for Research and Technology Hellas), the coordinator of the project is going to research and develop emerging knowledge-driven training techniques and wearable devices for the enhancement of innovation, productivity and scheduling of work in factory production lines, while improving flexibility through the support of team interactions.

Today, at the 2015 International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), nanoelectronics research center imec, in collaboration with Tyndall National Institute, the University of Leuven (KULeuven) and the Ghent University, demonstrated a 4x20Gb/s wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) hybrid CMOS silicon photonics transceiver, paving the way to cost-effective, high-density single-mode optical fiber links.

Today, at the 2015 International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), imec and Panasonic presented a transceiver chip for phase-modulated continuous-wave radar at 79GHz. This achievement demonstrates the potential of downscaled CMOS for cheap millimeter-wave (mm-wave) radar systems that can be used for accurate presence and motion detection.

Hitachi America, Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. and Demansys Energy, Inc. ("Demansys"), a smart grid technology company with offices in Connecticut and Troy, New York, announced today that they have completed construction and commissioning of a 1 MW Lithium Ion energy storage facility utilizing Hitachi's "CrystEna" compact container-type energy storage system and have started a demonstration project in Somerdale, New Jersey.

The Italian manufacturer of pacemakers Sorin announced Thursday it plans to merge with US medical device firm Cyberonics, creating a new company valued at around 2.4 billion euros ($2.7 billion).

(AP)—IBM's CEO says the company's plan to revamp its business to shift away from hardware and focus on business analytics, cloud computing, mobile services and security is on track.

(AP)—Barnes & Noble is keeping its Nook Media digital business after all.

(AP)—The Federal Communications Commission says city-owned broadband companies can expand and compete with commercial Internet providers.

(AP)—Whenever you hear, "this time is different," the wise move is usually to ignore it.

(AP)—A judge says he has ordered the suspension of the globally popular instant messaging system WhatsApp across Brazil because it has allegedly failed to help in an investigation.