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Thoubled electronics retailer RadioShack Corp's shares have lost nearly a third of their value since brokerage Wedbush Securities said on Tuesday the company could file for bankruptcy soon, making the stock worthless by the end of this year. The stock fell as much as 20 percent to 76 cents on Wednesday, adding to a 23 percent plunge on Tuesday. "Our price target reflects our expectation that creditors will force a reorganization and wipe out RadioShack's equity," Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter wrote in a note. Pachter, rated four stars out of five by StarMine for the accuracy of his calls on...

(Phys.org) —By using voltage-generated stress to switch between two magnetic states, researchers have designed a new non-volatile memory with extremely high energy efficiency—about two orders of magnitude higher than that of the previous most efficient non-volatile memories. The engineers, Ayan K. Biswas, Professor Supriyo Bandyopadhyay, and Professor Jayasimha Atulasimha at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, have published their paper on the proposed non-volatile memory in a recent issue of Applied Physics Letters. "We are excited that we have been able to come up with the idea of a strain-switched memory element capable of 180° switching using a simple geometric...

Like many [ultra-secure phones], the CryptoPhone 500...features high-powered encryption. Les Goldsmith, the CEO of ESD America, says the phone also runs a customized or "hardened" version of Android that removes 468 vulnerabilities that his engineering team team found in the stock installation of the OS. His mobile security team also found that the [standard] Samsung Galaxy SIII leaks data to parts unknown 80-90 times every hour. [snip] To show what the CryptoPhone can do that less expensive competitors cannot, he points me to a map that he and his customers have created, indicating 17 different phony cell towers known as...

When will 3D Printers be able to build electronic devices from the ground up? ThatÂ’s a question many within the 3D printing space have been pondering for some time. Some experts feel as though it is only a decade away, while others think it could be a lot longer. Without a doubt, when this happens, it will change the world in ways that we could never imagine. Close your eyes and think about all the electronic devices that you use on a daily basis. There are smartphones, TVs, PCs, home lighting, automobile key fobs, and the list goes on. Now...

Electromagnetic pulses occur at various frequencies depending on how they’re caused, and you need various strategies to protect your electronics.

Consumers can now receive bitcoin when they trade in their old electronics through a new startup called Mintspare. Galfry Puechavy, Mintspare’s CEO, told CoinDesk that the company’s goal is to be a simple way to get started with bitcoin:

The growth rate of high-tech investments has slowed dramatically over the past 10 years, especially since the Great Recession. Everyone has a pet theory explaining why the economic recovery has been so weak, but here’s one overlooked factor: The productivity revolution driven by computers, software and the Internet is fading, and nothing has yet emerged to take its place as an engine of growth. For all of the incessant buzz in the markets about the latest tech start-up, few businesses are investing much in high-tech equipment or software. Investments in information processing equipment and software are growing at the slowest...

There will soon be about 1,100 fewer places to buy batteries. RadioShack said Tuesday that it plans to close up to 1,100 stores, or about a fifth of its U.S. locations. The news came as the retailer reported a wider quarterly loss after a disappointing holiday season. Its stock tumbled 16 percent in afternoon trading. CEO Joseph Magnacca said the closings would leave the company with more than 4,000 U.S. stores. That's still far more than Best Buy, which has roughly 1,400 U.S. locations, and makes RadioShack stores nearly as common as Wal-Mart. RadioShack didn't immediately identify which stores will...

Struggling retailer RadioShack Corp reported a wider quarterly loss on Tuesday and said it will close up to 1,100 U.S. stores after a huge drop in sales over the holidays, sending the stock down more than 15 percent. Sales at the Fort Worth, Texas-based chain have been in free fall amid executive departures, tough competition and an image problem. Despite its ubiquitous presence in the United States, analysts say it has not done enough to transform itself into a destination for mobile phone shoppers or become hip enough to woo younger shoppers. Its net loss widened to $191.4 million, or...

(Reuters) - Retailer RadioShack Corp reported a wider quarterly loss on Tuesday and said it will close up to 1,100 U.S. stores after a huge drop in sales over the holidays, sending its stock down nearly 24 percent. The planned closures would leave the Fort Worth, Texas-based chain with over 4,000 stores, including over 900 dealer franchise locations, its chief executive officer said. Sales totaled $935.4 million in the quarter covering the all-important holiday season, down 20.1 percent from $1.17 billion in the year-ago period. Analysts, on average, looked for sales of $1.12 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Sales...

