Hasta La Gadget!

Where can you find Orson Welles, Marconi’s daughter, Alexander Graham Bell’s grandaughter, and inventors of the transistor and television? You might try To Communicate is the Beginning, a 1976 educational publication tracing the history of electronic communication, which AT&T recently decided to exhume from its archives of Bell Labs material. The 30-minute video’s just the first in a series, too, as AT&T’s website is already playing host to films about the origins of the laser and integrated circuit too, with more on the way. Find them all at our source link — you do want to know how your favorite technologies evolved, right?

AT&T opens up video archives, shares the history inside originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 Feb 2011 20:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What you see above may look like a nanoscale Obelisk of Light, ready to protect the tiny forces of Nod, but that’s not it at all. It’s a nanolaser, grown directly on a field of silicon by scientists at Berkeley. The idea is to rely on light to transmit data inside of computers, rather than physical connections, but until now finding a way to generate that light on a small enough scale to work inside circuitry without damaging it has been impossible. These indium gallium arsenide nanopillars could solve that, grown on and integrated within silicon without doing harm. Once embedded they emit light at a wavelength of 950nm, as shown in the video below.

[Thanks, Paul]

Continue reading Scientists grow nanolasers on silicon chips, prove microscopic blinkenlights are the future

Scientists grow nanolasers on silicon chips, prove microscopic blinkenlights are the future originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Feb 2011 08:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You might think of a laser as light forced into a single, directed beam, but scientists have recently discovered that if you fire a laser in one direction, the air itself can fire another right back. Using a 226nm UV laser, researchers at Princeton University managed to excite oxygen atoms to the point that they emit infrared light along the same channel as the original beam, except this time pointed back where it came from. Since the return beam’s chemistry depends on the particles in the air to generate the return beam, the “backward laser” could potentially carry the signature of those particles back to the source and help identify them there. That seems to be the entire goal, in fact — the project, funded by an Office of Naval Research program on “Sciences Addressing Asymmetric Explosive Threats,” hopes that such a laser can ID bombs from a distance by hunting for trace chemicals in the air. Sounds like the perfect addition to our terahertz specs, and one step closer to the tricorder of our dreams.

Scientists stumble upon bomb-sniffing laser with a boomerang effect originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 Jan 2011 07:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Truth be told, it probably does take a rocket scientist to truly understand the scope of what NASA is currently investigating, but the gist of it isn’t hard to grok. America’s premiere space agency is purportedly examining the possibility of using beamed energy propulsion to launch spacecraft into orbit, and while we’ve seen objects lofted by mere beams before, using a laser to leave the atmosphere is a whole ‘nother ballgame. The reasons are fairly obvious: a laser-based propulsion system would effectively nix the chance of an explosive chemical reaction taking place at launch, and it would “make possible a reusable single-stage rocket that has two to five times more payload space than conventional rockets, which would cut the cost of sending payloads into low-Earth orbit.” We’re told that the study should be concluded by March, but only heaven knows how long it’ll be before we see any of this black magic used to launch rockets. Sadly, we can’t expect any Moon missions to rely on lasers for at least 50 or so years, but we’re guessing that timeline could be shortened dramatically if Sir Richard Branson were to get involved.

[Image courtesy of Jordin Kare]

NASA considering beamed energy propulsion for space launches originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Jan 2011 00:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Are you that kid aiming his father’s laser pointer at people walking along city sidewalks? Yeah, well stop it — now. What you might consider a harmless prank can have serious repercussions when aimed at the cockpit of an approaching jetliner. What seems like good fun at the time can temporarily blind a pilot attempting to land nearly a million pounds of life, metal, and fuel. According to the numbers just released by the FAA, 2010 saw a record number of reports of lasers pointed at aircraft — “almost double” the number of reports from 2009. Of the 2,800 incidents reported nationwide, the Los Angeles area reported the most with 201 incidents, followed by Chicago (98), Phoenix (80, half of which were probably UFO related), and San Jose (80 — nerds!). Top 20 list after the break.

Continue reading Record number of aircraft ‘laser events’ gives us one more reason to hate LA

Record number of aircraft ‘laser events’ gives us one more reason to hate LA originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Jan 2011 08:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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