PhoneSecure
On 12 January, 2005, by se99jmk
I'm not generally an insecure person. I'm perfectly happy with carrying in excess of ?1000 in electronics on my person... well, maybe I should get some protection after all, and I've found it, in the form of PhoneSecure.
Click here to read more...
Phraselator
On 12 January, 2005, by se99jmk
One step closer to the babelfish from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Click here to read more...
Epson fabricates 20-layer PCB using InkJet tec
On 05 November, 2004, by Dreadnought
Epson has fabricated a 200micron thick 20 layer using their own InkJet technology with a conductive ink containing silver micro-particles measuring from several nanometers to several tens of nanometers in diameter, and a newly developed insulator ink.
Click here to read more...
PetaPixel displays, 100TB storage and more...
On 05 November, 2004, by Dreadnought
Colossal Storage is developing 14M dpi or 200Tpixels per square inch of near-non-volatile display. It is based on a ferroelectric material which gives each pixel a state retension of up to 12 hours. Display resolutions of up to 4Petapixel will be possible with this technology.
Colossal Storage is also developing a holographic media which can store 10TB on a single 3?" disc. The theory behind it can go up to 1.5Exabytes (1.5x10^1
.
They are currently looking for companies who are interresting in licensing the products.
Click here to read more...
Tick Tech - Beyond Atomic Clocks
article written by : killdashnine released on : 02 January, 2004 | send killdashnine a private message! killdashnine's rating : ***** |
As the New Year rings in, I'm forced again to be painfully conscious of the role time plays on civilization. My friends in New Zealand, Australia, The Netherlands, and other parts of the world seem close on the internet, but the problem having friends around the world is the whole time issue. There's not much we can do to synchronize the world into one time zone, but the technology of time keeps pushing the envelope nonetheless ...
Tick, tick, tick ... the classic "Times Square Ball" starts to drop in New York City. How do they get the timing just right? Well likely they don't, at least not exactly. It's most likely that some atomic clock sits in a room with the guy who drops the thing each year, but is that Cesium clock good enough anymore? Atomic clocks are "old school" anymore ... passe'. What we need at ZZZ is something new and bold.
I had no ideas that this famous "ball" was so high tech
In my meandering thoughts about time, I happened to think, "Are there any clocks that are better than atomic clocks? The NIST-7 has potentially loses a second within six million years. Pretty accurate, I'd say. But for you ZZZers, it's just not good enough. Science can do better.
So I staggered out onto the internet whilst I should have been working and discovered that science has indeed improved the clock. I'd call it the "post atomic" clock, but folks at MIT call it the "optical clock". Why not? Nothing's (technically) faster than the speed of light. Quoting the article:
"Such a clock might lose a second in four billion years. That's keeping good time."
The Optical Clock
Indeed. I appreciate a few orders of magnitude improvement of precision. One reference stated that such a clock would be up to seven time more accurate than atomic clocks. To the military, I assume that this translates into things like a considerable improvement in guidance and global positioning systems. Which, in turn, means that they can drop a bomb on you from ten-thousand miles away with even more accuracy. Wonderful. More detail can be found here.
killdashnine
Quantum Networking
article written by : killdashnine released on : 02 January, 2004 | send killdashnine a private message! killdashnine's rating : ***** |
Last night, I watched Suzanne Vega in an interview with Leo Laporte on TechTV. She told a compelling story of her niece showing her a new collection of burned CDs with all of her favorite music. Suzanne, being an artist, of course told the little girl that she was pirating music and therefore taking profits away from the very artists that she loves so dearly. The little girl said, I don't understand why I should have to pay for something that I can get for free. Suzanne apparently gave up, thinking that at some point her niece will eventually grow up, get a job, and think differently about supporting the artists by paying for her music. Things are of course changing. With places in the U.S. like Wal-Mart now offering single song downloads at $0.88 each, it's getting cheaper to actually buy legit copies of music. Still, the record labels rage on with comments such as we can't afford to go cheaper and we still eye them suspiciously. With online distribution (meaning no CD to burn, no case to create, and no cover to distribute) where the heck is the cost? Eventually, I believe that physics research will enable quantum networking ... it's interesting to check out some of the latest thoughts on the subject:
The implementation of quantum communication necessitates the transfer of quantum information. Communication schemes such as quantum teleportation or entanglement swapping provide the indispensable basic technologies. The enhancement of communication capacity (compared to classical communication) can be achieved by quantum dense coding. In order to create from these fundamental, lab-tested technologies modules for future communication applications, various long distance communication schemes were developed. Quantum entanglement purification schemes which are necessary to compensate decoherence achieved a competitive quality of the information transfer. Quantum communication is starting to move from University laboratories to technology development. The interest of industry is evident.
spatial separation has no effect .... Hmm. Yes, people are thinking seriously about this.
Although there are obvious weaknesses and limitations to the concept of quantum communication, imagine the technology advancing sufficiently enough to enable you to buy a Quantum Network Interface Card which you interlink it with two or three cards of your closest friends, who interlink their cards with others. Not to long after that you have a truly distributed network with no backbone to the internet ... a quantum sneakernet so to speak. Pie in the sky for now, but research continues. Reluctantly, I've resorted to buying CDs again; I'm not thrilled about it. It'd be nice to (theoretically) trade files with my friends anywhere in the world so long as I knew their unique quantum key. 802.11g, eat your heart out!
killdashnine
Piezo Transformers
article written by : killdashnine released on : 02 January, 2004 | send killdashnine a private message! killdashnine's rating : ***** |
Thanks to Slashdot, I ran across something else that's of interest to the ZZZ-set. Imagine, you've got that optical clock, a quantum networking card, and a very l33t laptop. The laptop, however, is still way too heavy to lug around, despite the advances of fuel cell tech. So ...
"As notebook computers become thinner and lighter, the ever-present bulky power adapters used for line current approach the weight of the laptops, but smaller and lighter adapters may be on the way, thanks to piezoelectric technology, according to a Penn State electrical engineer. "
Sweet indeed. Digging further, Penn State was working with a couple of different companies, including Face Electronics, LC. This group came up with piezoelectric technology ultimately from their research on the "Smart Vibration Concept" originanally used to drive water and air from freshly poured concrete within seconds.
Shake it up!
This ultimately led to their discovery of the "Transoner" ...
"Perhaps the most unexpected development came while Face engineers were testing a circuit for a vibrating concrete tool. They noted strange behavior in the circuit and they investigated.
What they discovered led to the revolutionary Transoner? family of piezoelectric transformers (PTs). Transoners have already demonstrated six times the power capacity of other PTs. (80 watts vs. 12 watts)."
Transoners
No more mondo-sized power supply forcing me to involuntarily lift weights dragging my laptop to and from work each and every day. Let's look forward to another year of hopeful innovation and ZZZ worthy goodies in 2004. Happy New Year!
killdashnine
Issue Image!
