Hasta La Gadget!

If you’ve ever found yourself digging around in the back of your closet or the bottom of a storage container wishing that you had a flashlight, Joby feels your pain and has a solution.

The new Joby Gorillatorch Blade is a 130 lumen LED aluminum flashlight that’s mounted to one of Joby’s trademark tripod bases with flexible legs that can be wrapped around just about anything.

The mount on the top of the tripod features 360-degree pan and 180 degree tilt, so you can get light where you’re working regardless of where you mount it. The feet of the tripod have neodymium magnets in the bottom so it can be securely attached to any metal object, and the flashlight itself is powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery. The Gorillatorch Blade is available now for $59.95 list. 

There’s always something intriguing cooking in Cupertino, even if Apple’s ovens are full, and the latest item on the list is a novel camera flash assembly you might one day see on an iPhone. Where camera flashes are typically fixed in a single spot on a device, Apple’s trying to patent a flash redirector that could whip them around, letting you frame a dimly-lit picture the way you want and automatically adjust the intensity and direction of the flash to get better results. The patent application suggests that devices would have a dedicated lens for the flash, and then a pivot on either that lens or the flash itself to aim, plus an “evaluator” that figures out what needs to be lit and by how much. Alternatively, Apple imagines you might be able to just select an area on a touchscreen camera device (wonder where we’d find one of those?) with your finger and aim the flash yourself, but if we know anything about Apple’s love of simplicity they’ll try the AI solution first. Either way, it seems like an excellent nighttime equivalent to iOS 4.1’s HDR, and something we might like to see on all sorts of shooters, not just those on phones.

Apple attempts to patent a smarter camera flash originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 26 Sep 2010 01:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You know the drill — some quirky research team whips up some phenomenal discovery in the middle of nowhere, gloats about it, gets it published in a journal you’ve never heard of it, and then it all vanishes into the ether, leaving your soul hurt and wondering why you ever got your hopes up in the first place. The Foundations wrote a little tune about this very situation back in 1968, but a UK team from the Center for Quantum Photonics led by Jeremy O’Brien are claiming that their latest discovery is no joke. According to him, most people have believed that a functional quantum computer wouldn’t be a reality for at least another score, but he’s saying “with real confidence that, using [his] new technique, a quantum computer could, within five years, be performing calculations that are outside the capabilities of conventional computers.” The center of this bold claim is a new photonic chip that works on light rather than traditional electricity, and those who built it say that it could “pull important information out of the biggest databases almost instantaneously.” Of course, this stuff would hit the Department of Defense long before it hits your basement, but it’s on you to keep tabs on the progress. Wouldn’t be let down again, now would we?

UK research team brings quantum computing closer than ever… or so they say originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 19 Sep 2010 09:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, you’ve fawned over razor-thin OLED TVs and vibrant AMOLED screens, but as Philips keeps reminding us, the organic diodes are good for more than displays — they also make a fancy light bulb, too. This week, the company took the wraps off the latest advance in that direction: a bright-white OLED module that takes alternating current. Philips says that up until now, OLED technology required low-power DC voltage, which necessitated costly switching mechanisms built into such products in turn, but now they’ve got panels that sip fresh-squeezed AC juice directly from the wall. Now, it’s just a question of when they’ll be bright and cheap enough to be remotely worth your while. PR after the break.

Continue reading Philips claims first AC-powered OLED module, points the way to cheaper, more reliable bulbs

Philips claims first AC-powered OLED module, points the way to cheaper, more reliable bulbs originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Sep 2010 10:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Researchers at UC Santa Cruz have reported that they were able to slow down the speed of light by a factor of 1,200.

So, does this mean you’ll soon be able to hold some light in your hand and put it in your pocket for later?! Slow down there, light boy. Even when power-walking along at 1,200th the speed, light is still pretty damn fast. So, what is the use of all this relatively lugubrious light? Answer: super crazy powerful computer processing.

The ability to slow down light is an important step in creating “all-optical quantum communication networks, with potentially vast improvements in ultra-low-power performance.” We already utilize optical fibers tho transmit data, but at some point, the optical signals has to be converted to electrical signals. This takes energy and often, bulk. So, scientists have been trying to find a way to slow, store, or even stop light so that they can create smaller, more efficient entirely optic-based systems.

Scientists have previously slowed or even (very temporarily) completely halted light. But it was accomplished at extremely low temperatures. This newest light buffer is the first to accomplish the fete at room temperature.

More nerdly details available at nanowerk.