Nov 04

Researchers craft all-electric spintronics, vie for guest spot on Mindfreak

Posted in: nanotechnology, research, science, Today's Chili, university

Unfortunately for us, we’ve no certified rocket scientist on staff. That said, we’re absolutely convinced that the whiz-kids over at the University of Cincinnati are more than up to the task of improving a science that may or may not actually be useful in real things before 3028. As we continue to hear more about spintronics (described as “transistors that function by controlling an electron’s spin instead of its charge”), a team of UC researchers have stumbled upon a novel way to control an electron’s spin orientation using purely electrical means. In fact, one member calls this discovery the “holy grail of semiconductor spintronics,” though we’re guessing it’ll still be a few years centuries before our hard drives are fetching data 100,000x faster and our batteries last longer than our desire to use them.

Filed under:

Researchers craft all-electric spintronics, vie for guest spot on Mindfreak originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

No Comments
Oct 19

Heat diodes give thermal computing a fighting chance

Posted in: Japan, japanese, Today's Chili, university

Anyone who has tried their hand at overclocking recognizes just how evil waste heat is, and we’re guessing that one Wataru Kobayashi at Waseda University in Japan understands explicitly. He, along with a few colleagues, has recently devised a new diode that allows heat current to travel in one direction but not in the other. The breakthrough essentially paves the way for thermal computing to actually take off, with obvious applications including heat sinks for microprocessors. Kobayashi, who may or may not be able to eat a dozen hot dogs per minute in his spare time, also hopes that his discovery will lead to a thermal transistor, thermal logic gates and a thermal memory. The future’s yours, friend.

Filed under:

Heat diodes give thermal computing a fighting chance originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

No Comments
Oct 17

Mad scientists figure out how to write memories to brains, take over Earth

Posted in: laser, memory, research, science, Today's Chili, university

Call us crazy, but we’re guessing one Gero Miesenböck of the University of Oxford has been watching just a wee bit too much Fringe. Gero here, along with a few of his over-anxious colleagues, has seemingly figured out a way to actually write memories onto a fruit fly’s brain using only a laser pen and three-fourths of a Ouija board. We know what you’re thinking, and we’re thinking the same. But all terrifying thoughts aside, what if boffins could burn memories of hard lessons learned into our minds without us having to suffer through them first? You know, like upgrading to Snow Leopard.

Filed under:

Mad scientists figure out how to write memories to brains, take over Earth originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Oct 2009 21:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

No Comments
Oct 10

Mizzou’s nuclear battery to power things smaller than your brain can imagine

Posted in: nano, power, research, Today's Chili, university

Oh yeah, everyone loves the extended battery, but are we really kosher with the added bulge? A team of boffins at the University of Missouri certainly aren’t, as they’ve spent the last good while of their lives researching and developing a new nuclear battery that could be used to power devices much smaller than, well, most anything. The radioisotope cell, as it’s called, can reportedly “provide power density that is six orders of magnitude higher than chemical batteries,” and while some may question the safety of this potentially volatile device, the liquid semiconductor (used instead of a solid semiconductor) should help ease concerns. The current iteration of the device is about the size of a penny, and it’s intended to power a variety of MEMS systems. Now, if only these guys could find a way to make a standard AA last longer than a week in our Wiimote, we’d be pleased as punch.

[Via BBC, thanks Jim]

Filed under:

Mizzou’s nuclear battery to power things smaller than your brain can imagine originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Oct 2009 11:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

No Comments | Tags: , ,
Oct 09

NSF awards Harvard $10 million for robot bees (video)

Posted in: Robots, Today's Chili, university
When we heard that the National Science Foundation awarded $10 million to Harvard to make a swarm of robot bees, our first thought was: “We could do it for half the price.” Then we remembered that the university has been down this path before, including its robot fly program (whatever happened to that thing?) and might be the better choice after all. What does the NSF and Harvard hope to get for all that time and money? Aside from insight into such areas as distributed intelligence, robotic flight, and energy storage, a swarm of these bad boys could be tasked to do anything from battlefield spying to pollination (which might be necessary, with the way that real bees are vanishing at such an alarming rate). The RoboBee project is slated to run for the next five years. Video after the break.

[Via Switched]

Continue reading NSF awards Harvard $10 million for robot bees (video)

Filed under:

NSF awards Harvard $10 million for robot bees (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

No Comments
Sep 30

Video: TOTO robot catches tennis balls, hopes for a deeper purpose in life

Posted in: robot, sensor, Sports, Today's Chili, university, video

Fido conked out for the evening? Your youngster not really into “playing catch” at age 14? Enter TOTO — a brilliant robotic contraption conceived at Reinhold-Würth University — that can absolutely act as a suitable replacement. Short for Tracking of Thrown Objects, the camera-equipped system views and tracks incoming objects, and once said object is within catching range, it clamps down in order to grab hold. Eventually, the inventors would love to see the machine have an impact within a manufacturing facility, but considering just how effective conveyor belts have been over the past few scores, we’d say it has its work cut out for it. Video’s after the break, and it’s worth checking out.

