Tech Scrape

Mobile carriers might get marketing insights from studying whom you call and what device you use. Each time you make a cell-phone call, your network provider knows whom you’re calling, for how long, and what device you’re using. Now researchers at one of the world’s largest wireless carriers are exploring whether such information can help companies target their marketing pitches.

A simple method applies nanoscale texturing over large areas. Nanoscale wires, pores, bumps, and other textures can dramatically improve the performance of solar cells, displays, and even self-cleaning coatings. Now researchers at Stanford University have developed a simpler, cheaper way to add these features to large surfaces.

A new nanoscale method results in graphene with clean edges–a key to making it practical for high-speed electronics. For years, researchers have touted graphene as the magic material for the next generation of high-speed electronics, but so far it hasn’t proved practical. Now a new way of making nanoscale strips of carbon–the building block of graphene–could kick-start a shift toward superfast graphene components. Using graphene to make electronic circuitry could lead to faster, thinner, more powerful devices.

Using the contents of images or videos to target Web ads could improve click-through. Web ads help subsidize free content and services, and have made Google into the behemoth it is today. But the software used to tailor them to a user’s interests can only do this by analyzing the words on a webpage.

Drug companies are harnessing new knowledge of cancer genetics. The plummeting cost of DNA sequencing has enabled scientists to explore the genetic complexities of cancer with an ever-finer comb , uncovering a growing number of genetic mutations that drive cancer. Now this genetic knowledge is being used to direct drug development by testing specific compounds on 1,000 cancer cell lines that incorporate many of these mutations. The findings will help pharmaceutical companies design clinical trials so that they include only those patients most likely to respond to a drug. Ultimately, physicians hope to be able to screen a patient’s tumor and choose the most effective drug based on its specific genetic profile.

Engineered stem cells carry markers of their former identities–a trait that could hinder research into diseases. While reprogrammed stem cells –those derived from fully differentiated adult cells–can be transformed into any type of tissue, scientists have now discovered that they preserve a memory of where they came from. That memory appears to influence the cells’ development; reprogrammed stem cells are more easily converted back to their original identity, according to a study released online today in Nature . The findings could affect research into the two main uses for reprogrammed stem cells; growing efforts to study disease in cells derived from patients with those diseases, and the development of replacement cell therapies.

Search engines get smarter at predicting when we’ll respond to a pitch. Bing users might not notice, but the Microsoft search engine tends to show fewer advertisements alongside search results than its rivals do. The reason might be that advertisers are drawn more to Google, but Microsoft says the difference also comes from an artificial-intelligence technique that aims to deliver only the most relevant ads.

Financial services are reaching the world’s poorest by mobile phone. Thanks to a mobile banking system launched last month in Senegal, people with no previous access to bank accounts were able to watch the World Cup via satellite services that they paid for electronically with a few taps on a mobile phone. The service is a clear sign that mobile banking is taking off in Africa, giving some of the world’s poorest people a way to access financial services.

The new design could lead to cheaper solar cells. A material with a novel nanostructure developed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley could lead to lower-cost solar cells and light detectors. It absorbs light just as well as commercial thin-film solar cells but uses much less semiconductor material.

A new method could help macular degeneration patients avoid regular injections into the eye. The pharmaceutical giant Genzyme has started a clinical trial to see whether a drug to treat macular generation could be delivered via long-lasting gene therapy rather than monthly injections.