Google has a "next generation personal communication device" in testing, according to a document held by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Google is asking for permission from government regulators to break with convention and test its new device outside its labs.

Instead it wants to put the prototypes through their paces on Bluetooth and Wi-Fi networks in the homes of 102 Google employees.

The testing, which is for the purpose of assessing the "throughput and stability of the home WiFi networks that will support the device" will be done by employees in Mountain View, Los Angeles, New York and Cambridge (Massachusetts).

Google's own

The document submitted to the FCC says that Google itself is the manufacturer of the device which is "in the prototyping phase."

It may be something that never makes it into our own homes, but Google has been steadily diversifying its efforts in a way that could see it in every corner of our lives.

For instance, it has been increasingly making steps into the world of physical rather than virtual product offerings, firstly with its takeover of Morotola, but also with its futuristic AR Glasses project.

It's also expanding into the world of the ISP, laying its own fibre-optic network in Kansas City.

Two Canadian telecommunications companies, Rogers and Bell, are rumoured to be testing out Apple iTV in their labs.

After the rather speculative Apple iTV specs offered up in a market research questionnaire by US retailer Best Buy, it's now supposedly popped up in Canada, too.

One anonymous source of Canadian paper The Globe and Mail says of Apple: "They're looking for a partner. They're looking for someone with wireless and broadband capabilities."

Another claims that Rogers and Bell already have Apple iTV in their labs. We would have put it in our living room, but that's just us.

But you chose last time, Siri!

Some more, hazy feature lists have come out as well, with the paper claiming that iTV will have SIri voice-recognition onboard to "help viewers make programming choices".

Apparently, viewers will also be able to use hand gestures, while an on-screen keyboard will let you get busy on the 'net. Giant hands and a very close sofa are presumably required, too.

Testing by telecoms companies suggests that the Apple iTV may be tied into a broadband provider when it finally materialises, but we'll just have to wait and see.

The president of the European commission, José Manuel Barroso, will tomorrow launch a prototype electric car that folds up to take up less parking space.

The little two-seat vehicle is called Hiriko and is the product of a partnership between Basque businesses, Spanish government and the US's MIT Media Lab.

The folding mechanism pulls the rear of the car underneath the cabin, tipping the body of the car into a more upright position, compressing the length of the car into two-thirds that of the already tiny Smart ForTwo.

Watch out for the wipers

There's only one door in the front of the car, meaning that passengers climb out through the windscreen. Though this is made easier by the car's upright, parked position.

"I call this mobility on demand," says Ryan Chin, the MIT researcher behind the concept. "Hiriko's technology and green footprint is five times better than you find in today's Smart cars."

Each wheel is driven independently by its own dedicated motor and also steered electrically which should allow it to be especially manoeuvrable.

The driving experience could take some getting used to – though retro gamers and flight sim fans could have the edge – as the Hiriko's wheel has been replaced by a joystick.

A test production run of 20 vehicles is happening at Vitoria-Gasteiz in the Basque country, with finished versions ready for the road expected in 2013.

The project is getting €15m in grants from Madrid, each of which will cost €12,500 to build.

To see the folding car in action, MIT's video is on hand to help you visualise the future.

From MIT Media Lab via The Telegraph

A team of researchers has come up with a way to virtually project a smartphone's screen onto nearby external displays.

Smartphones have become so powerful that there are times when it would be great to be able to easily hook into external displays to share media, collaborate or just give your eyes a break.

Carrying around a selection of video cables or a pico projector doesn't quite seem like the solution.

Taking a leaf out of the "you can't do that!" scenes from many a movie, a team of researchers has come up with a way to beam a smartphone's screen onto any nearby external display.

In augmented reality fashion, the system relies on tracking where the phone is being pointed using images from its camera.

Pick a screen, any screen

These images are then compared to constantly updated screenshots taken from connected displays by a central server, allowing the system to work out which screen you're pointing your phone at, where on the screen and at what angle.

Screen contents can then be locked in place on the external display and further manipulated from the phone – whether that's zooming in on a photo, using the phone as a media remote for video or navigating on a map.

You can watch the virtual projection demonstration video which shows the impressive results.

More than one phone at a time can project its contents onto one display, and this is one demonstration that we think could really have some potential.

A team of researchers at the University of Cambridge, led by Professor Arokia Nathan are working to develop technologies that would make daily phone charging a thing of the past.

To keep a phone's battery topped up, the team has built a prototype device that recaptures wasted light from and OLED phone screen.

According to researcher Arman Ahnood, only around 36 percent of the light produced by a phone screen is projected forwards – the rest escapes around the edges.

Here comes the science bit

The light-capturing device is made up of an array of solar cells comprising thin-film hydrogenated amorphous silicon that actually sits within the phone's screen.

It is then paired with a thin film supercapacitor to even out the voltage spikes produced by the solar cells to avoid damaging the phone's battery.

Along with extra cells around the edges of the screen, this means that the device can harness ambient light as well as the wasted screen light leaking around the edges.

A 3.7-inch smartphone screen can produce a maximum power output of 5 milliwatts in this way, which would hardly make a dent, but it's a good start.

The prototype devices are still a fair way off production, but we certainly welcome anything that lets our smartphones go even just a little bit longer between charges.

IBM Research has successfully demonstrated that you can store information in as few as 12 magnetic atoms – a discovery which could pave the way to smaller, faster and more energy efficient hard drives in our favourite devices.

Current hard-drives need around one million atoms to store a single bit of information, according to IBM's scientists, but that atomic limit of magnetic memory is just 12 atoms.

So what does that actually mean for our tablets, computers, mobile phones and any other device that stores information.

Manipulate matter

Well according to the research: "The ability to manipulate matter by its most basic components – atom by atom – could lead to the vital understanding necessary to build smaller, faster and more energy-efficient devices."

IBM's research was conducted as it became clear that silicon transistor technology has "fundamental physical limitations" which suggest that the current scaling efforts will plateau.

IBM Research suggests that nanostructures – built one atom at a time – could utilise antiferromagnetism and store 100 times more information in the same amount of space.

"The chip industry will continue its pursuit of incremental scaling in semiconductor technology but, as components continue to shrink, the march continues to the inevitable end point: the atom, said Andreas Heinrich, the lead investigator into atomic storage at IBM Research.

"We're taking the opposite approach and starting with the smallest unit -- single atoms -- to build computing devices one atom at a time."

You can check out more of the details on IBM's website.

LG has announced that it has developed the world's biggest OLED TV Panel – with a whopping 55 inch offering described as 'a significant step forward' for the screen technology.

Organic Light Emitting Diodes bring several benefits over more traditional screen technology (thinner, lighter, more environmentally friendly) and have long been hailed as the future of out televisions.

Although OLED is now a familiar sight in small screens like phones, the technology remains prohibitively expensive in larger sizes.

Televisions have been available with OLED panels, but they tend to cost a small fortune and offer only smaller sizes.

Viable for home

Korean giant LG is hoping that its 55-inch panel can not only prove popular, but begin to make OLED viable for the mass-market home TV.

"Our objective has always been to actively define and lead emerging display technology markets," said Dr. Sang Beom Han, CEO and Executive Vice President of LG Display.

"Although OLED technology is seen as the future of TV display, the technology has been limited to smaller display sizes and by high costs, until now. LG Display's 55-inch OLED TV panel has overcome these barriers."

LG insists that the panel 'successfully addresses' the issues that have made OLED televisions troublesome.