Nanoparticle inks can turn your existing 2D printer into a circuit board production line – and the possibilities for 3D printers are mind-boggling. Printing foldable mobile phones on a sheet of paper from a normal 2D printer is just a decade away, according to Jürgen Steimle, head of the Embodied Interaction Group at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken, Germany. Steimle and his colleagues took a step towards this in 2013, when they used a standard printer loaded with nanoparticle ink to print a paper circuit that works even after the sheet is torn. In the past couple...

If it seems like it was exactly a year ago that turmoiling retailer Radioshack shut down 500 stores due to lack of consumer interest in its wares (and or consumer disposable cash), it is because it was. So how does Radioshack demonstrate its morbid sense of humor on the one year anniversary of said announcement? Well, by closing another 500, or about 12% of the retailer's total 4500 outlets currently in existence. The WSJ reports that the company which once was the butt of all LBO-rumor jokes (and still is, only this time in the context of an M&A-rumor...

That? Oh, that’s just a mosquito, now tell me more about your top secret project. Do you ever feel frustrated that you can’t keep tabs on your significant other at all times? Nervous that everyone is hanging out without you? Curious about what the heck your neighbors are doing over there? Thankfully, there’s a Pocket Drone currently being funded on Kickstarter that will solve these problems and more. It only takes 20 seconds to unpack and launch. Then, you can load it up with any video camera you own, as long as the payload is less than half a pound....

These days, we read about the latest reports from Edward Snowden but they’re old hat now. We all know the American government is spying on everyone. But as more leaks come out, it’s increasingly evident that the NSA’s nefarious behavior will leave a deep scar on Silicon Valley. Snowden whistleblowing and escaping from the NSA could be one of the most important boons for Asian tech companies and startups in the next decade. If, as Spiegel recently reported, the NSA has a backdoor into major US companies like Dell, Cisco, IBM, Western Digital, Seagate, and more, then Silicon Valley is...

Imagine a world where a handheld gadget scans your body and diagnoses illnesses in seconds - reducing hospital visits and potentially saving your life. It may sound like the work of science fiction but engineers in California have taken their lead from the Star Trek franchise and developed a real-life version of the show’s medical tricorder. The Scanadu Scout can read a person’s temperature, heart rate, blood oxygen levels, and more, simply being held against their forehead. It was developed by Scanadu’s CEO Walter De Brouwer, 56, at Nasa’s Ames Research Centre in California. A prototype of the Scout was...

Over the last few years, we’ve seen the price of 3D printers drop dramatically as key patents expire or the cost of components decrease. They still cost quite a bit of money, however, as much of the manufacturing and labor takes place in the U.S. Now Asian rivals, complete with cheaper labor costs, are trying to muscle their way into the market. New Kinpo Group, an electronics manufacturer out of Taiwan, has announced its first 3D printer – the da Vinci. It’s very similar to the Makerbot Replicator 2 and even has a similar build volume of 20x20x20 cm. Here...

A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS), led by Professor Loh Kian Ping, who heads the Department of Chemistry at the NUS Faculty of Science, has successfully developed an innovative one-step method to grow and transfer high-quality graphene on silicon and other stiff substrates, opening up opportunities for graphene to be used in high-value applications that are currently not technologically feasible. This breakthrough, inspired by how beetles and tree frogs keep their feet attached to submerged leaves, is the first published technique that accomplishes both the growth and transfer steps of graphene on a silicon wafer....

High-temperature superconductors exhibit a frustratingly varied catalog of odd behavior, such as electrons that arrange themselves into stripes or refuse to arrange themselves symmetrically around atoms. Now two physicists propose that such behaviors – and superconductivity itself – can all be traced to a single starting point, and they explain why there are so many variations. This theory might be a step toward new, higher-temperature superconductors that would revolutionize electrical engineering with more efficient motors and generators and lossless power transmission. -snip- Most subatomic particles have a tiny magnetic field – a property physicists call "spin" – and electrical resistance...

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My wife and I were in a restaurant having lunch the other day with one of our sons, and couldn’t help but notice a nearby family: a mom, dad, two boys, and a daughter. The daughter was middle school age, and clearly in contemporary middle school mode: ear buds securely in place, staring off into space. Every aspect of her demeanor made it clear: I don’t want to be here, and I don’t want to be with my family. So I am going to stay in my world of music and media. By plugging in, I’m tuning out. And her...