Thinking tiny: computers that fit in a palm

Engineers at Edinburgh University have devised a tool to help combat problems which can arise from wiring microchips much smaller than the ones we are used to.

Those behind the project hope the new knowledge will eventually lead to medical advances, as well as hand-held PCs and mobile phones as powerful as laptops being available on the high street.

To create a powerful computer the size of a mobile phone, it is necessary to develop much smaller microchips using thinner wires. The Edinburgh researchers teamed up with colleagues from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany and University of Rome to look at how tiny wires behave when they are manipulated.

The team found that wires on a nanoscale, measured in millionths of a millimetre, have behaviour strikingly different from bigger wires.

Dr Michael Zaiser, of Edinburgh's school of engineering and electronics, explained that when researchers tried to bend the tiny wires into rings, they took on "very weird shapes". He said: "We looked at what would happen if we deformed a very small wire. When we made the wires smaller and smaller they started to behave in a funny way."

This behaviour presents a problem when it comes to trying to wire microchips much smaller than those around at the moment.

In response, Edinburgh's experts have come up with a tool, essentially a computer program, that allows engineers to predict when these problems might arise, and avoid them. This should help ensure the wiring remains effective, even in a supercomputer the size of a matchbox.

However it may create more nightmares for the Prince of Wales, who expressed fears about the march of nanotechnology four years ago, anxious that self-replicating nanorobots - atoms rearranged to create tiny machines - could annihilate life on earth in less than two days.

He was echoing a report that claimed if the first replicator could assemble a copy of itself in 1000 seconds, two replicators could build two more in the next 1000 seconds. After 10 hours, there would be more than 68 billion.

"In less than a day, they would weigh a tonne, in less than two days they would outweigh the Earth, in another four hours, they would exceed the mass of the sun and all planets combined," said the report's "grey goo" theory.

Although only an emerging science, nanotechnology has already created transistors made from a single molecule and a bio-molecular motor with nickel propellers powered by natural enzymes.

Dr Zaiser said the benefits of the research, published in the journal Science, were wide-ranging, and only a decade away.

He added: "This will help make small devices much more powerful. Holding a supercomputer in the palm of your hand will be possible, and we are going to make sure all the wires are in the right place."

And the award for most useless gadget ever goes to
The electric tin opener is the worst household gadget invented, a poll out today says. Its failure to always complete the task in hand and its high breakdown rate were the main reasons for its ranking. It topped the poll ahead of "messy" waffle iron and "irritating" novelty alarm clocks. Jamie Moryoussef, director of Comfy Quilts which carried out the online poll of 1,050 people, said: "Over the years there has been some terrible gadgets invented. It's not to say that all of these products are useless, many are fantastically inspired ideas, but simply aren't practical for use." The worst inventions named in the Comfy Quilts poll are:
1. Electric tin opener
2. Waffle Iron
3. Novelty alarm clock
4. Boiler system
5. Dust-buster

Charging mobile phones and other gadgets costs householders about £1.9bn a year. Many people use excess energy because they charge gadgets for too long, according to uSwitch.com. More than one-third (35%) of consumers charge mobiles, iPods, PDAs while they sleep - five hours longer than necessary.