ZZZ Online | Other Issues

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.

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Phraselator

On 12 January, 2005, by se99jmk

One step closer to the babelfish from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

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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...

NANOTECH!

It interests me to see things like the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) in the US setting some new goals for nano-industry. Per the site ....

The goals of the NNI are to:
1. conduct R&D to realize the full potential of this revolutionary technology;
2. develop the skilled workforce and supporting infrastructure needed to advance R&D;
3. better understand the social, ethical, health, and environmental implications of the technology; and,
4. facilitate transfer of the new technologies into commercial products.

All that aside ... where are my stinkin' nanobots?!? - Nano.gov

Well, nanotechnology is moving along, however slowly. Science Fiction hasn't done good things to our minds, filling it with boundless enthusiasm and overexuberant hopes for life-altering "goodies" to come out of tomorrow's (nano)factories. Industry is more interested in creating nano-electro-mechanical sensors, harder than kevlar nanotube fibers, data storage devices, nano-particulate cleaning supplies (of sorts), and last but not least, new tools for detecting explosives!

Bigger Hard Drives?

More important to me in an immediate manner are more advances in computing technologies. We all know that that 300 Gigabyte Hard Drive just isn't going to cut it for long ... my dream is to have all my DVDs backed up to a central movie server in my home so I can play them on demand from anywhere in the house. Dream on? Well, our lovely friend from Chemistry, the porphyrin ring (think oxygen transport in blood!) are seeming useful.

How does porphyrin figure into computer data storage? Well, the cool thing about this is that structures can be made out of it that resist heat in computer systems, meaning more stability and longer lifetimes of media ...

ZettaCore molecular memory is based on the properties of specially-designed molecules. We use these molecules to store information by adding or removing electrons and then detecting the charge state of the molecule. The molecules, called multi-porphyrin nanostructures, can be oxidized and reduced (electrons removed or replaced) in a way that is stable, reproducible, and reversible. In this way, molecules can be used as reliable memory locations for electronic devices. In many ways, each molecule acts like an individual capacitor device, similar to a conventional capacitor, but storing only a few electrons of charge that are accessible only at specific, quantized voltage levels. The key difference between ZettaCore memory and conventional memory is that as the size of a memory element becomes smaller, the properties of semiconductor or polymer materials change in undesirable ways, while the properties of our molecular capacitors remain the same. This allows scaling to very small size elements.

-Zettacore.com

Metalloproteins, and in particular porphyrins, are interesting because "These molecules can be built for energy transfer with molecular control, giving them potential applications in optical communications, data storage, and electrooptical signal processing ..." Using a structure like the one below, researchers have begun to isolate ways to store data based on various oxidation states of structures that are attached to an electroactive surface like silicon.

"We have elected to employ cationic oxidation states rather than anionic states given the greater stability of the positively charged states under real-world conditions. The advantages over semiconductors include (1) molecular rather than bulk properties, affording scalability to molecular dimensions, (2) charge-retention times in the tens of minutes (several orders of magnitude greater than semiconductors), (3) storage of multiple bits per molecule, and (4) low power operation. This approach may ultimately enable the storage of 1014 bytes/cm3 which in a single cubic centimeter is ~10-times the content of all printed materials in the Library of Congress (~10,000 Gb)."

- More Details Here

We're getting to the point where we can use molecular structures to store data! Are we going to see stuff like this?

Nanorings, Nanosprings, Nanofoam ... what next?

Thinking back to the Lord of the Rings, perhaps a magically-imbued ring controlling all of mankind (and other creatures) isn't so far-fetched. Clarke's Third Law states that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". That being so, perhaps (in this fiction) the rings had tiny nanotech inside, obsessing and controlling the wearers like poor Smeagol.

Physicsweb.org had an interesting article on nanorings ...

Even cooler than a simple ring, are "nanosprings":

"The piezoelectric properties of the new structures could make them useful in detecting and measuring very small fluid flows, tiny strain/stress forces, high-frequency acoustical waves and even air flows that would otherwise be imperceptible. When deflected by the flow of air or fluids, the nanosprings would produce small but measurable electrical voltages."