"The panel adopts an Oxide TFT technology for backplane which is different from a Low Temperature Poly Silicon (LTPS) type generally used in existing small-sized OLED panels," explains LG's release.

"The Oxide TFT type that LG Display utilizes is similar to the existing TFT process, with the simple difference lying in replacing Amorphous Silicon with Oxide.

"Moreover, the Oxide TFT type produces identical image quality to high performance of LTPS base panels at significantly reduced investment levels."

WOLED

The display also use White OLED (WOLED of course) which apparently vertically accumulates the red, green and blue diodes.

"With white color light emitting from the diode, it displays screen information through color layers below the TFT base panel, which leads to a lower error rate, higher productivity, and a clearer Ultra Definition screen via the benefits of small pixels," adds LG.

Of course, the big question is how much does it cost? We'll bring you that information when we find out.

The TV will be on display at CES 2012 - and TechRadar will be there to tell you if it lives up to its billing with a hands on: LG 55-inch OLED review.

IBM has published its sixth annual Five in Five - where it predicts five innovations that will change all of our lives in the next five years, with mind-reading machines apparently set to be interpreting our thoughts by 2016.

IBM remains one of the giants of the tech world despite its decision to focus on less consumer focused enterprises, and Big Blue serves up an annual reminder that it is looking to the future for consumers as well as businesses.

"The IBM Five in Five is based on market and societal trends expected to transform our lives, as well as emerging technologies from IBM Labs around the world that can make these innovations possible," states IBM.

"In fact the mind-reading prediction is based on work undertaken in our R&D laboratory in the UK. Many of the company's previous Five in Five predictions are already taking root, such as in 2008, when IBM predicted that consumers would be talking to the web - and the web would talk right back."

Five predictions

So, on top of mind reading machines what tech does IBM think will change our lives by 2016?

• You will make your own energy: Anything that moves has the potential to create energy. Your running shoes, your bicycle and even the water flowing through your pipes can create energy.

• You will not need a password: Your biological makeup is the key to your individual identity, and soon, it will become the key to safeguarding it.

• Mind reading is no longer science fiction: Scientists are researching how to link your brain to your devices, such as a computer or a smartphone, so you just need to think about calling someone and it happens.

• The digital divide will cease to exist: In five years, the gap between information haves and have-nots will narrow considerably due to advances in mobile technology.

• Junk mail will become priority mail: Think about how often we're flooded with advertisements we consider to be irrelevant or unwanted - it doesn't have to be that way anymore.

Google has been granted a patent for driverless car technology, which can fully take over the control of a vehicle from a human driver.

This full-fat version of cruise control uses web functionality to trigger the automated driving tech, with one of the images which goes alongside the patent showcasing what seems to be a massive QR code embedded into a road.

It seems that once a driver of one of Google's automatic cars drives over the QR code – or reference indicator, as it is called in the patent – the car then takes over the controls.

The actual patent is written in rather oblique language but does reveal a little about what Google's vision of driverless cars is.

Auto-nomous

"Disclosed are methods and devices for transitioning a mixed-mode autonomous vehicle from a human driven mode to an autonomously driven mode," said the patent.

"Transitioning may include stopping a vehicle on a predefined landing strip and detecting a reference indicator. Based on the reference indicator, the vehicle may be able to know its exact position.

"Additionally, the vehicle may use the reference indictor to obtain an autonomous vehicle instruction via a URL. After the vehicle knows its precise location and has an autonomous vehicle instruction, it can operate in autonomous mode."

Google has been looking into the idea of driverless cars for a while now and even outlined its proposal for an automatic car in its last Zeitgeist, where Larry Page explained: "It's an area that I've had some interest in since I was a grad student. It seemed pretty practical actually, I mean you think that driving a car is hard but it is not actually that hard for a computer if [it] has good data about what's about it."

There's no actual timeline for when we will see these cars in action but an automated car has been spotted driving around Google's Mountain View campus.

Video on demand vs Cinema: Online buzz

When you can access films direct from your television, laptop, tablet, phone or game console, is there still a place for cinemas?

The arrival of streaming video has not only made it easy for us to access films at times of our choosing wherever we happen to be, it has opened up a massive range of content for us to browse and be entertained by.

You can now enjoy 3D at home, along with surround sound, big screens and a wealth of inexpensive entertainment, all at the touch of a button.

Services like LoveFilm, Netflix, YouTube, Gracenote and iTunes are all making films available in our living rooms, and each person watching a movie at home means one less ticket sold at the cinema.

Cinemas do seem to be suffering: audiences are down (although box office takings are up due to increased prices) and 3D hasn't been the huge draw that theatre owners were hoping for. Who can save them? The film studios? Surely they'd never let cinemas dwindle away - movie theatres must be their lifeblood, after all.

In fact, the studios probably wouldn't be too upset by the loss of the cinema - it's typically the most expensive part of the film distribution process. Most films barely break even at the box office, and studios often see the theatre release of films as a loss leader. The studios recoup their investment with DVD sales and, to a lesser extent, on-demand rentals.

It would go against business sense to include cinemas in the film distribution process at all were it not for the massive amount of hype produced by a high profile film premiere. It's hard to do that with the release of a DVD.

Social media is stepping into that gap as red carpets give way to social interactivity. Create a good buzz online, and DVD and on-demand sales will be assured. If a film company can get enough people to 'Like' their film on Facebook, tweet the trailer, play the accompanying iPhone app or watch the teaser campaigns on their iPads, profits will rise.

But there's a problem: in this world of instant entertainment when and where you want it, the fact that you have to wait for a film to finish its cinema run before you can get it in your home seems increasingly outdated. It will therefore come as no surprise that moves are afoot to reduce the delay between cinema premieres and DVD or on-demand releases.

Ten years ago, you had to wait half a year after a film was released to get your hands on it at home - a gap that has since narrowed to around four months. Studios are trying to speed up DVD releases even further, but they face stiff opposition - and not just from cinemas.

The studios' argument is simple: most films have finished their cinema run after two months, so there is then a two-month wait during which pirate copies are the only way consumers can see the latest blockbusters. The studios say that cutting down the time it takes for films to be released on DVD or streaming services won't harm cinemas and will reduce piracy, but this strategy has met strong resistance.

Video nasties

In 2010, the cinema companies Odeon, Vue and Cineworld threatened to boycott Tim Burton's film Alice in Wonderland when Disney announced plans to release the DVD just three months after the first screening. It was only the day before the royal premiere in London, with Prince Charles in attendance, that Odeon lifted the boycott, having negotiated guarantees with Disney to protect the theatrical window.

In May this year, Warner Bros, Sony, Fox and Universal all agreed to supply their films to a home premiere service from American satellite company DirecTV. Subscribers would page $30 a month for access to new films a mere eight weeks after their theatrical release, in full HD. Again this was met with an outcry - not just from theatres, but also some of Hollywood's biggest names.

A host of world-famous directors including Peter Jackson, James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow, Michael Bay and Guillermo del Toro signed a letter to the studios titled 'An open letter from the creative community on protecting the movie-going experience'.

Here are few extracts: "Lately, there's been a lot of talk by leaders at some major studios and cable companies about early-to-the-home 'premium video-on-demand'. In this proposed distribution model, new movies can be shown in homes while these same films are still in their theatrical run.

"As a crucial part of a business that last year grossed close to $32 billion in worldwide theatrical ticket sales, we in the creative community feel that now is the time for studios and cable companies to acknowledge that a release pattern for premium video-on-demand that invades the current theatrical window could irrevocably harm the financial model of our film industry.

