Can you program a 3D printer to build an entire building? Architect Janjaap Ruijssenaars wants to try.

The Dutch architect has laid out plans for Landscape House – a structure that looks like a Mobius strip or "one surface folded over into an endless band", as he describes it.

To build it, he plans to use a 3D printer called D-Shape that will lay down thin layers of sand that combine with a bonding agent to create a material that is reportedly akin to marble. 

via Architect plans world’s first 3D-printed building.

3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is quickly becoming mainstream and we’re are rubbing our hands with glee at the prospect. But what’s so exciting about a technology, which some say has the potential to be as important as the Internet?

1. Well, for a start, it can print cars! The makers of the latest Bond movie, Skyfall, got German 3D printing company, Voxeljet, to knock up three 1:3 scale models of 007′s precious Aston Martin DB5 for (gulp) destruction during filming. Never mind, though—one survived, and was later sold by Christie’s for almost £100,000.

 2. Smaller but equally as suave, the world’s very first Nokia Lumia 820 shell was printed by 3D printing wizards, Makerbot just last week. The specs had been available for less than a day when the guys did what they do best, 3D magic.

via 10 fascinating facts about 3D printing – Nokia Conversations : the official Nokia blog.

As technology advances and we incorporate digital activities into our daily routine more frequently, we require an ever-increasing amount of storage space to host the data we collect. Storage is evolving at a reasonable pace, but conventional technologies have their limits and researchers are constantly looking for more powerful alternatives. One such storage medium involves holding enormous amounts of data on DNA. Now researchers have pioneered a new technique to store data on, and access data from, DNA molecules.

New technique stores terabytes of data on DNA with 100% accuracy – StumbleUpon.

Computerised glasses are, at this moment, the wearable computing technology that is most likely to herald the beginning of the end of the Smartphone era.  Although they are each taking slightly different approaches to these technologies, Apple, Google and Microsoft are all striving to define the market for wearable computers of which computerised glasses are an integral part.  The US military, especially the Special Forces units, already use wearable computers for communications and satellite navigation tasks. That technology hasnt yet reached consumer or business users, but it soon will.  Smart glasses are due to be launched selectively in the New Year.

via Augmented Reality: Do Smart Glasses Herald the End of the Smart Phone Era? :: The Market Oracle :: Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting Free Website.

Details of an immersive video games display system that projects images of the title’s environment around a player’s room have been revealed in a US patent belonging to Microsoft.

The Xbox maker describes extending graphics beyond the edges of a TV to "make the experience more realistic".

A spokesman said he could not comment about when a product might be released.

Sony appears to be pursuing a different strategy. A video from the firm hints at a new augmented-reality headset.

Both firms are expected to announce details of their next-generation consoles in 2013.

Their rival, Nintendo, will provide more detail about the release of its Wii U games machine at a New York event on Thursday.

Scan and project

Microsoft’s patent suggests that current games console systems are constrained by their reliance on a single screen.

"Such displays are typically the only source of visual content, so that the media experience is bounded by the bezel of the display," it said.

"Even when focused on the display, the user may perceive architectural and decorative feature of the room the display is in… such features are typically out of context with respect to the displayed image, muting the entertainment potential."

via BBC News – Microsoft Xbox 3D-projected games outlined in patent.

At the University of Pittsburgh, the neurobiology department worked with 52-year-old Jan Scheuermann over the course of 13 weeks to create a robotic arm controlled only by the power of Scheuermann’s mind.

The team implanted her with two 96-channel intracortical microelectrodes. Placed in the motor cortex, which controls all limb movement, the integration process was faster than anyone expected. On the second day, Jan could use her new arm with a 3-D workspace. By the end of the 13 weeks, she was capable of performing complex tasks with seven-dimensional movement, just like a biological arm.

To date, there have been no negative side effects.

via 27 Science Fictions That Became Science Facts In 2012.

