Lifeboat Foundation

Officials from IBM and Samsung announced at this year’s IEDM conference in San Francisco a collaboration on a new chip design that adds transistors vertically on a chip. As part of their announcement, they suggested that their vertical transport field effect transistors (VTFET) could double the speed of processor chips, or alternatively, reduce the power they use by up to 85 percent.

Since the beginning of digital technology, processing chips have been made by placing tiny transistors on a chip and connecting them. Over time, engineers have placed increasingly more transistors on chips that have remained roughly the same size—adhering, generally, to Moore’s Law, which states that the number of transistors on a chip should double every year. Engineers have known for a long time that there are limits to Moore’s Law—eventually, it would become impossible to add even one more transistor, much less double the number that are there.

So researchers are looking for other ways to make chips. But in the meantime, engineers continue to look for ways to add more transistors to conventional chips. In their announcement, IBM and Samsung have explained that they are taking steps to begin designing chips that can expand vertically. In a practical sense, the move was inevitable. As an analogy, when towns grew too big to be efficient, engineers began making buildings taller, essentially turning 2D towns into 3D cities. Officials and engineers at IBM and Samsung (and doubtless other corporations, such as Intel) suggest that now is the time to begin doing the same with microprocessors.

Here are some of the most amazing advancements in fabric technology and smart fabrics.

Chain mail-based fabric for smart exoskeletons

Continue reading “What is Smart Clothing Technology and How Does it Work?” »

The new zinc batteries are made up of electrodes that are screen-printed onto both sides of a sheet of hydrogel-reinforced cellulose paper. A layer of gold thin foil is coated on the electrodes to increase the conductivity of the battery. The battery is about 0.4mm thick, which is roughly the thickness of two strands of human hair.

Impressively, once the battery has reached the end of its lifespan, it can be buried in soil, where it will break down completely within a month.

Continue reading “A New 0.4-MM-Thick ‘Paper Battery’ Can Power a Small Fan for 45 Minutes” »

Having completed sea trials, it will now have its combat system activated.

Back in December of 2017, we brought you news of the U.S. Navy’s stealth destroyer the U.S.S. Monsoor breaking down during sea trails. At the time, we asked the question if this event would spell the end for Zumwalt-class destroyers?

Continue reading “The Navy’s Last Stealth Zumwalt Destroyer Comes with 80 Megawatts of Power” »

Two different versions of the 35-meter-wide subsonic parachute flew perfectly.

The European Space Agency (ESA) completed the first successful high-altitude drop test of the ExoMars mission parachute, which will be the largest to ever fly on Mars, a press statement reveals.

Continue reading “ExoMars: The ESA Successfully Drop Tested the Largest Parachute to Ever Go to Mars” »

And it can allegedly survive a ‘once-in-10,000-years weather event’.

A safe reactor is a seaworthy reactor.

Continue reading “China Claims Its First Floating Nuclear Reactor Can Withstand Extreme Typhoons” »

Referring to Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self Driving features.

Elon Musk has claimed that no other CEO cares as much about safety as he does in an interview with Financial Times.

In the year that has seen his private wealth balloon like never before, Musk has also been showered with titles, beginning with the richest person in the world and more recently, the person of the year by Time Magazine. The Time accolade is probably one of the many titles Musk will receive as he embarks on his mission to send humanity to Moon with his space company, SpaceX.

Continue reading “Elon Musk Says No Other CEO Cares About Safety as Much as Him” »

Monash University, Australia scientists have discovered an enzyme that is key to why exercise improves our health. Importantly this discovery has opened up the possibility of drugs to promote this enzyme’s activity, protecting against the consequences of aging on metabolic health, including type 2 diabetes.

The proportion of people worldwide over 60 years old will double in the next three decades and by 2031, more than six million Australians will be over 65 years old. The incidence of type 2 diabetes increases with age so this aging population will also result in an increased incidence of the disease globally.

One of the main reasons for the increased prevalence of type 2 diabetes with age is the development of insulin resistance, or an inability for the body to respond to insulin, and this is often caused by reduced physical activity as we age.

Controversial facial recognition company, Clearview AI, which has amassed a database of some 10 billion images by scraping selfies off the Internet so it can sell an identity-matching service to law enforcement, has been hit with another order to delete people’s data.

France’s privacy watchdog said today that Clearview has breached Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

In an announcement of the breach finding, the CNIL also gives Clearview formal notice to stop its “unlawful processing” and says it must delete user data within two months.