"As leaders in the creative community, we ask for a seat at the table. We want to hear the studios' plans for how this new distribution model will affect the future of the industry we love. And until that happens, we ask that our studio partners do not rashly undermine the current - and successful - system of releasing films in a sequential distribution window that encourages movie lovers to see films in the optimum, and most profitable, exhibition arena: the movie theatres of America."

Friends with benefits

The cinema industry has some friends in high places, but the service still went ahead. Although this type of protest may slow down the studios a little, it's unlikely to reverse the trend, particularly as so many more avenues are opening up for distribution of films.

For the studios, it makes the most financial sense to strike while the buzz about a movie is still in the air. As mentioned earlier, studios are already eyeing up social media as a useful new revenue stream, and are experimenting with ways to monetise it.

In the US, anyone who 'Liked' Christopher Nolan's 2008 film The Dark Knight was given the chance to watch the film for 30 Facebook credits (or $3). This was an astute move - The Dark Knight's movie page has four million fans, giving studios a targeted audience for marketing.

"Facebook has become a daily destination for hundreds of millions of people," Warner Bros said in a statement. "Making our films available through Facebook is a natural extension of our digital distribution efforts. It gives consumers a convenient way to access and enjoy our films through the world's largest social network."

For their 30 credits, Facebook users got the film for a 48-hour rental period (iTunes, Amazon and Vudu only provide movies for 24 hours), and could click to watch it in their browser. Warner Bros was keen to point out this was just a test and not all feedback was positive, with reports of a missing HD option and poor streaming even on good broadband connections. It won't be long before this is a viable option though, and you only have to look at BBC iPlayer's 153 million programme requests in July 2011 to see that people are happy to put up with the quality of streamed video.

Miramax has followed suit with Miramax eXperience, its movie rental app for Facebook, which offers 10 films to rent, each costing 30 Facebook credits in the UK and Turkey. The company was open about the fact that its audience is already on Facebook, pointing out that it could build a platform on its own website, but people might not hear about it.

The service also has an aspect of social gaming, where users can cast their friends as characters in films. This is designed to help spread the word about the service.

Other companies have already made significant inroads in the online film distribution market. We spoke to Simon Morris, LoveFilm's Chief Marketing Officer, who was keen to point out that LoveFilm does not see itself as a competitor to cinemas.

"Film lovers all around the world visit the cinema for the unique experience it offers," he said. "LoveFilm's pioneering UK film delivery service was not created to compete with the cinema, but provide customers with additional choice and convenience. Different customers consume films in different ways and the fact that everyone has the choice to visit the cinema, get a DVD or stream a movie instantly on a number of platforms offers a number of choices that are beneficial to the customer."

When we asked Morris whether LoveFilm had any plans to decrease the time between films being released in cinemas and appearing for download on the service, he said he was unable to comment.

Saving grace

Smart TV technology company Gracenote is another business hoping to offer viewers something they can't get from cinemas. We spoke to Stephen White, the company's president, to find out more about the features he hopes to offer.

"Gracenote is developing technologies that further build on its roots in media recognition to create true interactive TV experiences for home cinema viewers," he explained.

"One example of this is our work in the area of Advanced Content Recognition (ACR), which allows a tablet or mobile phone to recognise scenes and transitions within a TV program or movie. For example, if a viewer is watching an episode of Law and Order on their HDTV, Gracenote's ACR technology would use the tablet's built-in microphone to identify the specific scene in the program. From there, all of the actors, music and advertising brands can be identified in that scene in real time and presented on the tablet.

"The potential for this type of technology is massive. Scene level recognition allows viewers to use their tablet or mobile phone to identify the clothing worn by the characters, the beverages they are drinking, the music playing in the opening credits and much more. Viewers can then link to an advertiser's website, buy the clothing, download the song and order the drink."

He too was keen to stress that the cinema experience is completely different to that of the home theatre and that he didn't feel the two overlapped: "Movie theatres give you the big-screen experience with an auditorium full of loudspeakers playing at reference level surround sound.

"Plus, going to the movie theatre offers a night out with your friends or loved ones, and you get to share the experience with a larger audience in a social setting. However, your home cinema experience is more personal. It allows you to lean back and enjoy new movies or old favourites from on-demand services and cable channels. You can hit the pause button, text friends and eat dinner, while still enjoying great sound and pictures."

Death of the multiplex

Despite these protestations to the contrary, if the situation were to change and you could get films on your television or PC on the day of their release, would you still make the effort to visit your local cinema to see them? Could interactive high quality video streaming spell the end for the multiplex?

Reports that traditional cinemas have had their day are nothing new; cinemas have already seen off the rise of television, VHS, DVDs and even Blu-ray, so will the threat posed by video on demand be any different?

We spoke to cinema chains Vue and Cineworld to ask what attraction cinemas could offer compared to watching films at home.

"A trip to the cinema is not just about watching a film; it is about the complete entertainment experience," Cineworld told us. "For example, the use of Real D technology that's used in all of Cineworld Cinemas' 3D screens has perfected a digital approach to 3D, allowing customers to now experience remarkable depth and clarity, pulling them into a film for a truly immersive experience.

Following Cineworld Cinemas' acquisition of the O2 cinema multiplex in June 2010, Cineworld is now able to offer customers the largest 3D screen in Europe, standing at 24.4m."

Mark de Quervain, Sales and Marketing Director at Vue Entertainment, agreed: "Watching the latest films at the cinema has always been a unique experience. People enjoy the combination of being the first to see the latest movie on the big screen and having the surround sound effect.

Vue offers a number of unique services to give our cinemagoers the choice to see the latest blockbuster in a variety of ways. Some of these include Vue Xtreme Screens, which are supersized 3D screens, VIP seating, Scene Screens, which include reclining seats and a private lounge and bar area, as well as still offering people the chance to see films on regular 2D cinema screens.

While more people are investing in wide screen plasma TVs at home and a surround sound atmosphere, going out to the cinema is more of an experience now than ever before and is regarded as a fun night out with friends and family, which is difficult to replicate at home."

So, are the big cinema chains concerned about the rise of video on demand services?

"Although there has been a rise in the ease of internet-delivered movies," said de Quervain, "the quality of these movies will never equal that of the cinema experience and, for serious moviegoers, will not replace the cinema as the ultimate entertainment vehicle."

Cineworld's spokesperson added: "Unlike internet-delivered movies, a trip to the cinema is about an immersive cinema experience rather than merely just watching a film. It is an opportunity to take time out from everyday life and treat yourself, whether on your own or with friends and family."

Video on demand vs Cinema: 3D boost

In light of recent media reports suggesting 3D is already fading in popularity, we asked Cineworld and Vue whether the technology has helped to boost audience numbers. Both cinema chains were positive about its impact.

"In 2010, one quarter of UK cinema revenue came from 3D films, showing the impact this technology for watching films can have," said de Quervain. "During 2010, the UK cinema industry benefitted from another great year with a string of blockbuster releases leading to a 2.7 per cent increase in industry box office takings compared to 2009," added Cineworld's official spokesperson. "3D was the most significant contributor to this increase."

Apart from 3D, what other technologies are coming to movie theatres to ensure cinema remains a more attractive proposition than watching films at home?

"The number of future technologies that could transform the cinematic experience are endless," explained Vue's de Quervain.

"However, an example of what is to come will soon be showcased at Westfield Stratford City [in East London], with the exciting launch of one of the largest all-new, all-digital cinemas in Europe - Vue Stratford City.

