According to NewScientist, we could soon be generating energy on the move with energy producing clothing, thanks to a recent discovery of cheap, flexible solar cell microfibers.
The team, led by Harry Atwater, says the new solar cells use just 1% of the silicon needed by a conventional solar cell but with only 5% of the size.
The Caltech cells are also efficient, reflecting back only about half as much energy as a similar sized “traditional” cell.
The base that “grows” the micrometer-wide silicon wires is also reusable, further lessening the future costs of a pair of theoretical Gap Gadget khakis.
I am not sure if they really work in the real world. Many promising ideas came to nought when they are tested on practicality.
Insurance companies are getting desperate. They will do what they can to squeeze more moolah out of its customers.
Home insurance premiums could rise as much as 10% for the most trivial of reason… if you are using social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook because it can compromise your home security.
Darren Black, the head of home insurance at Confused.com, said: “I wouldn’t be surprised if, as social media grow in popularity and more location-based applications come to fore, insurance providers consider these in their pricing of an individual’s risk. We could see rises of up to 10pc for people who use these sites.
Cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) backlights are now striking back against their glamorous LED cousins.
At one time, CCFL was forced into extinction by the more efficient and brighter LED which has become the standard in TV sets. But Japanese company Sanken Electric claims its new CCFL technology is 60 per cent cheaper to produce.
Sanken reckons TVs perform just as well using two of its lamps as opposed to the six normally required. As production won’t start until this summer, it’s unlikely that we will see them in TV sets for at least another year—and by then, LEDs will reign supreme.
If you have used a camera before, you will know that getting a shot of a racing car, airplane or wild animal in its full elegance is tough. It is impossible to constantly hit the shutter release button at the right instant.
A tedious way is to videotape the entire episode and then grab a still afterwards, but chances are it will be grainy and blurry.
Now there is a new camera technology to solve this problem. Scientists at the University of Oxford have developed a photographic technology, called Temporal Pixel Multiplexing (TPM), to simultaneously capture high-speed video and high-resolution stills, via the same sensor on the same camera.
The scientists wanted a better way of imaging the rapid changes in light intensity of fluorescent molecules, inside heart cells. And the amazing thing was that they used off-the-shelf components of digital cameras and projectors to build this system.
This new camera technology has been patented by Isis Innovation, the University of Oxford’s technology transfer office. There are already strong interest from external parties to develop this technology for use in the security and consumer electronic sectors.
Robots are definitely getting more advanced. Not only can they pour a drink, but they also know how to mix a drink.
You know how entertaining drink-mixing can be in pubs, especially when done by a sexy babe/guy. So the guys at Evil Mad Scientist came up with this idea of a drink-mixing robot. They could probably charge more for this robotic technology.
But they have a small problem on the pumps. Fortunately, they came upon breast pumps which are designed to move fluid food without contamination. Breast pumps are affordable, cleanable and need little power.
Well, I can’t wait to drink a glass of Bloody Mary from a breast pump. I am not sure if the robot knows how to pump breast milk but if it does, I wouldn’t mind paying for a supplementary drink.
Verizon is on track to launch a new 4G LTE service using the 700 MHz band that it acquired in the recent FCC auction.
Getting the new 4G technology to work has been anything but easy. But Verizon crossed an important hurdle when they announced that they can support a standard that uses IMS technology to deliver voice services over LTE.
Its first target is the USB air cards for laptop customers. Subsequently the 4G service will be extended to cell phones and other mobile devices with embedded LTE eventually.
Still, more work needs to be done. Testing in Boston and Seattle should conclude in the next couple of months and commercial deployments will follow thereafter. Until then, Verizon will continue using its CDMA network to provide voice services.
The LTE network will be used for data. Eventually, when voice over LTE becomes a reality, Verizon will use that technology. Verizon will also have to integrate EV-DO into its LTE offering to ensure that customers can switch to the 3G EV-DO network when the 4G LTE network is not available. Even though Verizon is being aggressive in building its network, it won’t happen overnight.
1. New print technology with erasable paper. There’s a new technology that can eliminate paper waste in office. The PrePeat printer, a new Japanese product, allows you to print on a page, erase it, and print again.
2. Laser technology can fry mosquitoes in flight. In an effort to curb malaria in developing countries, Intellectual Ventures has created a laser weapon to hunt and destroy mosquitoes in flight using inexpensive consumer products like laser printers, Blu-ray disc writers, video game consoles, etc.
3. New Technology Promises to make Fuel from C02 Emissions & Algae. This system uses a revolutionary approach where CO2 that’s captured through a special cartridge is regenerated through algae in a home unit, allowing the user to produce bio-oil (up to 2500 litres per year tax-free).
5. New technology extends food shelf-life. Washington State University has developed a new technology that will allow food to look, taste, and be as nutritious as the original food but with a shelf-life of more than six months.
British criminals could soon be shot at by unmanned airborne police robots. These military aircraft drones will carry out surveillance on British protesters and antisocial motorists to fly-tippers.
And these robots mean business, given their arsenal of tasers, non-lethal projectiles and ultra-powerful disorienting strobe lighting apparatus.
The flying robot fleet will range from miniature tactical craft such as the miniature AirRobot being tested by one police force, to BAE System’s new 12m-wide armed HERTI drone as flown in Afghanistan.
It is amazing how robots have gone from learning how to walk, to doing housework, providing sex and now keeping law and order.
Currently, robots already serve an important role in bomb disposals, without putting human lives at risk. It is very likely police forces will be using robots the same way when dealing with dangerous suspects. The police can tackle them remotely and use a taser, if necessary.
But I do urge caution on the Home Office. Robots function on artificial intelligence and are not particulary adept at thinking and handling unknown situations. It is easy for criminals to mislead the armed drones and they end up tasering innocents or the police instead.
1. Google Buzz: What It Means For Twitter and Facebook. Google has not been successful in social networks, especially in US. Orkut has taken off in Brazil and India, but not in North America. Wave is too abstract for most users.
Now Google pins its hope on Buzz (a new Twitter and Facebook-like social stream) to wow the world. But does Buzz have the potential to leave estabilished social networks in the dust?
3. Do We Take Technology Advances Too Far? Are companies pushing themselves too hard to create the next big thing by sacrificing quality and pushing things out too quickly?
4. Kenya:How students use technology. For a third world country, the state of Information, Communication Technology (ICT) in Kenya is impressive. Impressive in terms of its rapid growth, its versatility in terms of the options it presents to the public and in the manner in which it is changing the lives of Kenyans.
5. Nanofiber-based Lighting Technology. RTI International has developed a revolutionary lighting technology that is more energy efficient than the common incandescent light bulb and does not contain mercury, making it environmentally safer than the compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb.
The America’s Cup always presents surprises where new sailing technology goes.
Many of the technologies are actually not new per se, but they’re being refined every year and pushed to the limit by using onboard computers and all that.
Just imagine hinged sails, stress sensors, wings, etc…
You can be forgiven for thinking that we are talking about some alien ships but the fact is competitive sailing is now all about cutting edge technology.
