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OSA News Releases

Welcome to the OSA News Releases page. This page contains news from the Optical Society, including research highlights from OSA's journals, conference news, award announcements and more. Sort releases by category below to see all the news releases in a particular area.

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News Releases

OIDA Releases 2013 Data Center Workshop Report
13 maio 2013
The Optoelectronics Industry Development Association (OIDA) today announced the release of a new report titled “Future Needs of ‘Scale-Out’ Data Centers: An OIDA Workshop for Stakeholders,” summarizing the output of a workshop co-hosted by OIDA, The Center for Integrated Access Networks (CIAN), and the U.S. National Science Foundation.
OSA, SPIE and MRS announce 2013-2014 Congressional Science and Engineering Fellows
07 maio 2013
The Optical Society (OSA); SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics; and the Materials Research Society (MRS) are pleased to announce their 2013-2014 Congressional Science and Engineering Fellows.
Six OSA Members Elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences
03 maio 2013
Six members of the Optical Society (OSA) were elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in scientific research and engineering. They were among the 84 new members and 21 foreign associates elected to the NAS in 2013.
On-site Asbestos Detector Offers Promise of Better Workplace Safety
02 maio 2013
Asbestos was once called a miracle material because of its toughness and fire-resistant properties. It was used as insulation, incorporated into cement and even woven into firemen’s protective clothing. Over time, however, scientists pinned the cause of lung cancers such as mesothelioma on asbestos fiber inhalation. Asbestos was banned in the many industrialized countries in the 1980s, but the threat lingers on in the ceilings, walls and floors of old buildings and homes. Now a team of researchers from the University of Hertfordshire in the U.K. has developed and tested the first portable, real-time airborne asbestos detector.
New LED Streetlight Design Curbs Light Pollution
24 abril 2013
Recent innovations in light emitting diodes (LEDs) have improved the energy efficiency of streetlights, but, until now, their glow still wastefully radiated beyond the intended area. A team of researchers from Taiwan and Mexico has developed a new lighting system design that harnesses high-efficiency LEDs and ensures they shine only where they’re needed, sparing surrounding homes and the evening sky from unwanted illumination. The team reported their findings today in the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal Optics Express.
KMLabs Receives 2013 CLEO/Laser Focus World Innovation Award
23 abril 2013
The CLEO: 2013 co-sponsors (APS, IEEE Photonics Society, OSA) and Laser Focus World today announced KMLabs (Kapteyn-Murnane Laboratories) as the winner of this year’s CLEO/Laser Focus World Innovation Award.
First Quarter 2013 Industry News Summary
11 abril 2013
OSA’s Corporate Associate Members have been busy in the first part of 2013, breaking barriers in research, receiving prestigious grants and awards, and hitting institutional milestones. We look forward to sharing more breakthrough technologies and industry accolades this spring.
OSA Applauds Science Funding Levels Proposed in Obama Administration’s FY 2014 Budget
10 abril 2013
The Optical Society (OSA) released a statement in support of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 funding levels proposed today by U.S. President Barack Obama for science-related agencies. The proposed budget would fund federal research and development programs at levels consistent with, or slightly above, spending levels from FY 2012 and 2013 including: $7.6 billion for the National Science Foundation (NSF), $754 million for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), $5 billion for the Department of Energy Office of Science, and $2.9 billion for the Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
New camera system creates high-resolution 3-D images from up to a kilometer away
04 abril 2013
A standard camera takes flat, 2-D pictures. To get 3-D information, such as the distance to a far-away object, scientists can bounce a laser beam off the object and measure how long it takes the light to travel back to a detector. The technique, called time-of-flight (ToF), is already used in machine vision, navigation systems for autonomous vehicles, and other applications, but many current ToF systems have a relatively short range and struggle to image objects that do not reflect laser light well. A team of Scotland-based physicists has recently tackled these limitations and reported their findings today in the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal Optics Express.
OSA Applauds New White House Brain Mapping Initiative
03 abril 2013
The Optical Society (OSA) today released a statement in support of U.S. President Barack Obama’s proposed Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative. The program, announced yesterday as part of the president’s Fiscal Year 2014 Budget proposal, is aimed at helping researchers and scientists find new ways to treat, cure, and possibly even prevent brain disorders and diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, and autism.