In a recent partnership between Vue Entertainment and Sony Europe, this new cinema will offer visitors the chance to experience the Breatht4King Vue Sony 4K projection system across all of its screens, delivering a spectacular visual experience from every seat.

"Cinemagoers will be amazed by the detail even on the largest screens" de Quervaim contined, "and with up to four times the megapixels of 2K and HD, cinemagoers will be taken away by the detail and fluidity of images.

Breatht4King Vue gives cinemagoers an immersive, engaging visual experience they simply can't get at home. Breatht4King Vue is further enhanced with Vue Profound Sound, in a Dolby 7:1 sound system. This professionally mixed sound will make cinemagoers feel like they are part of the action.

"What's more, with each auditorium in the cinema also offering SuperVue stepped stadium seating, every seat in the house will provide a perfect view of the wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling super-sized screens.

Vue Westfield Stratford City will set new standards with a stunning state-of-the-art cinema set in a wonderful location, and the installation of Sony 4K digital cinema projectors will form part of the potential roll out of Sony's new projection technology systems across all Vue cinemas over the next couple of years - revolutionising the cinema experience."

Live entertainment

Cineworld isn't sitting still either. "Cineworld is dedicated to making the customers cinema experience the best possible, and is constantly striving to develop new ways of doing this.

With Cineworld leading the way with the switch to digital and 3D, Cineworld now boasts over 300 3D cinema screens across the country, including the colossal 24.4m 3D screen in the O2.

As well as the biggest blockbusters, Cineworld shows the best in world cinema, as well as live ballet, opera and theatre performances from around the globe. Cineworld also plans to bring a variety of live sporting events to cinemas around the country."

We asked de Quervain what the future holds for movie theatres. "The future of cinema is always evolving," he said. "Technology never stands still and as such we continue to develop with it. There is no doubt that cinema as it was even five years ago is a different and better experience today, with new products, service and experiences being offered.

In another five years, with digital fully installed and more mature, you will see cinemas as major entertainment centres offering an even wider and [more] diverse range of big screen content for people to enjoy, covering not only film, but more specialised content like documentaries, live sport, 3D concerts, comedy, gaming, interactive advertising and features will probably all be common place.

The public will probably be able to have more say on what is shown and when with demand-based programming a possibility.

"The quality of sound and picture will continue to evolve, with films being made in 4k resolution or higher [compared to] 2K now.

James Cameron is already experimenting with and successfully demonstrating how increasing frame rates when filming from the current 24 frames per second to 48, 60 or even 120 frames per second produces images on screen that are simply incredible when compared to today's digital standards. One thing that won't change in the future of cinema is that the appeal of unique shared out of home big screen experience that cinemas have to offer will remain, if not increase as they evolve."

Frame rate increase

There is already a new exciting film technology on the horizon, with a big name behind it. James Cameron is no stranger to bringing new technologies to cinemas; in fact, it's becoming a habit.

In 2005 at CinemaCon (the official convention of the National Association of Theatre Owners), he and George Lucas urged theatre owners to upgrade to new digital cinema equipment so they could show the new wealth of 3D films. It worked, with many chains forking out $100,000 for the new equipment.

Fast forward

Cameron acknowledged his success at this year's CinemaCon. "Oh no, here's this guy again," he joked. "Every time he shows up at one of these things it costs me money."

This time Cameron is proposing that film should be shot at higher frame rates. Movies are currently shot at 24fps, which means movement can become blurred or jerky when shown in 3D. He wants movies to be shot at 48fps, or even as high as 60fps.

He showed three films to demonstrate the difference it could make to the experience - one at 24fps, one at 48fps and one at 60fps. The audience was left with little doubt that there was a marked improvement.

As Cameron himself commented, "If watching a 3D movie is like looking through a window, then we've taken the glass out of the window and we're staring at reality."

Faster frame rates aren't a new idea. In the 1980s, Academy Award-winning cinematographer Douglas Trumbull proposed the same thing, and the process was used to make movies for rides in theme parks. It never caught on for normal films because of the cost - the extra frames meant a lot more photographic film was needed.

In the age of digital cameras, that isn't a problem. In fact, we're already treated to these frame rates when we watch sport on television. Film has yet to catch up because it still uses the same frame rates as were used in the early days of cinema.

Despite his opening joke, Cameron argues that the cost will be minimal for cinemas, because they will only need some new software updates for the current digital projectors and digital cameras are already capable of capturing film at higher frame rates. However, there is an extra cost when it comes special effects, with more frames meaning more post-production work.

This may make the agreement of the studios and producers the deciding factor, but if there's one person who could affect such a change, it's Cameron. He plans to film Avatar 2 and 3 at a higher frame rate, and Peter Jackson has already announced his intention to film The Hobbit at 48fps with the full backing of his studios.

As Jackson explained on Facebook, "We are indeed shooting at the higher frame rate. The key thing to understand is that this process requires both shooting and projecting at 48fps, rather than the usual 24fps (films have been shot at 24fps since the late 1920s). So the result looks like normal speed, but the image has hugely enhanced clarity and smoothness."

Cinema technology never sits still. A lot of big players don't think movie theatres will become extinct any time soon, and are willing to fight to make sure that it doesn't happen.

Video on demand can bring the movies direct to our TVs, PCs, phones and tablets, but until the cinema experience can truly be replicated at home without great expense, not to mention the need for a huge room dedicated to the purpose, there will always be bums on seats in the nearest multiplex.

The PC in 25 years

The best way to predict what the future holds, they say, is to look to the past, but such a philosophy isn't necessarily the best option when it comes to computers. It's a useful way of extrapolating the numbers to see how fast the processors of the future may be; that's one reason Moore's Law continues to work.

We can even use it to predict how much RAM future machines will have access to and how big hard drives are going to get, but given that the biggest changes to computers come in the way we use them, any predictions of the future would be better left to futurologists, industry wishlists and brief glimpses of roadmaps.

You need only look at the rapidly changing way in which we use our computers to see that it's not just technological advances that have pushed the PC to centre stage in our lives.

The PC has left its expensive, exclusive, elitist origins. Instead of being reserved for education and the workplace, as was once the case, PCs can now be found in nearly all our homes. We've built our whole lives around the things these machines enable us to do.

We use them for everything from storing home movies, music and photos, through to planning trips and holidays, socialising, online shopping, gaming, finding a cure for cancer and searching for extraterrestrial life.

The PC has come a very long way in 25 years. So what does the future hold? How do we get there? Here are the ten advances that we believe will govern the shape of the PC in 25 years' time.

1. Access everything, everywhere

The move to cloud computing has already begun. The idea of everything being held and worked on centrally will have become entirely natural by 2036. That said, there are some obvious aspects that will need to be raised before this can happen, like security and the underlying infrastructure. But these will be addressed, and soon.

You only need to look at the likes of Microsoft Office 365 and Google Documents to see that this is a revolution in full swing, and one that benefits anyone who needs to access the same data and files from a variety of sites and machines.

Everything from office work to games is a potential distributed target, as long as the infrastructure is perfect. And when that happens, there's nothing to stop us having entire operating systems in the cloud - virtualisation taken to the next level, if you will.

The immediate knock-on effect of such a connected society is that the power needn't be at the local level as it is now, but rather at the server level. This regression to client-server architecture has already begun.

As Intel's Graham Palmer puts it, 'Every 600 smartphones or 120 tablets drives demand for a new server.'