- Georgia Tech Research

And the list doesn't seem to stop. Although not as visually impressive, magnetic nanofoam (carbon aerogel nanofoam) offers to make breakthrough products for ultra-lightweight temperature insulation, optics, coatings, and a plethora of other devices. This is being hailed in Nature as a "fifth form of carbon" ... a brand new material that our industries no doubt will innovate the heck out of in our very near future.

Bots in your Blood

So what about bloodbourne bots? Seriously, as much as the modern-day mythos of flying cars, it'd be a panacea of the 2000s (or perhaps the 2010s) to have little scavengers moping about in our bloodstream, scraping plaque off arterial walls, looking out for cancer, and perhaps rendering alcohol to a more harmless state when called upon.

Well perhaps still mostly a fiction, here come Respirocytes.

"The artificial red blood cell or "respirocyte" proposed here is a bloodborne spherical 1-micron diamondoid 1000-atm pressure vessel with active pumping powered by endogenous serum glucose, able to deliver 236 times more oxygen to the tissues per unit volume than natural red cells and to manage carbonic acidity. An onboard nanocomputer and numerous chemical and pressure sensors enable complex device behaviors remotely reprogrammable by the physician via externally applied acoustic signals. Primary applications will include transfusable blood substitution; partial treatment for anemia, perinatal/neonatal and lung disorders; enhancement of cardiovascular/neurovascular procedures, tumor therapies and diagnostics; prevention of asphyxia; artificial breathing; and a variety of sports, veterinary, battlefield and other uses."

This concept isn't new, but is still quite novel and optimistic. The Foresight Institute has quite a lot of more interesting reads on the subject. For about $99, you can learn about all you ever wanted to know about the subject. For the moment, though, I've got a tome of Quantum Cryptography to get through, but perhaps nanotech is where it's at ... making tools to help me "absorb" new literature like water ...

What we're talking about here is pretty darn cool. As written above, we understand the porphyrin structure pretty well, so it's probably not a stretch to consider nanotech coming up with really cool "enhancements" for our bloodstream.

I'm not holding my breath yet (particularly without respirocytes ... heh).


The New Environmental Scourge ... Nanoparticle Toxicity?

As the whole nanobot saga unfolds, some researchers question the negatives. A scientist at Southern Methodist University, Eva Oberd?rster is concerned that the interaction of such small particles with animal lifeforms. As with frogs in the wild, downstream from paper mills, or with other animals exposed to pesticides and herbicides that are found in runoff from farms, many man-made materials can bind with various receptor sites and make things go terribly wrong (third eyes, another leg, or low sperm motility). For creatures in the wild as well as human beings, this is a significant threat.

Right now, researchs like Eva are testing fish and water fleas with not-so-promising results. But as with everything else, there are always drawbacks to advancements. I'd imagine that we'll have scavenging nanobots out there to clean up the waste products in the environment too ... little nano-organisms running around cleaning up our messes (chemical and otherwise):

Out with a "Bang" - Nanobombs!

Perhaps my favorite nano-issue of all is the concept of the "smart bomb" for cancer cells. Cancer is perhaps the ultimate killer of us all if something bad doesn't otherwise happen. This tech is still also largely a dream, but there is progress at places like the University of Michigan. Perhaps they're not-so-nano, but still pretty small:

" The dendrimers are packed with molecular equipment to executive a five-step mission: Find cancer cells throughout the body by looking for tumor receptors; bind to and pass through cell membranes; take a chemical 'picture' inside the cells to inform doctors what type of cancer is present; release chemotherapy agents inside the cells through activation by lasers; shoot more pictures to confirm that the drugs killed the cells."

More Links!

The nano has some pretty cool up-and-coming tech which hopefully ZZZ will be on top of throughout the coming years. Please continue sending your links and feel free to discuss at length in our forums. Some additional links I've come across are below:

- Catananes as Molecular Machines
- Lots of nanotech references
- Xbit Labs
- More on molecular memory!
- Nano Magazine
- Look Japan
- Nanodot.org

Happy "nano" reading ....

