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Oct 13, 2014

Generating electricity from water droplets

Posted by in category: energy

Kurweil AI

http://www.rtcc.org/files/2013/10/Water_droplets_466.jpg
MIT researchers discovered last year that when water droplets spontaneously jump away from superhydrophobic (water-repelling) surfaces during condensation, the droplets can gain electric charge in the process.

Now the same team has demonstrated that this process can generate small amounts of electricity, which could lead to devices that can charge cellphones or other electronics using just the humidity in the air. As a side benefit, the system could also produce clean water.

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Oct 12, 2014

Finish Off Your Guardians of the Galaxy Star Lord Costume by 3D Printing his Element Guns

Posted by in category: 3D printing

By — 3D Printing Industry

guardians pf the galaxy 3d printed element_guns

Why should you dress up as Star Lord this year for Halloween? Well for one, just like everyone else you loved the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, and for another he’s not a giant tree so the costume is going to be easier to make. If you have a 3D printer of course!

When I stumbled on product designer Kirby Downey’s 3D Printed Star Lord Element Guns on Reddit I was blown away by the detail. I was certain that they were made from existing 3D models or official files but after a quick email it turns out that was not the case. Amazingly the gun only took about an hour to design in Solidworks and another half hour to cut it up into pieces for 3D printing.

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Oct 11, 2014

Snowflake-shaped hotel to float off the coast of Norway

Posted by in category: architecture

DeZeen Magazine

A Dutch firm specialising in floating structures has unveiled plans for a hotel shaped like a snowflake with a glass roof so that guests can watch the Northern Lights while bobbing off the coast of Tromso in Norway.

The design for the 86-room Krystall Hotel by Waterstudio has been proposed for an undisclosed site off the coast of Norway by developers Dutch Docklands International – who only build floating developments – and a group of Norwegian entrepreneurs.

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Oct 10, 2014

The Shadow Internet That’s 100 Times Faster Than Google Fiber

Posted by in category: internet

By — Wired

Illustration: dzima1/Getty

When Google chief financial officer Patrick Pichette said the tech giant might bring 10 gigabits per second internet connections to American homes, it seemed like science fiction. That’s about 1,000 times faster than today’s home connections. But for NASA, it’s downright slow.

While the rest of us send data across the public internet, the space agency uses a shadow network called ESnet, short for Energy Science Network, a set of private pipes that has demonstrated cross-country data transfers of 91 gigabits per second–the fastest of its type ever reported.

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Oct 9, 2014

IBM Develops a New Chip That Functions Like a Brain

Posted by in categories: engineering, hardware, robotics/AI

— New York Times

http://www.redorbit.com/media/uploads/2014/08/brain-chip-617x416.jpg

Inspired by the architecture of the brain, scientists have developed a new kind of computer chip that uses no more power than a hearing aid and may eventually excel at calculations that stump today’s supercomputers.

The chip, or processor, is named TrueNorth and was developed by researchers at IBM and detailed in an article published on Thursday in the journal Science. It tries to mimic the way brains recognize patterns, relying on densely interconnected webs of transistors similar to the brain’s neural networks.

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Oct 9, 2014

Dying Twice

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, existential risks

Dying Twice

Of course, Ebola can be stopped: By rigorously restricting locomotion for the population. But this presupposes heavy support networks. At the present moment in time, this strategy is still feasible. However, since the disease is spreading exponentially in both number and area, very soon the resources of aid-giving nations will be overtaxed. Then the Big Dying from Ebola will be accompanied by the Big Dying from hunger and thirst due to restricted locomotion without the necessary support services.

There exist institutions that could help. But they all do not know what “dying twice” means:
FIRST: from having become untouchable and unapproachable;
SECOND: from thirst, hunger and the pangs of the disease which are intolerably ugly and stenching.
Mothers do not mind. But where are all the mothers for the dying? Even Jesus’ mother was there at the cross.

Since the disease is doubling every 3 weeks (only at some places the rate is slowed due to restricted locomotion), someone must make a “war plan.” I am sure some wonderful organizations have already done so, but they must join forces, resources and above all: information.
One joint plan must be negotiated, maybe under the auspices of the Vatican?, or the CDC?, or Castroland? It need not be the money-stripped United Nations. Only: SOON!

I have a deep respect for the aid worker who coined the phrase “dying twice”: You are an angel.
Without you, we – the world – would still be blind.

Oct 8, 2014

How to enable the Internet of Things without batteries

Posted by in categories: engineering, internet

Kurzweil AI

University of Washington engineers have designed a clever new communication system called Wi-Fi backscatter that uses ambient radio frequency signals as a power source for battery-free devices (such as temperature sensors or wearable technology) and also reuses the existing Wi-Fi infrastructure to provide Internet connectivity for these devices.

“If Internet of Things devices are going to take off, we must provide connectivity to the potentially billions of battery-free devices that will be embedded in everyday objects,” said Shyam Gollakota, a UW assistant professor of computer science and engineering.

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Oct 7, 2014

‘Nano-pixels’ promise thin, flexible, high resolution displays

Posted by in category: nanotechnology

Univrsity of Oxford

A collection of still images drawn with the technology

A team led by Oxford University scientists explored the link between the electrical and optical properties of phase change materials (materials that can change from an amorphous to a crystalline state). They found that by sandwiching a seven nanometre thick layer of a phase change material (GST) between two layers of a transparent electrode they could use a tiny current to ‘draw’ images within the sandwich ‘stack’.

Initially still images were created using an atomic force microscope but the team went on to demonstrate that such tiny ‘stacks’ can be turned into prototype pixel-like devices. These ‘nano-pixels’ – just 300 by 300 nanometres in size – can be electrically switched ‘on and off’ at will, creating the coloured dots that would form the building blocks of an extremely high-resolution display technology.

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Oct 6, 2014

The World’s First Photonic Router

Posted by in category: physics

Weizmann Institute

Dr. Barak Dayan's group at the Weizmann Institute

Weizmann Institute scientists have demonstrated for the first time a photonic router – a quantum device based on a single atom that enables routing of single photons by single photons. This achievement, as reported in Science magazine, is another step toward overcoming the difficulties in building quantum computers.

At the core of the device is an atom that can switch between two states. The state is set just by sending a single particle of light – or photon – from the right or the left via an optical fiber. The atom, in response, then reflects or transmits the next incoming photon, accordingly. For example, in one state, a photon coming from the right continues on its path to the left, whereas a photon coming from the left is reflected backwards, causing the atomic state to flip. In this reversed state, the atom lets photons coming from the left continue in the same direction, while any photon coming from the right is reflected backwards, flipping the atomic state back again. This atom-based switch is solely operated by single photons – no additional external fields are required.

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Oct 5, 2014

Your iPhone Can Finally Make Free, Encrypted Calls

Posted by in category: mobile phones

By — Wired

signal

If you’re making a phone call with your iPhone, you used to have two options: Accept the notion that any wiretapper, hacker or spook can listen in on your conversations, or pay for pricey voice encryption software.

As of today there’s a third option: The open source software group known as Open Whisper Systems has announced the release of Signal, the first iOS app designed to enable easy, strongly encrypted voice calls for free. “We’re trying to make private communications as available and accessible as any normal phone call,” says Moxie Marlinspike, the hacker security researcher who founded the nonprofit software group. Later this summer, he adds, encrypted text messaging will be integrated into Signal, too, to create what he describes as a “single, unified app for free, easy, open source, private voice and text messaging.”

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