2. Watch what you want

In a world where everything is stored in the cloud, localised storage will still have a use, but it will mainly be used as a backup for your own content, or as a cache for your most accessed files. We can also see this linking to a legitimate filesharing system, which will help offload demand on the more popular servers.

Content that we currently consume, like movies and music, won't ship on physical media. Instead, subscription services will offer access to the latest releases as well as an ever-growing back catalogue. The obvious upside of this is what you'll be able to watch what you want wherever you are, and in whatever form is best for the device you're playing it back on.

Premium services catering to more esoteric tastes and higher bitrate versions would be obvious differentiators here, although storage and bandwidth won't be an issue by 2036, so ultra high definition television (UHDTV) will be the norm, defining the standard resolution of 7,680 x 4,320 at the very least.

Netflix, one of the biggest video-on demand services in the world, has already predicted that DVD rental sales will peak as early as 2013, when it expects its instant streaming service to take over.

3. Enjoy painless security

The brave new world of cloud computing means a fundamental change in the way we view security. Big business has already voiced serious concerns about the ability to ensure mission-critical information is kept private, while the idea that anyone could potentially hack into everything you own could well slow the adoption of cloud computing before it hits its stride.

While not directly related, recent hacking attempts by Anonymous and LulzSec highlight how unprofessional some businesses are when it comes to security, and how poor they are at maintaining server updates. In order to live our computing lives in the cloud, we'll need to be able to log into such services smoothly and securely.

An overall standard to do this would make this process easier for the end user, but at this stage developers are still fighting against each other, and it's currently impossible to see how we advance from our current swathe of sometimes insecure methods to something that's more much workable and universal.

The old-guard security firms are now setting up in the cloud as well, offering services that scan transactions directly in the cloud. Better security needs to happen, even if the future is hazy.

4. Super-powered, super-portable

The word 'computer' refers to a lot more than just a stationary system tethered to power socket. You only need to look at the model changes in the likes of Apple to see where the future of computing lies: super thin laptops in the main, with smartphones also doing more and more work and desktops increasingly reserved for specific power-hungry applications like gaming and heavyweight professional tools.

Basic consumer PCs will be limited to compact all-in-one systems built into the back of the screen - a trend that's already being pushed in highstreet computer shops. In 25 years' time, your whole PC may even be pocketable - a tiny USB stick-sized device that you can plug directly into your monitor, your smartphone, or any number of public screens.

The migration of more and more features traditionally associated with the motherboard chipset onto the processor itself is already starting to pay dividends the efficiency front, and we should ultimately see everything shifting into the CPU - including RAM, storage and networking interfaces.

Upgrading an existing machine will be rendered pointless, but with dropping costs, the era of the truly disposable computer will one day be upon us.

5. Forget about recharging

The power requirements of all portable computers will continue to drop, with the less-than-1W device capable of granular levels of self power management that mean only the silicon needed for a specific task is on.

This is an obvious extension of what mobile phones and mobile processors can already do, but pushed to an even greater degree where the device's default state is to be completely asleep. The aforementioned computer on a chip designs mean that this will be necessary to stop subsystems drawing power when it isn't needed.

Improvements in battery technology, with different materials, should see the fabled 24-hour computing becoming not a one-off rarity, but the norm. Battery designs that are capable of offering different voltages and loads to different areas of the chip can improve efficiency, while price drops and efficiency rises in solar technologies should mean that we can recharge such devices while we're using them.

A standardised charging system that enables tomorrow's devices to be charged using a power efficient induction system means that pads next to our workstations, in our homes and in our (flying) cars will top up the battery charge without requiring the numerous cables that currently plague our battery lives.

Five more PC advances to expect

6. Turn anything into a display

Screens in our current devices tend to define their size. This is true of everything from laptops to tablets to mobile phones to all-in-one desktop PCs. For stationary machines this isn't much of an issue, but for mobile computers the inclusion of screens tends to constrain their portability and usefulness.

Devices like the Sony Tablet S2 attempt to resolve this problem through the inclusion of a folding split screen, while other smaller devices are designed to be used either on their own, or in conjunction with a larger screen for the best effect.

The latest generation of tablets, for instance, boast mini-HDMI connectors that let each device use a large television or projector. In the future, advanced forms of projection should enable some far more advanced usage patterns.

We've already seen smaller standalone projectors that are as small as a pack of cards, while Sony has recently released the Handycam HDR-PJ10, camcorder that boasts an integrated LED projector. Future units will feature brighter lamps with shorter throws, reduced battery consumption and more useful angles.

Digital whiteboard technology will come as standard in the future, so you'll be able to interact with anything you display. Thanks to the reduction in price of high-res panels, certain surfaces will act like TFT screens; plug your mini computer into the wallpaper and you've got a 30ft display.

7. Interact with PCs naturally

Science fiction has a tendency to define our technological aspirations, and has even had an effect on what is researched and implemented. Flying cars, holographic chess and sentient artificial intelligence have all been addressed by literature and movies, and are being actively researched too - however impractical they might be.

But one area where PCs are still struggling to catch up with sci-fi - and aging sci-fi, at that - is the way we interact with our computers. Natural speech input is possible today, but it's not commonplace and it's far from flawless.

The idea of having to train the software to recognise your voice by speaking a list of words isn't appealing to many people either. The accuracy of Google's voice search on mobile phones shows that untrained speech recognition is possible, although this is processed in server farms, showing that a lot of grunt is needed to do things properly.

Given another 25 years of processor development, this shouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately there's not much that can be done about the awkward embarrassment that comes with talking to a computer.

One key ingredient of human communication is body language, and it's possible that the inevitable successors to Microsoft's Kinect could provide the missing element that would let speech recognition draw cues about subtle meanings in words. Combined with gesture inputs, the days of telling your computer what to do shouldn't remain a dream for ever.

8. Better than Pixar graphics

If we had to pick the area where the physical makeup of the PC has changed the most in the last 25 years, we'd be hard pushed to beat the advances in 3D acceleration. The first consumer 3D graphics card of note, the 3Dfx Voodoo, appeared 15 years ago and changed the face of gaming, and there have been hints that it could change the interfaces of tomorrow as well.

Advances like VRML may have struggled, but with GPUs now making it into CPUs, the market for 3D interfaces has grown and is ripe for exploiting. Budget graphics cards are going to struggle for significance in the next few years as the graphics capabilities of the APU/CPU increase, but at the higher end of the market we can expect graphics cards to continue to push the envelope for realistic rendering.

Cinema-level rendering techniques like true sub-surface scattering, deep shadow maps and ambient occlusion require significant processing power even on simple models, but as the polygon counts hit the billions and screens use UHDTV resolution, more advanced thousand-core GPUs will be needed.

With no obvious let up in the ongoing and productive battle between AMD and Nvidia, there's no reason to doubt that in 25 years' time the lines between cinema, 3D gaming, and even desktop interfaces will be blurred to the point of non-existence. Whatever else happens, the future is certainly going to be beautiful.

9. Game on the go

The concept of the PC as a gaming platform has survived assaults from many angles over the last 25 years. Gaming PCs have responded well to these attacks, with improved graphics, higher resolutions and ever-advancing processors to make them arguably the best platform currently available for gaming - particularly compared to the static world of consoles.

However, it seems unlikely that the gaming desktop will survive another quarter century unscathed. One of the biggest threats is forming right now with streaming gaming services like OnLive and Gaikai.

