A group of UCLA researchers say they
have created a faster type of transistor
that could one day replace fl ash memo-
ry, using a destructive plant virus.
The researchers used parts of the
tobacco mosaic virus coated with
platinum nanoparticles. When a small
electrical charge is applied, the result
is a transistor that can open and close
about 10 times faster than today’s fast-
est fl ash RAM.
The scientists expect to build a
prototype within four years using sev-
eral million virus parts, but they do
not address how dangerous the RAM
would be.
The tobacco mosaic virus can
infect more than 150 types of plants,
but tobacco is especially susceptible.
It’s the most persistent plant virusknown and can survive up to 50 years
in dried plant parts. It can lie dormant
in cigars and cigarettes, which when
handled or smoked can pass the virus
along to household plants.
To date, no hard drives have
been infected.Researchers Use Plant Virus
to Create Fast Transistors
Is sickeningly fast RAM on the horizon?
10 MAXIMUMPC DECEMBER 2006
quickstart THE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALL
The tobacco
mosaic virus
is one of the
world’s dead-
liest plant
viruses.Message in a Beam of Light
N
ot content to sit back and allow our generation to vanish into obscu-
rity, Yahoo is building a time capsule. But unlike the shoe boxes full
of knickknacks we buried in our backyards as kids, this one will be entirely
digital. The company collected submissions online at http://timecapsule.
yahoo.com until November 8, and now plans to beam the digital capsule
into space from the top of the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacán, Mexico.Tom McDonald has been covering games for countless maga-
zines and newspapers for 11 years. He lives in the New Jersey
Pine Barrens.I
s the Entertainment Software Rating Board
(ESRB) a fig-leaf for the insidious attempts of a
corrupt game industry to poison the minds of our
children, with powerful game companies manipu-
lating the system to hide extreme game con-
tent? Or does it, as some say, provide too much
information with its hopelessly intricate tangle of
ratings and “descriptors,” thus reducing parents
to helpless sobs of confusion as they shout “Oh,
ESRB, please just tell me what is in this game!”?
By this logic, more is less. Detailed descriptors
such as “Blood and Gore / Use of Drugs / Nudity”
are somehow too arcane to understand. Telling
parents that a game contains “Perverted acts
committed with a Teletubby” would still leave
them wondering what’s in the box.
This is nonsense. Games are now labeled with
the best media rating system ever developed,
remarkable for its depth and clarity. It continues to
be tweaked and refined by adding levels, tighten-
ing the procedures, and clarifying the descriptors.
Almost 40 years after the development of the MPAA
system, movie ratings can still be arbitrary and
contentious. That the nascent computer and video
game industry evolved such an outstanding system
in such a short time is a credit to our industry.
Unfortunately, The Dark Gods of Washington
don’t take credit, only cash. After politicians
demanded action from the game industry, they got
it with a comprehensive ratings system that clearly
labels the content of every game. This didn’t have
the desired effect of making perennially irresponsi-
ble tumors like Rockstar Games vanish in a puff of
smoke and sulfur, so the politicians raised the bar.
Now we’re facing The Truth in Video Game Rating
Act (S.3935), which aims to federally mandate that
the rating board plays through each game in its
entirety, which is plainly impossible.
That some so-called Conservatives continue to
lead this intrusion into the private sphere is a source
of great shame to those of us who take the ideals of
limited government seriously. By continually raising
the bar, the anti-gamers have proven that they don’t
want the game industry to act responsibly to keep
mature content out of the hands of children. They
simply want to shut us down.Defending
the ESRBGAME THEORY
THOMAS
MCDONALD