Indian schools to benefit from new computer chips
March 10, 2009An educational initiative between Rice University computer scientists and Indian educators will enable schools in rural India to be some of the first to benefit from Rice's revolutionary, low-energy computer chips.
Rice's Krishna Palem, the inventor of the energy-stingy chips, said his team is creating a solar-powered electronic slate, or I-slate, an electronic version of the blackboard slates used by many Indian schoolchildren. The I-slate's developers are working with educational technologists from the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) in Hyderabad, India, to develop a visually based mathematics curriculum that allows children to learn by doing, regardless of their grade level or whether they have a full-time teacher.
Palem unveiled plans for the I-slate today in New York at an event marking the 125th anniversary of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, IEEE, the world's leading professional association for the advancement of technology.
Rice's breakthrough low-energy computer chip technology trades off precision in calculations for significant reductions in energy use. The upshot could be cell phones that have to be recharged every few weeks rather than every few days. A key to using the technology is finding applications -- like streaming video for cell phones or low-powered video displays in I-slates -- where error can be tolerated. The technology piggybacks onto the "complementary metal-oxide semiconductor" technology, or CMOS (pronounced SEE-moss), that chipmakers already use and is known as "probabilistic" CMOS, or PCMOS (pronounced PEE-see-moss).
"We expect to begin testing prototypes of the curriculum and the I-slates next spring," said Palem, Rice's Ken and Audrey Kennedy Professor of Computing. "In all likelihood, this — rather than cell phones or other consumer-electronic devices — will be the first real-world application of PCMOS."
The Rice-IIIT team plans to work with the Indian nonprofit Villages in Development and Learning Foundation (VIDAL) to test prototype I-slates in rural classrooms in southern India's Mahboobnagar District. Researchers at IIIT's Center for Information Technology in Education are designing an interactive curriculum that can be used by children of any culture, regardless of their native tongue.
Inspired by microfinance, the I-slate's innovators intend to use social entrepreneurism to create a self-sustaining economic model for the I-slate that both creates jobs in impoverished areas and ensures the I-slate's continued success regardless of ongoing philanthropic support.
The first prototype PCMOS chips were found to use 30 times less electricity while running seven times faster than today's best technology. Palem's PCMOS team includes researchers at Rice and at the Institute for Sustainable Nanoelectronics at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, where the first PCMOS prototypes were manufactured last year.
Although PCMOS runs on standard silicon, it breaks with computing's past by abandoning the set of mathematical rules -- called Boolean logic -- that have thus far been used in all digital computers. PCMOS instead uses probabilistic logic, a new form of logic developed by Palem and his doctoral student, Lakshmi Chakrapani.
Palem's prior PCMOS research has received funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Intel Corp.
-
US struggles to pinpoint cyber attacks: Top official
Mar 10, 2009 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Hewlett Packard to create 500 jobs in Ireland
Mar 10, 2009 |
not rated yet |
0
-
College best option for young people during times of high unemployment
Mar 10, 2009 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Nanotubes find niche in electric switches
Mar 10, 2009 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Rice, Nanyang Tech collaborate on sustainable nanoelectronics
Sep 04, 2007 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Engineers build first sub-10-nm carbon nanotube transistor
Feb 01, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (32) |
30
-
Something old, something new: Evolution and the structural divergence of duplicate genes
Jan 31, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (7) |
1
-
The hidden nanoworld of ice crystals: Revealing the dynamic behavior of quasi-liquid layers
Jan 30, 2012 |
5 / 5 (4) |
1
-
Stock market network reveals investor clustering
Jan 27, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (23) |
8
-
Of microchemistry and molecules: Electronic microfluidic device synthesizes biocompatible probes
Jan 26, 2012 |
5 / 5 (2) |
0
-
Need help reading 3-D
20 hours ago
-
A way to send and receive wireless data
Feb 11, 2012
-
Calling function with no input argument
Feb 10, 2012
-
Force free body diagram problem on gym equipment
Feb 10, 2012
-
Empirical data regarding shower heads and water
Feb 10, 2012
-
feed hold button on CNC lathe
Feb 09, 2012
- More from Physics Forums - General Engineering
More news stories
Japan scientist makes 'Avatar' robot
A Japanese-developed robot that mimics the movements of its human controller is bringing the Hollywood blockbuster "Avatar" one step closer to reality.
Feb 10, 2012 |
5 / 5 (8) |
13
Intel packs performance and reliability into its latest SSD 520 series
Intel Corporation announced today its fastest, most robust client/consumer solid-state drive (SSD) to date, the Intel Solid-State Drive 520 Series (Intel SSD 520), a 6 gigabit-per-second (gbps) SATA III SSD ...
Feb 07, 2012 |
5 / 5 (1) |
4
Google rumored to have built Heads-Up-Display glasses prototype
(PhysOrg.com) -- 9to5Google is reporting that they have received a tip from someone they believe to be a reliable source saying that Google is working on a Heads-Up-Display (HUD) pair of eye-glasses. The per ...
New Kindle Touch is an impressive e-reader
When it comes to reading digital books, tablets are all the rage. But there's a lot to like about simple e-readers, which over the past year have become both a lot cheaper and a lot less clunky.
Electronics / Consumer & Gadgets
Feb 09, 2012 |
5 / 5 (4) |
1
Apple to debut 'iPad 3' in March: report
Apple will unveil a new version of its market-ruling iPad table computer in March, according to a report in Dow Jones-owned technology blog All Things D.
Electronics / Consumer & Gadgets
Feb 09, 2012 |
1.9 / 5 (21) |
0
Scientists discover molecular secrets of 2,000-year-old Chinese herbal remedy
For roughly two thousand years, Chinese herbalists have treated Malaria using a root extract, commonly known as Chang Shan, from a type of hydrangea that grows in Tibet and Nepal. More recent studies suggest that halofuginone, ...
New method to examine batteries -- MRI from the inside
There is an ever-increasing need for advanced batteries for portable electronics, such as phones, cameras, and music players, but also to power electric vehicles and to facilitate the distribution and storage of energy derived ...
Lab study raises questions over nano-particle impact
Tests involving chickens have raised questions about the impact on health from engineered nano-particles, the ultra-fine grains commonly used in drugs and processed foods, scientists said on Sunday.
A mitosis mystery solved: How chromosomes align perfectly in a dividing cell
Although the process of mitotic cell division has been studied intensely for more than 50 years, Whitehead Institute researchers have only now solved the mystery of how cells correctly align their chromosomes during symmetric ...
Starve a virus, feed a cure? Findings show how some cells protect themselves against HIV
A protein that protects some of our immune cells from the most common and virulent form of HIV works by starving the virus of the molecular building blocks that it needs to replicate, according to research published online ...
Researchers find extensive RNA editing in human transcriptome
In a new study published online in Nature Biotechnology, researchers from BGI, the world's largest genomics organization, reported the evidence of extensive RNA editing in a human cell line by analysis of RNA-seq data, demons ...