By 2036 the teething problems of such technologies should have been resolved, letting you play high-end games on pretty much any hardware - PC, phone, console and so on. This means you can start a game during your lunch break at work, play it on the train on the way home, and finish it in front of your television.

And with ubiquitous access, everyone should be playing against each other anyway. The only problem with these services, and that is the inherent latency of transferring user actions to the servers.

This will mean that so-called 'twitch gamers' who enjoy first person shooters will need advanced networking technology; a separate internet channel for super-low latency transfers will be absolutely essential.

10. Be recognised everywhere

We're used to being targeted by specific advertisers based on our previous activities online through the use of tracking cookies, but extending this to the real world isn't such an outlandish idea.

The idea was best visualised by 2002 film Minority Report, but this isn't science fiction. Tests carried out five years ago in Tokyo used RFID tags to create a user-centric advertising environment. The test promoted offers to users' mobile phones as they walked near specific shops, potentially making those offers more attractive if the recipients didn't show interest.

Replace RFID tags with rudimentary facial recognition and the system is no longer an opt-in experience. Advertisements directed at you based on what you've been doing could soon get tiresome, but at least it means you won't be bombarded by adverts that aren't of any interest or relevance to you. Enjoyed that rollerball match? Why not go to another, or download the footage of the game you attended?

A key concept behind this is the notion that is often termed the 'internet of things', which describes the connections between various electronic devices, and what data they have access to. It's a concept that many futurologist are convinced will be necessary to tie all the devices together to produce a coherent technological future.

There is a potential danger here though, as outlined by futurologist Ian Peasons: "If the internet of things is not done properly you can just end up with a 1984-type surveillance state." We don't see that happening in 2036, but the potential is there.

The next generation of Microsoft Surface, made by Samsung, is now available for pre-order on the manufacturer's website.

Surface is the touch technology most regularly seen as a table-top, allowing tablet-like multi-touch functionality.

The key to the latest Surface technology is PixelSense which gives LCD panels the "power to see without the use of cameras".

The Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft was shown off earlier in the year, and can now be pre-ordered, although it's clearly meant for big-spending businesses rather than us consumers.

The US price is a not-insignificant $8,400, and TechRadar has tracked down the official Samsung SUR 40 UK price - which is £7,499 plus VAT.

Integration

"Customers across a wide range of industries currently integrate Microsoft Surface and make it relevant to their business needs, creating immersive, collaborative and meaningful experiences," said Somanna Palacanda, director, Microsoft Surface.

"With the Samsung SUR40 available for pre-order in 23 countries worldwide, Surface computing will now be more readily available for education, financial and professional services, healthcare, hospitality, retail, manufacturing and resources, and other commercial business environments to help deliver interactive digital content, drive sales, showcase brands, and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty."

The UK, US and Germany are among the companies that can snap up the Samsung Surface, which offers a 40 inch screen with a resolution of 1920x1080 and is powered by an Athlon X2 Dual-core processor and AMD HD6750M graphics chip, with 4GB of RAM.

Can machines imitate how humans think?

Back in the late '40s, Alan Turing, fresh from his success as part of the team that cracked the Enigma machine, turned his thoughts to machine intelligence. In particular, he considered the question: 'Can machines think?'

In 1950, he published a paper called Computing Machinery and Intelligence in the journal Mind that summarised his conclusions. This paper became famous for a simple test he'd devised: the Turing Test.

The problem he found in particular was the word 'think' in his original question. What is thinking and how do we recognise it? Can we construct an empirical test that conclusively proves that thinking is going on?

He was of the opinion that the term was too ambiguous and came at the problem from another angle by considering a party game called the Imitation Game.

Parlour games

In the Imitation Game, a man and a woman go into separate rooms. The guests don't know who is in each room. The guests send the subjects written questions and receive answers back (in Turing's day these were typewritten so that no clues could be found by trying to analyse the handwriting; today we can imagine email or Twitter as the medium).

From the series of questions and answers from each subject, the guests try to work out who is the man and which the woman. The subjects try to muddy the waters by pretending to be each other. The first part of the picture below shows this game.

Turing wondered what would happen if we replaced the man or the woman with some machine intelligence. Would the guests guess the machine versus human more accurately than they would the man versus the woman? Turing's insight was to rephrase 'Can machines think?' into a more general 'Can machines imitate how humans think?' This is the original Turing Test, and is shown in the second part of the picture.

Over the years, this Turing Test has changed into the simpler test we know today: can we determine whether the entity at the end of a communications link is computer program or human, just by asking questions and receiving answers? It's still a variant of the Imitation Game, but now it's much simpler - possibly too simple.

The first program to try to pass the Turing Test was a program called ELIZA, a program that pretended to be an empathic or non-directional psychotherapist, written in the period 1964-1966. ELIZA essentially parsed natural language into keywords and then, through pattern matching, used those keywords as input to a script. The script (and the database of keywords and the subject domain) was fairly small, but nevertheless ELIZA managed to fool some people who used it.

The reason for using a psychotherapy as the domain is that it lends itself to being able to respond to statements with questions that repeat the statement ("I like the colour blue." "Why do you like the colour blue?") without immediately alerting the human that the therapist on the other end has no applicable real-world knowledge or understanding.

ELIZA was so successful that its techniques were used to improve the interaction in various computer games, especially early ones where the interface was through typed commands.

Chatterbots

Despite its simple nature, ELIZA formed the basis of a grand procession of programs designed and written to try to pass the Turing Test. The next such was known as PARRY (written in 1972, and designed to be a paranoid schizophrenic), and they spawned a whole series of more and more sophisticated conversational programs called chatterbots.

These programs use the same techniques as ELIZA to parse language and to identify keywords that can then be used to further the conversation, either in conjunction with an internal database of facts and information, or with the ability to use those keywords in scripted responses. These responses give the illusion to the human counterpart that the conversation is moving forward meaningfully.

Consequently, provided the subject domain is restricted enough, chatterbots can and do serve as initial points of contact for support. For example, PayPal currently has an automated online 'customer service rep' it calls Sarah. Using the chat program is quite uncanny.

As you can see above, the answer to my question ("How do I see the payments I made in January") appeared instantly and the natural language evaluation processing is extremely efficient. Notice that the word 'payment' is recognised and the more accurate 'transaction' is used in the reply).

Such automated online assistants are available 24/7, and are helping reduce the loads on normal call centres. Aetna, a health insurer in the US, estimates that 'Ann', the automated assistant for its website, has reduced calls to the tech support help desk by 29 per cent.

Of course, there are downsides to chatterbots as well. It's fairly easy to write chatterbots to spam or advertise in chat rooms while pretending to be human participants. Worse still are those that attempt to cajole their human counterparts into revealing personal information, like account numbers.

Giving chatterbots knowledge

Depth of knowledge

In reality though, chatterbots are still too simple for us to be fooled for long. They don't have the depth of day-to-day knowledge that makes conversations interesting in the real world, and any conversation over a few minutes reveals that paucity of information.

A more recent development was the episode of the quiz show Jeopardy in which two human contestants played against IBM's Watson computer (although given the fact that Watson has 2,880 processor cores and 16 terabytes of RAM, perhaps 'computer' is too simple a term).

Watson was not only programmed with a natural language interface that could parse and understand the quiz questions, but also had a four-terabyte database of structured and unstructured information from encyclopedias (including Wikipedia), dictionaries, thesauruses, and other ontologies. In essence, Watson has 'knowledge' about many things and the software to query that knowledge, to form hypotheses about that knowledge, and to apply those hypotheses to the questions posed.

