Fastest wireless

Setting a new world record of transmitting data across a wireless network, researchers at the Siemens Communications research laboratory in Munich, has sent 1,000,000,000,000 bits of data per second across their mobile network whereas the average wireless computer network can send only around 50,000, 000,000 bits of data per second. They used three transmitting and four receiving antennas and a technique for boosting the amo-unt of data that can be sent wirelessly, called Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM), to set their record. By 2015, wireless networks will cope with 10 times as much data, says a lab spokesperson.

Smarter chip

Researchers at the University of Alberta, Canada, have invented an energy-saving computer chip that is 10 times smaller and 100 times more energy-efficient than the currently used state-of-the-art digital chips. This novel technology uses low levels of power to execute its work. It offers promise for many small devices ' eliminating the need to recharge cellphones, introducing tiny ultra-high-speed communications systems and the implantable drug delivery chips, one day.