MEMS

A plethora of changes land in Firefox for Android 15 beta, as its desktop counterpart moves its memory management improvements up a notch.

Firefox 15 beta for Windows (download), Mac (download), and Linux (download), brings the memory management improvements developed in Mozilla's MemShrink project one step closer to the stable version of the browser, this time focusing on long browser sessions and how add-ons affect Firefox. Nicholas Nethercote, a developer at Mozilla, wrote on his blog that Firefox 15 beta is likely to be "drastically" faster than Firefox 14, in some cases.

The changes in the beta … Read more

During most work days, I have dozens of tabs open, and Chrome can start to feel a bit sluggish under the weight of my hunt for helpful tips and tricks and, this time of year, Cincinnati Reds news among other distractions. With TabMemFree, Chrome unloads inactive tabs so they don't take up CPU and memory resources.

After installing TabMemFree, a small button gets added to Chrome's toolbar. Right-click on it and select Options. There are only two settings to tweak: Timeout and Tick. For the first, set the number of minutes you'd like TabMemFree to wait before … Read more

To get in the mood for this one, I've put on an old favorite, a deep bass track by Dead Prez. It turns out the song's title, and main refrain--"It's Bigger Than Hip Hop"--applies to the power of music in a very literal sense as well.

The acoustical vibrations that are particularly pervasive in the heavy bass lines of hip-hop penetrate our bodies and can then be captured and stored as electricity to power implanted medical devices. Researchers out of Purdue have built a device, which they are unveiling at the IEEE MEMS conference in Paris … Read more

Qualcomm has acquired display startup Pixtronix, which has developed technology applicable to smartphone and tablet screens.

Andover, Mass.-based Pixtronix's Digital Micro Shutter technology integrates MEMS (Microelectromechanical systems) and TFTs (thin-film transistors), providing "differentiation, while leveraging proven manufacturing equipment, processes and materials," according to the company's Web site.

Hallmarks of the technology listed by Pixtronix include low power, high-speed light modulation, Digital TFT backplane, backlight efficiency of 60 percent (a claimed 10-fold advantage over LCD), utilization of existing TFT-LCD equipment, processes and materials, and elimination of high cost, performance-limiting liquid crystals, color filters and polarizers. … Read more

Apple's purchases of micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) microphones during 2011 have put it ahead of Samsung as the largest buyer, according to a new report by IHS iSuppli.

The research firm says Apple purchased 349 million of the tiny microphones, which are built into its products, a 173 percent increase from the 128 million it bought in 2010. That beat out Samsung, which bought nearly 251 million units, representing a 90 percent increase from its own purchases in the preceding year.

IHS iSuppli attributes the massive growth, which gave Apple 27 percent of the MEMS microphone purchase market share in … Read more

Apple's component purchases during 2010 have put it on top of Nintendo and just behind leader Samsung as the largest buyers of Micro-Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology, according to a new report by IHS iSuppli.

These tiny components, which include--but are not limited to--accelerometers, gyroscopes and accelerometers, can be found inside a number of Apple's portable products like iPhones, iPads, and iPods.

"MEMS sensors bought by Apple last year included 3-axis gyroscopes from STMicroelectronics for the iPhone 4, iPod Touch, and--toward the end of 2010--the iPad 2 tablet," the report said. "Apple also bought accelerometers … Read more

Nitro MemOptimizer is a simple program that does a simple thing: flush the system memory at regularly scheduled times, freeing up resources and making your PC run more smoothly. It's great for older systems and those with limited amounts of RAM, which typically need more help than newer PCs. It's free, too.

Nitro MemOptimizer's diminutive interface has just two controls, one to set the time interval between the program's operations, with a Reset button; another labeled Optimize Now. The interface displayed our current memory usage; time to the next optimization in hours, minutes, and seconds; and … Read more

CleanMem is a free tool that clears up your system's memory on a scheduled basis, thus preventing your system from running out of memory, turning to the hard drive for help, and slowing your system down. It calls a Window API, using built-in processes to do the work for it, which means fewer conflicts. While users whose systems are a bit short on memory will get the best out of CleanMem, even those with massive amounts of RAM can use it to good advantage by keeping their hard drives free of junk. It can keep SSD boot drives free … Read more

MemPad is a free tool for taking plain text notes and saving them in one large, searchable file with a highly structured index that enables not only typical file management features but also the ability to create wide-ranging links between saved notes, Web pages, network locations, and local files and folders. You can even insert variables into links to do things like run programs and open files.

MemPad is compact and fully portable, so it requires no full installation to run, even from a portable device like a USB drive. It stores everything in its data file in the default … Read more