Parsing natural language

Although Watson may be seen as the current best contender for passing the Turing Test, there are still issues with the natural language interface - perhaps the hardest part of the software to write.

One of the questions asked (or rather, given the nature of the quiz show, one of the answers for which the contestants had to provide the question) was: "Its largest airport was named for a World War II hero; its second largest, for a World War II battle", and Watson failed to parse the sentence properly, especially the part after the semicolon, causing it to reply with "What is Toronto?" when the answer should have been "What is Chicago?".

Natural language can be parsed in two ways: either through a strict semantic analysis and continually improving that analysis, or through a looser analysis and then using statistical methods to improve the result.

This kind of algorithm is used by Google Translate: by using a huge corpus of texts and translations by human linguists, the quality of on-demand translations can be improved greatly. Google Translate uses the power of the crowd to translate text rather than strict language algorithms, but it's a useful application of AI.

One of the problems with the Turing Test is that it invites programs with ever more complex conversation routines that are just designed to fool a human counterpart. Although researchers are investigating how to create a 'strong AI' that we can converse with, more research is being done on 'specific AI' or 'domain-bound AI' - artificial intelligence limited to a specific field of study.

Real advances are being made here, to the extent that we no longer think of these solutions as AI. Indeed, there's more of a move to view AI research as research into problems whose solutions we don't yet know how to write.

An example of such specificity in AI research is face detection in images. Yes, it's been solved now, but it was only 2001 when Paul Viola and Michael Jones published their paper on how to approach the problem. A decade later, we have point-and-shoot cameras that can find a face in the field of view, then focus and expose for it.

Fifteen years ago or earlier, the face detection problem would have been considered AI, and now we have cameras that can do the work in real time. AI is a concept that shifts its own goalposts.

Neural networks

Many specific-AI systems use a neural network as the basis of the software. This is a software encapsulation of a few neurons, also emulated in software and known as perceptrons. Just like our neurons, perceptrons receive stimuli in the form of input signals, and fire off a single signal as output, provided the sum of (or the mix of) input signals is greater than some value.

• How artificial intelligence mimics the human brain

Neural networks need to be trained. In other words, they aren't written as fully functional for a problem space - they have to be taught. The programmer has to feed many examples of features in the problem space to the neural network, observe the outputs, compare them with the desired outputs, then tweak the configuration of the perceptrons to make the output closer to the expected results.

The face detection 'algorithm' is one such neural network: Viola and Jones used a database of thousands of faces from the internet to tune their network to recognise faces accurately (according to their paper, they used 4,916 images of faces and 9,500 images of non-faces that they sliced and diced in various ways). The training took weeks.

Another specific AI-like problem is OCR, or Optical Character Recognition. Again, the main engine is a neural network, and this time it's trained with lots of examples of printed characters from different fonts, and from high to low resolution. The success of OCR is such that all scanners come with it as part of their software, and the main reason for investing in commercial OCR packages is for slightly better recognition and the ability to fully replicate the formatting of the scanned document.

The kind of intelligence exposed by these types of programs is statistical in nature. We can see the success of these applications as embodiments of AI, despite the fact that they would never be able to participate in a Turing Test. Nevertheless, even as recently as a few years ago, such programs were inconceivable.

Such statistical intelligence isn't limited to image recognition or to translation engines. In 2008, Netflix promoted a prize asking for improvements on its movie recommendation algorithm. The winning algorithm (known as Pragmatic Chaos) uses a slew of factors to help provide recommendations, including temporal factors like movie popularity (charted over time), user biases and preferences as evinced by their changing tastes. In essence: using a lot of statistical data passed through various models to such an extent that the resulting system wasn't designed, but evolved.

As you've seen, we can view AI through two incompatible lenses. The first is what we've grown up with: a computer system and software that can emulate a human being to the extent that it can fool judges using the Turing Test. It's known as strong AI and is the subject of many science fiction movies, the most famous being HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The second is perhaps more interesting, because it affects us in our daily lives: specific AI that solves single problems, and that would have been the subject of SF novels just a few years ago. What new specific AI awaits us in the next five years?

The future of PC graphics

What's next for graphics? Why, Graphics Core Next, of course. Thanks, AMD, for that nicely pallindromic way to start off a feature.

And also for talking about the successor to the current generation of Radeon graphics cards, which is due sometime next year.

The unveiling of GCN took place at June's Fusion Developer Summit. It's the first complete architectural overhaul of GPU technology it's risked since the launch of Vista.

That also, incidentally, makes it the first totally new graphics card design for AMD that isn't based on work started by ATI before it was purchased.

Vista, and specifically DirectX 10, called for graphics cards to support a fully programmable shader pipeline.

That meant doing away with traditional bits of circuitry that dealt with specific elements of graphics processing – like pixel shaders and vertex shaders – and replacing them with something more flexible that could do it all: the unified shader (see "Why are shaders unifi ed?", next page).

Schism

During the birth of DX10 class graphics, there was something of a schism between Nvidia and AMD.

To simplify: the former opted for an interpretation of unified shader theory in its G80 GeForce chips that was quite flexible. Place a few hundred very simple processors in a large array, and send them one calculation (or, in some circumstances, two) a piece to work on until all the work is done.

It's a method that creates a bit of a nightmare for the set-up engine, but it's very flexible and for well written code that takes advantage of the way processors are bunched together on the board, dynamite.

In designing the G80 and its successors, Nvidia had its eye on applications beyond graphics. Developers could create GPGPU applications for GeForce cards written in C and more recently C++.

AMD/ATI, meanwhile, focused on the traditional requirements for a graphics card. Its unified shaders worked by combining operations into 'Very long instruction words' (VLIW) and sending them off to be processed in batches.

The basic unit in an early Nvidia DX10 card was a single 'scalar' processor, arranged in batches of 16 for parallel processing.

Inside an AMD one, it was a four way 'vector' processor and with a fifth one for special functions. Hence one name for the Radeon architecture: VLIW5. While the set-up sounds horrendous, it was actually designed to be more efficient.

The important point being that a pixel colour is defined by mixing red, green, blue and alpha (transparency) channels. So the R600 processor – which was the basis of the HD2xxx and HD3xxx series of cards – was designed to be incredibly efficient at working out those four values over and over again.

Sadly, those early R600 cards weren't great, but with time and tweaking AMD made the design work, and work well.

The HD4xxx, HD5xxx and HD6xxx cards were superlative, putting out better performance and requiring less power than Nvidia peers. Often cheaper too. But despite refinements over the last four years, the current generation of GeForce and Radeon chips are still recognisable as part of the same families as those first G80 and R600.

There have been changes to the memory interface (goodbye power hungry Radeon ring bus) and vast increases to the number of execution cores (1,536 on a single Radeon HD6970 compared to 320 on an HD2900XT), but the major change over time has been separating out the special functions unit from the processor cores.

Graphics Core Next, however, is a completely new design. According to AMD, its existing architecture is no longer the most efficient for the tasks that graphics cards are called to do.

New approach

FUTURE GRAPHICS: VLIW5 has four vector processing units: one each for R, G, B and alpha

Proportionally, the number of routines for physics and geometry being run on the graphics card has increased dramatically in a typical piece of game code, calling for a more flexible processor design than one geared up primarily for colouring in pixels.

As a result, the VLIW design is being abandoned in favour of one that can be programmed in C and C++.

The basic unit of GCN is a 16 wide array of execution units arranged for SIMD (single instruction, multiple data) operations. If all that sounds familiar to G80 and on, it's because it is.