[Via PlasticPals]

Continue reading Video: TOTO robot catches tennis balls, hopes for a deeper purpose in life

Filed under:

Video: TOTO robot catches tennis balls, hopes for a deeper purpose in life originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

No Comments
Sep 21

Carbon nanotubes find yet another purpose, could star in ultra-reliable batteries

Posted in: mit, power, research, science, Today's Chili, university

Carbon nanotubes are kind of like peanuts. They both seem pretty simple at first glance, but with a little work, you can make pretty much anything out of ’em. Take this case, for example, as MIT boffins have discovered that by forming the tube-shaped molecules of pure carbon into minuscule springs, they could be “capable of storing as much energy, pound for pound, as lithium-ion batteries.” The real kicker is exactly how they’d do it — “more durably and reliably.” Essentially, these newfangled cells could be left alone for years on end without losing their charge, and unlike conventional batteries, these wouldn’t suffer from performance degradation when exposed to temperature extremes. Of course, anything as pie-in-the-sky as this is probably at least a decade or so out from Walmart shelves, but considering that the group responsible has already filed a patent, we’d say they’re pretty confident in the possibilities.

[Via Physorg]

Filed under:

Carbon nanotubes find yet another purpose, could star in ultra-reliable batteries originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

No Comments | Tags: , ,
Sep 17

Cornell gurus look to carbon nanotubes for efficient solar cells

Posted in: research, science, solar, solar power, SolarPower, Today's Chili, university

You know what we love? Solar-powered gadgets, and carbon nanotubes. Oh, and Ivy League schools. Boffins from Cornell University are now looking to use the multifaceted carbon nanotube instead of silicon to develop efficient solar cells, and judging by the glacial pace at which solar cell efficiency is improving, we’d say the sector could use the boost. The researchers have already fabricated, tested and measured a simple solar cell (called a photodiode, just so you know) that was formed from an individual carbon nanotube. The tube was essentially a rolled-up sheet of graphene, and while the inner workings would take days to explain, the gist of it is this:

“The nanotube may be a nearly ideal photovoltaic cell because it allowed electrons to create more electrons by utilizing the spare energy from the light.”

So, solar-powered F-350 trucks are now a possibility for next year, right?

[Via Graphene-Info]

Filed under:

Cornell gurus look to carbon nanotubes for efficient solar cells originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

No Comments | Tags:
Sep 06

Stanford’s open-source camera could revolutionize photography, you’ll still use ‘Auto’ mode

Posted in: camera, digital camera, DigitalCamera, open source, opensource, photography, Today's Chili, university

Here’s the moment where you pretend that a breakthrough in a given industry would just revolutionize the way you do work, yet you know — deep down in your heart — that you’d never take advantage. Okay, so maybe you would, but your friend wouldn’t. At any rate, a gaggle of boffins at Stanford have set out to “reinvent digital photography” with the advent of the open-source digital camera. The idea here is to give programmers the power to conjure up new software to teach old cameras new tricks, with the hope being to eliminate software limits that currently exist. In fact, a prototype shooter has already been developed, with the Frankencamera hinting at a future where owners can download apps to their devices and continuously improve its performance and add to its abilities. The actual science behind the concept is stupendously in-depth, so if you’re thinking of holding off on that new Nikon or Canon in 2034, you might want to give the read link a look for a little more encouragement.

[Via HotHardware]

Continue reading Stanford’s open-source camera could revolutionize photography, you’ll still use ‘Auto’ mode

Filed under:

Stanford’s open-source camera could revolutionize photography, you’ll still use ‘Auto’ mode originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 06 Sep 2009 13:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

No Comments | Tags: , ,
Aug 04

Transparent aluminum! Would that be worth somethin’ to ya, eh?

Posted in: laser, research, science, space, Today's Chili, university

It’s hard to say if boffins at Oxford University got their inspiration from Nimoy and Co., but one thing’s for sure: they aren’t joking about the creation of transparent aluminum. In what can only be described as a breakthrough for the ages, a team of mad scientists across the way have created “a completely new state of matter nobody has seen before” by blasting aluminum walls (around one-inch thick) with brief pulses of soft X-ray light, each of which is “more powerful than the output of a power plant that provides electricity to a whole city.” For approximately 40 femtoseconds, an “invisible effect” is seen, giving the gurus hope that their experiment could lead to new studies in exotic states of matter. For a taste of exactly what we mean, feel free to voice command your PC to jump past the break. Or use the keyboard, if you’re feeling quaint.

Continue reading Transparent aluminum! Would that be worth somethin’ to ya, eh?

Filed under:

Transparent aluminum! Would that be worth somethin’ to ya, eh? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 01:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

No Comments