Reconfigure *This*

A diagram of an inverter (one of the basic logic elements) is shown above. The inverter performs the logic NOT function. As you can see, this can be made using a PFET (the P element) and a NFET (the N element) attached together. The source of the PFET is attached to a voltage source (a '1'), the drain of the PFET is attached to the source of the NFET, and the drain of the NFET is attached to ground (a '0'). The gates of the two FETs are connected together and the output is taken between them, where the PFET's drain meets the NFET's source. When a '0' is applied to this configuration from the input, the NFET turns off and the PFET conducts, causing the '1' that is at the source of the PFET to appear at the drain of the PFET -- hence the output is a '1'. When a '1' is applied, the PFET stops conducting and the NFET conducts, causing ground, or '0', to appear at the source of the NFET -- hence the output is a '0'.

All basic logic elements -- AND gates, NOR gates, etc. -- are made from these FETs put together in different combinations. But there's a problem. Since chips are made from a lithographic process (they are literally made by exposing a silicon-based compound to a series of light bursts and acid baths, using a mask for the light that is far smaller than anything that can be seen with the naked eye), once material is removed and a configuration set into place, it cannot be changed.

The Reconfigurable Computing Precedent

This is where reconfigurable computing comes into play. This is certainly not a new concept -- your computer likely has Flash ROM in it, which are reconfigurable memory chips, and FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays, which are giant networks of logic gates that can quickly be set to perform any function you wish by changing the interconnection paths between the gates, but not the gates themselves) have been around for a long time. Both of these require that the chips be programmed, however, using a "bit file" that literally contains a binary representation of the desired logic gates or memory cell connections inside. This can be time consuming, and there is currently no good way to reconfigure these on the fly -- however, some research is being done into using general-purpose CPUs (such as an IBM G5 chip) together on a board with a FPGA to control the on-the-fly programming. Even so, this requires that the CPU continually load bit files into the FPGA and trigger the reprogramming...this is a huge waste of time.

So What's New?

What Ditto has come up with is different from FPGAs in that the logic elements that he is designing can change function simply by varying an input voltage or current to them. Instead of needing to reconfigure the paths to various logic gates (which are in turn made of FETs), as FPGAs do, he's proposing to simply replace the FETs with an element that performs the equivalent logic function -- but that can, if the special input is varied, change logic functions. "Need an AND? Sure, let me just change the voltage to this here OR...voila, there's your AND!" It's like a FPGA that just programs itself as it goes along.

Here's where the term "chaotic computing" comes into play. In mathematics, "chaos" can behave predictably. What a chaotic function really refers to in mathematics is that a small change in the input of the function can lead to large variations in output (this is the concept used in the MD5 hash function). However, for a small amount of time, the output of the function can be accurately predicted. Ditto's idea is to harness this using these reconfigurable elements, which can be reconfigured in a matter of a clock cycle -- far, far faster than any current FPGAs.

This is really cool. If you don't see why yet, here's an example that may help. Let's say that you have two of Ditto's elements. Suppose that the output of the first, which is behaving as an AND gate, is a '1'. This '1' could feed into the control input of another of these chaotic elements, which could, because of this output, switch from being a XOR to a NAND gate. All in a single clock cycle. It's a reconfigurable hardware dream.

Don't Hold Your Breath...

This is still far away from being put into practical use, of course. Ditto has made a working example of his chaotic elements using simple components (like resistors and capacitors). He has also made a logic element out of a pair of neurons from leeches...but there's a large step between these two prototypes and production.

The idea is neat, although I can't help but wonder how difficult it will be to program these things. Already FPGA designs are constantly tested, evaluated, and re-designed because of errors. How hard will it be when you have to think in terms of the possibly exponential number of outcomes that each logic comparison could result in?

I imagine tools will be generated to do this, or that these elements will be used for small sections of circuits or chips where they would be particularly applicable, since -- just as a chaos function should behave -- as each stage is configured from the output of the previous stage it will become increasingly difficult to figure out and compensate the gates so that the matrix of these chaos elements behaves as we wish it to.

