Touch-screen technology looks set to flood shopping malls in 2009. At the Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas, of Taiwan introduced hi-fi speakers with an illuminated touch panel that lets users change volume, bass and treble 鈥渨ith a glide of the finger鈥�. It also introduced a digital photo frame that allows the picture or slide show to be changed using a similar touch screen.
Nanotechnologists have built a mechanical switch that changes with temperature. A team at Osaka University in Japan constructed a carbon nanotube that moves back and forth inside a larger closed nanotube (Nano Letters, ). Electrostatic forces bind the internal nanotube to one end of its container, but heat breaks this bond, allowing the tube to slide and bind to the other end.