Princeton researchers have found a simple and economic way to nearly triple the efficiency of organic solar cells, the cheap and flexible plastic devices that many scientists believe could be the future of solar power.

via Nanostructures triple organic solar cells efficiency.

Phys.org—IBM announced today a major advance in the ability to use light instead of electrical signals to transmit information for future computing. The breakthrough technology – called "silicon nanophotonics" – allows the integration of different optical components side-by-side with electrical circuits on a single silicon chip using, for the first time, sub-100nm semiconductor technology.

via Silicon nanophotonics: Using light signals to transmit data.

(Phys.org)—Is Samsung getting ready to release a line of flexible displays made of glass-replacing plastic? The right words in response may be "well, finally," or "well, maybe." The Wall Street Journal has talked to a source who said that Samsung, in the words of the WSJ subheading, "Plans to Mass Produce Flexible Mobile-Device Screens" in the first half of next year. The source was not named and was only described as "a person familiar with the situation." Samsung has tantalized techies and consumers with its futuristic videos showing a beautiful-life day using wearable wrist computers, auto dashboard display screens, location-finding smartphones, and wall mounted computer screens of plastic rather than glass.

via Samsung rowing harder and faster for flexible screen production.

Imagine a string that can assemble itself into just about anything wherever and whenever you need it — a wrench to adjust your child’s bike seat or a hammer to pound a nail into the wall, for example. That future may be distant, but researchers have built a robot that already hints at the possibility.

“The robot is just a continuous strip, it is a one-dimensional thing,” Neil Gershenfeld, director of the Center for Bits and Atoms at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told NBC News, speaking of the concept behind the device.

“It is a continuous strip that … gets folded into the shapes you want it to make. This is a kind of robot that you can produce in a continuous process. You can produce it by the mile; it is not assembling a bunch of separate parts.”

via ‘Mechanical protein’ robot will fold itself into any shape – FutureTech on NBCNews.com.

A team led by Princeton‘s Associate Professor of Physics Jason Petta has developed a new method that could eventually allow engineers to build a working quantum computer consisting of millions of quantum bits (qubits).

Quantum computers take advantage of the strange behaviors of subatomic particles like electrons. By harnessing electrons as they spin, scientists could use the particles to form the basis for a new type of computing.

The problem, though, is that these incredibly tiny electrons are hard to control. So far, scientists have only been able to harness extremely small numbers of them.

“The whole game at this point in quantum computing is trying to build a larger system,” said Andrew Houck, an associate professor of electrical engineering at Princeton who is part of the research team.

via How to build a million-qubit quantum computer | KurzweilAI.

A disembodied human face hangs atop a robot chassis next to a Redmond, Oregon hospital bed (not pictured). The doctor on the screen is 20 miles distant, in Bend. But from there he is able to assess the patient and determine whether she should be moved to a better equipped hospital in Bend or further afield.

The doctor’s name is Dr. Kevin Sherer, the volunteer patient Anita Boucher, and together they recently performed a test run using an InTouch Health RP-7i telepresence robot nicknamed Roda (robotic office diagnostic assistant).

Dr. Sherer can pilot Roda down the hall with a joystick, turn its camera to check vitals, and interact with the patient by way of the screen atop Roda’s chassis. In addition to telepresence capabilities—and with the help of a nurse placing a special stethoscope—he can remotely check the patient’s heart beat over headphones.

via Telepresence Robots Invade Hospitals – “Doctors Can Be Anywhere, Anytime” | Singularity Hub.

Watson, the "Jeopardy!"-playing computer system, is getting a job.

WellPoint Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. are set to announce a deal on Monday for the health insurer to use the Watson technology, the first time the high-profile project will result in a commercial application.

WellPoint said it plans to use Watson’s data-crunching to help suggest treatment options and diagnoses to doctors. It is part of a far broader push in the health industry to incorporate computerized guidance into care, as doctors and hospitals adopt electronic medical records and other digital tools that can record, track and check their work.

via WellPoint Hires IBM’s ‘Jeopardy!’-Playing Computer System, Watson – WSJ.com.