Cynically, this could be seen as a tacit acknowledgement that Nvidia had it right all along, and there's no doubt that AMD is looking at GPGPU applications for its next generation of chips. But there's more to it than that.

Inside GCN, these SIMD processors are batched together in groups of four to create a 'compute unit' or CU. They are, functionally, still fourway vector units (perfect for RGBA instructions) but are also coupled to a scalar processor for one off calculations that can't be completed efficiently on the SIMD units.

Each CU has all the circuitry it needs to be virtually autonomous, too, with an L1 cache, Instruction Fetch Arbitration controller, Branch & MSG unit and so on.

There's more than the CU to GCN, though. The new architecture also supports x86 virtual memory spaces, meaning large datasets – like the megatextures id Software is employing for Rage – can be addressed when they're partially resident outside of the on-board memory.

And while it's not – as other observers have pointed out – an out-of-order processor, it is capable of using its transistors very efficiently by working on multiple threads simultaneously and switching between them if one is paused and waiting for a set of values to be returned. In other words, it's an enormously versatile chip.

After an early preview of the design, some have noted certain similarities with Intel's defunct Larrabee concepts and also with the Atom and ARM-8 chips, except much more geared up for parallel processing.

INVENTIVE NAMING: GCN will still work with RGBA data, but boasts greater flexibility

"Graphics is still our primary focus," said AMD's Eric Demers during his keynote presentation on GCN, "But we are making significant optimisations for compute... What is compute and what is graphics is blurred."

The big question now is whether or not AMD can make this ambitious chip work. Its first VLIW5 chips were a disappointment, running hotter and slower than expected. So were Nvidia's first generation Fermi-based GPUs.

Will GCN nail it in one? We've got a while to wait to find out. The first chips based on GCN are codenamed Northern Islands and will probably be officially branded as Radeon HD7xxx. They were originally planned for this year, but aren't expected now until 2012.

Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon University have unveiled a new project that uses Kinect and a projector to turn any surface into an interactive touch screen.

The project, dubbed OmniTouch, will track surfaces such as the palm of a hand, and lets users use taps and multitouch gestures to interact with them.

The project consists of a shoulder-mounted Kinect camera coupled with a Pico projector to recognise surfaces, and project interfaces on to them.

The surface can even be moved around, for example on a user's wrist, or expanded onto nearby flat surfaces.

Palm computer

In an example sequence, the user is alerted to a new email on the palm of their hand.

"Rather than viewing the message on the small confines of the hand, the user instead approaches a nearby wall, and selects a region for the email to appear," says Chris Harrison, one of OmniTouch's researchers.

The project is obviously in its nascent stages, but it could lead to some pretty nifty applications, like being able to play a real-time strategy on the surfaces of your kitchen, or trying out a tattoo design to see how long it'll be before you face the inevitable pangs of regret and self-loathing.

Walking down the street idly stroking your pocket will no longer be an arrestable offence, if Microsoft Research has its way.

Its latest project - dubbed PocketTouch - uses a special capacitive sensor to recognise touches to the phone's screen through fabric.

Coupled with Microsoft's Ink digital handwriting system, it means you could spell out texts letter by letter while the device is tucked in your trousers. It will also let you skip music tracks and answer calls without removing the phone.

What not to wear

The sensor is capable of detecting strokes through 25 common fabrics, although we're not sure if it will work through our padded leather jackets.

The strokes are interpreted through software running on the device which is able to distinguish different multi-stroke letters such as X and F.

With Apple's Siri and the possibility of 3D headtracking in Android's Ice Cream Sandwich, we seem to be moving away from phones you have to physically hold to interact with, and this seems like a step in that direction.

But there are a number of other problems Microsoft must overcome - presumably the phone must be naked and facing outwards for interaction, and anyone with a smartphone will know what dangerous places key and change-filled pockets can be.

Scientists at Singapore's Agency for Science Technology and Research have upped the storage densities of hard drives - with humble table salt.

Traditionally, hard disks use randomly distributed nanoscopic grains about seven to eight nanometres in size to hold data, with a cluster of a few tens of grains holding one bit.

But the scientists - led by Dr Joel Yang - were able to add table salt to the extremely high-resolution e-beam lithography process to make grains that could hold a single bit of data, while measuring 10 nanometres.

The salty solution

The result is a super-dense form of storage that could see huge hard drives manufactured using existing processes, with today's one terabyte drives holding six times as much data.

Referred to as the "salty developer solution", which sounds incredibly wrong, Dr Yang said: "What we have shown is that bits can be patterned more densely together by reducing the number of processing steps."

The scientists are currently working on increasing the storage density further.

Researchers at the University of Manchester are a step closer to creating chips based on the ultra-thin "miracle material" known as graphene.

The chip has been dubbed the "Big Mac" because if its layers of graphene intermingled with boron nitride.

The boron nitride "bun" of this Big Mac allows graphene to be observed in its natural state, without interference from outside elements - and this could have big implications for its future in electronics.

"It solves several nasty issues about graphene's stability and quality that were hanging for long time as dark clouds over the future road for graphene electronics," said Professor Andre Geim of the University of Manchester.

'Several months'

"It could be only a matter of several months before we have encapsulated graphene transistors with characteristics better than previously demonstrated," said Geim.

Discovered at the University of Manchester in 2004, the atom-thick two-dimensional material has earned its miraculous title thanks to its remarkable strength, conductivity and thinness.

It could find its way into consumer electronics in the form of super-fast processors, as well as bendy phones and computers, wallpaper-thin HDTV sets and lightning-fast internet connections.

The UK government has also announced the Graphene Global Research and Technology Hub, which will plough £50 million into researching the new material.

A patent filed by Microsoft proposes to use Kinect's body-detecting technology to guess the ages of people using the Xbox 360 peripheral.

The system uses a 3D depth camera to measure the proportions of the user's head, shoulders, arms and body to work out their age range, and then controls access to television shows, movies and games.

Unlike Microsoft's existing facial recognition system, the body-detection will work on any user, even those who don't have accounts set up on the console.

Proportional representation

The system can be overridden, a feature that will benefit adults with unusual body proportions who want to use the console without being restricted to kids' games.

It will also react dynamically, potentially switching off your copy of Basic Instinct if a child enters the room.

It might sound super clever on paper, but the body detection system could land Microsoft in a heap of trouble if it's found to discriminate against any subset of Xbox 360 users.

There's also no word on whether or not two children on each other's shoulders wearing a giant coat will be able to outfox it.

Semiconductor company GlobalFoundries has demonstrated its 20 nanometer process node with the production of a test chip.

The company - which works with the likes of AMD, Qualcomm and Broadcom - demonstrated full support for every step in a 20nm workflow, and has invited customers to evaluate the technology.

"We are committed to providing customers as much of a time-to-market advantage as possible with each new technology we introduce," said Mojy Chian, GlobalFoundries' senior vice president of design enablement.

Mapped out

GlobalFoundries has worked with four electronic design automation (EDA) companies to create the chip, with each one providing the necessary setup and and support for technology and mapping files.

"Our model of early collaboration with EDA partners accelerates the overall development cycle, and gives customers accessibility to the inner workings of the process so they can begin targeting their designs to the most advanced manufacturing capabilities with confidence," said Chian.

"This success is a major achievement toward market readiness of our newest process, and we will continue to enhance the design enablement support available for it."

If AMD picks up the process, it would put it a whopping 2nm ahead of Intel, which is currently readying its 22nm 3D chips.