Also, I can see two ways to use these elements, and Ditto doesn't make clear which is used (though possibly you could do it both ways, depending on your needs). The first is to use the output of previous elements to control what the next stage of elements turns into (although these are combinational logic gates and therefore they are all traversed in one clock cycle, you could have a signal go through several series of combinational logic groups over different clock cycles). The second is to program them all independently (using, say, a general-purpose CPU) every clock cycle or as often as it is needed.

Either way I imagine that the function would have to revert to some known beginning state pretty often, simply because of the nature of chaotic functions...the longer these gates would run from the start, the more situations you'd have to program for, and the greater potential for errors.

Hopefully in the next couple years we'll hear more about these chaotic elements. It won't affect us any time real soon, so don't hold your breath waiting for these things, but with quantum computing still looking very far way and having very limited applications, this could be the next big step for chip design in personal computers.

Dry Water - The Chemistry behind

Codenamed "Sapphire" in the Ansul product line, this is a product of the 3M Corporation called Novec 1230.

If you caught Good Morning America (of course, I'm never up at that point of the day and it's not worth wasting space on TiVo for talk show boredom, then you would have seen a video clip on what this stuff can do. A series of pics can be found here.

Despite the "cool" factor, this stuff is really meant to be used in supressing fire and likely won't have a lot of cooling uses .. the "whys" will be explained below.

The Chemistry of "Sapphire"

Of course this stuff has been hyped all ofer geekland, but as usual, you can count on ZZZ Online to be even geekier. Let's talk about the chemistry behind this stuff.

This structure is relatively simple. For the chemically inclined, the structure is: CF3CF2C(O)CF(CF3)2 (dodecafluoro-2-methylpentan-3-one), a flourinated ketone that comes in the form of a clear, colorless, odorless liquid. Some basic information:

MW: 316.04
Boiling Point (1 atm): 49.2C 120.6F
Freezing Point: -108 C -162.5 F
Density: 1.60 g/ml

Per the EPA, this stuff is relatively safe and doesn't seem to have an assesible impact on the environment:

"Environmental Information:

C6-perfluoroketone has no ozone-depletion potential, a global warming potential of six to 100 relative to CO2 over a 100 year time horizon, and an atmospheric lifetime of less than three days.

Flammability:

C6-perfluoroketone is non-flammable.

Toxicity and Exposure Data

The C6-perfluoroketone was assayed for its ability to induce cardiac sensitization in the beagle dog (Huntington 2001). In that study, the cardiotoxic NOAEL was determined to be 10 percent. The manufacturer's maximum design concentration of 6.44 percent is significantly below the cardiotoxic NOAEL."

- www.epa.gov

- Argotech.com

The MSDS on this indicates, to my surprise, that this stuff is relatively safe. Still, with potential liver effects and other problems related to inhalation, you don't want to bathe in the stuff.


This Stuff is NOT Water

The thing about water is that although it's relatively light, the hydrogen bonding that goes on intramolecularly helps to keep it together. Water, to be blatantly honest, does a lot of really weird stuff because of this influence, and hydrogen bonding is a huge factor in chemistry.

Water is weird stuff to say the least, it shrinks when you least expect it, and has a heat transfer out of this world. The important thing here is that the properties of "Sapphire" (at least to the 3M scientists who discovered it) retards or extinguishes fire in a non-toxic manner and doesn't get all your important stuff all wet! Water damaged materials are hard to restore. With Sapphire your fire is extinguished and (when the vapors subside at least), there is no water damage.

If you're thinking about using this stuff to cool your computer, well have fun trying ... at least it's non-flammable. One post on Slashdot seems to be the most informative on this from a chemical perspective:

"Note that its use as fire suppression is not relevant to its use as cooling. Though this stuff DOES suppress fires by cooling (unlike halon, which interferes with the chemical reactions), fire suppression is a one-pass rather than multi-pass function. So the cooling can be accomplished by breaking up the molecule - using the heat of formation, in addition ot the the specific or vaproization heats, to cool the fuel. I doubt that you want to be continuously consuming your coolant and disposing of the resulting fluorinated alkyl radicals in your home system."

Ummmm, no. I think I'll stick with water cooling instead.